Archive for the 'Garden' Category
August 7th, 2008 - Peter Piper picked a peck of purple peppers
And AnnMarie picked one purple pepper! How could I forget it in the list of what’s in my salad yesterday (and today, minus the tomato). First pepper, but there are at least three more purple ones and little greens ones on the other plants.
August 6th, 2008 - Tomatoes!
Yesterday after dinner (eaten outside due to great weather after a hot and humid day), Maggie and I checked the garden for raspberries. We only found two–one itty bitty one and one big enough to share. Walking back through the garden, Maggie didn’t want to go out, so I pulled a few more weeds. Then, I discovered what I’ve been waiting all year for: two ripe tomatoes! They were black plums, so only 4 bites each. Maggie and I shared one and the other went into my salad this morning.
Speaking of which, is it still a lettuce salad where there are more other veggies than lettuce? Today’s contains: greens, basil, dill, summer squash, carrot, tomato, broccoli, cauliflower, onion, peas, green bean, Dragon’s Tongue bean, and flowers (3 kinds).
August 4th, 2008 - Garden harvest
Last weekend, I harvested the onions. I’m not sure how many I have this year. I didn’t buy a bag of 100, and never counted them! I planted about 15-20 as green onions (some of which are still growing!). I’m figuring around 80; maybe I should count them now.
Yesterday, we harvested the garlic. Eric loosened the row with the pitchfork–thank goodness he did it. It’s been very dry (despite watering Saturday morning) and the dirt mainly came up in huge chunks. (And then it poured last night. And thundered and lighteninged for hours in the middle of the night.) I again have way too much garlic. Two years ago, I tossed some very old garlic “seeds” (the bits that come from the flower at the top, they aren’t really seeds but will grow garlic) at the end of the garlic row. (They came from Gramma Paulukonis, who died in 1995. So they were over 10 years old.) Last year, they grew a little bit, forming one small clove each. I didn’t do anything at the end of the summer, and they continued to grow this year. They are still fairly small, but had multiple small cloves. I can’t believe something that old still grew!
I will dry it for a week or so (in the garage) and then bring some of them in to work to give away. I ended up throwing out probably half of last year’s garlic when it wasted away this spring. I will also try drying some to make garlic powder. We don’t actually use much garlic powder, but it will be interesting to try.
I dried some shallots and onions this weekend. Put the dehydrator in the back of the garage due to the smell. We left the car in the driveway, too! The first day it was pretty strong, but the second day was barely noticeable. I’m guessing the garlic will be worse, as the shallots aren’t terribly strong-smelling. These were all from the farmer. I’ve been using shallots in my dressing/dip, but it takes me a while to use the dip up so I got backed up quite a few shallots. I chopped them up for drying. Dried, they made up less than 1 cup! The onions came Saturday. I knew I wouldn’t use them any time soon, plus if drying didn’t work out, I wouldn’t be bothered if I lost a few I hadn’t planned on anyway. It was suggested to try them sliced, but I don’t think it worked too well. They took a lot longer to dry than the chopped ones. And the only thing I use sliced onions for is onion soup (which admittedly, I’ve made just once, this past winter. But we liked it and plan to make it again.) So I may as well chop them next time–we throw dried onion from the store into things all the time anyway. In fact, I use it more often than fresh onions because we usually use so little onion at one time it’s easier. I should probably dry a lot more onions. I put the thermostat all the way down to 95 (if I have the time, dehydrating is healthier if you don’t attempt to cook the foods with heat!) and it took maybe 20 hours total. I had only two sheets of each kind (the chopped ones on solid sheets). I think I took the chopped ones out after 15 or so hours. The slices might have done well with more time; I figure I’ll toss them back in when I do the next batch.
I also chopped and froze green onions. This will probably work quite well…except that my freezer smells oniony. :( I don’t’ know if it’s just from the freezing time (I put them on a cookie sheet) or the bagged ones as well. I’ll have to check in a couple days and either double-bag the onions and/or put some baking soda in there.
July 30th, 2008 - First raspberries–from my own garden!
Last night, Maggie and I checked out the garden. We’d rushed outside hoping to catch sight of the jets flying overhead, but we missed them. So we went to the garden instead. Poking around here and there, Maggie snacked on a bean while I checked a few plants and pulled a few weeds.
Then I saw them. Huge. Red. Globular. In the vicinity of…my raspberries? YES! There were two ripe raspberries out front. We dashed through the front gate and checked them out. They were about an inch long; one was actually two grown together. We split them both. Oh they tasted so good. Fresh, warm, uncrushed. And there are more to come! (I don’t remember what variety I planted out front; I’ll have to check my garden book at home.) I cannot wait for the rest of them this summer–and so many more next summer!
Maggie also ate chives, rue, and basil before we went inside for bed. And expressed interest in garlic and onions, but the ground was dry so I couldn’t pull any up. (And in all sorts of other plants that are either inedible or not yet ripe such as the lilies, lamb’s ear, tomatoes, zinnias, and ground cherries.)
July 1st, 2008 - Is this any different than a lawn service?
Eric sent me a short story about a new company in San Francisco that will maintain an organic garden in your yard. It makes it sound unique, but it sounds a lot like having a gardener or lawn service, except that it’s organic. The one difference is that you can have them grow more than you’d eat and you become part of a CSA (except you still have to pay for the CSA, albeit at a discount). The big picture is a distributed urban organic farm.
I’m a bit ambivalent…until I remembered that I’d love someone to help in my garden. I’m quite afraid that my sciatica will prevent me from doing as much as I’d like. Or I just spend my summers in pain, which isn’t much fun (like this summer and last). I ADORE having a garden right outside my door. I wonder what it would cost to have someone else do most of the work…. and would I love it as much?
May 22nd, 2008 - Mutant tulip
As long as I was bringing photos, I thought I’d share a few of the yard. First up, one of my apple trees bloomed!
They are only on their second summer in my yard and far too small to support apples, so after snapping the picture, I removed them. So sad…but this bodes well for next year or the year after that!
Next, I have a mutant tulip. It’s the one on the right. The one on the left looks normal.
And it’s conjoined to the one on the left. Notice that it’s stem is twice as big as any other tulip stem, even before the join.
For another comparison, here’s a normal version of this tulip. Notice that it is a variety that looks different from a regular tulip already.
Anyone know how to make words go where I want with the images–above each one rather than wrapping around them? Now I now why this happens to other blogs I read. I can’t get the text to appear below each image. I tried lots of breaks and paragraphs but it did nothing at all. The text just appears next to the previous image any which way I try it. I found directions to use the class = “centered” code, but that didn’t do anything.
May 10th, 2008 - Garden update May 10
Been doing a bit of work in the garden since returning from vacation. I have a problem, however: I can only work for about 30 minutes or sciatica kicks in. Today, I worked for 90 minutes then 30 minutes later. I hope I’m ok tomorrow. :( I did try to keep things easy. Here’s what I’ve been up to:
- At the beginning of the week, I planted strawberries–Alexandria alpine and Italian alpine from One Green World. Wish I’d found them last year–I only found seeds and I didn’t have any of them germinate. The s’berries are listed “bundle of 5″ so I was picturing an actual bundle so figured they were just roots. Nope–I got 10 live plants in the mail! They seem to be doing well, especially the Alexandria ones–they were packed a bit better and were in great shape when they arrived as well. Except that animals, probably squirrels, are intrigues by the compost I mixed in and keep digging holes around them. So far, they haven’t dug up the s’berries, but…. Maggie helped me, which is ironic since she can’t eat them. Speaking of which–some of the Italians had berries on them already. I had to trim them and all the flowers off (oops, I’ve forgotten to look for more) so I ate the ones that were large enough to taste. The largest one, although still yellow, was sweet! I may be able to eat some later in the summer.
- Compost. This has taken me a lot of time. The compost bin isn’t fully composted, so I can’t just dig it out and put it in the garden. I have to put the large pieces back in the other bin. Before Friday, I just used a pitchfork which wasn’t all that useful. Yesterday, I used a rake as a sifter. That worked better but was quite awkward. (I sift into a bucket.) Today, I found a wire tray at a garage sale. (I also picked up a plastic strainer, and then remembered a big one I had downstairs. Neither was very effective.) It’s perfect! Well, at least a lot better than my other options. So I sifted 3 2/3-bushel baskets of compost today and took them to the garden. It’s neat to see the decay and to get to the good stuff at the bottom of the pile!
- Planted: greens, carrots, onion sets, and zinnias. Got the onions at the downtown hardware store. At Menard’s, they come in packages of 100 for $1 or more. At Kitz & Pfeil, it’s a bin and it’s $1/#. I got 33 cents worth and it was more than enough for two rows. I used the extras (probably another row’s worth) for green onions. I hope these all grow better than last year’s did. Most of them got little bigger than the sets. I was told that they need more water–they weren’t in the garden so never got watered and we had a bit of a drought.
- Ordered tomatoes, peppers, and basil from Foxglove via the Red Radish. They’ll come in on Friday. Which means I need to prep 2.5 beds (1.5 for tomatoes, .5 each for peppers and basil) by Friday. I hope it doesn’t rain. I also need to plant my beans I think.
Given my sciatica issues, coming after a winter of working on my lower back and weight lifting (personal training at work), I’m getting more worried about my ability to keep up with a garden this size. I don’t have a problem weeding or harvesting (mostly). But digging the beds, sifting and carrying compost…it’s tough for me. So I’m going to look at more fruits and perennials. Starting with raspberries. Instead of putting them in the back, I’m going to turn over at least two beds to them–just one for now. And maybe alongside the house as well, since the watermelons don’t appear to have germinated. Out back, we’ll put blueberries instead–that works better since they need acidic soil so hard to do in the garden. So I also have to prep for raspberries this week; they should have been planted a month ago.
This also makes sense cost-wise. Raspberries are $4/pint at the farmer’s market! Carrots are $1/bunch. I’ll probably still plant carrots anyway…. And I signed up for a 1/2 share in a CSA this year. They mostly do veggies. And if that seems to work out, I can do a lot more fruits in the garden and still be happy. That and greens. I love fresh salads from the garden. And flowers.
Now I need to go stretch out before bed. I’m sore!
April 11th, 2008 - Quick garden update
I don’t have to worry about moisture for my newly planted seeds as it’s been raining and SNOWING this week. Not like in MN, northern WI, and SD, but a few dustings along with sleet and freezing rain. So much for spring. I just hope it doesn’t get too wet while we are gone. Luckily, one morning I pruned the apple trees before work–good thing as it’s been raining every since (at least during non-work hours).
Erin at Prairie Roots has up a beautiful poem “Mulch” by Linda Hasselstrom. I haven’t mulched photographs (didn’t think it was good for the soil since you can’t recycle them either) or love letters (don’t have any to get rid of), but I have composted old flowers such as from my grandfather’s funeral.
April 7th, 2008 - First plantings
It took me nearly TWO hours yesterday to plant greens, carrots, rutabagas, peas, and watermelon. I do not know why it took so long. It didn’t feel like that much time so I was surprised when I went inside. No more planting till I come home. But there’s plenty of other yard work.
I need to prune the apple trees. I thought I was being good last year by not touching them. At the end of the season I re-read the pruning materials, wondering if I was to do something in the fall. I should have pruned them right after planting! Ack. So now I’ve lost a year. And I’m scared to chop them off because I might ruin them. I had to remind myself that the worst that could happen is that I kill a tree–and they only cost about $20 so that’s okay.
When Maggie and I got back from our walk, I went straight for my pruning guide and hand held cutter. I started on the shortest one–the one I was least afraid of ruining. My cutter is in bad shape and I may have injured the tree. So I stopped and am sending Eric to replace it this morning. I have to finish this before we leave.
I’m probably not going to do raspberries. I just don’t have the time and in 4 weeks it might just cause me to have bad berries. (You should plant them in really early spring.) And the area still needs to be prepared. So instead, I’ll prepare the area at the end of the summer. ::Sigh:: I was really looking forward to berries this year. Well, at least I’ll get the strawberries in. (Assuming they aren’t mailed while we’re gone and die.)
April 6th, 2008 - Spring is HERE!
It’s been tough reading blogs of folks farther south as Spring has been around for a while. I can finally say it’s come to Oshkosh. Robins appeared about a week ago and the snow is almost all melted. (Yes, almost, there are still pockets on northern sides and where tons of snow was piled up.) My bulb garden is popping out and two flowers appeared yesterday. I worked in the yard and garden yesterday afternoon. It was too windy to do the raking I wanted to do, so instead I neatened a few beds. In the garden, next to the house, I got rid of a section of plastic covering that allows me to plant another bed–I’m going to put the watermelons there so they have room to spread out for once.
This afternoon, I plan to plant my first seeds–greens, carrots, peas, and rutabagas. I’m actually a bit late on some of them! I will have my work cut out for me when we return from vacation. It’s prime time for working on the garden and I’ll be missing it for two whole weeks! (My brother’s wedding–we’re going to go to the Johnsons’ in NJ, then the wedding in MA, then the Paulukonises’ in PA.) I’m not going to stress out about planting a lot before I leave, however. Most of the rest shouldn’t be planted until all chance of frost is gone, which isn’t until May 10. But there’s plenty of cleanup to do in the yard. Oh well! I’ll do a bit some days this week if it’s nice after work. And the rest will just have to wait. (Like the raspberries!)
November 27th, 2007 - Oh these carrots are yummy!
Yesterday after work, I finally dug the carrots and rutabagas. I was a bit nervous because of the snow and freezing temps we’ve been having. The snow turned out to be an advantage–it’s melted making the ground nice and soft to work with! It’s wasn’t trouble at all and I easily did it by myself.
I gave the three largest rutabagas to my neighbors and kept two little ones to eat.
And the carrots? They are oh so sweet! These are delicious! I think I might leave carrots till the end of November on purpose next year!
November 23rd, 2007 - Weather and food
It snowed!!!! It snowed enough Wednesday evening/night that it’s still on the ground this morning (Friday). That’s atypical for first snows. Actually, it snowed on Tuesday, but it didn’t stick.
The only problem is that since it’s still be relatively “nice” for November, I planned to dig out the rutabagas and carrots yesterday. Seemed like a perfect chore for Thanksgiving Day! I’m going to recruit Eric to do it tomorrow instead as I suspect the ground will be too hard for me. I hope the rutabagas are ruined, but I wasn’t going to eat them anyway. I’m going to give them to my neighbor who loves them. It was nice to have a couple for soup stock, but I don’t think I’ll make any more stock. Maybe I will–I’ll have carrots, onions, two squashes and rutabagas I suppose. And tomatoes. Hmmm…might have to do that Sunday!
All last week, I made coffeecakes for breakfasts. Unfortunately, Eric and I really like different ones. LOL I figured out a solution for two of them. He and Maggie can’t have nuts–so I put nuts on 1/3rd of it before the topping and I get nuts! He also didn’t like the nutmeg in one, so I can put that on my side with the topping as well! The only drawback to the coffeecakes is that they use 100% white flour. I’m not sure how they’ll do with whole wheat, but I’ll start trying that next. (Actually, I think I used 1/4 ww in one of them. I hope I noted it!) I guess I finally got bored with the bread machine fruit breads. I’ll still make them, however, as I have lots of dried zucchini to use up. The nice thing is that Eric eats them, and he doesn’t care for the fruit breads, except banana.
I’ve avoided bananas since summer. The 90% reduction made me think about how non-local they are. We still buy them for Maggie–they help keep her regular we think–but I haven’t eaten one on my own in ages. I sometimes eat part of hers when she doesn’t finish it. And I’ll make a banana bread tomorrow as one went too soft to eat. I’ve barely missed them since I have so many other local fruit to eat–peaches, blueberries, apples, pears.
November 7th, 2007 - Sauerkraut update and CSA talk
Almost 2 months ago, I wrote of beginning my first attempt at sauerkraut. After watching it carefully every few days and removing the scum that appeared, it began to smell off and some bugs appeared. (The same bugs that appeared in the worm bins and around the litter box. No clue what they are.) So I thought it was done for and a few days later threw the mess out.
At the compost pile, I stuck something into the kraut to see what it was like, out of curiosity. I was disappointed to discover it looked and smell like what I expect kraut to be! Unfortunately, I hadn’t used a clean hand and there was no way I was going to keep it now. (Plus, those bugs.) But, it gave me hope for trying again next year.
In other vegetable news, I signed for a half share in a CSA* for next summer, Polasky’s Farm Market. (I believe it’s the same farmer from whom I bought the cabbage I used. Maybe not. I know I bought the red cabbage I used for drying from him.) My first choice would be the place we buy our meat, but they only have pickup every other week and up in Neenah. We don’t get up there all that much anymore since we’re reducing our driving, so I hesitated to get a CSA through them. At the last market of the season, Polasky’s had an info sheet out. The price is reasonable–$250 for 10 weeks (half share)–and delivery is right here at the Oshkosh market that I hit almost every Saturday anyway. *CSA = Community Supported Agriculture, pay upfront, get fresh produce during the season.
Now why would I want to get a CSA when I have a lovely garden? Because I still go to the market, as I said, and because I want to be challenged. I don’t usually buy quite a few things that would be good for us that I bet will be in our share. I want to expose Maggie to these. Yes, I could buy them and I’ve done that to some extent, individually. But I find that I rarely do so. But I’ve already paid for these veggies and don’t have to think about it each week. I think I can also rely on it for some staples, like green peppers, and plant the multicolored ones I really like to plant. I miss plain green ones, however! I also won’t be bothered as much, perhaps, when a crop fails in my garden, such as the onions and first two carrot plantings did.
I didn’t sign up for the poultry CSA as I think that would be too much chicken for us. And I’ve never tried theirs before. I plan to buy a couple next summer and see. Maybe we’ll get it the next summer, then.
November 5th, 2007 - First frost!
We had our first frost last Wednesday–that means it wasn’t until NOVEMBER! Wow, that’s pretty late around here. And if only I’d known about it, I would have picked the tiny peppers that had continued to grow. I was able to get one of them on Thursday–it was a pretty light frost and things that were hidden by leaves were saved. I also picked the rest of the beans and started pulling up dead or dying plants. I can’t believe the flowers I still have; bachelor’s buttons are still blooming, after a number of light frosts. The nasturtiums were still pretty lively as well, but I pulled them out, as those two beds were the easiest to take care.
Unfortunately, I pulled something in my back (probably pulling up the sunflowers) and didn’t get back out this weekend. There’s still a lot to do.
Only a few scarlet runner beans dried before the frost. They are a fantastic mottled purple and white, so I hope that some more dry on the vines and are okay post-frost.
I made blueberry buckle (coffeecake), cinnamon rolls, and some breads over the last few days. I feel bad about not making more breakfasts and desserts during the summer, but I hate turning on the oven for one item during the summer. I don’t mind much in the winter time.
Speaking of which, I turned on the heat for the first time on Sunday. It was only down to 62 during the mornings and up to 65 during the day. But I was tired of being cold so gave in. That’s right. Two years in a row, I’ve been the first to turn on the heat. :( But we had neither heat nor AC in Oct, so hopefully that means a really low electric bill!
October 21st, 2007 - Not planting sunflowers again
I was quite excited about my sunflowers. They were beautiful this summer and I looked forward to their seeds.
I’m not longer looking forward to them.
I started shelling them yesterday. In 45 minutes of work, I got less than 1/4 cup, and Maggie ate them all (except the 2 I had). 45 minutes! And I have at least 5x that many to go. I’m rather glad the mice got to them now! Otherwise, I probably would give most of them to the birds, as Eric has suggested.
I followed suggestions online which said the easiest way to shell them was to put them in a bag and run a rolling pin over them. Then, put them in water and the shells will float while the seeds sink. I didn’t do the latter part, luckily, as less than half were completely split by the pin. Most had to be opened and some weren’t even cracked! And I used the rolling pin for at least 5 minutes, then again in between each handful I pulled out.
Yes, I could salt and roast them in the shell and break them apart with my teeth instead. But neither Eric nor I eat sunflower seeds that way very often so there’s no great desire for that.
Maybe I should just feed them to the birds. I can buy 2 cups of sunflower seeds for just a couple dollars (or less!) so is it really worth that many hours of my time? I could do them while watching TV I was thinking. But….
I also did some garden cleanup yesterday and picked ground cherries. Still no sign of a frost so the peppers are still growing. Unfortunately, the beans are not drying up, neither the ones on the vines nor the ones I put in the garage. :( And I planted garlic. I don’t know which heads are which, so I just took one soft necked and one hard necked. In addition, it appears that some of the seed heads I popped off had developed enough, and I have garlic shoots throughout the bed. Oh my! Once I realized what they were, I stopped pulling them and we’ll see what we get next summer. The seeds I planted last fall grew as well, but stayed small all year and are still there. So I left them as well. Who knows what I’ll harvest next summer?
October 19th, 2007 - New (to me) pasta dish
See? It’s working already. 3 posts in one day!
Anyway, the other night, I finally tried a new pasta dish. Usually, when we have pasta, I put either red sauce (homemade or canned), butter + herbs + garlic powder, or pesto on it (all with grated parm cheese, of course). Last week at a conference, I had a lovely pasta dish with sauteed veggies and a light pesto sauce. I knew I could easily make that at home. So on Monday night, I did!
I chopped up veggies in the fridge–pepper, carrot, tomato I think I had–and a clove of garlic and sauteed them in olive oil. I tried to do it like Rachel Ray does and start cooking while continuing to chop. That stressed me out trying to keep up with everything–also had to heat up the pasta (leftovers), get out plates, pour milk. Next time, I’ll chop it all then cook. Will only add a few minutes time and less stress. Maggie can also help more, then, since the stove won’t be on while I’m prepping the veggies. After it seemed pretty well-cooked, I threw in one cube of pesto from the freezer. This is also a nice way to make my pesto stretch through more meals; when eating just it, we use 3 cubes.
It was quite yummy and I had just enough leftover for lunch the next day. Unfortunately, Maggie didn’t eat the veggies, however. She has a tendency to do that. Using sauce is a better way of getting her to eat her veggies.
I didn’t measure anything. I just chopped up what looked good. Veggies were all from the garden, although the pepper may have been from the farmer’s market.
Of course, I won’t be able to make this dish for much longer, but I will have tomatoes for at least another month and perhaps the peppers will hold in the fridge that long as well. I saw that some more were growing in the garden the other night–pretty small but perhaps they will get bigger before we have a frost. I can’t believe it’s mid-October and no frost yet in WI!
October 3rd, 2007 - Sharing sunflowers
I forgot about something else I did this weekend: I gave away most of my sunflower seeds!
To mice!
I went to get something from the back garage and realized that instead of a few loose seeds around one or two of the drying heads, all of them had piles of shells around them. When I’d noticed this a couple weeks ago, I thought I’d knocked some seeds out of a head–no big deal. But now, I’d lost over half my harvest to mice. At least, I’m guessing mice. Didn’t see them in action so have no idea.
At least they left the strawberry corn alone.
I finished the job of removing the seeds. It looks like they probably got the majority of the good seeds. There were lots of seeds that felt thin and are probably just shells. I have no idea how I will dry them in the future. Nor what I will do about drying my beans. That worked well last year back there, but I’m afraid they will eat up my dried beans now. And I have such lovely large screens this year! (Formerly the front porch windows, which are nearly 6′ square.)
September 18th, 2007 - Drying herbs
Doing something new–drying herbs! Actually, I did dry some last summer, but in the dehydrator. This time, I’m doing it without electricity.
1. A lavendar wand. I cut a 9 stems (about half the plant), tied them together half way up the stem, then folded the stems down over the heads and tied them again. (I was going to give a link for an idea what these look like, but I didn’t do it the way I find everyone else is doing it so never mind. The websites all strip off most of the leaves and then use lots of ribbon. Mine is much wilder looking!) I plan to bring it to the Solstice celebration for the raffle (folks are encouraged to bring things for the raffle). It smells lovely and is the reason I planted lavender. It was an idea from Sunflower Houses. I hung it up by the ribbon in the guest room. There are some hangars left above the window from old window shades–perfect for hanging ribbons! I wish I could save some more lavender and make a sachet or two, but that will have to wait for next year. (Had I seen the online pictures of the wands, maybe I would have taken off some of the leaves for a sachet. Oh well.)
2. Mint. These, I chopped all the way off. I called Mom and Dad first to make sure it was okay. (Mom advised cutting only about half the lavender since it’s the first year.) I have a pepperming and a chocolate peppermint plant, both gifts from Ruth. She bought the chocolate mint at the Paine garden sale and gave me a very small piece of it. I am surprised at how well it grew! Throughout the summer, I could definitely smell the chocolate, but upon tasting an actual leaf, I was disappointed at how little it tasted of chocolate. It was Maggie’s idea to taste it–she asked for a piece as I was moving them from washing/drying to the bags. I gave her one, then decided to try one myself. (Surprisingly, she liked it! But then, she’s liked almost everything we give her while cooking.) I put the mints in large brown paper bags, taped them closed, and tied a ribbon through a hole in a corner. These went up in the guest room as well. Not the warmest place in the house in the summer time, but the only logical place to hang them. The back entry would be a great place–except it gets really cold. Maybe I’ll try some there next fall just to test it out. There’s some pegboard on two walls, so all I’d need are a couple hangers.
September 15th, 2007 - It’s easier to post now
It’s easier to post now becuase I’m sitting in the living room with a laptop. My own laptop that is. Yeah, we bought new computers. Terribly non-frugal, but one aspect of frugality is doing that in areas you can so that you can spend where you want to. We bought two computers, an iMac for Eric in the den and a MacBook for me where ever. I also use the den one all the time. No point turning on the laptop to check the weather when no one is using the iMac, of course. It’s nice for evenings; I’m sure as winter comes on, I’ll hang out online more in the evenings. I usually watch a lot more TV and this is much better than that!
So, garden update: There was a threat of frost last night, so I picked a few things throughout the day (stayed home a half day) including the first scarlet runner beans and covered up the tomatoes and peppers overnight. Made spaghetti sauce (the other I thing I can do is post the recipes now) with most of the 19# I had picked Thursday. Today, I picked up goodies at the farmer’s market, including peppers, carrots, red cabbage, winter squash, and cilantro. The first ones are for soup stock and to dry. I’ve used so many peppers in sauces that I have few to dry! My carrots didn’t do well, and the few I have I want to eat fresh so the market ones will go for drying.
On Thursday, I started sauerkraut. Today, I remembered that you should add brine if the liquid doesn’t cover the shreds right away. I don’t have much in there–but let’s see this time if it works and we like it. If so, next year I can make an entire 5 gallon bucket of it!
Today I dried peppers and cabbage. I couldn’t believe how much room the cabbage takes up initially; I could only fit half as the other half of the trays had peppers on them. The other half–tomorrow or eat fresh?
It’s great fun to do this work with Maggie. She had lunch while I cut up things for the spag sauce–nibbling on pieces of tomato at first (she kept asking for them, even though she rarely touches them on a plate), then for onion, meat, and garlic. She got everything raw but the meat. Today, she had a couple pieces of cabbage, and although she asked for pepper, she didn’t eat it. She really like the cabbage! That makes me wonder if I should try coleslaw tomorrow.
I also picked all the remaining basil. I think I have enough for another 8 batches! But I looked at my notes from last time and discovered it took me nearly 3 hours. I so don’t look forward to 3 hours on my feet in the kitchen. Ugg. So I haven’t done anything with them yet–they are wilting in the fridge. :( Maybe I can just do half of them ad dry the other half? Yes, that would work…..
August 27th, 2007 - Garden cleanup
This weekend, we finally took care of some needed garden tasks.
* Eric staked up two tomato cages that had fallen over. I first noticed them while my parents were visiting 3 weeks ago. Planned to take care of it over the weekend. That’s when we got sick with strep. By the time we felt better, it was raining all the time.
* I trimmed the tomatoes, too. Now it doesn’t look like such a jungle. Dad said I should take out suckers (the 3rd “branch” that appears in some intersections). There was so much foliage, that I hardly found any suckers, I just chopped off the stuff that was exceedingly long. I figured it would help keep any more cages from falling over AND provide sunlight to hidden tomatoes.
* We staked the sunflowers. At Fleet Farm, I checked out the garden clearance and found wooden 6′ stakes for 90 cents. I picked up 6. Eric pounded two into the sunflower row and I tied up 4 or 5 of the large flowers that were falling over. The heads are so heavy, they just can’t stand up. The ones near the fence I just leaned over the fence–it’s the perfect height! There are two more with small heads that may need to be staked. I used garden twine; I’m afraid it might cut through the stem. If so, at least I’ll learn for next year. I’m sure the 6 by the fence will be plenty of seed. And some seeds have matured on the staked ones already. Maggie liked them–she ate three!
* I cut off more gourd and pumpkin vine. Still need to get out to the front to cut those off. I just can’t get over how much they grow! I am NOT planting either one next year. (Unless I buy bush pumpkin. I would try that. Or we might just get a share in Catleanna’s CSA. They include a couple pumpkins!)
There are plenty of tomatoes ripening. I made salsa but burned it. I made tomota basil sauce but we didn’t like it. Got a recipe from Mom for another pasta sauce that I will try tonight. Also need to make another batch of salsa–I’m holding out for the jalepenos to ripen further first.
The drying beans haven’t dried out from the rain. I hoped they would today–three days of no rain. But it’s pouring right now! Argh. I might have to just bring them indoors to dry now. With I’d done so yesterday. The Cherokee Trail of Tears are starting to dry as well.