Planting Seedlings

On Monday, Eric and I ran to the local seed co-op and bought some stuff for the gardening season: labels, lime, fertilizer and they had a decent price for seedlings.  So we bought a 9 pack of romaine, 6 pack of salad lettuce mix and a 6 pack of some broccoli variety.  We also bought 2 rhubarb crowns – Victoria and Crimson Red varieties.  We were planning on getting the rhubarb this year but not the seedlings.  Oh well, impulse purchases are helping the economy :)

I peeked at the forecast for the next 10 days on Tuesday morning – nothing below freezing, so I planted everything that afternoon.  Of course, right before sunset I checked the weather forecast again and it said 30 overnight.  Gosh darn it!  So Evelyn and I ran outside with Styrofoam coffee cups and stuck one on each of them.  I left the rhubarb to fend for itself.  Just incase anyone is wondering, the cups provided no protection, LOL.  Everything was crispy and covered in ice crystals. But I think everything might survive except the salad lettuce mix. The romaine and broccoli looked good when I watered them in the afternoon.

Thankfully it’s raining today because I put my back out and it was horrible trying to tend and water the plants yesterday.  I’m not sure how I did it, but it probably had to do with digging holes in clay for the rhubarb after sitting in the van for 4 hours.  I hope I’m better by tomorrow because I can’t even lift the baby today which makes caring for him difficult. Cross your fingers that my back is better soon.

We Wordled!

I thought this was really cool.  Takes all your words on your blog and displays them by size according to how often they appear. Just like on CNN, LOL.

Visit www.wordle.net.

Fillmore Container

Last year for my birthday, Eric got me a 16 qt pressure canner and I’m itching to try it out.  So this year we are planning to put up as much garden fare as possible.  In order to do this we needed to acquire a large stash of canning jars.

I stumbled across this great company a few months ago when I was Googling for a cheap source of canning jars. This company is located just a hop, skip and jump from us in Lancaster, Pennsylvania.  Since Fillmore Container had better prices and selection than Wal-Mart, we decided to place an order and drive up to pick it up:

• 10 cases of wide mouth quart jars
• 10 cases of wide mouth pint jars
• 7 cases of 1/2 pint jars
• 5 cases of 1/4 pint jars
• 1 case wide mouth lids
• 1 case of regular mouth lids
• 1 case of wide mouth gallon jars
• 12 wide mouth lids for gallon jars
• 1 case of 17 oz bale jars

The gallon jars will be for fermenting vegetables and the bale jars will be for dried vegetables and herbs.

The drive was pleasant and the people at Fillmore were great.  We highly recommend them. Keith Reinhart of Fillmore containers was telling us that he’s seen a large increase in people buying canning jars. 

Here’s are some pictures of our haul (about 2.5 feet high, 4 feet deep):

Edible Estates

Edible estates is a concept that has been around for awhile but is now gaining in popularity.  It basically involves using vegetables to decorate the front lawn instead of shrubs and flowers or at least in conjunction with.  I think next growing season we’ll try some of this.  We might even enlarge our front flower bed again.

There is a neat website that I came across called www.fritzhaeg.com.  They help design and implement edible landscapes all across the country. They have a list of current and past initiatives including pictures.

Here are a couple of photos.  If you visit their site you can view many more including before and after shots.

 

Garden Update

Well we managed to get the garden beds ready for planting.  Woo Hoo!  I took a few days over the past week to putter around with them on my own.  Having a wee babe sure makes gardening (the kind where you get mucky and smelly) hard.  I weeded, amended with compost, mixed that in, put out the irrigation and tied on grids.  Then with Eric’s help I installed the trellises this morning.  And then we planted.

We planted peas, chard, parsnips, carrots, lettuces, spinach, collards, skirret, beets, kohlrabi, raab, kale, turnips, leeks and scallions.  I think that’s everything that was planted.  In total we did 71 square feet!  About 1/3rd of our total square footage.  In 3 weeks after our last frost date, we’ll plant our cukes, melons and squash and probably some of our winter starts.  All in all not too bad. 

According to the almanac we are 3 weeks behind in planting most of the stuff listed above but oh well – it should grow fast since it’s getting warmer daily. Looking back at our journal from last year, we didn’t get stuff planted until April 12th!  So we are 3 weeks ahead of that date.

Our stray cat, Morris has taken to sleeping on the garden beds during the day.  I thought that was strange because it’s been blustery cold.  Why would he be laying out there in the open?  Well that question was answered when I started planting today – holy smokes the beds are nice and toasty.  Definitely warmer than the air. Smart kitty.

Planting the seed mats that I made was kind of tricky initially.  It was breezy today which didn’t help matters.  But once I got into the groove of using them, I was able to plant a square foot in about 30 seconds.  I’ll post more reports as seeds begin to germinate.

Now on to our pictures…

Probably not evident in the pictures but our trellises are in horrible shape.  Before anything gets big enough I’ll have to repair them.

Our blackberry brambles and grape vine.

Hopefully in 10 days or so I’ll be able to post some pictures of sprouts.

NatureMill – Compost Made Easy

Eric and I currently have large composting bins in our side yard. The bins are so big that they can hold a year worth of compostables. The space is divided into 5 compartments – 2 for composting household and garden waste and 2 for composting the same things plus cat waste.  The 5th bin is a spare in case we have overflow.

My father-in-law sent a link pointing us to NatureMill.  If I had some spare money I would try one out in a heart beat.  I have to admit that it looks like a neat little appliance.   According to their instructions you can compost fruit and veggie stuff, meat and dairy along with small bones like fish bones.  You can also compost animal feces and pet bedding. I don’t know if it would work for us since everything has to be chopped or broken into pieces 4 inches or smaller and admittedly we’re lazy.  You also cannot compost paper, newspaper or cardboard which would seriously limit us. 

I also noticed that they warn that you shouldn’t put the fresh compost too close to plants unless it’s aged 6 months outdoors.  I think the reason for this is because the compost produced from this machine is way too high in nitrogen.  The standard ratio is 10:1 (carbon:nitrogen) of compostables.  I don’t think you’d get that by adding a couple of scoops of wood pellets they recommend with each deposit.  As long as a person is aware of this and knows how to correct the imbalance or ages the compost then this would be great. 

Despite the potential high nitrogen and having to buy wood pellets, baking soda and a filter for it, I would still give this a go.  I really like how they don’t shy away from composting meats and dairy which actually account for quite a bit of compostable waste amazingly enough.

White House to have a Garden!

Yeah!  I’m so happy about this news.  I hope this encourages others to grow a garden.  I also love how Michelle is involving school kids in the gardening process. 

Here is a link to Kitchen Gardeners International and their post about the garden.  Their post has a picture of the planned layout for the vegetables and fruits in the garden.  I haven’t seen this image in any other online news source (though I admit I didn’t look too hard, just at some of the major ones).

I love this video put out  by Kitchen Gardeners International to encourage the current President to grow a garden. I guess it worked. :)

Boston Baked Beans

Last year we grew a bunch of pole beans (a mixed variety that included green, yellow and purple podded).  Well life happened and we never got a chance to harvest many while green.  So we decide to try drying beans.  We let them dry naturally on the vines.  Afterwards we harvested the dried pods and I shelled them after letting them sit for a week or two indoors to make sure they were 100% dry. 

Anyways, 7 square feet of bean plants, netted us almost 2 pounds of dried beans.  Not too shabby IMO.  We could use these beans to plant a new bean crop but we decided to use them for cooking.

And, today I’m finally doing that. It should be noted that generally baked beans are made with navy or great northern beans, which are small and white.  Also the varieties we grew are more for fresh or frozen eating, not dried.  But I want to see how they do.

I measured out 1 lb or approximately 2 cups of dried beans.  Washed them, and then put them on to boil for 2 or so minutes.  After boiling I turned them off and let them sit in the hot water for an hour.  In reality, it was a few hours because I wasn’t quite ready to start cooking with them.

This is the recipe I use to make my baked beans.

• 2 cups navy beans
• 1/2 pound bacon
• 1 onion, finely diced
• 3 tablespoons molasses
• 2 teaspoons salt
• 1/4 teaspoon ground black pepper
• 1/4 teaspoon dry mustard
• 1/2 cup ketchup
• 1 tablespoon Worcestershire sauce
• 1/4 cup brown sugar

1. Preheat oven to 325 degrees F (165 degrees C).
2. Arrange the beans in a 2 quart bean pot or casserole dish by placing a portion of the beans in the bottom of dish, and layering them with bacon and onion.
3. In a saucepan, combine molasses, salt, pepper, dry mustard, ketchup, Worcestershire sauce and brown sugar. Bring the mixture to a boil and pour over beans. Pour in just enough of the reserved bean water to cover the beans. Cover the dish with a lid or aluminum foil.
4. Bake for 3 to 4 hours in the preheated oven, until beans are tender. Remove the lid about halfway through cooking, and add more liquid if necessary to prevent the beans from getting too dry.

It’s not the best  I’ve ever had but it’s pretty darn good.  I do have another recipe somewhere that is amazing but I have sadly misplaced it and until I find it, this recipe will do.

Today, since we’re out of bacon, I’m using 2 pork hocks as my meat. I also multiply the sauce recipe by one and a half or 2 since I like my beans saucy.  Today it was just one and a half since I was short on molasses and ketchup. To make up for the ketchup shortage I added 1/4 cup of chili sauce. God, I sound like one of the reviews on allrecipes.com, LOL.

Here’s a picture of the beans right before boiling. I’ve covered them with a generous amount of water.

Here they are after a few hours of sitting.  Rinsed and ready for the other ingredients.

Ready to go into the oven.

Stirring at the half way point, and removing the lid.

An hour or so after removing the lid.  After this picture, I removed the hocks and pulled the meat off and added it back into the beans.

The hocks seemed extra meaty.

The finished product after 5 hours of cooking.

The beans softened but not enough.  I’m not sure what went wrong.  From my understanding there are three things that can cause beans not to soften: hard water, too old or putting something acidic in the recipe.  Well, I know my water isn’t hard; we’ve cooked many beans, lentils and peas and never had a problem.  I also know the beans aren’t too old, having grown them myself. That leaves acidic.  I did make a change this time the I’ve never done before and that was substituting chili sauce for ketchup which I’m sure is more acidic.  When I reheat the leftovers, I’ll add a bit of baking soda and see if I can get them to soften a bit more.

In the end though, the beans were soft enough to eat and enjoy. They turned out really tasty; best I’ve made in awhile.  I’d give them an 8 or 8.5 out of 10.  I still have some of our own home grown dried beans in the pantry so I can play with the recipe next time to see if I can get them softer.

Victorian Kitchen Garden

I came across this great BBC documentary a few weeks ago.  It’s called ‘The Victorian Kitchen Garden’.  It dates back to 1987, but it really is timeless. It stars Harry Dodson and Peter Thoday.  It’s the first documentary in a series of documentaries about Victorian gardening.  Apparently it’s shown quite regularly on satellite and in the UK.  I’ve never seen the whole series, only what I can find on YouTube.  I wish I could buy it on DVD.

Here are a few clips from this show that I’ve found on YouTube:

Victorian Kitchen Garden: Introduction

Victorian Kitchen Garden: January

Victorian Kitchen Garden: February

I’ll just post those three.  If you’re interested in the other 10 months, just do a search on YouTube and you’ll find them. 

Cleaning Gardening Gloves

Until recently I didn’t realize this was possible.  We have quite the variety of gardening gloves: cotton, suede, kid, and canvas.  From a quick Google search I learned that some people keep them clean by washing them with hand soap after each use, including the suede variety.  They do this by wearing them while washing their hands.  However ours had a few years of built up crud on them so I didn’t think hand soap would cut it.

Having a sense of adventure (and a garden center less than a mile away incase I ruined them), I decided I would toss them in the washing machine and hope for the best. I rounded up 6 pairs and toss the lot of them in the machine, added a generous scoop of Tide and a good glug of white vinegar (to soften and help neutralize bacteria and smellies living in the gloves). I set the wash to cold.  We after 40 minutes in the wash and a day to dry, they went from this:

To this:

Looking at the pictures it doesn’t look like much has changed.  But trust me, they feel, look and smell a whole lot better.  They are a touch stiff but they aren’t crunchy like before.  After wearing them for a few minutes they were soft again.  They also smell like new again. 

From here on out, we’ll wash them with hand soap after doing something mucky in them and then a few times a season toss them in the washing machine.

Seed Mats

I've been busy the past week working on my seed mats. Because I don’t have time to spare I decided to forgo the homemade glue made with flour and water. So I grabbed a non-toxic Almer’s glue stick sitting in Ev’s craft caddy.  Worked great and allowed me to do the mats while watching t.v. after the kids went to bed.

Here’s a couple snaps of Skirret and Parsnip seeds glued to 1 ply paper towel.

So far I’ve done, parsnips, skirret, carrots, beets, kohlrabi, collards, chard, kale, raab, scallions and leeks. I did some bush beans weeks ago.  Left to do are lettuces and spinach, which hopefully will be tonight.  Then soon as I get a free minute all of them are going to be planted out in the garden along with peas. Most of these things could have been planted 2 weeks ago but due to weather and kids that didn’t happen. 

I’ll of course be reporting back regarding the success or failure of these mats.  I do hope they work because they give me something productive to do indoors and it will speed up planting/thinning outside.  Another plus is not having to drag all my envelopes of seeds outside on windy days.

Telling temperature using insects

I was reading this book today and it had a neat little chart for telling the temperature using insects.  Most people I’m sure have heard about using crickets but apparently you can use katydids and cicadas too.  Here is what the book had to say (temperatures are in Fahrenheit):

105	All insects are quiet
102	Bees are idle
83	Cicadas sing
78	Katydid says KATY-DID-IT
72	Katydid says KATY-DID
65	Katydid says KAY-TEE
58	Katydid says KATE
46	Grasshoppers cannot fly
40	All insects mute
32	All insects dormant

Now, I don’t know how accurate these things are.  I tried to find verification online but the only mention I could see of using katydids is on this site, and their formula was different:

…calling rates among katydids varies with the temperature, so you can always get an accurate weather report by solving the equation T=(C+161)/3, with T being the Temperature and C the number of calls per minute.

I know from personal experience that Cicadas don’t start singing until the late morning when the heat of the day is starting to peak in the summer.

And I know that the cricket thing is a good estimation.  Here is the Old Farmer’s Almanac instructions:

To convert cricket chirps to degrees Fahrenheit, count number of chirps in 14 seconds then add 40 to get temperature.

Example: 30 chirps + 40 = 70° F

To convert cricket chirps to degrees Celsius, count number of chirps in 25 seconds, divide by 3, then add 4 to get temperature.

Example: 48 chirps /(divided by) 3 + 4 = 20° C

Vintage Victory Garden Movie

I stumbled across this video on the www.archive.org website.  Thought it was an interesting piece of vintage propaganda. According to the site it was the inspiration for the PBS series 'Victory Garden'

Finally some updated pictures

I ran out this morning and snapped some photos around the garden. First up is a picture of my wintersowing containers and sprouts. In the bottom picture you can see poppies.  There are also some broccoli and brussel sprouts coming up too in this container.

 

Next is Morris our stray cat. We keep him around to keep rodents and rabbits out of the garden.  He does a great job.  We actually just trapped him last week and took him into the rescue group to get his vaccinations updated. 

Here are pictures of the garden beds.  They look a bit disheveled because of the compost.  The compost was nice and decomposed but the straw walls we built around the compost bin didn’t break down as much and I was too lazy to put forth much effort to separate the two.  Most of the straw is nicely rotted and will probably disappear pretty quickly in the garden. Once we get some planting done we’re going to mulch heavily with straw this year to decrease the amount of water we use and eliminate weeds.

 

Close up of the bed I worked the compost in to.  I don’t think it looks as bad in person as the picture makes it look.

I made a compost deposit 9 days ago.  It consisted of 6 - 5 gallon pails of household compostables, 6-10 pizza/takeout boxes, a couple cardboard boxes and 60 lbs of dirty cat litter and waste.  We use compostable cat litter for a couple of our cats and put it into a separate compost bin that will only get used on the front ornamental beds.  I checked the temperature 3 days later and noted it was 145 degrees Fahrenheit.  Then mid last week noted it was 135 the day after our big snowfall, and today it is 130. 

It’s amazing how hot it gets and how long it ‘cooks’.  Most backyard composters never get thermalitic composting because of insufficient mass.  We achieve that by accumulating our compostables in 5 gallon pails for a week or two and then make a big deposit.  With how hot it gets and how long it stays hot any parasite that might be in the kitty poo will get killed (plus the cats are indoor only and thoroughly dewormed).  If you’re interested in the nitty gritty details of composting and how our philosophy came about read this book.  It’s available for free online, just scroll down.  Don’t let the title turn you off.  It’s a great resource for composting information backed with scientific studies and facts.

Here’s a snap of the possibly not dead strawberry plants.  I’ll cut them back, fertilize and water them and see what they do.

We experienced a lot of heaving this winter for some reason.  All the garden bed frames lifted, garden trim popped right out of the ground in some spots and our patio frame came up. We’ll have a lot of little repairs like that to fix over the next few weeks.

The compost is ready

It’s amazing what 5 days can mean to the weather.  Last Sunday and Monday it snowed so much that we got 10.7 inches of snow in about 15 hours.  Schools, businesses and most government offices were closed.  Now all but a few patches of snow exist in the area.  The weather was beautiful today – high of 70 degrees!  Eric and I and the two tots ran errands this morning.  After getting home and eating I was itching to get out in the garden. 

So around 3 I gave the baby to Eric and went out and didn’t come back in until just before 6 pm.  I did a lot of weeding.  Most of the weeds consisted of flowers that I’d planted last year that self sowed.  It’s amazing how something once wanted is now a weed *sigh*.

After weeding I opened two compost bins – one dating from fall 2006 to spring 07 and the other from spring 07 to spring 08.  Both were beautifully decomposed.  The only stuff recognizable were things like branches that were too big and egg shells.  I did find a few bones but meh, who cares.  And for those people who are scratching their heads about my finding bones in the compost – we compost everything: vegetable matter, dairy, fats, meat, bones, pizza boxes, tissues, dixie cups, etc.  We spare nothing. We also don’t turn our piles. We’re taboo composters LOL.

I proceeded to fill 10 wheelbarrow full of compost and dumped them in the garden beds.  I spread it around but didn’t get it mixed in except for one bed.  The soil and compost are still a bit too damp so the work was heavy.  I’ll wait a few days and do the mixing later. During that, Ev, Eric and Marshall came out to watch and chat with me.  Which was nice since it made the work less monotonous.

After I finished with that, I tackled the uncovering of the Earthboxes.  In the fall we had drained the water as best we could and stacked them to the side of the garden and covered them with a tarp.  Well I removed the tarp and then proceeded to pull the old tomato plants out and the fertilizer strips.  The boxes look like they survived the winter really well.  The one that contained the strawberry plants looks like the plants might actually have survived the winter.  Only time will tell.

So tomorrow or whenever I can get out there again I need to do the following:

• put the irrigation in (a sunny day would be beneficial for this to soften the hoses)
• mark the grids on the gardens (undecided whether to use compostable twine or nylon)
• clean up the 5x5 bed which still contains parsnips
• PLANT :)

There are other things that need to be done like installing the trellises and setting up the earthboxes but that can wait a month or more. I also need to finish my seed strips/mats mentioned in an older post.

I’ll snap pictures tomorrow before it rains to show the progress on the garden.

Pax