A Sister's Garden

I have 4 wonderful sisters.  We get together often and have a great time.  Last week, while 2 of my sisters went on a trip to North Carolina (welcome home!!!!!!!!!), I got the chance to hang with another one of my sisters twice!  Twice in one week!  She lives an hour away in PA, so we don't see each other as often as we'd like. 

This year, she decided that she wanted to plant a garden.  Much to my excitement, she asked me to help her design and plant it.  Early last week, I took the kids to her place, had a sleepover, and then planted her garden the next morning.  'Twas really fun!

Her garden, being her first ever garden, is 3ft by 12ft.  She wanted tomatoes, sweet peppers, hot peppers, green beans, and onions.  We chose 3 tomatoes - 1 Debaro paste, 1 Bellstar paste, and 1 Medford field; 2 sweet peppers - 1 King of the North bell, 1 Lipstick;  1 hot pepper - we had chosen a Hot Portugal, but a lil bunny ate it, so we replaced it with an Anaheim;  Provider green beans;  Black Eel zucchini;  and onions grown from onion sets. 

Right after planting.

Hurray for sprouting seeds!!!  Always one of the most exciting parts of gardening (next to harvesting the yummies, that is).

With bunny protection and replaced plants.

Isn't it cute?!  I think I'm just as excited about her garden as she is!  (Thanks for letting me be a part of it all, sis!!)

Gardening is a never ending spiral.  Once you start, you can't stop.  You constantly think of how next year's garden will be bigger, better, different.  You learn from your mistakes and from your successes.  Happy accidents happen.  Losses occur.  It's challenging and exciting.  Each year is different.  Gardening is dynamic.

This was one of the wettest springs I can remember.  We are just now caught up on getting things in the ground in our own garden.  Now that things have slowed a bit in the garden, I'm hoping to have the chance to take some pics of it and post them.  After all, this will be our last year of gardening at my sister in laws house.  Next year, we'll be able to garden at the farmhouse we bought.  Hopefully we'll be living there as well!  Right now, we are dealing with the challenges of buying an old farmhouse.  But!  We now have a working well.  That's some progress!

How does your garden grow?

Spring Around the House

Here are some little bits of spring you can find floating about our house...

Garden Therapy

On Sunday, we worked in the garden for the first time this year.  I love the smell of fresh spring dirt.  Just one whiff of it, and aaaahhhhhhh...  That's where I want to be.  It's a wonderful tonic for the soul.  We planted peas and spinach.  Sweetpea and Boy both got in the action.  Munch has decided she no longer wants to garden.  Bummer. 

Today, there is a nice drizzle floating down feeding the seeds until they become so swollen they burst open with life. 

Since it's raining, we are getting some much needed housework accomplished.  I have designs on a spring dress for Munch, and a pair of pants for Boy.  I need to look for a pants pattern.  I've only ever made pj pants.  Boy, being 7, is beyond the elastic waistband style pants.

In an effort to remain organized through this crazy season, I've decided to try to do a weekly list of things that I'd like to get done.  I would like to be aggressive in my planning, but realistic.  (Think that's possible?)  So, here's the list for this week...

start tomato seeds
start lettuce seeds
find a pattern for Boy's pants
clean out the pantry
spring clean the kitchen

Ok.  There it is.  Just a list of some projects to be included in my normal day to day schedule.  If I can get those done, I will be happy.  But, I won't hold my breath.  :o)

Happy Monday.

Sprouts (of all sorts)

It is the last day of March.  But, I'm seeing no signs of the proverbial lamb hanging around outside. 

Inside, we are toasty warm.  The peppers that I seeded last week are sprouting up a storm.

For a number of years now, we've been starting our seeds in soil blocks.  We use a soil mix that I mix up basically according to Eliot Coleman's potting soil recipe found in his Four Season Harvest.  Making the blocks is rather a simple process using this tool for the small seed starting, and then this tool for up-potting.  Last year, we got the 4-inch blocker second hand.  Now it's easier to start melons and squashes who don't like to have their roots disturbed in any way.

I like the blockers a LOT.  It completely cuts down on the plastic pots that one must use when starting their seeds.  The roots are allowed to naturally air prune, thus making the transplanting process way less stressful for the plants.  And, in the long run saves not only resources, but money as well. 

We start most seeds in the little 1/2 inch cubes in plastic trays that I save from our seitan consumption.  I wash these and use them year after year, as long as we have not had any damping off problems.  If we do, I recycle those trays and start with fresh ones.  Some brands of tofu also come in those containers.  When the majority of the seed in a tray have sprouted, I up-pot them using the 2-inch blocker.  When I up-pot, I give the seedlings a little boost by mixing a little kelp extract in with their water.

It's always exciting for me to see the first of the seedlings emerge.  Kinda feels like me - emerging from a long, dark winter with all kinds of hopes for a wonderful spring.

As these sprouts continue to grow, my other sprouts are growing strong too.

Sweetpea is learning how to actually knead pizza dough alongside her father.  (What a funny site to behold!)

Boy is learning how to use a knife.  Yike! 

And Munch is well on her way to learning to knit, and managing her own homeschooling time. 

Yes...  All my sprouts are growing strong.  And I love it.  What a way to wake up from a long winter's nap!

Ordering Seeds and Moving More Toward Local

I recently placed my seed order for this year.  Early for me - mid-January.  But, still not early enough.  My favorite corn - luscious - is unavailable from Fedco Seeds and on back order from Johnny's.  Seems like I'm always missing something.  Oh well.

As some of you know, we grow a lot of our own food.  What we don't grow ourselves, we get from a local organic farm.  Veggies - that is.  So far, we have been successful at growing our own or buying locally and in season most of our veggies.  I can, freeze, or store them depending on the type of veggie.  What veggies have we done this with?
corn
green beans (and yellow and purple)
broccoli
cauliflower
sweet peppers
hot peppers
tomatoes and their lovely products (minus ketchup and paste)
zucchini
onions
garlic
winter squash (mainly butternut)
snow peas
swiss chard, kale, and spinach
beets

But there are a few others I would really like to do better with - carrots and lettuce primarily, with a fair smattering of shell peas and celery, and a pinch of turnips and rutabagas thrown in for good measure.  My seed order reflected this.  I ordered lots of different types of carrots.  Mostly, I splurged on pelleted seeds for the ease of thinning and weeding.  I am a terribly lazy and scattered gardener.  Thinning carrot patches is WAY at the bottom of my list.  Boy is very into growing carrots.  I'm hoping to recruit his help for watering and weeding.  He had a large pot devoted to growing carrots last year.  He literally would sit on the bench and watch them sprout.  And, if you know anything about the way carrots grow, this is a long process.  I'm still amazed that he had the ability to sit still for that long.  Well, I suppose he did have a pretty cool bench to sit on...

I digress.

Carrots.  I'm going to grow lots of carrots this year.  And, I really need to figure something out as far as lettuce and winter goes.  We grow plenty of lettuce during the gardening season.  But winter is a different story.  A greenhouse would be wonderful, but not in the plans quite yet.  We are working on a big picture plan (fingers crossed please) that will make many of our dreams come true (twinkling, flashing stars are dancing about the room right now with fireworks being shot off in the distance).  For the time being, though, I need a lettuce plan.  We eat a lot of lettuce...

Fruits, dairy, beans/protein, and grains all have their local and organic stories as well.  We do fairly well with fruits.  Some of which we have to travel a bit for (30 minutes mainly), but we are ok with that for now.  Dairy - we don't eat a whole lot of dairy.  What we do eat comes from Ohio or PA dairies (it's nice to live right on the border).  We buy eggs produced organically from a local farmer.  Most, but not all, of our grains come from local sources as well.  The dry bean issue will have to wait it's turn.

Lettuce...  any ideas?

Our Harvest Storage System for Colder Storage

Since we finally got around to storing our potatoes and apples, I thought I would take this opportunity to show you all our cold storage system.  We keep our potatoes and apples out in the garage.  Our garage is unheated, so we've located our storage bin in a corner that has 2 inside walls.  For the other 2 walls of the bin, we stacked a few straw bales for good insulation.

Here's what it looks like:

Inside, we put in a little piece of plywood as a divider to separate our stacks of crates.  Not completely necessary, but since we are storing apples with potatoes, we thought every little bit of separation would be helpful.  (Since apples give off a gas that helps other veggies to ripen faster - something you definitely do NOT want in a winter storage system...)

As for our bins, we took some old grape crates and fitted them up to make them rodent proof.  Well, Nick fitted them up.  I just said 'thank you thank you thank you!'

First, he wrapped the whole crate in 1/4" hardware cloth (not really cloth at all, but a metal mesh) and stapled it in place.  Then he attached some scrap wood to the top and and front flap of the bin.  This allows an air gap between the crates when the are stacked on on top of the other.

To the edges of the piece of wood on the front flap, he added some hooks that will clip into eyes that he screwed into the front of the crate.

It looks like this from the back:

And, behold!!  A rodent proof storage bin that will hold about 1/2 bushel.

Stacked.

And put into the garage bin.

Apples in the back, potatoes and garden seeds in the front.

And topped off with some found insulated cardboard, foam board, and cardboard pieces.

Volunteers

As you may know, our garden sits on my husband's family property about 5 miles away from where we live.  Out there, we have several compost bins for our garden scraps, for the food scraps of those that live there and for those from a local vegan take out restaurant.  This year we had a volunteer squash plant growing out of one of those bins.

A monster squash plant, to be precise.

And that one plant yielded this:

I could not grow a lovelier plant if I tried (because believe me!  I've tried!).

Plenty enough to go around!!!

We took a few, gave a few to my sister in law, and our friends at the restaurant.  We will store ours along with those we purchased from our local organic farm.  Butternuts are probably the easiest veggie to store.  Seriously, you need no special anything.  Just a cooler room in your home.

To cure the squashes, leave them in the sun or in a sunny window for about a week or 2.  This allows the skin to harden to a nice protective layer.  After they have cured, put them in a room (or closet) that stays somewhere around 50 - 60 degrees, and they will be very happy until spring.

Just as a note, if you are storing less than perfect squashes, the storage life may not be quiet so long.

Very very rewarding!

In My Garden

I spent much of Sunday in my severely neglected garden.  Thankfully, it's that time of year where things are more or less taking care of themselves.  (At least that's what I tell myself when I can't make it out there...)

We are still getting lots of lovely veggies.

Some things, I was expecting - tomatoes, peppers...  Other things were complete surprises - beans, gourds (that I did NOT plant)...

I have been slowly learning how to use our camera.  The garden provides lots and lots of opportunities to practice.  Flowers in the garden are always a wonderful sight, but especially at this time of year when everything is settling back to the earth.

Calming Chamomile...

One of my new favorite flowers - four o'clocks.  I love them.

Looks like a hummingbirds dream flower to me, although I have not seen any on them.

My pepper beds - loaded with peppers and zinnias.  This has to be one of my favorite veggie/flower combinations to plant in my garden.

Amongst all the colorful flowers, you can see the beginnings of the gardens winter hibernation.

A lonesome butternut squash peeking out from behind the dying tomato plants.

Happy snapdragons.  How could they not be happy?

And last on the tour of the garden today is the lovely volunteer black-eyed susan that wanders from place to place each year.  She always brings a smile to my face when I notice she has come back to visit.

What's still growing in your garden?  What makes you smile to see this time of year?