Edible South Shore

Many of you may have heard of the Edible magazines.  They're free in many areas and can be a great reference for the local food scene.  Recently, I struck up a conversation online with the publisher of Edible South Shore here in MA.  We had originally started talking about some online help she needed and ended up talking about the blog that went along with their website and magazine.   As a result, I'm now going to be writing for and managing the blog.  I hope you'll check out what I'm writing about there as well.

My first post is about gardening.  It's my passion and the reason that I got into the whole local food movement in the first place.  Edible South Shore blog.

Garden upgrades

I've talked for a bit about raising the beds within the older part of my garden.  My gardening had started with the Square Foot method, and it seems to be the easiest for me to work with.  After years of fighting the weeds in the informal pathways, that wanted to grow into my beds, I decided to bite the bullet.  Last fall, with the help of a friend (the same one who built my new coop), I became the proud owner of 7 new raised beds. 

The new beds are 4x12.  As I was installing them, I realized that all these years, I was shortchanging my garden.  It seemed that what I thought were 4x 12 beds, were in reality quite a bit shorter.  My wonderfully helpful neighbor helped me with some of the digging and lifting.  They were then topped with cow manure. 

 

Over the past several months, I've also topped with some crushed egg shells.  The bed in the far right got the clean out of my chicken coop last fall.  

The fence is being removed, as it is in the way of moving around some of the beds.  All in all, I have just under 700 sq ft of raised beds to plant in.  Considering 100 of that is planted in strawberries, I have 600 or so to plant.  It doesn't sound like much to me, but in reality is quite a bit of space.  I'd still like to add some additional beds, especially one for asparagus, but am just about out of space.  

All of these beds will now have pipe fittings added to make them all capable of being turned into hoops.  The brassicas in the basement are slated for planting in the hoops toward the middle to end of March, if things work out as I'd like.   The tatsoi is already up in the basement nursery, so the season has officially started as far as I'm concerned. 

Updates

Change is something we can always count on.  After much heartache, the farmer's market that I was working on, was closed.  The reasons why are too numerous to list, but we'll chalk it up to poor decisions made before I came on board and lack of community response. 

However, this has opened up time in my life.  As a result, I'll be writing and working for a new (to me) venture in the local food scene.  I'm very excited about it and will tell you all about it shortly.  The result will also be that I will be posting on a more regular basis to this blog as well. 

In gardening news, yesterday was Valentine's Day.  I'm not one for the Hallmark holiday, but I do have one tradition.  That would be starting my peppers and brassicas.  They're all warm and toasty, so I should have shoots soon.  The weather here in New England has been so warm this year, I'm wondering if we'll have an early spring and get a good long season.  I'm itching to go play outside. 

There are lots of wonderful things happening.  Stay tuned!

They have a rough life

I love my chickens.  They are by no means pets, but they are quite spoiled nonetheless.  When we had just the Buff Orpingtons, they roamed the yard in their chicken tractor.  This past summer, we added some Rhode Island Reds to the mix.  As a result, the girls got a much larger coop and yard. 

They don't move around on the grass anymore, but they still get great treats.  The garden is finishing up and we're about to get our first frost and possible snow.  They always get weeds and yucky produce, but lately, it's been even more.  Today it's worm eaten chard, an over- ripe watermelon and some small, under-developed eggplants.  They get so excited when they see me.  They don't always get treats, but it's often enough.  The alarm goes out and all 7 pair of feet come running.

 

We own half a duplex and the other half is empty and for sale.  I've seen several people look at my chickens and make faces.  The other day I got to talk to one of the real estate agents.  She tells me that the first time someone said that the chickens were bad, she told them to go and look at the chickens close up.  "Look", she said, "They have fresh fruits and vegetables.  They eat better than we do.  Plus, they don't smell.  Someone takes very good care of these chickens."  

Today, they also got a layer of plastic over the run.  Chickens don't mind the rain, but snow does not make them particularly happy.  Their poor little toes get cold.  Since I want my chickens to be outside whenever possible, their run gets covered each year to keep the snow to a minimum.  Snow still gets in there, but not nearly as much.  These girls are valuable, hard working members of our little homestead.  They deserve to be treated well. 

My latest obsession

When my friend Kerry emailed me about a soap class a few years ago, I was excited.  I thought it would be neat.  It seemed like something cool to learn how to do, but I wasn't sure, given my lack of interest in cosmetic things, if it would be something I would love.  The idea of making my own cheese seemed a bit more my speed.  The class was lots of fun and the soap turned out to be the best soap I had ever used.  My sensitive skin loved it.  My additive loathing self loved it.

So, Kerry and I made plans to make some more.  Last year we got together and made a whole bunch of soap for gifts and ourselves.  We ended up with a bunch of soap for gifts and personal use.  I'll admit to being a bit stingy with it, it's good stuff!

I still hadn't made any soap by myself.  We were getting low on soap and I didn't want to use the store bought stuff again.  It makes my skin feel funny.  The only solution was to bit the bullet and make it all by myself.  There is a surprising amount of stuff you need to make soap.  There are different oils, pots, blenders, additives if you like, and of course, the dreaded lye.  I got it all and even decided to get the fancy wooden mold.

 

It turned out to be even more fun when I got to pick out scents and additives.  My daughter and I picked out some neat scents and I was off.  We even got the supplies to make other nifty things like lip balm.  There are several batches curing in the kitchen right now.  The smell in my house is amazing.  

 

The only problem now is that I'm running out of racks to put all the soap on!

Today's Harvest

It's been a busy summer.  The garden has been neglected slightly more than usual, but it seems to be holding it's own.  I have lots on the agenda for the garden in the coming weeks.

The tomatoes were late to the party, but seem to be rolling in well now.  We had a big rain storm last week, so many of them split a bit.  Overall, they managed quite nicely.  It's that time of year when every day there are many pounds of tomatoes.  The canner has been getting a workout and the shelves are quickly filling with lots of yummy things for the winter.

Tomatillos are really coming in now as well.  I did one batch of tomatillo salsa last week and will be doing another this week.  It's indispensable in a lot of my recipes.  The plants produce like mad and as a result, it seems that I don't really need to plant them every year.  A good year of harvests can often last for 2 years.

Cucumbers are also doing well.  One that isn't pictured, is a monster that I found hanging behind the fence.  It was the enormous.  Hubby had to try it and was rewarded with a mouthful of very bitter cuke.  The chickens thought it was gourmet.

It's been a good year for watermelons.  I grew Sugar Babies this year.  After last year's disappointing harvest, I was ready to throw in the towel.  The kids begged and we gave it another try.  We were rewarded with several good sized melons and more to come.

It's also been a huge year for pumpkins and squash.  Zucchinis have thankfully, stopped coming in, but it was one of my biggest years for them.  The pumpkins did well and there is plenty more winter squash still in the garden.  I harvested several acorn squash a week or so ago.  And then there is the Hubbard squash.  I planted them in a 4x10 bed.  There were 2 hills and I planted another hill of another variety that I have since forgotten.  It's forgotten because it got over run by hubbards.  The vines were threatening world domination.  The squash pictured is larger than my food scale can handle, I'll have to get the bathroom scale out.  The problem is that there are 4 more (that I've found) out there and this one is far from being the largest.  I'm told that the taste is incredible, so we'll be having lots of fun with squash this year.  Since there are over 100 lbs of winter squashes yet to be harvested, I don't think we'll be needing to plant many next year.  There will be lots in the freezer for a while.

This post will be part of Harvest Monday over at Daphne's Dandelions.  Check out all the amazing produce being harvested around the country and even the world. 

I'm still here

A friend just reminded me that I have completely neglected my blog.  Since becoming the market manager at my town's Farmer's Market, I've become very involved with that.  It's getting to the point that the market doesn't require me to think about it constantly, so I think that an update is in order. 

The garden is going well.  After a cool, wet spring, we're having a hot summer.  This week we're due for a nice break from the heat though.  It's forecast for upper 70s all week.  After a summer of 90s it's quite welcome. 

I overplanted winter squash this year.  This is my hubbards plotting world domination.  The picture is from several weeks ago and they are growing everywhere.  It's made mowing the lawn interesting.  Since they sit right next to the shed, even getting the mower out is a chore.  In addition to the hubbards, I'm innundated with acorn squash, butternuts, sugar pie pumpkins and of course the zucchini.  We'll be living large this winter with the orange veggies. 

My tomatoes are on the late side this year, with nothing ripe yet.  They were small going in and I got them in the ground about 2 weeks later than I usually do. 

I promise to get some updated photos soon and give a better overview of what is going on.  Canning season is about to go into full swing, so there will be lots to see and do.