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. 

What really needs to be sown inside?

I've been thinking about this a lot this year.  After the unmitigated disaster that was my lettuce and cole crops, I'm rethinking how best to proceed in future years. 

What I'm realizing, is that there aren't terribly many crops that need to be seeded under lights in my zone 6 climate.  Sure, the tomatoes, peppers and eggplants must be.  How about the lettuces and cole crops.  I had initially started them inside in an attempt to get an earlier crop.

I do realize that in the case of the lettuce, I had started it far too early.  The lettuce isn't a huge issue though, it's the cole crops.  We eat a lot of them and I've had terrible luck thus far.  They come up beautifully and then proceed to die one by one.  When I realized that not very much had survived, I direct seeded more crops a few weeks ago.

So far they seem to be coming along nicely.  Currently they are getting rained on, so they'll be even happier, even with the cold weather we're having right now. 

The lettuce and chard are doing quite well also.

Enter the hoop house.  I fully plan to maintain the hoops with cold tolerant crops all winter.  In early spring there will be plenty of space vacated by veggies that we've eaten, to start whatever I like.  Since I've had lousy luck inside and seem to do better out, it would make sense to just wait and start things where they'll stay. 

If this works for me, it will mean less work babysitting seedlings inside.  Less space taken up in my tiny house and less electricity used by my grow lights.  Sounds like a win win situation to me.  What do you think? 

Better than candy

 

Ok, so I've said before that I have a bit of a seed/gardening supply habit.  It has now passed onto the kids.  These things happen.  I should have known that if I used these things in front of my kids, that they would think it was ok and start experimenting themselves.  They've branched out into flowers more than I usually do though.  They want to attract the bee crowd and possibly set up a hive.  They keep begging every time we pass a seed display.  The other day they decided that it would be cool to look at all my garden porn.  I guess I didn't hide it well enough. 

Seriously though, do you see that electronic soil tester?  It gives readings for ph and organic matter.  How cool is that?  I had seen one before on another blog, and now I have my own!  I had to get some new gloves as well.  I'm hoping that the red color will stand out better, so that when I set them down, I can find them.  

I now have everything that I need to start my gardening year off.  We got the lights for my new seed starting shelves, soil, containers and seeds.  I'm sure that I'll be tempted into buying other things along the way, but for now, I'm good.  Off to start some onion seeds!

The First Seeds Arrive

Baker Creek was quite speedy this year.  These wonderful seeds arrived on Saturday.  As usual, they sent along a free pack of seeds, this year it was Mizuna.  It was awfully thoughtful of them to realize that it would fit nicely in my garden this year!  Many of these seeds will go to friends.  Beans and spinach to K and J.  Cukes to K. 

You may notice that there is a very silly little girl trying to get in the picture above.  I thought she needed her own picture.

She can't wait to help Mom plant the garden this summer.  She is my best helper.  As soon as the onion seeds get here, we'll see those inside.  Dirt in the house.  Does it get any better?

Seed Ordering

It is done!  My friend K and I sat down today and ordered our seeds.  She is a fabulous gardener, but new to veggies and wanted some input.  I got quite a few old favorites, but am also trying a few new things this year.   Among them are Tatsoi, and Prize Choy from Fedco, I'm excited to get into some of the Asian varieties.  Hubby is as well, since that means more Asian food on the menu. 

This is my first year buying spring and fall versions of some things.  Namely Nutribud Broccoli for the spring and Waltham for the fall from Pinetree.  Also from Pinetree will be Early Jersey Wakefield Cabbage and Danish Ball head cabbage. 

I'm interested to try a New Zealand spinach that is not a true spinach, but a perrenial.  K is from New Zealand, so this is very exciting for both of us to try.  The fact that it is a perrenial is fabulous as well.  I can't wait to try it.  Now, I just have to wait patiently for our seeds to arrive so that I can play with them!

Garden goals for the year

Like every gardener, I'm always dreaming of the perfect garden.  In reality, there is no such thing.  The perfect garden will only exist in my imagination.   So every year I spend my time planning what I can do better next year.  Some things can't be controlled.  This year the weather was a major factor.  There wasn't much I could do to improve the fact that we got rain for the entire month of June.  All I can do is work with  what I'm given.  My plans for this year will include dealing better with what I'm dealt. 

1. Plant more storage and cold weather crops.  I live in New England, not an area well known for long hot summers.  The more I read, the more I realize that I need to stop concentrating on things like tomatoes and peppers that are really forced to grow here.  I'll still grow them, but want to increase the crops that really thrive here.  I'll be looking to grow more root veggies and greens.  Which brings me to.

2.  Work on season extension.  We have a relatively short growing season here in my zone 6 garden.  Those who have read my blog for a bit know that I added some beds made from cinder blocks.  I will be making some of them into hoop houses.  With some electrical conduit or PVC pipe and heavy duty plastic, I should have a nice large area to nurture some spring crops and keep fall and winter crops next year.  This is something I've wanted to do for 2 years now, but haven't had the nerve to try.  I'm certainly someone who needs to think about things for a while before I do them.  My inspiration came from Eliot Coleman's wonderful Four Season Harvest.  I highly recommend this book for anyone who dreams of having fresh veggies in January.  Its certainly my dream.

3.  Increase the perrenial fruits and veggies.  I've been doing this for a few years.  So far in my tiny suburban yard I have 5 apple trees, 2 peach trees and a cherry tree.  Last year I also added 6 blueberry bushes, 5 of which survived my kids.  This year I'll be adding strawberries at the least, but would also like to add asparagus and possibly grapes.  Herbs have been added to as well and will continue this year as well.  I have thyme, oregano and sage.  I'll be adding more oregano, mint and some medicinal herbs as well this year.

4.  Increase my own seed saving.  I've been slowly learning to save my own seeds.  This year I saved tomato and pumpkin seeds.  Next year I'd like to try my hand at saving some more difficult seeds.  I love the thought of saving all my own seeds.  As much as I love looking at seed catalogs each year, it would be nice to only have to buy one or two new varieties every once in a while.

5.  Keep better track of, my harvests.  It's been neat to watch so many bloggers weighing their bountiful harvests.  It's truly amazing to see how many pound of produce come from relatively small plots of land.  I'd like to see how much I can get from my little suburban plot as well.  This will also help me to see where I can make improvements. 

I'm sure I'll be adding more goals along the way, but this is a start.  What are some of your garden goals for the year? 

Making lists

I love to make lists.  These are actually 2 older lists that were sitting on my desk.  I seem to always have several going at the same time.  There are small pads of paper all over the house.  I'm not the best housekeeper, so very often they will be found under furniture, in piles and other places that they get lost in. 

With the New Year coming, the lists start to take on the form of goals for the year.  I've given up on formal resolutions, instead I make lists of things I'd like to accomplish over the year.  If  few of those things get done, then I've been successful.  As you might imagine, many of those goals have to do with gardening and the other things I do to simplify our lives.

I find the more that we pull away from the life that we once led, the longer my lists get.  It is funny that we call it simplifying.  I find it so amazing that these things were commonplace not so very long ago, and still are in many cultures around the world.  How did we go so far in such a short period of time?  Now it's considered strange to try to simplify. 

I'll be posting lots of those lists in the coming weeks.  I'm thinking that many of my goals will be placed in the side bar to keep better track of.  That should keep me honest.  Since there are lots of categories in my lists as well, I'll probably do separate posts on many of them.  How is your list making coming?

Looking back

This time of year is the perfect time to reflect on our year and what we've done.  My parents have always written a Christmas letter detailing what the family has done and this year was no exception.  I always find it interesting to see what my Dad has decided to write about.  This year I have apparently become a Hayseed.  I'm not sure what exactly this means in my Dad's mind, but it appears to be his way of saying that I have a big garden and chickens.  Mind you, my parents have had both as well.  Apparently this never occurred to them.

In any case, it has been a good year.  We did in fact get chickens.  I had been talking about them for years, since we were in 4H and our leader got her first 4 chicks.  J and I had said we wanted to get them and he had the plans drawn up for their tractor.  Somehow, when I got the call from my friend that the chicks were in, it all seemed to soon.  I got them set up in a big plastic tub in the basement.  The kids were beside themselves wanting to hold the chicks all the time.  The neighborhood all had to look and name the girls.  We fretted over Mary and whether she was going to make it.  She did wonderfully of course and now they are happily laying eggs and eating up all manner of leftovers and greens.

The garden was much more manageable for me.  The previous year I had done the major expansion.  My garden plan  was crazy and made it difficult for me to manage the garden.  This year I decided to go back to what I know.  I made 7 beds that are approximately 4x12 or so.  The walkways were lined with boxes from Hubby's computer business.  I started all of my own plants from seed.  This was not the first year for that, but each year it seems that I start more and more seeds.  I tried making seed tapes for my carrots and beets.  The carrots were a dismal failure, but the beets did well. 

We had a crazy summer for weather.  June was cold and rained 26 of 30 days.  Everything was behind and waterlogged.  The tomatoes got blight, but gave me a decent crop before completely succumbing.  The zucchini did exceptionally well, but the winter squashes did nothing.  Due to being ill prepared in the Spring, my peas got planted late.  That combined with our crazy June weather, left us with a much smaller crop of sugar snaps than we would have liked.  The bush beans, however, went absolutely crazy. 

I grew tomatillos for the first time this year.  They produced more tomatillos than I knew what to do with.  After making a green salsa, I decided that we probably wouldn't grow them again next year.  The lettuce loved the wet, cool weather and grew like gangbusters.  I grew a mix from Baker Creek that I really liked.  Morgan thought it was wonderful that Mommy grew a snack for her.  She spent the summer snacking on the lettuce whenever she was out.  The beets and chard did very well, with the chard still going up until last week's snow storm. 

I had a crop of potatoes that I didn't plant last Spring.  The previous year I had planted potatoes that didn't do as well as I would have liked.  Apparently I missed quite a few and I ended up with several hills of potatoes cropping up.  They did pretty well with all the rain we had and I ended up with 10 lbs of potatoes for my lack of work.  The onions did pretty well also, although we only had enough to eat fresh over the summer.  I also planted leeks that grew well.  They didn't get used as much as they should have and probably won't be planted again. 

The orchard expanded as well.  We added another peach tree and 3 more apples.  This brought us up to 5 apples, 2 peach and a cherry tree.  I also added 6 blueberry bushes in the back yard.  These did well, although they are where the kids play and 1 ended up a casualty of play.  The rest look really good and I'm hoping for a good crop of blueberries next year. 

I held canning classes for the first time this summer.  We made Triple Berry Jam and learned how to water bath can.  There was a second set of classes on pressure canning beans, but that was not as big a draw.  We'll see if there is any interest next year. 

In the fall I expanded the garden again.  This time with about 350 sq ft of raised beds.  This will allow me to continue on my quest to raise the majority of my family's fruit and veggie needs.  We've all really gotten hooked on our own veggies, much preferring them to anything else we could buy.

In the same vein, we've really expanded on eating locally this year.  We got half a grass fed cow from a local farmer, chickens from a local butcher and a pig as well.  Our milk is raw milk from a local dairy of pastured cows.  All that, combined with our own eggs, means that well over 90 percent of our protein sources are local and sustainable.  As my kids would say, they're from the nice farmers, not the mean ones.  Our little town started its first Farmer's Market, which was a huge success.  It was great to be able to supplement our garden with fresh, local, organic veggies. 

Its been a great year.  This is my first year blogging regularly and it has been a blast.  I'm looking forward to next year as well.  The list of things I want to accomplish gets longer and longer, but that's half the fun.

Mommy, I don't like the store bought veggies.

That was what my 8 year old told me at dinner tonight.  My gardener's and my mother's heart sang.  We were eating an organic mixed veggie mix from Trader Joes and he kept picking out the green beans and telling me they didn't taste like real green beans.  Well, how about that? 

We then started talking about the fact that I was trying to grow all of our veggies.  The kids have always helped me pick out different seeds for the garden.  We like trying different colored carrots and such.  Tonight we were debating whether it was better to start a permanent strawberry bed, or an asparagus bed.  The kids both like asparagus, but of course picked strawberries.  Hubby picked the asparagus.  I may have to build one more bed. 

The next conversation was the kids listing all the vegetables that were their favorites.  They both ran out of fingers and toes.  How cool is that?  Since my Fedco catalog arrived this afternoon, you know what I'll be doing as soon as I post this. 

First Snow

This is one of the reasons I love living in New England.  The defined seasons are so joyous to me.  The first snow of the year is magic.  The kids woke up so excited to go outside.  The world was new and beautiful.

As I look around I realize there are still things to be put away.  The snow was a bit of a surprise.  We were supposed to get mostly rain in my neck of the woods.

The chickens were excited too.  We had put up plastic on one side of their tractor the other day.  Its on the side where the wind usually comes from to protect them from drifts in their run.  It appears to have worked perfectly, although we only got an inch or so.

Toby was thrilled as well.  He loves the snow.  His favorite is the deep snow.  Last year he became rather famous on our street as the king of the snow pile.  Every day he would be out on the hill of snow created by the plow.

I'm curious to see how the leeks will do now.  This snow won't last long and we aren't predicted to get anymore for a bit.

The kids may not come in today.  We'll have some hot chocolate and waffles when they do finally make it in.  

Time for reading

This is the time of the year that I actually have a few minutes to sit down and read up on things.  I love books, and have a bad habit of needing to own them all.   The picture above shows a sampling of the many books I own.  I love books on gardening, homesteading, preserving, frugality, and well, you get the idea.

At the library yesterday, there was a copy of John Jeavons book, The Sustainable Vegetable Garden.  Its very interesting and extremely detailed.  I need more though.  My library is pretty pathetic these days as a result of budget cuts, but I have lots of credits on paperbackswap.com. 

Some books that I really love are in the picture above.  Carla Emery's Encyclopedia of Country Living is amazing.  There is so much information in that book on everything from gardening to being frugal, cooking, preserving and raising and butchering animals.  Just amazing.

I also really love Eliot Coleman's book Four Season Harvest.  It has so much practical information on season extension for your garden. 

The frugalista in me loves The Tightwad Gazette.  Its funny to read it, since although it was written about 15 years ago, the economy was doing poorly then and there were lots of people looking into the frugal lifestyle.  Her basic recipes are wonderful to make something from just about any ingredients you happen to have laying around.  Some things are outdated, but overall its a wonderful resource. 

Some other good ones are Seed to Seed by Suzanne Ashworth.  My sister in law is currently borrowing it, so it isn't pictured.  It has everything you ever wanted to know about saving your own seed.  Then there are all the preserving books, like Root Cellaring by the Bubels, Mary Bell's Complete Dehydrator cookbook and Ball's complete book of Home Preserving. 

Recently I've been reading more on the local food and sustainability fronts.  Sharon Astyk has 3 books out right now with a fourth on the way, so far my favorite has been Independence Days.  I also really enjoyed Animal, Vegetable, Mineral by Barbara Kingsolver and The Omnivore's Dilemma by Michael Pollan. 

Please share some of your favorites with me.

Pumpkin seed saving

When I processed my pumpkins the other day, I decided to save some seeds.  Pumpkins tend to cross rather easily, so this isn't something I would normally do from a pumpkin I didn't grow myself.  However, we picked these at a farm where there was an acre of just pie pumpkins, so I thought it was probably safe. 

Pumpkin seeds. like tomato seeds, have a slimy coating that needs to be removed first.  I started by removing the amount I wanted and placing them in a bowl with a small amount of water.

After a few days they developed a bit of scum on them.  The scum helps to rid the seeds of their coating.  The next step is to place the seeds in a colander and rinse them thoroughly.  They are then put on a plate to dry thoroughly.  You need to dry them a bit more than you might think.  I leave mine on the plate in my kitchen for a few days.

When they are thoroughly dried, you can package them into envelopes or other containers to await planting.  If anyone wants a few seeds, let me know and I'll send what I can off to you.

One more weekend outside

We've been having an unusually mild fall so far this year.  Its really amazing considering last year we had already had several snow storms and below average temperatures.  This year I still have unprotected veggies growing.  Imagine what would be growing had I built hoop houses? 

The thing is that with the nice weather, I haven't had that sense of urgency to finish up all the fall tasks.  There were a few little things that still needed my attention.  Since our forecast is finally showing some winter on the way, I got out and got a few things done.

The compost bins were married together to finish off for Spring.  They were already doing quite well, but I had added quite a bit of green matter over the last few weeks.  This way the pile can heat up again and hopefully finish off for next year's garden.  That also leaves me an empty bin to fill up over the winter months.  I continue to compost over the winter because my bins are right out the back door and over the side of the deck.  They are looking a little rough, so next year I'll be looking to rebuild them.  I'm also realizing that I won't have nearly as much matter for the bins this winter, since we now have the chickens eating lots of bits and pieces.  However, I'll have some wonderfully composted chicken poo for the garden next year as well.

I also finally got around to weeding the edge of the garden.  This will allow me to plant my peas as early as possible.  Last year they didn't get planted until May and my crop was pitiful as a result.  We love sugar snap peas, so this was very necessary. 

Lastly the half made bed got the tarp layed over it.  This was originally where I had put the sod from the garden expansion 2 years ago.  It had composted down wonderfully and was used as an overflow bed this summer.  It also still has way too many weeds and seeds in it that need to die back.  The tarp will help to heat things up and kill of a lot of the seeds and allow me to finish off the bed early next spring.  Its final destination will be as an allium bed for all my onions and garlic.  I'll be adding lots of compost and sand to make it a light, well fed bed.  An online gardener friend tells me that I can keep it as a permanent bed for them.  As long as it is kept well fed with compost, it should be fine. 

There are so many plans I have in my head for next year's garden, I just can't wait. 

Thoughts on next year's garden

I've been reading the posts on gardening over the The Modern Victory Garden blog.  They are so wonderful and thought provoking.  If you haven't checked out her wonderful blog, I encourage you to do so.  This week she is posting about intensive planting in raised beds.  Super stuff. 

I'm still new to the gardening thing, as I've only had a garden for 6 years now.  Its had quite a few incarnations over the years.  I started out with a few 4x4 squares surrounded by pavers.  The soil was amended in a similar fashion to what Mel Bartholomew says in his first book.  Each year I added more squares until 2 years ago when I expanded out to a 1000 sq foot block.  The first year I tried to do a complicated design of beds and traditional rows that was a disaster.  This past year I went back to what I know and had 7 4x12 sloped beds.  The edges of the garden were also planted in peas to take advantage of the fencing for trellising. 

If you've read my blog for the past few months you will be aware of the addition I built this year using cinder blocks filled with compost to add to the garden.  I'm really curious to see what kind of difference there will be in the production and ease of use between the 2 systems.  My eventual goal will be to add cinder blocks to the current sloped beds to make them raised as well.  I could probably double dig the sloped beds, but my back just can't do it right now.  I really need to make the beds as back friendly as I possibly can as I anticipate the problem getting worse before it gets better.  I don't want to give up my garden!

I'm also looking at trying the seed tapes/mats again.  The problem may have been a few things.  First I didn't test the napkins I was using to see if they would dissolve easily.  Second I was using old seed.  Probably not the best indicator of whether it was a viable option or not.  Since I'm again working with a bad back, the seed mat option is something I want to try again.  I have to say they worked well for the beets, but the seeds are much bigger and were fresher. 

Pouring over seed catalogs its always so wonderful to dream about next year's perfect garden.  Each year I learn a little bit more about what works and what doesn't.  The garden bloggers out there are a wonderful source of information as well.  I can't imagine doing this without their help.  Since there aren't a lot of old seasoned gardeners around me, it's wonderful to have the internet to take their place.

Making pumpkin puree

One of the things I'm asked a lot, is how to process pumpkins.  Its very easy and while the whole process takes a while, it doesn't take much of your actual hands on time.  We got these pumpkins on a field trip with our wonderful nature club.  They've decorated the house for about a month and its time for them to do their part. 

First you need to wash the outside of the pumpkin.  They can get dirty and you don't want that in your food.

Then cut them in half.  This is actually harder than it looks.  The shells of pie pumpkins are very hard.  Hubby used my cleaver to whack these pumpkins for me.  We ended up with shards of pumpkin and seeds all over the place.  You then scrape the guts out.  I saved some seeds for next year's garden.  I'll show the process in another post.  The remaining seeds and insides went to the chickens, although you may want to roast the seeds.  My family isn't big on pumpkin seeds, but the chickens are.

Then lay the pumpkins cut side down in a baking pan.  I slide it in the oven and then put about a quarter of an inch of water in the pan to help them steam.  Let them bake at 350 for about 50-60 minutes.  Then pull them out and let them cool for 30 minutes so that they can be safely handled.

Scoop the flesh out and put it into the food processor or blender to break up the strings.

I then put the pureed pumpkin into a colander lined with paper towels or cheesecloth.  There is a remarkable amount of water in that pumpkin, so be sure to do this step.

Lastly, package it up.  I like to put mine in bags with 2 C of puree, the same amount in a can of pumpkin.  They can be stored in the freezer for quite a while.  Ours is usually gone by the following summer.  I got 6 cups of puree from 3 medium sized pie pumpkins.  Considering how many pumpkins will grow from just a few seeds, its not a bad option for the garden.  

First catalog of the year!

Something for me to pour over this weekend in the rain.  I love seed catalogs.  

I'm a pot head

I was walking through my yard today, realizing that I still need to get everything put away.  There are pots everywhere.  This one is by itself on the deck.  Its a leftover from a project for the kids Nature Club.

This is a pot sitting just outside my garden.  My brother was quite upset that I bought it.  You see at the time he worked for a large pottery company located nearby.  I told him he needed to give me more pots to satisfy my addiction.

So he gave me this one.  Its just outside my front door in the herb and flower bed.  Once upon a time there was mint growing wildly in it.

I haven't a clue where this one came from.  My daughter decided that she and her friend were going to plant some flowers.  The got this pot, filled it with dirt and planted some zinnia seeds in it.  Its been sitting in my garden for the past few weeks.  Do you think anything is going to grow?

This is my post for the Sunday Stroll.  Check out who else is strolling at the Quiet Country House.

Baby, its cold outside!

It was 22 degrees when I woke up this morning.  We've had quite a few good frosts already, but this is the first real freeze.  The really crazy thing is, we're supposed to be in a warm up in the next 4 days or so.  There will be highs in the mid 60s at least.  The parsnips couldn't care less.

 

The chard is probably going to care a little bit more.  We'll see how it all goes.  I've never had chard this late, so I have no idea what this will do to it.  If all else fails, it will go to the chickens.

Almost done for the year

The kids were a huge help yesterday.  It cost me some candy and a few bucks in the end, but was well worth it.  They finished filling all but one bed.  I had already done a lot of it, but they did 3/4 of 1 and 1/3 of another of the big beds.  Then they decided that wasn't enough and raked my leaves, spreading them over the tops of the beds.  The little ones helped me plant 200 bulbs out as well.  I'm just amazed.  My back is still killing me, but it feels much better than it would have.  It would have taken me at least another day or so to do what they did in an afternoon.  Great kids.  Last Friday they raked another neighbor's leaves up as well.

All I have left to do is turn the last bed and fill it, weed the edges of the fenced garden and rake out the rest of the soil.  If my back was feeling better, I would get some cow manure spread, but its not the end of the world if I don't.  The garden is put to bed well and will be ready for me to plant the early things like peas, onions, lettuce and cole crops.  Maybe I'll get the kids to help me spread the manure...

Child labor

Ah, what a beautiful sight.