GrafixMuse's Garden Spot

Seed Starting: Onions and Leeks

2012-01-29T08:34:00.000-05:00

Finally! It's Time to Sow Something!!

This weekend it is time to start some onion seeds. Onions take a long time to develop from seed. Sowing inside in January or February under growing lights then transplanting to the garden in early spring is the only way that I can grow onion from seed and have them mature in my zone 5 garden.

I mass plant onions and leek seeds into recycled berry containers. The containers are about 4 inches deep and already have plenty of holes for drainage. This weekend I sowed White Sweet Spanish Onions, Evergreen Bunching Onions, and American Flag Leeks.

Onions and Leeks Sowed in Recycled Berry Trays

The containers are filled will pre-moistened seed starting mix. The seeds are sprinkled on top of the soil, covered with a small amount of seed starting mix, and pressed down gently to be sure the seeds are in contact with the moist soil. The containers are labeled, placed in a flat, covered with a humidity dome, and placed on a heat mat until the seeds sprout.

Once the onions emerge from the soil, the humidity dome is removed and the seedlings are placed under lights.

Onion Seedlings Growing Under Lights from 2011

I trim the onions to keep them around 3-inches high. The trimmings are added to soups, salads, or used as a pizza topping.

Onion Trimmings

Even though the seedlings seem crowded in their containers, with a little additional fertilizer they are happy until they are transplanted to their new home in the garden.

Onion Seedlings Ready to be Transplanted in the Garden

The seedlings are separated when transplanted and spaced out 3 to 4 inches apart depending on the variety.

Onion Seedlings Transplanted to the Garden

Onions Ready for Harvest Fall 2011

I look forward to sowing the first seeds of the year. I think about it often during the long and cold winter. All during the plotting and planning of the garden I obsess about planting something. The miracle of growing food is still amazing to me no matter how often I prepare a growing medium, sprinkle seeds, add water, and watch it grow to produce something that we can eat.

2012 Garden Planning: The Layout

2012-01-27T09:23:00.000-05:00

Winter has finally arrived. Snow in the past few weeks has covered the garden and insulated it from the cold temperatures that followed. Since the winters are long here in Maine, garden planning continues at a slow and thoughtful pace.

Planning begins with a blank garden plan, a list of plants that provide well for us, and a list of new things to try. Then I try to fit everything in the garden plan, determine how many plants of each are needed, and plan out my seed-starting schedule.

Some things to consider in this preparation are:

Crop Rotation: The Solanaceae family (tomatoes, peppers, potatoes, and eggplant) represents the majority of what is grown in the garden making crop rotation a challenge.
Growing Vertical: Tall trellised plants such as pole beans, indeterminate tomatoes are limited to the north end of the garden beds so they don't shade other plants.
Spring Planting: Early planting is mostly limited to the raised garden beds because they warm up and drain quicker in early spring than the in-ground beds. It is also easier to use hoop protection because the edges of the box helps hold them secure.

Fresh vegetables that mature quickly in spring is essential as we wait for the others to grow and produce. Fresh spinach, lettuce, herbs, and other various greens are extremely desirable after the long winter.

An inventory of the preserved garden bounty from last year also factors into the amount of plants in the plan. I don't weigh my harvests, but keep notes on the number of plants grown from year to year.

We rely heavily on canned tomato sauce, canned salsa, and frozen tomatoes to use in soups and stews. So tomatoes, peppers, onions, and garlic are considered staples in the garden and take priority on the garden space. So far last year's inventory is still plentiful and I think it will last us until the garden produces this summer. So little will be changed as far as the amount of plants.

A garden plan has been developed for 2012. A larger version can be seen here in my sidebar. It's a starting point and provides a general idea of what the 2012 garden will look like and the number of plants I will need to grow to fill it. I will probably adjust and tweak it as I go along. The seed-starting schedule will soon follow.

USDA Plant Hardiness Zone Map

2012-01-25T13:33:00.000-05:00

The USDA has published a new UDSA Plant Hardiness Zone Map today. My zone is now 5B instead of 5A.

2012 Garden Planning: Starting With a Blank Slate

2012-01-02T14:10:00.000-05:00

A day off from work for the New Year holiday provided some time to sit down and begin planning the 2012 garden. Improvements and expansions made over the past few years have really made gardening easier and more productive. I am not planning any major changes or digging any new beds this year, but there will be some expansion of existing beds. Below is a blank layout of the garden spot for 2012:

Bed A is an in-ground bed and will gain 2-feet on the north end. In 2011, this ground was covered with a layer of cardboard, mulch, and containers growing Roma tomatoes.

Containers growing at the north end of bed A in 2011.

By the end of the season, the grass was gone and the soil is ready to be amended and cultivated with the rest of the bed adding 16 square feet of growing space. Overall Bed A will measure 8x21 feet.

Bed B is also an in-ground bed that measures 8x19 feet. The two 4x4 beds from C and D will be moved to the south end of Bed B so the trellis can be utilized.

The largest change to the garden spot this year will involve the Square Foot Garden (SFG) beds. The area of beds C and D originally held six 4x4 SFGs, two rows of three 4x4 SFGs with 2.5-foot grassy paths in between.

Square Foot Gardens from Spring 2011

The frames of the two center SFG beds will be moved to Bed B and the grassy paths on either side will be dug up and combined into an in-ground gardening space. So from left to right will be a 4x4 SFG, a 9-foot in-ground garden bed, then another 4x4 SFG.

This change will make watering much easier and more efficient because I can string soaker hoses all the way across the beds. There will also be less grass trimming in between the paths and I will gain 40 square feet of additional growing space. In addition, I will still be able to reap the benefits of the raised beds warming quicker in the Spring. The two modified beds will measure 17.5x4 each.

Bed E is the newest bed dug last year. It measures 19x5 feet and will grow mostly potatoes this year.

My seed box is organized, I have a rough list of what I want to grow, and a blank slate to work with.... Now on to mapping out the garden and developing a seed starting schedule.

Farewell to 2011 - Hello 2012!

2011-12-31T11:32:00.001-05:00

I want to wish everyone a Happy, Healthy, and Safe New Year! I for one will be happy to say goodbye to 2011. Life has its ups and downs and this year had an abundance of complications, illness, and a loss of a loved one. Hopefully we can shed the gloom from 2011 and move on to more cheerfulness in 2012.

One bright spot in 2011 was the garden. It produced very well for us and we are still enjoying so much preserved bounty. Although I failed to compile a garden overview at the end of the year like I usually do, let me assure you that our basement and chest freezer are full of preserved produce grown in the garden. I am quite thankful for all that the garden spot provided for us.

Jars of canned tomato sauce, zesty salsa, grape jelly, applesauce, and string beans are stored on shelves in the basement. Also stored in the cool basement are two boxes of potatoes; several Delicata, Spaghetti, Butternut, and Pumpkin squashes; a basket of garlic, and a large bag of onions.

Our chest freezer holds some tomatoes frozen whole that can be used in soups, stews, or made into more tomato sauce or salsa. Other frozen produce include basil pesto, garlic scape pesto, Concord grapes, chopped onions, sliced celery, chopped leeks, pureed pumpkin, grated zucchini, julienned peppers, and sliced eggplant.

2011 was my second year growing from seed and I have found that I really enjoy growing and caring for seedlings in the early spring while snow covers the garden beds outside. Previously, I had purchased seedlings and the gardening season began around Labor Day. There is also much more variety to choose when growing from seed.

I am so eager to sort through my seed box and begin planning the garden for 2012.

Happy New Year!!

Gifts from the Garden

2011-12-27T18:28:00.000-05:00

It always ends up as a mad rush to Christmas. No matter how I plan or how early I begin, there is always something that I am scrambling to accomplish before the big day.

I was thrilled to be able to share jars of homemade goodies from the garden as gifts this year. I dressed up jars, made some simple labels, and presented them in gift baskets along with some small bags of tortilla chips and homemade English muffins.

In the week before Christmas, a plethora of fruit gifts graced our household. We had an abundance of Florida oranges so I thought I would can some homemade marmalade to include in some gift baskets.

I had never made marmalade before and used Janet Chadwick's recipe from The Beginner's Guide to Preserving Food at Home:

Orange Marmalade
Makes about 7 half-pint jars

6 large oranges
2 medium lemons
6 cups water
About 6 cups sugar

1. Wash the fruit. Remove the peel from the oranges and thinly slice. Chop the orange pulp. You should have 4 cups of thinly sliced peel and 4 cups of orange pulp. Thinly slice the lemons. You should have 1 cup of slices.

2. Combine the fruit, peel, and water in a tall, heavy-bottomed saucepan. Heat to a simmer and continue to simmer for 5 minutes. Remove from the heat, cover, and let stand for 12 to 18 hours.

3. Return the mixture to the stove and cook over medium heat until the peel is tender, about 1 hour.

4. Preheat the canner, sterilize the jars, and prepare the lids.

5. Measure fruit and liquid. For each 1 cup of fruit mixture, add 1 cup of sugar. Bring to a boil, then cook rapidly until marmalade reaches 220°F or sheets off the spoon, about 25 minutes.

6. Pour hot marmalade into the jars, leaving ¼-inch headspace. Wipe the rims of the jars with a clean, damp cloth. Adjust the lids as the manufacturer recommends.

7. Place the filled jars on a rack in the preheated canner. Process for 10 minutes once the water has returned to a boil.

8. When the processing time is up, carefully remove the jars from the canner using a jar lifter.

9. Cool sealed jars. Check seals. Remove screw bands. Label. Store.

I had some difficulty getting the mixture to reach 220°F and even used two different thermometers because I worried that one was faulty. However, the mixture did thicken up and dropped off a chilled spoon in a sheet. In fact the final marmalade ended up a bit too thick. I will know next time to trust the spoon test.

I opened a jar to give the marmalade a taste before packing it up as gifts. The flavor was very good, both sweet and bitter as marmalade should be. I was pretty satisfied from my first try and deemed the jars gift worthy.

I hope you all had an enjoyable Christmas filled with family, friends, and food.

Join others at “Thursdays Kitchen Cupboard” at The Gardener of Eden and share a what you've been baking, cooking, canning, drying, or how you have used some of your preserved garden bounty.

Suggestion to New Seeds of the Month Club Members: Date your seed packages as they arrive

2011-12-02T19:07:00.001-05:00

New members of Mike the Gardner's Seeds of the Month Club should keep an eye on their mailboxes. The first round of seeds from the Black Friday/Cyber Monday special were mailed out on Thursday from New Jersey and some members have received theirs already.

You may find it helpful to write the year on your seed envelopes when they arrive so you know how old they are once they are mixed in among your other seeds. Since the envelopes are packaged individually, they are not stamped with a date like some larger seed companies.

I hope you enjoy your seed surprises as much as I do.

Dogs in the Snow

2011-11-30T21:59:00.001-05:00

I hope you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving. K and I spent a quiet day here at home. Wednesday we were hit with a winter storm that quickly left 10-inches of snowfall behind. As we cleared the driveway, I worried about losing power. It has been a long time since I have cut up a chicken and I have never done so with a turkey. But I was prepared to attempt it if the power went out and we were reduced to cooking Thanksgiving on the wood stove and gas grill.

Luckily, we never lost power and everything went as planned. Pumpkin and Apple pies were baked the evening before, the turkey was stuffed and in the oven Thanksgiving morning, and the vegetables prepped. All the herbs and vegetables came from this year's garden. Everything was delicious and we ate too much as usual.

Here is a video that K shot of the dogs in the snow last Wednesday. Bradie is the yellow lab in the foreground; Millie is the golden in the distance:

One week later, the snow is gone. Temperatures have been unseasonably high this week and rain melted the last of the snow yesterday.

70% Off Black Friday Sale Seeds of the Month Club

2011-11-22T13:21:00.001-05:00

Update: Seeds of the Month Club 70% Off Sale has been EXTENDED to Cyber Monday, November 28th!!!

I posted on Sunday about Seeds of the Month Club. I thought the full price for this club was a great deal, but there is a Black Friday Sale that I can offer to the readers of this blog:

On November 25, 2011 between 5:00 am and 3:00 pm EST, if you order via the link below and use the referral code: HOLIDAY you can receive 70% off a membership of 1 year or longer (Sorry, not valid on lifetime memberships)!

1 Year: Regularly $~~32.04~~ 70% off with referral code HOLIDAY
2 Years: Regularly $~~59.28~~ 70% off with referral code HOLIDAY
3 Years: Regularly $~~81.72~~ 70% off with referral code HOLIDAY

Visit this link on November 25, 2011 between 5:00am and 3:00 pm EST:
Seeds of the Month Club Black Friday Sale!

By the way, please feel free to share this offer with your friends, through social media, or on your blog.

Update: Seeds of the Month Club 70% Off Sale has been EXTENDED to Cyber Monday, November 28th!!!

Holiday Gift Idea for the Gardener: Seeds of the Month Club

2011-11-20T15:14:00.001-05:00

I just can't resist packages of vegetable seeds. They represent so much promise. When I see a rack of seeds in stores, I usually end up with at least one package in my hands. I just can't help myself sometimes.

I recently signed up for a yearly subscription at Mike the Gardner's Seeds of the Month Club for $32.00. I received eight packets of seeds the first month after joining and four packets of seeds every month after. That is 52 packages of seeds a year (less than 62¢ each package).

I learned about Seeds of the Month Club after discovering the very active Vegetable Gardening facebook page. I won a few packages of seeds through contests and was impressed by the quality of the seeds. After interacting with the members on the page for a while, I decided to subscribe to the Seeds of the Month Club back in June of this year.

All seeds are non-gmo, open pollinated heirloom varieties that have been tested for a germination rate of 95% and higher. The seeds mailed are customized to your location and climate. Mike purchases the seeds in bulk and packages them up into individual seed envelopes with growing information printed on the back.

What makes it fun is the seeds that arrive each month are a complete surprise. I have received seeds for things that I have never grown before like New Zealand Spinach and Brussels Sprouts, but I am excited to try growing these next year. I also received seeds for some basics that I would purchase often anyway such as herbs, lettuce, peas, etc. If there are seeds that I can’t use, I will give them away or use them in seed swaps.

Seeds of the Month Club has an affiliate program. This means that if you buy a membership through my link below, I make a little on the deal at no added cost to you. So if you are interested and would like to order, please visit Seeds of the Month Club or click on the linked image below:

When you visit the link, you will see that you have several subscription offers to choose from:

Billed Monthly: $3.07 per month
1 Year: $32.04
2 Years: $59.28
3 Years: $81.72
Lifetime: $229.99

There are no additional shipping charges to any of the above prices. Please know I would not have become an affiliate or post this if I had not given the club a try myself and thought it was a good offer. Mike the Gardner's Seeds of the Month Club would also make a great holiday gift.

I would be happy to answer any questions that you may have. Please feel free to leave a comment or email me at grafixmuse (at) yahoo (dot) com.

Meet Millie

2011-11-19T08:06:00.001-05:00

We are thrilled to provide a loving home for Rena's dog and constant companion, Millie (AKA Millwood or Woody). She is a senior, golden mix with a sweet disposition and loving personality. She is also partially deaf and suffers from allergies.

Millie was a bit depressed when we brought her home, but within a week she seems to have adjusted quite well. Bradie has always shown respect when visiting Millie's home, but we weren't sure how she would behave once Millie was here. She's been very welcoming and sharing of her space and our attention.

Bradie (right) showing Millie the garden.

Bradie (back) showing Millie where to find apples.

The cats, Jasmine and Mysty have been a bit cautious with a new dog in the house but I am certain that they too will adjust. Millie lived with a mischievous cat and she assumes our cats will be similar. So she is trying to play with them, but they won't have any of that nonsense.

Millie rolling in the grass

Knowing that Millie suffered from allergies, our first priority was gradually shifting her food to one that is more natural and healthier for her. The transition went well and there seems to be an improvement already.

A vet visit has provided us with a plethora of medication, remedies, bathing, and cleaning items to help with her allergies. She is suffering from infection in her ears and paws. We are still waiting for blood and urine test results.

Millie will have a great existence here for as long as we are blessed to have her in our lives.

A Hole in Our Lives

2011-11-13T09:34:00.001-05:00

K's mother, Rena passed away recently after a long, long struggle with kidney disease. She was the most caring, kind, and giving person that I have ever known. She was also very strong, brave, and stubborn especially when facing this disease.

Rena loved her children and would do anything for them. She expressed her love in many ways, but one of the strongest was through her fabulous cooking and baking. She rarely allowed her illness to interfere with baking treats or preparing a special meal when visitors came to call.

Rena defied the doctors' expectations and survived way beyond the time they predicted. She and her family were allowed to make the best of the time she had left. K and his sister were with her in the end. The suffering has ended but the pain of the loss has begun. There is a big hole that will never be filled completely, but I hope Rena's strength resonates to those who loved her and helps them heal.

R.I.P Rena

Thursdays Kitchen Cupboard: November 3, 2011

2011-11-03T08:42:00.001-04:00

Every Thursday, Robin at The Gardener of Eden hosts “Thursdays Kitchen Cupboard” where we can share posts on how we are using our garden harvests.

Full Freezer

The only things remaining in the garden last weekend were leeks, green onions, and herbs. I had not harvested them because I was absolutely out of room in the freezer to freeze them. We have a chest freezer in the basement filled mostly with tomatoes right now. It was time to make some room.

I pulled out five 1-gallon freezer bags of tomatoes and placed them in a sink full of cold water to thaw out overnight:

Once the tomatoes were completely soft they were put through my Food Strainer and made into a batch of "Seasoned Tomato Sauce" (Ball Blue Book of Preserving) and canned:

There are still a lot of tomatoes in the freezer, but at least I made some room for the green onions and leeks from last week's harvest.

Although the gardening season is over, the canning will continue for me throughout the winter. There are still a good amount of this season's tomatoes, peppers and onions in the chest freezer waiting to be turned into sauce and salsa.

Join others at “Thursdays Kitchen Cupboard” at The Gardener of Eden and share a what you've been baking, cooking, canning, drying, or how you have used some of your preserved garden bounty.

Planting Garlic

2011-11-02T07:38:00.000-04:00

As I cleaned up the garden this past weekend in preparation for the snowstorm, I was faced with the yearly decision of where to plant the garlic for next years harvest. I needed to select a bed that did not have other alliums growing this year and did not compromise the garden planning for next year.

Garlic cloves ready for planting.

This is my third year planting garlic in Square Foot Gardens (SFG) and I have found that a 4x4 garden is the perfect size for the amount of garlic we use throughout the year. Once planted, garlic is pretty trouble free. I give it a little organic fertilizer at planting time and a little more part way through around the time the garlic scapes begin to emerge.

Garlic bed July 2011

There isn't much left to my Mel's Mix in my SFGs. Over the years the soil breaks down and is amended with fresh compost. I like SFGs because the raised beds warm quicker in the spring, water drains really well, and the grid system makes it very easy to plan.

I have also found that the beds tend to dry out more quickly than the rest of the garden, the plants roots usually don't stretch beyond the box, and nutrients become depleted quickly and must be replenished more often.

I decided to double dig this bed to loosen the soil beneath the bed to make it easier for roots to penetrate. I also wanted to incorporate some of the native soil from underneath.

Double digging the SFG

I added a generous amount of compost, mixed it all together, and leveled it off. Then I sprinkled some organic fertilizer over the top and worked in it to the top few inches with a rake.

The garlic was planted 6-inches apart and 4 inches deep, then covered with a generous layer of hay. I usually use shredded leaves, but haven't raked any yet this year. It was very windy; so I had to anchor the hay down to keep it in place.

Mulched with hay

Covered with snow from October storm

Harvest Monday: October 31, 2011

2011-10-31T07:40:00.000-04:00

Each Monday, Daphne’s Dandelions hosts “Harvest Monday” where everyone can share links to their garden yield for the week. It’s fun to see what everyone is harvesting each week and how they are enjoying their homegrown produce.

A few Leeks and Green Onions were reserved to use this week, but the remaining were chopped and frozen:

Leeks

Leeks - The largest was 3-inches wide, but most were around 1-inch.

Green Onions

Some sage was frozen whole to be used in stuffing, roasts, and stews over the winter months:

Sage

Thyme was gathered into bunches, wrapped with a rubber band around the stems, and hung to dry near the wood stove:

Thyme

Be sure to visit Daphne's Dandelions to see what others are harvesting this week.

Winter in October

2011-10-30T15:20:00.000-04:00

We ended up with about 4-5 inches of very wet heavy snow this morning. It has melted quickly over the course of the day.

Snow covered garden.

Raspberries bent over from the weight of the heavy snow.

The biggest issue was we had no power until about 2:15 this afternoon. I made tomato sauce yesterday and was planning on canning it this morning. Instead I was firing up the wood stove for warmth and to heat water for tea.

Bradie finding frozen apples beneath the snow.

Hopefully the snow will be gone soon and we can enjoy fall a little while longer.

Thursday's Kitchen Cupboard: Roasted Vegetables

2011-10-29T15:45:00.000-04:00

“Thursdays Kitchen Cupboard” is a way for us to share posts on how we are using our garden harvests. Jody at Spring Garden Acre is hosting “Thursdays Kitchen Cupboard” this week while Robin at The Gardener of Eden is on vacation.

Variations of roasted vegetables are made at least one a week at my house using whatever fresh vegetables the garden provides along with whatever meat I happen to have on hand. In the summer the roasting occurs on the grill or in a crock-pot. In cooler weather, it is roasted in the oven. It is never the same meal twice. All vegetables, seasoning, and meat are interchangeable. I usually throw in whatever is on hand at the time. Below is how I prepared the meal last weekend.

Roasted Rosemary Chicken and Vegetables

1 pound of boneless chicken breasts cut into 2 inch pieces
1 pound of potatoes cut into 2 inch cubes
2 cups of summer squash (zucchini and yellow summer) cut into 2 inch cubes
1 small delicata squash cut into 2 inch cubes
4 carrots cut into 2 inch chunks
2 medium red onions cut into wedges
4 cloves of garlic, crushed
2 Tablespoons fresh Italian herbs, chopped (rosemary, thyme, parsley, oregano, basil)
5 sprigs of rosemary
1/2 cup bread crumbs
Olive oil
Vinegar of your choice (white, balsamic, cider, etc.)
Fresh ground pepper
Sea salt

Preheat oven to 425˚F.

In a medium bowl, whisk together 1 Tablespoon olive oil, 1/2 Tablespoon of vinegar. Add chicken pieces and stir to coat. Set aside.

Place all chopped vegetables in a roasting pan. Sprinkle with half the Italian herbs, fresh ground pepper, and sea salt to taste, then drizzle with olive oil. Stir to coat.

Place bread crumbs in a flat bowl. Add remaining Italian seasoning and fresh ground pepper. Stir to combine.

Dredge chicken pieces in bread crumb mixture and add pieces to the roasting pan on top of the vegetables. Top with rosemary springs.

Cover roasting pan with foil and place in oven for about 30 minutes. Remove foil and continue roasting another 30 minutes or until vegetables are soft and chicken is cooked through.

The variations to this meal are endless. Meat is optional. You can include whatever vegetables are in your harvest basket for that day. You can easily experiment with different herb combinations.

Join others at “Thursdays Kitchen Cupboard” at Spring Garden Acre this week and share what you've been baking, cooking, canning, drying, or how you have used some of your preserved garden bounty.

Nor'easter in October?

2011-10-28T23:02:00.001-04:00

The weather people are predicting a Nor’easter this weekend in New England. Winter storm watches and cancellation announcements are already scrolling across the local news stations and websites. The potential snowfall for my area is 5-10 inches.

I am so not ready.

Today was a pleasant day to work outside in the garden. It was chilly, in the 40s with a cold wind but the sun was warm. My goals were to harvest some herbs, the last of the green onions, and the leeks. I also needed to prepare the garlic bed and plant the garlic.

I was able to accomplish these goals and also move the Self Watering Containers and pots into the shed, wind up all the garden hoses, and shovel out some compost on the new garden bed dug this year.

It is rare that we have snow by Thanksgiving. There is still so much that we need to do before winter takes hold. We still have leaves to rake, shred, and add to the compost pile. There is a pile of wood in our driveway in need of stacking. And the garden isn't as cleaned up as I would like it to be.

Tomorrow will be devoted to final storm preparations. The leaves still on the trees will be heavy with a coating of snow and may cause power outages. So we need to be sure we are prepared for no power. Luckily, the wood stove and chimney have already been cleaned and prepared for winter and the snow thrower is ready for action.

Hopefully the snow that falls this weekend is not an indication of the type of winter we will have and will melt quickly.

Thursday's Kitchen Cupboard: Pumpkins

2011-10-20T19:27:00.000-04:00

Robin at The Gardener of Eden is hosting “Thursdays Kitchen Cupboard” where we can share how our garden harvests have been used or preserved.

It was fun to grow pumpkins this year. I grew two Sugar Pie Pumpkin plants from seed and they sprawled among other squash plants in the newly dug garden bed.

I had three Sugar Pie Pumpkins that needed tending to this past weekend. Deer had nibbled on the outer skins and the pumpkin had begun to get soft in those areas.

The pumpkins were prepared to make into puree by first carefully cutting into pieces and trimming the rotted parts out. The pulp was scraped out with a spoon reminding me of childhood jack-o-lantern. The seeds were reserved.

The pumpkin pieces were placed in a roasting pan and the pan was placed into a 350F degree oven to roast up to an hour or until tender.

In the mean time, the pumpkin seeds were rinsed well and patted dry with paper towels. The seeds were tossed in olive oil, garlic powder, and chili powder then spread out on baking sheets. After a quick sprinkling of sea salt, the baking sheets joined the pumpkin already in the oven. The seeds were baked until they began to turn golden brown. Then they were stirred and spread out again so they would toast evenly. 20 minutes later the seeds were removed from the oven and allowed to cool on the baking sheets.

The pumpkin was removed from the oven when a fork pierced the skin easily then allowed to cool. Once cooled, the pumpkin's skins slipped right off. The fruit was cut into smaller pieces and mashed with a potato masher (you could also use a blender or food processor), then divided up into freezer bags and frozen.

Two cups were reserved to make two loaves of Pumpkin Bread. I used the recipe from the very first cookbook I owned, Better Homes and Garden's New Cookbook.

Pumpkin Bread
(Makes 1 loaf)

1 cups unbleached all-purpose flour
1 cup packed brown sugar
1 tablespoon baking powder
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon nutmeg
1/8 teaspoon ground ginger
1 cup pumpkin puree
1/2 cup milk
2 eggs
1/3 cup butter

Preheat oven to 350˚F.

In a large mixing bowl, combine 1 cup of the flour, brown sugar, baking powder, cinnamon, salt, baking soda, nutmeg, and ginger. Add pumpkin, milk, eggs, and butter.

Beat with an electric mixer on low speed until blended then on high speed for 2 minutes. Add remaining flour and beat well.

Pour batter into a greased 9x5x3-inch loaf pan. Bake in a 350˚F oven for 60 to 65 minutes or until a toothpick inserted near the center comes out clean. Cool for 10 minutes on a wire rack. Remove from pan and cool thoroughly on a wire rack.

Join others at "Thursdays Kitchen Cupboard" at The Gardener of Eden and share what you've been baking, cooking, canning, drying, or how you have used some of your preserved garden bounty.

Harvest Monday: October 17, 2010

2011-10-17T08:01:00.000-04:00

Each Monday, Daphne’s Dandelions hosts “Harvest Monday” where everyone can share links to their garden yield for the week. It’s fun to see what everyone is harvesting each week and how they are enjoying their homegrown produce.

The Pak Choi seedlings grew fast and healthy under the lights. These never made it to the garden. Instead they were used in a stir fry:

Baby Pak Choi

The last of the onions were harvested and allowed to cure in the warm sun:

Onions

Some usable celery was found among the tattered stalks. This was used in a beef stew:

Celery

The potatoes were dug this week the damaged and small potatoes were used in a beef stew:

Dark Red Norland Poatoes

Kennebec Potatoes

Most of the garden is finished for the season. A lot of garden cleanup was accomplished last week during my vacation from work. Only green onions, leeks, and spinach are still in the garden. The broccoli was pulled because it was infested with caterpillars. The plants were covered with a row cover, but somehow a cabbage moth was able to find it. I am still contemplating the best spot to plant garlic this year.

Be sure to visit Daphne’s Dandelions to see what others are harvesting this week.

Liebster Blog Award

2011-10-14T17:03:00.001-04:00

I am honored to receive the "Liebster Blog Award" from Robin at The Gardener of Eden. Robin writes about her gardening adventures with her husband, "The Italian" as they grow and harvest from both a home kitchen garden and a community plot in Pennsylvania. Most recently, Robin has been in mega-canning mode. She preserves her garden bounty along with locally produced fruit and has been posting some unique and inspiring canning recipes. Be sure to visit and see for yourself what The Gardener of Eden is all about, and take time to leave a comment when you do. Thank you so much Robin for nominating my blog for this award.

"Liebster" is a German word meaning dear, sweet, kind, nice, good, beloved, lovely, kindly, pleasant, valued, cute, endearing, and welcome.

The Liebster Blog Award is designed to introduce others to enjoyable blogs that have less than 200 followers. When you accept the award, you choose 3-5 other blogs that you feel are deserving of more subscribers and pass the award on to them.

Here are the rules:
1. Thank the giver and link back to the blogger who gave it to you.
2. Reveal your top 5 picks and let them know by leaving a comment on their blog.
3. Copy and paste the award on your blog.
4. Have faith that your followers will spread the love to other bloggers.
5. And most of all - have fun!

Now it's my turn and I would like to nominate...

1. Back to Basics:It has been an interesting year for Jessica (AKA Prairie Cat) and her significant other Tad. They purchased a new 9-acre homestead in Missouri this summer. Even though the closing was delayed and they were nomads for a time, they planted and tended to a garden on the property anyway. Now that they are official farm owners, they have already acquired chickens. I can't wait to see what next year brings. Stop by Back to Basics and wish them well in their new home.

2. Dave's Square Foot Garden: Dave is not new to Square Foot Gardening, he gardened on his property in Massachusetts for several years before the surrounding trees eventually took back the land. This year, Dave began a new Square Foot Garden at a community plot at Bolton Community Gardens. He has also become a certified Square Foot Gardening teacher. Dave has posted his step-by-step process of building his new square foot garden on his blog. Visit Dave's Square Foot Garden blog or facebook page to catch up on his garden progress.

3. Fresh is Best CSA: Jeph not only loves gardening, but he partners with fellow gardener, Mary to grow enough produce to provide weekly shares of garden grown goodies to members of their CSA in Ohio. Jeph blogs about seed starting, garden progress, ways to use the harvest, and sneak peeks into the CSA shares of the week. Wow! Talk about knowing exactly where your food comes from. Follow along at Fresh is Best CSA.

4. Sinfonian's Garden Adventure: I followed Sinfonian's post on the GardenWeb forums for years before blogging became popular. Sinfonian's experiment with building potato towers put him on the map of popular bloggers several years ago. Since then, the potato tower fad has faded and Sinfonian experienced blog hosting problems that forced him to move his blog to a more stable platform. He gardens in Seattle WA area and blogs about his adventures with square foot gardening, raising chickens, and building chicken housing. His blog is always fun to read and I especially enjoyed watching his chicks grow up and begin laying. Visit Sinfonian's Garden Adventure and say "hello."

5. Georgia Home Garden:Kris caught the vegetable gardening bug a few years ago and built a new Square Foot Garden this year. It was fun watching his garden grow and I was very inspired with Kris' success with growing corn. He has also posted a great tip on how to fix a common problem of blown over corn. I can't wait to see what he grows next year. Visit Georgia Home Garden and leave a comment.

I hope you give these blogs a visit. Thank you again Robin for nominating my blog.

Digging the Kennebec and Dark Red Norland Potatoes

2011-10-13T08:45:00.000-04:00

On Tuesday we finally had some fall weather. Although it was a bonus to have such a beautiful summer like weekend with 80-degree temperatures, it is difficult for me to work in the garden when it is that warm. Tuesday was predicted to be in a more comfortable range 60s-70s. Rain is expected later in the week, so it seemed like a perfect day to dig up some potatoes.

Two varieties of potatoes were grown in two different garden beds in the garden, Dark Red Norland and Kennebec. They were planted using John Jeavons' Biointensive method. I wanted to try this technique after reading about Laura's (The Modern Victory Garden) 2010 success.

It was in the high 30s when I began digging on Tuesday morning. It was chilly but comfortable working in a sweatshirt and gardening gloves.

I began digging the Dark Red Norland bed first. The Dark Red Norland were planted on May 17th and began dying back around August 15th. Unfortunately, this provided three weeks less growing time than the previous year. It was clear when digging for new potatoes that the overall yield would be lower than the year before.

Most of this bed has been dug up earlier in the season for new potatoes, but I wanted to go through it in a more thoroughly to be sure I found all the potatoes. As expected, the potatoes were small and the overall yield was lower than last year. I also noticed that the quality of the soil in this bed is not very good and could use some heavy amending.

I then moved over the Kennebec bed. The Kennebec were planted on May 14 and began dying back around September 5th. Except for a little digging on one edge, this bed was left mostly undisturbed most of the growing season. I pulled off the soaker hose and raked off the hay that was used to mulch the bed. Already I could see many potatoes along the surface that grew beneath the covering of the hay. Most were protected, but some green ones were discarded. The green color is from chlorophyll and indicates that increased levels of solanine and chaconine may be present. After learning about solanine poisoning this year, I am not taking any chances.

was encouraged the moment I began digging the Kennebec bed. There were lots of potatoes and some very huge ones.

After a while of digging I was achy, tired, dirty, and hungry. I took a break and went inside. I was surprised to see it was lunchtime. I had been digging for four hours.

After lunch, I finished digging the Kennebec. Since there is little growing in the garden, the gates are left open so Bradie can come in. She enjoyed being allowed inside the garden fence.

I weighed the potatoes and spread them out to cure for a bit. Later I will box them up and place them in a cool spot in the winter. Ten pounds of seed yielded 47 pounds of potatoes. Last year, eight pounds of seed yielded 68 pounds of potatoes.

The yield was down from last year, but we will still have plenty of potatoes to enjoy over the winter. I am not convinced that the low yield was a result of the new planting method. There are too many factors that could have been involved, including the soil, weather, seed, nutrients, watering, etc. I will still be using this planting method next year in a different garden bed.

Harvest Monday: October 10, 2010

2011-10-10T08:28:00.001-04:00

Each Monday, Daphne’s Dandelions hosts “Harvest Monday” where everyone can share links to their garden yield for the week. It’s fun to see what everyone is harvesting each week and how they are enjoying their homegrown produce.

A minor frost hit the garden on Thursday morning and a more severe one on Friday morning. The few remaining pumpkins and squash were harvested Thursday evening after work:

Sugar Pie Pumpkin and Butternu

Before the frost on Thursday night, there was still optimistic growth going on in the garden from the peppers. The plants were filled with blooms and peppers. I harvested all the fruit that were on the plants Thursday evening:

Anaheim

Jalapeno

Marconi Rosso

Quadrato Rosso D'Asti

It looks like another batch of salsa will be made this week.

More Concord Grapes were also harvested before the frost. One batch of wine was started on Friday. The rest of the grapes were frozen and will be used in a future experimental batch of wine.

Still in the garden are some leeks, green onions, broccoli, spinach, and some Swiss chard that has been nibbled on by deer. The potatoes also still need to be dug. A lot of garden cleanup will occur this week because I have taken a few days off from work to enjoy some fall weather. This weekend was rather warm, in the 80s both Saturday and Sunday. Hopefully, the temperatures will be normal the rest of the week.

Be sure to visit Daphne’s Dandelions to see what others are harvesting this week.

Thank You Steve Jobs

2011-10-06T08:16:00.000-04:00

Thank you for urging us to "Think Different" andproviding us with the tools to do so. The world is forever changed by yourbrilliance.

Harvest Monday: October 3, 2011

2011-10-03T07:27:00.000-04:00

Each Monday, Daphne’s Dandelions hosts “Harvest Monday” where everyone can share links to their garden yield for the week. It’s fun to see what everyone is harvesting each week and how they are enjoying their homegrown produce.

I made two batches of Concord Grape Jelly on Saturday from the grapes harvested last week. Then I had the urge to make some homemade English Muffins.

I used Alton Brown's English Muffin recipe from the Food Network website, but needed to modify the process a bit because I don't have rings or an electric skillet. Instead, I used wide mouth canning rings to hold the shape and lined these with strips of aluminum foil to make them taller.

A frying pan on the stove over medium low heat replaced the electric skillet in the recipe. The rings were placed in the pan, sprayed with cooking spray, and sprinkled with cornmeal. 1/2 cup of batter was used per ring. More cornmeal was sprinkled on top of the batter. Then the pan was covered and the timer set for 6 minutes.

Using tongs, I slipped off the aluminum foil, gripped on to the rings, and turned over the English Muffins. The rings also slipped off easily. The pan was covered and the muffins cooked for another 6 minutes. When finished cooking, the muffins were removed from the pan with a spatula and placed on a cooling rack to cool. Fork splitting provides the best nooks and crannies.

I will be purchasing English Muffin rings and trying this recipe again very soon.

Be sure to visit Daphne’s Dandelions to see what others are harvesting this week.

Harvest Monday: September 26, 2011

2011-09-26T07:34:00.002-04:00

Each Monday, Daphne’s Dandelions hosts “Harvest Monday” where everyone can share links to their garden yield for the week. It’s fun to see what everyone is harvesting each week and how they are enjoying their homegrown produce.

I missed Harvest Monday last week not because I didn't have any garden bounty to share, but because I was so busy all weekend with preserving the harvest. It was almost a carbon copy of the previous week anyway. The last of the tomatoes were turned into yet another batch of canned "Seasoned Tomato Sauce" (Ball Blue Book of Preserving), 12 pints of string beans were canned, and some applesauce was made and canned.

New this week is the first few harvests of Concord Grapes:

Concord Grapes

This is the best harvest of grapes we have ever had all thanks to K's ruthless pruning of the overgrown vines a few years back. Some will be used to make grape jelly and I may try to make some wine. Some say Concord Grapes don't make a good wine because they are too acidic and too low in sugar, but I am willing to give it a try. I have made wine from kits in the past, but this will be my first attempt at fruit wine and I will be following the recipe of wine guru, Jack Keller.

The last of the basil was harvested:

Basil

The leaves were showing dark splotches of damage from our cooler nights. The basil was made into pesto and frozen. I only remembered this weekend to start some basil seeds so it can be grown on the kitchen windowsill over the winter for fresh leaves. We are going to miss fresh basil on our Pizza Pie Fridays for a little while.

I haven't grown many winter squash in the past. This was the first year and only because of the extra room the garden expansion gave us:

Sugar Pie Pumpkin

Delicata

There are three more pumpkins still in the garden that are almost ready for harvesting and a few butternuts that are just beginning to show signs of ripening.

The deer continue to graze on the south end of the garden. These are the last zucchini and summer squash harvested from the partially eaten vines along with some beets that were pulled from the ground as the deer munched on the green tops:

Summer Squash and Beets

You can tell it is the end of gardening season because I don't even care what the deer eat at this point. They have consumed most of the old squash vines and bush beans that had finished producing any way. So they are actually helping me clear the garden for winter. We will see how this goes next year.

Thankfully there are no more tomatoes that are in need of immediate attention. However, the marathon weekends of canning and preserving will continue another couple of weeks with apples, grapes, string beans, and squash still coming in.

The poor garden is looking pretty neglected right now. The weekends have been filled with canning and preserving and there is less daylight in the evenings after work to tend to things. The paths need to be mowed, potatoes need to be dug, and the remaining tomato plants need to be pulled. An extended warm period has resulted in new fruit grown for the peppers and eggplant.

Be sure to visit Daphne’s Dandelions to see what others are harvesting this week.

Harvest Monday: September 12, 2011

2011-09-12T18:48:00.000-04:00

Each Monday, Daphne’s Dandelions hosts “Harvest Monday” where everyone can share links to their garden yield for the week. It’s fun to see what everyone is harvesting each week and how they are enjoying their homegrown produce.

I have been putting off the majority of my canning by freezing my tomatoes as they ripen. As of this week, the chest freezer was officially full. With a counter top full of ripe tomatoes, I had no choice but to get chopping.

I made a double batch of Zesty Salsa on Saturday. This seems to be the most time consuming canning project for me. I roasted the tomatoes and peppers on the grill before chopping. The tomatoes were grilled just until the skin splits eliminating the need to blanch the tomatoes. The skins slip right off in the same manner. The peppers were grilled until the skin is charred on all sides. Then they are placed in a glass bowl with a dinner plate on top. This makes it easy to skin the peppers before seeding and chopping.

I am slowly using up the remainder of the small onions harvested earlier in the season. I took some time and cleaned the onions the night before. These were simply chopped in the food processor and added to the pot. In the end, 16 half-pints of salsa were canned and extra was refrigerated to enjoy during the week.

Roasted Zesty Salsa

Sunday began with washing, weighing, and running the remainder of the ripe tomatoes through the Food Strainer to make a batch of "Seasoned Tomato Sauce" (Ball Blue Book of Preserving). I let the sauce simmer for most of the day until thickened. We used some of the sauce for dinner, reserved some for later in the week, then canned 9 pints.

Tomato Sauce

Pole Beans are still producing. I delayed picking them last week because it rains from Lee stayed around all week. There were quite a few beans ready for me to harvest this weekend. These have been washed and stored in the refrigerator for now, but will require another batch of canning during the week.

Mixed String Beans

A few squash were harvested:

Zucchini, Spaghetti, and Delicata Squash

A nice batch of apples collected and will be used for apple sauce:

Apples

The first fall raspberries are beginning to ripen and we are harvesting a handful every day or so:

Raspberries

I harvested yet another paper box full of partially ripe tomatoes, then pulled most of the plants.

Tomatoes

Boy, it felt good to remove the ugly, diseased plants from the garden. I left some San Marzano tomatoes in the SFGs for now because they still have a lot of large green tomatoes on them. But their days are numbered too.

Overall, the garden is winding down and I feel as though the gardener is winding down as well. I don't seem to be very well organized or motivated for fall gardening. I think it's because it coincides with the busiest part of the summer garden harvest and preserving.

I did attempt to plant a few fall crops a few weeks ago. Some Red Acre Cabbage, Spinach, Broccoli, Kale, and Swiss Chard seedlings were planted into the garden. Most are doing ok, but the Kale was promptly eaten by slugs. My fall carrot bed is a also bust this year. A neighborhood cat has decided that the SFG makes a nice litter box.

More deer are coming to the yard tempted by the fallen apples. The new part of the garden is near one of the trees. The squash, beets, and onions must have been like a salad bar for them. They grazed mostly on the squash foliage, and beet greens. They also ate an immature Butternut Squash and nibbled surface holes in three Pumpkins. It may be time to try some deer repellent methods so I can keep my squash harvest this year.

Be sure to visit Daphne’s Dandelions to see what others are harvesting this week.

Harvest Monday: September 5, 2011

2011-09-05T10:57:00.000-04:00

Each Monday, Daphne’s Dandelions hosts “Harvest Monday” where everyone can share links to their harvest for the week. It’s fun to see what everyone is harvesting from his or her gardens in different areas.

The garden was harvested heavily a week ago in anticipation of Irene's destructive force. As a result, there wasn't a lot in need of harvesting. This week was more about preserving the harvest.

The nights are much cooler now making mornings a perfect time for canning. Friday evening I washed, and cut all the string beans that were picked during the week. Early Saturday morning, 18 pints of beans were canned:

Canned Beans

I also canned my first batch of applesauce from some of our freshly fallen apples. It was more labor intensive than I expected and yielded half than estimated after trimming and cooking. Hopefully the apples still ripening on the trees will be in better condition and will require less trimming:

Applesauce

The diseased tomato vines are still hanging in there and providing the usual glut of partially ripe tomatoes. The Roma Tomatoes are almost finished, but the San Marzano plants still have an abundance of green tomatoes on their vines. An additional challenge began this week...get the tomatoes before the stinkbugs pierce their flesh. Ugh!

Roma and San Marzano Tomatoes

Partially red tomatoes are pulled from the vines each day and join the rest to finish ripening inside. I still have two paper boxes full of partially ripe tomatoes that were pulled last week before Irene. The countertop is in constant rotation. Fully ripe tomatoes from the countertop are washed, placed into zipper bags, and frozen. Partially ripe tomatoes from the boxes take their place and the rotation is repeated.

Each gallon bag of tomatoes weighs around 4 pounds and at least 6 bags were placed in the freezer this week. Needless to say, our chest freezer is almost full with mostly tomatoes. I will need to make and can a batch of sauce soon to make some room.

A new contribution to the tomato pile is Big Boy Bush Tomatoes I grew for K to enjoy. These began ripening over the last few weeks:

Big Boy Bush Tomatoes

The Cucumbers, Yellow Summer Squash and Zucchini are petering out but still provide a manageable amount of fruit:

Zucchini, Yellow Summer Squash, and Cucumbers

It is unfortunate that the Dark Red Norland potatoes began dying back several weeks ago. I say "unfortunate" because they had 3-weeks less growing time than last year. I dug up part of the bed and found that indeed there were few large and mostly small potatoes. Below are some of the larger ones:

Dark Red Norland

I believe the smaller yield can mostly be attributed to less maturity time or maybe a nutrient deficiency rather than the new potato method. The Kennebec potatoes are just beginning to die back and exploring along the edges of the bed are proving to me that there are a lot of potatoes under the soil. I will know more later in the season when the Kennebecs are ready for harvest.

Be sure to visit Daphne’s Dandelions to see what others are harvesting this week.

Irene Adventures

2011-08-31T22:21:00.000-04:00

Irene came through our area of Maine on Sunday. The sky was ominously dark, the air was heavy, and rain was falling when we awoke early Sunday morning. Severe winds picked up over the course of the day.

We ran the air conditioners to combat the 100% humidity and 70% dew point. The garden is visible from our living room windows and I watched the plants bending back and fourth from the wind's assault. By mid-afternoon, one SFG trellis holding several tomato plants was leaning precariously forward. K went out in the wind and the rain and secured it.

Soon our view outside was blurred as torrential rain fell. It looked like someone was throwing buckets of water at our windows. Lights flickered, but the electricity remained on for the majority of the day. We did lose our internet service early in the afternoon rendering all of our wi-fi items useless. We were able to catch up with the news using our smart phones.

We lost our power around 4 pm just as we were discussing what to have for dinner. It was too rainy and windy to grill anything outside, so I made a quick venture into the refrigerator to extract some leftover homemade pizza from Friday night, a veggie and cheese platter prepared earlier, and a bottle of wine. We ate cold pizza, snacked on veggies and cheese, and drank wine as the sunlight faded and the winds continued to roar.

The rain slowly tapered off and we opened the windows and enjoyed the cooler temperatures. The sky lightened just before the sun began to set. The winds continued to blow. I lit a few candles and set an oil lamp on the dining room table.

K retreated upstairs to finagle a battery powered tv and antenna in order to watch a game. I settled myself on the couch with a glass of wine and read a book on my ipod for most of the evening.

It was peaceful listening to only the sounds of nature outside carried with the wind. Each sound was magnified with the absence of the normal household noise. There were the usual nighttime sounds of crickets and various toads and frogs. Then there were the unexpected sounds of deer and even fox. These were heard even above the noise of our neighbors' generators. I have seen many deer in my yard, but I have never seen a fox. Until tonight, I didn't even realize they were around.

We went to bed and woke the following morning to find we still didn't have power. The sounds of generators and chainsaws reverberated through our neighborhood. Several trees had fallen across our road and our neighbors said there were more fallen trees on the main road. I alerted work that I wouldn't be in. I communicated with coworkers with my smartphone via email by painfully typing on a teeny-tiny keyboard.

It was a beautiful day after the storm. We cooked a large breakfast on the gas grill. The side burner came in handy to heat a teakettle for instant coffee and tea. A cast iron skillet was used to cook up some Dark Red Norland Potatoes and Red Onions and to make a delicious pepper and cheese omelet. Lunch was grilled chicken sandwiches with slices of onion, tomato, and lettuce. Accompanied by sliced fresh cucumber.

Irene's rainfall and winds were much less than predicted, but still left behind some damage. Luckily, our property didn't have any major harm other than a few small branches. The garden faired much better than I expected. The tomato cages were leaning slightly, pushed by the winds. But only a few tomatoes were knocked from the vines.

Our power came back almost 24-hours after we lost it. We celebrated by washing dishes that had accumulated, taking a shower, and cleaning out the refrigerator. Thankfully, freezer items stayed frozen.

Still, we eagerly awaited our internet service to return. I kept up with email, news, and blogs using google reader with my smart phone, but I can't seem to figure out how to comment on posts.

I went back to work on Tuesday. Some of my coworkers still didn't have electricity. K called me during the day to let me know that internet service had returned at home.

Luckily for us, all is well after Irene and life has returned to normal.

Harvest Monday: August 29, 2011

2011-08-30T13:21:00.001-04:00

Each Monday, Daphne’s Dandelions hosts “Harvest Monday” where everyone can share links to their harvest for the week. It’s fun to see what everyone is harvesting from his or her gardens in different areas.

I am a day late with my Harvest Monday post because Irene left us without power for 24 hours and no internet for 48 hours. All is well in the garden spot. There was no damage to our property or the garden. The neighborhood suffered a few tree casualties. Below are some harvests from last week before the storm:

First Apples from our trees - Not perfect, but usable once trimmed.

Peppers

Tomatoes

Lots of partially ripe tomatoes were harvested before Irene struck

Tomatoes, Eggplant, Beans, and Cuke harvested the day before Irene

Summer Squash, Peppers, and Potatoes harvested the day before Irene

Be sure to visit Daphne's Dandelions to see what others are harvesting this week.

The Calm Before the Storm: Final Preparations for Irene

2011-08-27T18:57:00.000-04:00

While Irene began its assault up the east coast, here in Maine the sun is still shining through some milky cloud cover. The air feels very tropical and soon the sunlight will be extinguished as the outer edge of Irene begins to move into the area. Some rain is expected to begin tonight, but the 500 mile wide storm will not reach us until Sunday and continue through the night. It's hard to believe that it will be all over by Monday morning.

The yard has been cleaned up from anything that can blow around. The cars are parked in the middle of the yard away from falling trees and limbs. I have made several treks through the garden harvesting all that I can. I expect high winds to do some damage. Some of the foliage on the trellises is pretty thick and will only act like a sail in the wind.

Other than the damage to the garden, our greatest inconvenience will probably be losing our power for an extended period of time. We can easily get by with candles, oil lamps, and flashlights for lighting and our gas grill can be used for cooking. Since our well pump runs on electricity, we have filled up various containers of water for drinking, bathing, cooking and flushing.

We have plenty to eat:

Last harvest from the garden before Irene

Safe wishes to all my garden blogging friends affected by Irene.

Harvest Monday: August 22, 2011

2011-08-22T17:59:00.000-04:00

Each Monday, Daphne’s Dandelions hosts “Harvest Monday” where everyone can share links to their harvest for the week. It’s fun to see what everyone is harvesting from his or her gardens in different areas.

Things have certainly picked up in the garden over the past week and daily harvests have become normal. The first few Delicata Squash surprised me. Since it is the first time growing these, I wasn't sure how to tell when they were ripe. I looked it up online and found it is when the white changes to beige and the green lines thin out. Hmm... So I peered into the foliage to see what the Delicata looked like and was shocked to see that two of the oldest had already detached themselves from the vine. A third popped off the vine with only a gentle touch. We will try them this week. I hope they taste good.

Delicata Squash

I am harvesting string beans every other day. The first canning took place this weekend providing 12 pints for storage.

Mixed Beans

The tomato plants are terribly diseased, but the tomatoes are still unaffected. They are harvested partially ripe and allowed to ripen fully on the kitchen counter. Some were used to make a batch of salsa this weekend. Each day, I go through them and pluck out the ones that are fully ripe. Then they are washed and added to gallon-sized zipper bags and frozen. I keep adding tomatoes as they ripen and will make tomato sauce once a large batch is ready. There are still a lot of green tomatoes on the diseased vines.

Roma and San Marzano Tomatoes

Peppers very rarely mature to red in my garden. Lately, I have to watch them carefully for insect damage. Once the flesh is pierced, water gets in and the fruit rots. So any fruit that has holes gets harvested and the bad parts cut away. Most of these peppers were used in a batch of salsa and the rest were frozen.

Marconi Rosso and Jalapeno Peppers

Quadrato Rosso D'Asti Peppers

We had our first harvest of Black Beauty Eggplant this week. I am looking forward to having some Eggplant Parmesan this week.

Black Beauty Eggplant

Cucumbers, Beans, Black Beauty Eggplant, and Japanese Eggplant

Not pictured but still part of the harvest are more zucchini and summer squash. They are growing crazy this year in the newly dug garden bed. Most was frozen and some were given away.

Preserving the harvest also officially began this week. String Beans were canned, a batch of salsa was made and canned, the small onions from last week's harvest have mostly been cleaned chopped and frozen, and summer squash has been frozen.

It was a hot and humid weekend but I did achieve some progress in the garden. The beds where the onions were harvested last week were weeded, amended, and plotted out for fall crops. I have two trays of crops growing under lights that will be ready to harden off soon. I am just waiting for cooler temperatures.

Even though I have all winter to plan, I can't help but think about next years garden. I think we are going to make some changes to the SFGs and add another in-ground garden bed. This will give me more space to include additional crops and allow me to work in a yearly crop rotation by full garden bed instead of sections. More detailed planning will occur over the winter.

Be sure to visit Daphne's Dandelions to see what others are harvesting this week.

Preserving the Harvest: Herbs

2011-08-17T07:30:00.000-04:00

Last Friday, my goal was to tame the overgrown herbs in the garden. The oregano was is full bloom, parsley was taking over the bed, dill was a tall tangled mess, and the cilantro had bolted long ago. All of these plants were attracting many different bees, hornets, and other pollinators to the garden so I left them alone for quite some time. However recently, they began to sprawl out smothering other plants and making it difficult to mow and trim around the garden beds. It was time to take control.

Parsley stalks were cut, the leaves trimmed from the stalks, washed, then run through a salad spinner to rinse and spin out excess moisture.

Parsley

The remaining parsley leaves were microwaved dried via Carol at Annie's Kitchen Garden's method. Parsley leaves are layered on a paper towel, microwaved until dry (4-5 minutes), allowed to cool, then stored in a jar.

Dried Parsley

Sage was trimmed, washed, run through the salad spinner, then left a clean towel to dry completely. The leaves were loosely packed in zipper bags, excess air sucked out with a straw, and frozen.

Sage

Sage Leaves

I have dried sage in the past, but find that the flavor is much stronger when frozen requiring less in recipies.

I was hoping to gather some coriander from the cilantro plants, but waiting for the seeds to dry on the plant seemed to be taking forever. A recent post by Thomas at A Growing Tradition made me realize that I didn't have to wait. I bit into a green coriander seed and found that I liked the flavor. I can see it working in many Mexican dishes.

Green Coriander

I pulled the cilantro plants and collected a bowlful of green coriander seeds. These were washed, allowed to dry, placed into a zipper bag, and frozen.

The oregano was trimmed down to the base of the clump of plants. Usually, this results in renewed growth of the plant providing a late season fresh harvest for tomato sauce and pizza. We shall see.

The long stalks of oregano, dill, and cilantro were tossed into the woods. I usually compost most of my garden waste, but the compost pile doesn't get hot enough to kill the seeds and most of the stems were too woody to break down.

I also try to grow parsley, rosemary, basil, and oregano on a sunny window over the winter months to provide fresh herbs. However sometimes dried herbs work better especially for slow cooked meals such as sauces, roasts, soups and stews.

Harvest Monday August 15, 2011: It All Comes At Once

2011-08-15T07:48:00.000-04:00

Each Monday, Daphne’s Dandelions hosts “Harvest Monday” where everyone can share links to their harvest for the week. It’s fun to see what everyone is harvesting from his or her gardens in different areas.

Our growing season is so short. Sometimes when I am reading the bountiful harvests on garden blogs throughout the summer, I often wonder if my garden will ever produce a harvest. Then it does...

Anaheim and Jalapeno Peppers

San Marzano Tomatoes

Basil

Mixture of Beans

Beets

Green Coriander

Onions

Parsley

Dark Red Norland Potatoes

Sage

Yellow Summer Squash and Zucchini

Mixed Beans

Roma Tomatoes

Be sure to visit Daphne's Dandelions to see what others are harvesting this week.

Preserving the Harvest: Onions

2011-08-13T18:00:00.003-04:00

I wanted to grow more onions this year. Last year, I grew enough for making and preserving salsa and tomato sauce for a year but didn't have many for storage. My seeds were old and I didn't expect them to be viable another year. I also didn't expect them to all germinate because of the seeds age, so I sprinkled all the seeds into repurposed berry trays. I think each and every seed was viable and germinated after all.

Copra and Patterson Onion Seedlings (Jan 22, 2011)

I had to adjust my garden plan to accommodate the onion seedling overflow, but each seedling was planted. About half were planted in the SFGs.

Copra Onion Seedlings in SFG (April 22, 2011)

Patterson Onion Seedlings (April 22, 2011)

The others were planted in the regular in ground gardens. One batch was planted at the end of April but I ran out of room before I planted them all. The final tray sat outside for quite some time before more space was available in the new garden dug this year. The final onion seedlings were planted almost a month later then the others.

Although the onions were still small, most of the onion tops in the SFGs began to fall over a few weeks ago. I pulled them all this weekend. These are all disappointingly quite small. The largest are about 3-inches wide, but most are 1-2-inches wide. Absolutely pitiful.

Small Copra and Patterson Onions Harvested from SFGs

I decided to freeze these. The really small ones will be frozen whole. The larger ones will be chopped, spread out on cookie trays, frozen, then placed into freezer bags. This will make it easy to scoop out whatever is necessary for soups, stews, sauces, etc.

It will be quite labor intensive to peel, trim and/or chop these tiny onions. The photo above shows about half. So I will be working on it a little at a time over the next week or so.

The onions in the regular garden are growing much better. The ones pictured below are quite a bit larger and will be cured and used for storage onions over the winter. The tops flopped over just this week. The largest is about 5-inches and the rest are all at least 3-inches.

Onions Growing in In-Ground Garden

The late-planted onions in the new garden are healthy but have some growing to do to catch up with the others. If they don't size up by the end of the growing season, I may try overwintering them.

"We were picklers..."

2011-08-09T18:07:00.000-04:00

When I planned my garden last year I asked K if he liked pickles. He said he did so I planned on growing a bunch of pickling cucumbers. Past years, I only grew a few cucumber plants to eat fresh and in salads.

Cucumbers were my most prolific producers last year and I made several batches of pickles. I made Bread & Butter Pickles, Kosher Dill Pickle spears, and Sweet Pickle Relish. Soon my shelves were filled with jars of pickles. We had so many pickles that I began asking K if he wanted pickles almost with every meal. I gave jars and jars of pickles and relish away and still have jars on my shelves one year later (sigh).

Thankfully I learned my lesson and only planted a few cucumber plants this year...just enough for snacking and in salads. I think of this scene in Modern Family's "Coal Digger" episode from 2009 every time I open the pantry door and am reminded of the pickles still on the shelves:

Mitchell: I don't like football.

Cameron: You know what? I thought part of being in a relationship was pretending to enjoy your partner's interests. Do you think I really loved home pickle making?

Mitchell: Yeah, 'cause you did.

Cameron: For a week, until we became the weird guys who gave everybody pickles. "Oh thank you, Marvin, for inviting us into your lovely home. Here, would you care for sacks pickles?"

Mitchell: It was charming.

Cameron: We were picklers, Mitchell. Okay, you know what, fine. Stay home with your little, jagged scissors. Maybe catch up on your scrap-booking.

Mitchell: Uh, come-you love scrap-booking.

Cameron: Did I Mitchell? Did I? [Leaves room]

From Modern Family's Coal Digger episode, "I don't like football" scene

Harvest Monday: August 8, 2011

2011-08-08T07:44:00.001-04:00

First San Marzano Tomato

Potatoes

Zucchini, Yellow Summer Squash, and Japanese Eggplant

Zucchini, Japanese Eggplant, and Cucumbers

Raspberries (most are not photographed and get eaten on the spot)

Be sure to visit Daphne's Dandelions to see what others are harvesting this week.

Update on the Garden

2011-08-06T14:59:00.000-04:00

Nothing big to harvest for this last Harvest Monday but things are growing really well. Overall, the garden is still running a bit behind than last year.

The yellow summer squash and zucchini paused for a bit during our heat wave a few weeks ago allowing us to catch up on consuming and preserving the first round of fruit. They are just beginning to ramp up again and I suspect I will be harvesting more by the end of this weekend:

Yellow Summer Squash

The rest of the squash took advantage of the warm weather and produced numerous fruit and spread their vines far and wide.

Delicata

Pumpkin

Spaghetti

I thought these bush beans would finish producing once the squash needed the room, but as you can see they are only forming blooms now and the squash has already invaded. Rarely do my plans work out, as the garden seems to have a mind of its own.

Royal Burgundy Bush Beans

There are some beets next to the beans that will also soon be overwhelmed. I think I will harvest them this week. They are still small, but I think they will be good roasted with other root vegetables.

Chioggia Beets

I spent this morning trimming the tomatoes and culling out the fruit that had developed BER during our heat wave. Thankfully, only the newly developed fruit was affected, the older fruit is still ok.

All my tomatoes are showing signs of some sort of leaf spot disease, which is not unusual this time of year. I mulch to reduce soil splash and trim off affected leaves as the growing season progresses. That was when I discovered this:

First San Marzano Tomato

The official first tomato of the season! As I looked around, I saw others too were blushing and ready to turn red:

Roma Tomato

I also found a few of these:

Small Hornworm

Hornworm

The peppers loved the hot temperatures and are producing really well. I am thankful because I am only growing half of what I planned on because of germination issues:

It looks like we will be enjoying some fresh salsa soon.

Garlic: Something to Watch For

2011-07-27T07:59:00.000-04:00

Growing garlic here in New England is mostly trouble free. Good amended soil, water, and some weeding is all it needs. There are not many pests or diseases to look out for until now.

This week's MOFGA's Pest Report is about two diseases that can harm Allium production forever in your garden:

Garlic: Growers have either harvested their garlic, or will be harvesting soon. There are two diseases that are not common here in New England and we want to keep it that way. Now is the time to look and see if you have either of them. As you harvest, please inspect your bulbs carefully. Both of these diseases are devastating and long lasting in the field, preventing future garlic production. And, both are spread with the garlic seed pieces so it is of the utmost importance that anyone with this problem not sell seed.

Harvest Monday: July 25, 2011

2011-07-25T17:57:00.001-04:00

Each Monday, Daphne’s Dandelions hosts “Harvest Monday” where everyone can share links to their harvest for the week. It’s fun to see what everyone is harvesting from his or her gardens in different areas.

This past week seemed to zoom by. Not much gardening was accomplished except for daily deep waterings. Like most of the country, we exceeded heat records towards the end of the week through the weekend. There were some new items harvested for the first time this week:

The first Kennebec Potatoes! These weighed 14 oz.

Summer Squash, Zucchini, and the first Cucumbers

More Zucchini, Summer Squash, and the first Japanese Eggplant.

Red Barron Onions

Sunday the heat officially “broke” but it was still a very warm day. I ventured out to get some much needed weeding accomplished. There is still so much more weeding to be accomplished.

Be sure to visit Daphne's Dandelions to see what others are harvesting this week.

Harvest Monday: July 18, 2011

2011-07-18T17:46:00.000-04:00

Each Monday, Daphne’s Dandelions hosts “Harvest Monday” where everyone can share links to their harvest for the week. It’s fun to see what everyone is harvesting from his or her gardens in different areas.

The garlic was harvested over the weekend. Most of the bulbs were pretty good sized. Last year I had some loose heads, but I think I caught it at the right time this year. They are hanging from the rafters in the shed to cure.

We enjoyed the first summer squash this week. These were simply sliced and sautéed with some fresh garlic and olive oil and served as a side dish. I am looking forward to trying some new recipes this year.

Most of the harvest below was added to a quick stir fry this weekend.

Be sure to visit Daphne's Dandelions to see what others are harvesting this week.

Watching the Garden Grow

2011-07-13T18:09:00.000-04:00

The weather here in Maine has been a boon to the garden. We’ve had some rain and some really warm temperatures. According to the weather predictions, the warm temperatures are supposed to continue into the weekend with some thundershowers here and there. With some supplemental watering it is just what a growing garden needs.

Herbs, onions, and garlic are harvested for meals as required, but there were no major harvests this week. I feel as though I am just waiting for the harvests to come.

I may not need to wait long for some summer squash. Both zucchini and yellow squashes have fruit growing:

The first Zucchini

The first Yellow Summer Squash

The pole beans have winded their way to the top of the trellis and beyond:

Pole Beans have reached the top of the trellis

Winter squash is vining and blooming. Soon this entire end of the garden will be overwhelmed with squash vines:

Squash bed

Pumpkin

The first eggplants and peppers are forming:

First Eggplant

First Pepper

The garden still remains a little later in maturity than last year but it won’t be long before we reap the rewards.

Slowing Down and Enjoying Summer

2011-07-05T08:05:00.000-04:00

Even though the long holiday weekend was busy, I still found time to slow down, relax, and appreciate a bit of summer. Most early mornings began outside with coffee, some reading material, and the sounds of nature around me including various birds, a rooster crowing from a distance, a woodpecker’s drumming, the buzz of bees and wasps collecting nectar, and the hum of dragonflies swooping past.

If I stand still, no one can see me.

A chipmunk would play hide and seek with me each morning. Freezing in place as I glanced up from my magazine or book to look at him, then resuming his hopping towards the bird feeder when I looked away. Once at the feeder, he would stuff his cheeks full of sunflower seeds, jump down, and make his way back across the lawn to his den. I swear we have devoted at least a 40-pound bag of sunflower seeds to these little rodents and all they are doing is stashing it away under ground somewhere. At least it keeps them out of the garden.

Squash bed

I mostly enjoyed the lack of sound as the neighborhood continued its slumber. There was no loud music, no yelling, no barking dogs, and no rumble of lawnmowers and other various lawn trimming equipment. It was so peaceful in those early morning hours and I was able to relax, contemplate the tasks ahead, and decide how I would spend my day.

Cucumber Blossom

As the morning progressed, the sun would peek through the trees and eventually rise above the treetops and reach the garden. Once the morning dew evaporated, I would begin to leisurely putter in the garden…weeding, checking for pests, harvesting, trimming, taking photos, and appreciating the signs of ongoing development. Most garden chores were completed before the heat and humidity of the day took hold.

Dark Red Norland Potato Blossom

Over the weekend, all the beds were weeded and given a generous drink of fish emulsion; the tomatoes’ lower branches and leaves were trimmed to allow air to circulate; and the paths in between the beds were mowed. Mother Nature provided a good watering overnight Sunday and by Monday morning the plants showed significant growth.

Roma Tomato

It is back to work today but it is a short workweek. Soon the weekend will be here. Summer is too short to miss out on enjoying the season.

Harvest Monday: July 4, 2011

2011-07-04T08:36:00.001-04:00

Each Monday, Daphne’s Dandelions hosts “Harvest Monday” where everyone can share links to their harvest for the week. It’s fun to see what everyone is harvesting from his or her gardens in different areas.

The Carouby de Maussane Snow Peas have begun producing. So far there have been a few pickings resulting in enough to toss into salads and stir-fry. Mostly, I just snack on them while I am in the garden.

Carouby de Maussane Snow Pea Bloom

Carouby de Maussane Snow Peas

The first zucchini bloomed this week but there were no male flowers to pollinate it so it was harvested, chopped, and added to a salad flower and all.

Baby Zucchini and Carouby de Maussane Snow Peas

The first Heritage Raspberry was plucked from the plant. Its red gleam burst from the green foliage like a promise of what is to follow from our canes planted one year ago. Luckily the camera was handy and the photo taken quickly before the raspberry was shared between K and I. It tasted very good and we are eager for more to ripen.

Heritage Raspberry

A need for garlic and onion for a meal resulted in pulling a smaller garlic bulb and a young red onion. The garlic bulb was about 2-inches across. The others are beginning to look a bit ragged, so the major garlic harvest will probably happen in the next few weeks.

Purple Glazer Garlic and Red Barron Onion

The crisper draw in the refrigerator is still full of lettuce from the garden. Some was harvested as they showed signs of bolting and some pulled because they were only serving as a play ground for slugs and earwigs. The spotted lettuce escaped the pest damage and had formed beautiful loose heads:

Spotted Lettuce from "Bon Vivant Lettuce Blend"

The remaining spring lettuce is down to only a few loose heads in the garden but a second planting will hopefully keep us in salads through the summer. I have also planted some in pots that can be moved to the shade when the temperatures heat up.

Be sure to visit Daphne's Dandelions to see what others are harvesting this week.

Happy 4th of July!

Coming Soon: Freshly Dug Potatoes

2011-07-03T07:55:00.000-04:00

The potatoes will be blooming soon. Then I will be able to dig down and raid the plants of some baby potatoes. I can't wait.

This is only my second year of growing potatoes. Last year, July 4th was my first potato harvest. Even though this years planting time was almost a month later than last year, the plants have caught up in growth.

Harvest Monday: June 27, 2010

2011-06-27T07:14:00.001-04:00

Each Monday, Daphne’s Dandelions hosts “Harvest Monday” where everyone can share links to their harvest for the week. It’s fun to see what everyone is harvesting from his or her gardens in different areas.

I’ve been looking forward to Garlic Scapes this year with much anticipation. Many fellow bloggers have already harvested theirs and have posted some wonderful recipes. Finally mine were ready for harvesting this week:

Garlic Scapes

Other harvests are still mostly lettuce and other salad clippings. I make a large salad several times a week so that is it ready for lunches and dinners:

Ruby Red Swiss Chard and Celery

Mixed Lettuce

Be sure to visit Daphne’s Dandelions to see what others are harvesting this week.

As the Garden Grows

2011-06-24T15:45:00.000-04:00

It seems I haven’t posted in a while, but really there isn’t much going on in the garden except a bit of growing, weeding, watering and bug control. Lettuce still represents the majority of the harvest, along with some celery, Swiss chard, and scallions.

We had some really nice weather over the past week or so. Thursday was the beginning of a rainy period for us. The rain is needed and welcomed. The cooler temperatures are not.

I dodged the rain to take some updated pictures of the garden:

The first little tomatoes

Garlic scapes ready for harvesting

Pole beans climbing the trellis

The first pea pod

Dark Red Norland Potatoes

Kennebec Potatoes

Peppers enjoying the shower

While it rained, I took some time to try to plan out some succession planting for the garden. Some of the spring lettuce will be finished soon and I have several transplants ready to take their place. I have also started some lettuce seeds in pots that can be moved into the shade as summer heats up. I hope that I can keep fresh lettuce growing all summer.

I have also been reviewing the posts from last year to give me an idea of when crops were harvested so I can plan to put something else in its place.

I expect the garden to pop in growth after this rainy period.

Harvest Monday: June 13, 2010

2011-06-13T17:55:00.000-04:00

Each Monday, Daphne’s Dandelions hosts “Harvest Monday” where everyone can share links to their harvest for the week. It’s fun to see what everyone is harvesting from his or her gardens in different areas.

Lettuce still represents the majority of the harvest and provides us with salads almost every day. Little by little we are adding new things. This week we added some young red onions, swiss chard, and celery.

Ruby Red Swiss Chard, Young Red Onions, Celery

Mixed Lettuce

Be sure to visit Daphne’s Dandelions to see what others are harvesting this week.

Early June Garden Update

2011-06-11T09:12:00.000-04:00

It was back to work this past week, which was difficult after a nice week off working in the garden. We had some 80 and 90 degree F days that also churned up some thunderstorms. The garden responded extremely well to the heat and rain by putting on some considerable growth. Here are a few photos of what is growing:

Purple Trionfo Pole Beans

Purple Trionfo and Kentucky Wonder Pole Beans

Shallots

Ruby Red Swiss Chard

Lettuce in need of a harvest

Marvielle of the Four Seasons


Kennebec Potatoes

The weeds in the potato bed are tomatoes sprouted from seeds in the compost.

Garlic

The beginnings of a garlic scape

Leeks

The first tomato blossom

Harvest Monday: June 6, 2010

2011-06-06T07:43:00.000-04:00

Scallions and Green Garlic

Lettuce

Springtime Shrimp Alfredo

Ingredients:
1/2 pound medium raw shrimp (peeled, deveined, and tails removed)
2 green garlic, chopped
2 scallions, chopped
3/4 cup grated parmesan cheese
8 ounces fettuccini (or other pasta)
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 tablespoon butter
1 cup whole milk
1 teaspoon cornstarch
sea salt
freshly ground black pepper
Fresh parsley, chopped

Cooking Instructions:
Cook pasta according to package directions. Mix cornstarch and milk in a small bowl, set aside.

In a large skillet, heat butter and oil over medium-low heat. Add garlic and onions and cook until softened. Do not brown. Add raw shrimp to skillet and cook until shrimp turns pink (1-2 minutes). Stir milk mixture to be sure cornstarch is well blended in and pour it into the pan. Add parmesean cheese, pepper and salt. Stir until the sauce thickens.

Pour mixture over cooked pasta and garnish with parsley.

Makes two generous servings. Add a fresh garden salad and some crusty bread and you have yourself a quick meal for dinner.

Be sure to visit Daphne’s Dandelions to see what others are harvesting this week.

Working Vacation

2011-06-04T13:01:00.000-04:00

I try to take some time off from work around this time of year to devote to planting the garden for the season. It allows me to enjoy the planting process and not feel as though I need to rush to “get the garden in.”

Even though I was on vacation, there wasn’t much rest and relaxation last week with so much to do in the garden. The week began hot and humid, but gradually became more comfortable for working outside. There were a few showers here and there during the week, but it was mostly warm and sunny. I couldn’t have asked for more perfect weather. As of Friday, the garden was officially “in.”

It looks like the pole beans will emerge today:

Early in the week, the trellises were put up, solar mulch laid, and Kentucky Wonder and Purple Trionfo Pole Beans were seeded:

Tomato overflow bed was planted:

Squash transplanted into the new bed. By August, this corner of the garden will be filled with vines:

Extra onions were transplanted on the other side of the new bed and the rest was seeded with some bush beans and beets. Hopefully, these will finish up by the time the squash needs to stretch their vines.

Now that the temperatures have cooled down a bit, I have pulled out the remainder of the frozen tomatoes from last year to thaw and make into sauce. Earlier in the week, I made a batch of salsa with frozen tomatoes, Jalapeno, and fresh green garlic. I had to purchase peppers and onions though. Hopefully this batch will last us until the garden produces more.

The Potatoes Broke Through!

2011-06-03T14:32:00.000-04:00

I took a peek beneath the mulch on the potato beds and discovered that the potatoes have reached the surface:

Kennebec Potatoes

Dark Red Norland Potatoes

The Kennebec potatoes were planted on May 14th and the Dark Red Norland on May 20th.

Planting Tomatoes, Peppers, Eggplant and Other Garden Preparations

2011-05-31T10:32:00.000-04:00

Saturday was a hubbub of activity in the garden. We went from 50˚F days early in the week to 80˚F days by the weekend. I don't mind summer weather, but the extreme temperature change along with high humidity is not easy to adjust to and made Friday difficult to work outside. On Saturday however, the sky was overcast and the temperatures were comfortable. Since the humid temperatures were expected to return soon, I took full advantage.

It was foggy and the grass was still wet with dew early Saturday morning. I planted some peppers and eggplants into the previously prepared garden beds. The soaker hose was turned on and allowed to water the bed thoroughly.

Marconi Rosso Pepper

Eggplant

Top Row: Eggplant Bottom Row: Peppers

I pulled out all the self-watering containers, cleaned them out, refilled them with soil, added fertilizer, filled them with water, and planted the Roma Tomatoes. There are five in all holding two Roma tomato plants each:

Roma Tomato in Self Watering Container

Roma Tomatoes in Self Watering Containers

K joined me later in the afternoon to help me prep the second in-ground bed now that the soil was dried out enough to work. It was tilled and raked smooth. Planting beds were plotted out along with walking paths in between. This bed is where we planted the Dark Red Norland Potatoes.

To the north of the potato bed is the pole bean plot. Two double rows were plotted for the pole beans and a soaker hose was laid:

Pole Bean Beds

The area to the south of the potato bed was planned for some summer and winter squash. But this has changed with the new garden expansion. The squash will be moved to the new garden bed and the quantity increased. This area will now be the tomato overflow bed:

Tomato Overflow Bed

We then moved on to finish up preparing the new garden bed. I worked on shaking the soil out from most of the sod on Friday. While I was laying out the soaker hose on the other bed, K finished up shaking the sod and tilled the new bed.

I worked in some compost and raked the soil smooth, while K extended the fence to enclose the new bed:

I just need to pick up another soaker hose, lay it out and cover the soil with solar mulch and it will be ready for planting. The squash seedlings are more than ready to go:

It was an exhausting but very productive Saturday. I have time off from work this week and am looking forward to finishing up the garden planting.

Garden Expansion

2011-05-28T07:53:00.000-04:00

When I arrived home from work Thursday, K had removed the sod for a new 5x20 foot bed.

I recently brought up that I would like to expand the garden in the near future and thought adding to the south of the existing garden would be the best option. I was thinking maybe we would dig the new bed next week when I am on vacation. K decided to surprise me.

According to the neighbors, this part of the yard was garden space at one time. The soil seems to be in really good shape. I began working on shaking out the sod pieces today. No rocks or roots, but I did find a metal spoon and an old plastic plant marker for cauliflower that wasn’t mine. Proof that this soil had a greater purpose then just growing grass.

Before this expansion, the Garden Spot consisted of two in-ground garden beds and six 4x4 Square Foot Gardens amounting to around 500 square feet of growing space. The new bed will add 100 more.

It is going to be a busy weekend :)

We Saw Sun Today!!

2011-05-24T21:11:00.000-04:00

Last evening it was so cold and damp (mid 40s F) that I lit the woodstove to get the chill out of the house. The local weather people were predicting that today would be warm, but I didn’t believe them as I drove to work in the chilly rain.

Low and behold, early afternoon the sky turned brighter and the sun was out. I walked outside during my lunch hour just to feel the warmth. The sky was mostly cloudy for the rest of the day, but it remained dry and reached 75 degrees F!

The first thing I did when I arrived home from work was check out the seedlings. They have been spending the last week outside day and night and I was worried how they would take the rapid temperature change from 40s to 70s. They looked completely unaffected. So I thought I would pop a few seedlings into the garden.

I began with a few basil and cilantro plants:

Basil and Cilantro

It was so easy that I decided to transplant some bell pepper plants:

Bell Pepper

Bell Peppers

Then I grabbed the San Marazano Tomato seedlings and planted those as well:

San Marazano Tomatoes

It was so easy as the beds have been prepared for a while now. I am looking forward to Memorial Day weekend when the rest of the garden will be planted. I hope the sun stays a while.

Harvest Monday: May 23, 2011

2011-05-23T18:05:00.000-04:00

Be sure to visit Daphne’s Dandelions to see what others are harvesting this week.

Not much gardening happened over the past week due to the continued rain. We saw some sun on Saturday, but it didn’t last long as more showers rolled in and stayed for a while. I dodged the rain showers on Sunday and planted out some, parsley, sage, dill, and cucumbers.

The weather still looks rainy in the next week or so, but temperatures are predicted to warm up and we may see some sun on Wednesday.

Planting Potatoes the "Grow Biointensive" Way: Part 2

2011-05-20T08:15:00.000-04:00

Last weekend was a very productive one in the garden. Before the rainy week began, we tilled the in-ground gardens, prepared the pepper bed, planted the Kennebec Potatoes, and Dark Red Norland potatoes.

The Dark Red Norland potato bed was dug a little differently than the Kennebec. We began by digging out the entire bed down to 12-inches, aerating the soil with the Mantis tiller to a depth of another 12-inches (for a total of 24-inches), added compost and fertilizer, used a bulb planter to be sure the seed was planted 9-inches deep, planted the entire bed, then covered with soil.

Digging out the Potato Bed 12-inches

Aerating the Soil another 12-inches with the Mantis tiller

Worked in Compost and Fertilizer to the Soil, then Leveled Off

Used Bulb Planter to Plant Seed 9-inches Below Soil Level

Topped with Soil and Leveled Off

In the book, The Sustainable Vegetable Garden, John Jeavons suggests that staking potatoes helps the plants to remain upright creating a microclimate to keep the plants and soil cooler. So we added four poles in the corners of each bed and will string some cotton twine to provide some support as the plants grow. This will also keep the plants from flopping into the walking paths.

I kept feeling that I was late in planting potatoes this year, but looked back through this blog and found that I am only a few weeks off. Last year, I began harvesting young potatoes by July 4th. So hopefully by mid July we will enjoy home grown potatoes again.

It has rained all week and it looks like it will continue for the next week as well. The rest of the in-ground garden bed containing the Dark Red Norland potatoes still needs to be to prepped for planting the beans and squash.

Update on the Pepper Seedlings

2011-05-19T07:30:00.002-04:00

The Pepper seedlings were spending most days outside enjoying some sunshine. Night temperatures are still cold, so the seedlings are shuffled inside each night and shuffled outside in the morning. Unfortunately, not much sunshine this week. Rain is supposed to continue through the upcoming weekend.

Here are some updated photos of the peppers:

Marconi Rosso

California Wonder Bell

Quadrato Rosso D'Asti

Anaheim

Jalapeno

Some pepper seedlings are a little behind the others. I had a tough time getting some older seeds to germinate. Hopefully they will catch up. I had the easiest germination with the Marconi Rosso and Quadrato Rosso D’Asti. These were from Granny :)

Preparing the Pepper Beds

2011-05-17T07:00:00.000-04:00

It was a busy weekend in the garden preparing the in-ground gardens for planting. Once the Kennebec potatoes were planted, the rest of the plot was prepared for the peppers.

The garden was tilled with the Mantis to aerate the soil and blend in the compost. The soil was raked smooth and 3.5 foot wide planting beds for the peppers and walking paths in between were plotted out. The paths in between were tamped down with my feet giving me solid footing to walk in between the planting rows. Then, soaker hoses were laid out:

The plot was blanketed with solar mulch. Before laying the solar mulch down, I used a drill and a small drill bit to drill numerous holes through the solar mulch about 3-inches apart. This will allow some air and rainwater to go through the mulch. The solar mulch is used to help warm the soil, conserve moisture, and keep the weeds down:

Small cages were put in place to support the peppers as they grow. These also help hold the solar mulch down:

Depending on the weather, the peppers will be planted into the garden around Memorial Day weekend.

The second potato plot was also planted over the weekend and will be shown in a later in the week. Unfortunately, the rest of the second in-ground garden will have to wait until next weekend to be prepared. Rain began late Saturday afternoon and is expected to continue all week. At least the garden will be watered.

Planting Potatoes the "Grow Biointensive" Way: Part 1

2011-05-14T11:34:00.000-04:00

As I mentioned in previous posts, I am trying new method of growing potatoes this year. Over the winter months, I did my research on the garden philosophy of “Grow Biointensive.” The spacing for potato is 9-inches centers by 9-inches deep while double digging. No hilling is required. The rows are planted in an offset, or hexagonal spacing. The closer spacing helps maximize space and reduce water loss.

The potato section of the in-ground garden was layered with compost, tilled, and leveled off. A row was dug about 12 inches deep and the soil placed into a wheelbarrow.

A digging fork is used to loosen the soil in the trench to a depth of another 12 inches, which helps allow oxygen into the soil and permits the roots to penetrate easier.

I tried using a digging fork, but then opted to use our Mantis tiller. Held in place, it easily aerated the soil down another 12-inches. I double-checked with a digging fork to be sure.

Once the soil was aerated, fertilizer and compost were added and worked into the loosened soil.

The soil was really fluffed up by the Mantis, so I used a bulb planter to be sure the potatoes were planted 9-inches below the soil level. I used a 9-inch stick to check myself along the way.

Then the seed potatoes were spaced out 9-inch centers using the stick as a guide.

The center location of each row was marked along the edges with sticks so the next row could be measured out. The soil from the next row was used to cover the first. I tried to offset plant the rows, but found once they were covered, I had to guess the location.

Once the bed was planted, we added the reserved soil from the wheelbarrow, leveled it off, and laid soaker hoses:

The bed was then mulched with straw to help conserve moisture and keep the weeds down:

I didn’t follow the “Grow Biointensive” method exactly (double digging is HARD). I also didn’t use a digging board, which is recommended to help distribute your weight so you don’t compact the soil. We have one more potato bed to plant and I am thinking of modifying the method a bit further.

Planning the Potatoes

2011-05-13T15:59:00.000-04:00

Last year was my first year growing potatoes. Although I had a very successful first year at growing potatoes, I disliked the hilling method I used because of the labor involved in hilling, the unkempt and messy appearance of the plot, and the wasted space in between the rows.

Kennebec Potatoes from 2010 Garden

I am trying another method of growing potatoes after seeing the success Laura had at The Modern Victory Garden using the John Jeavons’ Potato Planting Method last year.

John Jeavons “Grow Biointensive” gardening method involves double-dug beds, feeding the soil with compost, and planting closely to conserve spacing and create a microclimate. Actually, there are eight essential aspects to “Grow Biointensive.” You can learn more here.

I am planting the potatoes a few weeks later than last year both because the ground was too cold and wet to work the soil until now and I needed extra time to source and chit fresh seed potatoes.

Dark Red Norland Potatoes Chitting

The seed potatoes I saved to plant this year didn’t make it though the winter. They sprouted and shriveled up to hard little nuggets. Luckily for me Pinetree Garden Seeds is having a clearance sale and I was able to purchase my seed for 50% off regular price. I again went with the Dark Red Norland, an early-season variety, and Kennebec, a late season variety since they did so well for me last year.

Kennebec Potatoes Chitting

They have just begun to green sprout and should be ready to plant next weekend. This is one time where procrastination paid off. Hopefully, the weather will cooperate and we can till the garden and prepare the garden beds for planting.

A New Compost Bin……Finally

2011-05-10T07:13:00.000-04:00

This past weekend we finally built another compost bin. The old one was made from wood and wire and the wood had rotted out. We were propping up the sides with various poles so the contents could remain contained in some way. A few weeks ago, a tree fell across the bin smashing the fragile wood even more. It was time for some drastic action.

One Side of the New Compost Bin

The result is a simple two-bin system made from some recycled poles and some recycled wire fencing, but it will work fine for our needs.

New Two Bin System

We assembled the new bin close to the old one so transferring the contents would be easy.

Old Bin

I don’t turn my compost pile very often. The only time it gets stirred up is a few times a year as I dig down to the bottom for finished compost to be used in the garden. The rest of the year, household and garden waste is pretty much just tossed in and piled on top. Luckily, even though I don’t really tend to the compost pile, I still get to reap the rewards of the compost.

One side of the old bin contained mostly household and garden waste the other side was filled with shredded leaves from fall cleanups. Every once and a while, I would toss some shredded leaves on top of the contents of the other bin.

Sifting Compost

Starting fresh with a new bin gave me the opportunity to layer the contents from the old bin a little more efficiently. I sifted out some finished compost from the old bin and whatever was left was layered into the new bin along with alternating layers of shredded leaves and other dry garden waste.

Layering the Contents of the Compost

The sifted compost was added to the garden one wheelbarrow at a time. I got about halfway though one side of the old bin when I struck gold! Absolutely beautiful compost that didn’t even need sifting came out by shovelfuls. These were all added to the garden to be spread out and tilled in next weekend.

Compost Added to the Garden

Hopefully the new bin is off to a good beginning.

Old Bin Empty and New Bin to the Right

First Day Out!

2011-05-08T13:25:00.000-04:00

On Saturday, I began hardening off the tomatoes, peppers, and eggplants. Their first day outside was spent under the protective shade of a patio umbrella.

There was a light breeze for most of the morning. I was outside doing gardening chores most of the day and kept checking on them to be sure they were watered and not stressed.

By early afternoon, the wind picked up as a cold front began moving into the area. The sky darkened with the threat of a thunderstorm, so K helped me move the plants back inside to the safety back under the lights in the basement.

As I settled the plants under the lights, I found that the tomatoes grew significantly in the short time they were outside. I had to raise the lights so they would fit back on the shelves.

Garden Update: May 1, 2011

2011-05-01T18:54:00.000-04:00

The weather turned much more seasonal this week with warmer temperatures. The grass has greened up and will need its first mow in a week or so. The trees are now budding with the promise of foliage. The forsythia has begun to show its beautiful bright yellow blooms. Spring has truly arrived here in Maine.

The rest of the tomatoes, peppers, and eggplants were potted up over the past week.

Black Beauty Eggplant

Marconi Rosso & Quadrato Rosso D'Asti Peppers

The Roma Tomatoes potted up last weekend are growing really fast. I am adjusting the lights upwards every couple of days:

Roma Tomato

On Saturday morning, I rearranged the potted up seedlings and did a count to see how many of each I had and compared it to my garden plan. I was a few short of some and a few over on others, so there will need to be some slight adjustments to the garden plan.

There is also some growing progress out in the garden:

Pea Pods Along the North End of the Garlic Bed

Red Barron Onion Sets

Spinach

I removed the hoop protecting the Lettuce, Pak Choi, Chinese Cabbage, Swiss Chard this weekend. The lettuce is ready for harvesting some of the outer leaves. Unfortunately, the Pak Choi is already bolting. I will try growing it again in the fall.

Lettuce, Chinese Cabbage, Pak Choi, and Swiss Chard

Carrot seed mats planted in the square foot gardens and Celery was transplanted to the Self Watering Containers (SWC).

Celery

The Heritage Raspberries planted last year have all begun to green up. I also spotted some new plants growing. This raspberry patch will fill in quickly at this rate.

New Heritage Raspberry

This weekend, I started all my squash, cucumbers, and melons in soil blocks. These will be transplanted to the garden in only a few weeks. Most of these could be direct seeded once the danger of frost has past, but I have experienced better germination control with starting the seeds indoors. It also provides the plants a head start on the short growing season.

The in-ground gardens have dried out and are ready to be prepared for planting. We are hoping to accomplish this next week along with planting potatoes.

Garden Update

2011-04-22T11:23:00.000-04:00

Mother Nature is still teasing us with a few warm days here and there only to be followed with chilly temperatures. Daytime temperatures this week have been in the 50s, while nighttime temperatures have been in the 30s. However, there is the possibility that spring will come all at once and I am trying to be ready for it.

Garden accomplishments over the past week included adding compost and restringing the Square Foot Gardens (SFG). The old cotton strings had deteriorated. Most had snapped, so I pulled the remaining strings when cleaning out the gardens and they were added to the compost bin to further decompose. It was easier to add compost and mix in without the strings getting in the way. Once the compost was worked in and leveled off, I restrung the squares with cotton string.

Topped off with compost and restrung

Some Red Barron Onion sets were planted along with some Shallots. I also began transplanting some of the onion seedlings. This resulted in the realization that I misjudged the space allocated in the garden for onions.

Onion sets and seedlings

I mass planted the seeds into individual recycled berry containers. The onion seeds were two years old, so I didn’t expect them all to germinate. But I didn’t expect the seeds to last another year either. Evidently, the two-year-old seeds were in great condition as almost all germinated and grew to healthy seedlings.

Onion seedlings under the lights in February

One of the four onion containers ready to be tranplanted

Once the onion seedlings were separated and spaced out 16 per square foot. It was apparent that they would require double the space planned. Luckily, with SFGing it is easy to adjust the squares. Some lettuce space was reduced in order to make room for the onion seedlings. Spring Lettuce will grow and produce just as well in pots.

The Celery seedlings’ roots were bursting from their soilblocks but the weather and the Self Watering Containers that they will eventually be planted in are not ready yet. So I moved the Celery into larger containers. I will begin hardening them off this weekend.

Celery potted up into larger containers

Roma Tomatoes were also potted up. Within 24-hours of seeding into the new germination station, the Roma Tomato seeds were the first to sprout. These were transferred carefully to soil blocks and continued to grow quickly. Once they reached two-inches in height and their roots appeared at the edges of the soilblocks, I decided to pot them up into larger containers. These will not be planted out for another month and they should benefit from stretching their roots a little.

Roma Tomatoes

The rest of the tomatoes and peppers were a little slower to sprout even with using the seed starting germination station. They still have plenty of time to catch up. They won't be planted out until around Memorial Day:

Tomato and Pepper seedlings in soilblocks

Lettuce seedlings joined the greens under protection. The beautiful red lettuces developed into even more brilliant colors and they are taking the cold nights in stride:

This weekend will again be partially rainy. Not much can be done with the in-ground gardens right now until they dry out more:

One of the two in ground garden plots

Luckily the raised beds drain really well and warm up quickly allowing me to get a jump on the growing season.

I am looking forward to making some progress in the garden this weekend. Plans include planting out more onion and lettuce seedlings into the raised beds, pulling out the Self Watering Containers from the shed to prepare for the new season, and making some carrot seed mats to be planted in the SFGs.

Doing the Seedling Shuffle

2011-04-15T19:31:00.001-04:00

I began hardening off some spring crops last weekend. Onions, Swiss Chard, Chinese Cabbage, Pak Choi, Spinach and Lettuce were allowed to sun themselves outside a little at a time. I like to begin this process while I am home the weekend so I can watch over the seedlings to make sure they are not becoming stressed from the sun or wind. I also make sure they are watered during the time they are out.

After several days, the seedlings are usually ready to be shuffled outside before I head into work and brought inside after dinner. I will skip a day if the weather is expected to be especially rainy or windy. A cold frame would really come in handy right now.

Swiss Chard, Pak Choi and Chinese Cabbage were bursting from their soil blocks, so they were transplanted mid-week to the garden. I am not sure how they will do as some of our nighttime temperatures are still dipping below freezing. For now, they are under protection of a makeshift hoop covered with a lightweight row cover:

Makeshift hoop covered with a lightweight row cover

From top to bottom: Swiss Chard, Chinese Cabbage, and Pak Choi

A simple dome made with two 10 foot PVC conduit has been placed over the 4x4 SFG. On very cold nights like tonight, the bed is covered with plastic for added protection. Tonight temperatures may go as low as 21 degrees F.

The SFG beds have been cleaned up and fresh compost added and worked in. They are ready for planting whenever the weather cooperates. The next few days will also remain quite chilly with nights still dipping below freezing:

accuweather.com

Here are some pictures of the spring seedlings and other things that are growing in the garden:

Onions Enjoying the Sun

Lettuce

Chives

Some overwintered bunching onions

Garlic peeking up through the leaf mulch

Oregano

I was planning on transplanting the spinach seedlings under the hoop this weekend. However, fluctuating temperatures must have confused them. Most of the spinach began bolting within a few days of hardening off (sigh). I will harvest the spinach and direct seed some more in the garden.

In Love With Lettuce

2011-04-13T04:00:00.002-04:00

I have a confession to make….I am in love with lettuce.

Marvielle de Quatre Saison

I love the different colorations. textures, and the variety of leaf shapes:

Unknown Variety from a Lettuce Blend

Rouge d'Hiver

Unknown Variety from a Lettuce Blend

I also love how they combine and contrast against each other.

It is almost a shame to eat it.....almost.

Harvest Monday: April 11, 2011

2011-04-11T16:59:00.000-04:00

This lettuce was seeded back in late December both to test some old seeds and grow some fresh greens. This is the last of the lettuce from that batch.

From the looks of the spring seedlings, we will not be out of lettuce for long:

Be sure to visit Daphne’s Dandelions to see what others are harvesting this week.

What a Difference a Week Makes

2011-04-09T09:20:00.000-04:00

Today, I will begin hardening off the hearty spring crops to eventually be planted under some hoops:

Chinese Cabbage

Pak Choi

Spinach

Swiss Chard

Lettuce

Last Friday, we were in the middle of yet another significant snowstorm that left 10-inches of snow behind. One week later, the snow from last week’s storm has melted along with most of the snow that remained on the ground from the winter.

The gardens are now clear, but parts of the yard still has several inches of snow:

I have Fridays off from work. I was thrilled to be able to work on cleaning up the raised beds yesterday. I am also looking forward to getting more accomplished outside today. The weather predictions for the next week look much more seasonable with most nights above freezing, but it is still unpredictable. Hopefully, I will be able to plant out some spring crops soon under protection soon.

It's Time to Start Tomato, Pepper, and Eggplant Seeds

2011-04-02T10:36:00.001-04:00

We woke to a winter wonderland early Friday morning with a few inches of snow clinging to the trees and covering the ground. It snowed most of the day with an accumulation of about 10-inches of heavy, wet, and sticky snow.

Even though it looks like winter outside, the calendar and my seed-starting schedule says it is time for starting my tomatoes, peppers, and eggplants seeds.

A recycled a mini-muffin baking container will serve as my seed germinating station this year. Each cell is layered with a bit of damp paper towel, labeled, and seeded.

The container is placed in a warm area and will be checked each day for seed germination and to be sure the paper towels are still wet.

I mixed up some soil and prepared a tray full of soil blocks. Once seeds show signs of sprouting, I will carefully place them into the depressions in the waiting soil blocks.

We were making such progress with the remaining winter snow melt. Now the garden beds are blanketed again with another layer of snow.

It is disheartening and I have to keep reminding myself that spring snows never last long and the stronger sun and warmer weather will dissolve this new snow soon. I really hope this is our last snow of the season.

Nor'Easter Expected on April Fool's Day

2011-03-31T07:49:00.001-04:00

It's no joke! The National Weather Service Forecast for my area:

Tonight: Snow, mainly after 2am. The snow could be heavy at times. Low around 31. East wind between 3 and 8 mph. Chance of precipitation is 90%. New snow accumulation of 1 to 3 inches possible.

Friday: Snow. The snow could be heavy at times. High near 33. Breezy, with a northeast wind between 14 and 21 mph. Chance of precipitation is 100%. New snow accumulation of 7 to 11 inches possible.

~~Friday Night: Snow likely, mainly before 2am. Cloudy, with a low around 28. Blustery, with a northwest wind between 14 and 21 mph. Chance of precipitation is 60%.~~

Update: Friday Night: Snow, mainly before 11pm. Low around 29. North wind between 8 and 11 mph. Chance of precipitation is 80%. New snow accumulation of 2 to 4 inches possible.

Harvest Monday: March 21, 2011

2011-03-21T17:54:00.000-04:00

Each Monday, Daphne’s Dandelions hosts “Harvest Monday” where everyone can share links to their harvest for the week. It’s fun to see what everyone is harvesting from his or her gardens in different areas.

Not much to harvest here in Maine yet, but I did enjoy some of my stored harvest from last season.

I was sad to use up the last of the Kennebec Potatoes this week:

As you can see, it was perfect timing. They have begun to sprout and were a little soft, but still very good as mashed potatoes with garlic. Now I have a better idea how long potatoes will keep in the basement. I haven’t opened up the boxes with the seed potatoes yet, but I am worried they may not last until planting time.

We were down to only a few jars of salsa, so I made another batch this weekend using frozen tomatoes, garden garlic, and the remainder of my frozen Anaheim and Bell peppers. I still have some frozen Jalapeno peppers and I am not sure how I will use these up.

Fresh harvests include a few salad clippings from the spinach and lettuce growing under the lights in the basement. Onion trimmings are also adding a nice mild, onion flavor when sprinkled on various dishes.

Be sure to visit Daphne’s Dandelions to see what others are harvesting this week.

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I am sure many of you laughed at first when you saw that we were shoveling and snow blowing the garden over the weekend. I had a moment of thinking we were a little nuts as well, but look:

By Sunday, the remaining snow melted on the raised boxes. This will allow the boxes to dry out and hopefully warm up sooner than if they were still blanketed with a layer of snow. We are currently experiencing another snowstorm that is supposed to drop 3-6 inches of snow by tomorrow. However, this spring snow won’t be around for long now that the sun is stronger.

The Impatient Maine Gardener

2011-03-19T08:49:00.000-04:00

After K snow blowed the paths between the beds in the garden, I shoveled off some of the raised beds so the rest of the snow would melt faster. There was over a foot of heavy snow on top of the beds.

By afternoon, temperatures reached 68 degrees F and the paths were clear down to the ground and the snow remaining on the raised beds had reduced significantly. However, you can’t outsmart Mother Nature. We woke this morning to more snowfall a fresh covering of snow. Only an inch or so that will surely melt quickly, but it served as a reminder that winter is still hanging on.

There is some green under the collapsed mini-hoops, but I don’t know yet if anything survived.

Removing the snow from the raised beds will allow the remaining snow melt quicker and the soil to warm up sooner than the rest of the garden still under snowcover. Hopefully, I’ll be able to get some early crops planted under protection soon.

The Snow is Not Melting Fast Enough

2011-03-18T14:47:00.000-04:00

The past few days have been really warm here in Maine. Today it is supposed to reach 60 degrees but the snow is not melting fast enough from the garden. Last year at this time the snow was long gone. I was amending the soil, fixing up the trellis, and hardening off some cool weather crops.

I drive to work only 20 minutes away and the snow is almost gone. I come back home and see the garden still covered with 1.5 feet of snow. The snow around the house foundation and the snow blowed paths is gone and continues to recede:

Snowblowed path leading to shed and compost bin

It seems K is getting sick of hearing me complain about the snow on the garden. He took matters in his own hands this morning:

More later…

There IS a Garden Beneath the Snow

2011-03-15T19:18:00.000-04:00

A combination of rain and warmer weather contributed to some significant melting over the weekend. We can now see the very top of the wire fence surrounding the garden.

The fence is 2 feet high, so we still have a ways to go.

Using Soil Blocks for Growing Seedlings

2011-03-13T17:38:00.000-04:00

A recent comment from Jeph at “Fresh is Best” has prompted me to share my experience so far with growing seedlings using soil blocks. As I explained to Jeph, I am no expert as this is only my second year of both growing my own seedlings and using soil blocks. However, my overall experience last year was so positive that I will continue to use soil blocks for most of my seedlings this year.

Previous to growing my own seedlings last year, my garden was planted with purchased transplants and direct seeding. I usually do a lot of research on new gardening methods that appeal to me before trying them. So, I had been reading and learning about seed starting and soil blocks for years before deciding to try it myself.

Once I decided to grow my seedlings from seed, I knew I wanted to invest in a 2-inch Soil Block Maker. I purchased mine last year from Johnny’s Selected Seeds.

The recommended soil block recipe is from Eliot Coleman’s book: The New Organic Grower and a copy was sent with the soil block maker I purchased last year and can be downloaded for the Johnny’s Selected Seeds website.

Last year I had problems sourcing out these ingredients during the winter months. However, most of my research told me that alternative soil mixes have also been used with good results as long as the soil mixture is fibrous enough to hold together through many waterings but allow air to pass through to provide oxygen to the roots and to permit drainage.

The recommend mix is composed of peat, lime, coarse sand or perlite, fertilizer, compost and soil. What I could easily find in January was organic seed starting mix made from approximately 80% peat moss, 19% perlite, and 1% lime. I also had some organic bagged compost on hand and some Plant Tone fertilizer by Epsoma. So I thought I would mix up a batch and give it a try: “I Played With the Soil Block Maker!” I passed the compost through a piece of hardware cloth into a tote to screen out any lumps before adding it to the mixture.

The test soil blocks retained moisture and held up well to being moved around and organized into different trays. So I proceeded with using this soil block mixture for my spring seedlings. I did fertilize with fish emulsion when the seedlings showed they need it, which was several weeks after germination, then every two weeks until planted in the garden. I had very good results and my seedlings were healthier and stronger than any transplants I had purchased before. When potting up or transplanting to the garden there is no transplant shock since you are not disturbing the roots. The transplants just continue to grow.

The fall seedlings were started in soil blocks made from Pro-Mix Potting & Seeding Mix (Made from Canadian sphagnum peat moss, limestone, perlite, vermiculite, and a wetting agent), screened compost, and a sprinkle of Plant Tone by Epsoma. This will be my second year growing from seed and I am using the Pro-Mix, screened compost, Plant Tone method again for my soil blocks.

I use a dishpan to mix up small batching of soil block mix as needed. I add Pro-Mix and screened compost to the dishpan at a ratio of approximately 3 scoops of Pro-Mix to 1 scoop of screened compost. I sprinkle in a couple of tablespoons of Plant Tone by Epsoma and add water. I mix the soil and water together then I let it sit for a few hours or even until the next day. This gives the mixture ample opportunity to soak up as much water as it can.

Johnny’s has a great video showing how to make the soilblocks: Click here to view.

Expanding the Seed Starting Area

2011-03-05T08:19:00.000-05:00

Spring arrived early last year and I began planting out some cold hearty crops under protection in early April.

Spring 2010 Square Foot Garden Under Protection

This was perfect timing because the tomatoes, peppers, and eggplants were due to be sowed and space under the lights was tight.

Since things are already getting crowded under the lights and it is doubtful that Spring will be early again, I decided to increase my seed starting area.

Previously, I used two 24-inch wide shelving units on the workbench. Side by side they accommodate 4-foot shop lights and two seed flats on each shelf.

2010 Seed Starting Area

I decided to expand the shelving by moving the units to the floor and adding two more shelving units on top.

New Shelving Units

This will double my seed starting area and give me more working space on the workbench:

Updated Seed Starting Area with Room to Grow!

Seed Starting Progress

2011-02-27T11:55:00.000-05:00

My seed-starting schedule is in full swing with a little something scheduled to sow each weekend. It is getting crowded under the lights:

Seedling Shelves in the Basement

Lettuce, Spinach, and various herbs are growing on the top shelves:

Lettuce, Oregano, Basil, & Cilantro

Spinach & Lettuce Mix

Most of the herbs will move upstairs soon to continue growing on a sunny kitchen windowsill.

Although we have been enjoying a few salad clippings from the Lettuce and Spinach each week, some have already begun to bolt and I expect the rest to bolt soon as well. It may be too warm for them even in the basement.

The Onion seedlings were started in early January. They are growing really well. I clip them each week and we enjoy the mild tasting Onion clippings in salads, as pizza topping, omelets, etc.

Onion Seedlings Under the Lights

Onion Seedlings

Parsley was seeded on 2/10 and only a few seeds have germinated so far (sigh):

Flat Leaf Parsley

Some early Swiss Chard was also planted on 2/10. These will be grown in a pot that can be taken inside on really cold nights. More Swiss Chard will be planted at a later date to be grown in the garden.

Swiss Chard

Two types of Spinach was sown last weekend into a full flat of soil blocks. Last spring most of my Spinach bolted prematurely because of the unusually warm weather we experienced. This year, I am trying Space Spinach, which is supposed to be more bolt resistant along with Tyee Spinach.

Spinach

Celery was also planted last weekend, but has not germinated yet.

This weekend, I seeded some Chinese Cabbage and Pak Choi.

Last week there was still 2-feet of snow on the ground. I could just barely see the hump in the snow of outlining the 2-foot fence surrounding the garden. This weekend’s snow has added another foot. It feels like spring is a long, long ways away. For now, I must be content with tending to my seedlings.

Another Foot of Snow

2011-02-25T15:26:00.000-05:00

Today, another foot of snow has piled up on top of the two feet still on the ground.

Spring can't come soon enough for this gardener.

Seeds from Granny!

2011-02-06T09:32:00.000-05:00

Back on December 25th, Granny from Annie’s Kitchen Garden celebrated 100,000 blog views by holding a contest. I was one of the lucky winners and my prize arrived this week, Seeds from Ohio Heirloom Seeds:

Thank you so much Granny! I am very excited to try the Red Marconi and Quadrato Rosso D’Asti Sweet Peppers. The carrots and lettuce mix will be planted this spring using your Seed Mat Method.