The Five Mile Furrow

Home Baking Monday's

2011-03-21T19:28:00.000-07:00

Used the Mimi's German Apple Cake recipe as a base for my Apple Pear Walnut cake tonight.

I just purchased the Rustic Fruit Desserts book and love it. Perfect for homestead baking.

The apples, pears, and walnuts were really for a deep dish winter pie, but I didn't have any cranberries. But, this will do in a pinch.

Sunday Garden 02-27-11

2011-02-27T16:16:00.000-08:00

Is it to early to ~~hope~~ wish for spring?

Back to Basics!

2011-01-30T11:59:00.000-08:00

So, the economy is tanking, what's a girl to do?

Start baking her own bread again.

Thanks to our knitting/spinning friend, Trine. She posted this recipe over on Ravelry for our knitting group to try.

Just took this out of the oven and snapped a photo.

I'll ask her if I can post the recipe on the blog to share with you. It's beyond super easy!

In gardening news: I have the three little tomato starts that I had in the kitchen window out in the garden house/mini greenhouse. With the seedling mat and a 13w daylight bulb, they are doing fantastic. A second set of leaves is starting to appear.

I really do feel better this year about gardening by keeping it small and manageable.

ETA:

Trine's Bread Recipe
:
Ingredients:
500g flour (any kind you like. I use 350g unbleached white and 150g rye flour) = 4.5 cups
1 cup sunflower seeds
1 cup flax seeds
1 cup rolled oats or bran
2 tablespoons vinegar (mild flavor)
1 tablespoon honey
pinch of salt
1 teaspoon (I was wrong here earlier) of yeast
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 liter or 2 cups of room temperature water
spices as you wish (cardamon, cumin, cinnamon, anis, etc)
If you want you can add dried fruits or nuts to this, just take out some of the above mentioned seeds.
Mix all ingredients well in a mixer. Dough will be wet and sticky!!! I put my dough in a pyrex glass bowl, but you can just place it on a sheet if you like. Moisten the top and score it a few times. Place dough and a cup filled with water in the COLD oven and turn oven to 375 degree F for 70 min. and your done!!!
Enjoy!!!!

Sunday Garden 01-23-11

2011-01-23T12:32:00.000-08:00

I managed a few hours out in the garden today, since the rain was holding off and I found I had the time and the energy to get out there.

I took down the greenhouse. Gone! I've been researching smaller, efficient greenhouses and need to save for one that will hold heat, automatically open a roof vent, etc.

I did have a 16' board cut at Home Depot a few weeks back. I managed to get the Mister to put it together for me. I was getting tired by that point.

I moved the standing greenhouse shelf with cover into the garden house. It is next to a very large window that I have successfully grown plants next to before.

For now this will have to do.

My plans for this year's garden are to keep it simple and small.

Tomatoes, peppers, garlic, onions, carrots, and zucchini.

I will be so busy with all the fiber events in my life, a smaller garden is just what I need.

Gardening January 17, 2011

2011-01-17T16:10:00.002-08:00

Blurry-eyed view of my Farmers Market purchases.

2010-05-01T13:25:00.000-07:00

Today was the opening day of the 2010 Puyallup Farmer's Market. I arrived just minutes before the official start time and completed my shopping within 30 minutes.

I, of all people, know I need a new camera, but I don't want to let go of the purse strings to buy one just yet.

Asparagus was available for $1.49 a pound. I purchased the soap I love, Rose and Jasmine, which is made locally. In the brown bag is a goodie I bought for myself to have later...a sweet butter pecan roll. Nummy!

The asparagus was bound for these three pints of hot pickled asparagus. It will be ready to eat in six weeks. I usually make Asparagus Roll-ups with ham and cream cheese. Another yummy. Especially with a Blue Moon Summer Beer.

The last purchase, a Black Beauty Zucchini from a vendor who lives here in Graham. Lots of blossoms on this lovely plant. The little pumpkin start is a freebie from the Puyallup Farmer's Market, 1 of 600, given away to the first 600 folks that ask. :)

Even with the wind and the cold temperatures, the market was FULL of vendors. It sure makes it feel like spring!

A moment of beauty!

2010-04-25T07:44:00.000-07:00

Asian Pear Tree

For me, the moment a fruit tree is in full bloom is the most beautiful!

Now, if my allergies would go away!

Besides the Sun...

2010-04-11T14:48:00.000-07:00

Here's another sure sign that it is indeed spring:

Just a shy three months until this year's crop is ready to harvest!

Here's How My Tomatoes Are Growing

2010-03-23T18:28:00.000-07:00

Seeds started on February 19th . My two biggest plants so far:

Saucey

Oroma

Sherrill, I'll be interested to see if mine catch up with your monsters! I think I'm just going to keep all my plants in the greenhouse until it's warm enough to plant outside. Those wall-o-waters were kind of a pain last year.

Today I also starts three different types of peppers-- Banana, Pablano & Early Jalepeno-- four different types of flowers-- Sunspot & Autumn Beauty Sunflowers, Tithonia "Torch", Bright Lights Cosmos & Sparky Marigolds. I also started a whole raft of Lettuce Leaf Basil. I'm determined to grow enough peppers & tomatoes for salsa & basil for pesto this year! Heh. Aren't we so determined every spring?!

Srsly?!

2010-03-21T09:18:00.000-07:00

I'm 43 years old. It took me 43 years to look up the ingredients in taco seasoning. Four decades & three years to realize that I have everything in my cupboard to make the best taco meat ever. I make my own granola, bread, chicken broth, and teriyaki sauce, but it took me twice the drinking age plus a year to get it into my thick skull that I don't have to buy the magical "taco seasoning" in the big plastic Cosctco container to make spicy, yummy meat to eat in our tacos & burritos & on our nachos. Shoot, this stuff is so good the little girlie wanted a bowl of it for breakfast yesterday & chanted "Meat, meat!" in order to get it.
So, let me share this miraculous recipe:

1 lb ground beef (preferably from purchased in bulk from a local farmer)
1 lb ground pork (ditto)

Brown meat & drain fat. Add 3/4 cups water & the following seasonings...

2 tbs chili powder
1 tbs + 1 tsp ground cumin
1/2 tsp garlic powder or granules
1/2 tsp onion powder or granules
1/2 tsp cayenne
1/2 tsp dried oregano
1 tsp paprika
2 tsp corn starch
2 tsp course salt

Simmer until the liquid is mostly evaporated & eat.

Enjoy!A carnivore in sheep shoes!!!

Welcome Spring!!!

2010-03-20T14:28:00.000-07:00

Today is a beautiful first day of spring-- sunny & warm with a few clouds to keep it from getting too hot in the garden. Me & the kiddos got a lot of work done today-- cleaned up the raspberry bed & tied the canes in bunches (you can see them behind girlie in this pic), cleaned up & planted a 4"x6" bed with Green Arrow & Oregon Sugar Pod peas, and cleaned up and planted a 4" x 12" bed with 24 Yellow Finn & 24 Red Kennebec potatoes! We didn't get to the onion sets & I didn't get to amend the potato bed with compost, but considering we were up there for about 2 1/2 hours with no meltdowns or whining, I would say we did really well. I'll side dress the potatoes as they grow & that should do the trick.

Anyway, my mud loving little girl is knocked the heck out on the couch right now after such an adventure! And, yes, those are the boy's Lego Star Wars pajamas. Heh. He said he didn't want to come outside when the girlie & I headed up there, but the next thing I knew, there he was in his pajamas & rubber boots, digging for worms & jabbering about finding treasures in the soil!

I had the man rig up a supplemental light in the greenhouse for my tomato starts, and they're working on their first & second set of leaves now... except for the ones that didn't come up at all! So far I'm really disappointed with the Oregon Spring seeds-- one mutant sprout and one dud. *shrug* Saucey was the first to germinate, but only half of them did so. This is the first year I've grown my own tomatoes from seed, and I can see why people always end up with too many starts. Germination is not a reliable phenomenon with tomatoes, it seems, and one could easily plant twice as much as needed just to make sure there's enough in the end. I think we'll be alright, but even if I have to buy a few plants form the store, it's no tragedy.

The lettuce & salad greens I planted in the greenhouse bed is up & looking happy, too. I'm not sure what all else to plant in there. It'll be hot as Hades in there in no time. Peppers maybe? Sherril... do you still have that packet of Early Jalepenos I had you start for me last year? :)

Happy gardening, my friends!

Happy Spring Day to You!

2010-03-20T09:17:00.000-07:00

Here chick, chick! Oh my, what did I bring home to celebrate the first day of spring? Two Rhode Island Reds, one Barred Rock, one Buff Orpington, and two Black Sexlinks. Six was the minimum available to purchase. I wanted Golden Sexlinks, but there were no day-olds in that breed, just week olds and I didn't want to have the older chicks beating up the younger ones.
This year the coop will be stationary again.

Tomatoes and Snowdrift marigolds I started from seed.

The weather around the Pacific Northwest was just right for working in the garden last night. It will be great today as well. I have a few more trees to prune back, though most are done. I'll move mulch covering off the main beds into side areas and finish sprucing up the inside of the garden shed.

The double layer of covering on the green house will most likely come off. We have had the low's into the high 20's, but during the day, the greenhouse has been recorded at 110 degrees. Time for some shifting, light removed, heating mats placed on timers.

Tom Thumb lettuce started from seed.

It will be a great day for gardening, don't you agree?

2/27/10 in the garden...

2010-02-27T16:06:00.000-08:00

Late Winter Cleanup, Slow Compost & Tomato Seeds

2010-02-15T15:16:00.001-08:00

Wow. I finally got my butt out into the greenhouse today and cleaned up all the dead flowers & vegetable debris left over from last season. That's terrible, huh. My excuse is that everything I think about doing involves a 4 year old and and a 22 mos old & the possible extra work of them getting dirty or just being in the way. I know that sounds terrible, but I'm being honest, here. It is getting easier, as I was able to put the little girl in an old pair of her brother's rubber boots, bundle her in two layers of pants & wool socks, a washable hoodie & a warm hat and bring her out there with me. My gosh she had a blast getting down & dirty and "helping" move compost with her little bare hands and pulling dead weeds! I'll be posting some pics of the kiddos in the yard over on my other blog, if you want to see how getting dirty can be cute, too.

Speaking of compost, remember those potatoes I planted in the compost pile last year & kept layering with straw to try and produce potatoes all the way up the vine? Yeah, that was a bust. Each produced one layer of spuds & that was it. The pile did produce a bumper crop of beautiful compost, though, so after I dug out all of the winter-worn & rotten spuds & removed the layer of sodden straw, I uncovered a mound of rich, black soil. Lovely. I hauled a load into the greenhouse to try & revive the dessicated soil that's left in the planting bed in there. I'm also hoping that the cold snaps we got this winter killed off the aphids that were taking up residence in there at the end of the summer. We'll see.

I also put in my tomato seed order today. My major gardening goal this year is to only grow what the cretins around here will actually eat, so I went light on the slicers & heavy on the saucers. Spaghetti & pizza sauce get a big thumbs up from the peanut gallery, but no one but me will touch a fresh tomato! Here's the rundown:

1	TM884/S	Chocolate Cherry Tomato - 1/8 gram	$3.15
1	TM919/L	Legend Tomato Conventional & Organic - 20 seeds Organic	$4.25
1	TM863/L	Oregon Spring Tomato Conventional & Organic - 1/8 gram Organic	$3.15
1	TM894/S	Oroma Tomato - 1/8 gram	$2.85
1	TM864/S	Santiam Tomato - 1/8 gram	$2.85
1	TM898/S	Saucey Tomato - 1/8 gram	$2.85
1	TM924/S	Super Marzano Tomato - 1/8 gram	$3.85

All from Territorial, in case you want to check out these varieties.

Not bad for a lazy day off.

Ciao!

Quality Control...

2010-02-15T12:23:00.000-08:00

is what I was thinking about today as I was out in the garden pruning the grapevines.

The weather is lovely. At least in this corner of the United States.

There were shouts and protests on the traditional "Groundhogs Day" celebration.

Why?

There is no plan to make the little guy into a hat. I have to say, "as least he has a job." Many folks around the U.S. could be so lucky.

So, Phil gave it a good try, at least for the East coast...but the West coast...where's the quality control? Our last frost date is a few months away.

With that said, at least I made progress today in the garden. I managed to prune back those grapevines to look fabulous and I gave myself a blister to boot!

Veg Seed Swap

2009-12-27T11:17:00.001-08:00

This offer is extended to all of our blog readers that would like to try a few different plants in the garden for the 2010 season. I have a long enough list, but only small amounts of seeds available to swap. I would assume 3-5 seeds per pack if several gardeners are interested in doing so.

To the right, just under our "Followers" listing, you will find "Sherrill's Seeds for Swap List '10."

If you are interested in an exchange, you can email me at baabonnybelle at yahoo dot com. We can exchange snail mail info.

I would love to try some herbs or veg's, such as: amaranth, beets, brussel sprout, lavender, tomatoes of different varieties, woad. Maybe you have a lovely squash to trade.

I am looking forward to a very productive gardening season.

I'm always amazed, Sherrill....

2009-12-20T10:20:00.000-08:00

how even though we don't talk on a daily basis or really try to influence each others' views, we always seem to land on the same page anyway.

I haven't seen Food Inc. yet, although I've read about it & I'm pretty sure I know everything it's going to reveal already-- I read Omnivore's Dilemma and Animal, Vegetable, Mineral a few years ago.

Those are the exact reasons why I go out of my way to buy meat from local farmers. While I cannot get the carnivores over here to eat more than the occasional meatless meal, I can control the source of most of the meat we buy. Unfortunately they haven't invented an all bacon pig yet, though, so I eat a fair amount of denial along with the toxins & evil in our Costco bacon.

Keep up the self-education, sister. I'm right there with you.

As for Monsanto... here's an article that should make your hair curl:

Monsanto Stomps Down Budding Seed Competitors

Let me digest the most recent post you wrote & get back to you after the holiday madness has subsided over here. Right now the Lego advent calendar is demanding my attention. ;)

All New Square Foot Gardening

2009-12-20T09:36:00.001-08:00

I picked this book up at the library yesterday. It is well worth a purchase, which I took care of this morning on Amazon.com.

This revised edition is well written, easy for reference, and has great photos. The topics are written in short, precise paragraphs so you do not fall asleep as you try to get to the meat of it.

On the seed side:

I trudged out to the garden to bring in my box of seeds. Taking a quick look, I do not think I will need much this year, but if I do, I'll be purchasing them from Freedom Seeds.

Michelle, shall we post seeds for trade, with one another and our blog followers? Not full packets for trade, but 5-10 seeds so we all can get a good variety for the garden? Plus, it would only be the price of a stamp, .44cents.

I also thought I'd post some plan-ahead meals that include the shopping list so we all have more time to garden and knit or weave.

What have I been missing?

2009-12-19T23:31:00.001-08:00

Is it possible to be so out-of-the-loop?

I just watched Food Inc.

Wow.

I need to read up on Monsanto Corp.

How can any of this be possible?

Eating local will now take on an even bigger meaning.

Here's another link to Food Inc for their TakePart Social Action.

I think it was back in June, first part, that we went for our pork, Michelle.

Can't wait to place the next order.

Wow!

Christmas Decorating, Country Style

2009-12-15T18:33:00.001-08:00

I had to share this idea I have used for the past few years. I received many compliments on it from those that gathered here on Saturday for a holiday gathering.

I take a bunch of wide-mouth canning jars and one string of lights. Stuff them as evenly into the jars as possible and wha-la. Decorations for nothing. Add a few jolly Santa's and the decorating is done...at least at the kitchen sink.

RIP: Pacco April 2008 - December 2009

2009-12-10T18:09:00.000-08:00

Farm life is just that, farm life. One needs to learn how to cope with loss as well as abundance when you grow fruits/vegetables and raise livestock.

I am getting better and better at accepting this circle of life. Be it a tomato plant I spent three months growing from seed and losing it to frost to rabbits and chickens.

Today was another notch in the belt to be a stronger homesteader.

This is a picture of Lucy with me this past year.

Lucy and Wendy are still with us.

It was Pacco that passed away today.

Pacco was the chicken I nursed through heat stroke this summer and then she took ill two days ago, maybe from not being a strong chicken to begin with or from the cold, cold temps.

I did manage to pick up her little body and take her out of the coop when I came home and found her. I made the Mister take care of the rest.

2009 season comes to a close.

2009-10-25T13:36:00.001-07:00

I found a hour of time to clean up the garden shed, where I plan to do some winter dyeing of wool, roving, and yarn soon.

I also managed to plant a small batch of soft-neck garlic and pruned some suckers from two plum trees.

Next year, I plan to go smaller with my garden. There will only be three of us and with working full time, it is very hard to keep the garden under control without it taking over my life.

Like other things, there should be a gardening balance.

In the Fall Garden

2009-10-11T17:21:00.000-07:00

I have to admit, my gardening enthusiasm always wanes severely in the late summer, ironically, when everything is really starting to produce. It just gets so HOT & buggy & tired in the garden-- it always seems to need more water than I'm willing to give it & I just cannot drag myself out there to tend it the way it really needs tending. I wish I could maintain my focus, as I'm sure my late-season neglect really stops my garden from moving from a somewhat stingy backyard garden into a truly bountiful plot. Since I have a greenhouse now, I'm hoping to grow some food in there throughout the fall and winter-- I also have many cabbages and other cole crops like broccoli, kale & collards that should continue to grow for some time, and should also outlast the astounding bumper crop of cabbage loopers that have turned my young cabbage plants into some lace-leaf mutation of cabbage.

Anyway, I did get out there today to clean up a 2' x 12' bed and plant next summer's crop of garlic. As it turns out, I harvested plenty this year to plant and have enough to use until next year, so even with the poor results from one of the varieties, garlic was stil a success, for sure. I yanked out the Viva Italia tomato plants, all of which suffered from blossom end rot, sprinkled the bed liberally with organic fertilizer, layered on the dirty chicken litter that the stepson had just shoveled from the coop, feathers & all, spaced the garlic cloves evenly on top of the fresh chicken litter, and layered the whole shebang with partially rotted straw. This method worked great for me last year, so I'll keep my fingers crossed!

Here are some pictures I took while puttering around today:

Cosmos still reaching toward the ceiling in the greenhouse.

The Millionaire Eggplant is still cranking out fruit.

The hothouse cuke is doing the same.

Garlic tucked in for the winter.

It's supposed to freeze good tonight. Here's a last shot of this summer's climbing
nasturtiums, still hanging on in the slanting light.

This cabbage will be a sweet treat in the winter.

Collards. Hopefully these will size up by November, as we like
collards with bacon at Thanksgiving.

Pumpkins... will they be orange for Halloween, Charlie Brown?

Gorgeous fall foliage on the blueberries.The girls, cleaning up the tomato cast-offs.

Big Pimpin'... just waiting for the moment you turn your back on him!

Finally, today's harvest:
Cabbage & miniature eggplant, pretty in purple!

Happy Fall, ya'll!

Red and Green Peppers

2009-10-01T19:11:00.000-07:00

I picked most of the last of the peppers from the garden. It looks just like Home Depot today...Christmas.

Home Depot is locked and loaded with Christmas ornaments, displays, trees, and I'm sure a lot more. I went to get Danish Oil and I got a blast of Christmas on my way in.

The garden is close to being shut down until January when I get the itch to start seedlings. One more bale of straw to cover the last bed and I'll be good to go.

Time to do some indoor activities, like knitting and spinning.

More tomatoes

2009-08-30T22:00:00.000-07:00

The neighbor gave me six pounds of tomatoes last night.

First thing this morning, I cooked up enough pasta sauce for five pints.

My tomatoes are looking a little weather-weary.

If I get one more batch out of the garden, I will be happy.

Blackberries!

2009-08-27T22:22:00.000-07:00

The neighbor brought over a huge can of blackberries she picked by her work yesterday...an exchange for some zuchinni I gave her last weekend.

Bonus!

I made two batches of blackberry freezer jam and didn't even have to pick a one.

Rooster's Beak

2009-08-22T12:54:00.000-07:00

Pico de gallo & chips for lunch today. So yummy I drank the juice left at the bottom of the bowl! Chopped tomatoes, mild jalapeno peppers, onions-- all from the garden, a little salt & a little vinegar. YUM!

Harvest Yummies

2009-08-18T21:36:00.001-07:00

Drug my knitting-obsessed butt up to the garden today & discovered my first harvest-ready head of cabbage! I also picked two of my eggplant fruits. Sliced them& grilled them in olive oil and ate 'em on my philly sandwich tonight instead of the roast beef the boys ate-- it was SO yummy! Of the two eggplant varieties I planted, Millionaire is the winner, for sure. I will be starting my own next year & planting many, many more in the greenhouse. Those brownish-red tomatoes you see there are called Chocolate Cherry, and they are delicious as well. Sweet but also mellow and complex. I'll be searching out seeds for this variety to plant too. The cabbage became a cole slaw, and the carrot was happily eaten by the little boy with the "grass" still attached. He was brave enough to try a pear tomato, but hated it & washed it down with a mouthful of milk to get the taste out of his mouth-- poor kid.

I did sort of clean up a couple of beds, made sure my seedlings are in the shade & well-watered for the 90+ degree weather they're forecasting for tomorrow, but that's about it. It's hot out there with a 25 lb baby on your back. The other cabbages need more bt, as the cabbage loopers are starting to come back. Soon. Soon I'll get up there & get it all done.

Crayons are not just for kids anymore!

2009-08-15T23:20:00.000-07:00

Frozen Corn

It took me five hours to get the 48 ears of corn shucked, cut, cooked, and into the freezer containers. Found some of the old elementary crayons in the closet and pulled out two colors to keep in the kitchen to write on the lids.

This really is a two-person job. My legs and feet hurt from standing so long. It was worth it. Nineteen containers at two cups per equals a total of 38 cups of fresh, frozen (I know what is in it and where it came from) corn.

Priceless!

Tomato Season!

2009-08-13T18:37:00.000-07:00

They're h-e-e-e-e-e-e-re! Sure, so is the pouring rain, but it's still tomato season here in wacky western Washington. I'm the only one who will eat raw tomatoes around here, but I'm hoping to freeze & can plain toms for cooking as well as some yummy homemade salsa! I need to get my head out of the knitting for a bit (my life only seems to allow one hobby at a time!), as the weather is supposed to warm up this weekend & I still need to clean up some bed space & plant out fall veggie starts. I've also been harvesting lots of green beans-- froze a gallon bag the other day. My cukes are starting to produce, too, I should have my first head of cabbage very soon, AND... there are four eggplant fruits on my Millionaire plant! It's crunch time in the garden-- paradoxically, this is the time of year I always struggle to stay dedicated, as well. School will be starting up again soon, so I'll be back to work & thoughts have turned to school shopping & finishing up sweater projects for fall. I'm sure a nice, cool, sunny day will get me out there again, though. Fall in the Pacific Northwest can be a beautiful and very productive garden season, as seriously cold weather should hold off until November.

Monday Matters

2009-08-10T22:49:00.000-07:00

No picture tonight. Way to late.

Remember those tomatoes from yesterday's harvest.

All cooked up into pizza sauce. Bound for the freezer.

The house smells like an Italian bistro!

Next harvest will be for either pasta sauce or a chili base.

I could have water-bath canned them, but it is too late for a work night.

Happy harvesting!

Sunday Harvet

2009-08-09T10:10:00.001-07:00

10 lbs of fruits and vegs.

Slicing cucumbers, zucchini, blueberries, garlic, onions, tomatoes, green beans, peppers, dill, and a single strawberry.

Just put up two pints of dilly beans!

Zucchini to be shredded and frozen.

Blueberries and strawberry for Kellie to go with her breakfast.

Freezer Pickles

2009-08-02T07:38:00.000-07:00

Neither Michelle or I have pickling cukes ready in our gardens. My lovely, older, Russian neighbors were thoughtful to share with me, which in turn I shared with Michelle.

Rasa brought over a huge bag of cukes on Friday. How could I not share with my gardening buddy.

This morning, I decided to make up a batch of Sweet Freezer Chips. Very simple, not time consuming, and very little heat from the kitchen.

Sweet Freezer Chips

2.5 pounds pickling or regular cukes
1 medium white onion, thinly sliced
2 tblsp canning salt
8 - 10 cups of ice cubes
4 cups sugar
2 cups cider vinegar

Prep cukes, cut into 1/8 inch slices. Mix cukes, onions, and salt in a large bowl, cover with ice, refrigerate for 3 hours.

Drain off water, discard unmelted ice cubes. Do not rinse vegs. Pack cukes and onion mix into pint freezer jars or containers, leaving 1/2 inch headspace.

In 2 qt. pot, mix sugar and vinegar, bring to a boil. Stir until sugar is dissolved. Pour just enough hot syrup over cukes to cover. Apply lids, let cool.

Freeze for a minimum of 1 week, keeping up to 6 months.

When ready to use, thaw in frig for a leat 8 hours.

Makes approx. 3 pints.

Melting!

2009-07-27T14:45:00.000-07:00

Ugh. The heat!!! It will be in the 90's all this week, and has been since yesterday. We don't have air conditioning, and with all of the windows open & fans blowing, it's still rockin' 86 in the house! This is miserable, and it's all I can do to keep my gardens watered. The chickens are limping around with their wings & beaks open & there is just no relief anywhere. I don't know how those of you in warmer climates deal with this, honestly.Somehow I managed to gather enough energy to put up some more freezer jam today. Four pints of blueberry & 3 1/2 pints of apricot. I followed the directions to a T, and the apricot is already set up, but he blueberry is runny... it may be blueberry syrup in the end. Poo. I thought it was weird that the directions did not call for any lemon juice, and I almost added it anyway, but then if it hadn't set up, I would have blamed that, right? I don't know. Even dummy-proof freezer jam is a strange & fickle creature sometimes.

I harvested all my garlic a couple of weeks ago, too. The weather man was talking about thunder storms a couple of nights ago, so I quickly trimmed it all up and tossed it into a paper bag to bring inside. The Inchelium Red is wonderful. I maybe could have pulled it a week earlier. In by Thanksgiving & out by the 4th of July seems to be the trick for that variety. I won't grow the Oregon Blue again, though. It is supposed to be a softneck, but many of the bulbs put out scapes, which I was not expecting & did not notice unti it was too late. The result was a whole bunch of lousy little bulbs that are of no use. I only got a small handful of usable heads from the whole batch.

If it's hot where you are, I sympathize! I will be very happy to welcome our cool, temperate climate back again, that's for sure!

Update (6:28 pm): It's now 89 degrees... in the house!

Sometimes you find a tomato in your path of life...

2009-07-24T14:22:00.000-07:00

This weekend we are heading out to go camping with all of the neighbors. So as not to come home to a very wilted garden, I am out watering the heck out of everything.

I was also moving the chicken tractor for my girls, Lucy, Wendy, and Paco, to have fresh ground to scratch. I looked down and there it was, a tomato plant growing in the middle of the garden path. There are even a few closed blossoms in the center.

Amazing.

Gets a girl to thinking that life, like a tomato plant, can be very surprising.

Of Irises and Swimming Pools

2009-07-21T15:36:00.000-07:00

At the beginning of this gardening season, I suddenly wanted irises. When I was younger, I would have run out and bought every plant I could find, spurred on by my new whim. I've learned, though, that the universe often gives you what you want, if you're patient and wait for it to come. I did buy one stunning plant from the local farmer's market, but it was looking like the gardening season would end without the flood of irises I was envisioning. Until Sunday. The neighbor across the street moved in about a year ago, adopting a manicured, park-like yard with many perennial beds full of beautiful flowers. While eating ribs and potato salad at our barbecue, she mentioned that none of the irises had bloomed this year and that she'd pulled them all out. She's a novice gardener, and was happy to hear that the problem was probably that they needed to be divided and replanted. I assured her that she had not "killed" them, that they would grow back and bloom next spring if she replanted them-- and that I would be happy to take a few off her hands. Today I dug through the wheelbarrow full of tubers with their sword-like leaves and planted 20 or so in my own perennial bed. I have irises now... plenty of 'em! It will be a surprise next year when they bloom, as I have no idea what color they are!
As for the swimming pool, I guess I'll be waiting awhile longer for that. It's hot as Hades today, and the temperature is supposed to keep rising through the weekend. After working in the yard planting my flowers, I suddenly found myself hankering mightily to jump into a swimming pool. Sigh... universe, are ya listening?!

2009-07-19T07:55:00.001-07:00

The dirty dozen...well, really just a list of pesticides in the produce from the grocery store.

Check it out here!

Here's a recipe I found in the Countryside & Small Stock Journal:

Frozen Corn

Remove kernels from cobs. Process same day.

In large pot, mix together:

9 cups corn
1 1/2 cups water
3 tablespoons sugar
1 1/2 teaspoons salt

Bring to a boil for 2 minutes, stirring constantly. Remove from heat.
Add 1 stick butter.

Cool down and freeze in 1-quart containers. Note: The recipe actually called for 1-quart freezer bags to be able to lay them flat for more space in the freezer. Due to landfill issues, I prefer to use containers that are re-usable. Space vs. waste, you decide.

Sprucing Up AND Making Do

2009-07-12T16:27:00.000-07:00

You know how it is when you first move into a new place. It takes a little bit to settle in & make it feel like "home". This weekend I've spent some time doing just that in & around my new greenhouse. I don't want it to look purely functional, but fun & funky as well. I'll have you know, Sherrill, that except for a couple of discount geraniums I picked up at McClendon's (no flowers, but they'll come back), everything I used were items from around here.

I covered my potting table with an old vinyl table cloth:I gathered all my pots, random plants, an old painted table, and other bits of ceramic & pottery I had around the place and clustered them on each side of the greenhouse door:

(that large black plastic pot will be filled with veggies of some sort, since there's good light there)

Finally, I took apart an old wooden fruit crate with a rotten bottom and painted this sign for above the door:Not sure how the man will react to the result of many hours of hard labor being dubbed a "shanty", but I like it. :)

Making it do!

2009-07-11T19:07:00.000-07:00

My favorite watering can has sprung a leak. I think I can make it better by gorilla or super glue around the base of the water arm. It is just enough of a leak to be annoying, dripping down on my foot, but not big enough to lose a lot of water after filling it up.

Let's see if I can fix it up and not have to go adding more "stuff" to my garden.

Planting Beets and the Economy

2009-07-11T13:09:00.000-07:00

Sometimes I wish I were the type of person who could just bury her head in the sand, only listen to the lies & sequinned-gloved diversions they feed us on CNN and be happy in my blissful ignorance. But no... not me. Instead, I read scary-ass blogs like The Automatic Earth, which somehow wrestles truth about the economy out of the media and listen to Thom Hartmann, who interviews scary-ass economists like Ravi Batra. The overall message from all this alternative media? Forget green shoots. We are so screwed. And not just screwed for the short term... decade of depression, no recovery in the foreseeable future, we haven't even begun to near, let alone see, the bottom... screwed.Then, to top it all off, last night I have the bright idea to type our address into Zillow... you know, just to see. That unfortunate underwater situation you keep hearing about? Yup. That's us. We bought our home in August of 2006-- the veritable quivering edge of the bubble. We had to offer $20,000 more than the (now obviously inflated) asking price just to get it, and now we owe $30,000 more than it's worth. We love our home. We love our neighborhood. We have a 30 year fixed mortgage at a low rate, but at the same time, we had plans, you know? We "settled" for this house with its crappy vintage 1984 pressboard kitchen cabinets, its poorly laid out master bathroom that is open to the the bedroom, with a cramped toilet & shower tucked away behind the only door & its laughable main floor "powder room" for the half acre of land it sits on, assuming, as everyone was back then, that five years or so down the line we could use the equity in our home to make improvements. Now that equity has vanished, along with the improvements we were hoping to make. In their place, we're left with worries. What if the roof has to be replaced? Or the septic system? How will we afford to replace the hundreds of feet of wood fencing that surrounds the yard & may not last another winter? Should I be satisfied that we have a home that we can still afford & two solid jobs? Or dissatisfied that this may be the best we can ever hope for now, missing drawers and all? So, anyway, beets. I planted a row of beets today, along with more carrots and green onions. And I wondered, as I watered in seeds, how bad would it have to get before those few rows of vegetables in my garden really mattered to my family? That I even have to think about these things now, in American, in 2009, says a lot about where we are as a country... and where we seem to be going.

Garden in the Gloaming

2009-07-08T20:13:00.000-07:00

With vacation over and no classes to attend, I should be able to help keep this blog going. Trust me, my lack of response is due to too many ideas in my head and not enough ability to complete them all.

Pictures taken tonight in the gloaming of a summer night, just after 8:15 p.m.

It is hard to believe our days are now getting shorter.

My fuchsia's that did survive while I was gone.

The woodshed needs to look pretty too. Again, a few more baskets of flowers that survived my absence.

I started two plants of dill and I luckily still have two plants of dill. That is the garlic in the background...hmmm, not sure it is ready on my end.

The final pic of the night...my daisies! I saw daisies all over Colorado...or was that Utah? Nope, I think it was Colorado. The side of the country roads were filled, like a blanket of flowers, with Black Eyed Susans. Beautiful!

Garlic Harvest Season!

2009-07-08T14:58:00.000-07:00

The weather has been overcast & cool but dry the last few days. Good for my peas, not so good for my tomatoes. While up there harvesting more lettuce, sorrel & chard for salad tonight, I noticed that my garlic plants are starting to fall over. I pulled a couple of heads to check 'em out, and they're looking about done to me. I'll probably wait just a few more days in hopes that the sun comes out so I can let them dry outside, but I don't want to leave them in for too long or the heads will start to split. I'm happy with the size of the purple-skinned type I grew, Inchelium Red, but the smaller white head, Oregon Blue, looks pretty puny to me... we'll see, though, it's supposed to taste pretty good!

Lavender and Raspberries

2009-07-05T12:38:00.001-07:00

It has been B U S Y since I arrived back home on Friday at 5:00 p.m. I have worked several hours each day in the garden for the past three days, trying to get caught up.

This morning I was able to get the lavender harvested and hung up to dry. Just in time too, as the lavender was near to opening up.

Yesterday, I made sure I found time to put up 15 half-pints of raspberry jam in the freezer. I was concerned I was going to miss the harvesting time for raspberries, but I made it.

Lots to do in the garden. I managed to mow the garden area where the fruit trees are, deep water every plant and tree, staked up the tomatoes as well. When I left for vacation , there were about four or five tomatoes on the vines. When I came home, I found them to be loaded. Yeah...lots of sauce will be made, along with salsa.

Back to work tomorrow, summer hours which will leave me little time during the weekdays, except for Friday, where I will get off from work early. I will dedicate this time to the garden and canning/freezing fruits and vegs.

It is nice to be home. After the scorching heat of 98 degrees with about 98% humidity, the weather we are now having here in the northwest is wonderful.

As we drove into Western Washington on Friday, I told the Mister that there is no other place as beautiful as where we live...at least compared to where we had been in the past two weeks.

3rd of July Garden Pics

2009-07-03T11:53:00.000-07:00

I'm watering like crazy today, as we will be gone over the weekend and it's been in the 80's for days, and the weather is supposed to continue through the weekend. The neighbor boy will be coming over to care for the dogs & chickens & I'm also having him turn the fan on & off in the greenhouse, but I'm still worried, you know? Anyway, today is the day before summer usually really begins around here, and I took a few pics of my garden progress at this point.

Tiny, tiny eggplant forming!!!
Lettuce, the same ones I planted months ago & have been eating salads from, still going strong! (Dig that high-tech sprinkler stand!)
Green Arrow shell peas thriving in the sun.
Red Ace cabbage, starting to gain some size & just forming curved interior leaves.Red Chard... more than I know what to do with!Carrots (and, look, more chard!), starting to get to a respectable size.A cluster of Viva Italia tomatoes forming.The last of the strawberries. The plants are starting to send out runners now.And finally, blueberries, just beginning to color up.
Happy Independence Day!

Potential Spud Bust

2009-07-02T10:48:00.000-07:00

So... thinking I might be able to dig enough new potatoes for dinner last night, I ventured down into the layers of straw that I've diligently piled around the potato plants as they've grown up out of the compost pile. I dug, and I dug... and dug some more. Lots of elongated stem, no potatoes. Finally, I found this:
Behold the stupendous harvest. Uh huh. So much for the plants sending out new runners along the stem and filling up the straw with a multitudinous potato harvest. I'm not encouraged so far. I mean, there will no doubt be a decent harvest of spuds in the fall, but right now what I'm seeing is a whole lot of empty straw. Harumph.

I just planted what I had on hand, which, no doubt, were the wrong type of potatoes for this technique. Why does so much of the gardening season consist of this thought: "Next year... _____________" fill in the blank with all of the things I will do right, next time! I guess I need to stop at the vegetable stand and buy some new potatoes.

Giveaway Heads Up!

2009-07-01T13:36:00.000-07:00

Shameless plug for a giveaway going on over at Gardening By Trial and Error, which is written by a gardener in Winlock, WA. She's celebrating her 100th post by offering up this botanical themed print:

Pretty, ain't it?

In gardening news here on the homestead, my Millionaire Eggplant has dropped its one flower, and, miracle of miracles, it appears an eggplant is developing!!! I'm stupidly excited! Just to prove that I still don't know what I'm doing half the time, though, I noticed that my little broccoli starts that I planted a month ago or so have tiny little flower heads forming on them already! That's not a good sign. I think it means it's too hot & they're bolting prematurely. Sigh... figuring out the timing on things is really tricky sometimes. Luckily I have some other seeds from a different variety planted. Maybe I'll get some broccoli this year... and maybe not.

I also completely reconfigured the roosts in the chicken coop. You should have seen me climbing in & out of that thing with a 20+ lb baby girl strapped on my back! Measuring, sawing, drilling... she was a trooper about it & now there is room for the three youngins once they finally dare to venture into the coop with the mean 'ol "bitches", as I call the, and probably more. If we do get to keep our rooster, I'm hoping some chicks will show up down the road!

In case you didn't know, Sherrill is on a road trip with the fam... it got hot, Sherrill! Hope those zuccinis are gettin' watered! :)

Keeping One Step Ahead

2009-06-27T15:29:00.000-07:00

Last year I did not plant a garden, as baby girl was brand new & between her and her then two year old brother, it was all I could do to just get through the normal demands of the day, let alone take on the planning, planting, digging, weeding, mulching & watering that is a garden. I didn't do a stellar job of getting a head start this spring, either, as I did not yet have a greenhouse or any place suitable for starting seeds. I'm not reaping a huge harvest from the garden yet-- the snow peas are just finishing up, and we've had plenty of green onions, strawberries & salad greens so far. The beans & tomatoes & garlic & shell peas are still a ways from harvest, though, and the cucumbers are just getting their second set of leaves. No matter, though, it's time to start the seedling for my fall garden. I'll plant more in July for later fall & winter, as I very much want to get in the groove of year round gardening, now that I have the perfect set up for it.

Today I planted a whole bunch of beautiful lettuces that I recently ordered & some other salad greens, including Buttercrunch, Continuity, Yugoslavian Red, Petite Rouge & Winterwunder Lettuces, French Sorrel & Sylvetta Wild Arugula. I also planted two types of Kale, Nero Di Toscana & Redbor, Flash Collards, January King Cabbage, Thompson Broccoli & three plants of Brussels Sprouts. I tried very hard to not plant to much of anything, as space is an issue... one also must remember that I live in a house full of knuckle-draggers who dislike vegetabes in general & salad in particular. They will not be impressed when I am harvesting fresh lettuce from the greenhouse in December, but rather, horrified by the very notion. My baby girl is my only hope, and I let her down out of the backpack today so she could "help".Here she is digging those chubby baby fingers into the dirt. I lost a couple of small basils & (alas) a very healthy & happy cucumber vine, but she had a blast... especially when she crawled out of the greenhouse, hunted down & attacked the strawberry bed all by herself!

Nothing tastes better than a strawberry you found all by yourself!

If a tree falls in a nieghbor's yard but they're not around...

2009-06-21T15:39:00.000-07:00

will they hear the sound?

Well, I guess we'll never find out the answer to that question, as I finally did ask the neighbor the other day if he would mind too much if we cut down that tree. Didn't care a bit. Just told us to be careful as there's an old camper that he tore apart and threw back there(!). My tomatoes are much obliged, sir! I was finally convinced to do it by a combination of factors-- one, he happened to be out in his yard for a reasonable stretch while I was in the front yard as well, and... he had a tree service come out at the crack of dawn a few weeks back and cut down two beautiful old firs from his front yard that shaded the side of our house, the back deck and the chicken coop/run form the hot afternoon sun. Made it obvious to me just how little regard our neighbor has for trees. Nice enough guy... helped hold the guide rope so the tree wouldn't crash into the other neighbor's yard... just not someone who sees the land as a resource (other than a place to park trailers and discard campers, that is). He was up on his roof using the leaf blower to remove needles not too long ago. I'm pretty sure that's what prompted the front yard tree removal.

Yes, I took pics!Anyway, I've adjusted to it being gone now. The first few days we felt naked and exposed back there without the beautiful green towering over that part of the yard, but as you can see, we're not lacking for towering greenery around these parts!

I managed to take some other pics today in between rain squalls:

Hey look, Sherrill, I'm right on your tail!
(Beaverlodge Plum)

(Early Girl)

The raspberries are just starting to color up now as the strawberries are winding down. I MUST move this crazy chaos out of the garden this fall/winter. It's coming up all over the place! It's soooo invasive!:

And... my Millionaire eggplant is flowering!!! Isn't it gorgeous?!

The man is finishing up the rain barrel watering system today. At the rate it's been raining the last few days, it should be full in no time!

Oh... I almost forgot! Maybe it's just an English teacher's curse, but I could not even bring myself to finish reading Twilight. My. God. The writing is so, so bad! If you're going to have your character tell the story, at least make her somehow interesting so the reader is intrigued by her commentary. And don't have her say ridiculous things like... "I wasn't paying attention to the uncomfortable edge in his voice, so his next words took me by surprise." Really? If you weren't paying attention, how are you telling us about it?! Or this: " 'Oh, thanks, now that's all cleared up.' Heavy sarcasm." Honey, you should not have to tell me that your character is being sarcastic! And the sophomoric over use of adverbs: "...I muttered, internally kicking myself for not ditching when I had the chance." Redundant AND clumsy. How else, exactly, would one kick oneself? The writing is beyond artless.

And vampires? They DON'T SPARKLE!

Really. I'm embarrassed that this book is so popular. The endless boring dialogue is deadly. The main character is not unique in any way & there is no discernible reason why an immortal would be remotely interested in her (besides the fact that she smells yummy to eat). And Edward is a sap.

Seriously. It's like Sweet Valley High with neutered vampires.

Yuck!

Guerilla Gardening

2009-06-17T12:29:00.000-07:00

Because of the schedule during these last days of the school year, I had to get up a 5 am this morning in order to teach my one class for the day. I'm not used to this anymore, folks. I kind of feel ill this afternoon.

Anyway... for the past week or so I've been eyeballing these beautiful old roses that grow as a rambling, unruly bush near the ditch running along the side of the road I drive down almost every day (224th, for you locals). Finally today I pulled onto the shoulder, tromped through the foliage & picked a small bouquet, not just to enjoy these sweet-smelling, almost-wild shrub roses, but also for starts. Once the blooms have faded, I'm going to trim these shoots & pot them up. Hopefully next year I will have a whiskey barrel full of these beauties growing along the garden fence.

I can hardly believe it's already time to order seeds for fall & winter gardening, but it is! Now that school is winding down, it's time to gather my catalogs together and make a plan. That, hunting down a couple of flats of local strawberries for freezer jam and Twilight. Three great ways to kick off summer vacation!

Garden Bloggers Bloom Day

2009-06-15T15:36:00.000-07:00

Thanks, Cat! I didn't realize it was Garden Bloggers Bloom Day until I read your post. Gave me an excuse to post some pics from my until now unmentioned perennial border. :) Here in Western Washington, it's still early in the gardening season and a lot of plants are just budding up or are not even close to blooming yet. This includes my Echinacea, Phlox, Shasta Daisies, Chocolate Cosmos, Lavender, Sedum, Daylilies, Hostas & Crocosmia. Some plants are flowering, though:

Roses-- Both small flowered shrub roses of unknown type:

Isn't this peachy one pretty against the variegated Hostas?Simple pink with glossy green leaves.

I have a collection of perrenials & shrubs, such as a Japanese Maple, with burgundy colored leaves or flowers. I love the color against green. Here are a couple that are blooming:

Heuchera "Silver Bells"

Euphorbia
Here's a burgundy hued Iris I picked up at the Farmer's Market last weekend. This bloom is starting to crinkle around the edges, but look at that bud that's coming-- it's so dark it's almost black!

This little plant is one I added last year. I don't know what it's called (anybody?), but it's very hardy & is thriving and blooming happily this year.
Some of my herbs are also blooming:

Chive blooms against Helleborus leaves.
Cilantro.
In the vegetable garden:

Pea Pods, which we're now eating!
Lavender potato blossom. Should be new potatoes soon!Kohlrabi... Is this thing supposed to bloom before it swells up? I'm confused!
Ah, tomatoes! Beautiful, tantalizing tomato blossoms!
Oh, and wild daisies that I didn't yank out of the tomato bed. In the greenhouse:

Hey, hey! What's that?! A pepper plant a bloomin'! (And, yes, that is an actual pepper shaping up below the bloom!)
Finally, last AND least...

A eensy weensy tiny winy blossom on the irish moss I planted along the boy's fairy path:
I'll try to remember to do this again on July 15th. Should be lots more flowers about by then!

It's Jammin' Season

2009-06-14T13:05:00.000-07:00

Picked up two - half flats of strawberries at Spooner's Farm this morning.

I managed to make 11 containers of freezer jam, and I froze the rest of the berries for later use.

I have never made freezer jam before as I always have put my jams up by water-bath canning.

Talk about easy!

June Garden Pics

2009-06-12T16:27:00.000-07:00

One of the main reasons I love to read gardening blogs is to see the pics. So although I don't really have much to say today (except YAY that there are only 3 1/2 days left of this school year!), I'll offer up some pics for your blog reading pleasure.

Potatoes, planted back in February. As you can see, some of the seed potatoes sprouted sideways instead of up. The chickens keep eating the leaves they can reach when they're out. The plants are just starting to flower & I'm looking forward to digging around for some new potatoes. I have no idea how this compost bin potato experiment is going to work, but I'll let you know!
English Hothouse Cukes growing in the greenhouse bed. I potted the others I'd planted in there outside when I realized that they would need pollination in order to fruit (doh!). Now I'm wondering about the eggplant. It's all a learning experience, no?Baby basil, also in the greenhouse. It should thrive in the heat in there! I'll be tucking it in around the eggplants & peppers soon!

Strawberries! Not huge, but VERY tasty! I don't know what varieties I have in here, as the boy was two years old the year I planted them and his favorite thing to do in the garden was to yank out the plant markers as soon as mama put them in! These are the earliest, but also the smallest so far. Even though it looks like my bed will produce its largest crop to date, I will have to purchase a couple of flats of berries to make frozen jam. These boys go through about a pint a week!Garlic starting to swell at the base! So exciting! should be ready to harvest next month.

Romaine lettuce. Look how pretty! If you're fighting with slugs, buy some Sluggo! It's non-toxic and keeps them from destroying the greens.Finallly, the boy grabbing onto an onion flower. I stuck a store onion that was sprouting and getting soft in the ground last fall, and now it has split up into multiple bulbs & is sending up flowers on dinosaur-like stalks that are pretty amazing to behold. It's kind of blurry, but you can see one of them just behind the boy's hand.

I hope your weekend is full of great gardening!

NOT an excuse to eat dressing!

2009-06-09T18:22:00.001-07:00

The perfect salad in the mind of the man is iceberg lettuce. Period. With so much bottled ranch dressing you could forget you're eating "salad". Ugh!

It's salad days around here for me. My first round of lettuce is good sized now, so I rip the leaves into pieces, but I like to add whole leaves of baby swiss chard, kale & sorrel, along with thinned plants of my up and coming batch of lettuce to the bowl. Topped with olive oil and balsamic vinegar, THIS is the perfect spring salad.I've been bringing bags of it to school to share with my lunch pal... nobody else around here will touch it. I kid you not! They all call it "rabbit food."

Gnomes!

2009-06-07T19:26:00.000-07:00

Imagine the boy's surprise when he came home from a quick trip to the store & discovered these guys hidden along his fairy path.

AN-ti-ci-pay-shun...

2009-06-07T16:36:00.000-07:00

AN-ti-ci-PAY-YAY-shun.... (snicker)

If you now have that song stuck in your head, you are a child of the 70's!

Anyway, I now have the holy trinity of berries thriving in my garden! Yesterday on our way to pick up our respective halves of the piggy who didn't get to stay home, Sherrill & I stopped at this awesome fruit & vegetable stand/nursery in Yelm. Way back near the corner, hidden away from the tables of flashy new flowers I found beautiful blueberry bushes for $10 a piece. Score! I could tell they have been well-cared for, as they are thriving in their one gallon pots & are bearing fruit even in this unlikely situation. I put them in my newest 2' x 8' bed yesterday & watered them in. The unripened berry clusters are beautiful-- greenish blue & dusty. I'm anxious to see how many berries three full sized bushes will bear in the years to come.

Here's the bed where they are planted. It's behind the greenhouse with an unobstructed southern exposure. I will be moving the raspberries back there & opposite of the blueberries come fall. They'll be growing along the secion of the fence between us and the neighbors that is just wire fencing.
This is the other new 2' x 12' bed that runs along the sunny side of the greenhouse. I will be planting pumpkins & pole beans as soon as the man puts up the gutters on this side for the rain collection system.
Strawberries, sizing up!
The raspberry bushes are loaded this year!
I also spent a little time this weekend trying to level & clear out the area on the shady side of the greenhouse. I made a "fairy path" through the ferns & trees for the boy to explore. I told him he needs to keep an eye out for gnomes (now I have to get one to hide in there!).
Only 8 1/2 days before I am on summer vacation! Yay!

About time!

2009-06-07T13:10:00.000-07:00

The weather is excellent today for all the garden work I did this morning, about four hours worth.

Look what I caught sight of while cleaning up the tomato bed.

Yah!

Conflicted

2009-06-05T15:17:00.001-07:00

See that beautiful pine tree? I want it gone. It towers over my tomatoes from the neighbor's yard, & I'm conflicted as to how to go about getting it gone. The neighbors are quiet & keep to themselves, but I've learned since moving out of the city that there is a certain type of person out here who, for some reason unfathomable to me, has chosen to buy a home on a nice piece of land but seems to view that land, not as a precious resource on which to grow food or flowers or just commune with a bit of nature, but as their own personal garbage dump. When I peek through the slats of the fence, I see moldering piles of what looks to be construction debris, a couch, a discarded freezer, all being devoured by weeds & blackberry vines & inhabited by wild brown bunnies. The only time I ever see these neighbors outside is when they are taking out the garbage, getting the mail, walking from their car to house, grudgingly mowing the lawn, or getting the motor home ready to go "camping". The fruit from their mature apple trees rots on the ground each year while I dream of more land. Anyway, this pine tree is in the very back corner of their yard, behind the personal garbage dump & blackberries & way beyond the little island of grass they mow into submission just behind their back patio. I doubt they even know it's there. For awhile, I had almost convinced the man to sneak over there and cut it down one weekend when we notice the motor home is gone, but now I'm thinking I need to try & catch one of them when they're outside and ask permission to take the tree down. It's the neighborly thing to do... but if they say no, then what?!

Anyway, some other pics from the garden:

A new 2'x12' bed in which I planted six Viva Italia Tomatoes

Swiss Chard growing like a carpet from the seeds I shook

from the overwintered plants last winter

Look! Blossoms on my Oregon Sugar Pod snow peas!

And... my second sowing of carrots coming up nicely! Yay!

Finally, a very happy Cosmos seedling growing like gangbusters in thegreenhouse. Tillamook yogurt cups make the perfect size pots for starts.We go through about 10 of these a week, so I should have plenty to reuse!

Oh, Cynthia had asked about the mulch on my garden. I use straw. We had weather in the 90's this week and the soil under the mulch stayed cool & damp throughout the week long heat wave! It slowly breaks down over the season & is worked into the soil, as the earth worms love it. The only drawback is that slugs also like to hide in there, but I've discovered Sluggo this year & it has worked wonders at keeping the slug population down. In the spring, just layer compost over the old straw, plant your veggies, and pile new straw on top for mulch! No dig gardening at its best!

Introducing...

2009-05-31T11:49:00.000-07:00

See that comb?

And tail?

And attitude?
Big Pimpin'!!!

Oops. This is so not a hen! Well, just goes to show that even with "sexed" chicks, you're rollin' the dice. The truth is, I WANT a rooster. More truth? Unless he is an unusually quiet boy, we most likely won't be able to keep him. We may treat our half acre like a little homestead, but there's no escaping the fact that we live in a suburban subdivision. No matter that right outside the neighborhood are actual farms with cows and Alpaca and huge flocks of chickens & turkeys & geese. No matter that we've had these chickens for two years now with nary a complaint. No matter that most of the (unproductive & annoying) dogs in the neighborhood make way more noise than one rooster will. I just doubt we can get away with it. Sigh...

For now I'm just waiting to see how this plays out. Luckily, he's a heritage breed & most likely someone on Craigslist will want to buy him for breeding purposes.

In gardening news...

The cucumbers I planted just a few days ago in the greenhouse bed are already sprouting through the soil. It's going to be an experiment in there to see how much heat eggplant, peppers & cucumbers can actually take-- it was 105 degrees in there yesterday!

Three rows of bean that I planted a couple of weeks ago are up & growing great, while the other three rows are just beginning to poke through the soil-- I'll have to figure out which variety is which, as the first are clearly the winner for quick germination.

Behind the beans there are the snow peas I planted back in February. Should see some blooms soon, I hope!

The FOUR packets of carrot seeds that I planted awhile ago have resulted in a pretty paltry patch of carrot seedlings. I've planted more carrots in the hopes of getting a better return this time. They're being kept moist under sheets of damp newspaper while they germinate. Not sure why carrots have become so difficult for me-- in other gardens I've had they were a sure-fire crop.

Shell peas, lettuce, sorrel & kale:

More lettuce (romaine & red leaf):

Kind of creepy but cool pic of a little spider who's taken up residence in the lettuce patch:

Green strawberries! My strawberry patch looks very promising this year. I will be sprinkling non-toxic slug bait & covering the bed with floating row cover when ripening nears.

My tomatoes are just beginning to green up and look less peaked, now that the warm sun has made an appearance. It's going to be slow-going, though. I'll probably keep them potted up in the greenhouse until June next year.

Note to self: Bock choi is best direct sewn, as all of the transplants bolted immediately from shock.

The warm weather & sun is supposed to continue through next week, praise Apollo!

Quiet, but productive

2009-05-28T21:54:00.000-07:00

Alas, I have no pictures to tell the tale of progress in my garden.

I am quite pleased with the sun finally taking a turn with Mother Nature!

I planted three short rows of Boston Beans that have all sprouted and look great!

Only three classes left and I will be free for the summer, that is, after June 9th.

Last night, I was able to get out to mow in the garden around the fruit trees.

Tonight after class, I was able to plant my final hanging basket that hangs on the house corners.

This weekend, I plan on weeding, wacking, and designing the greenhouse for the Mister to build.

Yes, I will even try to make it to the South Hill Farmers Market!

Yah!

98% Done!

2009-05-25T20:54:00.000-07:00

I'll let the pics tell the story:My head is kind of spinning!!! What to plant... what to plant!

New South Hill Farmer's Market!

2009-05-24T11:30:00.000-07:00

I know not everyone who reads this blog is local, but for those of you who are, I just wanted to pass on the exciting news that there's a new farmers market starting up in South Hill Puyallup next weekend! It's about time. I love the downtown Puyallup market, but for those of us who live on this end of the world, it's a bit of a drive to get down there. Yay!!!

Here's the newspaper article with more details.

Hope to see you there!

Greenhouse Progress!

2009-05-24T09:07:00.000-07:00

The man works every other weekend, so between work & the weather, he has been unable to make any progress on the greenhouse until this weekend. He says he should be able to get it mostly done by Monday! My eggplant & pepper starts that I ordered from Territorial arrived Friday & I'm babying them on the back deck until they have a toasty warm greenhouse bed to snuggle into.

From yesterday:

Almost ready for a door, a window, vents & the greenhouse wrap.

Ready for the clear roof panels.
Eight foot potting table (and "helper").

See the rocks?! Crazy, right?

Today he'll be picking up a load of pea gravel for the floor & a load of garden mix soil for the planter bed that will be built on the other side. There's lots of room in there for shelves & storage as well! I'm so excited about the new gardening possibilities that this greenhouse will open up here on our lil' half acre.

Wherein the Stepson Discovers Granola

2009-05-16T10:20:00.000-07:00

Suddenly having a teenager living in your home who was primarily raised by someone else can be interesting sometimes. Witness a recent conversation, which took place in the kitchen as I was making homemade granola.

SS: "What're you making?"
Me: Granola.
SS: You mean like granola bars?
Me: No, I mean like granola. You know, the cereal?
SS: No. There is such a thing as just granola?
Me: Haven't you ever seen anyone eat granola in a bowl with milk on it or sprinkle it over yogurt? You know, granola.
SS: Ohhhh... I've seen that, but I just thought they'd broken up some granola bars or something.
Me: You're kidding, right?!
SS: No.

So... now he loves homemade granola. Over yogurt or with milk poured over it (although he adds more sugar!!!) or just in handfuls from the jar... and not in cellophane wrapped bars from the store.

But wait! The scary part is that the next day he went to school and asked all his friends if they knew there was such a thing as granola not in the form of a bar. Nope. Never heard of it.

Wow.

OMG! It's HUGE!

2009-05-10T13:49:00.000-07:00

Three of the walls for my greenhouse went up today... can I just say that the man, as per usual, has completely outdone himself! 8' walls? Check. Studs every 18"? Check. When all is said & done, this greenhouse of mine is going to have an 11' peaked roof! If we're ever desperate for space, we can always pour a floor, put up drywall, insulation & siding & call it a guest room! He's even going to hang gutters & put together a rain barrel system so I have water!There won't be any power until he builds his "shop" (a.k.a. "man cave"). Maybe next year-- we'll see. In the meantime, though, it will be easy enough to run an extension cord up there for heating mats in the late winter/early spring. Wow. I'm half considering finding a venue to sell some extra veggie & herb starts next year. Hmmm... the wheels are turning.

In other news, the baby chicks are now outside in a fenced off section of the chicken yard. I moved the little used doghouse out there for their "coop" and clipped on the heat lamp with a 60 watt bulb for a little extra warmth at night. They are very, very happy, careening around their yard & flapping mightily! The hens don't pay them much mind, other than to try & reach their feeder to sample the food they can't get to. It will be months, though, before they can all be one flock.

I think I'm going to go up to the garden and plant beans today. It's supposed to be cold & wet all week, but warm up again next weekend... about the time they'll be sprouting, I hope!

Garden Shots on a day in May.

2009-05-06T17:37:00.000-07:00

Lilacs, Onions, Apple Blossoms, Rhubarb

I was able to get about a half pound of rhubarb for my neighbor on Saturday.
The great thing about sharing with your neighbors is that they share right back.
Give eggs to one neighbor, they make a yummy egg and dill turnover and bring it over warm and tasty.
Give rhubarb to another neighbor, they come over with a strawberry/rhubarb crisp.

My oh my!

Dear Chicken Lady:

2009-05-06T13:34:00.000-07:00

How do I know when my babies are ready to go outside?

Sincerely,

Nervous Chicken Mom

Dear NCM:

Sure signs that your feathered progeny need to get out of the house...

1. The smell. Oh... the smell!

2. When they start perching on the edge of their box and asking what's for dinner:

3. When they jump down off the edge of their box and look for good things to eat on the laminate flooring & the throw rug:

HA! And you thought human babies grew fast!!!

Farmers Market

2009-05-02T16:32:00.000-07:00

Today was the opening day for the Puyallup Farmer's Market. I picked up 4.5 pounds of asparagus to pickle, had a soft pretzel, wandered around in the mist (had my hoodie on), smelled all the soaps a vendor was selling and got the Rosehips and Jasmin, then I paid for the Gypsy pepper plant on my way out. The Wave O' Petunia's are from Fred Meyers. I saw them as I was going in for a few items. Spur of the moment purchase.

The market is open on Saturdays and Sundays. The Orting Market will be opening in July. Now, if only Graham would have one. That would be fantastic.

Buckets full of rain!

2009-04-28T20:38:00.000-07:00

I'm here. Yes, I am very crazy, busy!
It was raining BUCKETS as I drove home from class tonight.
Great!

Good to hear about the plants you have ordered. The idea with the greenhouse is excellent as well. I have not a smidge of time during the week to do much but feed the chickens, water the plants, and get ready to do it all over the next day. My life should slow down in June, nope, wait, August? Some where in there, I hope the weather turns from bad to good so we can get some plants growing in the garden.

Seduced by a Fairy Tale

2009-04-28T13:23:00.000-07:00

Hey Sherrill, you out there? :) I know you're busy & I know the weather has been iffy, but I'm starting to feel like I'm takin' over this joint!

Anyway, the minute I saw this greenhouse set up over at In My Kitchen Garden, I knew what I wanted! My 8' x 12' greenhouse will have a built in surface on one side for starting seeds, holding small potted plants, etc, but the other side will be a 2' x 12' raised bed! I'm very excited about this brainstorm! And, in a moment of total optimism and ebullient anticipation, I ordered four veggie plants from Territorial-- 2 peppers (Thor & Pizza) & two eggplants (Fairy Tale & Millionaire)-- to be delivered next month! No doubt I've lost my mind to try & grow eggplants in this decidedly tepid corner of the universe, but I'm going to have a planter box inside my greenhouse, so why not try?

My hopeful Fairy Tale:

Tomato Line Up 2009

2009-04-26T18:35:00.000-07:00

Cherokee Purple	Yellow Pear	Bonny Best	Storage	Oregon Star	Early Girl
Beaverlodge Plum	Sweetie Cherry	Green Grape	Storage	Oregon Star	Early Girl

As you may notice, Sherrill, when all was said & done, I only ended up with one Beaverlodge. You'd think I would be capable of planting the 10 tomatoes you so kindly raised up for me without killing any, but no... I managed to snap one of them off at the stem-- doh.

Trying lots of new tomatoes this year! I've grown Early Girl, Oregon Spring & Yellow Pear before, but the rest are new to me. I'm very excited to have this many! I picked up three starts at Freddy's today. Amazingly, the organically grown plants were the same price as the regular ones-- kind of a neat setup, too. They were planted & growing in degradable pots with just a thin bit of cellophane around the outside, so very little waste at all. Me likey. I also grabbed a big bunch of Walla Walla Sweet Onion starts while I was there, so I have plenty of onions in now! Oh, I also picked up a packet of Scarlet Runner Beans-- one of the things I'm going to plant in the new bed that will be next to the greenhouse (my greenhouse!!! Yippee!) is a bean teepee for the little boy.

New chicken fence is done... you know we probably could keep the entire family in local, organic eggs for the price of the lumber we've bought for the coop & run... but I guess we'll be set for eggs when the zombies come. HA! The new fence opens up a nifty new path up to the garden area, though, so that's cool. All in all, a good weekend.

Happy Accident

2009-04-24T18:25:00.000-07:00

So... last week while the man & I took the babies to the Spring Fair, we called one of the older boys to assign a chore: cut back half of the hazelnut bush/tree that was in the way of where my greenhouse is going to go. We should have learned by now that teenage brains do not interpret directions in a reliable manner, and we should not have been surprised to arrive home to the sight of the entire area cleared of all the bushes & trees on one side. Oops.

Now that the shock has worn off, I've decided to make the best of it & am paying the other boy $100 to dig out all the root balls (totally worth that amount of money, as you know, since the roots are all clinging to rocks, stones & boulders with a death grip!). Long story, but I now have an area for a new & completely unexpected garden bed right next to my greenhouse! I'm not quite sure what to plant up there, but I think I want it to be something pretty to look at, since it will be visible from my kitchen window, and not edibles, since the bed will not be fenced off from dogs, chickens & kids. Maybe one pretty fruit tree & some perennial flowers for cutting like irises & some easy to grow shrub roses or something. Even a suburban "homestead" needs flowers, right? Anyway, happy accident!

Greenhouse progress expectation meter: Hm... about a 4. The man should have time to put in the picket fence that will be replacing the haphazardly thrown up chicken wire, beanpoles & railroad ties that currently keep the chickens in their yard but do not keep the dogs out. He might also have time to put in the foundation timbers for the greenhouse.

Here are a couple of pics of the progress:

Ah, to be 15 and in such dire need of money, right?

Earth Day 2009

2009-04-22T19:40:00.000-07:00

I read somewhere that Earth Day should not be celebrated just this one day, but everyday!

What did you do today?

Misc: I do not follow the Oprah Show, but it looks like the Dervaes family has been given another avenue of mention, check it out here!

Garden News: Something, or more like the mountain beaver that lives in my garden, consumed six pepper seedlings in the greenhouse. Why, oh why! Last summer, the little rascal came within a few feet of where I was weeding my lavender. I heard a crunching sound, looked up and there it was. Snacking on weeds. Its taste buds may have grown over the winter, as it ate up Gourmet pepper seedling. Rats!

It Looks Like You're Trying to Hatch Aliens

2009-04-20T17:51:00.000-07:00

That's what the stepson said while perched on the edge of a bed doing a decent job of acting half interested & probably wishing there were something... anything... more exciting to do around here than talk to your stepmother about growing some vegetable or other. In reality, I'm just making way for the highly anticipated tomato babies that Sherrill has been rearing up in her lil' greenhouse. Next year I should have my own tomato rearin' shack. The man is at Home Despot as we speak picking up the materials for it. How many ways can you say excited?! Giddy, thrilled, jumping up and down with joy-- downright twitterpated! Anyway... rain or shine, my garden bed should be ready for some 'maters by this weekend!

Nemesis

2009-04-14T17:33:00.001-07:00

Yuck! It's so wet & cold so far this spring that it's almost impossible for veggie starts to grow fast enough to escape the constant onslaught of these slimy pests. Every region has its most hated garden pest, and here in the perpetually damp Pacific Northwest, it is definitely the nasty old garden slug. Ugh. Hate 'em. There's really not much to be done, except wait them out, hope some of the starts that they're currently munching on somehow make it & plant enough so that something is sure to survive. The good news is that slugs don't much like alliums or legumes, so my garlic, onions & peas are fine. My brassicas, though-- the cabbage, kohlrabi & broccoli starts-- might just be doomed. Time to start some more seeds...

Happy Easter

2009-04-12T10:47:00.000-07:00

*Peep!*

Stickin' Up for The Working Girls

2009-04-10T19:23:00.000-07:00

The News Tribune published a letter that I wrote in response to an article they ran about how to use up eggs while they're cheap during Easter season-- if you want to read it, it's here.

Chicks 'R Us

2009-04-07T21:34:00.001-07:00

Well... I changed my mind. They're holding two Dellaware chicks for me at the Graham Hay Market, and I think I'm going to get another Buff to replace the one we just lost. The boy will get a huge kick out of "helping" to raise them.

Three little chicks shouldn't be too much trouble... right? When you have two teenagers, a preschooler & a baby in the house, what are three more tiny beaks & butts to look after, anyway?

My Garden Helper

2009-04-06T16:45:00.001-07:00

It's been beautiful since Saturday. Today after work my helper & I got up to the garden & planted some starts I picked up at McClendon's. I thought he would get a kick out of growing Kohlrabi, so we planted four of those. We also planted some lettuce starts, spread some mulch on a couple of the beds, and planted some more herbs in pot on the deck. As usual, he had a blast watering the garden! I discovered that the snow peas I planted back in February are finally popping up through the soil & the rhubarb is just starting to unfurl its leaves. Tomorrow is supposed to be nice too, thank the gods. It's been a l-0-0-0-0-0-0-ng winter!

Snow Peas

Rhubarb ("Pie Plant")

Taking new pathways....

2009-04-04T17:06:00.001-07:00

I used this:

To create this:

Then I made this:

After I moved this:

To better grow these:

Just amazing:

R.I.P. Gold Chicken

2009-04-04T11:53:00.000-07:00

Realized today that one of our gold chickens was very sick-- skinny, weak & dirty with a shrunken comb. It was just standing there in the sun, looking like a goner. Luckily I have a tough man around who was willing to introduce the poor thing to the circle of life. Now I just hope the others don't get sick too.

The things we do for love...

2009-04-03T21:28:00.000-07:00

Sing it with me..."The things we do for looooveee...."

I took a quick look at the outside temperature and threw on my wellies to high-tail it out to the greenhouse. I had to rescue three tomatoes plants that had to be taken out of the smaller covered shelving in the greenhouse as they are too tall! I put them on a table inside the greenhouse that does not have the warming mats and would surely have done them in by morning when I saw that the temp was already down to 34 degrees F.

It is extremely hard to be a good gardener when working with my no-heat greenhouse situation. The warming mats do an excellent job, helping to keep the soil and roots warm, which is all a plant really would want at this time.

I had to take the second cover off this evening as we are expecting the temperatures to start rising during the day and after last year, when the greenhouse got to 100 degrees and fried those beautiful tomato plants, I am not taking any chances.

So, this will be my gardening adventure for awhile, tending, watching, watering, and keeping an eye on the weather station.

P.S. Nothing like walking around the acreage in the dark...like a highway~~tomato~~man.

Yes We Dig!!! (how cool is this?!)

2009-03-19T21:04:00.000-07:00

Corny, I know, but I just received this letter in my in box:

Dear Kitchen Gardener,

(Begin pinching yourself now)

Obamas to Plant White House Vegetable Garden

On Friday, March 20th, 2009, 23 third graders will join First Lady Michelle Obama on the South Lawn of the White House to break ground on an 1100 square foot kitchen garden that will provide food for family dinners and formal dinners.

According to the New York Times:

The Obamas’ garden will have 55 varieties of vegetables grown from organic seedlings started at the executive mansion’s greenhouses.

And better still:

Almost the entire Obama family, including the president, will pull weeds, “whether they like it or not,” Mrs. Obama said laughing.

Ok, you can stop pinching yourself: you aren't dreaming this and an off batch of sauerkraut hasn't caused a rare case of lacto-fermentation-hallucination.

THEY ARE REALLY GOING TO DIG THIS GARDEN!

AND WE HELPED MAKE THIS DAY POSSIBLE!

Those of you who have been part of the KGI community for a while know that this is a long-term project of ours, started in February 2008. It was back in the middle of the presidential primary season when 99.9999% of the population was focused on who the next president was going to be. We were the .0001% of the population that was thinking about what his or her family was going to eat and where it would be grown.

It's been quite a ride for KGI as an organization and for me personally since then. For those of you who are new and weren't with us for the trip, we had some fun along the way. We started following a hopeful little web project called OnDayOne.org in February 2008, read about ourselves in the New York Times in April, began putting our names on a White House Food Garden petition in June, hummed along to This Lawn is Your Lawn in July 2008, read about ourselves in the International Herald Tribune in July, placed bids on the White House Lawn which we had put up for sale on eBay in August, watched with wonder as two young guys inspired by our work set off in a funky bus to take the edible White House idea across the country and back, chuckled our way through September watching the Garden of Eatin', read Michael Pollan's "Farmer-in-Chief" article with great interest in October which also spoke of a new garden at the White House, voted "This Lawn is Your Lawn" onto national TV through the Climate Matters video contest in October, got swept up in the energy of the November elections, leafed our way through the Washington Post in January, pushed hard to get out the vote in the OnDayOne.org contest later that month (and won that too beating out 4000 other ideas), began inviting more people to sign our petition on our campaign site and on Facebook also in January, spoke with and e-mailed various members of Michelle Obama's staff in February (me, in this case, but maybe you did too? They said they were hearing from a lot of people.), and here we are in March 2009 reading the headline above and vicariously walking our way through the delicious garden paths of the future South Lawn:

What more can I say besides thank you for all your support and patience with this project. Many individuals made this great day possible: - Alice Waters, Michael Pollan, John Adams, Eleanor Roosevelt, Barack and Michelle Obama - but we can feel pride in being the community that pulled together and made a difference.

So let's celebrate that. The seeding or the weeding can wait. Tomorrow's about savoring a moment that was a long time in the making.

Best wishes,

Roger

PS: Got any thoughts to share on this news or anything else? That's what our forums are for.

PPS: If you are a media person, blogger, or know one, you can find our press release below.

----

For Immediate Release

Contact:

Roger Doiron

roger@kitchengardeners.org

phone: (207) 883-5341

cell: (207) 807-6364

100,000 Applaud Announcement of a New White House Food Garden

Environment, Nation’s Food System and People's Health Stand to Benefit

(Scarborough, Maine) –100,000 people signed a petition asking the Obamas to replant a Victory Garden at the White House, and recent news reports indicate that they are about to reap what they sowed.

For advocates of sustainable and healthy foods, this harvest of good news was as welcome as the summer’s first red-ripe tomato. “I’m thrilled for the Obama family and for all who will be inspired by their example to grow gardens of their own this year,” said Roger Doiron, founder of the nonprofit Kitchen Gardeners International and leader of the successful petition campaign, “Eat the View.”

Launched in February 2008, Eat the View proposed that the Obamas replant a White House Victory Garden while planting a few extra rows for the hungry. The campaign used viral videos and social networking technologies like Facebook to grow a large support base, attract international media attention and help inspire a larger grassroots effort. In January, 2009, Eat the View won the “On Day One” contest sponsored by the United Nations Foundation, beating out 4,000 other entries and resulting in thousands of messages being sent to the White House in support of its proposal.

Over the course of the past month, the Eat the View campaign has touted the economic benefits of home gardens as part of its pitch to White House staff members. As proof, Doiron and his wife spent nine months weighing and recording each vegetable they pulled from their 1,600-square-foot garden outside Portland, Maine. After counting the final winter leaves of salad, they found that they had saved about $2,150 by growing produce for their family of five instead of buying it. “If you consider that there are millions of American families who could be making similar, home-grown savings, those are no small potatoes,” Doiron said.

Although the White House garden campaign is now winding down, Doiron says the Eat the View campaign is just getting warmed up. “Now that the Obamas are on board, we’re going to be reaching out to other people and identifying other high-profile pieces of land that could be transformed into edible landscapes. Sprawling lawns around governors’ residences, schoolyards, vacant urban lots: those are all views that should be eaten.”

History of Harvest at the White House

While the Obamas’ garden and the online technologies that campaigned for it might be new, the idea of an edible landscape at the White House is not. Throughout its history, the White House has been home to food gardens of different shapes and sizes and even to a lawn-mowing herd of sheep in 1918. The appeal of the White House garden project, Doiron asserts, is that it serves as a bridge between the country’s past and its future. “The last time food was grown on the White House lawn was in 1943, when the country was at war, the economy was struggling and people were looking to the First Family for leadership. It made sense before and it makes sense again as we try to live within our own means and those of the planet.”

Additional info:

Eat the View campaign website:

http://www.eattheview.org/

History the White House as an edible landscape from 1800 to the present:

http://www.eattheview.org/page/history-1

Eat the View artwork:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/42913695@N00/sets/72157608739986075/

Testimonials on behalf of the Eat the View campaign from noted national and international figures:

http://www.eattheview.org/page/testimonials-1

Eat the View campaign videos:

http://www.eattheview.org/videos

Bio and photos of Roger Doiron:

http://www.kitchengardeners.org/2005/10/about_roger_doiron.html

http://www.flickr.com/photos/42913695@N00/sets/72157608739762927/

Passive Solar Energy

2009-03-18T19:55:00.001-07:00

A bit of gardening time tonight raised my spirits.

One of my most favorite garden gadgets, Wall-O-Waters, that I filled tonight

I Give Up!

2009-03-15T22:06:00.000-07:00

Amid the gusting wind, hail, rain & wet snow today, the power went out for several hours! I don't know what we did up here in the normally mild northwest to deserve this winter, but it does not seem to be over yet! I need to sneak up to the garden during a lull in the torrents and see if my snow peas have dared to peak up out of the ground!

Had to console myself with some indoor "gardening" today by repotting my orchids & setting them up in a pretty new display in the kitchen.

At least the rotten weather won't stop them from blooming!

A storm's a brewing...

2009-03-15T18:13:00.000-07:00

or one would have thought so with the way the snow, the hail, the rain, the wind, and the branches flying across the land like we were in the land of Oz.

I had all intentions of being a gardening-fool today. Mother Nature had other plans for all of us here in the Pacific Northwest.

I find it hard to believe that Spring is at the end of the week. How can that be? When will the sun peek out again?

I will just plan to garden next weekend...hopefully the weather will cooperate by then.

Boy, it's hot in there!

2009-03-11T23:37:00.000-07:00

Yesterday at 5 p.m., the temperature of the greenhouse was 82 degrees F.

Today at 5 p.m., it was 88 degrees F.

I will need to keep my eye on the gauge.

Do not want any mishaps!

Michelle, just saw your posting on the 'mater babies. I have now changed the seedling heat mats from 24 hr heat to 12 hrs from 7pm - 7am so it doesn't get so hot during the day.

In a week or two, I will take the extra cover off of the greenhouse and probably, by mid April I will have to start venting for air circulation each morning before I head off to work.

Let's hope that little mountain beaver that lives out in my garden does not think my greenhosue is a grocery story...free for the picking!

Worried about the 'mater babies!

2009-03-10T16:20:00.001-07:00

Hey Sherrill. How are our babies faring in this cold snap?

Mother Nature's response to my plea...

2009-03-09T09:39:00.000-07:00

Take that, you silly mortal!

It's pretty, though, I have to admit.

(The noise in the background is a parrot, not a demented person.)

Dear Weather Gods...

2009-03-08T09:28:00.000-07:00

This is the Pacific Northwest. Allow me to define pacific for you:

1. tending to make or preserve peace; conciliatory: pacific overtures.
2. not warlike; peaceable; mild: a pacific disposition.
3. at peace; peaceful: a pacific era in history.
4. calm; tranquil: The Wabash is a pacific river.

In other words, we do not have snow in almost mid-March. Ever.

For the love of all that is holy (you know, like the Bay Laurel tree on my deck and my sanity), please stop with the winter weather!

That is all.

Classic Waffles

2009-03-07T11:20:00.000-08:00

A basic, easy recipe I use for making waffles. Yum!

2 c flour
1 tsp salt
4 tsp baking powder
2 tblsp white sugar
2 eggs
1 1/2 c warm milk
1/3 c butter, melted
1 tsp vanilla

Mix dry ingredients in large bowl. In smaller bowl, beat eggs, add milk, butter, & vanilla. Stir into dry ingredients until blended. Use preheated waffle iron. Makes 10 - 12 waffles.

A quiet way of saying what I mean.

2009-03-05T21:00:00.000-08:00

I ordered one of these.

Yes, I guess I could be called a non-confrontational hippie-chic!

Michelle, maybe we need to make our own logo for our own organic cotton t-shirts!

The Five Mile Furrow ~ green adventures in the Pacific Northwest.

I learned a bit more about organic cotton this week. When most folks think of clothing, they think polyester is bad...they do not realize what nasty man-made chemicals are locked into the cotton clothing they wear, even I have a closet full of the stuff. Shame!

Time to make a change...in a quiet sort of way.

Free Books!

2009-03-04T17:05:00.000-08:00

I guess I'm a slow learner, because I just recently realized that I can use my Amazon Visa card to earn points without carrying a balance. Der. Long, dull story that only shows how afeard of credit cards I am, but the bottom line is that I received a $25 gift certificate in the mail a few weeks ago after the man charged something on the card & then paid it off within days. Um, light bulb moment over here! You can bet I'll be using that card for everyday purchases from now on & paying it off each month!

Anyway, with my gift certificate I purchased these two books:A no knead bread book: Kneadlessy Simple by Nancy Bagget and The Urban Homstead by the folks at Homegrown Revolution. I chose the first book because I am completely in love with the basic no knead bread recipe that everyone and his or her dog has been baking since 2007, and I want to try some variations (without having to keep a big 'ol container of dough in my fridge-- the techinique used in the wildly popular Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day), and I chose the second book because it looks like it will have some great & pracitcal ideas for bringing "off the grid" living into what is essentially, an average American family. Let's face it, as much as I would like to pretend I live on a sprawling homestead way off in the country, the truth is I live on a half acre in a housing development that is within a 10 minute drive of what is pretty much the city. It is not the 19th century, and I will never have a wood lot on my back 20 acres. I need real ideas for the reality of living in the 'burbs.

I'll let you know how I like them!

Plant Obessession Alert: Helleborus!

2009-03-03T18:25:00.000-08:00

I feel it comin' on like a low grade fever; a plant obsession, that is. I have one lonely specimen. I need more... the tough, serrated, glossy leaves, the fleshy, almost orchid-like, long-lasting & sedately hued flowers. I'm especially in love with the green-tinged blossoms. I love green flowers-- hydrangeas, euphorbias, snow drops. Who doesn't love a flower that blooms out of the snow... the Lenten Rose?
So, Sherrill, when you're out and about, do enable me. Let me know when you see these "in town"-- I'm on a mission!

Makes Ya Think, Part II

2009-03-03T07:47:00.003-08:00

Hard times + home garden = money in your pocket!

Check it out.

Makes a person think!

2009-03-01T20:21:00.001-08:00

Michelle, I know you already are up on the Path To Freedom/Little Homestead in the City blog...The Dervaes Family, but I thought I would put in the link for our followers/readers to watch.

9.59 minutes that may change how a person feels about corporations and becoming more self-sufficient.

Check it out here!

Sunday Musings

2009-03-01T14:20:00.000-08:00

It is raining again. The digital temp reading for the greenhouse is 62 degrees. I love having the sensor out there so I can see how the plants are fairing. Not too hot, not too cold.

Took a walk out to the garden, then back to the house. That has been the extent of my gardening this weekend. I need to get the potatoes planted. I have a few weeks window to get to it.

I did make a loaf of beer bread to go with dinner tonight. I have Amish Baked Beans in the oven, but got them in a bit late this afternoon to have with dinner tonight, so that will be saved for our dining pleasure tomorrow.

A few minutes was spent to organize my seeds in a lidded box. That was eventful! LOL :)

Edited: 4:53 pm Took another walk out to the garden. Potatoes are now planted, Sweetie Cherry tomatoes transplanted, another table (believe it or not) added to my greenhouse to hold the "big" ones!

Have a great week!

Signs of Spring: Inside Edition

2009-02-26T18:28:00.000-08:00

More snow today. Except for a short period as a young girl, I've lived my entire life in western Washington, and this winter will go down in my personal history as the snowiest winter ever! Since it's back to cold & wet outside, I had too look for signs of spring in the house today:

Clockwise from the top left-- the girls have really ramped up their egg production! We're getting 6-8 eggs a day now. There may be snow out there, but the extra sunlight is bringing on the eggs! My orchid is putting up a new flower spike. A begonia is pushing out new leaves. A very confused Thanksgiving cactus is blooming, while its lower-achieving cousin is just showing signs of new growth.

And if nothing else fails, banana chocolate chip cake with vanilla frosting always cheers me up!

Is that snow in the rain?

2009-02-25T18:06:00.001-08:00

Tonight I put in 12 pots each of Gourmet and California Wonder! Even if there was snow mixed in with the rain on my way home from work, I had gardening chores to do!

The down-to-earth blog has a great piece on baked bread! I love how we can learn and grow from others. A link to a link to a link...which keeps me on my computer for longer than I sometimes think I should be. It is like chocolate, you just cannot have one and expect to be satisfied.

If only the sun would shine!

2009-02-24T20:47:00.000-08:00

My clothesline is lonely. It feels like it has been a long winter. Nothing beats sheets that have been dried on the clothesline on a spring day.

Sunday, Sunday!

2009-02-22T14:58:00.001-08:00

Up and out of the house before 8 a.m. this morning to get some shopping done. To McClendon's for the garden and then to Fred Meyer for groceries.

Picked up two primroses to put with the one you had brought over in January, Michelle. A splash of color hanging in my garden, very pretty to look at.

As soon as I got home from your house, I headed straight out to the raspberry bed and put these in the ground. I am very thankful that I had everything prepped and ready from last weekend.

As for those bowling ball sized rocks...found one in the bed...took some digging to get it out.

Thanks for the raspberry plants, the books you lent to read and the cup of tea!