Adirondack Gardening

New Blog

2011-05-14T14:11:00.000-07:00

My new gardening blog, Homemade Harvest, can be found here. It will follow my adventures trying to turn marginal agricultural land into a small holding that will allow me to produce most of my own food. Come on over and see how I do!

Closing the Blog

2010-12-06T09:44:00.000-08:00

For those who follow this but not my other blog, I am moving to Michigan. My state job here in the Adirondacks has been terminated and I have been very lucky to find new employment.

So, since I will no longer be gardening in the Adirondacks, I will no longer be posting to this blog.

That is, unless, of course, I start up a new garden blog at my new place, in which case I will post directions to the new blog here so you can follow me there, if you wish.

Cheers!

The Final Harvest

2010-11-12T11:58:00.000-08:00

These days I am busily packing up my household. For those who don't know, I was offered a new job (at last), which I accepted, the result being that I am moving. To Michigan. It was a difficult decision, but a job is better than unemployment, and the place where I am going looks like it will be a terrific place to work. Even so, I am heartbroken to leave my property here, with the apple trees just starting to produce, the native shrub hedge finally growing in, and my veg. garden soil improving each year.

Walking in and out of the back porch I kept passing the pile of runner beans that I brought inside to dry. Finally, this morning I decided it was time to shuck them, for the sun was out, the air was mild, and I needed to tackle the porch soon in the cleaning frenzy.

Each pod was stripped from the dried vines and its contents were placed in a bowl.

Idefix did as all cats do: sat on whatever I was working on. In this case, the unshucked beans.

All of a sudden, Toby bounded up and charged the fence. He ran and barked and turned and jumped and barked some more, completely beside himself. What could it be? I looked for a deer, but no deer was to be seen. Instead, I saw...

one of the many stray cats our neighborhood now has. Unresponsible cat owners have left their fertile cats outside and now we are overrun with a feral population.

Toby was defending his property and his own cat. This stray was not impressed, for it stayed there all arched up and fluffy for several minutes, no doubt laughing internally at the futile efforts of the dog.

I returned to my shucking and ended up with quite a good haul. I don't remember which beans are which, though. However, I think the little reddish-brown ones in the bowl with the large white ones are the dwarf bees, a very short runner bean that is considered "rare."

These might be the scarlet runner beans...

and these maybe are the sunset runner beans?

Would that make these the painted ladies?

Hopefully I'll have gardening space next summer and can plant these to discover (once more) which ones are which.

Putting the Garden to Bed

2010-10-04T08:32:00.000-07:00

Saturday was a near-perfect autumnal day. I was, sadly, at work (first time in about two weeks), so I was stuck indoors. When I got home, though, the dog and I toured the yard. It's been many days since I've done that, too. I checked on the carrots, the only produce remaining in the garden, and discovered some critters had been noshing, so I figured I might as well harvest what was left.

Some of the carrots were quite robust:

A few were longer, although none would've met grocery store standards:

Hm...yellow carrots? Only had two of these.

One whole bed had been sampled, as mentioned above. Like the critters eating the apples, they took a few bites out of just about every carrot top.

Considering I didn't thin or weed the carrots (or much of the garden, for that matter) this year, I was (and still am) impressed by the size of the majority of the carrots.

Not the largest crop in the world, but enough to keep me busy for a day, scrubbing, peeling, chopping, blanching and freezing.

Sunday dawned equally nice. It was time to put the garden to bed. After all, who knew when we'd have another nice day like this? So, I pulled out posts, and tore down trellises (took down in a couple hours what took several days to put up). Then, because the weeds were overwhelming, and because I probably won't be here next summer, I opted to cover the whole thing with black plastic - take the garden back to the beginning and just kill off everything. This way the next time one goes to put in veg, it will be an easier start - bare ground and no weeds.

The new beds, on the far left, where the white row covers can just be seen, are still under production: pumpkins. Small pumpkins (Baby Pams), but should be good for pies. I'll give them a few more days to finish ripening.

2010-09-20T10:35:00.000-07:00

While walking through the garden yesterday afternoon, I noticed some large carrots. Could it be time to harvest them?

Nah - one really should wait for cooler weather, but I did pull the really big ones. Don't want 'em to get too tough and woody. Most will be small - I never got around to thinning them this year.

The last of the onions are in now. Good year for onions and garlic.

Stop Eating My Apples!

2010-09-01T10:28:00.000-07:00

UGH! Are those flying ants!?? They were all over my garden and on my lawn!

Hundreds of them! Carpenter ants? Oh no! I stepped on as many as I could, but I'm sure I hardly made a dent. Most disturbing, one large batch was within five feet of my back door!

On the other hand, the tomatoes look like they might actually be starting to ripen!

Of course, the ones with the most color have also been eaten by critters already, or have some metabolic damage.

I didn't get too many flowers planted in the veg. garden this year (for beneficial insects), but those I did plant are only just now starting to bloom.

Okay - something is eating my apples. Here's a small pile collected under the Jonagold. There were more the day before - something ran off with them overnight.

But there! Do you see it? It's not just insects - something is taking BITES out of the apples while still in the tree!

Okay, Ellen...calm down. Who could the culprits be? Deer? Bears? Squirrels? Crows?

The bears are certainly out eating the apples, but not in my yard (no damage to the fence since spring).

Deer might be, but they don't have the right kind of teeth to do this kind of damage.

Squirrels? Maybe - I'm sure they are around and they must know when the dog is trapped inside.

Crows? HM. I've seen them fly off with dropped apples from the yard.

Well, all I can do is hope that some of the apples are left alone and ripen enough for me to eat them.

I was all excited last week to see I actually had a northern spy on the spy tree - I didn't think I had any this year. When I took these photos, though, a day or two later, it was gone. GONE!

LEAVE MY APPLES ALONE!!!

Home Grown Tomatoes

2010-08-28T07:46:00.000-07:00

There ain't nothin' in the world that I like better
Than bacon 'n lettuce 'n homegrown tomatoes
Up in the mornin', out in the garden
Get you a ripe one, don't pick a hard 'un
Plant ‘em in the spring, eat ‘em in the summer
All winter without 'em is a culinary bummer
I forget all about the sweatin' and the diggin'
Every time I go out and pick me a big 'un

Homegrown tomatoes, homegrown tomatoes
What would life be without homegrown tomatoes?
Only two things that money can't buy
That's true love and homegrown tomatoes.

You can go out to eat and that's for sure
But there's nothin' that a homegrown tomato won't cure
Put 'em in a salad, put 'em in a stew
You can make your own, very own tomato juice
You can eat 'em with eggs, eat 'em with gravy
You can eat 'em with beans, pinto or navy
Put 'em on the side, put 'em in the middle
Homegrown tomatoes on a hot cake griddle.

Homegrown tomatoes, homegrown tomatoes
What would like be without homegrown tomatoes?
Only two things that money can't buy
That's true love and homegrown tomatoes.

If I's to change this life I lead
You could call me Johnny Tomatoseed
Cause I know what this country needs, and that’s
Homegrown tomatoes in every yard you see

When I die don't bury me
In a box in a cold dark cemetery
Out in the garden would be much better
'Cause I could be pushin' up a homegrown tomato.

Homegrown tomatoes, homegrown tomatoes
What would like be without homegrown tomatoes?
Only two things that money can't buy
That's true love and homegrown tomatoes.

This was one of my favorite John Denver songs. He didn't write it (that may have been a fella named Guy Clark), but he did record it.

I noticed yesterday that some of my green tomatoes are starting to look kinda yellowish...could they actually be ripening? These 40-degree nights (Fahrenheit) aren't speeding them along any, though.

This Just In!

2010-08-19T09:11:00.000-07:00

Alert! Join Seed Savers Exchange in helping to save the Pavlovsk Station from development
A Russian court recently ruled that one of the world's most important seed banks near St. Petersburg, Russia may be destroyed in order to make way for a housing development. If allowed to stand, this decision will have a catastrophic impact on global plant diversity. Called a "living library", the Pavlovsk Experimental Station is widely considered the crown jewel of agricultural biodiversity, since 90% of the collection's varieties are not found anywhere else on the planet.

Join scientists and concerned people around the world in petitioning President Medvedev and Prime Minister Putin to overrule the court decision. To learn more about this issue and to sign the petition, click on this link to the Global Crop Diversity Trust .

The Hops are Hoppin'

2010-08-18T07:12:00.000-07:00

Yes, I grow hops. I have two vines, and this year they are LOADED with flowers:

People ask me why I grow 'em. I don't drink (aside from water and occasionally juices), and therefore have no real interest in brewing. So, why grow the hops? Well...because I think they are pretty nifty looking plants. I love the flowers! And, if I had a pergola, or other structures to surround a formal garden, they'd be great to grow up and over the things. As it is, they are next to the dog fence and grow upon it instead.

I've contemplated doing a harvest and selling them to home brewers, but I don't know where to start. If you live in the Adirondacks and are doing some home-brewing, and you are interested in a local source of hops, let me know!

Roots

2010-08-17T07:00:00.000-07:00

This was a mini harvest weekend, and here are the fruits of my labors:

Clockwise from top left: onions, potatoes, beans and peas, garlic.

It all started Saturday evening when I got home from work. On a whim (I tend to work on whims), I decided to get out the spading fork and dig the spuds. After all, the CPB had done their work and the plants were all shriveled twigs. I figured I might as well dig the things up - the odds of them continuing to grow were likely very slim. I planted about 11 pounds of potatoes this spring, and the harvest was about half a bushel. Did I get back my investment? Not this year.

Sunday morning I tackled the garlic and onions. The onions did very well this year, which surprised me. Here's a bushel basket full of onion braids, and I still have one more bed to harvest!

But one can't leave one's onions in a basket...they must be hung to dry. Not having a root celler, or a drying shed, I have to make do with whatever space I can find.

The bundles of garlic have been laid out to dry as well. Some did very well, while others were hardly worth the effort. German white seems to be the strong favorite, with nice large bulbs. Several of the best will be put aside for planting this fall (who knows...I might still be here next year).

Harvest Updates

2010-08-13T06:57:00.000-07:00

Two evenings ago I was dumping food scraps into the compost pile when I noticed a fair number of pea pods on the pea vines. I thought I'd pick a few for the dog's dinner, and ended up with a shirt full of peas! When I got them all shelled, I had well over a quart of 'em. Who'd have thought we'd have a pea harvest in mid-August!

Meanwhile, the beans continue to produce, and the zucchini are rolling in. This weekend I should tackle the potatoes - completely naked now thanks to the CPB. There's no point leaving them in the ground now to keep growing. Without any leaves, I can't imagine there's much food source for the tubers.

I'll need to pull garlic, too. The plants are all looking quite brown and deceased - much like the potatoes, actually.

The apples are ripening nicely on the Jonagold and Haralson. Several have dropped to the ground and have been nibbled on by who knows what. I've seen crows fleeing the yard with green apples in their beaks, but I suspect most of the damage is from rodents of one stripe or another. Still, I expect to have several apples this year, if all goes well.

I heard a NYS apple report on the radio this morning. The statewide harvest is down quite a bit (we did get those frosts after the trees blossomed), but they said the apples that did grow should be of exceptional quality. We shall see. I'll have to make my pilgrimage to the orchards early this year! It seems that like many things this season, the apples are ripening about two weeks earlier than normal. Hm...a trend across the entire plant spectrum this year it seems.

Giants from the Garden

2010-08-02T10:41:00.000-07:00

Sure...it looks like any normal pile of beans...

...but let's put 'em in perspective:

And it's not like they are old beans - noooo - these are the first beans of the season. I need to check my planting map and see which ones these are. Could they be the Cherokee Trail of Tears?

The same could be said for the zucchinis:

And it's not like I overlooked them! There were no zukes on these particular plants when I checked them a week ago! Hmm...I wonder what I'll do with Jumbo there. Just finished up the first batch of stuffed zucchicni, and I finally tossed all of last year's shredded zucchini from the freezer. Maybe I'll just make loaves of bread this week - use it up right away and freeze the bread.

Brrrr!

2010-07-31T08:23:00.000-07:00

Chilly night last night. The thermometer at work told us of a low of 44*F. That was here, where it is sheltered. At home, where things are much more open, it was probably even lower. I don't feel so silly now for lying there in bed last night wondering if I should've covered the tomatoes, beans, and squash! At this rate we just might have frost in August!

Crop Updates - an Evening in the Garden

2010-07-28T06:27:00.000-07:00

My heart has simply not been in the garden this year. The weeds and pests have taken over, and I can't seem to get myself to care. It's the whole job thing - will I find a new one (and be moving), or will I be on unemployment come winter? With the former, I won't be able to reap the benefits of my veg garden, with the latter, a garden's worth of produce will surely be welcome if there is no income! I waver between the two. Some days I'm out there weeding and mowing, but most days I just don't seem to care. It's been a strange year.

I finally gave up on the peas. The freezer is full and the plants were slowing down. The pods that remain I'll let dry and then harvest for seed.

Still, other things should be ripening, so it was time to tour the beds and see what was what.

The garlic will be ready for harvesting pretty soon. The tops are turning brown, which is usually the indicator. I pulled up this one to check size - not too bad. I'll give the rest another week or two.

Ah - the Haralsons are starting to redden! I'm very excited about the apples this year. Only Haralsons and Jonagolds, but there are several fruits on these two trees.

As you can see, these runner beans are still refusing to grow up.

The pole beans are just not robust this year, either. Only now are they FINALLY starting to fill in, but even so, they are Spartan. Reasons? I have a few possibilities: these are the same beds in which I planted beans last year; I didn't use any innoculant this year; we had a cold snap early in the season; we had a lot of rain in June, and very little rain in July; and the soil is generally pretty poor. Take your pick.

But, the beans are blooming and that's a happy thing. The hummingbirds are content - between the beans and the bee balm, there is finally food for them in my yard.

The first two blossoms here are runner beans (scarlet and painted lady); the others include Cherokee Trail of Tears, Rattlesnake, and Blue Coco, among others.

Beans are starting to form. I imagine in a week or so I will start picking and freezing.

Look! A tomato!

The zucchinis are doing well - lots of blossoms and some fruits already, which something seems to be enjoying.

I picked these last night and after some judicious trimming, they became stuffed zucchinis. Rice, sausage and tomato sauce.

After a slow start, the cukes are now loaded with blossoms!

I admit, I have been a poor gardener this year. Not knowing if I was staying or leaving, my heart just hasn't been in my garden. So, I did not patrol for pests, and here is why one wants to keep on top of CPB infestations:

The leaves were completely gone from the spuds and the plants were brown and dead. Still, I was hopeful that there might be some potatoes underground, even if small, so I dug in with my hands.

Voila! Not a whole lot, but better than none at all. These are, I believe, purple majesty potatoes.

Scrubbed up, they are a beautiful purple-black color. It almost looks like a pan full of very large black olives!

The inside, as you can see, is a beautiful deep purple.

And look! Purple smashed potatoes! I know, some folks will turn their noses up at this, but I think they are lovely. And they taste just wonderful.

Sunflowers Galore

2010-07-14T13:20:00.000-07:00

I was on my way to Marcellus for a job interview yesterday when I passed this field of sunflowers somewhere west of Utica, along Route 365.

There was a field on each side of the road. How could I not stop and photograph them?

Meanwhile, back in the home garden, the peas are finishing up. I have discovered that peas ripen rather predictably: first you get a handful, then for a couple days a bowlful. The next two days you get a fairly good harvest, followed by one day that is a whopper. After this, the harvest slows, with a couple smallish batches, then maybe a bowlful.

Now you can miss a day without worrying you've let too many get giant-sized. Soon you think, "Do I really need to harvest any more? Maybe I can leave the rest and save them as seed for next year. Think of the money I'll save!"

All told, it's over in about a week and a half.

It's a happy thing to have filled the freezer with peas for winter, but it's equally a happy thing to not have to blanch anything more for a while - especially when the weather is so hot and humid.

It's Sea Peason...um...Pea Season!

2010-07-07T10:07:00.001-07:00

I harvested the first peas a few days ago, but last night (actually, that would be two nights ago, now), in the 90-degree heat, I picked the first real batch - almost a half bushel. Most were snow type peas - the kinds with the edible pods. These include the sweet golden peas (new this year - found in a market in Inida - that's what all the descriptions in the catalogues say),

and the Schweitzer Reisen, which are HUGE.

The humidity is a killer, though - I had rivers of sweat running down my face while picking. Things were made even worse in the house later that evening as I blanched the produce for freezing. It took HOURS for the fans to pull out the heat and humidity and bring in the cooler air from the wee hours.

Still, it is great to have the summer harvest officially underway.

The spinach bolted...before it ever reached edible status.

Most of the greens fed the slugs. I think I had them too close to the peas this year, for they never really thrived and the peas over-topped them. The cool, shady, damp microclimate was perfect for slugs and snails.

It seems like most of the carrots never sprouted. One batch is doing okay (needs thinning), but the others are so Spartan that thinning is not required. Most of what you see are weeds. When the weather breaks, I need to go out with the cobrahead and do some weeding.

Some of the beets are up...they need some thinning, too. I've never had luck with the beets, so maybe this year will be a first.

And the spuds, well, the CPB are lovin' them!

Hooray! The pole beans are finally starting to climb! I knew all they needed was a little heat, although this heatwave is a bit excessive. Feast or famine, that's the weather in these modern times.

The runner beans are blooming, but are barely 6" tall. Maybe they are really crawler beans.

Only one bed of squash is thriving. The rest of the pumpkins and cukes are struggling, and I don't think the melons are even remotely in evidence.

Update on the Garden

2010-06-21T09:46:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I finally got the trellising finished! Hooray! Now the pole beans have an option for getting away from the slugs.

Meanwhile, the peas have started to bloom. I thought I'd share some of their portraits with you, just so you can see that peas can be quite lovely.

Golden Sweet - edible yellow pods - very rare

And here's a wee pod already forming!

Schweitzer Reisen - another rare one.

Green Arrow - neither rare nor exotic, but still lovely.

I think this was a Blue-podded.

ARGH!

2010-06-17T09:59:00.000-07:00

They are back. Again. The Rose Chafers.

Here they are, devouring the buds on my ninebark. I mixed up a batch of pyrethrin-based insecticide and attacked. They were skeletonizing all the leaves on the hawthorns, and were rampant on the dogwoods, chokecherries, and other ninebarks. There were some on the grapes and hops. They were on the alpine current. The viburnums are both dead this year, so they are leaving them alone.

I sprayed. Went out a couple hours later, and sprayed again. The next day, I sprayed again, and filled a jar with soapy water and flicked the breeding SOBs into it to meet a watery death.

But they just kept coming.

I finally bit the bullet and bought a bottle of Sevin, a toxic insecticide. Swore I'd never use the stuff, but I've reached the end of my rope with these guys.

Too late.

I went out after the rain and sprayed everything. And then it rained again. I haven't been out since. The sun is out this afternoon - perhaps I'll check again when I get home.

Meanwhile, there's not a flower or bud left on any of the ninebarks. :(

The By-products of Rain

2010-06-12T06:41:00.000-07:00

The Minerva Community Garden

2010-06-10T06:48:00.000-07:00

I was early for an appointment yesterday, so I took some time to wander around the Minerva Community Garden. The photos are not great - it was overcast and raining - but you can see the wonderful layout they have.

Just about all the beds are raised and have boxes built around them. Several have integrated head- and footboards from various beds. What a novel way to build a trellis!

All the beds are very tidy.

I've never seen such tidy beds in a veg garden.

Lots of brassica family plants. Someone's going to have a lot of broccoli, or cauliflower, or cabbages. The bed in the back has corn - already over a foot tall!

Either they have a serious ant problem, or these are potato hills.

Last year they had tomatoes hanging from pergolas, but this year all the tomatoes I could see were in buckets. I wonder what they'll put on the pergolas this year.

Frost and Rain

2010-06-08T11:57:00.000-07:00

We've had nearly three inches of rain since last week - it's been wonderful. Overnight my manure beds went from brown to green as the buckwheat sprouted forth with leaves galore. (Photos coming soon.)

But now we are in the throes of a cold snap. It was in the mid-30s last night, and I dutifully covered the newly planted tomatoes and the newly sprouted squashes. Tonight, frost is in the forecast. The row covers will remain in place until things warm up again.

Meanwhile, the pole beans are up and running (underneath their row covers). I picked up posts and stakes over the weekend and now must make more trellises. I may have to get more bailing twine.

I came home from work yesterday to find a package waiting for me: the folks who made my drip irrigation timer sent me a replacement timer! When I went to install mine this season, I found it wasn't working. Installation of a new battery (twice) didn't help. I took the infernal contraption apart only to find the entire inside corroded. Many phone calls later I finally got a hold of a helpful gent at the correct company, and since I was within my 3 year warranty (I've had it just under 2 years), he said to send it to them and they'd take a look. Looks like they replaced the whole thing!

So, now I will wait for some sunnier, drier weather and install it. It's time to see if the dripper system is still functional.

Lethal Beauty

2010-06-08T06:48:00.001-07:00

Toby and I had just started on our walk yesterday evening and were not too far from the house. We were at a standstill while he checked out the roadside grafitti, so I was playing with the tree leaves. There on the leaves of a mountain ash was a beautiful beetle.

I dragged the dog back to the house to get the camera, then back again to get the camera battery. When I got back to the approximate location, it took a bit of searching, but the insect was still there. I snapped a few frames and we finished our walk.

This morning I looked it up. It's a beetle, I knew that much. Turns out, its a round-headed appletree borer, Saperda candida. This didn't sound good, so I did a little research.

As attractive as this striped, blue-legged beetle is, its presence does not bode well for my apple trees. The striking adults are nocturnal, feeding on leaves and sometimes fruit. That's not a problem. It's when they set about reproducing that they become "dangerous," for they seek out apple trees (crab and regular) in which to lay their eggs. They make a slit in the bark at the base of the trunk and lay the eggs there (June is peak egg laying time). Soon the eggs hatch and for about a year the young larvae feed just under the bark.

When winter comes, the larvae go dormant. Summer #2 rolls around, and the larvae start to bore into the tree. Here they will tunnel and feed for the next 1-3 years, each winter going dormant. Afterwards they emerge as adults, mate, and the cycle begins again.

Trees that are weak are usually the target. While apples are preferred, mountain ash, hawthorn, service berry, cottoneaster, Saskatoon are also hosts.

What is an apple grower to do?!? The base of trees can be painted with a schmezz made from white latex paint and water. This apparently discourages the adults from laying eggs, and makes the sawdust-like frass from the larvae more apparent if they are present. Shallow larvae can be cut out with a knife, while those that are already tunnelling can be chased with a stiff whire shoved up their tunnels.

An important factor in avoiding these insects is to keep your trees healthy. When they are newly planted, be sure to keep them well-watered to promote good root growth. This means for 2-3 years, not just a week or so after planting.

Because I have an apple tree that is in poor health, I'm going to have to do an inspection when I get home. Check out the base of all my trees for suspicious activity. If I see anything, steps will have to be taken.

Rain!

2010-06-01T12:26:00.000-07:00

I know that many a holiday reveller this weekend gladly rejoiced in the lack of rain, but I, the gardener, whose winter supply of veg depends on the success (or failure) of my garden, was thrilled when the darkened sky and rumbling thunder actually produced some rain last night and this morning.

It is so easy to just go to the store and purchase what we need/want. Well, for most of us here in the US it is easy. Some of us have to plan a bit further in advance, since the store is many miles away. But still, when we produce our own food, we appreciate it all the more. And we appreciate what goes into making it happen.

Too often I hear people moan about the cost of food. But let's look at the real cost - the cost that may not be reflected in your 50 cents/pound peas, or your $1/pound beef. Is your food subsidized by the government? Does it come from half way around the world? Was it picked by migrant workers who get little pay and no benefits? Was its production detrimental to the soil in which it grew (eg: potatoes that are grown in soil that is first completely sterilized - poisoned - by herb- and pesticides)? Were the animals raised and slaughtered humanely, including fed food that is appropriate for their digestive systems (eg: did you know that factory farmed cattle are often fed on ground up parts of their fellow cattle? This is one reason why they are pumped full of antibiotics, because they are so sick from having to eat "meat" with a digestive system designed only to consume plant material.)?

Yes, I pay $50/month for 10 pounds of meat - but it is raised locally and humanely. Grassfed. Hormone free. And only travels a couple hours to reach me.

Yes, I buy my eggs locally. My egg lady is wonderful - $2/dozen for terrific eggs. Most other egg folks sell their homegrown eggs for at least $3/doz. - I've even seen them go for over $4! Sure, $2 is still more than the grocery store eggs, but my eggs are from happy roaming chickens and have a flavor you can't find in any store-bought carton.

And yes, I grow my own veg as much as possible. It is the right thing to do. I know what goes into my produce and I know that the greatest distance it travelled was from my yard to my kitchen (unless you count the seeds, which in truth did travel some distance to get here).

There is a growing movement to eat more local food, and I fully agree with and support this notion. I also think everyone should grow his/her own veg. And not just a couple tomatoes in a window box. We would be a healthier nation as a whole if we all put a little more effort into the basics of life.

Finishing (almost) in the Garden

2010-05-31T08:09:00.000-07:00

Many hot days...many days off...working in the garden.

Moved the tomatoes outside so they can begin to harden off. Less than half of the tomatoes I planted sprouted and survived. Don't know why - I've always had great luck with tomatoes. Could be many of the seeds were old?

Bought 20 bags of mulch and completed the new beds. Here they are, in all their glory. Look kind of nice, eh? Just wait a year or so and they will look like the rest of the garden...

...full of weeds, every path a jungle of dandelions, strawberries, buttercups, sheep sorrel, cinquefoil, chickweed...

The spuds are sprouting. Well, they were "sprouting" before I planted them, but now they have green leaves above the ground. Many potatoes that missed the shovel last fall are also sprouting. These I've been pulling/digging up and tossing because all the literature says that this should be done if they grew in a season of late blight - the insulated spuds underground can be harboring the fungus. Of course, I've just chucked them into the weed piles...won't this also keep the fungus alive? We shall see. Meanwhile, I squashed my first CPB eggs yesterday - bright orange on the underside of a leaf.

Many of the onions seem to have recovered. Whew! I thought they were going to be a total loss this year.

The greens are sprouting now, too! Spinach - Mmmm.

We need rain so desperately. The ground is parched. I dug a hole to plant the flowers I purchased Friday, and I could barely get the shovel to break the soil. It looked promising yesterday - the winds picked up, the air cooled off, and the sky turned grey, but no rain fell. It's been weeks.

Meanwhile, the swallowtails are loving the new beds - 100% manure, full of all sorts of good nutrients. Took several videos of them puddling, but I'll spare you those. Here, however, is a shot of two enjoying a sip at the nutrient bar.

Got lupines? Mine are going great guns. Like the bee balm, they are almost a weed. I hate to weed them out, but if I don't do so soon, they will be the only plants in the flower beds besides the bee balm!

Pretty, pretty flax. The plants are so wispy and delicate, and they are topped with these darling pale blue flowers. They don't blossom for long, but are nice while they do.

My irises have started to open now, too.

I discovered a neat "kaleidoscope" feature on my photoshop program. Here's the iris again, although you'd never recognize it. Ah...technology.

The Garden Expands

2010-05-29T10:48:00.001-07:00

Friday I decided to tackle the newest part of the veg garden. As you may recall from past photos, one end of the garden has been under black plastic for about a year, an attempt to kill off more lawn and convert it into garden space. Yesterday was the unveiling. Beneath the plastic was nice barren soil, several ant hills, and one garter snake which immediately took off.

Once the plastic was rolled back, I covered the space with newsprint - no mindless digging and tilling here - I was going with the "pile it up" method. First, we had to put down layers of newspaper. However, try to find a newspaper these days that isn't printed in color! Our local rag is about six pages long (three sheets) - only one is useable. This was getting me nowhere.

Luckily I had a couple rolls of newsprint to put down, but it wasn't enough layers. So, off to the dump I went (uh...transfer station, that is). Lots of newspapers in the bins, but all were colored. What is with the newspapers these days?!? Afterall, people read 'em and toss 'em, so why waste the money on colored ink? If they went just black and white, not only could gardeners use them, but they could also be burned in woodstoves for kindling!!! Just something to think about.

So, being left sans newspapers, I went with the next best thing: cardboard. I had to make two trips to the dump to get enough (barely) to cover the garden. Then I started adding the manure.

My wonderful egg people brought me a load of manure this last week that they estimate was upwards of 30 years old!!! It was black and crumbly - wonderful wonderful stuff. But not nearly enough. I put down 2.5 beds of last fall's horse manure, then 2.5 beds of this lovely black stuff, and had to finish off the 6th bed with a mixture of the dregs of the good stuff, a couple scoops from the compost (which didn't really compost last year - not hot enough), potting soil and peat moss.

Meanwhile, while I was digging into the good manure, look who I turned up:

This is a little red-bellied snake - a delightful little snake who was quite startled when I turned it up in the manure. I'm just grateful I didn't kill it with a stab of the shovel!

Of course, I had to have a photo shoot. Look at these lovely scales!

Had a terrible time getting a shot of the belly - it wouldn't sit still and flip over! Can't imagine why!

I finally turned it loose in the rock pile at the edge of the garden.

Here are all the beds...now I need to put mulch around the edges. Later that evening I planted squash, pumpkins, melons and cucumbers in the beds. 100% maure - should do well!

The butterflies were impressed. When I went out that evening, two tiger swallow tails were puddling on the beds, but I was only able to photograph this little white butterfly. I have no idea what it is.

I also got the pole beans planted...now I'm off to get poles for them!

Ah...the Weeds

2010-05-26T07:37:00.000-07:00

Okay, it's not all weeds, but there are plenty.

First up on the docket is the bluebirds. They have taken up residence in one of the boxes in my yard - hooray! They eat lots of insects and help keep pests under control.

Blue-eyed grass - there are more than one! I will have to head out with the field guide to see which species I have, but here's a nice close-up of the flower. It's not a weed, although many folks treat it is as such because it will grow in lawns that are left "untended." This is a native wildflower and one I am always thrilled to see in my yard.

The lupines have started to bloom. Ah, the luminous lupine!

And here it is, the 2010 Veg Garden, weeds and all:

As you can see, the spaces between the beds have really started to grow. Back in the garden's first year, these spaces had been killed off, sort of, by being under black plastic for months. The garden was beautiful in that first year. But now the paths have had 3-4 years to recover and recover they have. I had a wonderous crop of gigantic dandelions lining each path.

These trellises, in case you were wondering, are the ones I spent the last week erecting for my peas, and already the peas have begun to climb! The British Wonder are living up to their name by being the most vigorous growers so far.

Ah, chives. Love 'em in all sorts of foods, but boy can they take over if you don't keep an eye on them. The flowers have only just started to open in this patch. The great thing about chives is that the whole plant is edible. The next time you make a salad (green salad or potato salad), or whip up a batch of mashed potatoes, toss a few chive flowers on top for an attrative edible decoration.

I also have a love-hate relationship with buttercups. I love the flowers, they are quite beautiful, but they are extremely aggressive weeds in the garden. Unlike clover, sheep sorrel, plantain, chickweed and even dandelions, buttercups resist uprooting with a tenacity that would put shrews to shame. And they send out tendrils that sneak in everywhere, forming a thick carpet that is well-nigh impossible to remove. They are also indicators of poor soil. I suspect that their presence is a big clue as to why the soils in this section of the garden smell "sour" - like an anaerobic compost pile. I've added all sorts of ammendments over the years, but I still get whiffs of sour soil. Maybe some day, if I'm still here, I will finally get the soil improved and healthy.

The lilacs have started to blossom!

And the azaleas around the house are in full swing. Lovely.

Too Busy to Photograph!

2010-05-24T08:19:00.000-07:00

Hard to believe, when it seems my camera has been surgically attached sometimes, but these last few days I've just been too busy in the garden to take photos!

The peas are finally trellised - ten rows. I ran out of twin about half way through and the whole project had to be put on hold until I got more.

And now the greens are planted. Truthfully, these really could've gone in weeks ago, but that whole snow/frost thing keeps me conservative when it comes to planting. The packages may say the plants are cold tolerent, but what if that's only in Florida, where cold is 70 degrees?

The spuds are in, too. Only a little over two beds this year - no where near as many as last year. This is probably just as well...just in case I get a job offer and have to move!

The beds are slowly filling back up with weeds, though. The paths in between the beds are overgrown with dandelions. Where did they all come from! some are trying to reach knee-height, but so far have been unsuccessful. I mowed some of them down yesterday, but the rest remain, thumbing their proverbial noses at me.

Meanwhile, the drip irrigation system is on the fritz. I bought new batteries for the timer, but after working for about two minutes, it went on the blink. I finally took the whole thing apart and found the inside full of corrosion! One bit even fell off - its wires completely corroded through. I've called Dripworks (twice) to ask them if the thing was under any kind of warrenty (I've only had it two years, and didn't use it hardly at all last year), but so far they have not had the courtesy to call back. Beware the power of the internet, Dripworks - an unsatisfied customer can wreak havoc on your reputation!

So, in the meantime, I've got the hose hooked up and every evening am out there watering.

HHH weather is here (Hazy, Hot, Humid). The exhaust fan is on at night. The dog and I lie there unable to sleep in the heat trapped in the house. And it's only May.

The Growing Season is Starting Up

2010-05-18T08:05:00.000-07:00

It's very exciting around the garden these days, for Things are happening.

Just as the apples and crabapples were budding, we were hit with another snow storm (well, sort of a storm - mostly just cold weather and snow in the air, although we netted about 0.1" of snow on the ground). Just about every growing thing now has blackened leaves. But, nature perseveres, and now the trees are blooming.

Here is as bough from my white-flowered crabapple. Last year was the first time it had blossoms - about a half dozen. This year it is loaded.

The other crabapples are full of buds, too. The wildlife crab was hit hard, so it is not the solid plume of flowers it was last year. In fact, the Royalty crab isn't either. It was loaded with buds, but now they don't seem to be opening, or at least not with any sort of vigor.

The regular apples, however, are doing well. Here are the flowers on the Haralson:

The Jonagold is also loaded, and this year, for the first time, I have a few flowers (very few) on the Milden. The Milden isn't looking too well, though. The middle trunks are defunct. I cut off one earlier this spring - it was well and goodly dead. The other is nearly dead - no leaves, no flowers. The Northern Spy is a late bloomer, in many ways. It's leaves are only just starting to emerge, and I think it will have a few flowers, but they will be later in the season.

I also noticed this year I have a wild apple that has volunteered in my yard! It's about as bit as some of the whips I planted last year, but IT is loaded with blossoms. The wild varieties are so much hardier and grow up so much more quickly than their domesticated cousins.
Meanwhile, this last Sunday was a PERFECT day. It was in the low-70s, with a cloudless blue sky and a nice breeze. I spent part of the morning chasing red admirals around the yard trying to get their photos. There were many of them, all feasting on the dandelion buffet that is my lawn, but none would sit still long enough to shoot! I finally tracked this one down in the veg garden.

And then I spent the rest of the day re-digging the remaining veg beds. The weeds had taken over the final six beds and they were a chore to clean out. It was like starting from scratch and digging up the lawn! By Monday afternoon all six were finished and are now almost ready for planting.

I am still going to hold off another week or so before I really get stuff planted - more cold weather is possible. Still, I may get the spuds in this week.

Meanwhile, the garlic is doing great:

I took the row covers off the peas yesterday and they are looking great, too! Put in the poles and posts that will hold their trellises (when I get around to making them).

Wish I could be as optimistic about the onions. They are just not looking too great. Gave them a good drink yesterday, but only time will tell if they survive and produce.

I'm "on vacation" again this week, so I hope to get a fair bit of stuff done in the garden, in between going on flower hikes with my pal Jackie. I've got a couple days off next week, too, during which I really hope to get stuff into the garden.

Guilty

2010-04-29T06:44:00.001-07:00

Okay - guilty as charged. I planted my peas about a month earlier than usual, and here's what happened:

My apologies to everyone.

And Now a Splash of Color

2010-04-25T11:46:00.000-07:00

Things are really starting to pop around the yard and in the gardens. For those of you who live further south, this will be a flashback to maybe a month ago. But things progress a bit more slowly up here in the mountians, yet even for us, things are blooming early this year.

Buds on the white (snowball?) crabapple. Last year was the first time it had blossoms - about a half dozen. More are on the way for this year. I can't wait!

Little pink primroses are just starting to bloom.

My favorites, though, are the yellow primroses.

How sweet they are!

The grape hyacinths have been in bloom for upwards of a couple weeks now and are beginning to show their age.

The PJM rhododendrons are coming along nicely, too. Most of the open flowers are squashed against the side of the house, but soon the ones facing the yard will open, too.

And then there are the tulips. These lovely pointy-petalled specimens have really opened up in just the last couple of days.

It’s Pea-Plantin’ Time in the Mountains

2010-04-25T11:32:00.000-07:00

…or not. It seems awfully early to me, with a week still left to the month, but “they” say you can/should plant your peas “as soon as the ground is workable.” This year that would’ve been almost in March! Why, I don’t usually get the garden going until mid-May at earliest, and more often than not not until after Memorial Day. But, this year it has been warm early, and with employment up in the air (had a job interview this week in Maryland, but there are 29 other candidates for that job), I figure it’s best to plant, just in case. I’m kinda hoping that by planting the garden the Fates will think they’ve worked against me by giving me a job and making me move. We’ll see.

So, tonight when I got home from work, the air was mild, the sun was shining – perfect planting weather, thought I. The black flies are not biting yet, although once the sun was well and goodly set, the mosquitoes came out and did their best to drive me back inside. I wasn’t having any part of it, though – I stayed out planting until I couldn’t see the seeds anymore. Got eight double-rows planted – eight varieties. I know you are dying to know what kinds, so here’s the list and some descriptions.

Golden Sweet – edible pods – “Originally collected at a market in India. Tall 6’ plants, beautiful two-toned purple flowers and bright lemon-yellow pods. Best eaten small, excellent for stir-fry. The only yellow-colored edible podded pea in Seed Saver’s Exchange’s collection of over 1,000 varieties.” Sounds intriguing, eh? I have seeds from SSE and from Baker Creek for this variety – we’ll see if they do equally well.

Schweizer Riesen (Swiss Giant) Snow Peas - a rare pea that I got from Turtle Tree Biodynamic Seeds. The catalogue describes it as “an old Swiss heirloom. Tall, vigorous plants with attractive purple-flower[s] bear large, tender, tasty snow peas. People sometimes mistake the showy flowers for sweet peas.”

Mayfair – a shell pea I got two or three years ago and haven’t had since due to seed crop failures. I was glad to get it again this year – it’s a very good sweet pea. Unfortunately, the description for these was on the back of the order form, which was mailed, so I can’t tell you what the catalogue said about them! They produce late in the season - a good choice to extend your pea-growing pleasure.

Green Arrow – another standard in my garden. It’s also the pea with a large following among commercial growers. Still, it is yummy.

Blue Podded Shelling Peas – I grew these for the first time last year. They are so beautiful, from their lovely blue flowers to their stunning purple (not blue) pods. Even the peas inside the pods are purple, but when cooked, they do turn green, just like purple beans do. Let’s see, the package (from SSE) says “AKA Blauwschokkers. Soup peas have been enjoyed as a winter staple in Europe for centuries. Spectacular plants are beautiful enough to grow as an ornamental. Productive Dutch strain.” Oops – I see it also says to soak the peas overnight before planting. Well, too late now! Last year I treated all my peas to innoculant mixed with water, and they did just fine with only a few minutes in the liquid. Maybe we’ll get rain the next couple days (the forecast calls for rain all week, actually) and that will do instead. I guess we’ll see!

British Wonder – I planted these for the first time last year. I remember being impressed with them, but I can’t remember why. Hm. The SSE packaging says “Introduced in England by Taber and Cullen in 1890. Sent to the USDA for trial in1903 and introduced by W. Atlee Burpee in 1904. Excellent yields of sweet green peas.”

Laxton’s Progress #9 – an interesting name, don’t you think? I think that’s why I purchased them originally, but they have since become another pea staple for me. This is possibly because they bear fruit so early, and the pods are large and plump. Good peas.

Lincoln – these were the last ones I planted tonight. Another heirloom from Baker Creek. In their catalogue they describe Lincoln’s as follows: “An old-time pea introduced in 1908. High-yielding and tasty, this pea does better than many in warmer weather.” The vines are described as compact and a good choice for small gardens. We shall see.

That leaves Little Marvel and Cascadia still to plant. Maybe tomorrow. Maybe next week. Then there are the onions, which arrived this week…

It is now tomorrow - the morning was so nice that I couldn't resist finishing the last bed of peas, so Little Marvel and Cascadia went into the ground today. Then I sorted out the driplines - all pulled up from last fall in order to facilitate weeding and the addition of soil ammendments. Lines were relaid in the pea beds, and row covers were placed over the whole lot.

The row covers aren't so much for frost protection as they are for crow protection. After losing all my bean seeds one year to a mysterious cause, I'm not taking any chances any more. Until seedlings are up and able to hold their own, they get some extra protection. Kind of makes the garden look like a bunch of shroud-covered graves, though, doesn't it?

Working the Beds

2010-04-06T10:33:00.000-07:00

Boy, did we luck out. Last week found us wallowing in warm weather - in the 80s! This is unheard of up here in early April. But it sure felt nice, and the plants and insects were making the most of it. The weather gurus were claiming it would all come to an end by Sunday, but instead Sunday was glorious - in the 60s, with a slight breeze. Ahhhh.

So, of course, I HAD to do some prep work in the veg garden. This time I took out my new tool, the Cobra Head Hoe.

I know it doesn't look like much, but this is my new favorite tool! That flattened head is very sharp and it scoops right through the soil, loosening up the roots of all those weeds that have made it through the winter. Normally, I attack this project with a shovel, digging up huge chunks of soil, then sitting down and ripping the chunks apart and shaking the soil off the weed roots. Not this time. I just scooped and pulled - out the weeds came!

Four beds were done in record time!

I should've done more, but the bees were calling and I simply had to to photograph them as they swirled around the willow shrub.

Farewell, Black Oxford

2010-04-01T09:39:00.000-07:00

After much agonizing and research, I've finally come to the conclusion that the Black Oxford apple tree has fire blight. I've suspected it from the first year I had it, but I couldn't get any "experts" to come out and confirm it.

So, last night, after work, I did the kind thing and cut it down.

How sad the small pile it made...

...fitting into a grocery bag with room to spare.

I've stuck the bag in the garage with the thought that once the wood dries I can burn it in the woodstove.

Next I'll have to do something with the stump, because it will probably continue to sprout. I can either dig it out (ugh), or paint it with RoundUp, like I did the honeysuckles two years ago. Decisions, decisions.

It's a Sprout!

2010-03-31T07:31:00.000-07:00

Every day I gaze at my trays of planted tomato seeds, hoping to see those first signs of life. I diligently water the soil, and keep the grow-lights on. Then one day, something different catches my eye. Could it be? A sprout? YES!

Within four days, the new green growths are appearing in "pot" after "pot" (each tray has eight sets of four "pot" sections).

Usually I start my seeds in tiny cell trays, and once they get their first true leaves, I transplant them to the larger cell "pots". This year I thought I'd save myself a step and planted directly into the larger pots. Unfortuntely, I tended to over plant each one - more than one seed (hey, you never know, some of those seeds might be duds). So, now I will still have to either weed out the extras, or fill up more pots and transplant the spares. I'll have plenty of tomatoes for surplus this year.

Do you want to try some interesting varieties? Then stop by in May and I will surplus some of my seedlings your way!

Getting Started

2010-03-16T12:14:00.000-07:00

We've had some beautiful sunny and mild weather this month. In fact, today the temps are soaring upwards towards 60*F! The snow is melting away like fat on a hot skillet (we are down to about 7", with LOTS of bare spots). So, of course, one's thoughts turn to the garden, which, although still under snow and suffering from ground freeze, will "soon" be ready to dig and plant.

So, yesterday I purchased a new bucket/tub (the old one is frozen to the ground by the compost bins, and now sports several holes and cracks, thanks to my efforts to unstick it), and mixed up a batch of seed starting "soil."

Why do I make my own? In the long run, it is a lot cheaper. I used to order seed starter mix from one of my gardening catalogues, but when gas prices started to skyrocket, the shipping became more expensive than the bag of mix. So, now I purchase a bag of perlite, a bag of vermiculite and a bag of peat moss. Bring 'em all indoors to warm up (have towels ready for that peat moss, which will pee all over your kitchen floor as it thaws). Then, take your handy bucket/tub and mix up up with a 1:1:4 ration (perlite:vermiculite:peat moss). Stir it up well. Add water to make it uniformly moist. Then start filling your seed trays.

I've finally started to refine my seed starting. I've given up on onions, broccoli and cauliflower, so this year the only veg I needed to start by seed was tomatoes. Of course, I have several varieties, about 33 last count:

In the past I've planted about 10 of each type, but this year I only went with about 8, although some of the "pots" got more than one seed.

Why so many? Well, I can't resist the names! Orange banana. Orange Flesh Purple Smudge. Al-kuffa (a rare Middle Eastern variety). Dad's Sunset. Garden Peach. Let's hope that late blight doesn't show up again this year - I really want to see what the OFPS looks like!

And just to prove that the sun is out and warm, here's Idefix doing what he does most of the time: snoozing in a sunbeam:

Spring on a Farm

2010-03-10T07:49:00.000-08:00

Nothing quite says "spring" as a farm when March and April roll around. In 1999-2000, I had the privelege of working at Merck Forest and Farmland Center in Rupert, VT. It is located in the rolling hills just over the NY/VT border near Salem, NY. It's a private, non-profit that demonstrates sustainable forestry and agricultural practices. While I was there, they were well-known for their maple syrup and organic garlic and potatoes.

This morning I brought in some of my photo albums to see if I could find any photos that I could use for blogs (looking for spring topics). Flipping through my pages of slides from Merck, I just had to share some with my blogging friends. But how does one shares slides on a blog? I taped each one to a window with the sun shining off the snow, and used my macro lens to try and capture each image. Some came out better than others. Still, I hope you like this taste of Spring on the Farm in Vermont.

Maple sugaring is a traditional part of spring in the northeast. Many a farm and rural family run sugaring operations, sometimes on a commercial scale, and other times producing just enough for friends and family.

Merck had some wonderful sheep. Here is one of the flock, in early spring, before shearing season. Don't you just want to sink your hands into that thick woolly coat!?!

The pigs were not quite as cuddly, but they sure were hairy by the time spring rolled around. These pigs were a heritage breed, Gloustershire Old Spots, if I remember correctly. They got HUGE! I'm talking easily 5-6' long.

Spring is, of course, lambing season. Lambs can be born on beautiful spring mornings, but can also arrive in the dead of night in the middle of a blizzard. Most lambs are born with little difficulty, but it is always good to have someone on lamb watch, for sometimes problems can arise and it is good to have someone on hand just in case.

Later in the spring - almost summer, the baby calves are born. These are Randall Blue Linebacks, another rare breed. These cattle are small, and were considered an all-around good farm animal. They produced good milk, good meat, and the steers made good oxen for pulling wagons and plows. While they were "good" in each of these categories, they didn't exceed in any of them. Eventually, breeds like Holsteins, which excell in milk production, replaced them.

Most folks in rural areas have likely seen the sight above: a killdeer in distress. This bird was doing the classic "broken wing" behavior. Why? Just look below:

Killdeer lay their clutches of spotted eggs right on the ground, often in rocky areas where they blend perfectly. This nest was in one of the garden plots. When a potential predator gets too close to the nest, the female dashes away and makes a big scene of being injured, all to draw the predator away from her precious eggs. Once she has succeeded in luring the danger far enough away, she takes wing and escapes, returning to her clutch a short time later. This ploy must work, for killdeer are not the only birds who do it. Still, I have watched in horror as family dogs have discovered killdeer nests on lawns and snacked on the eggs, ignoring the desparate antics of the nearby mother. I'm sure many a fox, raccoon, weasel and coyote have filled their bellies with similar meals.

What is spring without an ice storm? Such meteorlogical events can wreak havoc on our lives, but you've got to admit, they can also be quite beautiful when the morning sun rises.

Spring means babies on the farm, but it also means wildflowers in the woods. We had some guest speakers come in with samples of spring wildflowers to help visitors learn how to identify them. Merck Forest is the only place I have seen Dutchman's Breeches - in the woods, not just in a pot, as seen here.

One of my all-time favorite signs of spring: the trout lily. Even when snow is still visible on the ground, the mottled leaves of this wonderful flower push through the ground and briefly they bright yellow flowers dot the ground. Around here, start looking for them in late April and early May.

>sigh<>

And speaking of seeds, it's time for some
Shameless Advertising:

This Saturday (13 March), we are hosting a Seed Exchange from 1:00 PM until 3:00 PM. Lorraine Miga, our local master gardener, will be on hand with seeds she's saved from her gardens. Visitors are encouraged to bring their seeds and swap them for something new or different. Heirloom varieties are sure to be available.

Other gardening programs we are hosting (by "we" I mean the Visitor Interpretive Center in Newcomb, NY) include:

Seed Starting with Lorraine Miga on 17 April from 10:00 AM - 12:00 PM. Lorraine will demonstrate how to start seeds indoors, and discuss planning your garden and the importance of crop rotation.

What's Eating Your Garden, 10 - Noon on 19 June will be a program (Emily Selleck, from Cornell's Cooperative Extension, will be standing in for Lorraine) about garden pests, how to identify and deal with them.

So, mark your calendars and come out to visit us. While you won't get to see sheep and chickens, you will be entertained by Lorraine and her gardening wit.

Decisions, Decisions

2010-02-23T12:58:00.000-08:00

It was about a week after I placed my last seed order that we received word from on high that the facility where I work is slated for closure later in the year. Translation: unemployment. It's been a hard blow to absorb, and the fallout spreads far.

For example, now I have over $400 worth of seeds in my fridge. Will I be around this summer to tend a garden? What about in the fall when it comes time to harvest?

Do I take a chance that I'll still be here and start my tomatoes (I'll have to get them going soon)?

If I don't plant, and I'm still here come fall, then I'll have to purchase my veg all the next year! I've already spent the money for the seeds...I'd hate to have to buy the veg, too, especially if funds run low. I suppose I could always live on rice and beans.

I've decided not to invest in the greenhouse this year. That money may have to go towards mortgage and/or car payments.

If I have to move, and I've put in the garden, could I get someone else to tend it and reap the harvest, or will it become a perk for the buyer(s)? I'd hate to have it all rot and/or go to seed.

So many questions; so many decisions to make.

Rough times ahead.

They're Baa-aack

2010-02-23T09:04:00.000-08:00

Ah - just when I thought the battle was won, reinforcements came in.

Yes, it's the fruit, uh, vinegar flies once again. In the worm box.

In January I finally decided to give the poor starving worms some food - after all, it had been three months or so since I last fed them. The fruit/vinegar flies seemed to have disappeared, there were no eggs or larvae on the sides of the bin. So, I dumped in some slimy old greens and covered 'em up.

A couple weeks later, I dumped in some more slimy greens, and turned the "soil" to cover this new offering. Hm...still lots of uneaten greens from the first batch. And what are all those white things? Fruit/vingegar fly eggs?

A couple weeks ago I went to add a third batch of greens, and discovered the sides of the bin covered once more with "rice" - the flies are definitely back.

>sigh<

I'm beginning to wonder if this worm composting is all it's cracked up to be.

Mid-winter Musings

2010-02-04T07:42:00.000-08:00

Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds is rapidly becoming one of my favorite seed sources. Started by a young man (Jere Gettle) not too many years ago, it has grown into quite the outfit. Not only does he have his catalogue seed business, promoting the propagation of heirloom varieities of fruits and veggies, but he has also established an "old time village" to go with his operation there in Missouri, and now has an impressive shop (The Seed Bank) in an old bank in San Francisco! To top it all off, he also puts out a nice little magazine four times a year, called "The Heirloom Gardener."

When I got my first issue about a year ago, I was disappointed because it was all about Asian vegetables - strange foods that would never grow here in our northern climate. Many of the seeds they sell are also for these exotic veg, which I thought was odd for an American heirloom gardening company. But, just because it's not an American heirloom, doesn't mean it isn't an heirloom in some other country. With the globalization of food, and the seed monopolies that are taking over, it is good to save heritage seeds wherever possible.

The current issue of "The Heirloom Gardener" arrived this week, and it had some great articles (and recipes), like this piece on parsnips:

There was also a good article on hardy kiwis, a fruit that has long gone unnoticed, but is now starting to have its moment in the spotlight. If you like kiwis, you might want to look into growing these, for they are supposedly hardy enough to survive Zone 3!

The bit that always gets me, though, is the FrankenFood column:

Here we are kept up to date on some of the latest breaking news in the burgeoning field of genetically modified seeds/plants/foods and seed monopolies. There's some scarey stuff here - stuff that the Big Companies (like Monsanto) would like to keep under wraps. For instance, one study showed that a particular variety of GM corn killed ladybugs. Developed to be resistant to corn rootworms, this GM corn, should it get out in the field, would have devastating effects on our already suffering ladybug populations. The company forbade the scientists who did the study from reporting these results and got the EPA to approve commercialization of the corn in 2003. Doesn't really sound "late breaking", but it is only recently that one of the scientists had the courage to leak the information. This toxic corn is now out there...killing beneficials without remorse.

Then there's the piece about how another company has admitted that they are unable to control the spread of GM organisms once in the field (this particular case had to do with GM rice contaminating the non-GM rice crops of two Missouri farmers). The company actually admitted that outdoor field trials and commercial growth of GM crops should be stopped IMMEDIATELY before regular crops are irreversibly contaminated. If European countries can ban GM crops, then why can't we?

The last issue had a piece about how these seed giants are devastating traditional farming in India. They are pushing their "latest and greatest" products, stating that farmers will get greater yields with their seeds...and their fertilizers. Oh, and you can't save any of the seeds for next year because the varieties are all either hybrids (which don't produce viable seeds), or are patented and it is illegal for you to save them. So, the great saviour food is now devastating the local farmers, who have a hard time affording the new seeds and fertilizers, which are all chemically based. Organic farming is strongly discouraged (you must sterilize the soil and use our chemicals to grow these great crops) and seed saving is out. Doesn't sound like a sustainable operation to me.

I think most of us Americans are pretty sheltered from the realities of daily life in the rest of the world. As long as we have our chips and dips, our ice cream and cakes, our black angus steaks and Maine lobsters, we are content. The American dream isn't sustainable, and I think more people need to be aware of the realities of the world's food (for starters). I'm not against free enterprise...but when the almightly dollar becomes a diety in its own right, then it is time to step back and take a good long look at the bigger picture.

The Seeds are Ordered!

2010-01-15T08:35:00.000-08:00

Despite the tenuous state of things economically, I decided to finish placing my seed orders. I figured that if nothing else I will at least have food this summer!

So, orders went out on Tuesday to Fedco, Baker Creek, Seed Savers Exchange, Turtle Tree Biodynamics, and the Maine Potato Lady (I keeping wanting to call her the Maine Spud Lady).

I decided to stick to the tried and true this year: peas, pole beans, carrots, potatoes, tomatoes, greens, squash and pumpkins. No wheat. No broccoli. No cauliflower. No eggplants, peppers, rutabagas, millet or fava beans (although the favas were great for bees and as a green manure). I passed on bush beans, too - the pole beans are just so much better! I'll give beets one more try, but after this year, if they don't grow, I'll bag them, too.

I have to go through my leftover seeds from last summer to see what remains. I probably have some corn left...maybe I'll try it again. After three years of trying corn, though, and only getting four ears that were edible, it seems like a lesson in futility.

Now I'll just have to remember to order my onion sets (I've finally given up trying to grow them from seed). This year I think I will pass on the ciprolini - they may be gourmet, but they are a pain in the butt to peel and cut. The walla-wallas will probably get passed, too - they have a very short shelf life! Copra, the tried and true storage onions, will be the onion of choice. Maybe I'll look try a new variety. Hm...maybe a red onion...

I had great plans to get a greenhouse up and running this year, thanks to the wonderful posts and encouragement of El over at Fast Grow the Weeds. I even contemplated getting some other gardeners in town to chip in, making it a group effort. But I need to wait and see if employment is still on the horizon before I make a large financial committment like that.

In the meantime, it'll soon be time to clean off the kitchen counters and table, check the grow lights, clean out the seed starting trays and purchase some seed-starting soil. Before long I'll be starting the tomato seeds. Here's hoping late blight is a thing of the past this year!

Beauty

2010-01-05T07:41:00.000-08:00

Is there anything more beautiful than a stockpot full of summer?

I had a yen for chicken soup, so yesterday I cooked up a batch. The peas, carrots, beans, spuds (red, white, and purple) and onions were all from my garden, and they looked so vibrant and full of life that I had to take their picture.

Add some celery (I've never even had celery seeds sprout in my garden), and the chicken, of course, with some chicken broth and seasonings, and let it cook. Later on I put in some cream - I prefer a thicker soup.

Serve with fresh bread. Mmm!

Update on the Battle of the Fruit Flies

2009-12-26T13:29:00.000-08:00

Things are look up in the worm bin. Well, actually, nothing is physically looking up: the worms are buried in their dark and damp home, and it seems like I just may have succeeded in wiping out the fruit flies (um, I mean vinegar flies).

I took the bin outside four or five weeks or so ago, before we had our snow, and lifted the lid to check on the progress. The worms had eaten all the papers I'd put in, and the sides of the bin were coated with oblong white specks - more maggots. I wiped them off, chucked the paper towel into the regular compost bin (which is outside by the garden), and closed the lid again. At least this time nothing flew out.

A couple weeks ago I took another peek, this time being brave and lifing the lid inside. No new specks had appeared. I left the lid ajar, in hopes of getting some air circulating in the bin, for things are very damp in there. This doesn't seem to have made much of an impression on the moisture level, though.

Concerned that the poor worms might be rather hungry by now (it's been over two months since I've given them any real food), I tossed in some expired greens. This time I buried them - why give the flies any more advantage than necessary?

A couple days ago I looked inside - a good number of the greens had been consumed and there were still no more signs of fly maggots. I had some more expired greens in the 'fridge, so I dug a hole, stuck them in, and covered them up.

The lid remains partially open - trying desparately to dry things out. No luck there, yet, but as long as nothing is flying in and out, I think I can safely leave it open.

Is it too soon to claim success? Will putting this in print jinx the whole operation? Let's keep our toes crossed that this time the battle was won.

Waiting for Spring

2009-12-18T11:56:00.000-08:00

A lonely garden decoration waits for spring to return.

The Real Stuff

2009-12-02T07:53:00.001-08:00

Now, is that a beautiful omelette or what? This photo is completely un-retouched. This is the color you get when you use REAL eggs, from happy, free-range chickens. No factory fowl here, no sirree. By comparison, store-bought eggs are so pale and anemic-looking. Not only that, but REAL eggs, from happy chickens, are also full of flavor. I'll take the real thing any day.

The Catalogues are Coming, the Catalogues are Coming!

2009-11-21T10:45:00.000-08:00

Imagine my surprise this week when I opened my mailbox to see my first seed catalogue already there. And it's not even winter yet!

It was from High Mowing Seeds, a seed farm in northern Vermont that specializes in heirloom and organic seeds. I thumbed through the pages and made out my order - popped it in the mail two days later. My theory is if I get my order in early, I will get first dibs on seeds that are sparse.

The next day, the Pinetree Seeds catalogue arrived. Pinetree isn't an organic seed source, but they did have a tortilla press in the back, and I've had my eye on one of those for a few months now (after the disasterous attempt at making corn tortillas by pressing them between plates).

So, the grass may still be green, and the days somewhat balmy (where IS the snow?), but the seed companies are getting their sales pitches out to us early. So much for waiting until the cold, snowy, grey days of February to curl up with the seed catalogues. I suppose I could wait, but with my housekeeping skills, that would probably mean losing the catlogues!

A Word about Fats

2009-11-13T11:05:00.000-08:00

About a year and a half ago I started eating meat again for the first time in seventeen years. I gave up meat back in the '80s because of how it is "produced" and all the extras (hormones, antibiotics) that were added to it, but with the advent of grassfed meats, and the ability to purchase "local" meat, I have added meat back into my diet.

My meats come to me via FedEx, once a month, from a CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) just north of the Blue Line (the line on maps that delineates the Adirondack Park). The farm is 8 O'clock Ranch, and they work as a cooperative with a couple other neighbor farms. From them I get a mixed bag (box, actually) of meat, mostly pork, but also beef and lamb. I'm on the economy plan, so instead of prime steaks, I get mostly the lesser cuts, like roasts, stew meats, and a lot of sausage. I'm not really a sausage person, so I have a freezer quite full of sausages. If you'd like to try some, stop by and I'll load you up.

Once or twice a year, though, I ask Kassandra to send me some lard. Yes, lard. Leaf lard, to be exact, which is the prime lard found around the kidneys of the pig (lard comes from pigs, by the way). This fat comes in strips and chunks, which I must then render (cook down) before using.

Now, I know for a lot of folks "lard" is a four-letter word. Thanks to a clever marketing campaign after WWII, lard became persona non-grata in the US. However, real lard, leaf lard, non-hydrogenated lard, is actually good for you (and me). How is this possible?

Fat is essential in our diets. Here's a partial list of what fats do for us:

* when eaten as part of a meal, they help slow down food absorbtion so you can go longer without feeling hungry;
* they carry fat-soluable vitamins (A, D, E, and K);
* they are essential for converting carotenes into vitamin A;
* they are necessary for the absorbtion of many minerals.

Prior to the 1920s, when animal fats featured prominantly in the American diet, coronary disease was uncommon. After WWII, with the advent of vegetable oils and fats (Crisco), heart disease soared. This also coincided with an increase in our intake of refined sugars and processed foods (And, my personal favorite, food "products" - what the heck is a "food product" anyway? Give me good old-fashioned real food any day.).

Studies (e.g. The Framingham Study, an similar study in Britain, and the US Multiple Risk Factor Intervention Trail) have shown that intake of animal fats, cholesterol, et al, decreases the rate of heart disease. It's the consumption of processed foods and sugars that are detrimental to our health.

But not all fats are created equal.

Butter, especiall organic butter that is minimally processed (not mixed with veg. oils, chemicals or water), is very healthy.

Beaf fat (suet and tallow) is full of omega-3 fatty acids (omega-6 and omega-3 are very important, but most people have way too much 6 and way to little 3) and CLA (coagulated linoleic acid). The latter is responsible for increasing metabolic rate, increasing muscle mass while reducing fat, decreasing abdominal fat (woo-hoo; I'm all for that!), strengthening the immune system, as well as reducing risk of cancer, heart disease, diabetes, and hypertension.

Lard and bacon, in their natural form (non-hydrogenated, preservative-free) are ideal for many recipes, and are good for you.

Olive oil is also good for you - extra virgin, organic, cold or expellar pressed. Unfiltered olive oil makes a good meat marinate all by itself.

Fats to be avoided include:
* margarines
* Crisco
* anything hydrogentated
* canola oil (who knew?)
* cottonseed, soy, corn and safflower oils

Now, I know that a lot of folks will never go back to eating the healthy fats, for they have become convinced that they are BAD. That's what an effective marketing campaign will do for you. Unfortunately, it is very difficult to get people to understand that fats can be (and are) good for you.

But don't take my word for it. You can read about the good fats at the following websites:

www.westonaprice.org
www.womentowomen.com
www.schwarzbeinprinciple.com

If I could, I'd add chickens and maybe even a cow to my organic garden. Unfortunately, I live in a neighborhood that doesn't allow livestock. So, the next best thing to raising my own is getting my meat from a local source that focuses on grassfed, grass finished livestock. If you want to take control of your food, you might want to look into it for yourself and your family, too.

Holy S#@*, Batman!

2009-11-13T10:42:00.000-08:00

At last! A pile of manure has appeared in my yard!

Forget the diamond rings and fur coats, mister - a load of manure and I'm a happy camper!

It's only taken about two years, but someone finally heard my plea (okay, my grousing) and came through for me.

I promptly filled the wheelbarrow with load after load and spread it on five of the beds I have dug and weeded. There it will rest for the winter, allowing the critters in the soil to do their thing before the ground freezes, and again after it thaws in the spring. By late May, these beds should be ready for planting. And hopefully this year, with the addition of manure, greensand, rock phosphate, and even some wood ashes from my woodstove, I will have conquered the sour smell that wafts from the soil in these particular beds.

Five down; thirteen...nope, make that fifteen...to go. Plus the new plot to prepare next spring.

All we can do now is hope that there are no seeds in this manure that will sprout next year. Wishful thinking? Probably, but hope spring eternal.

They Aren't REALLY "Fruit Flies"

2009-11-07T07:43:00.001-08:00

First off, it turns out that the wee buggers you and I and the rest of the free world thought were "fruit flies" are actually something called "vinegar flies." Apparently "fruit flies" are found on ripening fruits in the "field", which in many cases is actually in the tropics. They are the bane of fruit producers.

Vinegar flies are the bane of home owners who brought fruit into the house and didn't eat it fast enough, and then put it in their worm bins, only to find later they have given the little beggars a perfect community in which to live.

I've been chasing vinegar flies about the house now for three or so weeks - since the great Worm Bin Debacle. I cleaned the bin and followed all the directions for ridding it of the pests (it's an on-going project). But still the kitchen was swarming with tiny insects. So I went to Phase Two: vacuuming the insects multiple times a day.

Have you ever actually tried to suck up vinegar flies with a vacuum cleaner? If they are clustered on a cabinet door, it's not too much of a problem, but once they launch themselves, you just look ridiculous trying to chase them down, waving the vacuum hose in the air as the flies drift from point A to point B and beyond. You might think you got a lot of them, but leave a light on and return to the kitchen, oh, ten minutes later, and you will see just as many as before taking a leisurely rest on your walls, cabinets, and light fixtures.

So, I decided, as a last ditch effort, to go with the old-fashioned method of trapping them: I put a bit of ripe banana into a bottle with a narrow neck. I set the bottle on the windowsill near the worm bin (the only available spot in the kitchen - the maid's been on holiday, again). Suddenly, there were no more vinegar flies on the cabinets and walls. Could it be I had actually sucked them all into the vacuum cleaner? No - I looked at the banana trap and the bottom of the bottle was coated with many many flies (dare I say hundreds?). Some were deceased, others not, but at least they were contained and no longer decorating my kitchen! Voila!

Long story short, if you have vinegar flies pestering you in your kitchen, stick a bit of very ripe fruit into a bottle with a long narrow neck and set it aside. Soon your fly problem will be under control, without the need for purchasing toxic chemicals or expensive (yet decorative) traps. It's cheap, non-toxic, and, most importantly, it works.

Finishing the Harvest

2009-11-03T12:16:00.000-08:00

Ever so slowly I am getting the last bits of my garden's harvest put where it belongs. The last giant zucchini was presented with a flourish to my parents a couple weeks ago ("that's not a zucchini; it's a baseball bat!"). The lettuce that finally decided to grow, all of three inches tall, was pulled and placed in the compost bin. The spuds are bagged and in the basement, as are the many braided ropes of onions.

But the carrots remained in a bucket on the porch. I brought some in, scrubbed, peeled, blanched and froze them, but many more remained. Concerned they would go soft dehydrating there on the porch, I brought them in a couple weeks ago, with great intentions of getting them "done." A load was placed in a second bucket and soaked in water to help loosen up the caked-on dirt...uh, soil...for a week. Knowing full well that I wasn't getting to them any time soon, I drained the bucket and dumped them in with their compatriots, which were also sitting in water. I finally drained that bucket, too, and placed all the remaining roots into the smaller container - a foot and a half deep, and over a foot wide.

Every night I'd grab a handful of the orange roots and add them to the dog's dinner, and sometimes in the morning a carrot or two would end up in my omelet. But the bucket's contents were not noticeably shrinking.

Until the day I grabbed a carrot that had fuzzy white stuff growing on its top. MOLD! If I didn't get my act together, I could kiss all these carrots goodbye!

So, Sunday afternoon found me sitting on the living room floor with a peeler, two bowls and my bucket of carrots. All but the smallest (and the ones that went squish) were peeled, then washed, chopped, blanched and frozen. How is it possible for all those carrots to shrink down to only eight quarts in the freezer? Must be fuzzy math.

Now I have to do the pumpkins...

Revenge on the Fruit Flies

2009-10-27T07:10:00.000-07:00

The Saga Continues...

So, I went back home and found an old shower curtain upon which to dump the contents of the worm bin. It was a pretty soggy mess. Lots of worms, very happy worms, although I suspect being dumped outside where it was about 40 degrees curbed their happiness. Hopefully, it also did in some fruit flies.

The small, rice-like white things are the sub-adult fruit flies. Maybe you can't see them...just as well. Ugh!

I shredded some newspapers, a school newsletter, and any other regular paper I had on hand and filled the bottom of the box. The whole soggy contents were poured back into the box and more papers were added on top.

Idefix, making sure no worms, or fruit flies, escape.

And now we wait. I should probably leave the lid off, to let the contents dry out, but I just don't relish the idea of having all those fruit flies (and there are hundreds and hundreds of them) loose in the house. "They" might say you can vacuum them up, but I'd just as soon not have to do that! Die, Maggots!

Horror in the Household

2009-10-23T11:18:00.000-07:00

I haven't been visiting my vermicomposting bin nearly enough for months, so I lifted the lid the other day to check on its status and not only did a swarm of fruit flies emerge, but the bin looked like it was full of rice. Hm. Were there any worms left at all?

So, today I went home sick (developed a sore throat last night, and today I have that with a runny nose and a low grade fever). So, of course, this was my chance to deal with the worm bin.

I hauled it outside (40 degrees Fahrenheit and overcast), grabbed a bucket and put some damp newspaper in it. Pulled on some gloves and opened the bin.

Now, my plan was to rescue any worms that might remain (I didn't have high hopes of finding many), rinse them off in warm water (the "rice" turned out to be immature fruit flies - really really gross in the numbers I have - kind of like a carcass loaded with fly maggots), and stick them temporarily in the bucket of newspapers.

After one handful, I realized this wasn't going to work. First, the bowl of water was floating with "rice," which dutifully recoated the worms as I scooped them back out. Still, I soldiered on, with handful after handful of worms. Which brings us to the second reason it wasn't going to work: it seems that the worms are not bothered by the infestation. In fact, I have more worms than I ever imagined!!!

I finally gave up...it was a classic case of tilting at windmills.

I needed a Plan B.

So, off I went to the library (a half hour drive). I looked up how to deal with fruit fly infestations in one's vermicompost. It seems that it is a common problem, although not nesssarily to the extremes mine had reached.

The solutions vary, but the overall theme seems to be that it can be dealth with! The worms are not bothered by the company, so I don't have to worry about a worm health problem.

First, the causes. In my case, the most likely culprits (well, let's face it, I am ultimately the only culprit) are an overly damp bin (I haven't added water for weeks, so it must just be decomposition juices), and the fact that I didn't (don't) really bury the food I add.

Next, the solution. I could continue trying to remove the worms, but seeing as how they've been on a breeding binge, this isn't a realistic option. So, I'm going to try the next best thing: adding dry bedding.

To add the dry bedding, I will have to dump out the entire contents of the bin (where did I put that box of black plastic I bought for the garden?). Afterwards, I will fill the bin with fresh, shredded, dry newspaper. Well, not fill-fill, but certainly add a good amount. Then I will return the whole mess to the bin. If I leave it inverted, the offending maggots will be buried (bwaa-haa-haa), or at least in theory they will. Frankly, I think there are so many that while some might be buried, others will now be closer to the surface.

And, finally, I will let the whole thing a) dry out and b) go hungry. Of course, I can't let it dry out completely, but it could benefit from a mild drought. And while worms can tolerate a few weeks without food (which I thought they already had), fruit flies cannot. My goal: starve out the @#*$&@^s.

Photos will be added anon to illustrate this article, since I am still in the library and my infested bin is half an hour away at home.

Wish me luck!

My Favorite Fall Flower

2009-10-13T11:01:00.000-07:00

Monkshood - aka: wolfsbane and aconite (any Harry Potter fans out there?). Scientific name: Aconitum napellus, in the Family Ranunculaceae, the buttercup family. This is one of my favorite fall flowers, mainly because it blossoms so late - usually after frost, sometimes after we get snow - but also because its blossoms are so unusual.

This year my monkshood has the most beautiful flowers - I've never seen them so huge! You should be able to click on the photo to see the blossoms up really close.

Many years ago I "got into" herbs. It started right out of college at my first nature center internship. The place had some herb books for sale in the gift shop, and I was hooked. At my second job, I really became an herb nut - lots of research into medicinals and their histories. At my third job, I put in my first herb gardens: Culinary, Medicinal, and Dyes & Fragrances. I was there for over four years, and invovled with the Society for Creative Anachronism, so herbs became a huge part of my life. Since returning to New York, however, herbs have taken a back seat (for many reasons), but my interest in them remains.

Which is why I have monkshood in my gardens!

One of the reasons I love herbs is that they have such a long and interesting history, and many myths and legends are associated with them. Monkshood is one of those with a fascinating history, which I shall share with you here.

Mythologically, monkshood was really big with the Greeks. One legend, in which the mighty Hercules was fighting with Cerberus (the three-headed dog who guarded the gateway into Hades), and the dog's saliva dripped on the monkshood plants growing on the hillside, thus making them poisonous. The Greek goddess Hecate is supposed to have killed off her father with a dose of aconite (she was a goddess of, among other things, the magical arts). Medea, who is also famous in Greek legends, apparently knocked off Theseus with it, too. And then there is this, which is enough to give some folks pause: it was believed that women who ate aconite daily from the time they were babies (and apparently didn't die from it) were able to poison others through sexual contact.

Monkshood, as you've no doubt acertained, is a rather lethal poison. In the Old World hunters would dip their arrow tips in a mixture made from the plant and use it in baits to kill wolves (hence the common name Wolfsbane), and apparently soldiers in Europe and Asia would drop it in the wells and other water sources of their enemies (and they say poison is a woman's murder weapon of choice).

Stories of witches flying, which come to us from the Middle Ages, have some basis in fact, but not literal fact. Apparently the "flight" these women took was more virtual, a result of the hallucinogenic properties of an ointment they made up with components from monkshood and belladona. These two herbs, when combined, create a flying sensation, thanks to the irregular heart rate caused by the former, and the delerium caused by the latter. As you can no doubt guess, these ointments had to be used with caution.

Many medicines are lethal if taken in large enough doses, and monkshood found its way into genuine medicines in the 18th century. The qualities it posseses that make it useful are its ability to reduce the heart rate, decrease blood pressure, induce sweating and reduce inflammation. If it is applied to the skin, say in an ointment, it causes localized tingling and numbness, making it a good treatment for rheumatism and other neurologic pains.

That said, this is a dangerous herb. Although many homeopaths and practitioners of Chinese medicine may still use it, it was pulled from the US and British Pharmacopeiae many years ago.

And just what makes it so deadly? The whole plant is infused with assorted toxic alkaloids (aconitine, picratonitine, aconine, benzoylamine, and neopelline), although the root is deemed to be the most toxic part of the plant. Aconitine is the most abundant of the alkaloids, but together they work to stimulate and then depress the central and peripheral nerves. And it doesn't take much to do you in: 5 ml is lethal. Ingestion is the cause of most deaths, but apparently external usage (like the ointments mentioned above) can lead to death if enough of the compounds are absorbed through the skin.

Still, it does make a lovely addition to the garden. Just be sure that you and your family know that it is not to be harvested for food or medicine. Look, but don't touch - that should be its motto.

Putting the Garden to Bed

2009-10-13T10:45:00.000-07:00

It was a mild day yesterday, so I took advantage of the lack of rain to start putting the garden away for the winter. First I cleaned out a bed and planted the garlic - seven varieties, the larges bulbs from each (Inchelium, Chesnok, Kahzakstan, Germany White, Germany Red, German Extra Hardy (which seems to be a soft neck variety), Crysalis Purple and Purple Stripe. Planted 20-27 of each variety.

Then I attacked the rest of the garden. Pulled out stakes, pulled out weeds, dug out weeds, dug out beds. I only got six beds done - the weeds were out of control. I really should weed in the summer, but this summer it was just so wet...

Then each of the beds I cleaned out (six down, ten to go, plus the new patch to prep if I want to use it next summer), I added my soil ammendments. Since I am still manure-short, I used greensand, rock phsophate, and domomite lime. I targeted the five beds that have had a sour smell since the first year I put them in (three years ago). Admittedly the smell isn't as bad, which means the soil must be improving, but every so often I get a whiff of it - a sure indication of acidic and generally poor conditions. Which also explains why the buttercups and other noxious weeds do so darn well here.

My day started at 9:00 AM, with a walk for the dog, followed by cutting up fat to render into lard. It ended at 6:30 PM with me pounding in posts for snowfencing to protect the cedar hedge from the deer this winter. Needless to say, it was a long day.

But, it's a good thing I did what I did, for this is what it looked like this morning:

That's the garlic, under the snow.

Crabapple bent under the snow.

After taking the dog for a very short walk, I turned him loose in the yard so I could knock the heavy wet snow off the apple trees. They still have their leaves (as you can see by the crabapple), so their branches were bent way down; the new apples were actually bent to the ground, an easy feat since they are mostly just a single whip of a stem.

Snow Falling on Crabapples

Soggy Days

2009-10-07T10:18:00.000-07:00

There's been nothing new on the gardening front to blog about. I dug the carrots, and I've slowly been scrubbing, chopping, blanching and freezing them, but that's about as exciting as it has been. I don't even have any photos to post!

Every day that passes leaves me wondering if I'll ever get to "put the garden to bed" this year. We've had naught but rain and more rain for weeks now. I dug the carrots in the rain, took down the pea trellises in the rain, pulled down the pole beans in the rain. Late season weeds should be removed from the beds, but it's just too wet. Leaves should be raked into the beds, but again, it's just too wet.

Manure? Well, let's just say it hasn't happened yet (will it ever?).

It's time to really get the garlic planted. But, you guessed it, it's too wet (and the beds need to be weeded first).

Dad's Apples

2009-09-22T11:32:00.001-07:00

Two nights of frost, one a real killer, prompted me to pick the apples.

All told, I got four "perfect" Jonagolds!

There were more Jonagolds on the tree, but they are beyond my reach and also looked like something else snacked on them.

The Haralson has a few fruits, but they look pretty poor, so I left them on the tree as well.

Oh, and in case you are wondering, I call them Dad's Apples because when I first moved here and selected apple trees at the nursery, my dad chose the Jonagold - they are his favorite apple. This is the first year I've had any that look edible.

F-f-f-frost on the P-pumpkin

2009-09-19T12:16:00.000-07:00

The Weather Gurus are calling for 25 degrees Fahrenheit tongiht. Brrr.

Time to pick those pumpkins...or at the very least

get them will covered before nightfall.

I may have to look for stray zucchinis, too.

September Harvest

2009-09-18T07:14:00.000-07:00

Faced with a bunch of chicken thighs and gradually cooling weather, I decided to make a pot of soup last night. And even though I have store-bought carrots in the 'fridge, I opted to use all of my own veg for this batch. So out to the garden I went to pull some carrots.

None were of great length, but some had some pretty good girth.

Now that's a carrot!

Peas, onions, and purple, red and gold potatoes also filled the pot. Since my celery didn't even sprout, I had to use store-bought celery to round out the recipe.

The roots weren't cooked through until after 10 PM, so I whipped up some pita bread while things simmered, and late last night I was enjoying a toasty warm meal. Mm-mm good!

When the Family Visits

2009-09-10T12:00:00.000-07:00

Toby loves his grandpa!

You can't see it, but the tail is going 90 mph,

in hopes of a treat.

The Trevails of a Truckless Gardener

2009-09-09T10:54:00.000-07:00

>sigh<

I used to drive pick-ups.

I was a forestry gal and any decent woodsman (or woodswoman, for those who insist on it) has a pick-up truck. But my environmental conscience got the better of me and I replaced my last truck with a Prius.

Now don't get me wrong - I love my Prius - but it has limited hauling capabilities. At least the newer models have back seats that fold down, so that's a plus, but it doesn't help when it comes time to haul manure.

My garden needs some serious ammendments, and without an industrial-sized compost pile, I find myself faced with an ammendment conundrum. I need manure, and a lot of it. I've had several people promise me poop (horse, bison, sheep and chicken), but the promise and the actual delivery don't seem to coincide.

So yesterday I decided I would find a rent-a-wreck and rent me a pick-up. Would you believe no such outfit exists? The Truck Rental place I called, besides being a bit rude, only rents moving vans, not pick-ups, and if they did, they wouldn't rent them for hauling manure. The Farm Equipment Rental place I called does real farm equipment, not pick-ups. At least the man here had a suggestion: rent a truck and flatbed trailer from U-haul, but don't tell them what I'm planning to haul - that might squash the deal.

Who knew it would be so difficult!?!?

So, I find myself back where I started, depending on the goodwill of others to loan me a pick-up or to haul some manure for me. And neither one seems to be looming on the immediate horizon.

UGH!

2009-09-02T11:54:00.000-07:00

I decided to dig some spuds last night after work, so I got out the spading fork and had at it. The first bed yielded a few small "Adirondack Reds", but none of the "Adirondack Blues" apparently grew. The next bed had "Carolas", many of which were good sized, and I was quite happy, until I dug up this:

"Ewwww!!!!"

It was a slimy puddle. It was disgusting. It was vile. All I could think was how glad I was I hadn't reached in with my bare hand and grabbed it.

I thought at first it might've been the seed potato, which often turns to mush as it feeds the plant. But then I found another...and another.

The "Purple Vikings" had a slimy mess or two, as well.

But the "Red Golds" all seemed fine.

Could this be The Blight?

I went on-line and discovered that yes, indeed, this is yet another symptom of The Blight. What's more, I discovered that The Blight isn't a fungus afterall (contrary to popular belief). In fact, the organism is more closely related to diatoms, kelp and brown algae. Very interesting.

Some of the "Carolas" were also speckled with a white granular "stuff". Could these be spores from The Blight? I don't know, but I have a call in to Cooperative Extension and to our local Master Gardener to see if they have an opinion. In the meantime, those spuds are in isolation.

Yes, indeedy, it's been an interesting year in the garden.

Thoughts

2009-08-31T09:12:00.000-07:00

Last week's frost never materialized. Not that I minded. I decided that I am done with the beans, so the frost could have them. I picked a couple more zucchinis, and figured I had enough for the freezer. Peas are pretty much done (brown and crispy), so they and the beans remain for seed collection. Onions probably are frost-proof, being mostly underground, and carrots only improve with the cold. Likewise, I figured the potatoes were fine. I picked the three wee ears of corn I found (and it turns out they weren't quite ripe), and figured the broom corn was on its own (I only grew it for a novelty, anyway).

And since the tomatoes are now all in a bag, the only things I had to cover were the pumpkins!

Tonight frost is predicted again, and this time I suspect it is more serious. I shall cover the pumpkins again, and make the rounds for squash and corn.

In the meantime, I purchased a 20' x 100' roll of black plastic today. The war on the weeds will commence soon. Once the beds are all harvested for the season, I shall cover 'em all with the black plastic and let it bake away at the weeds (and their seeds) until next May. Not that much baking will be going on under snow, but hopefully we'll have some sun and heat before the snow flies.

And as for the zucchini bread, well, I made two loaves, as per the recipe, and think I put too much zucchini in. I had to bake them for almost an hour and a half. They are very moist, and the bottoms ripped off when I decanted them from their pans. After cooling the loaves were frozen for the up-coming bake sale, but I did eat the bottoms, and wasn't impressed. Maybe bottoms are not the best bits to sample. I may try the recipe again, or I may just go with my tried and true recipe from Mom.

A Sad Day in the Garden

2009-08-26T13:26:00.001-07:00

Well, there they are: ninety tomato plants yanked from the garden and stuck in a bag.

I console myself that at least if we get the frost tomorrow night that they are predicting I won't have to worry about covering the tomatoes.

Late Blight

2009-08-22T07:57:00.001-07:00

Ugh - I think I have it. Well, I don't have it, but my potatoes and tomatoes do. "It" is late blight, that fungal disease that is sweeping the nation.

I heard about it here and there, but not having television, my exposure to it has been minimal. And I've been in denial. I couldn't possibly have late blight. I get my spuds from good sources, certified seed potatoes. I start my tomatoes from seed...heirloom varieties. None of my neighbors have gardens. Of course I was safe.

But lately I haven't been so sure.

Sure, every year some of my potato plants look poorly (shrivelled stems with no leaves), but I've attributed that to the potato beetles. Hm...could it be late blight?

And every year some of my tomato plants look poorly, but that was because it was so dry and hot, or wet and cool. Rot. And those brown spots on the fruits? Poor air circulation - that's gotta' be it.

Well, I decided to look up late blight today, just to be sure, and what I found was not good. And wet and cool seem to be key words.

Late blight, Phytophthora infestans, nails things in the Solonaceae family (potatoes, tomatoes, nightshades, et al). And it thrives in cool, wet weather, just like this summer.

To really know if you have this disease, you need to patrol your garden a couple times a week. Look for brown lesions on the stems or leaves of your tomato and potato plants. If you see it, destroy it! Look for white fuzziness - these are the spores. If you see it, destroy it! Look for dark, greasy-looking lesions on tomatoes. If you see it, destroy it! Look for brown spots and granular texture on your spuds. If you see it, destroy it!

The spores apparently spread with great ease on the wind. An infected plant can be dead within four days. The fungus can live in spuds that overwinter in the ground, for spuds are living tissue.

So, how are you supposed to destroy the plants? I finally found details for this, and there are several ways you can go.

1. Don't do anything until you have a sunny warm day. UV radiation, apparently, will destroy any spores that shake loose.

2. Pull up the plants and bag 'em. Leave them in a sunny location for several days. The heat will kill the fungus. Then send them to the landfill.

3. Pull up the plants and put 'em in a pile. Cover the pile with a tarp and let the sun bake the whole thing for several days. The heat will kill the fungus.

4. Pull up the plants and dig a really deep hole. Bury them.

5. You could compost them, provided your compost pile gets very hot. If not composted correctly, it could mean doom for your plants next year.

6. Infected spuds can be spread out on the ground and left there for the winter. Apparently the fungus can be killed by freezing. Freezing is not a problem here in the Adirondacks.

Also any plants (potato or tomato) that volunteer from last year's garden (like all those spuds that I missed that subsequently sprouted) should be ripped out (and destroyed - see choices above) before they really get going.

When you dig your spuds, look for infection. Even healthy-looking tubers (or tomatoes, for that matter) can be infected. So far research hasn't found any problems with eating healthy tissue, but you want to avoid ingesting infected tissues.

So, the next sunny day we get (next week?), I'll be yanking out all my tomatoes. I'll probably do the spuds, too. What a waste. >heavy sigh<

For more information, go to: http://www.nysipm.cornell,edu/pulications/blight/ . This is very informative. Also check out http://www.hort.cornell.edu/department/Facilities/lihrec/vegpath/lbfaq.pdf - a Fact Sheet of Frequently Asked Questions.

Beans Galore!

2009-08-20T07:37:00.000-07:00

It had been two days since I last picked beans, thanks to the rain, so last night I knew there would be some ripe ones. Boy, was I right! I nearly filled up my half-bushel box on one bed of pole beans! By the time the pole beans were picked, I had to get a second basket for the bush beans. Total harvest: nearly a whole bushel!

I have the most colorful beans: purple beans, green beans, yellow beans, green beans with purple stripes. Last year I also had yellow beans with pink stripes, but I ran out of room this year and none of the runner beans were planted.

And what does one do with all these beans? Well, one doesn't have time to make the planned zucchini bread! Nope, one is up until 11:30 PM cutting them. I refused to start the blanching and freezing process that late, though, so that will be the project for tonight. Soon the freezer will be full of beans!

The One That Got Away

2009-08-19T13:15:00.001-07:00

Warning: this is what happens when you don't watch your zucchini carefully:

And here we have Toby modeling the latest zucchini - this is a 60 pound dog, next to a five pound (or more) squash:

What do you do when life gives you zucchinis? So far, I've shredded them all and stuck 'em in the freezer to be turned into future loaves of zucchini bread. Hm...we have a big weekend event coming up soon for which I have to make baked goods. I'm seeing loaves of zucchini bread in my very near future.

I found this recipe on AllRecipes, and I'm gonna give it a try (tonight, perhaps):

3 eggs, beat until light and frothy

Add:
1 c oil (or 1/2 c oil and 1/2 c applesauce)
2 c sugar
2 c shredded zucchini
2 tsp vanilla

Mix well.

In separate bowl combine:
3 c flour
3 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp baking powder
1 tsp salt
(and optional 1/2 tsp nutmeg)

Mix dry ingredients with the wet ones. Add 1/2 c chopped walnuts if desired.

Crunchy Topping:
1 c brown sugar
1 c flour
1 Tbs butter (never use margarine - read the history of this stuff and you will never touch it again)
2 tsp cinnamon
1/2 c chopped walnuts

Preheat oven to 325*F. Grease and flour two 8" x 4" bread pans. Divide the batter between the pans and top with the cruncy topping. Bake 60-70 minutes (or until done).

NOTE: I found that this made waaayy too much topping! Most of it fell off when I took the bread from the pans. I put it in a container to reuse at a later date. I also think it needed a lot more butter to be cut into the sugar and flour.

An Interesting Summer in the Veg Garden

2009-08-12T09:18:00.000-07:00

2009 has been a strange summer in the veg garden. We had days in the 80s and 90s in April. In May things were pleasant and we were eager to get things planted...and then it snowed.

June was overcast, cool and damp.

July was overcast, cool and damp.

August has had some hot and humid days...too little, too late.

Peas didn't start producing until late June and early July, and then the harvest dribbled in, swelled to one large batch, and rapidly dribbled back to nearly nothing. Most of the vines are shriveling up now, although some are trying to rally and have put out some new flowers.

The pole beans have "suddenly" started to produce. I say "suddenly" because for weeks now all I've seen are flowers, but no beans, but a quick peek under the leaves two days ago proved that some of those flowers had produced beans and were ready for picking! Bush beans, are another story. Not a bean to be seen there.

The zucchini have surprised me with some fruits as well! Something got the first ones I saw ripening. Could it be slugs? Or maybe they just rotted away. Still, I found some foot-long ones (and longer) where I wasn't expecting them.

The garlic has been harvested and hung up to dry.

And the onions are going great guns! At least they like to have a lot of water!

The tomatoes, on the other hand, are looking pretty sad. Too much rain. As you can see, the plants are rotting away.

Fruits have started to develop, but most seem to be rotting on the vine or dropping with a solid green thud. I suspect I will not be putting up sauce this year. Such a shame, too, because I was looking forward to harvesting tomatoes with names like Orange Flesh Purple Smudge, Garden Peach, and Zebra. Well, I should have a few seeds left over...I'll try them again next year.

Potatoes are also looking pretty poor this year. First the beetles had their way with them, then the rain. This handful shows the largest ones I've gotten so far; most, however, have been the size of a quarter.

The corn, which is under three feet tall, is only just starting to get tassels!

Not a single marigold has blossomed, and only a few cosmos (all of which are very short). Calendula are also nearly non-existent!

The only herbs that are doing well are borage (I'm over-run), and cilantro (blech).

Still, something is better than nothing, and there isn't much we can do about the weather. Sure, in dry years you can hook up the hose and drippers, but when it rains, or the sun doesn't shine, your hands are pretty much tied.

View of the Garden

2009-07-25T07:24:00.001-07:00

Another overcast morning. More rain on the way. As you can see, most of the garden is simply existing, rather than thriving.

Corn - should be "knee high by the fourth of July." Well, here it is, just to the left of this five foot pole. It's still not quite knee high, and it's well past the 4th.

Pole beans - last year at this time they were pushing six feet tall. Most are barely three feet this year, if that. This variety is blue coco, and it is the only one in my garden that is actually becoming tall.

The onions are actually looking very good this year. These are walla-wallas, and they are almost the size of baseballs already!

Peas are starting to come right along now. These are the prized Blue Podded Peas, which date back to the 16th century! A lot of blue (or purple) veg are popular now (peas, beans, potatoes, carrots), and you'd think they were all new varieties, but in truth many of these blue veg are very old varieties.

Sunflowers and borage. This is supposed to be a bed of cucumbers. Guess what didn't grow. The borage is doing great, but these giant sunflowers are supposed to be 6-12' tall, like last year. But no, this year they are maybe 5' tall.

Here's a close-up of the borage flower. Borage is edible and makes a colorful addition to your salads.

Sweet Annie, a member of the artemisia family, is a good companion plant for many garden veg. It will reseed vigorously, so be warned.

The black hollyhocks have flowers this year (they were planted last year). No flower is truly black, but these are close!

Verbascum...lovely...and up close so very colorful! This year, however, it has popped up all over the garden! Hm...another "vigorous grower."

A Splash of Color

2009-07-16T08:36:00.000-07:00

Have you ever seen a more beautiful pea flower?

And it's not even a sweet pea!

We need SUN!

2009-07-13T08:44:00.000-07:00

How can we have such a wet summer (okay, Newcomb hasn't had the feet of rain the rest of the state has had, but it has rained just about every day for a month and a half) and things not grow? Because they need SUNLIGHT as well. Our daily temps have been in the 50s and 60s. Very pleasant as far as I'm concerned, but the garden needs some heat.

I've never seen such short plants in my gardens! Holy cats! Tomatoes are barely a foot tall. I've only just harvested my first peas -about a dozen pods. It was enough to give Toby his veg serving at dinner. This time last year I was harvesting peas by the bowlful every day! But at least the vines now have some blossoms on them. One variety (I have to consult the garden map to figure which one it is) has the most beautiful blossoms - will have to skillfully acquire a camera and get photos.

I've actually begun weeding potatoes. As in: the potatoes are the weeds. I've got 'taters growing in almost every bed - I needed to remove some so the broccoli and tomatoes could have a chance! Seems like my potato-digging skills leave a lot to be desired. This year I will have to go about the potato harvest with a vengence.

And did you hear about the potato and tomato blight that is crossing the US? That's what you get from buying cheap stock at the Big Box Stores. I haven't heard of it hitting our neck of the woods yet...CPB are enough of a headache, but I'd rather deal with them!

Oh, yes...and peas

2009-07-06T09:13:00.000-07:00

We finally had a sunny day on, appropriately, Sunday. A nice cool breeze and temps in the 70s. Very nice indeed. After doing the dishes, cleaning the kitchen and mopping the floor (not a big deal for many folks, but major for me), I threw clothes in the washing machine and spent the rest of the day outside.

A quick tour of the garden surprised me with actual pea pods on some of the peas! I didn't think any of them had gotten that far, since I've only just started to see flowers on the plants. If I was a pea-pod-eater, I would've had a feast, but no, I prefer to eat the peas themselves, so they will have to ripen a bit before I pick them.

My lettuce, however, is still no more than a half inch tall! (Even the peas are under two feet tall.) I'm disappointed to still have to get my greens elsewhere! Although...I

It's amazing what a little bit of sunshine will do. I strung up "trellises" for the pole beans (the corn is just never going to get tall enough to work) in the morning, and by afternoon the beans had already sent up tendrils to grab them! Not as fast as kudzu, I'm sure, but not far behind!

Found more CPB on plants I haven't sprayed, but those that were sprayed before the last week of rain seem to be CPB-free...for the moment. (And there was much rejoicing and dancing in the streets.)

Chicken Shortage

2009-07-06T09:09:00.000-07:00

I had a right good chuckle the other day as I was reading the comments to my posts over at Adirondack Almanack. For the one where I was moaning about the invasion of Colorado Poatao Beetles, a delightful reader posted "You don't have a CPB problem...you have a chicken shortage."

How true, how true and how!

I keep contemplating chickens. And ducks (they are good for slug patrols). But I always run into the wall known as "housing." I don't have handyman skills enough to build my own coop, and purchasing one is SOOOOOO expensive!

And then there's the whole care in the winter issue! Sure, I could harvest them all and eat chicken all winter, but part of the joy of having chickens is having fresh eggs all year.

I'll have to keep pondering it, though...perhaps there are chickens in my future.

Views Around the Estate

2009-07-02T09:06:00.000-07:00

Here are the latest views from the gardens.

Bush beans and potatoes. I only had three beds left for potatoes and beans, but I had more potatoes than I thought, so I had to tuck them in anywhere there was room. Combine this with all the volunteer potatoes from 2008 and even 2007, and I will be over run with spuds this year! I really must work out a better storage system for them, because they sprout before I get to eat them all!

Cukes and sunflowers. At least I think those are cukes. Not too many squash family seeds sprouted this year, so I kept adding miscellaneous seeds to the beds to the point where I'm not sure what is sprouting where!

Garlic. The garlic is growing very well. I snapped off the scapes this last week - they were lovely with their curlicue shapes. Bagged several up to give to friends, but no one seemed to want them. I think one needs to be in an up-scale urbanesque area to find a market for scapes. (Yes, those are potatoes with the garlic...leftovers from 2008.)

Carrots. I have six or seven carrot patches squeezed between the onion patches. This last weekend I divvied up several of the carrot clumps, moving them into areas where carrot seeds didn't sprout. Looks like I may need to move some more. The sunshine and rain from the last couple of days made many of the carrot tops just shoot up. My goal is long carrots this year, not hundreds of midget carrots. Hopefully the transplanting will help with that.

Pumpkins. I had to dig into the remains of the manure pile to get enough in one spot to plant the pumpkins this year, but there seems to be enough "juice" left for them to do well (so far). All we need now is some sunshine!

Broccoli and cauliflower. Yes, they are there under that row cover by the crabapple tree. I haven't peeked under since I planted them...don't want to be discouraged. This year I'm thinking of leaving the row cover in place as a foil for the cabbage whites and their larvae.

Peas. Lots of peas and they've started to flower. None are terribly tall, though. Maybe some are just short varieties, but I suspect the lack of sunshine has also stunted their growth.

Moving onto the flowerbeds, we find several plants in bloom. The lupines are pretty much finsihed, but now we have toadflax,

foxgloves,

verbascum,

garlic chives,

valerian,

mountain bluets,

and Maltese cross.

The splashes of color brighten things up, even on overcast days.

Ugh!

2009-07-02T07:04:00.000-07:00

Now there's an image that will give you nightmares! This is a Colorado Potato Beetle larva. Vile-looking creature isn't it? At least the adults are somewhat attractive.

I've sprayed my potato plants a couple times now, but we keep getting rain, so I'm not sure how much good it does. That said, last night I only saw a couple plants that had infestations (which I squished). Perhaps the spray I got (which is listed as organic) works!

Potato Musings

2009-06-25T11:57:00.000-07:00

Hm...after writing a detailed blog for the Adirondack Almanack about Colorado Potato Beetles, and having sprayed mine prior to the article, I was convinced that the spraying I did (using an "organic" insecticide) had been futile. Still, I haven't seen any CPB on my potatoes since. Hm.

Now, I will admit that I haven't scoured them for evidence. We've had rainy weather or hot and humid weather, or I've been rushing off to other engagements and haven't had time to really spend in the garden. Still, casual glances at the plants have not yielded any adults, or eggs (although the latter will be hiding under the leafs if they are there). And now the potatoes I planted have sent up leaves, so I really need to survey the crop and see what sort of infestation I can find.

Meanwhile, the rose cafers are back. >sigh< Encouraged by the potential benefit to my potatoes, I filled up the sprayer and hit the hops, viburnum, grapes, and current with the insecticide...and it rained within the hour. The buggers are back and breeding everywhere! The horticulture folks will say that these insects eat the white flowers, and while that is true (I lose the flowers every year on the viburnum), they also wreak havoc on the leaves of everything else!!! Picking them off is an endless task.

But not all news from the garden is bad. My peas are doing great - over a foot tall now and growing. And greens are coming up. Oh, and my beets have put in an appearance - a first for them. Carrots are up but Spartan. I need to transplant them, spreading the clumps out to fill up "holes."

Pumpkins and squash are also doing well so far, and the sunflowers, marigolds, cosmos, and herbs have started to sprout as well.

Waiting to go from seed to produce can be difficult. While we wait, we weed. Some weeds just don't get the hint.

Now, if only I could figure out the sour soil! I mentioned it a year or so ago, but still have no answer.

Too Many Veg!

2009-06-08T08:31:00.000-07:00

I just don't have enough garden space! Every year I increase the size of the garden, and the following year it seems it is still not large enough.

After getting the tomatoes planted on the 31st (the day that followed with snow, gale force winds and heavy killer frost), I found myself with only three beds left. This wouldn't have been a problem if I only had one or two items left to plant, but noooo - I still had potatoes, bush beans, oats, runner beans, fava beans and sunflowers to get in!

Yesterday I jumped the gun and stuck the potatoes in. Six varieties: Purple Viking, Adirondack Red, Adirondack Blue, Carola, Red Gold and, my favorite, German Butterball. I had to stick the latter in amongst the wheat - there was just no other room!!!

Luckily, the bush beans get interplanted with the potatoes, so those will get planted later on. But I think the oats and fava beans will have to wait until next year. I will try and stick the runner beans somewhere, and the sunflowers will get shoved into nooks and crannys whereever I can squeeze them. Herbs and buckwheat...well, the herbs can go around the edges, but I think the buckwheat will be left out this year, too. Pity - it's a great pollinator attractant!

In the meantime, the ol' sheets of black plastic have been laid out to kill off another patch of lawn for next year's garden. I guess I will have to get the tiller operational by then.

The Tomatoes Are In

2009-06-01T08:13:00.000-07:00

Before yesterday's blizzard (who knew), I decided to take advantage of a sunny day and plant my tomatoes. Silly me - all the early warm weather has had many of us gardeners chomping at the bit and foolishly putting out cold-sensitive plants.

I should've known better, but I put my faith in my row covers and planted away. In the afternoon gale force winds came whipping into town and brought tiny hail, some sleet, and big ol' snowflakes with them. It was quite a sight. The storm lasted less than half an hour, but it was followed by a really heavy frost overnight.

I haven't checked the total damages in the garden yet. My excuse: had to leave the house by 7:30 for an early dental appointment in Glens Falls. I'll check out the damage when I get home.

If things survived (and I think they probably did - I had doubled up the row covers), I should have lots of good tomatoes this summer. I didn't plant as many as last year, but I do have some really neat varieties, like Orange Flesh Purple Smudge (had to plant it just for the name), Orange Banana Paste, Paul Robeson (one of my favorites - a dark almost brown tomato with a smokey flavor), Garden Peach (Mmmm - sounds good), and Cour di Blue. All in all I have something like 20 varieties planted. The diversity makes for some really great sauce.

Killed my first Colorado Potato Beetle a couple days ago. Grrrr. I'm putting off planting the potatoes in hopes of disrupting the beetle cycle. According to the Maine Potato Lady, I should plant two weeks after the last frost. So, right now that means mid-June. Hm...almost seems too late to plant by then! We'll see how that goes.

And to top it all off, I discovered yesterday that I don't have enough garden beds! I have only three beds left, and I still have to plant the potatoes, beans, oats, sunflowers and fava beans (not to mention the herbs, buckwheat, and companion flowers). I suspect the oats and fava beans will not go in this year. I put down the black plastic (before the storm) yesterday to kill off another patch of lawn, but it won't be ready to go in time to plant this year...unless I just want to take the shovel to it now and start digging. Ugh. The things we do for fresh food! :)

The Pease Are In

2009-05-13T07:36:00.000-07:00

Pease - that's an old-fashioned spelling for peas. As in "Pease porridge hot, Pease porridge cold..."

Anywho, it was a mild enough afternoon and evening yesterday that after work I decided to plant the peas. This time I mixed up a batch of innoculant in which I soaked the peas before planting them. This stuff is a mix of beneficial bacteria that you can add to your legume seeds (peas, beans, peanuts) to give them an extra boost. I bought some last year but never used it so this year I thought I'd give it a try. It turned out to be a black sludge-like slurry once I mixed it with water. Some of the sludge clung to the peas, so we'll see if it makes any difference.

And this year I put in all my pea seeds - going back to seeds from two or three years ago! I wanted no leftovers after this year. As with many of my seeds, my peas are mostly heirloom varieties, although some are not: Alderman Pole Peas, British Wonder, Blue Podded Shelling Peas, Green Arrow, Mayfair, Miragreen, Laxton's Progress #9. I had set aside three beds for peas this year, but I ended up using four. If all of them grow, I will be well-endowed with peas this summer.

Peas do well when co-planted with onions/chives. You can also plant your greens with your peas - they are both cool-weather crops. Dill, sweet annie, cosmos, nasturtiums, and calendulas are all good companion plants for peas - they bring in the pollinators. The latter, however, need to be planted after the last threat of frost, but they are fast-growers and soon catch up.

It's good to finally get some seeds in the ground - something to keep the garlic company!

And So It Begins...

2009-04-29T07:23:00.001-07:00

On Sunday we were told it would rain - 50% chance. Of course, that also meant 50% chance it wouldn't. It didn't. Which, for the outdoor chore department, was a good thing. I had planned to spend a rainy day inside doing dishes, laundry, cleaning (all of which really does need to be done), but I opted to do outside stuff until the rain came. Translation: I spent the day in the yard!

The piles of hardpan dirt (I refuse to call that stuff soil) were shovelled into the wheelbarrow and mixed with peat moss, pearlite and vermiculite, and then shovelled onto the top of one of the veg gardens - I'm trying to build up the soil in this spot ala "lasagna gardening" (no tilling, just piles and piles of stuff on top of the ground). I have some serious weeding to do there (I'm not convinced this is the best way to build a garden; it's great in theory, and probably works like a charm if you have good, and copious, sources of compost, topsoil and manure to layer, which I don't).

I then set about digging weeds from the regular veg beds. Six beds are now weeded and nicely raked into raised plots, ready for planting. It sort of looks like I have six new graves in my yard, albeit very long and narrow graves! Ten beds remain to be done.

I was sorely tempted to plant peas. I spoke with a neighbor in the morning as Toby and I passed by on our walk. He, too, was contemplating putting in his peas, if he could get his tiller going and his garden dug up. I heard the tiller running most of the morning, so I suspect he did just that. In the end, however, I passed on the peas. I know "they" say you can plant them as soon as the ground can be worked, but, sheesh, it IS still April! It may have been in the 80s Sunday and Monday, but snow is not out of the question yet. Maybe I'll rethink peas next weekend.

Meanwhile, the garlic have all come up beautifully and are standing tall at 6-8"! I'm very excited about this - I may have garlic to sell come fall! AND, I found some onions and leeks from last year's seeds still growing! Hm - maybe starting them from seed isn't too bad after all, although to have maybe a dozen survive out of 150 isn't really a good survival rate. I think I'll stick to ordering sets for now.

I did make a mistake on Sunday: I put the tomatoes out in the sun. I thought a little sun would be good for them. Unfortunately, I overdid it - their tender leaves were scalded. I thought I got them into shade quickly enough, but apparently I didn't. So now I'm nursing them along in the house, back under their grow lights. Their second leaves are growing, so I'm hoping most will survive, especially since I had planned to sell some this spring!

Patience - it's a hard lesson to learn, and even now I find that I want to rush along, even though I really do know better! Sometimes you can cut corners, but more often than not, you cannot. Ths can be a hard lesson to learn.

The Garlic is Up

2009-04-20T09:42:00.000-07:00

Yes, the garlic is up - even the ones I planted waaaay too deep! If all produce and produce well, I should have garlic to sell this fall! Woo-hoo!

We had another lovely day yesterday. I put the little tomato plants outside to get a little sun, and I'm afraid I overdid it a bit. Their little leaves were looking rather pale when I brought them in: sun scald. :( Hopefully they will recover soon. [I also got a little sun scald - my arms are pink above the glove line!]

Spent the whole day outside: hanging laundry, making trellises for the hops from old sunflower stalks, making trellises for the grapes from bamboo poles, making mulch for the new trees and shrubs (by chopping up the dead ornamental grasses and other gleanings from the flower gardens), turning the compost pile (and combining two bins...I may actually have enough for each garden bed to get at least a small dressing this spring), rolling up dripper hose lines and starting The Weeding in the veg beds before planting.

It was a full day. I even heard a bluebird - the first since that poor blighter was around last month.

It's Seed Time

2009-03-23T11:21:00.000-07:00

I started some tomato seeds last week! And then I ran out of seed-starter mix. I've been in four "garden shops" so far today and all I can find are small tiny wee bags of mix. Grrr. Not very helpful when one starts as many plants from seed as I do. So...I must find a recipe to make my own mix!

In the meantime, here are some images from last year's garden (for some reason they work on this computer and none of the ones I tried last year).

This is the view down the back yard, where I have my six small "island" beds. To the right you can see part of the BIG BED that goes around the shed.

This is looking straight down the eastside fence - those two beds by the wheelbarrow became my sunflower plot - what lovely sunflowers I had!

This is the veggie garden in late spring. Those are peas to the left, with broccoli under the row cover. Potatoes are just beyond that, and then the beds of tomatoes.

Here's another view looking the other way!

A Blast from the Past

2009-02-25T08:44:00.001-08:00

I picked up a roll of film (remember film?) Monday and discovered it had photos from last fall's harvest! Very colorful - a must for this blog. So, I took photos of the photos so I could have digital renditions to post here.

The gleanings from Fall Harvest 2008.

I took a stab at growing dried beans.

It's not worth it - you don't get a lot of bang from your buck.

Still, they are lovely; I especially like the black and white

ones in the middle.

Runner Beans - I thought I'd try saving them to plant in 2009 -

we'll see if any sprout this spring!

Toby, exhausted from a day of harvesting.

And this is the reason for growing sunflowers!
By now the remaining heads are well picked over - not a seed left.

The Garden in Winter & Worms

2009-02-10T13:21:00.001-08:00

Not much is going on in the garden - at least not on the surface.

Soon it will be time to start seeds indoors. Since I'm not doing onions and leeks from seeds this year (disaster two years running), I can put it off a little bit longer. Tomatoes, eggplants, cauliflower, broccoli, squash, peppers, and assorted flowers and herbs will be this year's seedlings.

Although, if one is to follow the Biointensive technique, everything should be started as seedlings indoors. Of course, if one has a greenhouse this is feasible. If one has four grow lights and limited counter and table space, it isn't. Still, I can't quite fathom starting lettuce and wheat indoors, can you? To me, starting stuff inside is for plants that need a longer growing season, or plants that are not cold hardy. Beans, peas, greens, corn - they all do well as seeds in the ground.

And yes, you did read "wheat" up there. I am going to attempt growing some of my own grains this summer: wheat and oats. Of course, that will entail having to get a grain mill, if things work out, but I figure I can cross that bridge if and when I ever reach it.

I got my worms a couple weeks ago. Vermicomposting - the latest thing. Compost indoors with worms. Why? Because this is what my compost bin looks like this time of year:

The birds and squirrels might be enjoying it, but I don't compost to keep them fed! So, I bought a plastic bin (on sale at Home Depot for $4), drilled some holes in it, filled it partway with potting soil and newspaper, and placed an order for 1000 worms. They arrived in bone dry peat moss (so they wouldn't freeze in shipping) and I dumped them in the bin, along with food scraps. So far I haven't seen much action. Haven't seen many worms, either. I'm having my doubts that there were really 1000 worms in that bag! I've never seen more than one worm at a time, and the food scraps are not disappearing. And mold is growing. HM...vermicomposting isn't as easy as I thought it would be. It could be I'm overwatering (keep as wet as a squeezed out sponge, they say...maybe I don't squeeze my sponges dry enough). I will have to monitor it more carefully this week and see what happens.

Can Spring Be Far Off?

2009-01-29T13:33:00.002-08:00

Seeds are coming in! I placed most of my orders 2-3 weeks ago, and the seeds have been rolling in. It's very exciting! Soon I will have to dust off my growing lights, get some seed starting soil, bring in the seed trays, and start planting the ones that need a few weeks' head start.

This year I'm going to try something new: grains. I've placed an order for some wheat and oats, with the great idea of producing my own flour. Far fetched? Perhaps, but I'm dreamin' big here. According to the folks at Ecology Action (formerly Biointensive Gardening, or some such name), 300 sq. ft. of grain is enough to produce one loaf of bread a week for a year. Hm. We'll see. I'm not planning to plant that much, but I will give it a try. Of course, I will have to purchase a grain mill, too...maybe if this works out it will pay for itself in a few years, eh?

I've had my paper and pencil out and have been trying to draw up the schematics of what will go where this year. I really should be better organized - this would greatly enhance my crop rotation. Still, haphazard works, although not quite as well.

I've also ordered five more apple trees, as well as a variety of native shrubs (nannyberry, grey-stemmed dogwood, staghorn sumac, serviceberry, hawthorne) to replace the honeysuckles that were cut down last fall. This should make all the birds very happy.

Spring can't come too soon this year!

Catalogues Already!

2008-12-09T11:43:00.002-08:00

It's hard to believe, but the seeds catalogues have already started arriving in the mail! First I got one called "Pinetree" - a new one. Then came "High Mowing Seeds", followed by Fedco and "Totally Tomatoes." And it isn't even Christmas yet!

Last year I ordered seed from several different companies, just to spread the wealth and see what some of the smaller heirloom outfits had to offer. This year, though, I will probably be sticking to three major sources: Fedco, High Mowing, and Johnny's. All three come highly recommended from me as sources for heirloom and organic seeds.

So, I sat down the other night and started to fill out order forms. Fedco (despite the rather clinical name) is one of the best seed catalogues out there. I get my seed potatoes from them (Moose Tubers), as well as most of my vegetable and flower seeds. The prices are among the best, the service is great, and their catalogue is a riot to read. Some of their seeds are in limited quantity this year due to crop failures or seed producers going out of business, so you'll want to place your orders early if you use them!

Johnny's Selected Seeds is my source for gardening supplies, as well as some seeds. I usually get my ground covers/mulches from them, as well as row covers, hoops, etc.

So what am I going to do differently next summer? Well, looking at my order forms, it looks like a lot of pole beans! I'm not a big bean eater, but for some reason I feel the need to grow them! Toby likes beans, though, so they are good to put in the freezer for his meals all winter. I had lots of peas this last summer, and I want to have lots next summer, but I haven't found any organic shell peas in the catlogues yet. It seems that lots of people like to eat the pods, so snap peas are the popular ones.

I've almost given up on corn - but I will try one more time. Maybe the third time will be the charm. The celery was a complete bust this summer, but I will give that another try in '09. Hey - you never know.

I'm increasing my potato plantings next summer, and am actually going to order seeds for zucchini! It is great to grate and freeze for breads. Mmmm! The pumpkins did very well, so I am going to plant more of them, and two different varieties. Maybe I'll try the gourds again next summer, too - plant them directly in manure like the pumpkins.

Onions - no more by seed. The sets I got last year, however, were very good and I will get more this year. Leeks, well, I've given up on them. No great loss, though. And hopefully all the garlic I planted will do well. And even if only half does well, I will still be ahead!

So, bring on the rest of the catalogues - I'm ready!!!

The Last Planting

2008-10-10T11:01:00.000-07:00

Two nights ago I got the last of the garlic planted. Even though I know that garlic is a late season plant, it still seems odd to be planting at this time of year, when most things are dead or dying, and when snow has already covered the High Peaks!

If all the garlic comes up next year, I will be well-endowed with the stuff. I'll be giving it away at Christmas! Maybe I'll try to sell it at the Holiday Fair! This is, of course, putting the proverbial cart well before the proverbial horse! Let's see if the stuff grows first, eh?

Yesterday afternoon I pulled up the corn stalks. I had thought of leaving them up to provide some sort of shelter for small birds in the winter, but in the end I just decided to yank them out. Now they are lying on the ground between garden plots, in theory blocking weed growth (ha).

2009 will be another year of weeding. I didn't really keep up with it this year and the buggers took over several beds and most of the "paths" in between. This is what happens when one runs out of mulch.

I've finally given up on the butternut squashes. I had three coming along, but even covered with row covers to protect them from the frost, they just weren't growing. So, I've cut my losses.

Three beautiful Northern Spy apples grace the tree this fall. I am so tempted to pluck them now, but I know that Spies are one of the latests apples to harvest, so I wait.

It is a glorious autumn day here in the North Country and I should be getting home and spending some time in the yard with the animals.

Happy gardening to all!

Fall Plantings

2008-10-08T12:48:00.001-07:00

Although I have mostly put the garden to bed for the year, I still have more garlic to plant! The mail order bulbs have now all come in, and I must say that the latest batches have been more inspiring than the first one was! The bulbs that have recently arrived (Inchelium, Chesnok, Kazakstan, and German Hardy, which I suspect is German White) are of good size and quality - almost as nice as what I got in Sharon Springs! So, sometime in the next week or two I must get the last of the garlic planted. If it all grows, I may have garlic to sell in '09!

Meanwhile, I suppose it is about time to pull the rutabagas and carrots. I grab a few more carrots each time I go by the garden, and although they are small, they do mean that many fewer carrots I need to buy at the store!

And with all the harsh frosts we've been getting, it is probably time to actually move the pumpkins inside and set a weekend aside for doing pumpkin puree. I've been using a "recipe" for puree which utilizes the oven rather than the stove (who wants to peel and cube fourteen pumpkins?). It's pretty much the same as cooking acorn squash - cut them in half (and remove the seeds), put them cut-side down in a roasting pan with a cup of water, and cook in the oven at 300-350*F for up to 90 minutes - until "meltingly soft." Scoop and freeze.

A Final Gasp from the Garden

2008-09-28T09:00:00.001-07:00

Just when I thought the garden was finished, and just when I had finally cleared the last tomatoes off the kitchen counter (batch #4 of sauce), I go out to put away the row covers only to find...more tomatoes!!!

>sigh<

Planted some more garlic over the weekend. This was one of my mail order varieties: chrysalis purple. $12 for two very tiny bulbs (yielding 13 cloves). I think in the future I will stick with the garlic at the Sharon Springs Garlic Festival (bulbs the size of your fist for $1 - $2.50 each)!

Garlic planted to date: Purple Stripe (14), German White (23), German Red (26), Elmer's Topset (45), and Chrysalis Purple (13). Cost: $16 for 108 cloves from Sharon Springs, plus $12 for 13 cloves from mail order. Kind of makes one say "hm," eh?

I should have two more varieties arriving via the mail. Hopefully they will be worth their price.

Frost and the First Fall Harvest

2008-09-15T07:49:00.001-07:00

It was bound to happen, and sure enough, it did. We had our first killer frost last week. I covered what I could, but even so, some things took a hit.

When I got home after work that day, I pulled up all the pole and dry beans, tied them in bundles, and they are now hanging upside-down on the porch to dry (makes going in and out the back door a bit of a challenge). I threw row covers, blankets, tarps, sheets and towels over tomatoes, corn, squash and pumpkins. Since then we have been having very summery weather - hot and humid. So things are getting a second chance to ripen.

Saturday, after I returned from the Garlic Festival in Sharon Springs (highly recommended, by the way), I pulled the rest of my onions. Those that still had stalks have been braided and are hanging in the garage (the porch is already full of onions and the afore-mentioned beans, and the kitchen is full of onions and tomatoes). I pulled some carrots, too, including one monster that is as big as a silver dollar at the base of the leaves and close to a foot in length! A few small rutabagas joined the harvest.

A second batch of tomato sauce was brewed up that night and stuck in the freezer Sunday morning. Yes, indeed, using paste tomatoes makes all the difference when making sauce. My recipe? Well, hard to say - each batch is different. But here are the basics:

Ellen's Tomato Sauce

Run a bunch of tomatoes (mostly paste, but add whatever else you have that is ripe) through a tomato food mill (like Squeezo - I kid you not, that is the name). This wonderful machine, which works like a meat grinder, squeezes out the juice and pulp in one direction, and the seeds and skins in another, nicely separating the two. Do this until you have about a gallon or more of juice.
Pour the juice into a large kettle, preferably an enamel kettle and set on medium heat to start cooking. You want as much of the water to cook away as possible.
Meanwhile, dice up an onion or two and saute in butter. When soft and tender, put the onions in the sauce.
Additionally, cut up a few carrots. If they are small, use two or three. If large, you can probably use one. This will provide some sugar to cut the acid of the tomatoes. Toss into the sauce.
Chop up some green peppers and add them to the sauce as well.
If you have fresh basil, oregano, parsley, chop them up and put them in the pot. If not, used dried. I also put in some freshly ground black pepper.
Cook. This part can take several hours. You want the moisture to go away, leaving you with a nice thick sauce. I usually give it three or four hours, then I'm ready for bed. I could probably go longer.
Before you finish, toss in some grated Parmesan cheese. Mmmmm. I add maybe a half to three-quarters of a cup.
Cool.
Ladle into freeze-able containers and stick in the freezer. Voila!

Seeing Spots

2008-08-18T07:57:00.000-07:00

[Editor's note: this is the second post I've posted on both my blogs - but this was appropriate for both, so I'm posting it in both places.]

Artillery Fungus (Sphaerobolus spp.). Ever hear of it? Well, if you have been getting small black spots on the side of your house, or on buckets left outdoors, etc., then you may very well have this fungus.

About, oh, three or four years ago I started to notice these tiny black dots on the side of my house. They were (are) raised - sort of like my siding was splattered with bits of braille. When I found these dots on some of my plants this year, I decided to send it in to our Cooperative Extension folks for ID. Emily, my "mystery stuff ID person", sent me back a print-out about artillery fungus from the plant clinic at Cornell. If you want to go to it, and see photos, visit http://plantclinic.cornell.edu/FactSheets/artfungus/artilleryfungus.htm.

Here is a quick summary:

The dots are, as I suspected, spores. Or, more specifically, they are spore packets known as peridioles. These packets sit on top of little cup-like cells on the fungi which collect water. When the cups are "full," they turn inside out, popping open the cell and flinging the peridioles up to six meters away! These spore packets have a sticky goo on them that helps them stick to surfaces (like siding and buckets and cars) and makes them essentially impossible to remove. It seems they are very light sensitive, which means they "go to the light." In other words, if your house/car/bucket is light-colored, then they will seek it out.

Where are these fungi growing? And why did they "suddenly" appear a few years ago? Well, it seems they like wood chip mulch (as opposed to bark chip mulch) - exactly the stuff I used to mulch all the garden beds I put in around the back of the house. This also explains why I have these spots on the back of the house, but not on the front or sides (where I have no gardens).

What to do? Sadly, there doesn't seem to be a '"cure." Sometimes the spore packets can be scrubbed off, but you might actually do more damage to the house trying to remove them. Fungicides are not recommended. I guess the only solution is to remove the wood chips and thus the fungus, but this won't help with the spots already on your house/car/bucket. Maybe some clever artist in the family can create a dot-to-dot artwork on the siding...

Mid-August Updates

2008-08-15T13:11:00.000-07:00

It seems like the beans are sort of a one-shot-deal. I got one really good crop a couple weeks ago, and now I'm getting smaller and smaller crops. The plants are starting to look pretty sad, too. Could be the excessive rain has been too much for them, too.

The potatoes are great this year - good sized! Dug up a couple plants the other night, and pulled a handful of onions as well. Mmmm...yummy! Bought a potato ricer today, too, since I hear that is the best way to "mash" potatoes. We shall see.

Teeny tiny ears are starting to form on some of the corn! Hurray! I have at least eight pumpkins on the vines, but the squash are not doing an awful lot. I still have just one cuke about an inch long. Concerns are starting to appear: we could have frost any day now. So I'm hoping for a few days of sunshine and warmth to get things ripening!!! Like the hundreds of green tomatoes (all of significant size) that are hanging on the vines!

And (she writes with a heavy sigh), I hacked down the Indian Cup Plant, dug up one of the barberries, and yanked out all the blooming teasels the other night. Today I bought a bottle of RoundUp (concentrate) and a paint brush. I will paint the Cup Plant stalks and when I get the honeysuckles cut down, I will paint them, too.

Today I also had some allergy tests done, and it turns out I am allergic to a lot of stuff outside. The experts say that I should avoid being outside. Yeah. Tell a gardener she can't garden. Tell a naturalist she can't wander about the woods. Not gonna happen.

My folks sent me a disc of photos they took of my gardens in June, but for some reason the computer here rejects them - so I am still sans images for all you fine folks who read this. I shall persevere, though - I know there is some way to do this!

Warning! Warning!

2008-08-13T09:31:00.000-07:00

Warning! Warning!

I have just read the article in "Adirondack Life" about the invasives that are moving their way into our neck of the woods, and was devastated to find that some of the plants I have intentionally put into my gardens at home are invasive!!!

Now, I take pride in keeping up-to-date on the invasives problem, but I was horrified to discover that some of the plants that I love, and/or thought were native, have turned out to be persona non grata.

>sigh<>TEASEL (Dipsacus sylvestris) - a bad character (and I thought it was native - I have so many great childhood memories of this plant). In some parts of the country it is naturalized, but really it is only considered acceptable in areas of shortgrass prairie. That doesn't include us. It produces prolific seeds and will spread and take over. No wildlife benefits. If you have it in your garden (like I do, because I planted it to relive childhood memories), then you need to get rid of it before it goes to seed!!!

INDIAN CUP PLANT (Silphium perfoliatum) - Highly invasive (although native to the Midwest)! Apparently up in the Keene area it is moving into and along riparian corridors. And here I was trying to grow it from seeds this year (they didn't grow) because I had one plant in the garden and loved it so much I wanted more. My specimen is wonderful this year - pushing eight feet tall, cupped leaves filled with water, providing drinks and baths for the birds, and the buds are ready to bloom. Well - now I have to go rip it out. If you have it planted on your property, get rid of it before it goes to seed.

JAPANESE BARBERRY (Berberis thunbergii) - I've heard tales of how it is invasive down below, but I thought we were safe here, and it was great to plant in areas where deer are because they won't eat it. Well, apparently it is starting to spread up here, too. Birds are spreading the berries. Sprouts are appearing in the understory of woods. I have two at home...after this weekend I will have none. (Or maybe next weekend...this weekend is pretty much booked already.)

What to do with them once you pull them up: I asked Hilary Oles, director at the Adirondack Park Invasive Plant Program (APIPP), what I should do with them once they are ripped out of the ground, and she suggested the best thing is to take them to a burn site. Do not compost.

What about the invasive honeysuckle (Lonicera x bella, Lonicera tartarica, Lonicera morrowii)? I have these in my yard as well, and I've been planning for several years to get rid of them. The best method? According to Steve at APIPP I should cut them to the ground before the berries fully ripen (I still have time), and then paint the cross-section of stump (and suckers) with Round-up, straight from the bottle, undiluted. Use a 1" paint brush. If painted with the herbicide (as opposed to spraying), the ground is safe for replanting with native berry-producing shrubs (such as nannyberry and dogwood). And just in case you are thinking "but the birds love the berries," remember this: the non-native honeysuckles do not provide the nutrients that native ones do. Watch them - the birds will not eat the non-native berries until there is nothing else left as an option. Replace these shrubs with natives instead!!!

So, get out there, folks! Learn your invasives and start patrolling for them. I know that there are those out there who love their plants and will be reluctant to kill them, but it must be done. Our native vegetation (and the wildlife that depends on it) must be protected. Good luck!

More Firsts

2008-07-30T11:56:00.000-07:00

Plucked my first tomato of the season yesterday! It's not 100% ripe yet, but it came off the vine very easily and will be perfect in a day or two.

I also found, quite by accident, my first beans yesterday. I was picking peas and suddenly found a "pea" that didn't look right. It was too flat. Lo! and behold, it was a bean. Either very short pole beans or very tall bush beans. Regardless, a lot of them were ready for picking and so I did. There weren't enough to make a meal for me, so Toby got them with his stew beef last night.

I think the cauliflower is a lost cause. It started to produce heads last week, and I had high hopes, but they are looking very brown now and don't seem to be growing. The best of the bunch is covered with frass from the LGWs (little green worms), so that right there is a real turn off.

Harvested two more broccoli heads, though, and gave them a thorough soak in salt water last night. Maybe I'll blanch them tonight.

It also looks like the peas are starting to dwindle. Harvested enough for two more containers to freeze, and there are still plenty of pods on the vines, but unless we get some sunshine, I don't think I will be getting too many more harvests - the pods are not filling out.

And just when I was thinking the corn would never produce even tassels before our first frost, I found that one of the varieties (I think it is the Tom Thumb) is starting to get tassels - it is barely knee high. The garden never ceases to amaze.

The Harvest Exapnds & Other Observations

2008-07-25T11:49:00.001-07:00

First it was lettuce (I've actually stopped picking lettuce for a while - one can have too much of a good thing), and now it is peas. I've been filling bowls with peas from the vines every day for over a week now (even in the rain). While the pods fill the bowl to overflowing, the actual peas, once shelled, are fewer, but it has still been enough to put ten containers in the freezer so far! Another three or so may go in tonight after I get home and go over the vines again.

Yesterday also yielded the first real broccoli harvest. I picked one head about three weeks ago, but last night I harvested four. The variety I planted doesn't get massive heads, but it was enough to fill two bags for the freezer.

And let's just discuss for a moment here the whole "soak your broccoli in cold salt water for 30 minutes to remove the little green worms" strategy. It doesn't work. I filled the kettle with cold water, dumped in a fair quantity of salt, and added the broccoli. About an hour later I found about three LGWs floating in the water. I plucked out a head and started to look it over...LGWs were still clinging to it. I can't vouch for the amount of life they had left in them, but I don't think they were all deceased. So, I cut apart each head and looked over each floret carefully (removing LGWs) before putting it in a bowl for blanching afterwards. Make you wonder how the "big companies" remove the LGWs from their broccoli. HM.

The squash, pumpkins and cukes are growing well, thanks to all the rain. They are all starting to put out blossoms!

The runner beans are also blooming. I have found them disappointing. For some reason in my mind the flowers were much larger. Still, the colors are nice, and if the hummers can find them, they should be happy.

Purple flowers are appearing on the pole beans, although I'm not sure if the bush beans are blooming yet.

As I came up through Warrensburg this afternoon I saw corn already with tassels. Hmmm...my corn is barely reaching knee high. I'm thinking I should've risked cool soil and planted it sooner. Too late now, of course, but something to consider for next year.

Also, note to self: don't mix up all the herb and beneficials seeds together and then plant with the buckwheat. Buckwheat grows faster and gets rather tall and dense - the other don't stand a chance. Might not want to plant the crimson clover with the buckwheat next year, either.

Sunflowers are doing great - some heads are already starting to form! I love it when they all burst into bloom! I was lucky last year and the bears were not a problem. The sunflowers are closer to the fence this year, though, so it should be interesting to see if the bears become a problem when the seedheads ripen.

The nasturtiums started blooming this last week. No cosmos yet, though, or marigolds. This is the difference between planting the seeds outside "after last frost" and staring the plants inside a month or more earlier. These flowers are planted as companions to the veggies, ostensibly as encouragement to pollinators, so I'm thinking next year we start them inside again; I should have plenty of room since I am giving up on starting onions and leeks from seeds.

Had the first monarch caterpillar of the season just before this last week of rain - it was munching on some butterflyweed (which does VERY well up here). It was pretty good-sized; I'd guess it was at least a week and a half old. It's the only one I've seen so far this year, though. Few monarchs overall this summer. And not a single red admiral butterfly! Hm. I wonder where they are.

Peas, Peas, Peas, Peas

2008-07-21T06:37:00.000-07:00

Or, if you are in old England: Pease, Pease, Pease, Pease.

Yep, it's pea-harvesting time in the ol' garden. I must've picked four batches on Saturday (every time I went back out to dump empty pods into the compost, I found more that needed to be picked), and almost as many again yesterday after work! Lots more pods hang on the vines, and there are even some more flowers, which means even more pods as the summer progresses. The Laxton's Progress #9, however, seem to be about at the end of their production.

Pulled up several potato plants on Saturday. New potatoes are so tasty! Mostly, though, I pulled them up so that the onions could have more sun (and room). Hopefully this will help the onions grow bigger. My folks were up for the weekend so we made a potato salad from the harvest and I sent the rest home with them to enjoy...I have plenty more to come.

Broccoli is coming right along now, but there are no signs of any flowers on the cauliflower yet.

The tomatoes are starting to show signs of fruit, albeit small and green still. Maybe in a couple weeks there will be a tomato or two to pick.

The pumpkins have a blossom! As do some of the runner beans. It's hard to beat them for color! This must be where flourescent colors come from.

I borrowed Dad's camera to get some photos, so if they come out, I may have a few to publish here before too long.

Dressing the Garden

2008-07-18T10:51:00.000-07:00

I have a lot of books. Some folks would say I have too many books. There are those who ask if I've actually read all the books I own. The honest answer is no, but they are there just in case I want to. But most of them I have at least glanced through, with the exception of the really old books (many of which are poems by the likes of Byron) rescued from my grandparents' homes, and a good number of them I have even read in part.

So what does this have to do with gardening? Well, I have a goodly collection of gardening books, most of which are fairly new. When I get interested in a subject, I tend to read as much about it as I possibly can. Just to be sure I have all the information available, y'know. Still, this doesn't mean that I necessarily follow all the advise.

Take soil preparation in the garden. Every garden book worth its salt will tell you that the most important thing you can do for your garden, before you even get close to planting anything, is test the soil and then add soil amendments to make the soil the best it can possibly be for the plants you want to grow.

Add to this the fact that not every plant likes the same type of soil. Some prefer soil a bit more acidic, while others are piggies for nitrogen. Gardening and chemistry go hand in hand.

This can be a little overwhelming. Afterall, all you wanted to do was grow a few carrots and peas. So, it is easy to brush all this advice aside and just dig up the ground and throw in some seeds.

And yes, you might be lucky and your plants will grow. They may even produce flowers and food. BUT - will they have grown and produced to their fullest potential?

I discovered this last year. It was my first year with the veg garden. Space was limited. I had a great idea to save myself space and time: I would plant the pumpkins right in the lawn - when they grew (and we all know how pumpkins take over), they would cover the grass and I wouldn't have to mow! What a genius I was! It turned out to be a hot, dry summer, and even though I watered my piddling little pumpkin plants daily, they refused to grow. I had two or three flowers, but the plants never even reached the size of a dinner plate. You can forget any pumpkins.

So, this year I planted the pumpkins right in the manure pile. Pumpkins are what "they" call heavy feeders, which means they want a lot of nitrogen, and here we are a month and a half later and the leaves alone are larger than dinner plates! These pumpkins are happy plants. Lots of food and nitrogen right there at their root tips! The difference is amazing.

Last weekend I looked at the cukes and squashes that I planted in the garden. The same amount of time has passed for them as for the pumpkins, and the cukes were still just two leaves each, while the squash weren't doing much better. Hmm. I dug up a little manure and "dressed" the top of the soil around each plant. VOILA! Super Squash! Courageous Cucumbers! Well, it wasn't' quite that instantaneous, but the difference a little dressing of horse manure made is down right amazing!

And when the dripper hose company recommends drippers spaced 6" apart for veg gardens, and you try to save money by purchasing the 12" drippers in stead, thinking you will just wind them more closely together, you come to the conclusion that the company actually knew what it was talking about and next year you will order the 6" lines to replace the 12" lines you put in this year.

The moral of this story is, yes, you can do it yourself and try to figure things out on your own, or, you can save yourself some time, money and aggravation and actually follow the years and years of advice that other gardeners have put into print just for us!

The choice is yours, obviously. As for me, I may just start to read those books again and take some more of that advise to heart.

I am a Garden Geek

2008-07-13T06:45:00.000-07:00

I have my first broccoli head! It is about 3-4" across and looks beautiful!!! Do I harvest now or wait for it to grow? Decisions, decisions!

Yes...I guess I've become a garden geek. I'm like the proud parent who wants to share all the potty training details with co-workers and friends. Not everyone is interested. Still, I figure that if someone is actually taking the time to read this blog, then that person is likely interested in gardening, too. So, I shall gush away about my growing produce!

Note for the Future: runner beans and pole beans do not have the repellent properties that bush beans have when it comes to companion planting with potatoes to control Colorado potato beetles. Stick with the bush beans. The potatoes that are with the runner and pole beans have been stripped of leaves and are covered with hundreds of CPB larvae! The other ones have some larvae, but nowhere near the same numbers. And the potatoes that volunteered themselves where I have onions planted this year are also sporting few CPB larvae. Onions seem to be the universal companion plant.

Sharing the Harvest

2008-07-10T10:32:00.001-07:00

We had a potluck dinner at work last night, so I raided the garden for part of my contribution.

Peas - I needed peas. Would there be enough to use? Sure enough - I picked and shelled close to two cups! And as I was palpating pods to be sure I only picked those that had large enough peas in them, I glanced around at the other varieties that hadn't produced pods yet - and they are loaded! Hundreds of pods dangled tantalizingly from their vines, only needing time, sunshine and rain to fill them out before I can add them to my larder! It's going to be a busy month once they start to ripen!

Radishes - I planted radishes this year mostly as sacrificial plants, but I know that there are people who enjoy eating them, so I pulled a few from the ground, hosed them off, and stuck them in a bowl for the radish-eaters.

Greens - someone else was bringing a salad, so I opted not to bring (more) greens (sigh - what a great opportunity to unload a few). Still, I've reached the overflow point with greens...will have to take the zucchini strategy and start leaving bags of greens on peoples' porches!!! Beware if you live nearby! The Stealth Salad Sneaker may be leaving a deposit at your door!

Veg Harvest Increases by 50%

2008-07-06T10:58:00.000-07:00

The first peas of the season were picked and eaten on Friday. I had upwards of 20 pods, and a yield of almost an eighth of a cup of peas. Because there weren't enough to actually do anything with, and I'm not one who likes them raw, I let Toby enjoy them with his dinner that night. I, instead, enjoyed still more lettuce.

The spinach has started to bolt.

Little round green balls are growing away on the Glacier tomatoes, still, while about a quarter of the other tomato plants are now starting to bloom. I raided the garden supply shops on Friday in Glens Falls and stocked up on short stakes for tomato plants. Probably should've gotten the longer stakes, but we'll see how these do. Friday evening found me staking and tying about 80 tomato plants. Several needed another trimming, too, to remove secondary shoots and extra leaves.

The runner beans are starting to climb above the potatoes and are now seeking out their trellis strings.

I've been squishing CPB eggs, larvae and adults daily now. Just when you think you've gotten them all, you find a whole new batch have emerged.

Gray aphids have struck now, too. Not in the veggies, but in one of the flower beds. I discovered a couple plants simply coated with the things. At first I just removed infested parts out of the garden, but soon discovered that to be successful, I'd have to remove the entire plants. So, I found a squirt bottle, filled it with soapy water, and gave them all a bath. We'll see if that works.

Little cabbage whites (those pale white butterflies) have been fluttering around the broccoli and cauliflower. Hm...I may have to start little green worm patrols soon.

Over-run with Lettuce

2008-07-01T09:24:00.001-07:00

One day you are wondering if you planted enough lettuce, and the next you find yourself trying to give it away because there is more than you could possibly ever eat! And that's just the plants from the first planting!

The exciting news is that I now have pea pods! I suspect that by the end of the week I will be harvesting my first peas - huzzah!

A perusal of the garden last night also turned up potato beetle larvae! I've been squishing the eggs when I find them, but I've obviously missed some because there were the larvae - tiny little ones, larger blob-ish ones shedding their skins, and their frass all over the potato leaves. Those that I found are no more.

Meanwhile, leeks are not doing well at all. I thought that if I started them from sets that I would have better luck, but even these don't seem to be growing. Must be I just don't have the right conditions for leeks.

Late June in the Garden

2008-06-27T11:25:00.000-07:00

I borrowed a camera, so I've finally got some shots to put in this blog!

Here is the view of the veggie garden as seen from its northeast corner:

The tall things on the left side in the back (not the trees) are the poles strung with string to be trellises for the peas and pole beans. The white thing is the row cover over the broccoli plants.

And here's the view from the north side, closer to the western edge:

The two beds this side of the covered broccoli are the potatoes and beans (good garden companions), followed by two beds of tomatoes. The three beds that are perpendicular to all the others (on the far right) have more tomatoes (farthest away) and then squash (too small to see in this image). The beds behind these, in the back of the photo, have the onions and corn, which will not be knee high by the 4th of July; I'll be lucky if it hits 6" by then.

And these are the first apples I've had on the Haralson apple tree. MAYBE they will make it through the season and be edible come fall!!!

Working our way around the yard, here are the "Weedless Gardening" beds I put in this spring. The one on the left is planted with a variety of sunflowers, while the one on the right has some Paul Robeson tomatoes, Red Reselection Celery (I'm not convinced it's actually growing), and then the rest of the bed is filled with buckwheat, oats and other plants for green manure and beneficial insects.

Rose Chafers - I am over-run with them! Here they are making short work of one of my grapes. This plant actually had buds for at least two, maybe three, bunches of grapes. I guess I can kiss them goodbye. And I had such high hopes - last year I only got one grape. Not one bunch of grapes, ONE GRAPE. I spent two evenings this last week out there with a jar of soapy water and a stick, knocking these insects into the jar to drown, but there are just too many for this hunt and pick method to work. If anyone has an "organic" solution to these pests, please let me know. The bluebirds apparently don't realize that these are available for eating! Maybe they taste bad?

Peas - lovely peas. These are, I believe, the Laxton's Progress #9 peas, although I have another variety that has started to bloom now, too.

And lastly, chives - wonderful companion plants that attract all sorts of great pollinators.