Summer

You'd think with all the sewing I've been doing over the last several months that I'd have no time for anything else.  I haven't really had too much extra time, but in that space I've managed to do some canning of green beans and digging out of potatoes.

The beans I picked from both my garden and a new friend's.  I'd forgotten how tedious and boring snapping beans could be.  I managed to can 14 quarts of green beans, thanks to my new pressure canner I received last Christmas from the hubby, and dig out around 20 pounds of potatoes.

(purple viking potatoes are so tasty!)

It was a really weird gardening season this year.  We had rain consistently, almost every 3 days on average, and unseasonably cool weather.  The potato harvest was truly sub par as were several local farmers in the area.  Even the tomatoes have been having a difficult time ripening.

Oh well.  I have the majority of the garden cleaned up for the year and am going to attempt a Russian Kale this winter. We'll see how that goes!

Hush Time

I may be a bit quiet for the next 2 weeks.  Between the basement remodel (we're getting ready to hang drywall now) and the baby classes, this month's priorities are starting to shift towards parenthood.

It's exciting and intimidating all at once.  So trust me I'm not ignoring the blog just "hiding" temporarily till I have more time to post and pictures of projects to share.

I do have 2 bits of news though: my baby rhubarb plant developed crown rot and died.  I've brushed up on my rhubarb knowledge since then and hope to try again next Spring.  And I've found and purchased the rest of the fabric for my sister-in-law's Stars and Banners quilt which is what I'll be wrestling thru the machine today.

Be well and do good work this week!

The Tiny Rhubarb

I love how dainty and tiny it is, but I'm worried. 

It's been pretty chilly here this April which is a HUGE reversal of what March's weather was like.  Even though I've combed thru garden posts and forum suggestions I'm still not sure if it's actually growing well or not.  I highly doubt the "below average" night time temps are really hurting it since it's a Spring plant, but since it's in its first year it needs the best odds possible.

Here's hoping that once the weather warms up and stays a bit more consistent it'll be okay and leaf out some more.  I still need to read up on it's growing cycle to make sure I'm not being paranoid, but if it stays that tiny all year I may build a little sunshade for it so it doesn't turn into fried rhubarb once the Summer hits.

p.s.  Peaches are starting to come into our markets and it's making me itchy to get started on my first year canning....

Love

Hope you find something you love to do today and take time to do it.

The Garden Blooms

If I had thought better of it I would've taken pictures of each stage my Spring bulbs have opened.  However, the daffodils did not seem to fair too well with the insanely warm March we had so they dwindled very quickly.

But the tulips are flourishing and thanks to some careful reading and a bit of planning I planted a few varieties that bloom in the later part of Spring and they are very long lasting apparently....

as they've been opened since the end of March!

I'm very pleased with these and hope that I can squeak out at least 3 good years before they need replaced.  As any bulb gardener knows, tulips don't last unfortunately.

The peonies and daylilies are also coming along very well though I don't think either will bloom this year. It's good to see that the stock was good.  And my Siberian Irises that I divided last year are really taking off and ready to open soon.  If you ever wonder how perennials grow just remember this saying: The first year they sleep, the second year they creep, the third year they leap!

If gardening has taught me anything it's that plants will grow on their own time and no one else's.  Lots and lots of patience.

G.I.A.

I'm going to be a bit G.I.A. this week.

"Gardener In Action"

The warm weather and thrown me outside to make sure my garden beds are turned under,

flowers are staked, lawn is mowed and the bird feeders are full.  I can't believe we JUST had our first grass mowing of the year.  In Ohio it's still a rare thing to mow in March, don't usually have to bust out the equipment till late April.

Also it's sad to see the daffodils that normally last nearly a month go from looking uber cute to droppy and spent in under 2 weeks.  I don't care what anyone says, even if the weather IS exceptionally pleasant be careful what you wish for.  All this warm weather is certainly setting us up for a longer allergy season, more bugs and more weeds.

I still wonder how the maple syrup harvesters in our area managed this year.  I can't imagine the syrup was running high or tasty since we had no hard freeze with a mild thaw.  Booo to that because I love me some maple syrup.

The honey supply should be on the upswing though!

The only good thing I can think of is that we may have a longer than normal growing season. That fact should bode well for most small scale farmers and backyard gardeners.  In fact our rain barrel is hooked up for the season already.  It will mean more land management for large scale operations though which means more weed control chemicals and water used for irrigation should this heat continue to build thru summer :(

It's a give and take kinda year methinks.

Aren't you glad?

It's getting on to that time of year.  The one where I'll mysteriously disappear at regular intervals to check my flowers, dig in the dirt, and generally soak up some long overdue sun.

I nearly forgot what the sun looked like this Winter.
We were looking forward to trying to catch some of the Northern Lights from the massive solar flare on Thursday but it seems that there's just too much light pollution around our area.  Fortunately it's not enough to blot out the stars, but I'm sad to have missed such a rare photo opportunity.
 

However, I have some wonderful things to post up next week: a pattern review, some shots of my new peonies in their "baby" stage and if there's time another quick quilting tip.

Remember to get outside and enjoy the fresh air this weekend!

Dem Worms, Dem Worms, Dem Good Worms

I've had a worm composting bin for nearly two years.  Since the husband isn't too keen on keeping a giant compost pile in our suburban yard (yet) I decided a small composting setup would be the best way to get him used to the idea.

I use a stacking worm composting bin.  Each tray has tiny holes to allow both the worms, water, and air to pass thru freely.  They're small enough that the finished "dirt" won't spill out entirely.  As one tray finishes I can rotate the trays to keep the working tray near the top and the finishing trays near the bottom.  Though once a tray is finished I move it to the top to dry out a little before I move the dirt to storage.

Worm composting is often faster at breaking down food scraps than an outdoor compost setup.  Though established outdoor setups can process much larger quantities of food and yard waste at one time.  I eventually want to have both types going.

You can see the eggshells haven't quite broken all the way down but that's okay.  Eggshells can add beneficial calcium back to the soil and to the plants the "dirt" is spread around or planted with. Good worm "dirt" should smell earthy and clean. It should be relatively dry and have a crumbly texture.  If it smells a bit off then it's definitely not done composting or there's an imbalance (too much food added at one time, too much mositure or you have meat/dairy products in there which is a big no-no)

Because the composting process requires a little water to keep things lightly moist/damp (not soaking) as the water trickles down thru the stacked bins the lower level collects it.  I can then harvest the concentrated worm tea via a small spicket at the bottom.  I like to dilute this just a bit more and water in new plants or use it in it's concentrated form for an extra dose of fertilizer.

If you're new to composting I encourage you to read up on it.  It does take some trial and error (a learning period) but once you've got it down it's very easy to maintain and offers a great benefit to any garden, yard or flower bed.

While I'm Waiting

This Winter has been overly mild.  Depressingly mild.  The hard freezes are few and far between and I've been fighting and arguing with my bulbs that it's nowhere near the time for them to pop up.

But that doesn't mean I don't miss the bright flush of color that accompanies Spring.

(makes a mental note to find more Beebalm for this year)

So while I'm waiting for Spring to officially arrive here's the new (unedited) garden planting list:

Veggies

Sweet peas (not sure)

Carrots

Kennebec Potatoes 2 lbs (mid)

Purple Viking Potatoes 2 lbs (early)

German Butterball 2lbs (late)

Ebeneezer onion set 1 pint

Elephant garlic 10 cloves

Crimson Red Rhubarb 1 root

Ruby Queen Beets seed tape

Roma tomatoes 3 plants

Black Krim heirloom tomato 3 plants

Heirloom Rainbow Blend tomatoes 3 plants

Mini Bell Peppers 3 plants (miracle of a find)

Zucchini 1 plant

Herbs

Parsley

Cilantro

Rosemary 

Lavendar

Must Have's

Pea trellis (maybe)

Cat repel spikey mats (for the neighborhood cats who insist on poo-ing where they shouldn't)

You might wonder where on earth I plan on putting SO MANY vegetables this year.  Well I don't know, but I plan on splitting alot of the plants with my mom for her small garden. I'm also growing some tomatoes for my older neighbor who can't garden anymore and then I'm going to try my hand at canning this year.  You'll also notice that the usual suspects such as green beans, corn and cucumbers did not make the cut this year.  

Here's why, over the years I've discovered I don't have enough room to plant enough corn to pollinate them efficiently. 2 smalls rows will not delicious corn make even if I self-pollinate them.  While I love fresh green beans we always have an over abundance that never gets eaten and it feels wasteful.  The cucumbers need more space, or at least vertical space, that I haven't figured out how to accommodate well and I got so annoyed with the lack of pollination and wilt that I'm taking a break from them this year.

In other words it's a "farmer's market" year for those veggies.

I'm hoping that by adding a lavender plant beside my russian sage that it will encourage more bees to visit.  More fluers = more bees = more vegetables.  

A good garden takes time, effort and mistakes, but most importantly perseverance.

Happiness

These little guys are really making me happy every time I walk outside.  I could've swore I had some purple and white ones mixed in there as well but so far only the yellow ones have popped up.  But I don't mind because yellow is such a cheery color.  Even with an incredibly mild winter (ie Spring like weather) I'm still excited for planting season to start.  It's almost a tease how warm it's been.  Makes me want to put out pansies already.

Old School

Last year I had a garage sale.  My first one as a "grown-up".  I know, I know that's kind of funny, but really we haven't ever amassed enough stuff to even have one by ourselves, which is a good thing.  It wasn't even that big.  In fact my mom brought over some of her stuff too just to help fill it out and of course help out. In the stuff she brought there was a big box of old books and guess what I found? My mom's old canning books.   Even the one for her old pressure cooker.

These are straight up from the early 70's...as if you couldn't tell from the pictures.  I stashed them of course because they just seemed a little too cool to let some stranger nab them for 25 cents.  Check out the sweet food photography.

I even found an recipe for preserving chili. The date on the newspaper was Wednesday September 9, 1981.  I was 1 and 1/2 years old.  Egads.  The 80's don't make me feel "old"...yet.

Then while wandering thru the local hardware store one evening I saw a massive Home Preservation setup.  Ball's put out a fancy, schmancy new canning book.  Complete with updated recipes, but honestly nothing's changed between the two books other than maybe the food cravings of different generations.  I really don't know if I'd ever "can" meat, but I won't say I'm not curious.

I'm glad I found and kept them all.  Looking thru all these makes me pretty nostalgic for those busy, hot days of canning.  If I can manage to find pictures of my dad and I tilling up our garden I'll be sure to post them up.  They're pretty cute.

Because It's Important

 When I was at work last year (before my layoff) we got to talking about canning. To my great surprise I found out that several of my co-workers had NO IDEA you could actually can your own fruits and vegetables.  I guess it's shocking because to me the whole idea is so basic and commonplace that it's hard to imagine NOT knowing or wanting to preserve food.

(Warning: Long post ahead)

Then it made me sad.  Well more like "depressed about society" kind of sad.  I sincerely feel that food preservation or even the basic knowledge of how to grow your own food should be taught to ALL people.  Canning seems to have this weird reputation of being something that only "country folk" or farmers do.  One girl said she thought only Amish people still did that kind of thing. In other words, canning is for the not so rich or the very frugal.

But when we really started talking about how you can food at home it was like I was some cool "organic" farmer who had this awesome wealth of garden knowledge.  Even my boss was surprised I knew so much.  Maybe it's because those people only knew me from an office environment.  I really thrive being at home and in the dirt.  I explained everything I could remember and was honest that I hadn't actually canned anything myself since I was 10 or 12 (and I'll be 32 this year).  Still their awe held. It's so much work, I told them.  You don't realize just how MUCH work goes into making a jar of green beans or how many tomatoes it takes to make spaghetti sauce.

  

Really you'll learn to HATE picking beans and snapping them.  You'll hate the weeds and the potato bugs that destroy your crop.  You'll hate the weather, especially the storms that flatten the sweet corn and the droughts that kill the cucumbers. You'll hate how hot the kitchen gets in the middle of July.

BUT, and I almost teared up a bit,

but you learn to respect the weather and the soil you're given.  You learn to live with the weeds and know that some years you just won't have potatoes.  You'll love how colorful all the jars are when they're neatly stacked and put away. And you'll feel resourceful and accomplished when you finally carve that last giant pumpkin.

Finally one of my co-workers asked me why I still wanted to do it, even now when I haven't had the chance or storage room to try it out and when it's such a long, labor intensive process.  

Because, I said, because it feels important.  It's important that we never forget how to do simple, basic, back breaking work. The kind of work that makes you humble and quietly proud.  I don't want to be a "rare" person who knows how to do these things.  I want everyone to know how to do it.  Self-preservation is as important as your heritage. Once you forget, you lose who you really are in the end.

The Urban Garden

It's been a few years since I've had a sizeable garden.  To be honest I haven't had a real garden since I was about 10 years old and that was when we lived outside the city limits and had a store room for all the canning we did.  Not to mention a HUGE chest freezer for all the other veggies that needed frozen.

The funny thing about gardening and my family is that only 2 of us 5 kids actually do it.  My sister Sarah and I however, both live in the 'Burbs so it's hard to get that large canning garden we both really want.  I mean it's hard to beat homemade salsa or pickles. 

If you've been keeping track you might recognize alot of the plants that have sprung up.  Though I'm most proud of my potatoes and peas, I'm very excited to have actually had great results with the garlic and onions (which were SUPER easy to grow) because it was my first year trying them.

The peas have been really trying, though their leaves seem to be browning badly on the bottom and I think it might be due to all the rain. I'd like to plant a bigger crop next year and hopefully get some sweet peas managed.

I have a dream, a dream to one day have a Sweet Pea Teepee in my garden, but it'll probably be at another house in a few years, down a more country road.

Things Are Gettin' Green

The flower beds out front are really putting on a good show this year, which is encouraging because it's taken quite a long time to get things planned out, put in place and started.  It's hard to think of Spring in the Fall and it's even more tiring planting all those bulbs and praying they all make it.  But after 4 years of nurturing our rather crappy and clay filled soil, everything looks really bright and cheerful and above all beautifully cute.

Even the Irises that were separated last year and moved around seem to be coming back very well.  I've had a few rotters that didn't make the wet winter, but Irises are sometimes hard to keep going if you don't get them planted right the first time. And then it's just soft rot and fungus central....

If you think my planting is done, trust me it's not ^_^  I've got Trilliums to put out (in the bed that never grows), a new version of coralbell called Sweet Tea that's just going to be AMAZING once established and some cyclamen too.  Oh and my garlic and onions are sprouting thanks to the unseasonably warm weather.

There's alot to be excited about right now.

The Good Gardener

I love gardening.
I love it more than sewing, baking and photography. It's a sincere passion. I've even thought about starting a blog called the Good Gardener because there are things I just want to write about. Not that there aren't enough books, blogs, passed on knowledge, heirloom seeds and dirt to write about already, but there is something special about each person's garden and their experience.

I garden because it's imperfect, dirty, wet, hot, cold hard labor.
It's easy and it's hard.
You learn constantly, you will never "know it all".
It's a skill that will never learn in an office.
It's a life cycle and a life style every season, every year.
I love it, I get so excited for it.

Today is planting day for the cool weather starters. It's my first year planting potatoes, onion and garlic. I'm hoping for moderate success on all of them and no potato beetles in the summer.



Neighbors kind of laugh at me and think I'm silly for planning out alot of my flower and food crops, but I have to do it because after awhile you forget what bulb you put where or what seed is spouting in the second row behind the corn. Having a notebook of each season also helps me figure out what I hated planting and working with and what thrived.

It's helpful to have a notebook in the winter. I usually don't journal in the summer because, well I'm too busy gardening.

The Lineup

A few of my seeds have already arrived and I'm doing my "OMG I NEED TO PLANT NOW!!" dance. It's like clock work. The first real warm day and people are out in droves to the garden centers hauling away wood chipped mulch by the tons and baskets of pansies. And I'm in the yard pulling up crabgrass and making nesting balls for the birds.

I need to get myself to a lumber yard to find a good batch of cedar for my new garden additions this year. I'm growing out my usual space and extending it sideways so I can add more goodness.
In the yard garden:
- sweet corn
- one heirloom tomato variety
- cherry tomato
- sweet peas
- normal peas
- potatoes
- garlic
- onions
- green beans (bush variety)

On the patio:
- maybe one hot pepper variety
- parsley
- cilantro
- radishes
- carrots

I don't typically start any of my seeds indoors, mostly because I don't have much room to do it and I don't think it's necessary as our growing season is perfectly adequate to plant directly into the soil. The only thing holding me back right now is getting the new raised beds prepped in time. I just discovered that my potato and onion sets shipped on Friday (EEK!)

FACT: most local towns and cities that collect leaves in the fall also mulch them for organic compost/mulching materials AND will often delivery it to you for free if you can't pick it up. Leaf compost/ mulch works even better than traditional wood mulch and can be tilled or raked into your soil for added nutrients at the end of the growing season. Trust me it doesn't look tacky, if it did I wouldn't use it. I like my gardens and flower beds to look neat and tidy too.

I Kind of Want an Indoor Plant

Specifically a succulent. I don't know why I've suddenly got this itch to have one, but I want one. I think I'd keep it in my sewing room on the window sill (which is currently being used as a spare shelf and should be cleaned off....note to self). I can't keep it in the kitchen though I'd really like to. Guinness has taken a liking to jumping up on the counters and watching the birds at the suet feeder that's just outside our kitchen window.
I'm afraid he'd "nom" on it and I'm sure succulents are not the best thing for cats to eat.

I really like the succulents that are in vintage pots.
There's several over at monkeysalwayslook. She has several that I want includingitty bitty ones. I've also been eyeballing the African Violets at our local hardware store, but I'd much rather have an orchid.

I kind of also want a cactus. You know if I move my crafting studio into the basement (as is the plan in the future) I will have to find another place for these plants to sit and be happy. I'm sure a cat would not want to eat a cactus and maybe by that time Guinness will have stopped jumping up on the counters anyways.