Last weekend I started the tomatoes and peppers, and thanks to my fancy new iPhone, I managed to document it on a step by step basis for once. I’m not particularly scientific about my garden, and I don’t really keep notes from year to year (well, aside from this blog, that is), but I generally start tomato and pepper seeds on a Saturday around March 15. This year I planted four varieties I’ve grown before and for which I’d saved seed: Jaune Flammé, Principe Borghese, Galina, and Prairie Fire; and four new tomatoes, all from Baker Creek Heirlooms: Stupice, Koralik, Cherokee Purple,…
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New chickens! I was going to order from my new local feed store, but they didn’t realize they’d have to order really early, especially these days, and they called last week to say the hatchery had run out until May. So I had to drive over the hill to Bozeman and take my chances. I called to see when their chickens were coming in, and although they told me Monday, they actually came in yesterday, which means that once again, I won’t be raising Arucanas. They were sold out by the time I got there. So, the luck of the…
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Look what came in today’s mail — new seeds! This order is from Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds (I also have some herbs coming from my beloved Seeds of Italy). Of course, its snowing again today, but I did eat the first overwintered scallions out of the hoop house for breakfast, and the spinach, komatsuna, arugula and bok choi are sprouting out there so in a couple of weeks, greens for breakfast. Sigh. Can’t wait. In the meantime, I ordered a few new things — a couple of new tomatoes: Cherokee Purple, Stupice, Koralik, and Reisentraube — all short season, all…
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httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cKOvqXoWB7s I’ve been watching the Wisconsin protests pretty obsessively. I about half grew up in Wisconsin, between staying at my aunt’s house in Cambridge, living in Madison in middle school, and going to college at Beloit and I’ve been deeply encouraged by the good people of Wisconsin, rising up when it became clear that the corporate overlords just want to take everything. I’m working on a post on the other blog about this pernicious idea that people who work with their hands are not as intelligent as people who write or otherwise work in the knowledge industries (academia, writing, television,…
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Here’s the overwintered hoop house. The spring greens I planted a month ago are only now starting to sprout — there are teeny tiny seedlings of spinach, bok choi, and arugula in there among the overwintered scallions. I planted seeds a month ago, but I hadn’t expected another bout of subzero weather. So today I pulled the plastic off, watered, planted a row of Gai Lan (where I pulled out the kale that finally gave up the ghost) and replaced the plastic. The key to hoop houses, I’ve discovered, is 2-inch binder clips — they’ve held the plastic during even…
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A couple of weeks ago I took a stab at the Classic Rye Bread recipe that Michael Ruhlman ran on his site. My beloved likes rye bread, and had asked for a sandwich bread. The recipe was really simple, so I took a shot at it (minus the caraway seeds because neither of us really likes them). The first loaf I made was sort of heavy, and the crumb lacked elasticity. It wasn’t bad, it just wasn’t great. So this time, I did a mashup between the original recipe and the no-knead sourdough that I do weekly. I added a…