We’ve had about ten days of snow and temperatures, sometime daytime as well as nightime, in the single digits. We’ve had over two feet of new snow, which is good, because it insulated my one experimental hoop house where I planted cold-hardy greens. There’s one row each of chard, laccinato kale, bok choi, and arugula, plus I started komatsuna seedlings in mid-October (they’re tiny). I also transplanted a row of scallions between each row of greens, since they’re the one thing I buy most often during the winter. Here’s what the hoop house looked like before I dug up the…
-
-
Winter has arrived with a bang here in southern Montana. That’s my patio furniture which is suddenly buried. The storm came in yesterday, but the real snow seems to have fallen overnight. I shoveled yesterday, and it was a only a couple of inches of powdery fluff; this morning, nearly a foot, and a little heavier (but I think that’s because the ground was still warm). I don’t dare peek in the hoop house, because it’s supposed to go down below zero tonight, and I’m hoping the snow will insulate. We’ll see if anything survives. It’s slated to run a…
-
Funny, this summer, while the garden was in progress, I found myself uninspired, and not actually eating that much from it. Perhaps its because the season was so strange — once my early success with spring greens under hoops burned out (because it got hot, and the plants burned up), I wound up in this long odd period when there wasn’t much out there a person could eat right now, most of it was things like carrots and beets and tomatoes and peppers and beans that took a long long time this summer to ripen. However, I did put in…
-
I’ve been just the tiniest bit obsessed with peppers this year. I grew a bunch of different varieties — Hungarian Wax, Cayenne, Aci Sivri (a Turkish pepper), hot Italian cherry peppers, Spanish pequillo — and for once, I got a decent crop. I also bought a few bags of hot peppers from the local farmer’s market (as well as several bags of roasted New Mexico green peppers from another vendor). I made salsa out of the roasted green peppers, and I pickled just about everything else. For the pickled peppers I used Michael Symon’s Pickled Pepper recipe (via Michael Ruhlman).…
-
Fall must be upon us since I’m back to making no-knead bread. I bake once or twice a week during the winter — seems goofy to spend four bucks on a loaf of bread when I can make it myself, but in the summer I can’t bear to heat up the house any more than I need to. So this new loaf of bread felt like the beginning of cooler weather and more cooking. My sourdough starter is getting it’s mojo back, and this loaf came out so pretty that even though I’ve posted a zillion no-knead bread pictures on…
-
It’s all about season extension up here in Montana, and these cold frames are one of my primary means of making the most of what I’ve got. I build them a little more than five years ago (Nina was pregnant with the twins, who are five now) and they work really well for a couple of reasons. One is that they’re just outside the back door. This early in the season, I put flats out during the day, but bring them in at night. It’s just too cold, and I don’t want to risk losing the seedlings and having to…
-
This is what I found when I opened the hoop house to water this morning — real greens! Greens I can eat! I am beyond thrilled with how well these have worked out this year. The binder clips have kept the plastic from blowing off, even in the worst winds Livingston has to offer (winds that cause them to close the interstate and run all the semi-trailers through town). The plastic has kept it warm in there through a couple of weeks of freezing nights. And I’m sure the fact that we’ve had three or four 70-degree days hasn’t hurt.…
-
So far, the hoop house is working really well. I’ve got seedlings coming up of broccoli rabe, komatsuna, spinach, and endive. The other hoop house also has sprouts, so far, it’s the Chinese cabbage (2 kinds) that are sprouting the best. I also have some overwintered leeks that are starting to green up again, as well as parsley, chives, chervil, garlic chives and the indomitable lovage coming back up in the herb bed. And this morning, the first of the daffodils bloomed, on the back side of the house, where it’s warmest. So I guess spring is on its way…
-
The tomato and pepper seeds I planted last week are starting to sprout down there under the lights, and the hoop houses are really working too — I’ve got spinach, Komatsuna, broccoli rabe, pak choi, arugula, and endive all coming up. I also have a lot of weeds. I think my not-entirely-composted chicken poop/straw is going to be a tiny bit problematic, but at this point, when I”m having to thin seedlings anyhow, it’s not that much more work to whack out the weed seedlings. Mostly though I’m just thrilled and relieved that spring is coming. The sun has come…
-
Kristi mentioned in the comments that she’s had bad luck starting seeds, and since it’s that time of year again, I thought I’d share my seed starting process. Because I’ve got a basement, I have plenty of space to start my own seeds. My seed starting bench is an old steel garage shelf, above which I strung a cheap florescent fixture with grow lights. This one has enough space for four trays, which is usually about as much as I want to start at one time. Since the light is on an adjustable chain, I can hang it up high…