Last night after putting up these 12 pints of rhubarb-ginger-orange preserves (9 pounds rhubarb, 6 pounds sugar, zest and juice of 4 oranges, one thumb of ginger chopped very fine) I settled in on the couch and flipped open my laptop and found this slightly annoying article over on Salon: Can It. The tag line reads: “I leapt on the new pickling and preserving. Is it a money saver in a busted economy, or a luxury craft?” I was annoyed because the author makes the somewhat specious argument that because she made very expensive jam with fruit from the greenmarket,…
-
-
So my beloved stepmother Susan had a patch of boulevard below her house in Seattle that she didn’t know what to do with — she hated mowing it and it was boring. She also wanted a veggie garden but didn’t have enough sunshine anywhere in her yard. La voila! She and her dad built these swanky raised beds in the boulevard, and her mother (gardener extraordinaire) helped with the planting . The cool part is that she’s met a lot of her neighbors. People stop by and comment. She discovered that the guy across the street hunts ducks, and traded…
-
For all of you in the Livingston area — I have tomato starts for sale. They were started from seed on March 15, and although you could put them in this weekend (the traditional start time) I’d suggest using Wall o’Water’s if you do. We’re more than likely to get another snowstorm before it’s over, and I’ve had great luck with the Wall o’Waters in the past. Seedlings are $5 per plant, and all of them are cold-hardy varieties. They’ve been in the cold frame for about 3 weeks, so they’re hardened off and although they’re small right now, a…
-
The chickens spent the first night in their coop last night — we still need to build the fence, but the Carpenter came by and put the door on, and built a ramp for them — I think we’re putting the fence in tonight — they are very funny — they like exploring around, but they’re chickens, they’re not very brave. So this morning they poked their heads out of the coop, and negotiating the step to the ramp seemed very daring for most of them — the rooster of course was the first one out, checking out the scene…
-
I took Easter Monday off from work, which was lovely for many reasons, among them that I got the early crops planted. I put in peas (Garden Knight and Telephone from Seeds of Italy), fava beans, arugula, broccoli rabe, a Japanese mustard green that I don’t have the packet in front of me and can’t remember the name, beets (chiogga and early wonder) and chard. And then it snowed all week. Nice wet spring snow, which was good for all those little seeds, but which did leave one wondering if winter is ever going to end. Despite the snow, the…
-
This was my other weekend project — cleaning out the garden beds and turning over the soil. I used straw mulch last year, which was a great success, but it was a seedy batch, and I wound up with a sturdy winter cover crop of wheat. I experimented a couple of months ago with just turning it over. But like the grass that I also have troubles with, it kept coming back. So this weekend I went through each bed, digging out the wheat, and the carcasses of dead vegetables, and turned over the soil, breaking up lumps along the…
-
This is Raymond, staring at the shed door, because on the far side of that door are four baby chicks in a cardboard box tucked into a dog crate all kept warm by an infrared light. There were six chicks, but I erred and thought they were too hot under the light, and so two of them caught a chill and gave up their tiny little ghosts. They’re resting peacefully in the compost pile. Here’s the little peepers. Saturday morning I called Murdochs, our local ranch store to see if the chicks had come in (they’ve had a shortage this…
-
This weekend I started seeds — tomatoes and leeks right now. I’ve blogged before about my seed starting setup, and nothing’s changed since last spring, so I’ll simply send you to this older post if you want to know the mechanics of how I get things rolling every year. This year I’m going to give leeks a shot. I love leeks, and they’re so expensive in the store. I tried them once by direct sowing and they didn’t take, so I thought I’d give it one more shot. For the leeks, I simply filled one tray with seed starting mix,…
-
It’s raining today — a nice soft spring rain, so I took the poor scraggly herbs from the Winter Herb Garden and put them outside the back door. The rosemary seemed particularly crunchy, but it did it’s job — it didn’t die. The thyme has been remarkably successful — the last few weeks it’s been sending out delicious little soft green shoots. I also got my act together last weekend and organized my seeds. As you can see — my “system” is nothing fancy. A couple of cheap bins from Pamida and a paper bag — but by the end…
-
Here’s the winter herb garden on the mudroom porch. As you can see, the shiso and the basil bit the dust. It was just too cold out there. The funny thing is that for a long time all of them were just sort of dormant. The mint did nothing for months — I did have a little aphid infestation on the mint when I first brought it in last fall, but even after I killed them off, the mint just sat there with these little tiny nascent leaves that never did anything. Then about three weeks ago, it came back…