Previous Weeks:

(Michael and Ivy relaxing on the deck during lunch this weekend.)

This weekend was a busy one. The weather was beautiful, really really beautiful. No housework was done but that was the intention because it was all about the yard. Last week our landlord put in a fence, which we are truly thankful for. Now we can actually get stuff done without chasing down Damian ever 30 seconds.

Saturday we hit the Home Depot and Northwest Seed & Pet for gardening supplies. Lumber, PVC, and nylon trellis for the raised beds, a new pot for our Yule tree, as well as some organic fertilizer, and pea and bean inoculant. After which Michael (and Damian!) disassemble my old raised beds and salvaged some of the parts (brackets and screws.) I mostly took pictures and chatted with the neighbor. Hey, if I hadn’t spoken with the neighbor, I would not have learned he had a tiller and he would not have offered to till where our new raised beds were going!

On Sunday we were up nice and early and out in the yard. We raked and weeded, our neighbor came over and tilled, I baked 4 dozen gingersnaps (a dozen of which went to the neighbor.) Damian played in the freshly turned dirt, filling his wagon with weeds, sticks and grass (no complaints there.) Though I often hear that yearly tilling is damaging, I don’t think doing it once to deepen the soil under the beds is a bad idea (it also made getting all the weeds out all kinds of easy…) We are going to sow new grass around the beds.

I also took some time to ponder a side project. Michael snapped this photo of me while I was brainstorming. I want to turn these two dead stumps into a bench. I want to stain and finish that 2×10 I’m holding for the seat and fill the area behind it with flowers. I am thinking maybe a tepee of morning glories and moonflowers. Maybe some zinnias too? I want to more of less obscure the chain link. Any suggestions? I also need a nice garden quotation. I want to wood burn it on the bench. Open to suggestions on that front too!

Aside from the bench brainstorm, we built a trellis for last Autumn’s raised bed as well as most of a new raised bed before day’s end. We have yet to install the pvc bases in it for the hoops and it’s trellis, as well as Damian’s 4×4 bed. Still, I am supremely happy with what we accomplished. With the completion of this first trellis, I will be able to plant snap peas this week!

I could spend every weekend this way. Well almost, I have one small tweak. A barbecue would have been perfect yesterday, but we were out of burgers… Oh well, there is always next weekend!

(Earthquake damage photos taken by a person Michael works with.)

My husband is the organics and grocery buyer for Charlies Produce, a Northwest regional produce wholesaler. As you might imagine the food in the store comes from all over the world. Though on the West coast most of the food in the grocer comes from the southern California growing region, the recent freezing temperatures in Florida have caused a gap in several crops this year, most notably tomatoes. Since y’all on the East coast have none, you’re buying from the West coast, which in turn is causing shortages and sky high prices. And who says we’re not all connected? (In my mind it is another reason to support local farms.) Though a lot of what Michael buys is local, because that is what people like to buy (in other words, what you choose does make a difference!) disasters all over the world readily effect the produce industry, where speed of delivery is key.

The recent 8.8 earthquake in Chile is another example, and it will effect some food markets in the country. Most immediately, fruit, especially apples, are effected as they were quite literally shaken off the trees. Beyond that there is the trauma to the people who harvest them. It is hard to focus on work when you know your home is a pile of rubble. Longer term though, packing houses and port infrastructure sustained damage, as well as irrigation systems and power systems.

People often talk about the human loss with natural disasters, and while that is the most important, I thought I’d share this industry perspective with you. Personally, I find our food system quite interesting and sometimes scary (food recalls! Remember spinach? And this week with HVP.) It is important to realize how everything is connected.

Recently I read an article about slow family living and it made me pause and think about the things we bring into our home.

Recently I rounded up all the toys and took stock of what we have. Initially I wanted Damian to only have natural toys, but lately we have gotten away from that. Plato said “The most effective kind of education is that a child should play amongst lovely things.” and I found myself thinking, most of these things are far from lovely. Since the great round up, every morning Damian gets to pick out two or three toys from the box for the day. (I have noticed that fewer toys seem to make a more focused happier babe.) It has been an experiment of sorts, I have been wanting to see his favorites. He usually picks the “lovely” things, almost always a set of wooden blocks and then a vehicle (lately his wooden helicopter) and usually a ball too. Seeing him pick his natural toys by choice has reminded me of my pledge. Especially as Ivy is starting to grow into the grabbing teething age. Do I want her grabbing a natural material or a plastic thing to chew? When Damian teethed he much preferred a wooden spoon over a plastic ring.

(Damian’s color “runes”, a handmade gift from Cheyenne that he has been loving lately.)

When Damian is exceptionally good when we are out he has been getting a reward, lately this is a cheap plastic made-in-china thing. I don’t have a problem with the reward system, just the rewards we have been buying. And really, are a dozen crappy toys really cheaper then one well made one? Not really. Yesterday we ordered this, a wooden tool box. Aside from being natural and lovely in my eyes, we think Damian will love it as he is in that whole imitation phase and starting to really grow his imagination too. We intend on splitting up the toolbox it up into many little rewards. Spaced out over time, that only equates to a dollar or two per item. No more expensive and much much more lovely then what we have been buying.

This focus on lovely things has begun to extend into our home too. for example, recently Damian and Ivy’s dresser broke. It was a cheap Walmart buy. We need a new one but want a quality one that will last. Michael has a little equation he uses when deciding on a new things which works well for almost everything. There are three things to consider: time, quantity and quality; now just pick two. (Though we only need one dresser quantity can be seen as cost as well.) We want a quality dresser but don’t want to spend a lot of money (let’s face it, we are a young family and not made of cash.) We will take our time and when we find the right quality second hand dresser we will buy it. It will probably need to be refinished, taking some more time, but once done it will last. It will be another lovely thing in our home.

(Sorting seeds from last year’s Titan Sunflowers with Mommy. His only fee is being allowed to snack on a few.)

Every family is different and our methods might not work for everyone, but life should not be a one size fits all experience. How boring would that be! Even with us, plastic has its place. Damian’s bath and outdoor toys are bpa-free plastic. He has a Tonka fire truck that is not only plastic, but battery operated. He loved making the ladder go around (and around and around and around…) The joy he gets out of it makes it a lovely toy in my eyes. There is a balance to be found in every home. At the moment it is just the cheap plastic we want to purge as we work to a more conscious home environment. One thing at a time least it become overwhelming and we give up.

Pardon the pun but it is all about the baby steps!

Our Tom Thumb Peas are chugging along in the growth category and starting to develop lots of little tendrils. Damian thinks they are awesome. I thought I would get a photo of my blue eyed babe beside them today…

…but instead they got attacked. Nom nom nom!

Previous Weeks:

We planted our Tom Thumb heirloom peas 14 days ago and they are really coming along nicely, so well in fact I have decided that I want to post a picture of them every week from now till they’re finished. If we had some kind of herbal mascot here at Paganites, it might be the pea. They are just so satisfying to watch grow.

Previous Weeks:

I admit, I have a weakness. A weakness for heirloom pole beans. But really aren’t they lovely? Bush beans are just fine but towering pole beans are just way more fun in my book, and growing up instead of out conserves space in the garden too.

Going clockwise we have Purple Poded Pole Beans, which are a snap bean. Think green beans, except purple of course. They blanch to a pale green though (pity.) Damian picked those from my Seed Savers catalog.

Damian also picked the next beans, Good Mother Stallard. Aren’t they lovely? These are a shelling bean that will be growing up our Strawberry Popcorn this summer. I read that they maintain their loving coloring through cooking, so I am looking forward to using them into succotash.

I love the description Chiot’s Run left on my flickr page about the next beans, that the coloring of them reminds her of palomino horses. And people wonder how heirlooms end up with half a dozen common names… Palomino Beans, I almost want to call them that, but Hidasta Shield Beans they are. I ordered these shell beans as much for historical reasons as culinary ones. The Hidasta Indians grew these beauties up corn in the Missouri River Valley of North Dakota. They will be growing among our corn too. A little piece of Native heritage in my garden and eventually my family’s tummy! Apparently they taste kind of like a white bean so I am sure they will be making their appearance in my soups next Winter.

And last put not least we have the non-beans of the lot, Amish Snap Peas, which are going in as soon as the trellis/inoculant situation is resolved. And trellises are important as this variety grows six feet tall and are suppose to be enormously productive. I like heirlooms that have been developed by the Amish, they are very reliable.

My beans won’t go in for a few months, not until the last frost has past, but that’s why I have the peas isn’t it? Still, I can’t wait to see those pole beans climbing their supports, be it trellises or corn. How about you, what are you waiting to see sprout in your garden?

We have encountered some kinks this gardening season. Northwest Seed & Pet (my gardening store) does not have pea and bean inoculant in yet. More so though, we were intending on using part of our tax return to built a second raised bed, tomato cages and a couple trellises but instead we are waiting on Ivy’s January emergency room visit bills to work their way through our insurance. It may chew up the rest of our return. Amazing how expensive me sitting around for hours holding a gauze pad on my daughter costs. Before anyone gets any ideas, I’m not angry at Ivy. It is not her fault she has a hemangioma. I might be a little more then annoyed at “health care” (what an oxymoron) in the USA but there’s nothing I can do about that. Really anyone who thinks it is even remotely function in this country needs a serious reality check.

If anything, the second raised bed will have to wait till next year and I’ll downsize the garden plan to fit in the one bed. The trellis is the current priority since my snap peas are waiting but if all else fails I have some long branches that I can build a tepee with (which will leave less space in that one bed, so I’m trying to be patient.) We will see how things go.

It’s not all bad though, we can rise to the challenge. In much brighter news, I started some lettuce, spinach and kale indoors last week as well as a pot of dwarf peas (Tom Thumb.) With the exception of the peas, the rest will be planted out under hoops once they are large enough. I’m excited about the heirloom dwarf peas, they are suppose to do really well in containers, so I can’t wait to see how they do.

I have my seedlings (and a couple other houseplants) on the desk in the dinning room under a shop lamp that was in the basement when we moved in (frugal score!) I should replace the lights with full spectrum ones, but I am hoping they will do fine with what I have in combination with the south facing windows in that room. If not I have a small full spectrum light (that I use for SAD) that I can install over there.

So far the peas, lettuce and kale have sprouted, still waiting on the spinach. I’m the first to admit I am impatient, I want to see those beautiful little sprouts! Little green dots of pure happiness for me.

Have you started anything for your garden yet?

I am having my pap this afternoon, as well as an IUD implanted. The first not being overly traumatic, the second, I’ve never had one before so I am a little nervous about having a copper tv antennae stuck in me for birth control (pardon the mental imagine…) More then anything though this will be my first time being away from Ivy and honestly, I have a bit of separation anxiety. I wasn’t away from Damian until he was almost a year old. I have a bottle of pumped breast milk in the fridge though and Andrea is coming over to hang out with Michael, Damian and Ivy while I’m gone. I’m sure everyone will be fine, but I still wish it was tomorrow already.

But to keep my mind off all that, let’s talk about my Spring garden plan! If you click the image you can see the little details, no key since I know what all the little images mean, but to give you an quick overview.

• Peas, Amish Snap. Lots of them, maybe too many, but Michael swears that there is no such thing. Besides, they freeze beautifully. They will be growing on the two trellises at the ends of the 4×8s and growing on a teepee in Damian’s bed (the 4×4 bed.) I need to buy soil inoculant still though, because there is nothing like boosting production of an already prolific plant!
• Radishes, Early Scarlet Globe. All around Damian’s peas. I am going to plant them in one week intervals so I don’t end up with 200 radishes at once. I can haz overkill? This variety matures in 30 days, so the beds will be empty by the time it comes to plant corn, beans and squash in it.
• Carrots, Saint Valery. Two rows, each separated by two weeks. They store and freeze well, but I still prefer them fresh.
• Turnips, Purple Top White. I tried these last year and had less then stellar germination but as I have leftover seeds I’m going to retry a few square feet of them. I adore turnips.
• Spinach, Boomsdale. Really tasty, and there is no such thing as too much spinach in my book. Love it!
• Lettuce, Forellenschuss. This is said to be a hardy romaine that also does well in summer heat. We will see. More staggered planting here, a square foot or two a week. I’m starting these indoors, in the next week or two hopefully. I still need to set up a light and maybe buy a seed starting tray, the kind with the clear domed lid.
• Kale, Ragged Jack. Just two plants. I like kale, but not that much. Lots of yummy nutrients though and excellent fried with bacon (which might negate some of that nutritional value but I maintain bacon is healthy for the soul.) I’m starting these indoors as well.

And that is the Spring garden. As you can see, it is all pretty much condensed into one bed, mostly because the 4×4 and second 4×8 haven’t been built yet. One step at a time. Next up, the Summer garden plan

(A sunflowers from last summer’s garden.)

I ordered my seeds from Seed Savers Exchange today. The order can be split into two categories, child and adult. I don’t think you are ever too young to play in the dirt! I’ve decided to build a 4×4 foot bed for Damian since he has shown an interest in my putterings around the yard. I let him go through my seed catalog and pick several favorites.

• Good Mother Stallard Beans
• Pennsylvania Dutch Crookneck Squash
• Strawberry Popcorn

He also loved the sunflowers but I already have seeds for those. I think his choices will work our well in a single bed as a Three Sisters garden, which is a Native American style of planting. Corn for the pole beans to grow up and squash as a ground cover to conserve moisture. In the Autumn the beans are cut off at the base to let the nitrogen in their roots release into the soil.

As for the other “adult” raised beds, I ordered:

• Amish Snap Peas
• Beam’s Yellow Pear Tomatoes
• Black Krim Tomatoes
• St. Valery Carrots
• Double Yield Cucumbers
• Early Scarlet Globe Radishes
• Italian Heirloom Tomatoes
• Purple Pod Pole Bean
• Hidatsa Shield Beans

I also ordered Tom Thumb Peas but I will be growing those in containers. Damian picked the purple pod pole beans too, but I just wanted some variety of snap bean so I didn’t mind. I actually think the purple pods will be easy to find and pick among the green leaves. Both the radishes and carrots are reorders as I am doing successive sowings with them and will run out of my current stock part way through the season. I want to try to overwinter some carrots to save the seeds from too (they are a biannual.) This is also my second year growing Black Krim tomatoes. Laurie gave me a transplant last year and I really love the variety. They don’t produce very heavily but they taste amazing. This will be my first time starting tomatoes from seed.

I have seeds leftover from last year (mostly lettuces, bitter greens and more pole beans) but I am keeping my crop list short again this year. I want another year to get use to growing in this climate since I am focusing on having crops from early Spring through late Autumn. I also need to save some gardening budget for building those extra raised beds, trellises and sturdy tomato cages (heirlooms need them,) not to mention good soil (which the corn will definitely need)

Have you ordered any seeds yet?

This year my main gardening focus is on successive sowing. I would like to have Spring, Summer and Autumn crops. This of course entails a lot of research on my part and what is becoming a small tidal wave of lists and chart.

While there are so many things that I would love to grow, I am trying to keep my plant selection realistic this year. Snap peas, radishes, lettuce, spinach and maybe kale in the Spring. Tomatoes, cucumbers, peppers, pole beans, squash and maybe watermelon in the Summer. More kale, lettuce, spinach and radishes in the Autumn. I want to try doing successive sowings of carrots from Spring to Autumn and of course sunflowers along the fence again. I have a least one more raised beds to build before half that stuff can go in though. I also have a thought of building a little 4×4 bed for Damian. If it doesn’t do well it won’t be the end of the world, but I think there are some things he would enjoy watching grow. Strawberry popcorn, pole beans, pumpkins… A three sisters garden maybe?

I would love to spend a little time developing the rest of the yard outside the raised beds this year as well. Once the garden is in that will be one of my focuses. While I have no great love of grass it does have it’s uses, a place for my children to roll around. Our grass is scraggly and patchy, I want to try to fix that. There are also several areas that beg for some color, some herbs, some flowers. First our fence must be repaired though (which the landlord will be doing come Spring.) I don’t want any new beds amaged by the repair work!

For now though I plan, and since you all make such a great sounding board I think I will start sharing more of my plans, both long and short term here. But Ivy just woke up so I’ll wrap this up. Everything runs on a baby schedule here.

What are you planning on growing this year?

The temperature rose all the way to 50°F yesterday! In January! In Spokane! And we have had above 40°F weather for well over a week now and forecast for the foreseeable future. My parsley has grown back! My grass is almost to a cutting length in some places! Trees are budding that should not be budding yet! Apparently it has to do with his El Nino year and we should have a mild Winter.

Now my fellow gardeners, if you were faced with this kind of weather in January what would you do? Toss some cold weather crops in your (completely thawed!) raised beds just to see what happens? After all my row cover cloth is rated down to 24°F… Maybe some radishes, carrots or turnips? Or maybe some cold hardy lettuce, spinach or kale? I’m temped, sorely tempted.

If anything this weather has motivated me to pull out my garden folder and begin planning and making up some seed mats. I think I will put a few seeds in the ground too. If they fail, so be it. If not, radishes in February!

Yesterday the sun was out for the first time in a few days and the deck had dried enough for me to sweep up all the elm leaves. I swear that tree has dropped 80% of it’s leaves in just the days. Damian thinks falling leaves are awesome, once I had swept them all into a corner Damian planted himself right in the middle of the pile with his kettle and stuffing them in it and throwing them in the air. Elm leaf tea anyone?

With our early cold shock this year and then our neighbor’s cat’s apparent addiction to carrots and kale greens, the Winter garden has not faired well. I have decided to retired it for the season and hope to have better luck with the help of chicken wire next year. I mulched it with leaves from the deck since I figured the deck leaves are most likely to be weed free, because let’s face it, I don’t like weeding!

I am glad that I swept the leaves up yesterday, today we are having our first snow of the season. It is not sticking but our deck is quite slippery when covered with soppy leaves. This afternoon I have another appointment with my midwife and then we are going to carve our pumpkin for Halloween. In other words, stay tuned for photos of Damian playing with squishy pumpkin guts!

I’m curious, are you celebrating Halloween? What are you (or your children) dressing up as?

We were blessed with a rain-free morning today which we used to play catch up with yard work. Our Elm is still clinging very tightly to it’s leaves so we focused on general garbage and toy pickup, cleaning out the raised beds and cutting back the bushes in what has become the largely ignored side yard. Well, Michael did the cutting back, I was glad to watch, Whatever those bushes in that yard are, I do not like them. They aren’t very pretty at all and grow incredibly fast. Our landlord cut them all down to the ground before we moved in and they keep growing back from the stumps. Next year I think I am going to dig them all out.

We pulled out, and in one case had to sawed down, my Titan Sunflowers too. The biggest head has dried out quite well. I do not know if the other two will dry properly but I’ll give them a shot, I think they are pretty either way. I’ll put them on the deck after the snow falls for the birds I think.

Damian was intrigued by the biggest sunflower seed head, especially since he could pop out some of the seeds (and promptly attempted to eat them, husks and all.) I think it is natural for children to love sunflowers because they are so much bigger then they are, same goes with pumpkins. Damian pulled the last radishes with me too (and promptly ate those too) anything red is fair game for his grubby paws I think.

How is it that children manage to wedge themselves in the most bug infested grubby places in the blink of an eye? This window well looks so benign but he was sitting on a nest of earwigs. Gross gross gross! (I can deal with pretty much any insect but I do not like earwigs. I think Damian knows that and relishes that knowledge.)

We still need to dismantle this past Spring’s haphazardly built raised beds and trellises but I want to build the next one first so that I have a place to move all the dirt. I think we are going to buy the supplies for that this afternoon while we are out finishing the shopping in preparation for Ivy’s arrival. Her due date is coming up so fast! If we could buy it all at the same place we would have a shopping cart that might make a cashier wonder, fir 2×10s, decking screws, a mop, a humidifier, Macadamia nuts, a heating pad, sanitary napkins, a baby monitor, ricotta cheese, essential oils, and a breast pump. Maybe I am just easily amused though…

Rain is in the forecast for the rest of this week, but I can’t complain – at least it is not snow! Last week we had some record lows. We normally do not drop into the teens until January here and all the local grower were scrambling to get their harvests in, especially the apples. The temperatures put my new row cover to the test as it is only rated down to 24°F and we had a few nights that got down to 19°F, it seemed to hold it’s own though. Carrots, radishes and one of my kale seem to have survived, something ate my other kale though. We will see how stuff grows from here on out as this year’s Winter bed went in late and is admittedly a bit of an experiment as I’ve never had one before.

Damian demands time outside ever day and in spite of the little cough he is developing, today was no different. After bundling him up and tucking him into his raincoat, out we went. I think he was vastly impressed by the amount of slimy things he was able to locate around the yard. If it doesn’t rain through this weekend I want to finish tidying up the yard. I feel like the weather has been a little crazy this year, no Spring to speak of, sweltering and bone dry Summer, record breaking early cold and hard frosts. If anything this rain is as close to normal as we have gotten.

Halloween is coming up fast, just 15 days away. I would like to finish Damian’s costume this weekend. Once the 31st passes, there will be just a month until my due date and Ivy could come at 38 weeks like Damian too, so maybe less. Two weeks before that my friend is having a Blessingway for me, I am very much looking forward to that! Before then though we want to finish getting everything we need for the birth ready, as well as pack the emergency bag should I need to go to the hospital – back up plans are always a good thing.

Some of the plumcots (or pluot) butter that I canned today. It is amazing that 18lbs of plumcots turn into only 3 pints of fruit butter. Of all my preserves, this is my favorite, not only because of it’s tangy sweet flavor and gorgeous color, but also because of it’s simplicity; it only has two ingredients, plumcots and sugar.

The days and nights are getting both shorter and colder. I think that these next few days will be the last safe ones for my last tomatoes outside, then I will bring the last fruits to finish ripening and ripe out the plants. After that all this Spring’s raised beds will be empty and I can dismantle them (as I am moving and replacing them with better ones next year.) I am hoping we will have enough money to build one more raised bed this month so that I can have a place to move the dirt from those beds.

Even with an 8 square foot dehydrator, I am still working on processing all the apples from this year’s Harvest Festival. Granted more then a few have been used in pie and more still set aside for more baking but most of our haul is being peeled, sliced and dried. We love snacking on dried apples, I even put pieces of them in my winter stews to add that little edge of sweetness, they are great chopped up in curried rice too. One of these years I am going to buy an apple peeler corer slicer (the thing that is clamped to the table in the picture) I always end up borrowing my mother-in-law’s. Luckily she never seems to mind.

I am also still working on the last of the 36lbs of pluots Michael brought home. Other then an experimental tray of them in my dehydrator (I love dried apricots and plums so why not an apricot-plum hybrid?) the rest are in my crockpot, which is covered with a stirfry screen. This is my preferred way to make fruit butter, as it removes the need for constant stirring. The screen prevents splattering and still allows the pluots’ juices to reduce. Once the fruit butter is the right consistency (which takes about a day( I will run it through the blender, bring it to a boil on the stove, add some sugar and can it. Pluot butter is our preferred topping for pork roast and chicken. Sometimes a reserve a bit and add applesauce to turn it into a fantastic sweet and tangy fruit leather.

It makes me a little sad when the main gardening season draws to a close, but having a pantry full of dried, canned and in some cases fresh bounty to savor in the heart of Winter makes it all a little better. It also motivates me to plan next years garden to ensure another beautiful harvest, next year I know for sure I want to plant more squash, which is quickly becoming one of my favorite Winter foods.

I made English muffins for the first time the other day, they were so easy. You don’t even need to turn on the oven. Granted an electric griddle might have been easier then heating up all my cast iron, but we use what you have don’t we? They are delicious, this morning I am using a couple for Eggs Benedict. I would like to try to make English muffins with sourdough starter at some point. I love sourdough.

I tried a recipe for simple white loaves the same day. It slices fantastically well for sandwiches but I would like to incorporate whole wheat into it, it is very white. I love having a counter full of fresh bread, almost as much as I like our home smelling like it, which I adore almost as much as watching Damian beg for the first warm slice. Nice to know I am not the only bread-lover around.

What is your favorite kind of bread?

I harvested over 2lbs of stupice and cherry roma tomatoes from my garden this morning as well as the last bit of basil. I still have 8oz of stupice from the other day too. I am going to have to graduate from simply throwing them in our salads. I think I am going to try this Tomato Onion Tart for dinner. Doesn’t it look amazing? I’ll let you know how it goes.

We planted lots of sugar pie pumpkins this Spring but one of the vines ended up under the Elm tree. It made just one itty bitty pumpkin. Mommy gave it to me since she said it is a bit too small to make a pie out of, I love it!

Maybe a pumpkin pie cupcake just for me Mommy?

We always know when summer is coming to an end in our area. The warm weather goes to battle with the increasing cold fronts and one day can be 90°F and the next barely pass 60°F. Last night dropped to 42°F and some of the outlaying areas even had freezing fog. On Friday I ordered row cover fabric to cover my Winter bed and protect my tomatoes from the cooler evenings. The variety I purchased is called GardenQuilt and should protect down to 24°F, a killing frost that hopefully is still a couple months away. Yesterday I also took some time to prune my tomatoes to encourage their heavy sets of fruit to start ripening. One can only eat so many green tomato dishes.

Even though the gardener in me is sad to see the first frost nearing (though I am looking forward to the Winter garden of root vegetables and hardy greens) I very much love Autumn. Bright orange pumpkins, the apple festival in Greenbluff, the fair, falling leaves, puddles to show Damian how to jump in and, of course, rainbows. We had a beautiful double rainbow bless our skies between rain showers on Saturday afternoon. The rainbows made that nights windy carnage a little less painful. The high winds of the next front blowing in did a little number on one of my Titan sunflowers.

Another Autumn perk is being able to make hot food in my kitchen without roasting in my home. This Sunday we had some of our friends over for dinner. With that day’s high of 63°F I went all out and made two baguettes, pound cake and my potato soup (which always seems to be a hit.) Andrea and Peter brought over some beautiful yellow and red corn from their garden and tiny little watermelons. I think Damian has a new fruit love.

Isn’t the corn beautiful?

This coming weekend we are having our what is becoming an annual invade-the-closed-campground trip to Skookum Lake. There are few things more beautiful then watching the mist rising off the lake at dawn while sipping mimosas (made with sparkling cider for me this year) with your closest friends. Or at least with your closest friends who don’t mind hiking it to a closed campground so that you have it all to yourself and the potential for slightly chilly nights (and maybe another, dare I say it? Chupacabra sighting.)

Sun or rain, wind or calm, life is truly beautiful when shared with those you love.

Michael took this photo of me before we went to the Millwood Farmers Market yesterday. I’m 27 weeks along for the curious. 90 days to go! I am standing under one of my Titan sunflowers growing in one of my raised beds. I don’t know if Damian or I love it more.

I forgot to take a photo of our market haul this week and we have already eaten some of it, whoops! But this week we bought:

• Apples, Pears, Watermelon and Sweet Peppers from Pacific Produce
• Romaine from C&S Hydrohuts
• Chunky Southwest Salsa from Granny D’s
• Sun-Dried Tomato Bread from Arabesque Farms & Bakery

We normally buy Small Planet Tofu too but he was not there this week, so we used the money on bread instead. It is SO GOOD. If you get a chance to go to the Millwood Farmers Market, definitely give them a try. One thing I love about the market is that I can barter the price on a lot of things, I only had $5 left and she gave me a deal on the bread because of it. Too bad you can’t barter at the grocery store!

My Grandma Mason recently sent me a couple Countryside magazines from when she was focused on homesteading. I love them, enough so that I am considering subscribing, as the magazine is still around. Even though the information in these two is older then me, I still find it relevant and am amazed by how what is old is new again. (I suppose people say vintage instead of old now don’t they?) For example I recently I read an article about how there are high levels of certain man-made toxics in some women’s breastmilk, showing how toxic we have made our own environment. One of the magazines also had a little article about that, from more then 30 years ago!

Everything that is old is new again… except the prices! A corn kernel cutter for 65¢, seriously? Granted, wages were less back then but I noticed that the price of homesteading books hasn’t changed much, it still ranges between $8 and $20. I also noticed that most of the ads in the magazine do not have phone numbers listed and instead use P.O. Boxes and small order forms. Naturally there are no urls or email addresses! The only color photos are on front and back cover. Most of the images inside, especially in the ads, are hand drawn. I think that is neater then photos.

My grandma teased me in her letter that she was initially going to start sending me the magazines starting them from 1986 (when I was born) but realized that they were all older then me. These two are from October 1977 and May 1978. So far I am still reading the October 1977 issue which is all about storing and preserving your harvest, particularly root cellaring, and explains how to convert a portion of your basement into one. Love the headlines on the May issue’s cover “How to outwit a cow”. Hehe! Maybe cows are smarter then I give them credit for…

Anyhow just wanted to share a little bit of my vintage magazines with you. (On a side note I love that my grandma always puts Mrs before my name on envelopes and I love that she includes handwritten letters. It is so nice receiving something someone took the time to sit down and write nowadays.)

Oh! And those are some tomatoes I picked from my garden this morning in the photo. Clockwise from the top, a Black Krim, two Amish Paste and a few Cherry Romas and Stupice.

Ground cherries are a ½ to ¾ inch fruit encased in a papery husk, kind of like a tomatillo. They are ripe when the husk dries and falls from the plant, inside of which is the fruit ranging from a pale green to deep golden color. While ground cherries are in the nightshade family, they are not as susceptible to diseases found in other nightshades (tomatoes, potatoes, eggplants, etc.) They also grow well in poor soils and in containers.

I am growing two varieties of ground cherry this year, Aunt Molly’s Ground Cherry, a Polish heirloom and a mystery variety a friend gave me. They are both in the unamended brick bed (you can see the Aunt Molly’s in the corner here.) I started harvesting that one this week and I have to say it is… interesting.

The fruit smells a bit like a pineapple and has kind of a refreshingly acidic flavor. Apparently they store for 3-4 weeks in the husk so may try collect enough to make a small tart which apparently enhances their flavor. I think that this is one of those fruits that you either like or you don’t and I’m honestly not overwhelmingly impressed with them. They aren’t awful by any stretch of the imagination, they just taste too… clean? for me. They look gorgeous though and I might stick them in the dehydrator to dry up the fruit and use them for decorating.

This Saturday Michael and I finished building the first of six new raised beds. (Click it for a larger image.) I am so proud of our hard work.

Materials:

• 3 2×10s (one cut in half)
• 10′ of 3/4″ pvc (didn’t need this much but it is what they sell)
• 4 10′ lengths of 1/2″ pvc
• 2 1/2″ decking screws
• 1″ decking screws
• Soil (garden soil, compost and manure)

Simple enough right? Well double digging the ground before placing the bed was a pain (literally!) but will be worth it long term. I could really use a power drill to predrill the holes. I have a dremel but the bit I was able to get was not quite long enough to go all the way through the 2×10s. So I had to drill from both sides… A little too much measuring for me. We chose douglas fir for our 2×8s, which while not as rot resistant cedar is a nice alternative for the budget conscious, especially if you will be using row covers as they protect the beds somewhat from the elements. We didn’t need to saw anything because Home Depot will do simple project cuts for you, so we had one 2×8 chopped in half.

After drilling forever, I screwed together the sides with 2 1/2″ decking screws; two for each corner and Michael moved it out to my double dug area. If you only wanted to do summer gardening this is all you need to do to build a raised bed but we decided that we wanted to design all our beds to have removable hoops for row covers. We want them so that we can extend our growing season and then come summer remove them to set our vegetable cages, trellises, or put up light weight netting. This first bed is the only one that we will be using for winter gardening this year and we will probably be fitting this bed with a 12′x20′ GardenQuilt Coveras we approach the first frost date.

To install the removable hoops we cut the 3/4″ pvc into 10″ lengths and attach them to the sides of the bed. Michael found on neat technique for doing that over on Little House in the Suburbs, so check out their post about it for all the details. Then we just had to bend the 1/2″ pvc to create the hoops and fill the bed with soil. Or rather, Michael filled the bed with soil and leveled it since I was worn out by that point and the bags are more then what I should lift. I loved watching my husband doing that by the way, I’m just saying.

And voilà! One 4′x8′ raised bed. Now only 5 more to go! Still, I just want to take the time to admire this one. We can only do one more in the back yard at the moment though since this year’s beds need to finish first as they are in the way. We could build them in the garage and store them until that happens though. I’m going to get Michael to do a cost breakdown to post so that I can share that all with anyone interested in this project. I know this was much cheaper then building a raised bed kit and much more customizable as well. Eventually we want to surround the beds with brick pavers to making mowing/weeding the paths easier and look nicer too.

For the curious, the image to the right is my winter garden plan for this bed. Click it for a larger image as well. Many thanks to my wonderfully hubby for designing the template for me to do it on the computer. I have started the Forellenschuss Lettuce, Bloomsdale Spinach and Ragged Jack Kale inside on Saturday and made seed tape for the St Valery Carrots, Purple Top White Turnips and Early Scarlet Globe Radishes this morning. I will be sowing them this evening.

The tomatoes have started rolling in. I harvested a bowl of Stupice and Cherry Romas this morning and it looks like my Amish Paste will be the next to start ripening. Keep in mind they are all inderterminate plants though so they will produce until the frost offs them. I am going to have so many Cherry Romas, so it is a good thing they dry well, and taste fantastic too. Michael and I are a little underwhelmed by the flavor of the Stupice though (still better then anything from the supermarket) so I do not think that variety will be making a comeback next year.

I have had to rip out my two hybrid romas and giant valentine. The romas never really flourished and every tomato has blossom end rot, and then all the hybrids got late blight (so much for hybrid resistance.) I am glad that I decided to put them in a different bed. I would cry if my heirlooms succumbed to blight, though I continue to watch them all very carefully. I give no quarter to diseased plants. My garden gave me a pleasant surprise while pulling out my spent bush bean plants this morning though, a flourishing Genovese Basil plant hidden behind them and under one of the tomatoes. Yum! Firms up my decision to grow my basil in a container next year though. I know they are a companion plant to tomatoes but I have been having a hard time getting to them for harvest (and apparently I loose them too!)

Elsewhere in the garden, my ground cherries seem to be doing fantastic. They were right beside my blighted tomatoes but don’t seem effected by it thus far. My pumpkins are… Well, I am dealing with the little pumpkin vine that could, at least it use to be the smallest one, now it is the longest, 12 feet I think? Not that it is doing anything more productive then that, it has not set one fruit. I am actually having a terrible time getting my pumpkins to set fruit. I have one baseball sized pumpkin and three plants. I hand pollinated some of the flowers so we will see if that helps, a few fruit seem to be growing now. Where are all the pollinators this year? Seriously, between my neighbor and I, we have enough flowers to attract them and neither of us have seen much of anything beyond the occasional mason or bumblebee. I haven’t seen any butterflies either. Maybe my eight-foot sunflower will send up a pollen-available flag, the head is starting to develop. Bloom my pretty, bloom!

My Seed Savers Exchange order arrived yesterday. It is about 8 weeks to the first frost date right now and I am starting my Ragged Jack Kale indoors this morning. It will be transplant just before the first frost date as per the instructions (it is hardy to -10°F.) Ragged Jack is more commonly called Russian or Red Russian Kale by the way, I just like Ragged Jack better, reminds me of my Grandpa Jack. He loved the color red and the cold. Not that he liked leafy veggies, I believe he referred to them as rabbit food… He would have found the tribute amusing though.

Yesterday afternoon some of our friends came over and we drove out to one of Shannon’s co-workers organic u-pick farm in Otis Orchard. Can you believe we bought all this food for $7?

We started off picking a bucket full of bush snap beans. It was $6 for a bucket, which we split three ways. Required harvesting butt shots (Andrea, Peter, Shannon and Jeremy):

Damian chilled in his wagon most of the time, eating beans, lots of beans.

This morning we had beans, zucchini, and bacon for breakfast. Tonight we will have beans with vinaigrette as a side at dinner. Damian doesn’t mind, I don’t mind, Michael requested it so I assume he is okay with our family being full of beans. I am also going to can some, garlic dill beans.

After beans I was allowed to drag everyone across the field so that I could ogle at my lovies, I’d marry them if I could.

I’m talking about the sunflowers! Where was your mind? Granted Andrea and Peter are by no means hard on the eyes either, and Andrea is tall enough that she could totally be a sunflower if given the appropriate headgear. Speaking of which, two of my sunflowers are developing their blooms. I can’t wait for them to open!

After la grande detour, we wandered back up front and bought sweet corn (quite possibly the best sweet corn in existence,) cucumbers and zucchini. I’ll going to make dill pickles this week, as well as a huge batch of zucchini relish. Last year I completely underestimated Michael’s relish-loving tendencies, so this year I am upping the ante. I bought 26 pounds of zucchini, which should give me quite a few jars, enough for gifts too. Maybe I’ll make a loaf or two of zucchini bread as well.

As always it is wonderful to save coin buying food in bulk and preserving it, but more then that I enjoy trips like this because of the new experiences with provides Damian with and fun we always have galivanting around with our friends. Let’s face it, picking a bucket of beans is not really that fun when you are all by yourself. (More photos from our day in Otis Orchards are here.)

We’ll see if I keep this up but I love taking photos of everything we pick up at the Millwood Farmers Market every Wednesday. Next week I am going to try to remember to jot down the names of all the farms I buy from. This week I bought:

• Tri-mix lettuce and basil from C&S Hydro Huts (Otis Orchards, WA)
• Canteloupe, picking cucumbers and peppers
• Nectarines (Damian’s choice, he adores stone fruit.)
• Garlic from Green Wave Gardens (Northport, WA)
• Sun-Dried Tomato Tofu from Small Planet Tofu (Newport, WA) – not pictured

Look at that purple pepper! It smells so good and is so beautiful! According to the lady I bought it from it’s sweetness falls somewhere between a red and orange pepper. I think the most beautiful thing I bought this week was the garlic from Green Wave Gardens. I purchases two varieties Music (hardneck) and Inchelium (softneck). I am using a clove of Inchelium in my homemade mac and cheese tonight, it smelled amazing while peeling and sautéing. If I like the flavor of these varieties I am going to see if I can buy some cloves for planting in the autumn. Ideally I would like to plant some Lorz Italian garlic too, which is an heirloom from this area. According to the Green Wave website, they sell it, so I will have to remember to ask.

This time of year brings out the food preserver in me. Luckily the heat wave has broken so I used the cucumbers, yellow pepper and two onions from my garden to make pickles this afternoon. The recipe for them came from The Complete Book of Year-Round Small-Batch Preserving. I love that book, it is fantastic for canning small quantities at a time. I now have two pint jars of bread and butter pickles (my favorite!) resting in the cupboard.

I keep meaning to blog lately but really nothing much has been going on. We are in the midst of a heat wave, our temperatures have been about 10 degrees above average for almost two weeks now. The clouds that linger at sunrise make for a beautiful morning sky but burn away quickly. We had a little Lughnasadh gathering this past Sunday but several people ended up not being able to come (they were probably hiding out from the heat too) so it turned into more of a simple cook out. I didn’t mind though, I always find the warm weather sabbats to be more relaxed.

I have been feeling the baby a lot more lately. She pokes Damian sometimes when he is nursing, it rarely notices but I find it rather amusing. The heat with baby belly has been a little oppressive at times but I am pretty adaptable, except during the hottest parts of the day. I have been catching up on all the projects that don’t require much physical activity, I switched my walk to early morning and Damian tends to get his bath around 15:00, when I find it to be the hottest. I let him play in the water while I cool my feet in the tub. Jim, someone Michael knows through work, gave us an old AC window unit which was very kind of him. The bedroom is nice and cool for sleeping now.

They say the heatwave will break later this week, which I am hoping for, I want to get out into the garden to start double digging for the new raised beds. The weeds are nice and fried under the plastic we laid down. We’ve been looking up lumber prices so that we can budget for the raised beds, I think we will be using 2×12 pine. I am hoping we have a couple short ends left from that projects so that I can make a couple mason bee houses for next year. They are a fantastic native pollinator. I have seen a few of them around and I want to encourage their population new Spring when they reemerge. Contrary to popular belief they are not a destructive insect. They are a solitary bee so only the females make nests and they make use of existing holes to do so, they do not drill holes in wood. They are called mason bees because they seal off each cell in their nests with mud. They are also quite docile and tend to only sting if you accidentally step on one or close one in your fist.

Beyond the heat and gardening, I have a new addiction. Grilled pizza. It is so good! I made it again for Lughnasadh and fully intend on doing it again this weekend and pretty much until the weather prevents me from lighting the grill. It takes more prep work then just doing burgers or corn, but it is completely worth it! I love grilled zucchini and peppers on mine.

I have six crops left in my raised beds right now. Tomatoes, pumpkins, green beans, ground cherries, zucchini and sunflowers (do sunflowers count? I am saving their seeds after all…) The photos above are my quickly ripening cherry romas and stupice. My tomatoes are doing so beautifully this year. They are so heavy with fruit. Tomorrow I think I am going to harvest my first zucchini, technically it will be my second but the first was damaged by hail and went soft.

I am amazed with how much I have learned since building my beds this Spring, most notably I have learned not to underestimate the amount of shade a tree casts. But beyond repositioning my beds due to the elm tree (which I have typed about previously) I have a little list of other things I need to improve. For starters, I need to focus more on amending my soil. In addition to compost I am going to add rotted manure to my beds as my soil is still somewhat nitrogen deficient (which is relatively common in this area apparently.) For a longer term solution to that problem I am also going to start growing more varieties of beans next year, Empress (which I am growing and seed saving this year,) Good Mother Stallard and Hidatsa Shield. maybe cowpeas again too… Beans are a legume, which is a nitrogen-fixing plant. Once they die the nitrogen fixed in their roots is released, making it available for other plants to use. I didn’t know that until recently, I thought that beans constantly released nitrogen.

Water, that is an area that could use improvement too. I use an oscillating sprinkler to water my yard, including my beds, but that can make the leaves (and fruit!) if my beds more prone to disease. Luckily I haven’t had too much of an issue with that this year since it has been so hot and dry, but I can’t bank on luck every year. Drip irrigation works best from a gardening and water conservation standpoint and I could invested in soaker hoses, but given the chance I like to try to stay low cost. I have been considering collecting 2 liter soda bottles and making my own watering stakes. I am still undecided though. Eitherway I am also collecting 2 liter bottles to make sub-irrigation planters for my transplants next year, problem is I never drink soda so I have been asking around to get them from my friends who do (if you are one of my local friends, can I have your bottles?) One man’s trash is another’s treasure right?

Look at my little sugar pie pumpkin! (Please ignore the bolting cilantro beside it.) I am looking so forward to making pumpkin pie from scratch this fall. My pumpkins remind me of two things I need to keep in mind next year which go hand in hand, plant spacing and better planning. Two of my pumpkin vines climbed out of my raised beds and having grown six feet away from them (towards the sun in fact, since they are in the bed shaded by the elm.) I will have to keep a closer eye on them next year so I can train them into the spaces I want. I want to do better with my planning next year too (and I have all winter to plan so I am not overly concerned.) Both planning plant placement and successive sowings. This year I have managed to supplement our diet a bit this summer but I will not have much to preserve (except tomatoes and maybe pumpkin.) I want to remedy that over time, so that I grow more and more of our food. Experience will help me there.

I wish learning worked a little more like it does in The Matrix and I could just download information right into my brain and instantly know all these little trial and error lesson and so much more. Granted it probably wouldn’t be as much fun then.

Seriously sometimes I feel like a cheerleader when it comes to my tomatoes. All my heirlooms are so heavy with fruit, especially my cherry romas, amish paste and stupice. And finally, it is happening, my first stupice is turning red. Of course with this wonderful development mother nature decided to test my tomato protectiveness and we had a random brief but violent hail storm yesterday. To paint you a picture, imagine my expanding 21 week pregnant body zooming out the patio door through the nickle sized pellets of pain to throw a sheet over my tomatoes. That’s insanity dedication for you. Everything is fine, the slant of the hail was mainly coming through our mystery tree (can you identify it?) so just our raspberries, on the other side of our yard, took the worst of the punishment.

(This is what this area looked like before anything was growing!)

Michael and I have begun planning the expansion and repositioning of our beds for next year. We will be repositioning the beds because I kind of forgot to take into account the amount of shade Mystery Tree creates. The two beds nearest the deck receive too much shade to produce well, I’ve pretty much given up on having cucumbers for the year because of it, their empty trellis is a little sad do you think?

The new beds will be positioned along the fence coming eight feet (maybe ten) into the yard. Two of them will be three feet wide and two will be four feet wide. I think I am going to build them out of 2×12 untreated pine. In the far right corner of the yard are several tree stumps that I really do not want to rip out so I will be planting all my herbs around them in an irregular shaped bed. I am considering building a 4×4′ potato bin in front of that bed too. As all those plans develop, I’ll share more though.

For now we are just starting to lay the groundwork. Michael spent a couple hours last weekending laying down black plastic over the area some of the beds will be (thank you sweetie!) We also have two 4×8′ patches in the front yard blocked out too. The plastic will smoother the grass and weeds which will be easier to rip up come cooler weather and theoretically we will be less weeds to worry about. We also have to wait for the beds to be completely harvested since they have to be removed before the new beds. This autumn I may only build one so that I can plant my garlic before winter sets in.

Does anyone grow any heirloom garlic that stores well? (I am not interested in hybrids.) I added a variety to my heirloom wishlist but am open to suggestion for what works well in this area. I have some seeds I can swap for cloves too.

Yesterday we went out to the Millwood Farmers Market to check it out. I have heard so many good things about it and I also follow the blog of Craig Goodwin who organizes the market (and is also the pastor of the church where the market is held) so was excited at the chance to browse. I admit, I tend to avoid church markets because they tend to be underwhelming but I found this one to be really quite lovely. I also find Craig to be a very friendly guy and his church is listed as gay friendly which are definite perks to me and add to the general feeling of acceptance.

We purchased our weekly produce there and it tastes so much better then what we normally buy at the store (I would have been surprised if it didn’t though, local almost always tastes better.) We bought red and green bibb lettuce and peppers from C&S Hydro Huts (the owners of which Michael knows through work,) zucchini, yellow squash, cucumbers and bing cherries. Much to my surprise we found tofu that I actually liked as well, made by Small Planet Tofu. I bought a block of their curry flavored tofu. I have never met a tofu I liked until now but their stuff is really firm and has a lovely texture. Not surprisingly Michael also knows the owner through work as well (whom he refers to as Tofu Phil) and has been trying to get me to try their stuff for several months. Thank goodness for sample trays right? Tofu Phil’s son, I didn’t catch his name, was manning the booth and he was so friendly.

In fact all the vendors were pleasant (granted they probably wouldn’t sell much if they were cranky) which gave the market a really nice vibe. Lots of questions about my due date which I normally feel a little weird about but they were all honest curiosity which I puts me at greater ease. Damian seems to love the market even though it was very hot, he munched on popcorn covered in seasoning salt most of the time. Somehow I seem to have managed to not snap a photo of him…

I will definitely keep going back to Millwood for as long as they are open. I saw some things that I would love to pick up in the future (pepper jelly, honey and seasoning salt.) They even had a vendor with grass-fed pork. I was hoping they might have someone with local cheese, but maybe another time… I am looking forward to seeing the goods change as the season progresses.

Now to go feast on some cherries…

This weekend I harvested the rest of my purple haze carrots (which were fantastic and gone very quickly) and yesterday I picked my first handful of empress beans (an stringless heirloom snap bean.)

I actually could have started picking my beans last week but I am saving the seeds from that plant in the hopes of having even earlier beans next year. Did you know that beans have perfect flowers? They self-pollinate so you can grow many varieties in your garden without worrying too much about them cross-pollinating. That said nothing is infallible and they do suggest you seperate varieties of white bean by the length of your garden.

I know I have said this many times but living in sync with seasons is very important to me on a spiritual level. That is the main reason I garden. A garden is very visible representation of the passage of time. Beyond that, who can seriously resist fresh garden produce? It just tastes so much better. I think that is why my spiritual self and mundane self are so inseparable.

I ran across a new ezine this morning called Living in Season and I love it so far because it really seems to mesh all those aspects together. I am always so happy to come across people with the same aspirations and dedication as I in those areas. Anyhow it looks really promising and I just wanted to share in case you too have the same dreams (or if you are already living the dream for that matter.)

(I just liked the way that titled rolled off my tongue.)

This year is the first year I’ve ever planted onions. I didn’t set out to grow them but my father-in-law gave me a couple dozen red and yellow starts so I found the room. They were unceremoniously sandwiched beside the cherry roma, purple haze carrots and green snap beans and for the most part ignored after that.

Recently I noticed (while out drooling over my soon-to-be-ripe cherry romas) that the tops of my onions were drying out a bit and then over the course of a couple days they all fell over. Oh no! I killed them! Or so I thought… After a little research I discovered that this is perfectly natural, it means I can harvest them soon (yay!) All I have to do is step down on the tops (done!), not water them for a few days and then pull them up and let them cure some more in a dry ventilated area.

Wait. Not water them for a few days?!

But what about my tomatoes? My beans? My carrots? My dill, basil, cucumbers, pumpkins, zucchini, ground cherries… All my raised beds are covered by the same sprinkler and it is 90F out, they need water. I’m sorry but I am not sacrificing my tomatoes for a few onions! This year’s raised bed lesson, onions need their own segregated area.

I am not overly worried, I don’t intend on storing these for the winter by any means, they’ll probably all be eaten within a couple weeks. This raises the question, do I really need to worry about having them cure properly? Should I try to cover them when watering the rest of the bed (one of my friends sugguested inverting a bucket over them while I water), or just pull them up and let them cure on a table on the deck for a few days?

What would you do?

This morning I realized that I had not yet thinned my carrots when Damian yoinked out a a few and I noticed the drastic size differences. Not surprisingly when two carrots grow crammed next to each other one looses the battle of the biggest and the other never really reaches it’s full potential either. I don’t like thinning my plants, as is most obvious when you see my leaf lettuce patch. Plant abortions kill! Nom nom.

You don’t have to throw out those tiny carrots though, they are still deliciously edible. I washed them off and Michael and I snacked on them for breakfast. Also if they are cooked beyond a light stirfry they will revert to orange. In the thinning process I pulled out a couple larger ones, which I took a picture of. Not your typical carrots, but that is the joy of a home garden. I am growing purple haze carrots, which turn purple as they mature, though the core will remain orange. They are still a couple weeks from being fully developed but they are still going to be excellent in our lunch stirfry.

I want to do a successive sowing of carrots this year, after these are harvested. I am going to give making seed tape a try, that way thinning will not be necessary. If that works well I might do that for all my small seeds next year, a nice little winter project. I’ll let you know how that goes.

Photo intensive garden update time. Enter at your own bandwidth’s risk!

Do you remember what bed A looked like just a month ago? Now look at it!

Carrots and onions and green beans, oh my! Ignore that empty square in the back left corner. My cilantro bolted while we were at the Pagan Campout (I still need to blog about that don’t I?) so I pulled it up. Never fear though, I have the new crop already sprouting in bed B (photo to the right.) But while we are on the topic of bed B…


Cucumbers and Pumpkins (and zucchini which are not pictured.) Cucumbers… well they are rallying at least. My Sugar Pie Pumpkins are doing fabulously though, as you can tell, the kid in the corner won’t be boxed in, but I’m cool with that. I’ve always had a thing for rebels. Please ignore the weeds proliferating in the pathway, I know that I am!

I adore pumpkins, they just make me so happy. Look at this blossom! And who says yellow is an ugly color? (Oh wait, I do. I love yellow in nature!) My sunflowers have several more feet to go before their giant yellow beauties open up, and I really do mean giant, they are 12 foot heirloom Titan Sunflowers. I have them in the four corners of my beds, ants have turned them into aphid prisons.

I really love insects. Look at this jewel-like fly perched on my ground cherry. I am sure it and it’s six-legged cohorts will eat my garden (or their spawn will,) but lets just appreciate how beautiful Mr Fly is, before I catch it munching on my leaf lettuce. I just sowed my second row of lettuce a couple weeks ago (the old stuff was getting a little bitter.)

I have these beautiful Creeping Bellflower all along a section of our fence and one side of our deck. Initally I thought they were the more innocent Ladybells but they are spreading quite voraciously (they are a naturalized but ecologically invasive.) I am keeping them around for those gorgeous flowers, but I plan on annihilating them once they begin to fade. Gardening is a brutal business, I’m telling ya.

Here is a flower that will never be thinned. Mmmmmm cherry roma tomatoes or are they stupice tomatoes? Well they are one of my 4 varieties of heirlooms. Basil is keeping them all company. Basil and tomatoes are just meant to go together. Can you say bruschetta?

Tomatoes are to Michael and pumpkins are to me. It looks like my Giant Valentines (one of my two varieties of hybrids) are beating my Stupice in the race to be adored by him first. Granted, I think my raspberries will be the first to bare fruit. We are both cool with that though.

In fact, we are cool with everything in the garden overwhelming us with bounty. If there is too much for us to eat fresh it will just go in the freezer, in a canning jar, in the dehydrator, to Second Harvest or shared with friends (preferable all of the above.)

I love living in the Inland Northwest. I love living in a place that has amazing seasons changes and where I can feel the wheel of the year in action. I love the general timing of these changes here and how just when I begin to tire of one, the wheel turns. Admittedly Spring has taken the most adaptation on my part. There can be thunder, hail and snow all at once and then five minutes later the sun emerges so full of energy that the temperature jumps 15°F in 10 minutes, only for there to be a hard frost that night.

The gardener in me cringes somewhat at spring in Spokane but the dirty worshipping witch in me dances in the rain, laughs into the wind and basks in the radiant sun (all in the space of an hour mind you.) Soon enough summer will be here and the gardener will be appeased with zucchini, tomatoes, cucumbers, green beans and more though.

This weekend we will be camping with friends, assuming all of the Stewart household are healthy (Damian just healed from a head cold and so far Michael and I seem to have been mostly spared.) The forecast for Utopialaughastan* is expected to be 80°F and sunny so hopefully that will banish any remaining vestiges of illness on our part. With fingers crossed for good health, I can’t wait!

Got to love the mad dash to protect the seedlings when late season hard frosts threaten. Since I covered everything and the world revolves around me, it did not happen of course. Not that I am complaining, after all, how cool is it to have the world revolve around you?

I placed the boxes around each transplant and filled them loosely with shredded newspaper to keep my tender green babies insulated. I find this method works well, I can store the boxes the next morning and either spread the shreddings around like mulch (they break down very quickly) or toss them in the compost as brown material.

On a seperate matter I am still working on a name for our little rented homestead. I want it to be something simple that reflects our beliefs without being horribly cliche. The hard part is finding just the right combination of words that reflects our little family. Small Steps Stead was an early though (reflecting children as well as our small steps towards a more eco-conscious life as well as owning a some land outside the city) but I don’t know…

Does your home, farm, ranch or even apartment have a name? How did it come to be?

This weekend my raised beds and I spent some quality time together.

I transplanted 3 black beauty zucchini because I am a sucker for punishment, 5 sugar pie pumpkins because I adore giant orange things, cilantro and red onions and yellow onions. I also have purple haze carrots and mammoth dill directly sown and hopefully working towards giving me an abundant crop.

On Friday we had some friends over, including the lovely Laurie and Ben. They brought us a couch and several transplants for us. I transplanted the chives, garlic chives, triple curled parsley and tarragon but am waiting another week before I transplant the tomatoes (Giant Valentine, Black Krim, Stupice) and ground cherries. Better safe then sorry, the lemon cucumbers and basil I started will be waiting another week before transplanting as well.

All the seeds I started this year were planted in cardboard egg cartons and so far it seems to have worked pretty well. The roots of the pumpkins were starting to grow through the cardboard, so I didn’t even both removing them from the cups when I transplanted them. I think that they will degraded just fine. If I wanted to grow larger transplants (like if I start my tomatoes indoors next year) they will need to move up to a larger container but for the small starts egg cartons seem to work great.

(Mmmmm tomatoes… Grow my pretties, grow!)

The hardest part about growing your own food is waiting for it to be ready I noticed a few flower buds on the ground cherry transplant this morning and I think that just heightens the anticipation. Come wild plant spirits of my garden, grow!

(This cute little pea plant is brought to you by Wishymom on Flickr. I love the Flickr creative commons search. I love Wishymom for allowing her work to be shared under it.)

Feeling under the weather today and Damian is napping so I figure this is as good of time as ever to pour some thoughts into a blog post.

I have been considered various options for supporting my climbing plants this summer. Vertical gardening lends itself well to raised beds as it is a fantastic space saver and keeps tender fruit (like tomatoes) from being attacked on the ground.

I have three crops which could use some kind of trellis, heirloom tomatoes (I do not want to stake them and can’t afford large cages), lemon cucumbers, and yard long beans. Initially I was just going to grow the tomatoes on a bamboo trellis (similar is design to this one), let the cucumbers meander across the ground and teepee the beans, but now I am reconsidering a potentially cheaper option that would allow me to grow them all vertically, nylon trellis netting. From the reviews I have read it is sturdy enough to support watermelon vines and it is reusable from year to year. My vertical wood supports to attach the netting would be the larger branches that fell from our Douglas Fir over the winter.) A 5′x60′ roll of netting runs about about $20. So I’m wondering, have any of my readers used the stuff and how? If not how have you managed your climbing veggies in small spaces?

In other garden news, both my raised beds are complete (except for the whole trellis issue) so now I just need to fill them. Hopefully I will be able to pick up a load of compost and soil this weekend and accomplish that, I have carrots to get in the ground afterall. Earlier this week my friend’s father was getting ride of some of his raspberries so am now the proud owner of a dozen or so beautiful raspberry canes which I planted them along the East chain link fence. I am also receiving some onions from my father-in-law this afternoon, I had not planned to grow onions this year but I can’t say no to free plants. Funny how the best laid garden plans are foiled by those last minute arrivals (I am not complaining!) They will just have to go outside the raised beds, along the back fence I think, which means more weeds and grass to demolish.

I have to admit some lesser known part of me relishes the destruction of grass, in some truly bizarre way it makes me feel like I am sticking it to the man… or something like that.

But first, to feel better. And make bread, because I haven’t made any in a week and I want a pbj. And pickles. Seriously, I have this fearsome craving for bread and butter pickles today that demands to be obeyed. Which is truly poor timing since we only have dill pickles (gross) and I am trying not to overspend the budget. Still… WANT!

On an birding side note, I think the ants the birds are eating in my yard are affecting them. Because after they peck some off the ground by the raised beds they jump in the beds and roll around in the dirt, raising quite the little dust cloud. Maybe the ants are biting them? I mean, whatever floats their little birdie boats but its pretty funny to watch.

Since moving in to this house, I have know I would have a garden this summer and now I am in the home stretch to planting (our last frost date being around May 3rd.) I have started planting what is going where.

To venture for a moment into my natal chart, my sun and moon sign are in Capricorn. I don’t think you can be anymore of a planner then that, except if Mercury was in Capricorn… oh wait, mine is! The Chinese astrology equivalent to Capricorn is the year of the Ox, guess what year I am born in? I’m doomed to be a planner, I’m telling you.

So yes, I am planning my garden and loving it. I have all but busted out the colored pencils. N that planning is a bad thing when it comes to gardening. Planning insures that you get the most out of your space by finding the empty spaces and working out crop succession. My mother, grandmother and uncle sent me some seeds for Easter so my list of plants has expanded. Anything bold is going in the raised beds, italicized ones are going elsewhere.

• Basil, Genovese
• Carrots, Purple Haze
• Cilantro
• Cowpeas, Pink-Eyed Purple Hulled
• Cucumbers, True Lemon
• Ground Cherry transplant (1)
• Leaf Lettuce, mix (2pkg)
• Moonflowers
• Morning Glories
• Pole Beans, Yard Long
• Poppies, Oriental
• Pumpkins, Big Max
• Snap Beans, Empress
• Radicchio
• Sunflowers, Titan
• Tomato transplants (5)
• Violas, Helen Mount
• Zucchini, Black Beauty

This is the scaled chart of my two raised beds:

I decided on a modified square foot gardening system for the raised beds. I got the idea for the chart from the Kitchen Garden Planner on the Gardener’s Supply Company website. Each 4×4 square on my graph paper is 1sqft, as are all the loose pieces that list each of my crops and how many I can grow per square foot. I am not done yet, especially with bed B since I still need to build an A-frame trellis for my heirloom tomatoes, which will affect placement but I’m almost there.

How about you, do you plan your beds? What system do you use?

Look at the surprise Michael had waiting for him when outside today? Luckily the old spare was in good condition (and it actually a full sized tire too.) Still not fun of course, but he changed it and is at work now.

The weather is still beautiful, but today is probably the last day of that till the middle of next week. We need the rain though. I went ahead and planted some leaf lettuce outside. As long as we don’t go below 28F it should be okay, and if not, I still have a million little seeds. I also started some basil seeds inside.

Speaking of plants, these little things started sprouting by our garage a couple weeks ago. They are on the north side of the garage (shade) and have tuberous roots. I know it is a little early to identify plants, but do these look familiar? I am in zone 5a. I hope they are pretty, right now I am just happy to see something new and green!

It has been beautiful for several days now, mid 60s, sunny clear blue skies, bird singing (or whatever that ruckus the pine jays make is…) So naturally I have been spending very little time indoors. Damian is like me, he hates being cooped up when the Mother Nature rouses from her winter slumber and calls us out. We have been going on lots of walks since Windigo went missing and they have been wonderful in this weather. I have more or less stopped wearing Damian in a wrap since he has become too active to be tied up like that all the time. He loves riding in his red stroller now though, especially with a sippy full of water. He points it this way and that in a (successful) attempts to direct me. “I’ll drink, you drive!” Seems to be his motto as of late.

Beyond our walks, I have been working in the yard. I finished building the compost bin and the herb bed beside the deck (still have to buy the soil to fill it) and am currently working on raking up all the winter debris from the rest of the yard so that I can build a potager for my summer vegetable garden. I have resisted the urge to plant thus far, mostly. I know there will be another hard frost, no matter how beautiful is right now. I did cave and sow some mesclun mix inside in a cut off milk jug, and a bush variety snap bean in another container (both of which are out on the deck enjoying the warm sunshine today.)

Damian either stays on the deck or in his playpen when I am doing yard work. When his playpen is in the yard though, I am finding I need to put a blanket under it to keep him from eating too much dirt. When he becomes determined though, he can push the whole thing off the blanket (and all around the yard in fact) which while frustrating, is extremely cute. I could stake it down I suppose…

…but I would much rather take frequent breaks and sit in there too with a tall glass of lemonade. He even has a little lemonade from time to time. We discuss politics, religion and the flavors of dirt and weeds from around the yard. You know, the usual.

Speaking of weeds, he adores sautéed dandelion greens, and so do I! We made a potato frittata with some this morning, yummy! I will save edible weeds for another post though, the sun is calling and Damian just woke from his nap.

I spent some time today working on what will be the herb garden beside the deck stairs (click here for a couple of before and after photos.) It is far from done, needing some more digging and weeding, and to be filled with compost and soil, and plants of course but I feel happy with the progress I made in the short time I was working. I eventually want to put some lattice up blocking the view to under the deck.

We knew when we chose to move here, that this property had been bought out of foreclosure. Until today, it never really dawned on me what it must feel like to loose your home. As I dug up that tiny area I found a handful of items (some of them in this picture) that the former owners had left behind. A little frog figurine, glass stones from a broken welcome tile, bits of children’s toys. I wonder what use to be in that hollow area of the butterfly? I suppose the swing set Damian plays on is the biggest reminder but that never really sank in as being “someone else’s”. To me, these things, these little treasures, give the current economic climate a very human face.

It reminds me of how much I have to be grateful for in my life. Michael’s stable and good job, a health happy child, a fantastic circle of friends and wonderful family, a food filled pantry, this house and all that it means for us.

I think that I will put a few of these found treasures throughout my garden in the spirit of recycling as well as to be little reminders of the importance of gratitude.

It is estimated that globally 50 million people took part in Earth Hour last year, and we were among them. Another year has come and here we are again, ready to be one of the small drops in this movement.

Some people will argue that Earth Hour meaningless gesture full of media hype, but isn’t the goal of such a movement to be covered and spoken about in as many places as possible? They might also say that one a whole we are not saving any power at all, but I say that there will always be critics. If this event makes just a handful of people stop and make the steps to trim their own energy usage while still living their lives fully then I will consider it a success. I know it has touched me in such a way.

Almost every weekend my friends get together and do something fun. Tonight we still will, they are coming over to our home and we are going to have a candlelit party with raw foods. Living in an Earth conscious way doesn’t have to mean sacrifice, if anything it has lead me to find greater joy in the simplest things, and that is truly amazing.

So for an hour, starting at 20:30 local time, our power will be off and our friends near, and I know we will not be alone in our actions.

(On an unrelated side note, Windigo is still missing. We are still checking the shelters and canvasing the neighborhood, as well as our old one. I am hopefully he will turn up but it is still a huge heartache.)

A few weeks ago I received my heirloom seeds from Seed Savers. I also purchased Amish Pie Squash seeds but they were on backorder and now they are sold out! So my pumpkin need will be have to be filled elsewhere. Around May 18th I should be receiving my Seed Savers transplants, which are organic I think. I plan for everything in my garden to be as organic as possible. Here is my list of seeds, transplants as well as seeds I have not purchased or received yet:

Seeds

• Black Beauty Zucchini (I have 25 seeds but I am only planting two bushes, can you imagine 25 zucchini plants? That is the stuff of nightmare!)
• Empress Beans (these are a bush variety stringless green snap bean)
• Genovese Basil (your standard big leaf basil)
• Titan Sunflowers (these just sounded awesome)
• True Lemon Cucumbers

Transplants

• 1 Amish Paste tomato transplant
• 2 Hungarian Heart tomato transplants
• 1 Cherry Roma tomato transplant
• 1 Stupice tomato transplant
• 1 Aunt Molly’s ground cherry transplant

Yet To Come

• Purple Carrots (from Mom)
• Some kind of pole bean (from Mom)
• Pumpkins, unknown variety (from Andrea and Peter)
• Leaf Lettuce (buying a packet of seeds at the General Store)

This is the area of my backyard that is going to becoming the garden, over where those timbers are. The area is south facing and so receives a ton of sunlight throughout the day. I plan on building two 3×8 raised beds for the veggies, which will give me 48 feet square of growing space. The last frost is around May 3rd, so that is my target date for having the beds ready, we’ll see how it all goes. I would imagine in the years to come I will be adding more raised bed. I would love to grow potatoes, beets, broccoli, more kinds of sunflowers, peppers etc. I also am planning an herb garden around the deck but I’ll leave that for another post.

This is the breakdown of the cost so far. I feel it has been reasonable (and the first year start up is always most expensive:)

• Seeds – $17.75 – They are all heirloom varieties, so with luck I will be able to save some of their seeds for next year. I still have to buy a packet of leaf lettuce with will be a less the $2, it will not be heirloom this year.
• Transplants – $18 and I am told shipping will be around $12, so $30 – I should also be able to save some of their seeds too as they are heriloom and start my own transplants next year.
• Wood (for raised beds) – FREE – found it behind our garage. I am using old pallets from my neighbor and Michael’s work as well. I may have to buy a crowbar to break them apart though.
• Seed Starting Soil – $8ish – I am just going to buy a bag of of sterile mix from the store. The seeds being started indoors are being planted in the cardboard egg cartons that I have been saving.
• Garden Soil – Shannon knows where we can purchase topsoil for $16 a scoop (from a backhoe not a shovel) – assuming that is about a cubic yard, that is about what I need. Her step father has graciously offered the use of his trailer to transport it.
• Compost – freeish – I might be able to find it free somewhere in town (Craigslist is awesome) and I have started a compost pile, which is shortly going to be boxed in using the pallet method. The pallets are free.
• Garden Tools – unknown – Here is where the cost can rack up fast, we have budgeted $200 for tools but I doubt I will need that much. I want decent tools that will last, but I am not purchasing anything fancy either. I need a hose with sprayer, a digging shovel, a bow rake, a garden fork and a hoe. I am also considered buying this, or building something like it, to trellis my tomatoes. (I don’t know if we have grass so not sure about the whole lawn mower thing yet.)

Here is a little side request to the list above – if any of the local people who read my blog happen to have any of the tools I need (or ones you feel would benefit the garden) laying around, and they are in working condition, I would love to give them a good home. I would be more than happy to share some of my seeds with you in return, or my crop! (If you are not local and still want to help, you can check out our wishlist.) Oh, and books! I am learning almost everything online, so I would be grateful for any secondhand books, or links to wonderful gardening resources online.

So this is as far as I am in the planning phase, I am currently looking up pollinators and attracting them. (FYI mason bees are so fascinating!) I am curious to hear other people’s low cost suggestions as well as any tidbits of advice they might have. It feels good to be outside working on a project like this. Gardening puts me in such a spiritual mood. I cannot think of many things that make me feel more connected to the spirit of the Earth then by getting my hands dirty.

If I was keeping up a pattern here I would have a very long relatively informative post about the Vernal Equinox and my beliefs in the place of this photo. Truth is, I haven’t even gotten beyond the outline form in the past few weeks with moving and all. And I don’t have one ounce of shame regarding that fact, it will just have to wait until things settle down (and be posted next year.)

I took this photo of Damian and me in our backyard today. I was taking photos of the yard I can plan gardening work (what better way to celebrate the coming of Spring?) I have started working on two raised beds recently too. I’ll post pictures and descriptions about that later, but right now I need to go weave two loaves of challah bread and finish a curried chicken salad.

My hands are stained red, the cutting board and knife drip crimson, chunks of scarlet bubble away in the crockpot, anything that didn’t fit in there is in the freezer, for future use…

Bwahahahahahahaha!

*Cough* Um, this isn’t the start of a B-flick! I just finished processing a bushel of pluots! I also have most of the latest ripe (and a few green just to experiment) tomatoes from Shannon’s garden in my dehydrator. Can you believe I filled 8 square feet of space and still have a few pounds to go?

I still have a bushel of apples to either freeze or dry, as well as more summer squash. Thank goodness I love zucchini (I made relish with the last batch.) I also roasted a chicken and made an apple pie from scratch today. My pie crust was a little chewy (hey I am a bread maker, it feels weird not to work my dough) but got the Michael seal of approval, which is good enough for me. I have some sage and oregano to jar and label before bed still.

Oh Eternal Spirits of the Harvest, how I love this Autumn bounty! But if I see one more pluot… Oh wait, I still have 20 on the table. *Horror-movie-esque scream*

We went to Beck’s Harvest House in Greenbluff yesterday, this is our third year going out there to pick apples and it is always really fun. Our friends Andrea, Peter, Shannon and Rachelle came along (the photos in this post were taken by Andrea.)

Damian stayed in the wrap most of the time, snoozing, but he was awake for a bit and all happiness (except when he wet himself in his carseat… I would be cranky about that too.) We didn’t bring his potty and he was very unwilling to go in his diaper. We are going to have to start bringing it when we take longer outings. Damian loved the red apples, he loves anything red. I am sorting them today for peeling and he keeps grabbing at the reddest ones.

I love that creepy scarecrow picture. I also love the hat of that kid in the pumpkin patch. Orange for the win! Normally we drive up to Mt Spokane after the festival but the road is closed right now. It washed with the spring flooding and they are rebuilding it. That’s okay though, I was pretty tuckered out between carrying Damian and picking apples.

We picked a huge box of Valstars, Jonafrees and… something else (I don’t remember the name but it accounts for about 90% of my apples… They are crunchy and tart, my favorite type for pies and eating.) I also picked up a case of pluots, they are a plum/apricot cross. (They look a lot like something I called dinosaur eggs as a kid.) I am going to dry or freeze most of what we bought and also make some butter (some of which will be turned into fruit leather.) Oh we also got fresh pressed cider (one gallon of which I froze for mulled cider at Samhain) and two bottles of local wine (one cranberry infused one for Winter Solstice.)

Now to go make some apple pie! (Lots more photos from the festival here! I took some video too but I don’t have it on the computer yet.)

Michael brought this plant home from his work the other day, they were giving them away (they give away the ones too dejected to sell.) I know it is some kind of pepper/chili but I am not sure what kind, it had no tag.

Michael says there was a sign by them that said “Do Not Eat” but that doesn’t necessarily mean it is not edible, it just may have been treated with a bunch of chemicals. It might be some kind of ornamental though.

Peppers are an annual right? I might dry these peppers for decoration…

Does anyone know what variety this is?