First Day Gardening

Today is the first day of the new year, of the new decade.  It was a gloriously beautiful day here in South Carolina.

After spending time in the scriptures this morning I was touched by a verse:  "...will show unto you that the tender mercies of the Lord are over all those whom he hath chosen, because of their faith, to make them mighty even unto the power of deliverance."

When I was reading that I thought about the fact that there are a ton of things for which I need to be delivered such as laziness, procrastination, poor health habits, not the best housekeeping ethic, etc.  Of course, I have plenty of goodish things in my life but I took this scripture to heart, closed up the book and began writing things do on a Today list that could help me be delivered from those negative things at the beginning of this paragraph.

Before 10 AM I had moved a box of dried beans from beside the bed in the guest room where it was a quasi-bedside stand to its new home in the closet. In the living room we had a nice table/stand that I was not using so I took that upstairs to put beside the bed in the guest room. The banker's lamp on my desk moved in onto that table and now the guest room is more or less pimped out for company...except we do need to get a bureau which Dear One has decided on from Hobby Lobby, if you can believe it.  We will go up there some week soon.

So all was going swimmingly until Dear One asked if I had watched the family videos from this year. I had not seen them so he sent the link.  I went into our room, stretched out (since I had been buzzing around for two hours by then...), and began watching the first one. It was so wonderful. Daughter-in-law A is a fabulous videographer!  I can hardly wait to watch the other two movies!

Anyway,  by the time I got back to work (the Today things on the list I made this morning that were to take place in the kitchen only partly happened before I drifted off on the couch) I decided to do the garden work I have been pushing myself to do for a month but never did.

This big plastic clear (more or less) bin is what we used to store compost it. I moved much of it into the other bins this fall but the bucket filled up with water and was really in rather grim shape.  The biggest job I did today was to empty the big blue bin underneath the water/compost bin in the black pots you can see along the back wall.  There were a ton (almost literally!) of river rocks in the bottom of the big blue bucket which needed to be moved into the area underneath the big trash bin beside the house.  That carrying job required the help of Dear One who was happy to do it.

The herbs were moved from the bins where they were scrunched up together into their own individual pots. I think they are much happier now!

The lettuce and the kale are really happy right where they are!  We love fresh vegetables every day.  Not that we do eat them every day, but they are smiling at us volunteering to be our lunch.  So nice.

 The "bagged" lettuce is still going strong. I am so impressed with that particular method for planting lettuce.  It has really done well.

 This empty bucket is ready for new soil which we will get when the basil plants are ready to be put in.  I have heard they will be available late in February or March. I am looking forward to them!

The trash bin is now sitting on its new bed of river stones!  Dear One moved most of the pine straw down to the edge of the pond, a place where I am committed to preparing a spot for one or two zucchini plants and some tomato plants as soon as they show up. I hope they have Black Krim tomatoes, Brandywine tomatoes, and Amish Paste tomatoes ready as started plants.  

The Seed Savers Exchange catalog came the other day. I am really souped up about the heirloom plants...!  It will cost a fair amount to buy seeds for each of these plants.  I think we will need to figure a way to make a nursery for seed starting if we are going to do this....Not sure Dear One will be into that...!

Anyway, now it is nearly the end of the day.  After working the garden I decided I needed to work the kitchen so I grabbed the stroller and headed to Food Lion to get some oven cleaner to take care of a bad issue we had.  It was dark by the time I got back.  It was only 2.4 miles but I am pretty much done it. I think I will now go sit in front of the television to veg out, or possibly fall asleep!

Happy New Year to all!

The Great 2019 Garden!

The other morning the temperature dropped to 27 degrees F.  That took care of the basil.  And the tomato plant.

As you can see, the basil is pretty much done for this year.  Tomorrow I will clip off the dead stuff.  I am hoping the roots are still happy in the tub.  Basil was our most productive plant this year. I was so happy with them.  We used a LOT of basil, at least, compared to any other year of our gardening life.

The tomato harvest came in, too.  Or at least, I harvested our tomato crop to save it from further difficulties.  Sadly, one of the tomatoes had fallen on the deck.  I did not see it. I stepped on it.  That was the end of that one...

So...this is the entire tomato harvest.  I do not know if this gem will ripen in the house, but I hope so.

There is a big gardening summit online somewhere for the next few days.  I am hoping to watch some of the presentations to see if they can help us for next year. I just have to remember that here in South Carolina February is a great time to start gardening for the year.

Deck Garden Progress

The summer has been good and bad for the deck container garden.  Right now things are looking pretty good, except for the tomatoes.  The zucchini bit the dust a couple weeks ago.  The tomato does not seem like it will produce fruit.

Am not sure if this video will work but...here is the current garden situation.

We have had lots of basil for pesto plus spearmint to put in lemonade.  Really so delicious that way.

So the question is: why are the plants so happy now?  We have just had a week with LOTS of rain, and still warm temperatures.  I think this proves that I was not watering them enough...

Successful (Inside) Garden

Not too long ago I was watching a free video (all of them are free, actually) on Nutritionfacts.org.  In this video Dr. Greger was talking about broccoli.  He shared the science about how valuable broccoli is to our health.  He went on to show that though broccoli is important, broccoli sprouts are many many times more protective.

I am somewhat a sucker for the science. The possibility that something that is pretty easy to do and not terribly costly and is very health-promoting makes me want to take steps to enjoy that produce.

So, I found online the sprouting screens for wide-mouth canning jars.  We ordered a pound of organic broccoli seeds.  We started growing broccoli sprouts.  We are now using them in salads every day.  I think Dr. Greger just eats straight broccoli sprouts as his salad but we mix them into a green salad.  Probably with vinegar of some nature on them...!

This is what our indoor garden looks like today.

What we do:

 I "plant" 1 1/2 Tablespoons broccoli seeds in a wide-mouth quart canning jar every Thursday night and every Sunday night.  I add a couple of inches of water to the jars at night so the seeds will soak well then next morning I let the water all drain out of the jar through the screen in the cover.  I set the jars up so they can keep draining.  I rinse the seeds twice a day.

 The jar on the left has been harvested twice...i.e. I have pulled out sprouts for two different salads.

Tastes fine.  The possibility that this will help our arthritic joints and other chronic problems brought on by inflammation makes it an easy gardening project to do.  Also the most successful!

Garden Failure...

This is what we found this morning in our garden on the deck:

This is a very sad picture.  The beautiful blossoms all disappeared and the whole plant has bitten the dust.  We have no idea what caused this.  Dear One says that is one plant we don't need to try again....

There were many beautiful squash blossoms though they were all male blossoms so there was no chance of produce but we did have high hopes for a few weeks. At least I did because I love zucchini.  I love zucchini noodles and I REALLY love zucchini sautéed with onion, even just water sautéed.  So yummy.    Well, either the Farmer's Market or Piggly Wiggly will be our friends in this matter.

Winter Garden December 2016

When I went to Stern's Produce Market one time this summer, the nice young man taking my money observed that I had three bunches of green onions/scallions.  He said, "You know, you can grow your own green onions from these plants after you use up the greens, don't you?"

No, I did not know that.  When I get home from Stern's I always put the green onions in a glass of water to keep them happy until I am ready to use them.  I have sometimes cut off a few of the greens and left the rest in the water.  Amazingly, more greens begin to grow, so that one purchase of scallions gives a lot of nice "greens".

Well...after talking with the nice boy at Stern's, I used all the greens on my scallions then took the cut-off white bottoms with the roots on them upstairs to where we have a nice big planter in a south window.  I planted them in the dirt and, in no time at all, lots of green came rushing up to the sky.  I have cut them numerous times.

Sadly,  in the last month-plus, I have not spent much time upstairs so the poor little creatures have not had any drinking water.  I took this picture to guilt myself into taking better care of the scallions.  I gave them a GREAT BIG drink and don't they look happy now!

This picture was taken after the watering.They are reaching for the sky again.

You will notice all the dried bits.  Bad me for not taking care of them and using the greens.  I think from now I will stop being lazy and just go up and harvest at least once a week.  Scallions are good in just about everything.

Garden 2016: Put To Bed

Today I finally went out to finish up putting the garden to bed for 2016.  It is now done.  Well, except for putting away the last of the garden hoses. I somehow imagined that Dear One was going to wash the car one more time this fall (not that I wanted him to do that, he just seems to do that sort of thing pretty often), but he says no.  Yay.  One more thing can be taken care of before the snow falls.

Front garden put to bed

Side garden put to bed

These gardens do not look appreciably different from the last picture I posted, but underneath they are much happier. I took our four-tined garden fork and fluffed the hay.  I am just certain the soil underneath is happier.  The last of the kale is also happy to have warm feet.  I will probably harvest that in the next couple of days.  I think I will plant more kale next year. I love that stuff.  Now that I know how to raise and, more importantly, harvest it, I am a very happy lady.

Gardening: Blackberries in September!!! Really?

Last year Dear One purchased four blackberry bushes and planted them in a sunny spot along the edge of our field.  He placed a thick wooden stake to mark them and perhaps keep the lawn mower away from the tender little shoots.  As of this date he has been successful in this hope.

Every so often I have looked down there to see if the plants were still alive.  Yes.  They were.

Two days ago I went out to hop in the car which was parked in an unusual spot, near the blackberry bushes. I saw something white and wondered if a butterfly or moth was plaguing these plants. I went over to get a closer view.

 This is what I found:

What?!  Blackberries blossoming and fruiting in September?  Apparently.

This second photo shows  some more berry fruit that has set.

More berries on the right of the photo...

Now, I wonder....will the fall last long enough to actually ripen this fruit? Quite an exciting thought.

Second Harvest!

On Saturday, 15 June 2013, we harvested three items:  red leaf lettuce, baby spinach leaves, and cilantro!  This is so exciting.

The original garden was put in on 3 May and only one or two spinach plants came up.  The harvested spinach came from those plants.  The red leaf lettuce was from transplants I found at Longacres and planted before the last frost but covered them.  The cilantro is from starts I found at Home Depot and also planted early.

This is very good news: harvesting.  The bad news is that A gave us three fingerling potato starts to plant which I set in the garden but did not get to put them into the ground.  They are now gone, as are a few of the wax bean leaves.  This gets my goat.  I should have planted them immediately.  Never mind the rain and the fatigue.  The only good potato news is that on Wednesday I was at the growbox in the field and found two of the ten potato plants I put in almost three weeks ago had come up.  Yay!

Disposition of today's harvest:  Dear One ate the lettuce and spinach with sugar sprinkled on top and said it was good.  The cilantro went into some salsa verde!  (Click on the link for the recipe...) It is pretty good, but not as good as the Herdez salsa verde we got in Mexico, you can't beat that, but for homemade with a YouTube video as guidance, I call it cilantro well spent!

Applesauce cooked in the pot

Applesauce after sugar and cinnamon added

 We were given some apples that needed to be used immediately and since I was rather tired I just peeled and cored the apples, threw them into a heavy saucepan with some water, covered them and put them on medium low heat.  I then went upstairs to some computer project, forgetting all about the apples until I came down again and could smell them, and hear the little valve on top of the pot jumping!  Fortunately, the medium low heat was just right.

The report on the applesauce is that it is "Good".  That is good news.

Now back to do the dishes.

2013 Garden

We were scheduled for a vacation in May as we had not found the time for one in 2012...and since we were going to be gone for two weeks, I wanted to get a garden in before we left, we invited J and A and family to come for dinner on my birthday and to rototill a new small garden in front of the addition where it would get full sunlight.

He did it and also rototilled the growbox garden in the field as a bonus gift!  I was so pleased.

Since gardening before Memorial Day in our neck of the woods is a little iffy, I went to Longacres' gardening center and purchased some metal rods to use as hoops and some agricultural cloth to go over the hoops to protect the garden in case of frost while we were gone.  I didn't worry too much since the seeds would not really be damaged by any frost, I thought.

So, on 3 May (the morning of the day we were leaving)  I worked like a madman or woman as the case may be, and planted sugar snap peas, wax beans, black-seeded Simpson lettuce, romaine lettuce, radishes, spinach, and dill.  Inside I planted cucumbers, zucchini, carrots, beets, and bell peppers in peat moss disks that I had re-hydrated and placed the pan on top of the freezer in the pantry.

Recently I had been reading Square Foot Gardening by ________________ and decided to give this a try.  (I chose to take that book with me on vacation as reading matter of choice in hopes I would finish it and find out more good things to do to the garden as the summer went on....)

In the first picture you can see the grid I marked out in the garden. I did not actually use a ruler, but made approximately 3 by 12 one-foot squares to plant.  You can see I was doing this very early in the morning, before the sun came around the east side of the house.

"Square Foot" grid for planting.

The second picture is taken from the porch, about the same time of day but after I had planted the seeds and placed my homemade seed markers.

Seed markers made of skewers and paper with the named seeds covered by Scotch tape to keep out the rain.

 Finally the garden was planted and covered.  Dear One came out and helped me with the heavy timbers that surrounded the garden as well as found the smaller pieces that we placed over the ag cloth to keep it down in case of wind.  I had put duct tape on both sides of the of the ag cloth where the metal rods were going to punch through the fabric.  It just seemed like a great idea.

Now the waiting was at hand. We went on vacation with a hope and a prayer and (mostly) forgot about the garden for two weeks.

Hot for Gardening

It is July 12.  Memorial Day weekend is the traditional start of gardening when planting here in Vermont is likely to avoid frosts.  This year, again, we had an early spring and people were already eating lettuce, spinach, and other goodies by Memorial Day.  We were not.

When Bob was gone on his Appalachian Trail hike in early June I went out to the growbox to see what I could do.  There were so many weeds and so much brush coming up through the hardware cloth (or whatever it is called that is guaranteed to prevent weeds from coming up), that I could not do a thing with the garden.

Finally the stars aligned and we had tools, equipment, and personnel all in the same place at the same time and yesterday Bob roto-tilled up the grow-box.  If we were really smart we would have thrown on the Mittleider fertilizer, roto-tilled in into the soil, let the garden rest a week, then roto-tilled again, but...I just could not be that patient so out I went today in the brutal heat of mid-day after Bob left to help Ben with his house today.

Growbox rototilled and ready for PACC  5' by 30'

Last year I had a very simple tomato support system, but it failed due to the fact that Jacob Mittleider used 4 by 4 or 6 by 6 posts and we did not have the money nor did I have the expertise nor the strength to do it myself added to which I was stupidly too proud to ask for help...SO, I made my own duplicate system using PVC pipe.  It did not work, however,  I only spent about $17.00 on the parts.  What a bust.  Oh well. Live and learn.  Hopefully I have learned.

So this year I decided to use the same parts to do a different sort of tomato support system.  My thought is that it is important to put in the supports before the tomatoes go in...so I did pound these uprights in with a sledgehammer to the best of my ability.  The string support will follow later if the tomatoes make it up a few inches.

Rebar and PVC uprights from last year's disaster plus drip hose that also failed last year when I forgot to shut off the hose and drained the well dry.  Dumb.  Note attached to my pocket as I type to remember to shut off the water in another half hour.

There are actually two rows of projected produce---about 24 plum tomato plants and a row that includes zucchini squash, collards, and green onions.  Judging from the packets, there is some likelihood that the zucchini have time enough to produce a harvest before the frost.  The collards may possibly make it as well as they are supposed to be "improved in flavor after a frost".  That remains to be seen. (I fell in love with collards in North Carolina last year...even without the pork added to the cooking process.)  The green onions need 4 months to grow to harvest.  I am sure that won't happen but maybe they will be mature enough that I can bring some into the house and put them in the planter that has one benighted tomato plant in it on the porch currently.

North end of tomato row where tomatoes are planted about a foot apart and which I hope will have begun to stand upright by next Tuesday when I need to go out and put the Mittleider fertilizer on them again...twice a week.  If they are upright, I will start in with the string supports at that time. If not, I will wait until next Friday.

Having sat here at the computer for half an hour now my heart has stopped pounding like a jackhammer,  the blood has stopped shrieking through my veins, and the water has stopped dripping into my eyes. Now the heart is just thump, thump, thumping loudly, the blood is swish, swish, swishing at a somewhat breakneck speed, and the dripping has stopped and I am just soaked from the skin out.  Working this body hard in the heat of the day has repercussions!

Really I was only out there in the garden for a little over an hour and not working fast...just plodding along but  I WAS wearing my Bug Baffler which is black, and keeps the bugs at bay but is very hot.  When I came back into the house I drank a full glass of water THROUGH the Bug Baffler in about 3 seconds flat.  Since I am feeling a little headache-y and nauseous I think I will go pour in some more water and maybe eat a couple green olives then lie down.

Happy harvesting to all you gardeners who put your gardens in at the appropriate time.  One tip I am reminding myself is that before the snow flies, or certainly before the ground freezes, I want to yank up all the garden refuse, compost it, and roto-till the garden, really putting it to bed properly.

We will see...