Preparing for Spring

This week I finally brought out my sweet potatoes. I started them last week sitting near the radiator, but now they are in the window. Hopefully they will grow well. I need slips and I'm worried about the purple ones producing slips. Last fall they started to grow and I rubbed off the growth. Will I get new growth? I hope so. I do have more purple ones in my box of sweet potatoes. Maybe I should bring more out. I do love their taste. I've started Beauregard, Garnet, and Purple, which are the three that did best in my garden last year.

I'm a little late doing it but I went out yesterday to prune. It was the most glorious day. In the 50Fs and very sunny. I didn't even have to wear my coat. The raspberries were first. I lost a lot of canes to last year's lack of rain. I'm hoping I didn't lose whole plants. But I'll see once the spring growth starts. Then it was off to the peach trees. I'm no expert on fruit trees. This is the first time I've ever grown them. But all the books say open up the middle to an open vase shape. So I tried doing that. I've got five main branches on both peach trees. Not sure if I'm doing things right, but hey, I'm sure I'll learn.

The snow is mostly melted (or at least in the beds that see sun this time of year) so I tested the beds and found the pea bed was defrosted all the way down. The spinach bed had frozen soil at about 5" deep. I've planted spinach like this before and it does fine. So I might go out on the next warm day and get that in. I'll also get my peas in soon. Not all of them, but the warmer parts of the bed. The other parts will have to wait two to three more weeks.

The soil is unfreezing and my Asian greens that I sowed inside are starting to pop up. I'm really getting excited for the gardening season to really start.

Harvest Monday, March 11th, 2013

Though more seeds were planted indoors, the outside harvests will have to wait even longer. We got about a foot of snow last week. It is melting fast, but the beds are still covered with it. I have been using up my stores.

Yesterday I made a big batch of Boston Baked Beans. I used the Yellow Eye Beans which are a Maine heirloom. I didn't think they came out quite as good as last time. Not sure why.

Spinach is always one of my favorite vegetables in storage. Especially when it is paired with a comfort food. I love macaroni and cheese. I don't make it very often as my husband isn't a fan. He likes the neon orange boxed variety which I don't eat. I used a recipe that has more flavor than your typical mac and cheese. Though I used whole wheat noodles. The recipe makes so much, so I've been eating it everyday for lunch. It had both garlic and onions from the garden. I now have just one onion left. I've put them on my shopping list. It is always sad when I run out.

Harvest Monday is a day to show off your harvests, how you are saving your harvest, or how you are using your harvest. If you have a harvest you want to show off, add your name and link to Mr Linky below.

Seedlings

Yesterday I finally got some more seedlings into soil blocks. For now I'm just doing three each of some early lettuce (Red Sails, Little Gem, Paris Island, Deer Tongue), bok choy (Shuko, Purple), mizuna (Early, Ruby Streaks), some celery (Ventura, Redventure), and Fun Jen. I'll do the main planting of them in a couple of weeks, but for now some riskier early plants. I fully expect them to produce, but you never know what the weather will bring. Yesterday we had another foot of snow.

Today I had to shovel a spot on the back steps to put out my onions. It is already 42F. This week will be mostly in the 40Fs and 50Fs, so I figure it is a good time to teach my onions what the real world is like. I'll bring them in at night. They don't predict the warm weather will stick around past this week, but a week of warm weather is helpful. In Boston the typical outdoor planting time for things like peas and spinach is St. Patrick's Day. Some years that works, some years we have to wait another week. Not sure about this year. We haven't had the intense cold like some years, so the ground might not be frozen as far down as usual, but we have had a lot of late snow which insulates it.

Solar

On Monday we finally got our solar panels turned on, just so they could see our cloudy weather all week. We contracted for them to get put in last August. At the time they said the panels would be up in October. Then November. Then definitely before the end of the year. Well they were installed in January. They said two weeks and they would have the paperwork done to turn them on. So finally in March it happened. I feel like I've been waiting forever for it. Now we just need the sun to come out for them to really produce.

The system is a 6kW system which should produce most of the electricity that we use. You can go here to see the roof (which is shared with our townhouse mates) and solar production (on just our side of the roof). So far we have made 26kWhs. Or $4.68 in energy at our rates. Well not even that. The electric company charges $7/month in connection costs. That doesn't even start to cover the costs of the installation itself. But hey it is a start. I've wanted solar on my roof forever, so now I have it.

Harvest Monday March 4th, 2013

I got back from vacation over the weekend. My onions are growing strongly. My husband never had to water them, but he pet them every evening for me. Soon I'll have to start some of the early spring greens like baby bok choy and lettuce. The garden is still snow covered but it seems to be melting out rapidly. That is the good news. The bad news is that my weather station isn't connecting to my computer. Not sure why. But I'll be losing all that wonderful weather data for the time being. I've got too much to do right now to try many things, but hopefully it won't take long to figure it out.

Since I was gone for the week I don't have any real Harvest Monday things to share. But I'll enjoy seeing all of yours.

Harvest Monday is a day to show off your harvests, how you are saving your harvest, or how you are using your harvest. If you have a harvest you want to show off, add your name and link to Mr Linky below.

Harvest Monday, February 23rd, 2013

I've got nothing. Not even a little photo of what I've been eating. Life has been too busy this week. At least I have been eating from my stores. I even made dinner for a sick friend and used my spinach and squash as sides. I was trying to get everything done so I could take my vacation. My MIL takes all her daughters (including DILs) to Canyon Ranch every couple of years. It is so nice and relaxing there. Exactly the opposite of my last week. My husband will hold down the fort here. I've got some onion seedlings all up and growing. He is not a plant person, but I think it will need to be watered just once when I'm gone. I've shown him how to pet my onions (I pet them to keep them growing strong and healthy in a windless environment). And I've shown him how to water (bottom water always as top watering erodes the soil blocks).

Have fun enjoying your harvests without me this week. I'll be back by next Monday.

Harvest Monday is a day to show off your harvests, how you are saving your harvest, or how you are using your harvest. If you have a harvest you want to show off, add your name and link to Mr Linky below.

Harvest Monday, February 18th, 2013

No harvests here. It snowed again over the weekend. We only got a few inches this time. Thank goodness. Last week was filled with calzones of different kinds. I had made some pizza dough and only used about half on pizza. So for lunch each day I made a fresh calzone. The above calzone was Jarlsburg cheese, and spinach and Korean Purple sweet potatoes from my garden stores. Korean Purple is only purple on the outside. Inside it is white. It also has a more starchy potato like texture than other sweet potatoes I've tried. My favorite filling was a mixture of mushrooms, spinach, cheese, and ham. I really love the combination. So much so that when I made a quiche yesterday that was what I put on the inside.

I swear my stores aren't going down very quickly. I might have to do an inventory soon and see what needs to be eaten. I can send extras to my townhouse mates. Though they aren't going through the garlic very quickly. I basically told them anytime they need garlic, sweet potatoes, or squash they could come over and get some. It used to be true for onions too, but I just have a handful left. I've put the last remaining few in the fridge so they store better.

Harvest Monday is a day to show off your harvests, how you are saving your harvest, or how you are using your harvest. If you have a harvest you want to show off, add your name and link to Mr Linky below.

Harvest Monday, February 11th, 2013

I've got nothing except snow here. Certainly no harvests. I have been using my preserved harvest though. Some dinners have more garden produce than others.

After shoveling on Sunday I felt a great need for carbs. So I made pancakes for dinner. Not our norm, but it does happen. I opened a can of homemade applesauce (sadly not from the garden, but it was from the local farmers) and a can of my homegrown strawberry syrup. Yum!

Harvest Monday is a day to show off your harvests, how you are saving your harvest, or how you are using your harvest. If you have a harvest you want to show off, add your name and link to Mr Linky below.

Blizzard of 2013

I was getting a lot of calls from family asking how we weathered the blizzard. Our power never even flickered. We did get about two feet of snow. The government closed down the roads for about 24 hours so clean up would be easier. It went on record as the fifth largest snowfall in Boston's history. I'm sure power is still being restored to many, but for us it wasn't too hard. The hardest part was wondering when they would finally plow the roads. But our neighbor called the town about it complaining that there are elderly living on the street and they might need emergency services. So they finally showed up. Our road is a small private road, just one car width wide and dead ends at our house. There are only five houses on it (though some are multifamily homes), so we tend to be forgotten.

Friday afternoon just as the storm started

Saturday afternoon after it was starting to wind down

The main garden after - the bamboo poles sticking up way in the back are 3' tall

Today after shoveling a path to the compost

That big pile of snow we made to the right of the path is my overwintering spinach. I was worried about it since we had no snow and some very cold windy weeks. The spinach was starting to brown on the larger leaves. Well I should be more specific on what I want. I would have been fine with about 9". I really didn't need 2'.

Walking will be interesting for a while. The sidewalks are now a challenge. Sidewalks in Arlington shoveled by the homeowners and sometimes it is spotty. Joel complained most about a hotel that is just a few block away. He said they barely shoveled. Just a small path through. The intersection at Mass Ave and Route 16 is the worst as there are 6' piles of snow that have to be climbed over. It will be interesting when I have to walk to work.

Harvest Monday, February 4th, 2013

I had no harvests this last week. We got snow. We got rain. We got a wind storm. We got a day that went up to 61F (almost a record). We got a low of 13F. So it was a wild weather week. But sadly no harvests. January once again has been warmer than normal. Or at least the lows haven't been as low. We went to 3.2F for a low. I'm supposedly in zone 6b. My lowest low should be between 0F and -5F. Not so far. But it is still early February.

For those of us in the US we spent yesterday evening watching football. (The American version, not what we call soccer. And why did it get named football anyway? The most common time the ball comes in contact with the a foot is when a team has to give the ball to the other team. Why did someone name it after the team's failure? Personally I'd name it yardball after the two most used words in the game.) It was Superbowl Sunday. It is always a good excuse for a party so we spent the day with friends. Half the people watched the game (or the commercials depending upon their preference). The other half played Cards Against Humanity to pass the time and to give us opportunities to snort beer up our noses. Really never drink beer when you play this game. It is a bad idea.

But I digress. Parties are always about food and I have a pantry filled with squash still. The squash are keeping very well. I've found that butternuts can keep easily into the spring if not longer. So that morning I baked up three squash. Some got pureed and frozen (above photo). Some got pureed and put into a squash casserole (only photographed by my husband's iTouch but never sent to me so I couldn't use it).

And some got cubed and put into a squash and bean salad. Squash, beans, and red onions were all from the garden. Sadly not the apple. but maybe this year we will get our first apples.

Much of the food at the party was theme based. We had crabcakes and sourdough bread. The fried chicken was made with Old Bay Seasoning. And beer was brought from the appropriate cities. One person made mincemeat pie (in honor of those that didn't make it to the Superbowl). I ate a slice in honor of the Patriots.

And totally off topic, don't you wish you had this library in your town?

Harvest Monday is a day to show off your harvests, how you are saving your harvest, or how you are using your harvest. If you have a harvest you want to show off, add your name and link to Mr Linky below.

2013 Has Officially Begun

Doesn't the year always start when you put your first seeds in the ground? Or in my case the first seeds in potting soil. Yesterday I finally made up my planting schedule. It isn't hard. I made a spreadsheet years ago. Whenever I get seeds I put into the spreadsheet how long I want to grow them as transplants and how long before or after the last frost they go in the ground. The spreadsheet automatically calculates the day to plant the seeds be it indoors or out. I don't use the numbers as gospel. I give or take depending on the year or how I think things are going or just if I feel like planting that day. The spreadsheet told me that I should have planted my onions on January 24th. So I looked for my planting trays.

What I found was a pile of dirty trays. Oh ick. So I spent quite a while cleaning them all up. Most people will tell you to use chlorine, but I don't have any. I don't like chlorine so I just use detergent and water. Afterwards I didn't feel like planting anymore. But today was another day and I finally got to it.

I planted up a whole tray of Copra and a half a tray of Redwing and Ailsa Craig. Each tray has room for 72 one and a half inch soil blocks. I know from experience that that number will be more than enough to fill my onion beds. I'll be able to toss out the small and sickly seedlings.

As you can see I grow my plants under lights. Onions are day length sensitive so for now I'll have them on for 12 hours a day. Usually for plants I use a 15 hour daylight cycle, but that would confuse the heck out of my long day onions. They would think it was time to start bulbing up.

I do a couple of things to help along the seedlings. I sprinkle the tops with cinnamon. The hope is that it keeps down the damping off. Occasionally I have trouble with damping off, but very rarely. Also to help with that and to make it easier for the seed, I cover the seeds with vermiculite instead of potting soil. I find that seeds come up much better when covered that way. Once I was done I covered everything with plastic wrap. That will stay on until I see the first little sprout start to come up. I can't wait.

Harvest Monday, January 28th, 2013

Most of my dinners aren't going to win any cooking contests. My husband likes his meals plain and I'm usually fine with that. But I do get a lot of my preserved produce into them. The hamburger has bread and butter pickles and mustard, both from the garden. The bun is homemade, but all store bought ingredients. The Boston baked beans have the garden's Jacob's Cattle beans in them. The garden squash is simply pureed and the garden kale had a touch of balsamic vinaigrette. I don't win any art contests with this one either do I? Mark has such pretty dinner photos. I've got my sides plopped individually on the plate.

Last night was pretty similar. I made baked chicken. The sides were baked sweet potatoes and broccoli, both garden grown, both plain. I made some rosemary and olive oil bread with dried herbs from the garden. And shockingly enough I incorporated a harvest. YES! A harvest in January! OK so it was just rosemary. The rosemary is an evergreen plant so I can harvest anytime. It didn't go in the bread as I like to used dried for that. I put some sprigs on the chicken when it was baking. Yummy. You would think I would have a photo of it or maybe even weigh it. But nope. I got nothing.

So you can seem my typical dinners in the winter. Well you can see one of them. I'm using my stored produce up slowly. I try to have an orange (carrots, squash, sweet potatoes) and a green (kale, spinach, broccoli, bok choy, Chinese cabbage, celery, zucchini) vegetable at each dinner. It doesn't always happen. I tend not to use any orange ones on my pizzas. Some stirfries just get bok choy and onions. Lunches have mostly been garden based bean soups or leftovers.

Harvest Monday is a day to show off your harvests, how you are saving your harvest, or how you are using your harvest. If you have a harvest you want to show off, add your name and link to Mr Linky below.

Note: I hope I didn't lose anyone as I was playing with my linkies and lost the first version.

Harvest Monday, January 21st, 2013

Wow this post almost didn't get out. I'm writing this on Friday and almost forgot to get it done before I left. I'll be back early Monday (today for all of you), but after I usually post. Hopefully I'll get a chance to clear the Linky before Monday. I usually travel with some way to connect to the net but sometimes it doesn't work out. I used to be able to create new empty Linkys every week, but now I have to reuse old ones and clear them which is a PITA since I HAVE to be connected to do it. Anyway if I don't get to it, just add your new links to the bottom and I'll get rid of the older ones as soon as I return.

No harvests this week. I should have gone out and harvested my spinach during the thaw, but I never got around to it and now it is covered in snow again. However I did get around to fixing up my sidebar tally. I'm now in 2013 mode. I've changed some of my categories. I split the greens into greens and Asian greens as greens is such a huge category. I also split the cucurbits into four different categories (melon, cukes, winter and summer squash). They were also a large group. As for the tally itself, you can see I'm already down by $361.93 in the veggie garden and $82.06 in the fruit garden. For the fruits it is larger than last year because I expect actual fruit from some of my trees this year which means more expenses to protect them. For the veggie garden the expenses are pretty normal maybe even a bit low. Here is how it breaks down so far.

My major expenses are my amortized costs at $321.28 this year. These contain things like my composters, wood, hardware, and dirt to get the garden up, supports for the plants like bamboo and cages. I usually buy my fertilizer in bulk from the Northeast Organic Farmers Association (NOFA), and I mailed in my order the other day. It also contains things like netting, sprays (dormant oil for the fruit trees and some soap spray since my aphids were so so bad last year) and potting mix. Fort V potting soil which is just the best. You don't have to be a member or a farmer to join the buy. You end up with discounts off the normal prices and no shipping costs. Though you do have to drive in to pick it up one day in March. There are lots of pick up places all over Massachusetts. I amortize these costs over two years since I buy at least enough fertilizer for that long.

I've also ordered from Fedco for my seeds at $42. I'll be ordering from Norse Farms for my fruit bushes. I want two blueberries to put in my freed up 4'x 8' bed plus I want to add some currents which I've never grown. I want two red ones and a pink one. I'm going to remove two plants from my border where I grow my chamomile and zinnias. I'm going to remove the anise hyssop. I haven't used it though I should. And the invasive seedlings are driving me crazy. And this is from someone that has lemon balm growing in her garden. The other plant I'm going to get rid of is my bleeding heart. I'm going to move it to a shadier spot where we need plants desperately. I'm hoping it can still bloom there as the shade is very very dark.

The third was inspired by a photo. I wish I could copy it but I don't have permission. So go to this page and scroll down to the bottom. I've never seen a current done as this kind of espalier. I've seen fans which are pretty. But this gives me space I hadn't had before. I want to plant my current basically under my compost pile area and train it along the top of my white picket fence. I want to use Rovada which has very large fruit and very long trains of fruit. It would be so pretty against the white. The question becomes can I keep the plant in check (I'm thinking it wants to spread more than be on single stem) and will it get long enough to cover the fence well? I hope so. It might totally clash on the other side with purple and orange flowers, but do I care? Oh I think not.

Update: I'm home and I have fixed the Linky so it only shows recent ones.

Harvest Monday is a day to show off your harvests, how you are saving your harvest, or how you are using your harvest. If you have a harvest you want to show off, add your name and link to Mr Linky below.

Harvest Monday, January 14th, 2012

Miracle of miracles. I had a harvest in mid January. Cilantro - 1.5 oz. Ok so it isn't the largest of harvests, but it is something. We are in the middle of an unusual January thaw. Now it isn't strange for the snow to melt during the winter. Usually with rainy weather. All last week we had temps in the 40Fs. Then yesterday we had a high of 52F and last night only got down to 51F. Pretty amazing since the warm weather lasted so long. But the snow will come back. Wednesday we will get flurries again.

My black beans prompted my harvest. I wanted more Gallo Pinto for breakfast (shown above before mixing in the cilantro). Since I was cooking black beans there was no need to stop with one dish. I made a black bean and squash soup that also used cilantro. I really liked its taste. I would never have thought of putting cabbage into a black bean and squash soup, but it really works.

And now that I've had a harvest, it reminds me to fix my side bar tally. 2012 is past. Hopefully I'll get to that this week.

Harvest Monday is a day to show off your harvests, how you are saving your harvest, or how you are using your harvest. If you have a harvest you want to show off, add your name and link to Mr Linky below.

Cutting the Mustard

I have no clue where the term "cut the mustard" came from, but mustard is a hard little seed. I don't have a spice mill (yet), and my mini food processor can't handle being on all that long. So I soaked mine in vinegar to soften them up before using my processor. I only meant to do it for a few days, maybe a week. But after a month it was still soaking in the fridge. So I finally got it done. Mustard is actually very easy to make. Provided of course that you use powdered mustard or have the appropriate appliance to cut your mustard or powder it as the case may be.

Though we only use the traditional yellow mustard on occasion. I did make a version of that. It does come out different when you don't powder your mustard in advance. It is much more rustic. However I don't like the use of the white vinegar. I think cider vinegar would be much better. The white is too pushy.

The second one I made was a typical brown mustard, which is one of my favorite types of mustards. I didn't have the Oriental mustard seed which would have made it spicier, but I liked it quite a lot.

The third was a honey mustard. I just took the brown mustard and mixed in honey in about a 2:1 ration of mustard to honey. So not too sweet. All three mustards are nice. Most of the recipes tell you to let them mellow for a couple of weeks in the fridge, but I'd had them in vinegar in the fridge for a month and I thought that plenty. They are slightly spicier than the versions you find in the market, but not much more. I'm still hoping to play around with different kinds of mustards in the future. Thyme seems pretty popular, but I'd love trying one with allspice. And also one with beer. And if I ever get fruit from my trees, I'd love to try a peach mustard. The flavors seem like they ought to mix well. I'm not sure my other fruit would be a good pairing. The idea of strawberries or blueberries with mustard doesn't sound all that good.

For lunch today I had my honey mustard on a bagel and turkey sandwich. Yummy. As sides I had a bean salad (black beans and turnips from the garden) and some bread and butter pickles that I canned last summer. Does anyone else like making mustard? Do you have favorite recipes?

Harvest Monday, January 7th, 2013

I should have done my final tally post for the year last week, but I totally forgot about it. So I will do it today.

Total	$2174.53	712.78 LBS
Alliums	146.46	50.14
Asparagus	1.38	0.24
Beans	93.96	31.90
Broccoli	56.95	22.78
Carrot	76.78	35.96
Corn	38.81	30.64
Cucurbit	319.38	156.27
Greens	784.73	239.68
Herbs	196.29	15.24
Peas	114.14	20.42
Other Root	34.59	15.38
Sweet Potatoes	196.24	65.41
Tomato	114.83	28.71

As you can see I grew a LOT of greens last year. Over two hundred pounds. I do love my greens. It was the most given away of any of my vegetables. But it is also the one that I most want to make sure I have, so this coming growing year I'm going to have the same space in growing greens. One difference in distribution is that I'm going to try to grow more more efficiently and get an extra plot of dried beans out of my mix. So I will have two of my 4'x8' beds in pole beans and one in bush beans. The bush beans will be my fastest producer of dried beans (Tiger's Eye) and will be followed by greens. And then later in the year a greens bed will be switched into bush dried beans as a succession crop. I've got my fingers crossed that the rotations will work out.

I also have too many sweet potatoes. I like them, but I just don't want to have to eat them every day. So I'm going to give one bed to them instead of two. The extra bed will be put into blueberries. If anyone knows of a high production blueberry I'd love to hear about it. And as many of you have guessed I'm not growing even one tomato plant again this year. The solanums have been banned. For those that don't know me, I've got a bad sensitivity to that family of crops, so I can't eat them.

My tally pages are kept in a spreadsheet to make the calculations easier. But I have many pages with different information like when they need to be started indoors and such. One page is for notes for the next year. The biggest note I have is for my onions. One of my readers diagnosed my problem as onion fly. The symptoms fit perfectly. So I did a little research. I'll probably have to cover them with a row cover when they come out. In our area they have three hatchings usually. The first starts at 700 growing degree days. Cornell keeps track of the GDDs for the northeast. So when it starts to get close to 700 I'll be putting on that cover. I already watch the GDD for the squash vine borer.

I'm still eating from my stores. I had two parties this last week. I brought mashed sweet potatoes (sweet potatoes) and rosemary bread (rosemary) to New Year's. The other was my birthday party. I put out some pickled garden veggies. I made rosemary bread (again with rosemary from the garden), and a vegetable platter with a tzatziki dip. The platter had salad turnips and carrots from the garden. They used up the last of the fresh carrots. And the dip used my garlic and dill. I certainly made other things. I made another soup and brought up spinach, kale, and cooked carrots from the freezer. It is really the start of not using anything but storage veggies. I have a little bit of Asian greens left, but not much. Right now I'm confident that I'll make it into March at least without additional outside veggies, but time will tell.

Harvest Monday is a day to show off your harvests, how you are saving your harvest, or how you are using your harvest. If you have a harvest you want to show off, add your name and link to Mr Linky below.

Harvest Monday, December 31st, 2012

Last week featured the Christmas meal. I ended up using a couple of squash to make a squash puree. My other dish was some Boston baked beans made from my Jacob's Cattle beans and onions. I used not quite two pounds of beans for the dish. I'm guessing that people not from the US haven't heard of Boston baked beans and many people who live here haven't had the real deal. The canned beans you get from the supermarket is not real even if they say Boston baked beans on it. I had never had it until I went to Durgin-Park for dinner one time. The beans are baked with onions, molasses, mustard, and salt pork or bacon for 6-8 hours. Though some contend they have to be baked underground in a pit (much like pig in a luau), I wasn't about to go that far. The long cooking time caramelizes all the sugars and the taste is very transformed.

My baked beans were going to be done all vegan. Since we had a large group of not quite 50 people we had a mix of vegetarians and semi Kosher folk. However I couldn't fit all the beans into one casserole dish to bake (I don't own a traditional bean pot), so I made two and one had bacon. We even had the farmer who raised the pig at dinner. So it was a very much home grown dish.

I was going to have homegrown in my last dish too, but decided not to. I made thumbprint cookies. I was going to use some homegrown strawberry jam, but it was my last jar. And I still had a jar of my homemade cranberry apple jam. I thought Christmas a better time to use that.

I had few leftovers from Christmas. Just about a cup of each of my dishes. I thought they went well with my my morning eggs.

In fact I liked the beans and eggs so much I had to bring out some Gallo Pinto that I had frozen earlier in the year. Beans and eggs make a very nice breakfast.

I hope you all had a wonderful holiday season and a happy new year. Now I just have to figure out what I'm making for the New Year's party tonight. I still have a lot of sweet potatoes that need to get used. Even though I've been eating them every week (above is some mashed sweet potatoes I made, along with the last of the fresh spinach), it still looks like I haven't touched them. My boxes are still almost full. So they would be the best choice. Maybe I can make my quinoa and sweet potato soup. Hmm I'll have to think about it.

Harvest Monday is a day to show off your harvests, how you are saving your harvest, or how you are using your harvest. If you have a harvest you want to show off, add your name and link to Mr Linky below.

Crystal Wonderland

I so love the snow. We got about 4-5" of snow over the night. Above is a street close to my house. It almost looks like it is in the country with all the snow.

My road is a little one car width private road. It almost looks like an alley.

My front yard with my peach trees. One tree is sadly leaning. I'm trying to straighten it up rather unsuccessfully. In late winter I'll trim the tree up.

My backyard has a small space for our table and grill. If you look in the corner you will see my townhouse mates' hot tub.

And of course the garden sleeping under its blanket of snow. Right now the sun is starting to come out and the snow is all glittering. So pretty.

Seeds, Seeds, Seeds

I always placing my first seed order for the year. For some vegetables I save my own seed and for some I still have plenty. But sometimes I neglect to save seed, or like my favorite Kentucky Wonder beans, the seed crossed so isn't pure anymore. Some seed I buy is hybrid like my corn, onions and some brassicas. And some seed takes a lot of space for a over time to save. Onions are one of these types. I'd have to grow the onion the first year then save it over the winter than plant it back the next year. Onions are also plants that have inbreeding depression, so you need to plant a decent amount of them to keep the line going. I don't get to eat anything out of the space. With things like these have have two choices. Give more space to that plant and maintain a line that could over time do very well in my area. Or I could grow more crops to eat locally. My yard is only 9000 sqft and shared by both townhouses. I really don't have space to do both. So I save what I can but my priority is to grow more food.

In fact my choice this year is to take one 4'x'8 vegetable bed out of production in veggies and put in a few more blueberry plants. I could eat pounds and pounds of these every year if I could just grow more of them. We do have some blueberry plantings in the front yard. But most of them are lowbush blueberries as landscaping. The bed that I'm going to plant up as blueberries is the shadiest part of the garden. It always unfreezes late in the spring as the neighboring houses shade it. But blueberries will be just fine with that space.

My favorite place to order seeds from is Fedco. It is a New England cooperative owned by the the consumers and workers. They aren't a company like Park or Burpee that push to sell to anywhere. Their focus is New England and they have seed that works in our climate. The descriptions sometimes will contrast how a seed will grow in Northern versus Southern New England. It isn't that the seed won't grow in other climates, but I know it will work in mine.

So here is my first order. I might or might not place another order. I haven't yet decided.

• Kentucky Wonder Pole Bean
• Serendipity Bicolor Sweet Corn*
• Sensation Melon
• Mokum Carrot
• Sugarsnax Carrot*
• Andover Parsnip OG
• Oasis Turnip*
• Copra Onion
• Ailsa Craig Onion
• Space Spinach*
• Giant Winter Spinach
• Argentata Chard
• Gigante d’Italia Parsley
• Early Mizuna OG
• Ruby Streaks OG
• Shuko Pac Choi
• Purple Pac Choi
• Kolibri Kohlrabi*
• Winner Kohlrabi

* means that I purchased more than one packet or a large packet. I buy carrots and spinach every year because old seed is unreliable for them. I buy a lot of them because I grow so much of it. Things like turnips or kohlrabi have long lasting seeds. I may not grow that much each year, but I'll use the same packet for several years.

My total is $42. I always have to purchase at least $30 or I get hit with a $5 shipping fee, and I like my free shipping. No trouble this year. In fact I ordered a little more since I'm ordering for Granny and those don't go into my totals. This total won't go on this year's tally. I'll be starting next year's tally with it since it is for next year's crops.

Harvest Monday, December 24th, 2012

No harvests this week. This week it was all about eating from my stores. For Christmas I go to a large potluck dinner. Well I say go, but my townhouse mates are hosting so it is in my house too. We have a door between our living rooms that we open for big parties as our downstairs isn't large enough for really big parties. She has been throwing the "orphan" Christmas party for years and years. It started small as most had a place to go for the holidays, with people who didn't celebrate to those that had too far to go home. As time went on more people started showing up. Now it is huge. There are usually between 40-50 people. She never sends out the invitation until very close to the holiday so those that have other places to go will go there.

But I digress. I decided to bring some squash. I wanted a more savory squash, so I've been experimenting with casseroles. It looks so good doesn't it? Well it didn't taste that good. I've tried a couple ways, but maybe I just don't like the savory preparations. I still didn't try a curried one, maybe I'll try that next. But home. Experiments shouldn't be brought to parties. I'm going to resort to the typical pureed squash, seasoned with maple syrup, butter, and spices. I know that will be good.

I made a couple of spinach salads from the spinach picked last week. If you remember a while ago I sent out gift bags to my neighbors with homemade treats. A couple of them sent me back gifts. One had oranges from his mother's neighborhood in it. They go well in my spinach salad. I also added some sweet potatoes and some home made candied walnuts which I hadn't yet put on when this photo was taken.

The weather has finally turned colder. So of course it was soup time. I made a bean soup with my Calypso beans.

From the garden it contained squash, Calypso beans, carrots, shredded zucchini, celery, onions, and herbs (not shown). I used broth from some bones that I'd saved from previous meals. It had both ham and chicken bones. The ham flavor really predominated though. Sometimes I eat it straight and sometimes I puree my soups. This one I did as a puree and then swirled in some Greek yogurt before eating. It was yummy.

Harvest Monday is a day to show off your harvests, how you are saving your harvest, or how you are using your harvest. If you have a harvest you want to show off, add your name and link to Mr Linky below.

Happy Solstice

Gardens revolve around the seasons so to me a gardener ought to celebrate the solstice. Or more to the point celebrate the return of light that is about to come. Today we are having a perfectly miserable "winter" storm. Driving rain and lots of wind. It feels like a nor'easter, but I haven't been following the weather like I do during the growing season. I did notice that my outdoor thermostat reads 51F. I really hope winter comes back this season. I suppose if we have switched permanently to zone 7 I might have to think about gardening more during the winter. But to be honest I really like my winter break. I like that I have a real season to dream about what to plant for next year. Right now I'm reading the Fedco catalog and making my list and checking it way more than twice.

Over the last couple of weeks I did get a tiny bit of gardening done. The roots of figs are hardy here, but the wood is not, so I wrapped up my fig tree. I'm doing an espalier. The main trunk is going about a foot off the ground. Well two trunks. I took two branches and trained them horizontally. Then I'm letting real branches grow up vertically about a foot apart. I bent the branches down so they were closer to the trunk and then buried it all in dry leaves. Then I covered it with a tarp. The other side of the tarp is brown and I was going to leave it brown side up, but I was afraid it would get too hot under the tarp. So the more ugly silver side gets to be the view from my desk window. But if I get figs next year it will be worth it.

The way I wrapped it up is NOT how the Boston fig expert tells you how to wrap your tree, but I just couldn't bear to put on that awful pink fiberglass insulation under the tarp. I could just see it getting caught in everything. Ick! We will see if dry leaves work. If not I might have to talk to a neighbor I don't know. I go by his yard on occasion and he has a little fig tree about five feet tall. Right now it is all wrapped up. I've seen another one in another yard farther away and their tree is about the same size. Of course I've seen ripe figs on neither of these trees, so don't know how successful they are. I figure if I can't get it to work, I can always move one of the figs to the garden proper. There it would be alongside the foundation, which would help some.

I also raked up the pine needles off of the bamboo and put them around my blueberries. I keep hoping I can lower the pH of the soil. I should have taken a soil test to see, but I didn't. I did get some soil from the main garden to test. I dried it out and have it packed up to send to the extension service after Christmas. For now I want to stay as far away from the post office as possible.

So Happy Solstice everyone. I hope you are having a merry season. I know I am. Last weekend was the Chanukah party; today is the solstice/end of the world party; Tuesday is the Christmas party; then comes the New Year's party; then my birthday party just five days later; then another friend's birthday party. I think I'm going to be partied out after the season is over. You would never know I was a bit of an introvert.

Harvest Monday, December 17th, 2012

I still had some small patches of veggies to pick for the winter. The weather forecast was for colder weather and I had used up my greens from the fridge. So it was time to pick.

I got a nice basket of bok choy, tatsoi, radish, and turnip.

There isn't much left in the little patch. I might get another harvest. But if I do it will be very small.

I planted spinach a while ago. I usually don't get a harvest in the fall. They were really planted for overwintering and an early spring crop. But I thought the plants were big enough to take a couple of leaves from the largest ones.

It was a decent harvest of spinach and a little bit of baby lettuce. I didn't plant the lettuce. They are a volunteer romaine. Maybe Little Gem. I don't know if the lettuce will survive the winter or not. Last year I had several babies over winter in protected spots, but last year we only got to 5F (zone 7b). I'm in zone 6b so it was 10F warmer than normal.

The garden looks so barren now. It just needs a covering of snow.

• Greens 2.96 lbs
• Roots 0.86 lbs
• Weekly total 3.82 lbs
• Yearly total 712.78 lbs
• Tally $1509.22

Harvest Monday is a day to show off your harvests, how you are saving your harvest, or how you are using your harvest. If you have a harvest you want to show off, add your name and link to Mr Linky below.

Harvest Monday, December 10th, 2012

No harvests yet. I'm eating all the greens in my fridge as fast as I can before they go bad. Above is one of my favorite side dishes - coleslaw with cabbage, onions, and carrots from the garden.

My pizzas don't have tomato sauce on them. I usually make mine with a mix of mushrooms, onions (from the garden), and greens (from the garden). I saute them with red wine for added flavor. This time I used Swiss chard.

Last night we had fried rice for dinner. It is one of my husband's favorites, but he hates to have veggies mixed in. So I made a side dish for me of stir fried vegetables. Onions, Mushrooms, Chinese cabbage, and purple sweet potatoes. All from the garden except the mushrooms.

I've cleared out most of the greens that I need to use up. I still have some chard and some bok choy left. I expect to have those done soon and then I'll start picking from the garden again until it is all used up. The weather has been very very nice. Too nice. My husband told me that this year is on track to be the warmest year for the US in recorded history. I'm really hoping for a real winter this year. The insect pests were a bit out of control and their timing was all off. It is easier to garden when things are predictable.

Harvest Monday is a day to show off your harvests, how you are saving your harvest, or how you are using your harvest. If you have a harvest you want to show off, add your name and link to Mr Linky below.

The Holidays

Our family doesn't do gifts much anymore. I do give gifts to my kids and on occasion my husband gets something, but we don't do the normal holiday craziness. Still I like to make things for people. Two years ago I made baskets of goodies for the neighbors. This year I decided to do gift bags instead. I looked for baskets. But I'm just not going to spend $20 for the container for my homemade treats. It seems silly. Gift bags are cheap and much easier to carry around. And they can be recycled.

English Toffee and Chow Mien Cookies cooling

I started before Thanksgiving when I made Cranberry Apple Jam. Then came the fudge. Fudge is good to make ahead since you can put it in the freezer and pull it out when you are ready to assemble. I also made some candied walnuts. Again they don't go bad quickly so it was an easy ahead thing to do.

Tuesday we got back from a trip to Kansas visiting my in-laws for five days. After catching up on things today it was finally time to buckle down and get all the rest done. This is the first time I made muffins (pumpkin muffins with butternut squash from the garden). Unlike most of the things in the basket this needs refrigeration because of the cream cheese frosting. I've never put anything in before that couldn't sit on the counter for a week.

Form left to right and then top to bottom I have Whole Wheat Gingerbread Cookies, Thumbprint Cookies (with strawberry jam from my garden strawberries), English Toffee, Candied Walnuts, Cranberry Apple Jam, Pumpkin Muffins, Penuche Fudge, Chocolate Fudge, and Chow Mein Cookies.

Next year I'd love to do more things from the garden. Right now two treats use things from my garden. I'd love to make that all of them. I'm thinking when herb season comes, I could make some herbed vinegar. I could do some dried herb packets. The jam could actually be from the garden. I could do some bread and butter pickles. I'm wondering what else I could make from the garden that would be fun. Do you give gifts from your garden?

Harvest Monday, December 3rd, 2012

No harvests were made last week. I also didn't take a lot of photos of food. But I did have a couple. the first is a pie made from my homegrown butternut squash. Well not really a pie as such. There is no crust. So I guess you would call it a custard. If you take the crust out of pumpkin pie it is almost good for you. Soy milk, eggs, squash, spices. Yes there is some sugar, but I don't add a lot when I'm trying to be healthy.

Sometimes my lunches get weird. I had a sweet potato dish (sweet potatoes, onions, and thyme from the garden) and some baked beans (yellow eye beans and onions from the garden). The beans were an experiment. I can't eat tomatoes and the typical canned beans have tomatoes in them. But the traditional recipe for Boston Baked Beans doesn't. It relies on mustard and molasses for flavor. Well that and cooking them for eight hours in the oven so all the sugars are caramelized. They are so much better than the regular canned beans. I want to try to can them sometime this winter as I much prefer my beans canned than frozen, and the recipe takes too long to do it every time I want beans. I wanted to make the recipe once without canning just to make sure I like it. And I really, really do.

Harvest Monday is a day to show off your harvests, how you are saving your harvest, or how you are using your harvest. If you have a harvest you want to show off, add your name and link to Mr Linky below.