Harvest Monday, 9 February 2015

Path to the compost pile

The path down to my compost pile is getting buried again. I keep shoveling and it keeps snowing more. We are going to break the Boston 30 day total record in 17 days with this series of storms. And we have more storms in the forecast. One for Thursday and one over the weekend. I like snow, but even I could use a break.

I keep rescuing my peach trees when my husband and townhouse mates put snow on its branches (when it melts it can drag the branches down and break them). My husband gets annoyed with all the restrictions. No dirty snow on the garden. No heavily salted snow on the peach trees. That can only go on the grass. We have a tiny postage stamp of a yard and there isn't a lot of places to put the snow. Anyway onto Harvest Monday and what I'm doing with my stored harvests.

I'm getting down to the last handful of bags of greens in my freezer. I'll make it through February, but I'm not sure how far into March I'll get. I have my big pile of greens for dinner every night. The dinner above has more from the garden than those. The sauce has mustard seeds and garlic from the garden. The salmon patties have dried parsley and mustard.

That meal also had some sweet potato fries. Dave wrote about this a couple of weeks ago week and I figured it was a good way to use up my huge 2.5 pound sweet potato. So I've been eating them for the last couple of days and I'll be finishing them up today. Maybe. It is a lot of fries to eat for one person.

This week I also decided that I needed to make some more enchilada sauce for me. My husband gets the tomato pepper version bought from the store. But I can't eat tomatoes and peppers, so I make one with avocado, onion, and cilantro. The cilantro is frozen from the garden. And the garlic comes from the garden.

In addition I use my frozen zucchini and stuff that into the inside along with some leftover chicken. I have a few more packets of zucchini left. So again that will last me through February, but I might not have much left for March.

I know the stores won't last until my greens start producing in the spring. So I broke down in January and started buying some things for my lunch greens. I have some Brussels sprouts in the freezer and I bought a cabbage for coleslaw. My oranges and purple stores have been holding up better. I still have 14 butternut squashes and at least half my sweet potatoes. At least I think. I haven't weighed them to find out. In addition the carrots are holding up fine. I have a lot frozen for later in the spring and the fresh ones are doing OK. A couple have started to sprout. I eat any that show signs of waking up.

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 Gardening Season Has Started

Yes I know I have three feet of snow on the ground right now and more is predicted over the next week. But I started my seeds today. Surely that marks the start of the gardening season.

I make up a schedule every year for what I'm planting indoors (the left side) and what I'm seeding outside. They have dates when I should be doing this and places to mark when the plants actually got seeded or planted. I rarely actually plant on the date written, but I'm pretty good at getting it somewhere around that date. My schedule says that I'm late getting the alliums started. This year I'm just seeding two types - bunching onions and shallots. All of the other onions are being bought as seedlings this year. I've never done that before and I'll see how it goes.

Most of the time I make soil blocks, but I was feeling very lazy today. So I just filled an old takeout container with some mix and did it that way. The alliums don't mind root disturbance all that much, so this way works fine with them. It will be a pain later trying to untangle the roots to plant, but for now at least it is easier. I'm sure I'll curse that choice later in the spring.

They are now sitting under the lights to germinate. I put the lids on to hold in the moisture, but not too tightly so they will get a bit of airflow.

I can't wait to see my first green this year. Sadly alliums take a a while to germinate, but I expect to see sprouting in about a week.

Snow

While I was on vacation we had a blizzard in Boston. I got back on Sunday and on Monday we had another big storm. I'm not sure how much snow we got here between the two storms, but Boston got about 4 feet. And more is in the forecast for later in the week.

Circle Garden and Compost Piles

Yesterday morning I had a path dug to the compost piles. It is gone now. I'd say there is about three feet of snow out there.

Beds 1-3

The fence separating the driveway and the garden is totally buried now. Much of the driveway snow gets tossed there. I hope it quits snowing because we don't have a lot of space to put more snow and I won't let them put the salty snow on the garden. The clean snow is fine though.

Beds 3-8

The neighbors green fence is 4 feet tall so you get a good idea of the amount of snow. Those poles sticking out are stakes for my kale. I have to stake them in the winter as otherwise the snow will break the stems when the snow melts. Occasionally with the stakes some of the leaves break off, but that is no big loss. The leaves won't be eaten as they are too tough now. I'll eat the new leaves when they start growing in the spring.

So I'm stuck indoors for a while. I do have things to think about though. I still haven't figured out what I want to replace my fig trees with. I have space for about 2-3 dwarf trees there. I keep changing my mind. The two fruits that I buy and use the most are apples and plums. I know I could use another plum, but they are a PITA to espalier. I'm wondering if I can just shape one instead to fit the space. The question is if I need more apples or not. I have two espaliered trees and two dwarfs (which I share with my townhouse mates) in the back. I make a LOT of applesauce for my husband. He eats a half pint most evenings. So I could easily use 100 pounds of apples.

Another thought would be kiwi berries (real kiwis aren't hardy here). The best ones need a male pollinator. I know there is at least one that doesn't, but I've heard the yield isn't that good. Has anyone grown them? If so what has your experience been?

I guess there are more normal things to grow. Like maybe an apricot. I'm not much of a fan of apricots though. Cherries aren't bad, but I hate cooked cherries, so they can't be preserved. I'd have to eat them all fresh. Picking cherries seems like a lot of work for something I'm not all that into.

I am contemplating a persimmon tree. But what I really want to grow is a pawpaw tree. BTW some people call papayas pawpaws, but I'm not talking about those. Pawpaws aren't well known in the US even though they are native here. They don't ship or store well. I've had one once and they taste delicious. They taste like a tropical fruit more than the temperate fruit that they are. I could freeze them and make great smoothies out of them. The problem is that pawpaw trees are about 20' tall. I don't have that kind of space. They aren't grown much and I haven't a clue if they could be kept pruned short and still bear. Another issue is that you need two to cross pollinate. And the one grower in our area that I've talked to says that he hand pollinates the flowers. The natural pollinators are flies and the flowers smell like rotting meat to attract them. The flies don't do a good job and that is why people usually hand pollinate.

But I'll have to make a decision soon and get my order in. I just wish I knew what would grow the best here.

Harvest Monday, 2 February 2015

I'm going to keep in the same theme as last week, small things. I love the huge portions of squash I get, but I also love my little things. Today's little things is dill seed. I know most people probably don't use a lot of dill seed in their lives, but I do. I use it as a caraway seed substitute. It taste a lot like that. And I love dill seed in bread.

The bread I make is all gluten free now. So I put the dill seed into a mock rye bread. Though to be honest, rye isn't a flavor the bread has, but it is the flavor of the caraway seed that makes me love rye so much. The flours that I use are mostly buckwheat and teff. These are both dark flours, so they also give the dark rye look to a bread. Then again that is where the similarity ends. However both buckwheat and teff are very healthy grains. Buckwheat especially has been shown to reduce your cholesterol and is very high in flavinoids.

For those that haven't cooked gluten free before, gluten is the glue that holds the bread together. Without that glue you need some other kind of glue. The typical things to use are gums. Xanthum gum being the most popular. I use some of that, but to be honest I'm not a gum fan. I think gums can be a bit hard on the digestive tract. So in addition I use other things too.

Psyillium fiber (which is bought from the drugstore as a fiber supplement), ground flax seed, and eggs. All of these additions add different flavors to the bread. Xanthum gum is bitter which is another reason I like to keep the volume of this down. You know what eggs taste like. And the others are maybe a little nutty. My father says he doesn't put psyllium fiber in because of the taste. I like the taste. I guess everyone has their own idea of what works.

Starches also help stick things together. And typically starchs are used a lot in gluten free baking. I tend to like to eat whole grains (though whole seeds would be more accurate here as they aren't grains). So I use very little starch. There are rules of thumb for ratios of starch to whole grain/protein when making your own recipes and I break them as I don't use much starch.

Daphne's Mock Rye Sandwich Bread

• T yeast
• 8 oz buckwheat flour
• 6 oz teff flour
• 2 oz millet flour
• 2 oz tapioca flour
• 2 oz almond flour
• 1 t salt
• 2 t psyllium husks
• 1 t xanthum gum
• 1 1/2 T dill seed
• 1 2/3 c warm almond milk
• 1 T molasses
• 3 large eggs
• 1/4 c olive oil
• 1 T cider vinegar

I make this for sandwich bread so it requires a a small pullman loaf pan to bake, 9"x4"x4".

Oil and line the pullman loaf pan with parchment paper (you don't need to put the paper on the ends, one piece along the middle is fine).

Mix all the of the dry ingredients together. If you aren't sure of your yeast you can proof it in the warm milk, but I don't bother. I just put it in with the dry. Also gluten free grains are stored in the fridge so they are cold. Some people will take them out and let them (and the eggs) warm up before mixing it all together. Again I don't bother.

Mix all the wet ingredients together. When you warm the milk up make sure it isn't too warm that you cook the eggs when adding. Add the wet to the dry ingredients. And mix for about 2 minutes with a stand mixer. Don't use the bread hook. Gluten free doughs should be somewhere between a cake batter and a cookie batter. If it is too dry add more milk. Put the batter into the loaf pan.

Normal bread doughs would be slightly warm at this point. With all the eggs and cold flours this tends not to be. So it takes longer to rise. I usually heat up my oven until it is just warm and then turn it off. I put the pullman pan's lid on to retain moisture and let it rise until it is almost at the top. Which usually takes 2-3 hours. The quantity usually isn't enough to really get it to the top, but it comes really close. And you don't want it to get there. Gluten free bread is much more liquid than normal bread and it will leak out the sides if it goes over the top.

I still cook it with the lid on though. Once it is almost there, I take the pan out and heat the oven to 350F. I then cook the loaf for 50 minutes. Now I know the bread is cooked after 50 minutes with my pan and in my oven, but both different pans and different ovens heat differently. The first time you make it you should test the internal temperature. It is done when it reaches 210F (though I've read a lot of different numbers for this from 200F to 220F).

And as a side note, did you know that a cup is not a cup? There are different measures of what a cup is in different places. I hadn't a clue. Even in the US we have two different kinds of cups. The cup we use for measuring in the kitchen holds 8 fluid ounces (237 ml). The cup used for nutrition labeling in the US is larger (240 ml). A cup in the UK is 284ml according to Wikipedia, but I've seen other sources call it 250ml.

There is a big difference between 237 ml and 284 ml. That would change a recipe a lot. So I don't promise that the above recipe will work with a non-US measuring cup. But when I say cup, I really mean 237 ml. So translate as you like. And tablespoons are 14.8 ml. All I can say is I really hate the non standardized world. The US tried to switch over the the metric system a long time ago when I was a kid and it failed miserably. So now we can't talk to the rest of the world. I wish they would try again. Kids over the last decades have had to learn both anyway because science is done with the metric system. Of course it wouldn't help with the kitchen measurement issues, unless we moved to milliliters. I'd be happy to do it. We are such a global world now.

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, 26 January 2015

I'm gone on vacation right now, so you all will have to have fun yourselves. It isn't unusual for me to go on vacation sometime in the late winter or spring. Usually my townhouse mates get stuck caring for my onion seedlings. Since I ordered plants instead of seeds this year, they are free from that. But they still get to care for the sweet potatoes. I like the Garnet variety, but it takes forever to come out of dormancy and make slips. So I start trying in January. Luckily I don't have to worry much about them. I do want them to check on the water level, but to be honest even if they never looked at it, it would probably be fine. The water doesn't change much without any roots in there.

As for harvests I'm going to talk about something that uses my preserved harvest, but in a small way. Usually you see the big things like my vegetables heaped on my plate but today is about the small things I use from my garden. Today is all about mayonnaise.

As many of you know I can't eat a lot of things. The problem with mayo for me is paprika and soy lethicin. Most of the mayonnaises on the market have one or the other in them. There are some without, but I find them rather tasteless. So began the experiment with making mayonnaise myself. I didn't want to use eggs as pasteurizing them is a real pain. If I had a sous vide machine I'd be all set, but I don't. So I decided to go vegan instead. Eggs are useful in mayo not just for their flavor but because they are emulsifiers. They keep oil and water mixed. Flax seed does the same thing. A typical vegan egg substitute is a tablespoon of ground flax seed and three tablespoons of water. It works pretty well. Yes the flavor is different, but I was OK with that. I like eggs, but I was going to use the oils and additions to make the mayo taste good.

The oils I used were a mix of coconut oil, olive oil, sesame seed oil, and a bland oil. I found you can only use about one tablespoon of coconut oil in a half cup of oil, otherwise when it is refrigerated it gets too hard. But that one tablespoon adds a lot of flavor.

From the garden I used two ingredients. Ground mustard seeds and garlic powder.

Daphne's Mayo

• 1 T flax seed
• 3 T hot water
• 1 T lemon juice
• 1 T white balsamic vinegar
• 1/2 t salt
• 1 t ground mustard
• pinch of garlic powder
• 1/2 t honey
• 1/16-1/8 t sesame seed oil
• 1 T melted coconut oil
• 3 T EVOO
• 1/4 c neutral oil (I typically use canola)

Mix the hot water and flax seed together until it is gelatinous. Add all the ingredients except the last two together. Mix with an immersion blender until well blended (mix in the container the blender came with as there isn't a lot of volume). Add the last two oils one tablespoon at a time, blending until well incorporated between each addition. Alternatively you can add the oils very very slowly in a thin stream. I find that I make quite a mess that way, so I like to do it in discrete portions more.

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, 19 January 2015

Vegetables at dinner have gotten a tad boring. I don't have nearly as much broccoli frozen from the garden as chard, spinach, and kale. So I have long stretches of just greens leafy things for dinner. There might be a lot of ways to eat leafy greens, but I tend to only like them plain (or in egg dishes). And I have something green every dinner, so leafy greens, leafy greens, leafy greens. Boring maybe, but surprisingly I still love them.

The colorful vegetables are more interesting. Though you can't see it, I had squash casserole for dinner too. I don't usually eat this at the dinner table. I often have it as dessert in front of the TV. There isn't that much sugar in it - about 1.5 teaspoons for 3/4 a cup of squash. But It feels like dessert to me.

I love roasted vegetables too. Yum. Here it is my carrots, my purple sweet potatoes, and not my onions. I seasoned them with dried rosemary form the garden. I think it is one of my favorite ways of doing vegetables. So easy as long as the oven is on for a long time during the day. And so delicious.

As you probably guessed I'm still harvestless this winter. We have folks skating on the pond in the middle of town now. So I'm sure the ground is frozen solid. I'm guessing I still have about three months more of no harvests. Luckily I get to see all of yours to keep me happy over the winter.

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, 12 January 2015

Harvest Monday is going to be a bit different for me today. Though technically it isn't about tallying up how much you spend and how much you get, I do that every year. I put the results in my sidebar. Last Harvest Monday I had the last squash tallied in for last year. So last week I got my new 2015 side bar tally sheet up. Last year's results get put on the bottom and this years gets started. There are no harvest yet as everything is frozen solid for quite some time, but I do have expenses.

The first expenses that go in are my amortized costs for the garden. I just make a guess at how long a large purchase will last and use that has how long to amortize over. A lot of the short term ones have expired, but I still have things like the soil that made up the garden (7.44/year), my plastic composter (5/year), tomato cages (if only I had known that I couldn't eat tomatoes a couple years earlier they wouldn't have gotten bought 18.01/year), some bricks(0.81/year), and the materials like wood and corner braces that make up the raised beds (106.22/year).

The amortized bill is remarkably low this year at $137.49. Last year it was $321. The difference is in two things. One is my fertilizers. I typically amortize a bulk buy of fertilizers over two years. However I still have tons of fertlizer and that time has expired. The second is that the large bamboo purchase I made at the beginning of the garden has expired. The bamboo is still going strong. The short 4' ones are starting to get brittle and might need replacing soon, but the big ones show no signs of rotting out yet. They are much sturdier. I might even cut some in half and use them for the four foot ones.

Other things will get added to the spent tally over the year, but the major thing that gets added in January is the seed bill.

Usually I get my seed orders in at the end of December. I'm a bit late this year as I finished ordering yesterday. Not that it really matters. Usually I like to get the order in early to get my onions seeds in time to start them at the end of January. But this year I've gotten lazy. Onions take a long time from seed to transplant stage. So I'm ordering from Dixondale this year. I'll see how it goes.

Dixondale $19.83

Copra

Walla Walla

Red Zeppelin

I always buy new seed of carrots, onions (not this year though except for bunching onions), spinach, celery, and corn every year. I can't count on the seed surviving to the next year. The other exception this year is corn. Fedco has packet sizes. The A size is the typical. B size is usually twice as much. Last year I knew I needed two packets of corn as one wasn't enough. So I ordered the B packet without really looking. Well it turns out the corn B packet is four times the size. When it came it was obvious. I should look closer. So I immediately put half of the corn into the freezer in a sealed container. Last week I did a germination test. I put 15 seeds into a ziplock with a wet paper towel. I put it near my heat and waited two days. 15 out of 15 of those seeds germinated. This year I won't need to buy corn.

I always order from Fedco which is a cooperative of growers and buyers of seed. I like their philosophy. And they tell you the generalities about where the seed come from, be it a multinational corporation or a small farmer. They are located and specialize in seed for the Northeast where I live. And they are pretty inexpensive and have no shipping costs if you order enough. Which I do. This year I spent $58.50 for an equivalent of 36 packets of seed (the C packet is 8 times the amount of seed of an A packet - I use a lot of bok choy seed as I often direct seed it and the seed last for years).

Fedco $58.50

Golden Gate Pole Bean

Blizzard Snowpea

Diplomat Melon

Sensation Melon

Lemon Cucumber

Scarlet Keeper Carrot

Mokum Carrot (B)

Nelson Carrot

Andover Parsnip

Gold Ball Turnip

Evergreen Hardy White Onion

Camelot Shallot

Space Spinach (B)

Summer Lettuce Mix

Krausa Parsley

Hon Tsai Tai Purple Choy Sum

Shuko Bok Choy (C)

Arcadia Broccoli (B)

Diablo Brussels Sprouts

Winterbor Kale (B)

Winner Kohlrabi (B)

Tango Celery

Brilliant Celeriac

Sweet Basil

Fedco doesn't sell everything I want. My next stop is Pinetree which is also a New England company. I like them because I can get small amounts and their shipping is cheap. So I can fill in my needs usually.

Pinetree $19.44

Earliglow Strawberries (10 plants)

Golden Acre Cabbage

Point One Cabbage

Green Rocket Michihili Cabbage

Dwarf Blue Curled Kale

German Giant Radish

Sadly I wish those two companies had everything I needed. But they don't. Sigh. I really liked Bolero Carrots. Though I am hoping that the Scarlet Keepers I'm trying this year from Fedco taste as good from storage. I order these from Renee's since they have the cheapest shipping and I'm only ordering one thing. $6.04 for just one packet of seed. Ouch!

Renee's $6.04

Bolero Carrots

I would probably buy more things if shipping weren't so huge for one item. For instance I'd buy some Monument Michihili from Kitazawa seeds or some choy sum (Fedco only had purple, which I got to try, but I know I like the regular kind). I messed up when I ordered from Renee's too. I wanted to try the Romanesco zucchini that Michelle grew last year. They sell the seeds. I was ordering from them. I should have ordered that one too. Maybe next year.

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, 5 January, 2014

I harvested a lot squash this last year. So my goal has been to use it before they go bad in the spring. To that end I've been bringing squash items to parties. The first batch of squash soup I made was for myself and I used some of my slightly under ripe squash (a suggestion from a reader for under ripe squash). And it worked the best. The second batch, that was brought to the New Year's Eve party, required more squash so it had the sweeter squash. It wasn't quite as good that way. I really liked the less sweet squash in the soup.

The seasonings for the soup were simple I used cumin, cardamom, and lots and lots of green coriander from the garden. More coriander than is shown above, but that is all that will fit in my mortar and pestle without getting all over when I grind it up. Sadly I used most of of the coriander up. I don't have enough to make more soup with it. I have plenty of ripe coriander which I can use, but it isn't nearly as good. This year I need to make sure to harvest a lot. Maybe it needs a spot in the garden proper again. Usually it is allowed to grow with the flowers or in random spots were it self sows.

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.

Year in Review

This will be long wordy review of how each bed in the garden grew. If you want a pretty photographic review, see yesterday's post instead. Personally I like the nitty gritty of what happened (and the numbers), but I know it isn't everyone's cup of tea.

Beds 1, 5, and 7W - Two Sisters Beds with Spring Spinach and Asian Greens (1.07 lbs/sqft)

This was a very good year for corn and squash in my garden. I've had trouble over the years with the squash seed germinating, but I ended up chitting the seed so my plantings wouldn't fail. That ended up giving the squash a long enough time to grow and I didn't have to replant with a squash that matures early, but doesn't produce as well as Waltham butternut. I have to remember to do that every year for the first seeding. I had a total of 158 sqft of space in corn and squash. I ended up with 45.8 pounds of Honey Select corn and 105.3 pounds of Waltham butternut squash. Both record breakers for me. Though these don't quite eek out my one pound per square foot that I'm shooting for, Bed 5 did have the early spinach and the early Asian greens already harvested before the bed was planted in corn on June 6th (spinach side of the bed) and June 10th (Asian greens side of the bed). The squash seed was planted chitted a few days after.

That early spinach had 32 sqft and gave me 7.4 pounds. The early Asian greens (bok choy, tatsoi, mizuna, choy sum) also had 32 sqft and came in at 10 pounds. So if I add those in I get a respectable 168.5 pounds. I think this is the first year ever that the Two Sisters beds have broken the pound per square foot goal. Though fixing my germination issues and switching to Honey Select which is a good producer compared to the other varieties I've tried really helped, I'm guessing it was the weather that really brought it in. It was reliably warm this summer but not hot enough to stress the plants. For next year I want to add another early spinach bed. In the past I wouldn't bother as I wouldn't eat it anyway, but this year I'm really trying to eat more vegetables in the winter than in previous years. So more greens to freeze is good.

Bed 2 - Kale, Roots, Carrots, and Fava Beans (W 0.89 lbs/sqft, E 1.35 lbs/sqft)

The western side of Bed 2 (32 sqft) had the early kale which gave me 9.17 pounds. This was removed at the beginning of June and I wasn't really sure what to put in to replace it. So I made it a root vegetable plot, with turnips, parsnips and a few beets. The parsnips had half the bed and gave me only 6.5 pounds. The beets yielded 4.9 pounds which wasn't bad as they weren't given much space. The turnips did better at about 8 pounds, but the purple top turnips were pretty poor performers. The bed gave me 28.57 pounds total which isn't too bad considering. I think I can do better next year. I grew the parsnips in the middle of the bed. The early turnips shaded them out a bit in the early summer. When the parsnips got big the later turnips were shaded out by them. I think next year I'll do them in blocks and maybe prop the parsnip foliage up a bit. Does anyone know of parsnips are hurt by the carrot fly? I'd love to leave that block uncovered as parsnips get so tall, but I don't want to if those nasty larvae will hurt the roots.

The eastern side of Bed 2 had the fava beans. They had a dismal yield of 8 pounds. I say dismal, but to be fair it was my second best year for them. But 2013 gave me 15 pounds on the same space, so it seems dismal. On July 6th the bed was switched over to fall storage carrots. I got 35.2 pounds of carrots from those. So the bed itself did well for the year. And speaking of carrots . . .

Bed 3 - Herbs, Greens, Fall Beans Peas, Carrots, Fall Brassicas (W 0.52 lbs/sqft, E 1.2 lbs/sqft))

Bed 3 west is sort of my mish mash bed. It has some herbs like parsley, fennel, and savory (which didn't grow). It also has celery and celariac. I toss in some lettuce sometimes (which really didn't grow this year there, so no harvest for that). And peas grow in the back during the spring, and beans (2.4 lbs)grew in the back of the western bed in the fall. The celery and celeriac did really badly this year 2.6 pounds and 0.6 pounds respectively. The fennel did OK at 2.86. And it was the best parsley year since I've been here with 2.91 pounds being harvested. Parsley usually struggles in my garden, but this year it grew very lush. Though I did have two of the plants bolt on me which is weird. That has never happened before.

The peas along the back of the whole length of the bed (16 sqft) produced 10.8 pounds this year. Not great. Some years the peas do well and some years they don't. I've never figured out why. I'll put half of that into the eastern bed's total and half into the western beds total. So overall the western side produced 16.7 pounds in 32 sqft. Not great. But this is a bed I play around with things like trying new crops (celeriac). And the beans and peas really shade the bed a lot so it wasn't a great growing space anyway. Hopefully next year I'll bring it up, but it has always failed to produce well every year, so I'm not holding my breath.

The spring carrots did quite well in the eastern side. They had 24 sqft and produced well at 13.4 pounds. Fall carrots always do better than spring carrots in yield and taste. But for the spring, it was good. July 13th I replaced that whole eastern bed with fall brassicas. I had kohlrabi, cabbage, and Michihili cabbage. I planted the Michihili too early I think. It started to bolt as did a couple of the European cabbages. The bed did just OK at 19.55 pounds.Over all the eastern side produced 38.4 pounds. Not too bad. I think it could do better. The kohlrabis did well, but the cabbages didn't. I think I need to water them more. The covering I use over them lets the rain in, but not all of it.

Bed 4 - Alliums, Kale, Mustard (1.4 lbs/sqft)

In the spring this bed is covered in garlic and onions. When the garlic comes out I put in a fall mustard crop for the seeds. When the onions come out I put in the kale to be over wintered. The garlic did just OK this year. I got 9.78 pounds. for 20 sqft. Garlic is never a heavy producer, but I often get a bit bigger bulbs. The onions on the other hand did stellar this year. I grew them under a row cover and it helped them immensity. I harvested 65.13 pounds of them. They only had 43 sqft of space. So that is a huge harvest for me. And they were only in there until the end of July. By August I had planted kale. In addition I under planted the kale with cilantro in the middle and mache along the outside. I got 1.3 pounds of cilantro and 9.13 pounds of kale. For a total for the year in this bed of 85.3.

Bed 6 - Broccoli, Spring Brassicas, Carrots (W 0.84 lbs/sqft, E 1.85 lbs/sqft)

The western side of the bed is easy as it is all broccoli and there is no broccoli anywhere else in the garden. I harvested 26.9 pounds of broccoli this year. It is under a pound per square foot, but to be honest broccoli is not the best producer known to man. I used to get barely anything when I first started. 22 pounds is the best I've produced in the past, so 27 is stellar for me.

The eastern side of the bed was haphazardly done. It started with the spring brassicas. I had 20.8 pounds of Chinese cabbage, 5.1 pounds of European cabbage, and 4.82 pounds of kohlrabi. For a total of 30.7 pounds, which is pretty good for half the year. Then I put in some carrots. But I didn't have enough seed to put in the whole bed. I had left a bit of the cabbage to see if it would produce side heads. It did but they were tiny and not worth it. I added a few radishes and turnips, but the weight was small and too hard to tell from the other random turnips and radishes around the garden so those numbers didn't get in. The carrots that I did put in were stellar. They produced 28.6 pounds. So over all the bed did amazing at 59.3 pounds.

Bed 7E - Lettuce, Green Onions, Beans, Chard, Asian Greens (2.55 lbs/sqft)

The eastern side of Bed 7 was a conglomeration of chard, lettuce, beans, green onions, and fall sown baby Asian greens. The spring lettuce did great at 13.5 pounds but the summer lettuce did not. I think with the wall of beans up, it blocked the sprinkler and they didn't get enough water. The beans did well at 15.8 pounds. They liked all that water. Most of the harvest was from the Golden Gate beans. The Kentucky Wonder beans succumbed to rust early on. And the asparagus beans got overwhelmed by the lush foliage of the other beans. The chard did stellar as always - 36.7 pounds. The green onions were the lowest producer for the space/time at 9.2 pounds. Then at the end of the season I put in some baby Asian greens for 6.5 pounds. All in all it was 81.7 pounds - the highest producing bed in the garden.

Bed 8 - Cucumbers, Zucchini (E 2.52 lbs/sqft)

The western side was a total bust. It is the second year of having asparagus in there and more than half the plants are dead already. Asparagus HATES my yard. I tried it in a different spot when I first moved in and it died there too. I'm guessing I have another bed to work with next year. I'll leave whatever is still alive, but the rest of the bed will be free. It just isn't worth trying again. Maybe I'll put in some blueberry bushes.

The western side held the cucumbers and the zucchini. It was a fabulous cucumber year with 62.8 pounds in just 8 square feet. It takes the record as most productive plant. But the wall of cucumbers that were trellised blocked the sprinkler water from getting to the zucchini and they really didn't produce until I figured this out rather late in the season. So they only produced 17.8 pounds. I've decided that beans and cucumbers that are blocking the sprinklers will be planted at the ends of the beds instead. This gives them half the space they had before, but they won't prevent other plants from growing. If I decide later that I need more space, I can put in more sections at the end. The only problem with the ends is that they are near the brick path. The foundation for it extends a foot into the bed and make is really hard to pound in a trellis. I end up having to put in side supports to make sure it doesn't fall down. Plus of course they have a shallower place to grow. Over all the cucurbits produced 80.6 pounds and was the second highest producing bed in the garden.

Circle Garden West - Overwintered Spinach, Sweet Potatoes (1.36 lbs/sqft)

The western side of the circle garden had the overwintered spinach that didn't do all that well at only 1.3 pounds. The worst ever. I only planted Giant Winter and it was a mistake. I think it had some disease. Whatever it is Space resists it better, and I should overwinter that one instead. The bed had sweet potatoes during most of the year. They produced 42.3 pounds, which is a very decent yield up here in the north.

Circle Garden East - Spring Lettuce and Radishes, Melons (1.95 lbs/sqft)

The eastern Circle Garden had lettuce and radishes in the spring. On June 8th it was planted in melons. The early lettuce came in at 7.5 pounds. And the radishes at 4.3 pounds. The melons did the best ever at 50.6 pounds. So I'm happy about that. My biggest problem with melons is that they tend to all come in at the same time even if I have different maturity dates. I don't want to plant them at different times as the older plants would just run over the younger ones and kill them. Maybe I'll try to find a much later one for the garden. The problem is that my hot season really isn't that long. The total for the bed was 62.4 pounds which was great.

Vegetable	Pounds
Alliums	84.1
Beans	18.2
Broccoli	26.9
Carrot	78.1
Corn	45.8
Cucumbers	62.8
Greens	110.0
Greens, Asian	52.6
Herbs	14.6
Melons	50.6
Peas	10.8
Roots	26.7
Squash, Summer	17.8
Squash, Winter	105.3
Sweet Potatoes	42.3

Overall this was a fabulous record setting year and I broke harvest records with onions, melons, carrots, corn, and winter squash. Granny must have been watching over my garden this year as it was just so good. I miss you Granny.

I was better this year about watering which helps a lot. In the past I would often wait for the rain that was predicted but never came. I tried not to do that this year. We do get 4 inches of rain on average every month (with the lowest at 3.5 and the highest at 4.5). So mostly the rain ought to do a good job of watering. But the reality is that we get heavy rains sometimes and then long stretches without. I have to be good at watering when the soil gets dry. I can wait for tropical storms to hit as they are pretty guaranteed, but those scattered summer thundershowers are really not to be relied upon.

I had some failures, but in smaller crops (thank goodness) and very few this year. I am slowly learning how to deal with this garden after four years here. The summer lettuce was abysmal, leggy and sad. When I was gleaning I gleaned lettuce on farms during August and they were beautiful. They didn't use shade cloth. They let the lettuce see full sun. I'm guessing it was just varieties and lots of water. I'll try that next year.

I had trouble with celery and celeriac. I think it was mosaic virus (use a different source for celeriac than I did last year as that is probably where it came from). I'll keep all the umbellifloras out of that area from now on. But it could be something else which I can hope as mosaic virus is forever. Also I think I'm going to try row covers for them in the future. It might help with the carrot fly. I'm not sure how affected they are by that pest, but it can't hurt to try.

Though Bed 5E was hardly a failure, I ran out of carrot seed and put in a few radishes and turnips and left stubs of cabbages in to see if they would grow to fill in the space. It wasn't the best use of space. I should do more carrots or maybe add lettuce in there. Something real. Not halfhearted attempts.

Happy New Year everyone! I hope this new gardening year goes well for everyone.

The Garden in Images Through the Year

Circle Garden

May 11th

June 28th

July 16th

August 27th

October 31st

Beds 1-3

May 9th

June 10th

June 30th

July 30th

August 27th

October 3rd

October 31st

Beds 3-8

May 9th

June 10th

July 17th

July 30th

August 27th

October 3rd

October 31st

November 26th

Harvest Monday, 29 December 2014

I sort of have a harvest this week. Not that I've picked anything outside for quite some time. But I harvested them and they weren't quite ripe.

So I let them sit on my counter for a couple of months. And they seemed to ripen up. They are smaller than the normal butternut squash - about half the size.

They didn't get quite as fluorescent orange as they usually do, but the taste and sweetness were there, so it worked. I almost cut the little squashes off to ripen up the earlier ones faster. But I was lazy and never got around to it. So because of my laziness I have 6.8 pounds to add to the tally this week. Now I'm at 746.7 pounds for the year which is 11 pounds over my last record year. 2015 has been a good gardening year.

The squash were made into pumpkin pie for Christmas and some squash casserole for dinner. I was going to make squash soup, but I just haven't gotten around to it. I froze the last couple of cups for later.

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, 22 December 2014

If only I had a harvest from the garden. But I don't. Interestingly enough it has been fairly warm. The soil has frozen, but every time it does it thaws out again. This week we aren't even supposed to get below freezing at all. So it is looking to be a warmer than average December here. If only the garden got sun at this time of the year, I could do a low hoop house. But sadly the neighboring houses block the light. But maybe next year I'll plant up the zinnia patch by the driveway in something edible for harvesting in December. I just hate ripping out the zinnias while they are still blooming.

Though I've got no harvests I still have lots of stores. This week I used my one solitary celeriac up. I made a roasted parsnip and celeriac soup. It looked like boring brown mush, but it was delicious. Maybe next time I should add some carrots to give it more of a color.

Some lunches only have carrots from the garden. The rest were bought from the store. I've decided that my dinners will be from the stores for a long time, but for my lunches I can buy whatever I want to add to my carrots. If I use my stores for both meals my garden fare won't last long. So I'll mix it up a bit.

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.

Holiday Gifts

Ever since I moved here in 2010, I've made gift bags for the holidays for my neighbors. The content has changed over the years. Since I'm gluten and soy free, this year it had to change a lot. I didn't make fudge for the first time. Cookies didn't dominate the contents either.

I was thinking I could put in a butternut squash if I needed to fill up the space. But it turned out I had a lot of extras in the pantry to give away. Most of the items in the basket have something from the garden in them.

I did end up making some gluten free oatmeal cookies and some cinnamon almonds, but I really like that most of it came from the garden. Not everyone got the same things as I didn't have six of everything. But I had dill relish, peach rum sauce, rhubarb syrup, tarragon and basil vinegar, and gooseberry jam. I also had some dried herbs. I dry a lot of herbs through the year and I went through my spice rack first and took what I needed (especially the sage, which I always seem to run out of no matter how much I dry) and all the extras got put in small jars to give away. This year I had extra of thyme, oregano, and tarragon.

Harvest Monday, 15 November 2014

Last week I wrote about interesting things I was making for dinner. Well I was pretty boring in my dinners recently. Though at least they are very garden centric. The sweet potato is 'Purple'. And the spinach was also from the garden from my frozen stores.

A couple days later I had something not that much different. I bit of left over sweet potato with spinach. I think the day before it was left over sweet potato and kale. I tend to eat greens everyday. They are either kale, spinach, chard, or broccoli.

I'm going through them at a fast rate. I'm sure they won't last the winter. Normally they would, but I've been eating more than usual. In the past I would really cut back on my vegetable intake over the winter, but I'm trying not to this winter. I'm trying to keep up the healthy eating all through winter even without the fresh veggies inundating me from the garden. I hope I succeed.

And I always have a second vegetable for dinner besides the greens. These are the colorful ones. The oranges and purples. For dinner it is usually sweet potatoes or squash. Last year I would add the carrots into that mix. But so far I've been eating them every day for lunch in some form. I might make some squash soup for lunch soon and then maybe carrots will hit the dinner menu more often.

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, 8 December 2014

I've got nothing. No harvests this week. Since what you do with your harvests is fair game for Harvest Monday, today I'd like to write about two items that I cook on a regular basis that I learned from blogs that I follow. One I know where it came from, but the other I don't remember. I wish I did since I love it so much. But I'll start with the first.

Some of the best recipes come from all over the world. I grew up with Mexican food as I lived in Colorado. There Mexican restaurants are on every corner. When I came here to Boston I fell in love with Chinese food. Sadly without being able to eat tomatoes, chilies, or soy, those cuisines are largely not available to me anymore. I can do some of them with heavy modifications, but my cooking repertoire is now sadly limited. In addition my husband doesn't eat red meat anymore. So I'm stuck with poultry and fish. One of our favorite comfort foods was meatloaf. I tried to make a turkeyloaf substitute, but I just didn't like any of the variations I tried (at least without mushrooms which I'm not eating right now either). But then Mark posted one of his dishes - Kofte or Turkish Meatballs.

These we love. I make it with an onion turkey gravy and use ground turkey instead of lamb. Though it certainly isn't a meatloaf it does fill sort of the same niche. When my onions were available I used them. Now it is just the mint and carrots from the garden. And when I made them the other week it was the last of the mint. I should have dried some mint for the winter. I guess that will have to come from the store too. The carrots are cooked in the gravy and they are so delicious that way. And here I paired it with the last of the fresh picked spinach. I'm so sad that is all used up now.

My other well loved recipe is Okonomiyaki. Sometimes it is called Japanese pizza. But it is a vegetable pancake. I don't make it traditionally as I'm gluten free. So mine has a mix of gluten free flours and more eggs than usual. I also use more American toppings. The traditional toppings are bonito flakes (which I don't have and don't use), mayo, and some sauce that can be sort of replicated by equal parts ketchup and Worcestershire sauce. Neither of the later two I can have. And mayos are very problematic. So I use a homemade vegan mayo (which tastes better than the mayos I can eat from the supermarkets) mixed up into a horseradish sauce and plum sauce. It really takes it out of the Asian flavors, but I still like it. It has become comfort food for me over the last several months. And it is a great way to use up any of the cabbage family crops. For a while it was Chinese cabbage. Then it switched to European cabbage. And this last week it was bok choy. Sadly all of my cabbage type greens are now gone. Though I do have some frozen and this coming week I might try to use that.

The main vegetable the pancake uses is 2 cups of cabbage and just about any other vegetable you want. I always use 1/2-1 cup of onions (depending upon whether they are green onions or bulbing onions) and about 1/2c of matchsticked carrots. Sometimes zucchini gets added. It really depends upon what is in the fridge. Like soup you can use up little odds and ends. This last week it was just choy, carrots, and bunching onions. All from the garden.

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 1 December 2014

Since I was cleaning out the beds this last week, I had a decent amount of harvests. The first to go was the Asian greens and chard bed. There wasn't a lot of chard, but some. And a very small amount of tatsoi as I planted it too late. But the bok choy harvest was pretty large.

I probably should have kept it covered from the frost as the outside leaves had started to get mushy so I had to trim them off, but the inside was still very nice. I now have just two beds with plants in them. The kale and the spinach that are overwintering.

And speaking of spinach. I had thought I had planted it too late to get any harvest this year, but I was wrong. I had a decent harvest. Enough for three meals.

I also had a few random harvests from the last clean up of the beds. I had forgotten I even had planted turnips under the chard. They didn't really grow much. But I got a handful worth eating. And the onions were at the end of a bed that had been cleaned up weeks ago.

My last harvest though was something I'd picked a while back and not weighed in. I had six little not quite ripe squash. You can see the color and size difference from one that was fully ripe and set earlier in the year. But I kept them and let them cure. I wanted to see if they were worth eating and they were. One wasn't as sweet as the older squash, but still flavorful. And one was just as sweet and tasty. It just wasn't as orange. I weighed in the two I cooked. The other four will be evaluated when they are cooked up. I suspect that two will be just fine and two aren't ripe enough to taste good. But I've never picked squash so unripe before, so that is just an uneducated guess.

• Alliums: 0.64 lbs
• Greens: 1.24 lbs
• Greens, Asian: 3.95 lbs
• Roots: 0.09 lbs
• Greens: 4.00 lbs
• Weekly Total: 9.92 lbs
• Yearly Total: 739.90 lbs
• Yearly Tally: $1396.30

The tally is special this week. I succeeded in going over my previous record of 735lbs. That record was set in the year with no winter (2012) so I was able to plant peas and spinach in February (unheard of here). I certainly couldn't do that this year. This year the peas were planted April 4th and the spinach April 14th. Also that record had the use of my asparagus bed which hasn't given my anything at all since it was planted in 2013, and might never as most of the plants have already died. So it has been a pretty amazing year. I'm not sure why it was so good. I'll probably go over the tally in a detailed comparison later in the year.

And just because I love numbers. If you look in my sidebar you will see that I have 565 sqft of raised bed. If I use that number I get 1.3 pounds per square foot (even with the non-asparagus counted in). My goal every year is to reach a pound per square foot. So I'm way over that. Whoohoo! Of course the more important part is that it feeds me. And it has done a good job of that.

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.