Thursday's Kitchen Cupboard

Two posts in one day is unusual for me, especially at this time of the year. But I thought I'd join Robin Jody this week. I hadn't prepared, so my photos are all from my meals today.

I started the day with a breakfast of zucchini bread, which is half whole wheat and has a lot of applesauce in it too.

Then I moved on to lunch. Lunch took a while to cook since I was making black bean and squash tacos. I didn't even have the pickled onions prepared in advance. So first I made pickled onions (my no solanum salsa substitute). Then I made the sauteed squash with cardamom, cinnamon, turmeric, and cumin. The black beans have cumin and lots of cilantro from the garden. The cilantro in the main beds is looking ragged, but the plants by the foundation are still a pretty green. The beans, squash, and onions were all from my stores. Sadly this is the last of my black beans. I really need to grow more next year.

I don't always make my own tortillas, but I try. They take a while to roll out. My mom had a tortilla press but I've never gotten one. That being said it still isn't hard. I use whole wheat and spelt. With white flour the gluten really activates too much and you have to let the dough rest in the fridge before rolling, but the whole grain version rolls out so much easier. Not to mention it is better for you.

Daphne's Spelt Tortillas

• 1/2c whole wheat flour
• 1/2 c splet flour
• 1/2 t baking powder
• 1/4 t salt
• 1 1/2 T olive oil
• 1/3 c cold water
  

Mix everything together well. Divide into 8 balls. Roll out using extra flour to keep it from sticking. Cook on a heated cast iron skillet over high heat. You know when to turn it because the dough gets little bubbles in it. They cook very quickly. The tortillas I make are small, about 6" in diameter.

Dinner will be a chicken from the farmers market. I think it might be the last one in the freezer. I have lots of breasts, but no more whole chickens. In addition to the chicken we will have bread and some veggie. I've already started the bread that we will have. It is a rosemary and olive oil bread. The spices are all from the garden - rosemary, oregano, basil, and thyme. I'm thinking I'm going to have some frozen spinach with the meal, but it might end up being carrots.

I Swear It Is Spring

Yesterday it was so warm. It hit 57F(13C) and last night's low was 42F(5C). That isn't going to set any records, but the weather has been consistently above normal all winter long. The calendar says that it is February but I just don't believe it. I'm thinking the end of March. So I went out to plant some peas and spinach. I didn't use up any seed that I needed as history says it is way way too early to plant. In fact last year at this time I planted my peas on April 2nd which is 5 1/2 weeks away. I know I'm jumping the gun and the poor little seedlings might not survive. Then I'll replant at the appropriate time. But I just couldn't help myself.

So lets start at the beginning. Tuesday I looked at the long range forecast and it said the lowest temps for the next 10 days would be 26F (-4C). Highs would be in the 40s and 50s (4 to 14C). All the weather sites agreed. So I started to chit my seeds. I was only going to give them one day of a nice warm moist environment before I planted them out. But basically the seed was started and the die was cast.

Then I wake up Wednesday and look at the forecast. One of the sites says we will get into the teens this weekend for a low. Ack. I can protect the seed with row covers at 26F and keep the ground unfrozen pretty easily, but not with weather in the teens (-9C). But I have no choice at this point. The seed had been soaking for a day. It had to go into the ground.

The peas got planted first. First I put in the support poles. Peas hate their roots being disturbed and cutting them off with a T-post would be bad. So I always put the support poles in first. The last pole at the end of the 16' bed couldn't go in as the ground was still frozen as that part still doesn't get any sun. But I was only planting the first 6' of the bed which gets a few hours at this time of the year. I like to plant in two rows 6" (15 cm) apart. With the seed about 2"(5cm) apart. I never thin when they come up. Sometimes they come up thickly and sometimes they have to be reseeded. And since I remembered, I put some inoculant in the furrow. I poked each seed down about an inch under the soil. And last but not least, I put some bird netting over the freshly turned soil to keep out the cats. Good luck little seeds, you are going to need it.

Then it was on to the spinach beds. The first 8' of the bed was already planted with overwintered spinach. But there were a lot of chamomile weeds coming up as it was right next to my chamomile patch last year. I took the time to take out the dying leaves and all the weeds. Basically I cleaned up the bed. If history repeats itself, these plants will be a foot in diameter this spring. So small gaps I ignored, but there were a few huge gaps in the plants. I added some Olympia spinach seed in the gaps.

In addition I turned over and fertilized a 3' section of the bed nearest the fence, i.e. the part that doesn't yet get much sun at all yet. I only did 3' because that is all that was unfrozen. The sun is quickly getting higher, but it still is behind my neighbor's house most of the time. It feels like spring, but the arc of the sun says winter. I planted half in Space spinach and the half near the driveway in Olympia spinach. All this seed was last year's seed. So if it doesn't make it, I've got lots of seed I've bought for this year. In fact I didn't even do a germination test on it before I chitted. I just tossed all of last year seed into the container to moisten. I did bring in the left over seed though and I'll see how much it germinates and see if it has a chance or not.

The last chore I did yesterday was brick off the cats' litter box. I gave the cats the spot under the chimney of my fake fireplace when I created the garden. I have about 6 cats that are regular visitors to the garden. I don't want to discourage them, but I don't want them to poo in the garden either. Well they started encroaching farther and farther out into the bed near the sage plant. So I decided to let them know their limits. Also this way I can plant the front section in something pretty. I'm hoping the sweet alyssum reseeds itself this spring and I can transplant some there.

And as a side note, my garden purchases came. I rolled out the row cover and cut it into 15' lengths. This is the right size to cover my 4'x8' half beds. The fabric seemed a bit short for the 45' I bought. I laid the fabric out and stretched it tight. I marked 15'. Each one is a few inches short. I don't think it will matter though. I think there is enough to tack the ends down.

Harvest Monday - February 20, 2012

I've got nothing again this week for a harvest. The weather is warming up though so hopefully the spinach will start to grow. We might even get into the mid 50Fs(12C) this week. I've noticed the sun is getting higher too. I checked my beds recently and the beds that actually get some sun right now are already defrosted. This morning the top layer is frozen as the low last night was 26F(-4C), but they aren't frozen down deep. Just a thin crust. It is weird that our ground never really froze solid for any length of time. Usually it is frozen solid until mid March. But I'll use the warm weather to my advantage. I'm going to try so sow some seed this week outside. Unheard of here in February, but there is a first for everything.

Until then I'll keep eating from my stores. I've been using up the tatsoi harvested in January. And the orange is from my butternut squash.

The quiche has multiple personalities. The left side is for my veggie hating hubby. The right side has caramelized onions (from stores), kale from the garden (picked a while ago and finally used up), and oregano that I dried last summer. I love making quiche since I get to eat it for a couple of days afterward. And I love that I don't really have a recipe. I can throw in anything I want. I just make sure the egg to (soy) milk recipe is 1 egg to a 1/4c milk. I uses however much I need to fill the pie shell.

Last nights dinner included spinach and carrots frozen from last year. I have lots left still. And I've been eating zucchini bread for breakfast in the morning. 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.

More Planning

I had a few small sketches of parts of the garden on scrap paper, but hadn't really written it down. I decided with such a large garden I ought to write it down. It will help in future years to try to keep crops rotated. There is no way I can remember where I've put things in the past. So I got some large graph paper and wrote it all down.

It has things like all my rotations often written right above. In bed 3 above I was going to make it a solanum bed, but I decided to be more careful with my solanum issue. Now I just have one tomato and two peppers.

I'm still debating in bed 5 if the broccoli should be near the fence (bad fall sun) or the carrots should be there. I want my fall carrots. I have loved having my own this year. If I plant them near the fence then they will have to go in really early to have time to grow. There is no sun there in the fall.

My circle garden is getting the sweet potatoes. I figured they would have the best spot in the garden for them for the first year growing. I'm sure this is way too much space for them, but I'm going to plant that many any way. The east bed has a lot of rotations going on. I'm planting quick growing Asian greens in the spring. In June the sweet potatoes go in. Then in the fall I'm going to try to get a stand of spinach up to over winter. The west bed currently has Kale growing in it. Then it will transition to sweet potatoes in the summer and spinach in the fall. I hope it works.

Then I redid how many transplants I have to grow based on the new plan. I think I'm going to just try to grow the smaller Asian greens from seed like I do in the fall. It will require a lot less work on my part.

Harvest Monday - February 13, 2012

I've got no harvests this week, but I do have some expenditures. Not that long ago my MIL gave me a birthday gift of $500 for my 50th birthday. I was told to spend it on something that I wouldn't ordinarily. As I mentioned before, my mind immediately to the garden. Now the gift itself won't go on my tally especially since the command was "don't spend on something I would normally buy", but I went over the $500 and that amount will go on the tally. So here is what I got. Just to follow the law I'll say in advance that except where noted none of these companies have given me anything. And I don't even yet support them. That will only come if the products bought work well in the garden over the summer. I've got my fingers crossed.

The first bought was a Gardena sprinkler. Not just any sprinkler, but a fully adjustable one. It is the Cadillac of sprinklers. It has a built in timer. It has three adjustments. The flow can be adjusted. The length of the spray can be adjusted. The fan can be a wide fan or it can narrow down to 4.5m. My old sprinkler would only get long enough for the whole garden if I watered the side of the house and my neighbors car. So I never did. I had to water small bits of it at a time. My bed area is about 4.8m wide. Supposedly this baby can go that narrow and still do the whole length of the garden. It does have a flaw. It can't turn the corner to the circle bed. (Wouldn't it be cool to have a sprinkler that could do an L and was also so adjustable?). But for the main 8 beds that are 16'x4' it is perfect. Well if it works as promised. Price $89. And yes I'll love it if it works, and I would never ever buy it on my own.

The second thing I purchased was a row cover from Australia. I've been using Agribon and in our strong winds (ignore my weather station, the wind meter isn't working right) the fabric rips. It is common for me to go out and have to repair it many times over the season. And if I don't notice the rip, the moths get in. And they did once last summer. I also hated the long length of row cover. I had to lift too much. I had a cabbage butterfly get under once and getting it out once it flew to the other end was a pain. I practically had to take the whole thing off and let all the other butterflies out. So I wanted covers for half beds. So they would be 10' wide and 15' long. And I wanted three.

My second complaint about Agribon is that it sheds water. If the drops hit hard enough they will go through, but even with the lightest weight of fabric a lot of the water goes off the sides. And I grow greens under the row covers so they typically need more water than normal not less. The material that I'm getting is woven. I'm hoping it is more porous.

The third complaint about Agribon is that you can't see through it well. To see how my plants are doing I really have to lift it up. From the pictures this one seems to be more transparent. But I'll find out when I try it.

I liked their plastic clips too. Right now I've been using metal clips which are a bit abrasive and contribute to rips. My plastic tubing is between the small clips and the large clips, so he sent me samples to see which ones would work. Well the big ones don't hold at all. The small ones seem to hold well but they can't lock with my size of pipe (typical 10' lengths of 1/2" white PVC found in US home improvement stores). I bought the small ones and hope they work. They seem to go on and off quite easily. Total for 45' of row cover fabric (enough for three half beds) , 40 clips, plus he said he put an extra Jumbo Plus clip in my package because customers like to use it to bunch up fabric on the ends. Price: $220.94.

The last thing I ordered was some irrigation from Dripworks. I have a long thin bed that is a total pain. It has to be hand watered as it is only 2.5' wide and is along the road in front of our house. I would love not to water the main path in my veggie garden too. So I wanted some irrigation for the herb and sunflower bed there. And since it wasn't that much more I added enough fittings to do the two outer beds of the circle garden and some movable irrigation (ie not hooked into the mainline piping) for two of my 4'x8' beds. I figured I'd get enough to play if I wanted. I really don't want to set up irrigation for all of my beds. It just isn't worth it. Price: $260.

This makes a grand total of about $570. Since the gift was $500, I'll add $70 in my tally. And now I'm down $530.11. Ouch. But I know I'll make it up once the veggies started rolling in. Last year the expenditures were about $670 and I made it up in July. Though I have amortized a lot of costs, the first few years of a new garden are always the most expensive.

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.

On Seeds and Seedlings

I had an epiphany the other day as I was tossing out the germination test of the yellow mustard. I could find brown mustard seed in a store. Not in an American store. But I'm close to a lot of ethnic stores - one of the joys of living in an urban environment. An Indian grocery was just a half mile from the house. I get my ghee and some spices there. Surely they would have brown mustard as brown mustard is also called Indian mustard.

And indeed they did. I've started the germination test. The yellow mustard passed with flying colors (80-90%). My "seed packet" cost $1.99. For that price I got 200g of seed, which is almost half a pound. That $1.99 isn't going on my costs list however. It will give me a chance to play with making some mustard this spring. I only need a small, small bit of those seeds to grow some plants.

And speaking of plants, the onions are all up and thriving. Out of two and a half flats I have one empty block and one block with a plant that isn't thriving. I planted three seeds in each of the blocks and thinned them out. I tried to pick the sturdiest of the seedlings, though at this stage it is a little hard to tell. I can tell the ones that are struggling though and out they went. I figure in a week or two they will get their first hair cut.

Thursday's Kitchen Cupboard

Cooking has been a struggle these last five months. I'm still trying to learn how to eat without eating any solanums. There are things that I miss terribly. Pizza was one of them. I've got a pizza that is sauceless that I like, but it still isn't the same as one with sauce. Then there are the sloppy joes. I love sloppy joes, but they are of course covered in tomato sauce. I tried making ones with a more of a Chinese base. It was good, but still not the same.

Last week I so wanted to eat Mexican food. I LOVE Mexican food, but I can tell you that it is impossible to eat Mexican without tomatoes, tomatillos or chilies. They are so integral in the cooking. I used to make my own tortillas on a regular basis. I don't remember the last time I made them. My black beans have been languishing in my cupboard since they were picked in the fall.

I was looking for a black bean and squash soup to make, but ran across a recipe on the Food Network. Hmm black bean and squash tacos without tomatoes. I had to try them. They turned out quite good (with a few tweeks). Though the pickled shallots (I made pickled onions) that the recipe called for were nice, it wasn't quite as good as salsa. But it did have a bit of a kick and was a nice compliment to the rest of the meal. It got me to thinking. How could chutney taste on this dish?

So on Tuesday I whipped up some apple chutney. I wanted one with a lot of onions.

All that's left of the chutney, and I swear those are red onions and not worms. My chutney really looks disgusting doesn't it? I tastes delicious though.

Daphne's Apple Chutney

• 1/2 c cider vinegar
• 1/4 c brown sugar
• 1 apple diced
• 1 red garden onion sliced cut thinly
• 1/4 c golden raisins
• T mustard seed
• 2 cloves garden garlic
• T ginger wine slices **
  
• 2 T ginger wine**
• 1/4 t cinnamon, cardamom, cumin, black pepper, and salt
• Pinch of allspice
  

Mix it all up in a pot and cook until the apples are soft, about 20 mins. I keep wondering if I should have left the mustard until the end.

** I had never heard of ginger wine until I started reading Norma's blog. I used to get a huge hunk of ginger, grate it and freeze it in teaspoon and tablespoon lumps. It worked OK that way. I always had ginger on hand. But it was downstairs in the freezer in the basement, which is a pain to get when you are in the middle of the making something. The texture left something to be desired but the taste was good. I'm hoping I like Norma's method better. I sliced my ginger on my mandolin very very thinly and put it in a quart canning jar with some sake. I wonder how long it will last?

The result was that it wasn't as good as the pickled onions. The reason was it was too sweet for the dish (and I don't make a very sweet chutney) and it didn't have enough of the vinegar bite to it. I like the idea of a chutney, but it has to be a bit more like pickled fruit and less like chutney. And the raisins have to go. I didn't like them in the dish at all. My next attempt will be with some mangos. Now I know apples and squash go well together. Are mangoes and squash as good?

Robin over at The Gardener of Eden hosts Thursday's Kitchen Cupboard. So head on over and join in.

Mustard

I keep thinking that growing any of the solanum family might be a bad thing this year. Right now in my plans I have one 4'x8' section relegated to them. A far cry from last years space which was six times that size. But 4'x8' is probably still way too much for me to be growing and stay healthy. So I've been thinking what I want in the space and after seeing all of Robin's posts about making mustard, I thought growing mustard seed might be fun.

So I looked up the different mustards. The typical yellow mustard ought to be easy. I have a jar of seed in my spice drawer. I'm testing right now if it is viable seed. I ought to know in a couple of days. If so it seems like a fine mustard to grow.

But for the brown mustard I'm going to need seed. Anyone have any recommendations? Brown mustard seed is Brassica juncea, which is grown for its edible leaves. I'm less interested in the leaves and all the catalogs tell you how the leaves are. I want to know how the seed is. But no ones describes that. If I can't find one grown for it seed, I can always just grow any Brassica juncea. So anyone out there have a clue about mustard seeds?

Harvest Monday - February 6th, 2012

You thought I would say no harvest didn't you. Well I had two harvests of three different things. The first harvest was some kale and sage. I was making a Tuscan bean soup with the small bit of Tarbais beans that I had. Yum.

Diced fresh sage

Then I debated what to make for the Superbowl. I decided on a recipe I saw. Black bean and squash tacos. With my solanine poisoning I don't get tacos. They all have tomatoes or chilies in them. This one didn't. So I sliced up my stored Redwing onions for the pickled onions (I don't have shallots); cooked up some of my butternut squash; made some refried black beans from my Trail of Tears beans. But I wanted cilantro in the beans. So I went outside. And yes the cilantro was still alive. I couldn't believe it. Amazing. I've never had cilantro grow through the winter before. It was slightly purple edged from the cold, but it still seemed quite happy. It wasn't in the recipe, but then who actually follows a recipe? The squash got some cardamom too even though that wasn't in the recipe. And next time I'm going to leave out the peppercorns in the pickled onions. Cracked pepper is good, but I hate biting into so many peppercorns.

• Kale 0.50 lbs
• Sage 0.01 lbs
• Cilantro 0.04 lbs
• Weekly total 0.56 lbs
• Yearly total 3.15 lbs
• Spent 32.80 (Pinetree for seeds and asparagus)
• Still in the hole -469.11
  

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.

Weird Weather and Boring Statistics

Yesterday was a balmy 58.5F (15C). About a week ago we had a day that got to 55F. I'm supposed to be in the cold north where the ground freezes solid in mid November and doesn't thaw out until mid or late March. This year the ground has been freezing and thawing out since late December. This is so not normal, so I went and looked at my records.

January has been one strange month.We have had positively balmy weather. Last year the temperatures were pretty normal, but the snowfall was amazingly high. This year we've only gotten one snow storm that gave us enough snow to plow and it disappeared from the ground in just a couple of days. I was looking at the average temperatures between the two years. I have a weather station and 2011 is the first full year of records. Last year the average January temperature was 26.5F (-3C). This year was was 32.6F or barely over freezing.

I'm in zone 6b. This means my average low for the year is about -5F (-20.5C). Last year it was -3.3, which seems about right. This year so far the lowest temperature has been 5.5F. Will I be in zone 7b this year? This will be good for my figs since I never did get around to wrapping them like I'm supposed to in the winter. We do have all of February to go, but usually our lowest temperature happens in January.

In the last few years we have had some very weird weather swings. I know the weather changes from year to year but in 2009 we had the summer of record cold. Then 2010 we had the summer of record heat. Now in 2012 we are getting a winter warmer than any in my memory. What will the summer bring? I keep hoping for a normal year. Or is there no normal anymore?

They're Baaack

I now officially have seedlings. Whoohoo! It took them about a week, but even last years seed germinated. Not every cell is up but most of them are. Above is Copra the most vigorous of the germinating onions. I tried to put three seeds in each cell since the seed was old, but it looks like in many, there are four coming up. Now THAT is vigorous germination. Either that or I can't count.

This is my Redwing plants. They are coming up fine too. But not so many in a cell.

And my Ailsa Craig is the slow poke in the bunch. They are coming up but slowly and feebly. They are supposed to be huge onions when they finally get big but as baby onions they have a lot to be desired.

And last time I showed my set up Mark was asking if it was to help harden off the seedlings. I answered there, but figured most of you haven't read it yet. So on to the plant vocabulary lesson. Plants grow more spindly and tall inside than they do if grown outside. Plants will change how they grow if they are touched. This could be by your hand, by the wind, or by the rain. The word for it is thigmomorphogenisis. If the plants get touched enough they will grow much more stocky and branch out sideways more. For onions I always just pet them. Yes I pet my plants. I just run my hand over them every day or two. For mixed plantings I'll use a fan as the mixed heights are harder to pet. I'll turn the fan on every couple days and let it run for a bit. If you want to read more about it there is a nice article on it. I warn you there is a lot of science involved.

But to answer the Mark's question, yes it helps to harden them off. Tall spindly indoor plants don't react well to being planted outdoors. My hope is that when I harden my plants off outside all that they need is to harden against the sun and the temperature fluctuations. I'm hoping they are mostly hardened off to the wind already. With the soil blocks they don't get a lot of root disturbance. So transplanting is a lot less stressful than it otherwise would be.

Harvest Monday - January 30, 2012

Again I've got no harvests. I have been eating up my stores. I finished the last of the bok choy that was picked before Christmas so it lasted a long long time in the fridge. I'm still working on the tatsoi. I expect it to last until mid February before I need to have eaten it all. I've found the best way to store such things is in a sealed container that just fits them without squishing them with a towel on the bottom. The towel keeps them from rotting and sliming out on the bottom and the container keeps the air at 100% humidity. Greens last a very long time stored this way.

I also ate some tomatoes for the first time since August when I found out I had solanine poisoning (nightshade poisoning). I made some beef stew. Well I can't eat them yet. I can have trace amounts without reacting, but not a meal that has the solanum family as a core ingredient. It did taste delicious though. I miss tomatoes so much.

So instead of me eating it my son got to eat the rest and I put some in the freezer for next time he is here. It had a lot of garden ingredients. It had tomatoes, carrots, shelling beans that I had frozen, onions, celery, and rosemary.

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.

My Mother In Law is Cruel

At the beginning of the month I turned 50. My MIL gave me a birthday gift. It was a check for $500 with a stipulation that it be spent on something I wouldn't already buy. Now you might not see that as cruel, but as I'm sure you could guess, my mind immediately went to the garden. I started thinking about irrigation systems. Then I started to think about whether it was really worth putting one in or not. Oh the dilemma. I've been doing calculations and debating this in my head for weeks.

Monetarily it is a bad choice. I did the math. I'm guessing that I water the garden overhead about six times a year. We get rain here. It is not a dry spot. Our average rainfall is 4" per month, with a high of 4.5" and a low of 3.5". So I have to water on occasion, but not a whole lot. A quick back of the envelope calculation says that if I water 6 times a year I pay about $46 per year in water (which I might point out has never been calculated and never put in my tally - ah well I'm not perfect). If I had an underground watering system it may (or may not) save me about half. Say $20 per year. The inexpensive systems will cost me over $200. I haven't done the math there, and it might be more like $400. The plastic only lasts for about 8 years or so left outside. Some of the items like soaker hoses and T-tape lasts much shorter. So it is cheaper not to put one in.

The additional plastic in my gardens is always a negative too. Since it has a real time limit (the T-tape especially doesn't last long) replacements would always be coming. I'll do that for row covers as row covers save me so much time in spraying Bt, but I'm not sure it is worth it for the little watering I do.

In addition it doesn't save me any time. The system requires maintenance and construction. Setting up an overhead sprinkler is so easy. It does help with watering one section more than another. Which right now I can't do unless I do it by hand. Is it worth the aggravation and upkeep? Probably not. It might be worth it to do a small section. The circle garden and the herb garden along the house might be nice. Then I don't have to water the 3' brick path all the time (which had to be done to include that in the watering). So maybe I'll be doing about 1/8 of the garden in soaker hoses of sorts. And I do want irrigation for my rock wall garden. That place is impossible to water and takes forever to do by hand. So I'll probably put a small bit into irrigation. And I'm going to buy a really expensive but highly rated sprinkler whose width can be switched. Then I'll be able to water my whole raised bed area at once (minus the circle garden and the herb garden along the wall). Cost $89. Yes a damn expensive sprinkler. But hey I'm supposed to be buying things I wouldn't already buy.

Then there is the idea of a rain barrel. I've been thinking about a pretty one. They make lovely fake terra cotta ones with planters on top. So pretty. But then I thought about my roof. My roof is an asphalt roof. Asphalt has a ton of really nasty toxic chemicals in it. Do I really want to water my garden with that? Before I bought the house, my dream was a roof that had a material that you could drink from and an underground cistern. But I'm not about to replace the roof. And even if I wanted to, I couldn't get it past my townhouse mates. It would be very costly and their dreams are hardly the same as mine. And what a waste to throw out a new roof. I would only have done it if we had renovated an old house. So anyone know the answer? Is the water coming off an asphalt roof toxic? See the problems my MIL has caused?

An easy thing to spend it on is row covers. I've been drooling over the Veggiecare ones from Australia for years. I'd love to have about three of them for half beds. So three that would cover an 8'x4' bed. Plus I'd love some clips. Price $220 to $270. Now there is really something I wouldn't buy myself. That is a ton of money. Supposedly they last longer (about 8 years). I hope so. I hate the Agribon. With our winds it rips too easily. And the heavier stuff gets too hot in the summer and blocks too much light. This one is similar to Agribon 19 in light transmission. I'll still use the Agribon I have, but I'll use it for temporary things. Things that are there for a long time I'll use the new stuff.

Oh and I'm loving the company already. I asked them which of the clips I should be using as my pipes are not 3/4" or 1". They said they would send me a sample and I should test them. So I will. That is why there are two prices. If I get the Jumbo clips it is much more expensive.

I'm still debating in my mind but for now I think I'll ignore the rain barrel since I don't trust my food to be watered from it. I'll get the sprinkler. I'll get the Veggiecare row cover (and maybe some clips). And I'll start with a small irrigation system for the hard to water rock wall garden and the herb garden by the wall. And I'll think about the circle garden.

What would you all buy if you were given such a nice gift?

The Gardening Season Has Officially Started

All cleaned up

Tuesday I finally got off my derriere and started cleaning up after last year. All the trays I use to hold my soil block were still dirty. I always mean to clean them up in the summer and fall when I'm done with them, but of course that never happens. I always put it off until the last minute. I don't use chlorine. I know all the gardening experts tell you to. But I hate the stuff and I just use dish detergent and water and a lot of scrubbing.

I finally got them clean because when I was making my schedule I looked at last year's records. My onions turned out great last year. I had planted them on January 21st. It is already past that date. So I had to get a move on. I wanted more onions than I had last year. On Wednesday I planted two and a half flats of 1 1/2" soil blocks. There are 72 in a flat, so that was 180 blocks. I probably don't need that many but it can't hurt to have them. I'm pretty sure I will still have enough room under the lights.

The tops of my blocks always look a bit strange. I like to put cinnamon on the surface to help prevent damping off. I also cover the seeds with vermiculite so it will be easier for the seedling to push up. Then I cover them with plastic wrap until I see the first sign they are germinating.

There they are - the first three flats off and running. Some of the seed is a year old but it should still germinate. I didn't do a germination test. But if they don't germinate in a week, I'll reseed with newer seed. I do store my seed in an airtight container in the fridge. So onion seed usually lasts more than a year.

Just to record the varieties: 54 Copra, 54 Redwing, 36 Alicia Craig, 36 Varsity. The yellow storage onions are Copra and Varsity. I grew them last year and they are just starting to have some problems. Some are rotting; some are sprouting; but most are fine. I'm sure for not much longer since I keep seeing more with problems. The Redwing is a red storage onion. I've not lost one of them yet. They will be the last onions eaten since they store so well in my questionable storage area. I keep the braids at the top of the stairs to the basement. It is cool there, but not really cool enough. Next year I ought to store the braids at the bottom of the stairs where it is much colder.

And since I usually get questions about blocks. I'll leave you with a link to my last post on soil blocks.

Harvest Monday - January 23, 2012

Yup I've got nothing again. Which isn't too surprising. The ground is frozen solid. All my tunnels are down.

And the garden is blanketed in a layer of snow.

It is pretty, and I know my spinach will be happy for the blanket, but it doesn't make for good harvests. I am using up things from the pantry. My son has been home so I've made him ham and bean soup, with dried beans, carrots, onions, celery, and herbs from the garden. He does love soups.

I think today or tomorrow I'll make some beef stew with some of my canned tomatoes. I've been eating small bits of tomatoes and peppers recently and have been OK. (For those that don't know, I've had solanine/solanum poisoning since last August.) I do have trouble if I breath in a lot of it. I made chili for my husband one day and reacted rather strongly. But a few tomatoes in some stew ought to be just fine.

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.

Planning

I go through a lot of planning stages before spring. The first thing I do is go through my seed catalogs and buy seeds. I showed you my Fedco order before. I've since placed an order from Pinetree for seeds that I don't really need, but would be fun to have. I bought the following: Summertime lettuce, Ambrosia melon, Big Red Pepper (got to love that name), Alma Paprika pepper, Early Butternut, Soloist Chinese cabbage, Tetsukabuto winter squash, epazote, Masai bean, Jersey Supreme asparagus.

The last I actually needed. Quite a few of the asparagus I planted last year died. So these are a replacement. Sadly they have changed their shipping policy. It used to be a flat fee for everything. But now it is a flat fee for seeds and another fee for live plants. So sad. The shipping costs as much as the plants.

So my seeds have all been ordered. I hope I didn't miss anything. The next planning stage is getting the list of seeds together that I'm actually going to grow. I have sheet in my garden spreadsheet that can calculate the date that they need to be planted and the date they need to go into the garden. It assumes a last frost date of May 1st. I tell it how many weeks old the transplant should be and how many weeks before or after the last frost date it should be planted. I get it all compiled on another sheet in printable format. I copied it to the web so you could see it in its current state.

The first set of plants are the ones that will be done as transplants. The later ones are ones that are direct seeded out in the garden. I might do more direct seeding of things like Asian greens and lettuce, but I haven't made up my mind yet. At least they are on the sheets. This keeps me from forgetting them if I do want to start them indoors. I find that if I don't have these sheets I never know when to plant. I do not follow the sheets perfectly, but they give me an idea.

My next chore is to lay out the garden and figure out how many transplants of each variety I need. If you notice that information has not yet been added. I usually grow more of everything just in case of seedling failure, but I don't grow many more. So it is time to get out my graph paper and start figuring out where my plants go.

Harvest Monday - January 16, 2012

I checked on my tatsoi on Thursday. We were predicted to get some really cold weather for a change. Saturday and Sunday nights were predicted to be in the single digits. Brrrr. The tatsoi is pretty good at withstanding cold weather, but I found out last year that it doesn't like weather that cold and after a while the freeze/thaws would be too much for it. Last year I told myself I'd pick it all in December, but with the abnormally high temps we have been getting I picked all the Asian greens except the tatsoi in December. I was thinking it might make it until the first January thaw.

This is what the bed looked like. Very pretty for this time of year. Except if you look underneath all that there is a lot of rotting going on. Some heads were all rotted through in the middle. Some just had a few outer leaves. So I picked it all and cleaned up the bed.

It weighed in at 1.96 lbs. I'll be eating this over the next few weeks.

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 9, 2012

This last week I had no harvests. I did however start having expenses for the year as I put in my first seed order.

Fedco: $55

In addition I finally got my sidebar tally caught up to 2012. If you will notice I'm in the hole by over $400. Except for the seed above, these are not things I've bought this year. When I started the garden I amortized the cost

When we moved into the house I had a lot of expenses putting in the garden. Our yard was subsoil. I elected to add expenses to my tally that would occur only because I was putting in a vegetable garden. For instance the soil to ground level and brick path were not added as I would have had to put them in anyway to put in lawn. The path itself goes from driveway all the way around the back of the house and up the other side to the road. It would have gone in even if I hadn't had a garden. It might have been placed a bit differently, but the expense would still have been there. The white picket fence with the arch was something I've always wanted. I love when I see arches with the old fashioned roses growing over the top. So I swore I'd have one when we moved. The arch is actually extremely expensive, but even without vegetables in my garden it would have gone in.

That that defined what was amortized. As to how long they are amortized, I guessed as to how long they would last. So here is a list of things that I amortized.

• Fertilizers, soil amendments, 2 years, $197.26/year
• Bamboo 100 8' tall and 50 4' tall, 4 years, $65.37/year
• Wood and hardware for cedar beds, 5 years, $106.22/year
• Composter, 10 years, $5/year
• Tomato cages (really good ones), 20 years, $18/year
• Soil, 30 years, $7.44/year
• Concrete bricks, 30 years, $0.81/year
  

Now 30 years might be a stretch. The plan is to live in this house for 20-30 years. Basically until we have enough health issues and want to move into assisted living or our knees get bad enough we don't want to live in a non-ranch house (though the stairs are very wide and we could have a stair lift put in). Now the bamboo will probably outlive its four years and the cedar probably will out live 5 years, but it is hard to say. Basically I did the best I could on guessing the life span of the items bought.

The above basically adds up to $400/year. Half of that is the soil amendments and other things which will expire after this year. I placed a large order with NOFA (Northeast Organic Farmers Assoc) last year. I bought things like a general organic fertilizer, greensand, azomite, orchard netting, Fort V potting soil, bone char (our soil was really low on phosphorous), a planting mix for our fruit trees, fish emulsion, Sluggo (5lbs so enough to last a while) and worm castings. I shouldn't have to buy much of that kind of thing this year. Though I did use more than half of the potting soil, so I'll see what happens there. I'd like to see if I can do more direct seeding this year and less growing of transplants for things like greens.

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.

Thursday's Kitchen Cupboard

Well it was tea time in my house last week. I had a cold all week long. Colds mean I drink a large amount of tea. Some is purchased, but some comes from the garden.

This is my favorite garden combo. Chamomile blossoms and Chocolate Mint. I mix them half and half. I've tried other mints with chamomile, but none are as good as Chocolate Mint.

Does anyone else drink tea from the garden? If so what are your favorites? I love lemon balm tea but lemon balm doesn't dehydrate well. That wonderful lemon scent evaporates. I'd love to find some new teas to grow.

Seeds from Fedco

Usually I do my seed orders at the end of December. This year I'm slow. I was traveling a lot of December then I got a cold that just wiped me out. The last thing I want to do is to try to make up my seed order when my brain isn't working quite right. In November I went through all my seeds and made up a list of what I needed (winter squash, cantaloupe, cucumber, sweet pepper, tall choy, cabbage, late broccoli, spinach, corn, radish, onions, bush dried beans).

I ordered all that I needed from Fedco except the bush dried beans. I'll just buy some beans from the local bean farmer (Baer's Best Beans), and plant those. I've done it in the past and then I have as many as I want and lots of beans to eat. They sell a lot of different kinds of beans, like Vermont Cranberry, Soldier, Boston Roman, Jacob's Cattle, Calypso,Yellow Eye and Black Coco, along with all the "normal" beans. Now the stores (Wilson's Farm and Russo's) never have every kind they grow, but I ought to be able to pick up a couple of heirlooms.

Since I found Fedco years ago I've been a die hard fan of them. They aren't a for profit company, they are a co-op of growers and buyers. So the seeds aren't terribly expensive. In addition they are a co-op for New England farmers, so what I buy will grow here. The seeds aren't southern seeds that need a lot of hot weather to grow. They even sometimes say that the seed will grow better in the southern New England area or visa versa. They tell you where your seed comes from be it a small seed farmer all the way to a big multinational that does genetic engineering. They don't sell Monsanto seeds or seed from any of their subsidiaries. I'm guessing because of this they occasionally have trouble getting seed when things run out, or a supplier has problems. Once I ordered Varsity onion seed from them (in December mind you not late) and it ended up being back ordered. I finally got it around the end of February (too late to plant to get onions here). You can tell them to substitute, but I never do. Oh and I'll end on a positive note. If you order at least $30 of seed from then shipping is free.

My Fedco order for a total of $56 or $55 in the tally for the vegetable garden. I don't count the flower seeds.

298 - Windsor Fava Bean ( B=8oz) 1 x $4.00 = $4.00
582 - Ambrosia Bicolor Sweet Corn ( A=2oz) 2 x $2.40 = $4.80
798 - Legume Inoculant ( A=treats 8lb) 1 x $4.50 = $4.50
1049 - Hannahs Choice Muskmelon ( A=1g) 1 x $2.40 = $2.40
1232 - Calypso Pickling Cucumber ( A=1/16oz) 1 x $1.00 = $1.00
1234 - Cross Country Pickling Cucumber ( A=1/16oz) 1 x $1.40 = $1.40
2086 - Mokum Carrot ( B=3g) 1 x $4.20 = $4.20
2094 - Sugarsnax Carrot ( B=3g) 1 x $3.50 = $3.50
2248 - French Breakfast Radish ( C=1oz) 1 x $2.50 = $2.50
2488 - Varsity Onion ( A=1/16oz) 1 x $1.80 = $1.80
2491 - Redwing Onion ( A=1/16oz) 1 x $2.20 = $2.20
2510 - Space Spinach ( C=1oz) 1 x $3.50 = $3.50
2555 - Giant Winter Spinach ( B=1/2oz) 1 x $2.40 = $2.40
3273 - Joi Choi Pac Choi ( B=2g) 1 x $3.20 = $3.20
3313 - Fiesta Broccoli OG ( A=0.2g) 1 x $2.30 = $2.30
3339 - Gustus Brussels Sprouts ( A=0.5g) 1 x $2.50 = $2.50
3355 - Early Jersey Wakefield Cabbage ( A=2g) 1 x $0.80 = $0.80
3392 - Gunma Cabbage ( A=0.2g) 1 x $1.70 = $1.70
3463 - Winterbor Kale ( A=0.5g) 1 x $1.80 = $1.80
3624 - Ventura Celery OG/BD ( A=0.1g) 1 x $2.20 = $2.20
4616 - Sweet Marjoram ( A=1g) 1 x $1.10 = $1.10
4674 - Winter Savory ( A=0.1g) 1 x $1.20 = $1.20
5141 - Sensation Mix Cosmos ( A=1.4g) 1 x $1.00 = $1.00

If you notice sometimes I buy a lot of seed. "A" packets are their smallest. I bought a "C" packet of French breakfast radishes. The seed will keep for years and years, so I won't buy this variety again for quite some time. I bought two "B" packets of carrot seed. Carrots keep for about 2-4 years, but I use so much of it and they always do better with seed that isn't more than 2 years old. I'll use up my old carrot seed this year (which I don't have much of) and start on the new seed. I always buy carrot seed every year.

I bought a lot of spinach seed too. I find spinach hard to germinate and keep up in the garden. I have so many rot diseases that it takes the seed down fast. So I often resow. Plus I sow a whole 4'x8' bed in the spring and one in the fall. That takes a lot of seed.

I chose two different pickling cucumbers. I didn't like Little Leaf from last year. I like to trellis my cucumbers and it wasn't much of a climber. It also had very tough skin. So my refrigerator pickles weren't as good. The canned pickles were delicious, but I like the refrigerator ones best. So I'm going to try to more picklers as see how they do. I might have to break down and buy my favorite which neither of the two places I'm ordering seed from have.

I also got two cabbages. One is a spring cabbage and one a good storage cabbage for fall. The Early Jersey Wakefield is a pointy cabbage. And the Gunma is a flat cabbage. So neither are round cabbages. I'll see if they grow. The red savoy I tried growing last year never headed up and just sat there staying tiny all spring and summer.

Last year I grew three kinds of broccoli, but they were all early types. I decided I wanted to try a later one. So I'm trying Fiesta. It is supposed to just keep producing. I hope so. I'll put these plants at the edge of the bed so when I rotate the rest of the brassicas I can cover these with a small section of remay.

And for the first time I'm hoping to get some Brussels sprouts up. I might succeed. I might not. You never know. I've never succeeded before, but I so rarely try to grow them. They take such a long time and so much space. I figure I have space though, so I'm going to give it a try.

I still have a Pinetree order to get in. It will be small as I have all the seeds I need. It is just a few seeds I want that I'm going to get from them. I probably should have crossed checked what each of the companies sold and bought from the cheapest, but I didn't think of that until I'd already placed my Fedco order.

Harvest Monday - January 2, 2012

Happy New Year everyone! Another year to keep track of. I haven't started a new spreadsheet for 2012 yet, but I will. For now I'll record it all here.

The spinach was looking rather good after the warm weather we had. We are going into some bitter cold weather soon so I figured I'd better pick it. I didn't pick it all. I want it to survive the winter for spring spinach. But it was nice to take a leaf or two from all the plants.

And while I was out I noticed the cilantro. I have three beds like this that have cilantro just popping up all over. I love self seeded beds. Not that I need three beds of cilantro, but I'm calling it a cover crop.

If you notice in the harvest basket I also have some rosemary. I didn't dry nearly enough during the year. I'm just hoping the plants survive which is an iffy proposition in our zone 6 climate. I wanted to wait to trim it until it was very cold because I didn't want the plant to think it should start growing again.

• Spinach 5.9 oz
  
• Rosemary 3.7 oz
• Cilantro 0.6 oz
  

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 26, 2011

This is the last Harvest Monday of the year, which normally means posting my yearly totals. But this time I also have a harvest. I picked the rest of the Shanghai bok choy in the garden. All that is left of my Asian greens is some tatsoi. The tatsoi is pretty hardy, but the bok choy is much better quality if picked before too many deep freezes take place. The outer leaves slowly turn to slime in the cold weather. The inner ones hold for much longer. In addition I wanted to bring bok choy to the Christmas party, so it had to get picked and sorted beforehand.

The biggest of the choys was this pretty one. The outer leaves were a bit banged up but the inner ones were beautiful. It was over four inches in diameter and weighed 14 oz. I think it didn't know it was a baby bok choy and wanted to be a full sized one. All in all I harvested 4lbs and 3.3oz of bok choy. Not bad for the end of the year.

Now on to the year end round up. This was a decent year. I have about 560 sqft of raised beds and got about 590 lbs of vegetables from the space. I always hope for at least a pound per square foot. Also the solanums weren't weighed starting at the end of August. So I'm guessing I had at least 20 more pounds if not more.

Next year will be harder for me as I won't grow as many of the solanums. None if I still can't eat them by then. Right now I've eaten dips with hot peppers in them and not reacted. I'll very very slowly add more in over the winter and spring. I had a full three beds in solanums, so next year I'll need at least two beds in other things. I'm thinking more squash would be good. More corn and beans would be good. I might split up my three sisters and grow full beds of things. And I might do both. Have some mixed and some not to see what grows better.

In addition, I'm going to have to figure out a rotation for my brassicas. I my last garden I didn't have to rotate the beds during the year. So I would grow them in the spring and in the same place in the fall and then rotate them in other years. But in this garden there is more rot diseases and I lost my whole fall bed in less than a week. So the spring brassicas will have to be followed by something like carrots and the fall brassicas will have to follow the peas, favas, and carrots. This year the kale followed the onions and that worked out well. To help with the issue I'd like to get a row cover that lets the air flow better. They sell them in Australia, but sadly not here. Shipping is a b*tch. But I think it will be worth it.

Yearly totals for 2011:

• Alliums 46.49
• Beans 28.06
• Broccoli 7.08
• Carrots 42.31
• Corn 11.66
• Cucurbit 88.06
• Eggplant 5.77
• Greens 121.19
• Herbs 7.45
• Peas 18.82
• Peppers 15.76
• Potatoes 24.46
• Radishes and Turnips 7.48
  
• Tomatoes 168.30
• Yearly total 592.99 lbs
  

• Total spent $673.98
• Veggies were worth $2008.98
• Fruit 1.87 lbs $7.81
• Net $1342.81
  

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.

Thursday's Kitchen Cupboard

The biggest problem with growing dried beans is cooking them. Before I grew my own dried beans I always had cans on hand to make things. I could whip up my winter soups so quickly that way. Now it takes planning. The best planning is the night before to soak them. But you can cheat and get them to boiling then take them off the stove to let them sit for an hour and it works about as well. The beans from my garden take about an hour to cook until they are soft. They are so quick because they are so fresh. But still I need a full two hours at the least of planning to have fully cooked beans. Some days that is fine. But some I need a quicker bean or I lose out on eating them.

I'd been drooling over a pressure canner for years. I finally broke down and bought it for myself for Christmas. As my husband says, we have a weird way of getting gifts. We tell our spouse what we want for the holidays then we go out and buy it. Hey it is quick turn around and you get to pick what you want. No one in our family has been big on surprises. Since the kids have grown we end up with very very few gifts under the tree. But I digress.

With a pressure canner I could can some of my beans. The issue I ran into is that I don't have a lot of any one type of bean. I have lots of little containers of beans. So I had four pots of beans cooking on the stove to try to get enough parboiled beans to fill up the pressure canner.

My canner is an All American. It can can 18 pints at a time which for me is an awful lot of pints. I managed to fill up 12 of them.

8 of them were successful; 3 didn't seal; and 1 was pretty questionable since it had lost a lot of its internal liquid. I put the last four in the fridge for immediate use. I'm guessing they didn't seal because beans really foam up when cooking. There could have been some leaking which can mess with the seal. If anyone out there has any tips for canning beans I'd appreciate it. 1/3 with bad seals is not a good number. I probably won't can any more beans this year as 8 jars will fill in the gaps for when I forget to start my beans early enough.

Join Robin over at The Gardener of Eden for more Thursday's Kitchen Cupboard posts.

Harvest Monday - December 19, 2011

I was gone all last week. Though on last Monday I did get a harvest. While I was gone very cold temperature were predicted. I pulled out all the white stemmed bok choy. About a pound and a half. Then I covered the rest of the green stemmed bok choy and the tatsoi. They are more cold hardy. I put on some plastic. Before they just had a row cover, but while I was gone the lows were predicted to get into the teens. I'm not sure they would survive without plastic.

I also picked some Fun Jen. I didn't cover it with plastic as the plastic I was using was too small to cover both and I haven't been eating it so don't really care if it lives right now. I like it in salads, but recently salads just don't appeal. I've been eating lots of soup but not a single salad.

The whole harvest totaled just over two pounds. I sent it to my townhouse mates since I was leaving the next morning. I didn't get photos as the camera had already been packed 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.

Harvest Monday - December 12, 2011

I'd tell you all the wonderful things I picked, but I've got nothing. I've been away. And will be away again. My time between trips was short so I didn't go out picking. Plus with parties and going out I had only one meal at home. I did eat some frozen veggies. Carrots, chard, and corn. And some frozen soups for lunch that were made from my garden veggies.

I'm hoping some things did get picked while I was gone. I told my townhouse mates what Asian greens they could pick. But honestly I didn't see much gone. Maybe they will do better this coming 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.

Harvest Monday - November 28, 2011

All that I have to show you was picked earlier in the week as I'm on vacation right now. My townhouse mates have the garden for quite some time. But I will be scheduling Harvest Mondays so you all can play without me when I'm gone.

I said, "All I have to show you". But "all" is quite a lot this week even if it is only two things. The kale I picked through. I've noticed the lower leaves turning brown. So I got rid of them and picked a couple of the next leaves up. Hopefully I won't lose leaves that way. Better to have them eaten. I gave them all to my townhouse mates to eat this week as I still hadn't finished my Asian greens.

First Batch

Then came the carrot harvests. I had to pick all of them that were ready to eat as the carrot flies had hatched again and they were really starting to damage the carrots. Luckily most of the damage at this point was skin deep. None of this new damage was there before Thanksgiving so the little grubs didn't have time to dig very deep into the carrot.

Second Batch

I had over 18 lbs of carrots that I picked. Most were blanched and frozen as I didn't think the carrots would hold up as long stored. The few undamaged carrots will be eaten raw. I'm storing them in the fridge as there aren't' a lot. Any cooked carrots will now be from my froze stash. Most of the carrots I eat in the winter are cooked so it isn't a big deal that I had to process most of them.

I took a photo of some of the longer ones. It is so easy to grow good carrots in this soil. at my last house I had heavy clay and I was happy when I had my soil amended well enough to grow 8" carrots. At the start of that garden I couldn't grow carrots at all.

My favorite carrot of the bunch. I call it "The Lovers". I had one I named "Running Man" but the photos just didn't show it off well.

• Carrots 18.28 lbs
  
• Kale 2.04 lbs
  
• Weekly Total 20.33 lbs
  
• Weekly Spent $0
  
• Yearly Total 587.01 lbs
  
• Veggie Garden was worth $1305.09
  
• Fruit 1.87 lbs
  

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.

Thursday's Kitchen Cupboard

I actually preserved something this week so have a post for Thursday's Kitchen Cupboard over at Robin's blog. I figured with the carrot fly damage I'd better get some of my carrots frozen since I wasn't sure how long they would store. So I thinned out the patch by about half and sliced them. It filled up my big colander.

Then I blanched them for a few minutes and tossed them in a bowl with ice water. Then came the decisions. I often freeze them on a cookie sheet and then put them in a ziplock bag to freeze. That way I can pick out however much I want. But I had a lot of carrots (and will have more) and they will last quite some time in the freezer.

So I elected to freeze them in batches and vacuum seal them. I haven't used my vacuum sealer I think since my Grand Canyon rafting trip in '99. My mom (our trip leader) asked me to dehydrate a lot of things and I vacuumed sealed it all in the portions we would be using. During the move I tried to give away things that I hadn't used in over a decade. That would have qualified, but I kept it thinking it might be useful again with a huge garden. I was right. Sadly it is very old and the middle wire which cuts the bags apart is not working all the time. But scissors worked OK. Two of the bags didn't seal right. I didn't redo them. I figured I'd just mark them and eat them first. So now I have 13 bags of carrots, all a cup each.

But I'll have more. There are lots of carrots still in that bed. I was going to leave them there and pick them slowly as I had plenty of them frozen now for when the ground froze solid. But there is starting to be more carrot fly damage. I think those that were in my carrots hatched and put out a new group of flies. The new damage is extensive on the surface, but it is only on the surface right now. Just peeling the carrots with one swipe of the peeler. removes it all. If I wait any longer it will become deeper and I'll lose most of the carrots. So I'm going to get the rest of them up and process them now. Any undamaged carrots will be stored but with over eight pounds of carrots in that first batch, only two carrots didn't show signs of damage. So I need to get them out of the ground immediately.

The weird thing about processing that many carrots is that my hands got stained. It doesn't show up well in that photo but my hand is really orange. I hope it wears off soon.

Addendum: I finally got all the carrots done. I have a few saved that had no carrot fly damage. Mostly ones that were small or short and stubby. The last of the carrots made 14 cups. Two were made into three cup batches which is good for a dinner party. And 8 were made into one cup containers for me. So now I have 21 single cup pouches. I'll probably use up about one a week. That will get me through April, which isn't too bad at all.