Spring Has Sprung

It finally feels like spring here instead of winter. This week's predictions are for 50F for highs and 32 for lows - well for the most part. The snow isn't 100% gone, but all the parts in the sun are snow free and warming well. Yesterday I prepared two 4'x8' beds, including fertilizing the beds. The first had a high nitrogen fertilizer for my spinach. I got it all mixed in and then planted out some Space spinach seeds. I sow them in rows 6" apart (7 rows as I don't like them next to the edge). My in row spacing is about 2" or a bit less. Not all of them will sprout, and I'll eat the little baby spinach thinnings when they get big enough.

The other bed is the pea bed which got a lower nitrogen fertilizer. I didn't plant peas yet as one spot didn't thaw because a pile of snow was next to it. I moved the snow so it would melt faster and brought the frozen patch to the top. I'm hoping this afternoon it will have thawed out. With the coming warmer weather, I should be able to plant soon, hopefully today.

My onions are all hardened off and ready to plant. Their bed is next to the fence though and that section takes a bit longer to thaw than the beds closest to the path. They are still in shade and haven't seen any direct sun yet. Soon though. Everyday the sun moves closer in. Just a few feet are left. I will plant them as soon as that section thaws. I might do part of them earlier and just keep planting as more and more of it warms up.

In previous years I've put my brassicas that need hardening off underneath the row covers in the garden beds. But this year I made a little support for a row cover over my flat so I can keep my seedlings right next to the kitchen door. This will keep any butterflies or flea beetles from attacking them when they are so small. And I will look at them more often to make sure they aren't getting too dry.

I made a tiny support too. I grow the seedlings indoors in flats. But when one kind of seedling needs to be hardened off and there aren't very many, I move them to a small repurposed take out container. Here you see my very early Asian greens. Not many, but early is risky.

Oh and I almost forgot. The soil in Massachusetts will get very acidic if it isn't limed. Blueberries grow naturally here. We get a lot of acid rain. I did a soil test through our extension service in January. I dug up the samples in December, but forgot to send them in until the end of January. My pH is 6.4. When it was put in two years ago the pH was 6.9. I like to keep the garden between 7 and 6.5. So it was time to lime. Their recommendation was 2-3lbs/100sqft. Normal lime is about 1lb/cup, but I used pelleted lime and weighed it at about 2/3 of that. And since my 4'x8' foot beds are about 2/3rds of 100sqft, I figured I needed about 2 cups of lime per bed. I don't use a spreader. I have use a 2 cup measuring cup for all my garden fertilizer and lime. Sadly after doing all the outer beds except where the corn will be planted and one inner bed (the one that will have the onions), I ran out of lime. I'll have to pick some up today. Hopefully I won't forget where I put it already. It is better to lime in the fall, but spring will have to do.

Harvest Monday, March 25th, 2013

Not much has been going on in the harvesting front with more snow last week. I made a large sweet potato and onion dish that I ate all week long with stored sweet potatoes from the garden, but my onions are long gone. The greens varied from spinach, to kale, to broccoli all frozen from the garden. The above even has tartar sauce made from my homegrown pickle relish.

I have some friends that don't eat pork and were getting some pork from their meat CSA so I've been getting the joy of fresh pork. So I sent back some carrots with them. I have way too many carrots frozen this year. I've got to check the freezer and see what else I have too much of so I can send it off to someone.

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.

Winter Returns

This week is going to be a real wintery week. We will have highs in the 30Fs for the most part, and lows in the mid 20Fs. Oh and as you can see we got more snow. About eight inches. We have flurries predicted on Thursday too. I'm glad I didn't plant my peas this last weekend. They are predicting a warmup over the weekend, so maybe the peas and spinach can get in then. I'm hoping.

And on a happier note, my husband got the connection to the weather station working again. I lost a couple of weeks of data, but at least it will now keep the lows again. I'm still trying to figure out what the normal last frost date is around here. Not that we ever have "normal", but the info is still useful.

Harvest Monday, March 18th, 2013

No harvests as usual this time of year. But I have been using up my stores. This week was mostly about using my squash. I'm doing pretty well on it. I have just six left. Above is a black bean and squash salad with apples and lox. I also made a squash pizza (with onions and mushrooms). I really liked it. I like the spinach version better, but squash is good for a change.

I'm also trying to figure out what I'm bringing to our big Passover dinner this year. I was given "vegetables" as my dish. Last year I brought maple glazed carrots from my stores and kale fresh from the garden. But last year Passover was later and we didn't have much of a winter so the kale had put on new growth already. This year things have just defrosted and the kale looks pretty sad. No new growth at all yet. So this year will be sweet potatoes and spinach from my stores, both of which I have an over abundance. I didn't want just plain spinach so I'm trying a frittata with more veggies than usual. I think it will work out well. I'm going to use coconut milk as the milk since I can't use dairy. We usually have at least one vegetarian in the group so it is a good addition for them. So I've got the green and orange vegetables covered.

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.

Preparing for Spring

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

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

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

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

Harvest Monday, March 11th, 2013

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

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

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

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

Seedlings

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

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

Solar

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

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

Harvest Monday March 4th, 2013

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

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

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

Harvest Monday, February 23rd, 2013

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

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

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

Harvest Monday, February 18th, 2013

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

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

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

Harvest Monday, February 11th, 2013

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

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

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

Blizzard of 2013

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

Friday afternoon just as the storm started

Saturday afternoon after it was starting to wind down

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

Today after shoveling a path to the compost

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

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

Harvest Monday, February 4th, 2013

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

2013 Has Officially Begun

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

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

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

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

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

Harvest Monday, January 28th, 2013

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

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

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

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

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

Harvest Monday, January 21st, 2013

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Harvest Monday, January 14th, 2012

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

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

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

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

Cutting the Mustard

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

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

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

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

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

Harvest Monday, January 7th, 2013

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

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

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

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

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

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

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