Garlic

The longest awaited reward yet has finally paid us a visit. That's right- the hardneck garlic I planted last October is done. I may sound like an amateur, but I guess I didn't expect it to work. Plant a clove, get a bulb- how freakin' marvelous is that?

I believe the official count was 32 bulbs- a fair amount to consume and at least enough to continue the cycle this October.

We think the plants feature above aren't done yet, so we're gonna let them grow. We loosened the (wet) soil with the digging fork and pulled them out. Next time we will give the ground more time to dry after the rain. The test will be weather the bulbs keep until the fall or not.

Now our coat closet has garlic curing in it for two weeks- we'll just have to tell the guests that wer're expecting vampires.

The Rewards

Gardening is beginning to have its rewards. I haven't become completely self sustainable yet, but i have learned so much this year that I feel that that goal is attainable. Today we will go to my sister Tiffany's house and help her get a garden (of hot weather crops) going, assuming the weather dries up outside.

June 12th was a big harvest day at The Hilltop Plot. Refer to the last post for my love of Beets. Bull's Blood and Chioggia- the golden ones didn't fare well yet...


We are proud of our carrots. We're gonna plant 10 times as many in the fall though?



The garlic plants all had scapes, so we cut em off and now wait impatiently for the bulbs!


Yesterday we went strawberry picking! We got enough to make 112 oz. of jam and ricemilk icecream, and we froze about four quarts!

This is what 21 lbs. of strawberrys looks like:


I hulled almost all of them:

MMM...The results:


Listening to:

"The Beet Is The Most Intense of vegetables. the radish, admittedly, is more feverish, but the fire of the radish is a cold fire, the fire of discontent not of passion. Tomatoes are lusty enough, yet there runs through tomatoes an undercurrent of frivolity. Beets are deadly serious.....The beet is the melancholy vegetable, the one most willing to suffer. You can't squeeze blood out of a turnip... The beet is the murderer returned to the scene of the crime. The beet is what happens when the cherry finishes with the carrot. The beet is the ancient ancestor of the autumn moon, bearded, buried, all but fossilized; the dark green sails of the grounded moon-boat stitched with veins of primordial plasma; the king string that once connected the moon to the Earth now a muddy whisker drilling desperately for rubies. The beet was Rasputin's favorite vegetable. You could see it in his eyes."
from "Jitterbug Perfume" by Tom Robbins

I hope this quote expresses my love of beets to you people because simply saying I grew them cannot. They are simply the most marvelous vegetable ever. And I was finally able to grow a decent one:
Chioggia Beet



The Garlic Scapes are coming on! Soon I will hack them all off so they don't steal the energy from the bulbs. Plus they are pretty damned tasty too.



The Spacemaster Bush Cucumber plants that I stuck in a pot on our back porch are doing better than the ones in the garden it seems (although there I put in 25 plants!): just take a look at the two of them growing up metal thingy I stuck in there. And today I noticed the first of what looks to be many more flowers! C'mon Bees!



The ding dang peas I planted around Valentines day are really pumpin out the pods if you knowhamsayin. I don't know how many I picked today but about a stuffed sandwich bag of sugar snaps and a half stuffed sandwich bag of shellings. Whoo Hoo!
Pea Flower


I have success as far as tomato seed germination goes, now we'll see if these late started Hillbilly's will strengthen up.


I know the bounty is going to begin to be overwhelming but I must focus on the real important stuff this season: Preserving and Weeding. Sounds sweaty to me....

Listening to:

Memorializing

It's been awhile since there were sprouts in the coldframe--- that experiment led to about twenty cuke plants in the ground and several that I gave away. The second round of cuke starts however have not sprouted yet and it seems like the cold spells we've had may have killed them. Oh well, something tells me we are going to have plenty of pickles. The farmers market officially started yesterday and we recieved our first farm share of the season from the Sippels: salad mix, lettuce, bok choy, and sorrell. All nine plots at the Hilltop plot have food growing in them. The long list is: snap peas, shelling peas, okra, radishes, cucumber, melon, watermelon, giant pumpkin, edamame, beet, yellow red and pimiento peppers, carrots, leeks, rainbow chard, onions, garlic, and heirloom tomatoes: yellow and regular brandywine, aunt ruby's, valencia, german striped, roman speckled, sungold, and some wild tomatoes from last year. I have to get some pictures of the bounty soon. Oh,and Susan's strawberries are doing really good!

Listening to:

Plants-a-Growin'!

There are cukes sprouted in the "cold frame"! I thought maybe they would have been fried in there cause of the hot days we've been having. The coolest thing is that these seeds were given to us for free a long time ago and are marked as expiring in 2003!

And here is the freshly double dug bed that I plan on filling with cucumbers.

Lots of Radishes I Heart


The peas are doing beautiful:

Tendril


The onions have really sprung up since my "fingers crossed" post.


And the garlic too..


We thinned out the beets:


You gotta feel sorry for the aborted carrots.


Strawberries


Some Food:
Tofu Parmesan w/ Roasted Kale

Roasted Beets W/ Goat Cheese and Tempeh


Listening To:

Eccentric Soul: The Prix Label

My Sister Is Getting Married on Sunday!

Listening To:

Intro. to Westerville Plot

Here is the tiny plot that I have maintained at my parent's house. This will be the seventh year I guess that I have planted something or the other in this space. The soil is telling- it is so loose and rich in some areas of this garden that it would be easy on a dry day to just plunge your hand into the earth and wiggle your fingers around like little worms. There are worms, too, and lots of them. This is such a good sign! The worms come up to the soil surface and eat the compost/organic materials and then dig down into the soil only to leave a rich and marvelous worm casting to improve the soil for future plantings. These wiggly guys are such good friends that I'll have to photograph them all just so you can meet them. The things that have grown the best at the Westerville plot so far have been tomatoes, zucchinis, spearmint, nasturtium, and especially the bell peppers last year. We planted a dozen heirloom tomato plants there last year, though, and I think they were shaded too much because the plant growth was amazing but the fruiting not. I have tried to grow root veggies in the past and failed miserably- carrots, onions, beets- you name it, I didn't have any luck with it. This was, of course, before I learned about soil preparation so it is no wonder I had no tubers. This year I've planted a bunch of onion sets at my mom's request, and since they were resubmitted to the soil by the plunging method mentioned before I imagine they are going to flourish. The second round of spinach has also been planted in Westerville, it will follow up the potted spinach we have going here in Clintonville quite perfectly. It will be interesting to compare the flavors and textures of pot-grown versus earth-grown greens. My mind never knows what to do- half the time I hit space once after ending a sentence and the other half I space twice- does anyone know the appropriate spacing? - The best I've saved for last.. here are some pictures of the fifty some pea plants (shelling and sugar snap) that have shot themselves up along the fence at the Westerville plot. Keep in mind that these are the peas everyone thought I was crazy for planting- they were in the ground just after valentine's day! Then we got a "blizzard" and these little green balls of fury and fire fought through the snow for weeks and still managed to surprise we just a few weeks ago with their steadfast emergence. Those Mendelian genetics are something else indeed. I'd say the plants I've photographed are nearing two weeks out of the soil. Until next time.....

Winter Poem
by Nikki Giovanni

once a snowflake fell
on my brow and i loved
it so much and i kissed
it and it was happy and called its cousins
and brothers and a web
of snow engulfed me then
i reached to love them all
and i squeezed them and they became
a spring rain and i stood perfectly
still and was a flower

The Westerville Plot


A shelling pea plant from above


Another view- the dark areas have been planted and drain much better than the compacted pathways. The bed in the foreground has onion sets.


Tallboy


Peas and Thanks


Twins


The rest of my parent's yard


listening to:

goodbye