Well It's Been A Year....

So a lot has happened that will never make it to this blog. Last year's tomato harvest was incredible, we made lots of sauce with our own garlic and basil and froze most of it in glass jars. Lesson learned don't try to defrost anything in glass in hot water- it will break and ruin all that hard work. We planted nearly twice as much garlic last fall and all of it seems to be doing great. Lindsay has cut at least 70 garlic scapes off and we'll be digging the bulbs up at the end of the month. I should back track a little. Lindsay's mom bought us a mini-greenhouse for our backyard. We put it up in early January, over where our coldframe used to be, and actually revived the spinach that was planted last November. That spinach is still growing in that greenhouse today, although it has bolted from the heat we were still able to get many many meals out of it. I haven't utilized as much space as I could have on the cement ground part of the greenhouse- I had planned on putting up shelves to grow things in pots and what not. The in ground space has been filled though, right now it houses the spinach, some pepper plants, two eggplant plants, squash hills that just sprouted, basil, and two monstrous volunteer tomato plants. I threw all of the spent dirt from the pots I used last year onto the ground of the greenhouse and it must have contained some dormant tomato seeds of an unknown variety which now happen to be my healthiest tomato plants. This was the first year I experimented with starting seeds indoors. It was the only thing that made sense considering the hundreds of seed packets I came into last year. With just a simple setup of shop lights and fluorescent bulbs I was able to successfully start about fifty lettuce/kale/broccoli/cabbage plants which got set out in early April, followed by many many tomato plants which have mostly found homes in the many gardens. I also started eggplant, pepper,basil, ground cherry, etc. I ordered seed potatoes, all blue and storage varieties, which may or may not give us some tubers to slice up this year. The amount of work that I could be doing at all the garden plots is overwhelming. It makes me want to quit my job and only grow food. Screw going back to college- I want to concentrate my efforts on learning to be totally self sustainable so maybe someday I can separate myself a little from the grid and the grind too. Today I made my own hot sauce and we went to the Stratford Ecological Center and witnessed a mama goat in labor. We got to see the baby right after it was born! Sorry about the hiatus from the blog- the pictures will show a lot, and I'll remember more for future, hopefully more frequent entries.

Starting the plants indoors is the easy part.

Our strawberry patch has spread and the berries are delicious.

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: