Update on the Black plastic pumpkin patch of AWESOMENESS!!!

I got to visit the pumpkin patch we put in at the beginning of June, and I am always amazed at how unbelievably FAST pumpkins grow!  To put it in perspective, at the end of May, these plants were but wee seeds. 


June 27, they were little plants. 

July 27... well, they are taking over my friends yard,AND the neighbors yard.

  Remember, it took about an hour and a half to create this pumpkin patch.  My friend waters it every few days, but because it is on a drip system, all she needs to do is turn on the hose. We dug in manure, and sprinkled in organic slow release fertilizer, so there should be enough for our greedy pumpkins to eat, and they seem to be happy. 

Now I never like to count chickens before they hatch, but my guess is that this pumpkin patch will yield 25 pumpkins by the time it is all over... big ones little ones stripy ones.    We still have another month before the bite of Autumn begins to slow the growth of these plants.  Any one want to place any bets on the final number?

By the way, I also have a few pumpkin plants at my house, soooo  I have a feeling we will all be eating pumpkin well into the winter! 

How to plant peas..or other seeds for fall Harvest.

I know I know,  It is easy to plant seeds!...
except when it's not, and they don't come up, and you weed them because you can't remember what you planted in the first place... so i figured I would give a few tips to help get us from a packet of seeds in July, to a wok full of peas in September!

First, weed your area.  Get your bed all tidy and ready to go.  In my bed, I have some swiss chard and... well some... cucumbers?  I don't actually remember what I planted in 1/3 of the bed, but I do know that there are plenty of spaces for peas!!!  So I took my trusty hand held rake/hoe and picked all of the plants I can't eat (the weeds) to make a pretty bed.

Then I soaked the bed.  Soaked it.  Made it all muddy and stuff.  This will make it easier both to plant the seeds and to keep it wet.  The next week is going to be key!  It is going to be hard in the middle of the dry, hot summer to make sure you keep your little seeds moist, so start with a soaked base!

Then, I find a stick-type, planting tool.  I happen to have a piece of bamboo, but I have also used the backs of knives, a stick, a carrot, my finger, you get the idea.

Then make your holes for your seeds.  I find it is fastest to make the holes all at once and then drop the seeds in them.  The beauty of this is you can actually see the seeds you are planting

Cover them up, and then water again!

Then, find something to throw on the seeds.  I happen to have lots of tupperware lids, so I often use those.  Seeds don't need light for the first week or so, (or more) and it helps keep the water in and remind me to water EVERY DAY.

Until you see little pea plants, make sure your soil is wet every day :0)

Finally, Mark the plants with either the seed packet or with a sticky note in a mason jar.  I always tell myself I will remember where I planted what, but I never ever do.  I'm [pretty excited about this particular variety of peas, because they should be easy to spot and harvest on my way from work to the kitchen.. perhaps I will even make it in with enough for dinner :0)

Get your crops for fall and winter harvest planted now!

Cheers

Winter Gardens

OMG OMG OMG they finally arrived!

Some girls collect shoes, I collect seeds...With each season, I become enamoured with something else and decide I need one in each color.  There was the year of the tomato... 60 tomato plants all different colors and sizes, This spring, I became obsessed with planting the perfect kale and this summer has been all about pumpkins... and for the fall/winter garden,  I am thinking roots... really really big roots. (15 pound beet anyone?)

So I went onto the Baker Creek Website and ordered seeds to plant now and harvest sometime between October and January depending on the weather.

Here in Seattle, we have a great climate for planting autumn and winter gardens.  The killing frost often comes late, and it is usually pretty temperate, and rarely ever really hot.  This means that it is next to impossible to grow a watermelon,  but it is pretty easy to keep certain crops like kale growing (and harvesting) all winter.

Late June-mid july is a good time to seed things you would like to eat in the fall and winter.  It is a good time to re-plant a salad garden, which I will be doing because I am interested in learning about some of the heirloom lettuces.  I am going to plant the new lettuce garden where the elephant garlic was, because that bed is square and will be easy to put a cloche on when it gets colder to extend the harvest well into the winter.

I also am going to plant peas.  Often by this time of year, I am sick of peas because peas are one of the first things you can plant in the spring, so I go over board, but this spring I was moderate in my planting of them... because I was busy having a baby, so while we ate a few meals of awesome snap peas, I have not had my fill for the year.  I am excited to try a purple podding pea.  This will make them easier to harvest because they don't blend into the vines. 

Finally, raddicio.  I know next to nothing about raddicio, but I dream that it is really tasty.  I think the plants are beautiful, so on a whim I will plant some and see how it goes.

so excited so excited so excited!!!

Best part of collecting seeds instead of shoes?  I don't need a bigger closet!

It's Cucumber time!!!

A couple of weeks ago, I noticed that our cucumber plants were growing mighty big. Every year that this happens, I mean to trellis them, but forget.   Cucumbers don't necessarily need to be staked.  They grow happily on the ground just like pumpkins.  This is fine if you remember to check on them and harvest your cucumbers.... I never remember to check on them.  I often find cucumbers that are the size and shape of dinosaur eggs.  This is ok, sort of.  When they get huge, they are not as tasty as when they are smaller, and they tend to be overwhelming.

So, I asked my husband to do it for me.  He likes to build stuff!  He just made a simple T frame by lashing together bamboo stalks.  After adding a couple of horizontal stakes, he added twine so that I could just lay the quickly growing plants over them.  This serves 2 purpouses.  The first is that I can see when cucumbers are ripe and ready to be picked, and the second is that it saves space, oh and the third is that the cucumbers don't get dirty... but I still wash them.

This picture was taken July 12

After a very short period, the cucumbers almost seem to explode with growth, and today this is what the trellis looks like:

the cucumbers on July 20

Notice, We have our first ripe cucumber!

When the boys were sleeping, I pounced on it, sliced it, added a little ranch dressing and some kalamata olives for an afternoon snack. The first cucumber of the season is always the most tasty.  In 2 weeks, when 3 or 4 are ripening a day, I may not be as in love with cucumbers, but for now I am in heaven!

Saving my corner of the world.

I like to garden, because I can see the results of my work.
I like to teach High School music, because I can dream about the results of my work.

Lately, it seems like the bad guys have been winning.  I have tried to accept or ignore the results of the Trevon Martin case, but really, I am extremely disturbed that a grown man could shoot a kid and face no consequences. I council my students to trust in the system, and why shouldn't I?  The system has worked for me.  I have a job and life I love and the system has kept me safe and cared for.   It is hard not to believe that that system just totally screwed a young man and his family in favor of a over zealous, gun toting idiot.  Trevon could have been one of my students, and it is my job to protect and educate my kids, and the idea of that incident happening to any one of them makes my chest tighten.

So when the baby went for a nap, I decided to take out my own zealous anger on the weeds.  I chose a corner and got to work.  I began at 5:00 pm, and finished at 6:16.
Here is what I started with:

Here is the result of my hour's worth of agressive weeding, staking the asparagus plants, and removing the debris from this unkept corner of my garden.

I was even rewarded with a small basket of potatoes I had forgotten to dig up last summer.  We boiled them with fake meatballs for dinner, and they were good!

The baby continued to sleep, and I was still pissed off,  so I drank a glass of water and  decided to take out more frustration on the far corner of my garden.  This one was where I had planted small garlic. 

I tied up the raspberries, weeded like crazy, and harvested the garlic.  Here is my result: after another hour and 15 minutes. (When the baby awoke, my most amazing husband tended to him... don't worry!)

I felt no need to go to they gym, had the makings of dinner, and my thoughts were a bit more straight. 

I know that nature will do its own makeover in time.  The weeds will creep up and try to take over my beds, and the raspberries will get unruly,  but for now I have saved 2 corners of the world.

Next week, I will take a few students to Drum Line camp, and dream that they will learn some skills necessary to save their own corners of the world too.

Its Garlic Harvesting Time!!!

Every year, I reserve 2 beds for garlic.
One for regular garlic, and one for elephant garlic.
If I ever drop this tradition, I will drop the regular garlic, Elephant garlic is too much fun.
To make truly spectacular garlic, plant the cloves in the autumn.  You can get your seed garlic from an awesome nursery...or just go to the farmers market.  I have done both and the advantage of going to the nursery is that they will often tell you more about the varieties... but if you flirt a bit with the farmer... then he or she will often tell you their growing secrets.  (I love our farmers markets!!!)
I like to cover my  garlic beds with mulch- straw looks pretty, but autumn leaves work well too.  This keeps the weeds at bay, the nutrients in the soil, and the moisture in in the summer.

... and that is pretty much it.

As far as maintenance goes, I weeded the bed once in April.

 In May, I harvested and ate the flowers the garlic plants produced (called scapes, so tasty stir-fried! They taste kind of like an asparagus and a garlic had a baby.)

When the plants begin dying back, it is time to harvest.

Garlic ready to harvest

I used a pitchfork to loosen the soil around the garlic plants, and then just lifted them up.

After they come out of the ground, brush the dirt off of them and leave them outside for about 2 weeks.  This helps them cure, and get ready for storage.

guarded by pirates!

I could have just left them on the straw, but I plan to plant part of my winter garden in their place, so I wanted them out of the way. 

In a couple of weeks, when they are dry, I will brush off the remaining dirt, and either put them in a wreath or in a braid. (check back!)

Elephant garlic is SO much easier to cook with than regular garlic, because one clove is... like the size of 6 regular cloves!  One clove to peel, not 6.  I am a very lazy cook, so this works for me.   Also, Elephant garlic keeps for a long time.  As long as it still looks good, it is good to eat.  I actually still have elephant garlic from last summer, and it is awesome :0)  After the first investment, (if you can't find someone like me to share seed garlic with you)  you can just choose 2 or 3 heads, and plant


I often see garlic - especially elephant garlic- selling for 7 to $10 a pound.  I gotta say, it is easy to grow and well worth the time.

All done!  (for now...)

Lavendar and fleas...

I will unabashedly admit it.  We have fleas... well our cats do.
It is hard, kind of embarrassing, but the first step I guess is admitting you have a problem.

We found out a few months ago and initially, we used Advantage on our cats.  Sadly, the medicine made our cats sick, so we began researching more natural remedies. 

Every day, we flea comb our cats.  Every day we vacuum.  We have a dehumidifier running to make the air less desirable for the fleas, and we have sprinkled Diatomaceous earth in all of the crevices of our house.  Side note, Diatomaceous earth is really kind of cool.  It is tiny rocks that cut the bugs.  I often sprinkle it around my lettuce patch to rid it of slugs.  I hate slugs.

Our latest adventure involves making our house so undesirable for fleas that they choose to live elseware... or die. I vote for them dieing.   Interesting fact: it was actually the fleas on the rats that spread the plague...Our pediatrician assured us we did not need to worry about that any more.  Fleas are a nuisance, not a health risk.
 

It turns out fleas dislike lavender.  This is good, because I love lavender!  And Lavender is in season!  I gathered a whole basket full of the flowers and we have been finding various ways of creating... talismans if you will.

 Our first order of business was to collect all of the dried bundles of lavender that I in the house and make sachets. To get the flowers off of the stems, bundle the flowers together and rub them between your hands like you were making a snake out of play-dough.  The flowers fall right off into your big bowl.  I used organza bags often found by the wedding isle.  They are really inexpensive and kind of pretty.  My guess is that lavender sachets will wind up in the Christmas boxes I send out.

The second thing was to tie little bouquets of flowers on an old wreath I had.  I tend to change what is tied to it depending on the season.  I think it is kind of pretty.

The last thing my husband and I did was to make Lavender wands.  There are a million tutorials on the web, so I won't bother you with a how to, but we learned a few things.  The thicker the ribbon, the faster the weaving goes.  Transparent ribbon is harder to work with than solid ribbon.  Use an odd number of pairs or trios of stems.  My favorite number of stems to work with is 21 (7 sets of 3.) 

Our house smells heavenly now, but I can't fight the feeling that we are doing a little voodoo, some witchcraft and a little prayer to get rid of these pests.

Whatever works.

12 fava beans and the truth.

In late March, I was itching to get into the garden... so I planted  fava beans!  I was excited about them because they required no poles or staking, and, well I really like odd vegetables!

They made pretty flowers, and interesting plants:

So yesterday I harvested them... Lots and lots of beans!

I like to keep my hands busy while watching TV, so it took me roughly an episode of Modern Family to take the beans out of their big shells.
I got like a quart and 4 oz of beans!  Pretty fun!

... but then you are supposed to shell them again!!!  I blanched them, (but I think I should have left them in the water longer, because it took me a while to get them shelled.)

So an episode of  the Daily show later, and here is my net result:  a little  over 2 cups of beans. (the cup on the right is the outside of the beans)

In summary.
12 fava beans from territorial. ($2.15)
10 minutes to stick them in the ground.
3 and a half months of watching them grow
10 minutes to harvest the pods
20 minutes to remove outer shells from the beans
10 minutes to blanch the beans
20 minutes to remove the inner shell
= 2 1/4 cups of organic, joke inducing beans.

Is this worth it?  I don't know.  Its certainly not as easy as throwing lettuce seeds in the ground and pulling out salad 3 weeks later, or planting kale and getting more kale than one could ever possibly eat... but the color is pretty striking, and  the novelty is pretty fun.  I am not sure what I will make with these beans, but I hear so many rave reviews about them that perhaps the effort is worth it.  Well, I'm off to pick up some Chianti....

Time to fertilize the Tomatoes! Comfrey Tea!

Years ago, I was into planting all kinds of herbs in the herb spiral... not all of which I knew what to do with.  Comfrey was one of those plants.

Comfrey is a rockstar of a plant.  It grows quickly and can be a little invasive...

It tastes and smells like cucumbers, but is rather prickly, so while I guess you could put it in salads, I don't think you would like it...

But you know what comfrey is good  for?  Fertilizing tomatoes!  I used to just fill a big tupperware container with the leaves and fill that with water.  A week or so later, I would wander around the garden wondering what died.  Comfrey tea is ready when it smells the sewer.  If you like that smell, well,  leave an open container full of water and leaves...

But this year, I figured out a simpler, less smelly, way.

Take Juice container, and stuff with comfrey leaves.

Fill with water.
CAP!!!
Leave outside for about a week. (or until you remember you started it)

Hold your nose and pour around the tomatoes roots.

This year, I am trying a new variety of tomato called Hillbilly.  I am pretty excited that we might get 2 lb tomatoes, so I wanna keep them fertilized and happy!


I also want to avoid chemicals, and anything that costs money!  Cause I'm cheap!

Cheers!