Spinach Reborn!

I have spinach in my garden!

The one bed that was to have been my “winter greens” experiment (but was ultimately destroyed when my hoop house collapsed under a foot of snow) is waking up and producing green, baby!

In celebration of the discovery, each of us sampled a perfect tiny little leaf, then went and played soccer.  [...]

A Juicing Garden

Herb gardens, salad gardens, cutting gardens, butterfly gardens, knot gardens, rock gardens, water gardens, rose gardens, wildlife gardens, potagers.
What about a juicing garden?
I’ve reorganized and replotted my garden four times already.  The latest version includes a juicing garden, designed to ease my transition to an 80% raw foods diet.  Some of the best juicing choices are [...]

Microgreens

I’ve spent the last several days going through my old seeds and deciding what to use and what to toss.  I generally have no trouble germinating seeds that are three or four years old.  I don’t even store them under particularly ’seed-friendly’ conditions, and yet many of them still produce.

Now, that’s fine, of course, if [...]

It’s Never Too Early

Three weeks into the year and I’ve already received all of my seed catalogues.  I’ve spent the last few days laying out my garden plan on the computer.  Already the list of jobs to do (outside of planting, seeding, etc) is a mile long.  We usually begin with whatever jobs weren’t finished last year.  Makes [...]

Polytunnel Panic

I was worried that my beautiful greens might take a wee bit of a hit tonight (-2 predicted), so we rigged a temporary mini hoophouse over the garden bed.  It was a very last minute decision – made at about 4pm – and I think we did well.

We happened to have several yards of 3/4 [...]

A Balmy Lack of Beans

Today was a balmy 13C and I took my first cuttings of my winter greens. I never eat my salad greens until I’ve washed, spun, and crisped them up in the fridge, so unfortunately, I won’t be tasting them until lunchtime tomorrow.

For supper, I made vegetarian Boston Baked Beans. I won’t be tasting [...]

Put the Cob Down and Back Away From the Compost

With all of the tomatoes ripening on the counter, it was no surprise to find a few fruit flies flitting around. I detest them. So, in a mild panic, I decided to get every scrap of food off the counter and into the fridge, and I put the kitchen compost outside on the [...]

It Looks Like a Plant, It Behaves Like a Plant, It’s Not a Plant

I harvested potatoes and onions today. The onions are perfect, round and uniform – I’m quite pleased. The only bummer is that I didn’t plant enough of them. The potatoes are from my second planting, which I did in the experimental stacked bins. Russet Burbanks in all three. RBs are [...]

Critter Ridder

Something’s feasting on my winter spinach. I can recognize rabbit damage when I see it, so I’ve started a nightly cayenne ritual.

I grew the pretty pepper plants two years ago to defend my garden against small critters. They were gorgeous plants, very bushy, just dripping with bright red finger-sized peppers. I [...]

Pepper Pride

Another frost warning tonight. This time, with help from family, the plants were covered while it was still daylight. It may be the first of October, so frost protection is a little silly, but my peppers need more time and I intend to give it to them.

I planted them when they were little [...]

Sunshowers on a Cloudy Day

It was a strange day of intermittent sunshowers. Capricious weather. Mercurial. Jeckyll-and-Hyde. The clouds would part, the sun would burst through, then the rain would come. It’s a lovely time to be outside, actually. The sunlight flashes off the dripping plants and leaves you too dazzled to do any [...]

Smells Like Cabbage

I have one. Back in the spring, I started half a dozen each of red cabbage, green cabbage and brussels sprouts. The latter grew well in the cell packs, but never actually made it into the garden (I ran out of space). Of the others, the red were annihilated by cabbage worms, [...]

I Like My Beets Bloody

The dehydrator was going all day today. More zucchini and tomatoes. I also decided to try beets this time. They didn’t really sweeten up the same way other fruits and veggies do when the moisture content is reduced. I had simply sliced them and spread them out on the dehydrator trays. [...]

Salsa!

I canned five pints of salsa today. The tomatoes were a mix of Amish Paste, Roma and Hungarian Heart. With night temps back up into the “teens” all this week, the rest of the fruit will have a reasonable chance to mature. I may be in full canning production by Saturday.

Frost

It’s the same story every year: I’m happily going about my daily harvest – bringing in the beets, the potatoes, the tomatoes, the peppers – and enjoying the warm days and cool nights that September brings, when suddenly Environment Canada issues a Frost Warning. I’m usually wrapping up my evening with a soothing [...]

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