so annoyed

EcoTulips made the cover of Organic Gardenng Magazine and I loved the article and photos ... BUT then I spent a hour tonight trying to place an order and I can't get the website to work... Can't even find an email to ask for help. Too bad, as the article looked nice, it's time to order tulip bulbs, and I love organic. I'll probably buy locally, but not organic, tomorrow.

new winter harvest calendar

To improve on my timing for winter harvest crops, I've added a Winter Planting Calendar to my online planting calendar. I added a link on the sidebar and here too: Winter Planting Calendar.

I was reading on the Johnny's Seeds website:

Winter harvest crops are planted in late summer or early fall for harvest throughout the winter. ... for harvest before and during the "Persephone Period," when day length is less than 10 hours and plant growth essentially reaches a standstill.

You can look up when daylight falls below 10 hours in your town using this site: USNO Duration of Daylight Calculator. For me, its November 10.

I've tried for many years to get a cold frame full of greens to eat all winter. One winter I was successful with a good crop of spinach. Usually I plant too late; the crop holds over the winter and begins to grow again in spring for a nice spring harvest. This is good too. Some winters, its just too cold and the crops are killed.

Using my new calendar I now know that its definitely too late to plant lettuce for winter harvesting. I have some seedlings I planted several weeks ago that should be good. But maybe I could get away with sowing some spinach and arugula seeds this weekend. I'm working on putting together a cold frame or some covered hoops in my garden.

blue moon

The moon is so bright, I could have been out gardening by it all night.

Blue Moon

The roses bloomed twice,
and nobody noticed but
you – who stole my heart.
- by poetrydiary

Mom and Dad's giant sunflower

 


My Dad has a sunflower that has grown to be a giant! We measured it today at 118 inches tall -  nearly 10 ft. He took a picture of me and Skippy next to it.

tomato box

I love a full tomato box! I find that almost all of the green ones will ripen eventually. I keep the reddest ones at the top, greener ones at the bottom. I think I will make a red sauce soon with the ripening Roma tomatoes.

I brought my Mom a few slicers today. She wanted a couple that would be ripe in a few days.

hen pecked pullets

My two new pullets still aren't getting on so well with the big hens. I've had the pullets two weeks now. They've been staying in a dog crate next to my coop. I let all four hens out to forage for several hours on most days. The big hens will tolerate the small ones at about 5 feet away. They also tend to keep them away from food bowls and the coop area once they're out. The pullets like to forage in the woods and they can escape the big hens there and scratch in peace.

After one week, I tried putting the pullets in with the big hens overnight. It turned out to be a one night experiment. The big girls chased the pullets and kept them confined to a corner. They were pretty shaken by morning. I am going to wait a bit more before trying another overnight.

making pickles!

I don't have much experience making pickles, but I'm putting up as much as I can this year. I got the Ball Home Preserving Book (edited by Judi Kingry & Lauren Devine). In the past couple weeks I've made:
Dilled Beans
End of the Garden Pickles
Grandma's Dill Pickles

Not from this book, I've also made:
Blue Ribbon Dill Pickles
Annie's Salsa
Half Sour Pickles Deli Style, these were too salty for us and went to the compost

My favorite pickle recipe so far:
NY Times Sour Pickles, a fantastic, simple deli half sour dill pickle. Yumm!

I plan to make a few more recipes from the Ball book:
Cucumber Relish
Sauerkraut
Victorian Barbeque Sauce

Also, I have a bunch of pear recipes marked as I've got a big crop ripening on my trees. The recipes sound really good.

soil test results say the compost was the problem

I think the results from my soil testing are pretty clear. It's not looking good for the compost...


I did the testing because my tomato plants had terribly curled and leathery leaves, tall spindly growth, and very few fruits this year. I had brought in purchased loam and compost this spring, since we have a new property and I don't have my own compost yet and needed to new fill raised beds. For the test, I planted the same tomato seeds in samples of 4 different soils: 1) purchased compost, 2) the mixed soil from the tomato bed (a mix of purchased compost and purchased loam), 3) soil from my lettuce bed (no purchased compost or loam in this), and 4) soil from our yard below the garden beds. Representative primary leaves of seedlings grown in these 4 samples are shown in the same order above.

I think the secondary leaves of the compost-grown test plants look leathery and curled just like my garden plants. The mixed tomato bed soil is sort-of leathery, but the green's bed plants look great. The sub-soil plants are yellow reflecting the lack of nutrients in this soil.

I find it disappointing that purchased compost is toxic to tomato plants. I live in a fairly urbanized area and the compost I bought was made from local yard waste.

Janice, who lives south of me in CT, emailed me and wrote that she contacted an organic farmer last year about a source for good composted manure and he warned about toxic manures these days due to lingering herbicides in animal feed and recommended sticking with home composting and cover crops. It seems this animal feed toxicity is often a problem now in garden composts. Herbicides used on lawns aren't as toxic or persistent as for example, Roundup, which is what is sprayed on the Roundup Ready (GMO) corn used for animal feed. So my compost should have been OK if it was just suburban grass clippings and leaves with suburban lawn chemicals. But it seems its not OK as my tomatoes didn't grow well at all in it. I'm really disappointed that there are so many chemicals in use that we can't buy a safe compost product. I look forward to producing my own compost and not being in a position where I need to purchase compost or loam for my gardens.

my backyard garden

imagining a new pantry for storing vegetables

I have this vision of a pantry full of stored homegrown vegetables. Shelves full of canned pickles and tomatoes. Baskets full of winter squashes and potatoes. A fridge with carrots, beets and cabbage. And a freezer with pesto and red sauce. Onions, shallots, garlic and dried chili peppers and herbs hanging from the ceiling. And jars of dried homegrown herbs on the shelves.

In our old house, I used a section of the basement for my winter pantry. Some years I filled it up pretty well with potatoes and squashes. Occasionally canned tomatoes too. Always pesto in the freezer.

Our new house currently has no storage space. I have onions stashed in the utility room and the shed. Pickles are lined up on the kitchen counter. But we have plans to build a garage that will have a room specifically designed to store my larder. We will design the size, shape, shelf configuration, etc. We are in the planning stages now and hopefully will break ground on the project mid September. Until then, I am enjoying imagining.

garden work

Today I spent several hours at my community plot. It was such a nice morning to work in the garden. I trimmed the weeds in the path outside and all around my plot. A garden next to me (to the north) is untended, so I cut back their weeds and cleared out the overgrown path between us. Sigh, the weeds are quite abrasive and spiny (Japanese hops, raspberries, horse nettles). My arms are all scratched up. I'm hoping for a more active garden neighbor next year.

I watered well, as we've been quite dry. Removed mildewed squash leaves, took out old sunflowers and an borage plants. I also removed the last of my tomatoes, which had succumbed to late blight. I harvested a nice big boxful of green tomatoes. I'm sure most will ripen nicely. I also harvested a big head of bok choy to stir fry for tonight's dinner. (It was delicious.)

In the space left by the tomatoes, I planted some seeds and seedlings. Seedlings: lettuce, beets, cilantro. Seeds: peas and spinach. I had a package of pea seeds (Strike) that mature for harvest in 49 days, so I planted the whole package. I have often planted fall peas but have never gotten a crop harvested as I've always planted too late. Ever optimistic, I am trying again.....

maturing butternut squashes on my arbor

I've counted about 14 big squashes coming along.

late blight hit my tomatoes

My curled leaved tomatoes have been hit a final blow, late blight. I picked all the red and green fruits and cut down the plants. I'll bag the infected plants soon and let them heat-kill in the sun for a few days before disposing in the trash.

I was able to harvest a good bucket of tomatoes to use for a few weeks. Here's hoping for a better tomato season next year!!

edamame

Edamame (or green soy beans) are one of my favorite things to grow. I planted two varieties this spring, Envy and Butterbeans. I planted Envy first and they ripened this past week. Soybeans ripen all at once, so I pull the whole plant, pile them on the kitchen counter, and pick the pods off as I watch TV in the evening. We freeze whatever we can't eat fresh. They are especially good this year.

fish fertilizer on fall seedlings

I got some free samples of a liquid fish fertilizer in the mail to try. Two bottles. One is all organic from fish. The other has a bit of nitrogen added. I tried it on my fall seedlings. They've been growing really fast and I'm sure they'll need some extra umpf to keep going at this rate.

I like the convenience of a liquid fertilizer. Just add a few tbs to a watering can and sprinkle.

I have seedlings tucked in all over the place now. Under the squash trellis, under the big bok choy, and in between the old squash vines. Nearly every day I trim off more mildewed squash leaves or harvest some cabbage and the seedlings get more light and space.
The fertilizer is called Fish Rich and is available here: bellaquaculture.com

today's harvest

skippy's vegetable garden is moving

Skippy's vegetable garden will move soon.

The garden is at its peak, tomatoes ripening, big green basil plants, tall teepees of cucumbers and green beans. I am picking more than we can eat from this cute little garden. But, something else is going on too....

The cold frame is being taken apart and removed as we get ready to show the house to potential buyers. I wonder if someone will continue to maintain my little side yard garden? Or maybe it will be removed and replaced with grass. I wonder. It's been a productive area for me over the past 22 years - even though the amount of sun continues to go down as the trees continue to grow. I must have 1000 aerial photos taken over the years. It will be hard to say good bye....

But then, it will be exciting to start fresh and build a brand new garden! Skippy's vegetable garden will move to a big open area next to a pretty little pond. Our new house is only about 10 miles west of our current one. It's a bit further from Boston, a bit more rural. The back yard has big granite steps that wind down a slope through ferns and laurels and bring you to the flat open grassy area by the pond.

I am excited to mark out garden boundaries soon. I hope to turn the grass under later this fall and let it compost over the winter. Maybe I'll add some fresh manure to compost in the soil too. All winter I can plan, and then in the spring ..... ahhh, I can't wait....

today's harvest

This is what I picked from the garden today. Lots of tomatoes.

The blight is hitting my tomato plants hard now, so I picked all of the tomatoes that were anywhere near pink. I pulled off all of the blighted leaves from the plants. The stems are nearly bare now with a bunch of green tomatoes hanging, hoping to ripen. I went ahead and sprayed again with Copper fungicide, as I have been doing weekly, even though there wasn't much there to spray.

And I was surprised by finding a bunch of broccoli shoots today. I almost pulled all of my broccoli a few weeks ago, after I picked the first, big heads. They didn't seem like they were producing any side shoots. But now, all of a sudden, I have lots of side shoots.

The two summer squashes in this harvest, a Zephyr and a Starship pattypan, will likely be my last of the season. I can't say I am sorry. I think I've eaten a million summer squashes in the past couple months. They were yummy, but I'm looking forward to moving on to another vegetable.

Two days ago, my sister and I used a giant zucchini and made zucchini bread. The one zucchini made about 8 cups of grated squash. I use 3 cups per my 2 loaf recipe. We made a 1x recipe, and then a 1.5x recipe, ending up with 3 loaves, 1 Bundt cake and two giant muffins. My sister took a loaf to work with her and I froze two loaves. It really came out nice and we have been enjoying it.

garden birds - can you ID?

This beautiful little bird just flitted through my garden. Any idea what it is?


This one was in my pond last week. I suppose its a yellow warbler.


This one may be too far away to identify. It was sitting on a tall tree next to a pond by my parents house.

canning tomatoes

I bought 25 lbs of local tomatoes at the Farmer's Market, added a few of mine and canned 11 quart jars.

Recipe:
- Peel tomatoes after scorching in boiling water 1 minute. Slit and remove seeds. Slice in food processor with 1/4 inch blade.
- Clean quart canning jars in dishwasher. Boil lids and rings in water on the stove.
- Pack tomatoes in jars to 1/2 inch of the top. (I added a small chili pepper to half of the jars.) Clean rims. Apply lids and rings. After tightening rings fully release 1/2 turn to allow pressure to escape.
- Place packed jars in large pot with rack so they are not sitting on the bottom of the pot. (About 5-8 jars per pot.) Fill with water to 2 inches over the top of jars. - Heat water to 190*F slowly, over 1.5 hours. Maintain heat at 190*F for 30 min.
- Remove and cool jars. Check for seal.

Skippy in T-shirt on Emily's quilt

Skippy is looking very handsome in his T-shirt. He's wearing it to protect his surgery site. He got 6 stitches in his back where a suspicious lump was removed. It was an ugly lump - I'm glad its gone. The surgery doesn't seem to have bothered Skippy much, but I am keeping him quiet for a week - no running or jumping or playing.

Skippy is sitting on a quilt that a reader of my blog, Emily Lewis, hand quilted for me. She did a really beautiful job! Her website is: Emily Lewis Quilts. There's a picture of my quilt on her site. She finished my quilt in March of 2013, I remember. I remember I got a notice to pick it up at the post office, but couldn't get there for two days because of the house arrest in the Watertown area after the Marathon bombing. What a time!

fall seedlings

Over the weekend, I found some fall seedlings at a local nursery (Mahoney's in Winchester MA) and bought a bunch for me and my parents. Six-packs of spinach, escarole frisee, and red leaf lettuce. Also a couple plants each of Brussel's sprouts and parsley. And one pretty sage plant with big round leaves for my mom. They are all happily in the ground now.