necklace giveaway results

It was fun doing a give-away. I wish I could give a necklace to everyone who entered a guess. The contest was to guess how many dried red chilies were in my chili bowl. The answer: 248. I think a lot of people guessed low maybe because smaller chilis tended to be at the bottom of the bowl. Anyway, the winners are: The winners are Barb (273), Tomato Thymes (156) and Sarah (150). If you are a winner, please email me at kathy@skippysgarden.com and let me know your mailing address. Congrats!

today's harvest

Today, I harvested the last of my leeks, 2 tiny heads of savoy cabbage, 2 big heads of bok choi, a few tiny beets, a giant bunch of kale, and 4 or 5 big heads of frizzy escarole.

There was snow still in the center of the bok choi, left over from a light dusting we got last night. The air temp was right about freezing as I harvested, 33*F, I think. The ground is not yet frozen, but is icy cold. My hands got very chilly and muddy as I harvested. I took my time and enjoyed what is probably my last day out in the garden for a while.

After wandering and admiring this and that, oblivious to everything else, I realized Skippy had stolen my mittens. He snuck up to the chair where I put them and took both of them. Then he left the garden quickly with them and started barking at me. That teaser! I was taking way too long and delaying his walk. I chased him a while - we both had fun. I eventually got both mittens back, warmed my hands AND Skippy got a nice walk.

My harvest filled 3 grocery bags quite nicely. As I left with my bags, I was thinking how I enjoy this so much more than going to a grocery store.

Now all that's left outside in my gardens is kale. Our forecast is for more chilly weather to come.

pumpkin vases for the Thanksgiving table

These are a couple of pumpkins from my garden. I don't think they're good eating pumpkins, so I used then for vases on my Thanksgiving table. It was a wild Day as we had 16 of us for dinner - 14 staying overnight with us. We had such fun cooking, visiting and eating.

Anyway, the pumpkin vases worked well. I cut off the tops them stuck the flower stems into the seeds and fiber, then added water. The seeds and fibers did a good job of holding the stems in place.

today's harvest - happy thanksgiving!

These are the greens I harvested for our Thanksgiving salad bowl. In spite of our normal weather for this time of year, we have bitter cold (20*F) and several inches of snow on the ground for Thanksgiving this year. My brother, traveling in to our house from western MA, has no power out in his area due to the snow storm. We will give thanks for the warmth of our homes and family and the abundance of our harvests.

my little horseradish plant

I've got a little horseradish plant in the back corner of my garden. It's the first time I've tried growing this. I looked up information on horseradish culture and it sounds like I should let it grow another year before I harvest some of the offshoots.

When grown as an annual, it requires a long growing season. It needs warm temperatures during the summer growing season and cooler temperatures in the late summer and fall to enhance root development. In the annual system, the crop is usually planted in the early spring, and the entire root mass is harvested after the first killing frost in the fall. In the perennial system, upright, thickened, underground shoots arising from a deeply planted “mother” root are harvested every other year, with the original plant left in the field for regeneration. Perennial fields may stay in production for 10 to 20 years. Perennial culture generally requires more labor and growing skill. It is still practiced in some areas, particularly where there is a short growing season. Once introduced to a farm, horseradish can be difficult to eradicate completely as any size root or piece can readily begin a new plant. from Virginia Coop Ext

spoiled chickens

I think I am going to spoil my chickens. Why not.

They've just been shipped across the country (from Iowa) as young, barely feathered hens, they have nice coop, but we're having a bitter November cold snap here in New England. Its 25*F and windy as can be. I know experienced chicken keepers tell me they don't need extra heat, but it seems a bit of spoiling may be OK for their transition. I'm running an incandecsant bulb (40 watt) for the chickens so they have about 15 hours of light (about 6 am to 9 pm) to encourage winter egg laying. This adds some heat. But I'd like to add a bit more heat to the coop. I've tried putting a tarp over the coop to break this wind and contain warmth, but the humidity went WAY up, so NO tarp. (I have a nice little remote thermometer and humidity meter that I like for monitoring the girls' situation.) They seem to like the red heat lamp that I have been using a couple hours now and them. I've ordered a ceramic 100 watt heater that should arrive soon that I think may be nicer. I think I will use continue to use the heat lamp (red or ceramic) below about 30*F for a couple hours in the evening until they are bigger and start laying.

The hens have been spending the nights together huddled in a nest box or on the coop floor. I think if they were warm enough they be on the nice roosting bar.

They have been eating very well. They have free access to pellets. I give them an ear of corn and a few leaves of lettuce every day. Occasional raisins, cottage cheese, even some earthworms I find for them. After three days in their run on nice grass, they've eaten the all the grass and sctatched up all the worms. Yesterday, I let them forage in the yard for an hour. They loved it. After an hour, they wandered back into their coop and settled down to rest. I opened their door today but it wa so cold and windy they didn't want to go out.

little winter rye sprouts

I planted my winter rye seed really late (Nov 10) so I'm really happy to see it sprout.

good weather for greens

It was such a nice warm day today (in the 60's). Well, rainy, but I'm sure my garden plants thought it was nice. I opened up my plastic hoop tunnel to give it some air. Lettuce at the front edge is showing signs of damage from the several icy cold nights we've had. Other than that, all is looking good for the Thanksgiving salad bowl.

egg watch

No eggs yet today, but I'm keeping my eyes out....

its snowing!

... our first snow flurries! ...

bok choi recipes

Again I have LOTS of bok choi. I just love the flavor of it and how nice it looks in the garden. Tonight I am thinking about how to prepare it.

My usual recipe is to sauté minced garlic and ginger, maybe adding a dried chili pepper, in a high heat oil like peanut or sunflower. Then I add the coarsley chopped stems of bok choi and stir fry a few minutes. Next I add coarsley chopped bok choi leaves and stir 'til they wilt. Then I add some corn starch stirred with water, maybe a splash of white whine or vermouth, and a good splash of soy sauce. I stir over heat until the sauce is the right thickness. I like to serve it with fried rice and a roasted meat.

A variation is to use the same preparation, but leave the bok choi whole if they are tiny, or just halve or quarter them. I've also added mushrooms. When my son is home, I add broccoli and he eats that and leaves my husband and me the bok choi.

I'm looking for something new tonight. I'll google and see what Epicurius, Allrecipes and the other usual sites suggest. I'd love to hear ways other gardeners prepare bok choi.

my new chickens

This is Ginger, my Araucana chicken. She will lay blue/green eggs!

And this is Penny, a Black Australorp. She is supposed to be very easygoing, a very good layer of dark brown eggs, and will have black feathers with green highlights.

And last, but not least, Bertha, a Light Brahma. She will be BIG and hardy, and beautiful and will lay a few light brown eggs now and then.

All three are between 18 and 22 weeks old. Pullets. Right now all are the same size, about as big as a large pigeon. When full grown, Ginger will be 5-6 lbs, Penny will be 6-7 lbs, and Bertha will be huge: 10-14 pounds! I am looking forward to their eggs.

Suzie keeps an eye out over the flock. I'm working on training the two dogs that these are pets.

salt marsh hay mulch for my garlic bed

Its been getting chilly, so yesterday I brought a bale of salt marsh hay to my community plot and spread a good layer on my garlic bed. Suzie thought this was really fun! Skippy gave her a look and tried to tell her it was not a place for a puppy.

Thanksgiving brussels sprout harvest

For Thanksgiving, I harvested my first ever crop of Brussels sprouts. They were tiny, the size of marbles. And not very many of them. We added some store bought sprouts and my sister made a nice dish of them for our feast day.

a give away!! - guess how many red chilis and win seed packet necklace

I'm excited to give something to my readers. I've gotten a lot from everyone: ideas, advice, friendship and just the pleasure of chatting about gardens. I hope I give gardeners information and encouragement, especially new gardeners. Maybe even inspiration. I think it's important that we're close to the earth and find simple ways to do things. And it's so rewarding to grow food.

Anyway, I was given a beautiful "seed packet" necklace by Shari Dixon. She's an artist who incorporates flowers and herbs into her hand crafted jewelry. My pendent is a camomile seed packet and I love it!


Shari gave me three seed packet necklaces to give away. SO, we need a contest! To stay on the topic of gifts, yesterday I posted a picture of a bowl of dried red chilis that I plan to give as gifts.

How many chilis are in the bowl??

The three seed packet necklaces will go to the three people who guess closest to the actual number. Just reply to this post with your guess and I'll post the winners in one week - Sat, Nov 29. Sorry, USA only and one guess per person.

today's harvest

ps - I have a garden gift give-away for my readers coming up soon. Check back here tomorrow!

here's a hint - the gifts are from the new ad site on my sidebar and I will have 3 free gifts to give away.....

tis the seaon for making gifts

Last year I knitted hats for everyone on my Christmas list. And I had some garlic to share. This year, no knitted goods and no extra garlic, but I have lots of popcorn, dried red and green chilis, herb salt, canned pears and cucumber relish. I love having so many things to share!

I was hoping to make ristras or wreaths from the chilis and looked into that this morning. I found a fantastic how-to video: Sichler Farms chili ristra video. But I leaned that the ristra needs to be made from fresh chilis, not dried. (So that's why the ones I've made in the past have looked funny and have fallen apart.) I will put chili ristras on my wish list of things to make next year!

I found some really nice ideas for packaging herbs. One site I found shows how to make little printed muslin bags for dried chilis and another uses printed muslin bags for tea.

I think these bags will be perfect for my popcorn, herb salts and chilis. Maybe even for my canned pears and relish. Sounds like I will have a craft project for the chilly weekend coming up. I am looking forward to this!

the chickens are home

Today I picked up my 3 new chickens from the local post office. They all came in one small box. They were clucking away on the bench at the Post Office.



They are pullets (females, hens 18-22 weeks old). All are about the size of a large pigeon. I think they'll grow quite a bit more. One of the breeds I got grows to 10 lbs and I can't imagine she's much more than 3 or 4 lbs right now. They are supposed to start laying in a week or two.

When I brought them home, I opened their box in their new coop. They immediately began to explore, scratch and eat what they could. I had scattered feed pellets and some chicken treats. They found their waterer. One of the chickens dug up a nice worm! Slirp. They seemed very comfy in their new home.

Only Ginger, the Auracana, went up the ramp and into the hen house at dusk. Bertha the big white Brahma and Penny the black Australorp, settled down to sleep in the run. So I picked them up and put them inside. Ahh - they noticed the feed bucket inside and the roosting bar and the reading lamp. How nice, they seemed to say.

I was worried about the young birds in the cold weather. Emily wrote that they are fine and don't need special chicken comforters or heated blankets. I called McMurray Hatchery and they repeated what Emily said. They are fully feathered out and don't need special attention, no matter how cold. As long as the hen house has no drafts. I said what if it's 10*F - she said they are OK. I said what if it's 0*, she said they are OK .... (She said I could check and see if they are huddling together and look cold and if so, plug in a heat lamp.)

Right now its, 31*F inside the hen house, and 27* outside. Brrr. I trust the 3 young hens are happy and sleeping soundly. (I know I'll be sleeping under a warm comforter!)

today's harvest

Hard to believe we've had a second night at 22*F. Its so cold there's a sheet of ice on the pond already. I was afraid everything in the garden would be frozen solid. I was pleasantly surprised. The bok choi I was waiting to harvest (for no good reason - it was very risky) looks beautiful. (I get so excited about pretty garden harvests!) I pulled a handful of tiny dark red beets. They even have a few nice leaves still. And I went ahead an picked a giant handful of parsley. Parsley was one of my overabundant plantings this year, but will be good to have for next week's Thanksgiving cooking. I haven't picked anything from my plastic tunnel yet, but I think now there's nothing left outside of it.

the chickens are in the mail .....

I got my delivery confirmation this afternoon. I hope the mailman takes good care of them.

greens in plastic tunnel after a night at 22*F

I went to my garden to check on the plants after an icy cold night. Everything looks surprisingly good. Even greens outside of the plastic tunnel. I picked the last head of the lettuce growing outside. Its a big head of green butterhead was covered in lightweight row cover. There is some uncovered bok choi that I will remember to pick and eat for dinner tomorrow. Our next salads will come from the tunnel.

chicken cam soon?

I'm researching a web cam for my chicken coop. That will be fun! I will post it here. Then we will ALL be able to see what they are doing instead of laying eggs!

Yes, still no eggs from any of the four hens. Its been since September, 2 months now without any eggs. Ii does look like my 1 year old hens molted, but that's done now. And the new pullets are definitely old enough to lay by now. I have a light that comes on at 4 am in the coop so they get 14 hours of light a day. And they are all getting along well now. I don't know about those hens. But I'm looking forward to watching them by chicken cam.

update - where have I been .....

I am so far behind on my blog, partly because I am doing so much gardening now!! Gardening at this time of year! Brr. (Also, my Dad's a bit under the weather and I have been with him a bit :-( But I have a few hours today and will do what I can to catch up here.

storing dahlia tubers

Our new house doesn't have a basement or attic. Or a garage. It has a beautiful view and great location. After I dug my dahlia tubers I realized I had no place to store them for the winter. Dahlias need to be at about 50*F and low humidity to overwinter. After almost a month of sitting in our house at almost 70*F, my dahlia tubers were starting to sprout. So, today I brought them up to my parents' house. My dad will put them in his basement with his dahlia tubers.

One of the things I would like to work into the renovations we will do on our new house is to build a small basement, or root cellar. Some vegetables do fine being stored in the kitchen at 70*, like sweet potatoes and dried chilies. Some are best in a refrigerator, like beets and carrots. But the onions, garlic, potatoes, squashes and dahlias really need the cellar. We have a space that should work for a cellar and hopefully we'll be able to build this by next winter.

getting ready for the chickens

My 3 chickens ship tomorrow! They should arrive here on Wednesday. I'll have to go down to the post office and pick them up.

Today I read that chicken food should be inside the coop to keep it dry. I'm working on getting a hook inside to hang the feeder.

Also read I'll need a light to extend daylight time, and a heat lamp. Someone recommended a ceramic heater instead of a heat lamp. Seems like its going to get cold next week, so I'll get these installed soon. I'm going by the Essex Coop (Topsfield MA) tomorrow and will see what they recommend.

For food I have a big bag of pellets ready. I'm planning to pick up some wheat and corn to go with it. I have a lot of kale in my garden and am hoping the chickens will help me eat this.

Give me advice!!

my how-to videos are ready

How to Harvest Perennial Bunching Onions -- powered by ehow

A couple weeks ago, Skippy and I shot some garden "how-to" videos. Well, it was certainly mostly the work of our video producer to put these together. Skippy and I just goofed off and had fun in the garden and Alan Mack (Spinning Horse Productions) did an amazing job to make it all come together.

I was pretty nervous to do this project, as I've never done video before (neither has Skip, though I don't think he was all that nervous). I hope these videos are helpful to gardeners. I would appreciate any input about content or quality. Demand Video (E-How) sponsored them. They develop products that address the specific topics for which people are searching information.

Topics they asked me to do for my "Fall Garden" set include:

How to harvest perennial onions
How to plant pea seeds in the fall
How to remove dahlias
How to store dahlia tubers
How to grow sprouted garlic
How to save seeds and start a life saving garden
How to harvest chile peppers
How to protect seeds with burlap
How to harvest summer squash
How to pick squash
Easiest way to grow leeks

I hope you enjoy these videos. Many of them have Skippy in them. The other black dog is Skippy's girl friend Koby - Alan's black lab. They look calm in the videos, but they had the run of the garden when the camera was off!!!

new chicken coop

Since I'm waiting to start my vegetable garden - I'm getting some chickens!

Today we set our new chicken coop into place in our new back yard. Its a small (3 x 4 feet), sturdy coop with an attached run. I've ordered 3 pullets for arrival midweek from McMurray Hatchery. Exciting! I hope I can figure out how to care for them.

The 3 pullets (hens 18-22 weeks old) I ordered are three different varieties: Black Australorp, Araucana/Ameraucana, and light brahma. I did a lot of reading on different varieties and in the end, not quite sure why I selected the ones I did. They look nice! I want to raise chickens for eggs, to eat bugs (especially the prolific ticks we have) and to help provide manure for the vegetable garden. The Araucana is a very good layer with beautiful green or blue eggs. The Australorp is gentle and also a good layer. Brahma's are heavily feathered, winter hardy, regal and beautiful. All should be good for our cold winter around the corner, I hope.

We placed the coop in a sheltered location near to our back door. Next spring, I think we'll move it down closer to the vegetable garden, but the current location will be easier for me to get to if we have a lot of snow this winter. We leveled the coop well, then I added pine shavings inside the coop and nesting boxes. I hung the waterer in the run and the feeder in the coop. Tomorrow we will put some poultry wire around the base for predator protection (I hear the Fisher cats are the worst around here). Then we will wait for the birds.... I hope they will like my dogs..... and vice versa ...

2012 crop review

Beets. I grew a lot of different varieties this year. Bulls Blood, Detroit Red and White, Chiogga, Lutz, Cylindra, Early Wonder, Red Ace, Round Red Merlin, Blankoma. I like them all! But it was not a great year for my beets. I just never had enough of them. I planted a great crop for my parents. In March, I direct seeded a good thick row of Detroit Red in their garden. They came up well and produced all season and my parents were really happy with them. They gave me several bunches. Next year - MORE beets in my garden!

Broccoli. Super crop, again. I have have several really good years of broccoli. I grew "Diplomat" this year. Very nice. I plant it early under lights and it gives a nice big head and them side shoots til October. My fall crop was not worth the effort, especially since the spring one was still producing and I love the small side shoots. I had a 4 x 4 foot patch with 12 plants.

Bok Choi. I am almost jumping up and down about finding two SUPER varieties of bok choy this year! I love bok choy stir fried with garlic and ginger and in a nice sauce, in fried rice, or grilled outside with a peanut marinade. Win-Win Choi is a big plant with lovely white stems and deep green leaves. Mei Qing Choi is a "baby choi" that doesn't bolt even if its gets big - super for grilling. Yummy, yummy, yummy .....

Cabbage. Another super crop. I grew Savoy (Alcosa), Napa, and Red (Super Red 80). These worked well both as spring and fall crops. I love these three varieties for cole slaw and salads. Also braised along side a roast. I don't eat that much cabbage, but a few heads are really nice to have as they are one of the prettiest plants in the garden.

potatoes in storage are sprouting

I've been storing my potatoes in the kitchen since I have no basement or garage (yet). Its usually 65-70*F in here, and warmer sometimes. Potatoes are ideally stored at 35-40*F for long term storage. So I plugged in a small refrigerator, sorted my potatoes by variety (I have All Blue, Burbank russet, and Yukon Gold), found three old mesh vegetable bags I saved, bagged them up and popped them in the fridge. This reminds, me - I should go check on them now.... they're good.

I ended up with SO MANY blues potatoes. I like the russets and Yukon's better, so I'm ending up with many blues left. They are a bit mealier than the others, but they do mash and roast well. I planted about equal amounts of each variety, but the blues produced maybe twice as many potatoes.

I am thinking about potatoes for next year. I'd like to grow German Butterball again. I ordered too late this year and they were sold out at Fedco. Fedco is not accepting orders yet, but I'll keep an eye on the site and order when they open up. I think I'll get 3 varieties again this year: German Butterball, Dark Red Norland and Burbank Russet.