I Pea'd Myself!

Oh, garden humor. I am a laugh riot.

For real, I have finally managed to plant sweet peas in such a way that I get, you know, actual peas on the vine! Woohoo!!!! The trick wound up being: plant early, plant in the shadiest spot in the garden, and sing to the vines encouragingly every day. They prefer Bob Marley. I'm sure that this won't necessarily work for everybody, depending on your region. If you live in the Northwest, for example, you might do better with full sun and, say, Lyle Lovett. The point is: I HAVE SWEET PEAS!! To be sure, there aren't a lot of vines, probably because the seeds I planted were old. Next year, I'll put trellises on the back of every bed in the shade and try to get a bigger harvest.


In other garden news, the potatoes got a second layer of hilling, this time with mucked out straw from the school farm. Forking it into barrels made me so happy that I'm pretty sure the Ag teacher thought I was insane. I doubt any farm I have will have cows, but the smell of straw + cow + manure is lovely to me. The taties already need another hilling. I'm considering going to the Ag Center, which is a huge complex where the state fair and various animal contests and RV gatherings are held. They have a pile of shavings and manure that anybody can go and get for free. I don't know about hilling potatoes with it, though. Maybe I should just try to find some more grass clippings? I remain skeptical about the potatoes, although they look beautiful and healthy in their golden bed (I'd take a picture, but we've been under a weird little streak of thunderstorms since around five, so I think I'll stay in here so as not to get zapped...maybe later after the weather clears.) I wonder what type of music they'd like? Garth Brooks springs weirdly to mind.

The first batch of compost is officially ready. There are still some bigger strands of grass left over from last year before I realized you really need to shred your stuff before chunking it into the bin, but I'm not too worried about them. I'll use the compost on my seedlings, which will go in this weekend. Poor babies. Winter sowing, it turns out, is a science for at least one person living in the South. Again, it might be easier somewhere else with more predictable seasons. This spring has been fairly consistently coolish, but our winter was a wee schizophrenic, especially at the end. The plants sprang up fast and then have been hunched down in their pots for at least a month. Transplanting them seemed to have little to no effect on their growth, although most of them really seem puny now, like they want to stretch their legs. I'll be trying to find fish emulsion this weekend to perk up the squash. I've read that too much nitrogen makes for not a lot of fruit. And I want a LOT of fruit!! (Oooooh, the thought of fried squash is ALMOST enough to make me long for the heavy heat of summer.) The others will get some compost--and maybe some Andrew Lloyd Webber show tunes.

On the homefront, we've been doing good on the eating-in department. We took Jeffrey out to eat yesterday after a doctor's visit, but otherwise, we've eaten at home for the entire week. The rest of the month hasn't gone as well--we've done a terrible job of eating-in AND of keeping our budget. Sometimes I feel a bit like, "Dang, I'm growing a garden. How much do I have to pare down?" but this mainly comes on days when the kids are fractious or we have a packed schedule or when (to be honest) I'm just being lazy. Budgeting simply must be part of the homesteading effort, as well as doing a better job of using what we have here instead of buying something new. Baby steps.

I've settled officially on a biscuit recipe for the family. It yields yummy, tender, buttery, soft, crunchy on the bottom bread that everybody loves. It's a variation of Mama's recipe, one I read in "Better Homes and Gardens" by Scott Peacock, and one from Alton Brown, my culinary boyfriend (and fellow UGA grad.)

Not Hannah's Biscuits O' Joy

1. Preheat oven to 450 degrees.
2. Combine 2 cups all-purpose flour, three teaspoons baking powder, and one teaspoon salt. I use a whisk, other folks use a food processor. Eh.
3. Pour one tablespoon of apple cider vinegar into a measuring cup. Add milk to make one cup. I use 1 percent milk, for what it's worth. This is a replacement for buttermilk. I don't know that I make biscuits enough to buy buttermilk since I don't know how long it lasts in the fridge, nor how much it costs. I'm perfectly happy with this substitution.
   
4. Cut a half stick of cold, unsalted butter longways and then shortways. You're aiming for little butter cubes. Plop those into the flour mixture.
   
5. Squoosh the butter cubes around in the flour mixture to break them up. "The experts" say aim for pea-sized pieces combined with smaller bits, which always makes me go, "Ack! Are we talking sweet peas? English peas? Crowder? PURPLE-HULLED PINKEYES????" Dude, you just want some bigger bits (field peas) and some smaller bits (graham cracker crumbs) and some flour. Don't have big hunks of butter in there.
6. Stir up the milk and cider mixture. The acid in the vinegar will combine with the baking powder and make a nice fizzy dough that rises in the oven.
7. Pour about 3/4 of the milk mixture into the flour and butter mixture. Some folks say make a well in the middle. Eh. I just pour slowly and hope for the best.
8. Stir gently with a fork. This is the "Do this part carefully or you'll wind up with tough, dry, disks o'sadness" part. I mix until it's all just combined. Depending on weather, I sometimes have a bit of milky stuff in the bottom of the bowl. This is okay--I can always add a bit of flour during the kneading part.
9. Plonk the dough out onto a floured surface. I use a wooden cutting board and I sprinkle maybe an eighth of a cup of flour onto the board. I have no idea if this is the "lightly floured" surface the experts go on about. This is what works for me.
   
10. Now the kneading part. I flatten the dough out to about an inch and a half, fold it in half, flatten it to an inch and a half, fold it in half, repeat and repeat and repeat maybe six or seven times. I've heard you should knead eleven times, that you shouldn't knead, that you knead only enough to coat the back and front of your dough with flour. Whatever works, y'all. This works for me.
11. Roll the dough out to about half an inch. I use a fairly large biscuit cutter and with a bit of smooshing the cut out parts together, I can get eight big biscuits and a little wonky one that I call the "sample." Don't spin the cutter; just push it down (I love the poofy little sound it makes) and lift it up. Put the biscuits on a parchment sheet lined pan so that they're almost touching, like maybe a centimeter between them. Poke holes in the biscuits all the way down to the pan with a fork, twice. Top each biscuit with a tiny piece of butter.
    
12. Bake for, oh, eleven or so minutes. I never time it...I always go by sight.
13. Eat and experience bliss.

Still working on the Cracker O' Joy. Will report when I've figured it out.

Um, About the Rain

Sheesh. I really got what I asked for. A pretty much whole week of blinding, stay in the house rain. Right now, I'm chilling out in the library waiting for the first of the severe storms expected today to arrive. More rain. Ahem. The rain in question will usher in a blast of frigid air--we're expecting cooler temps all next week, with two nights dropping to or below freezing. Argh.

With the coming cold (and rain), I elected yesterday not to set any of my winter sown babies out. The cukes and squashes are getting pissy in their containers, though, so I may try to get some slightly larger pots (or make some out of newspaper) to transplant them into next week. I've just realized that there's supposed to be an intermediate step between the place you first sow your seeds and the place they'll stay. Oh. Huh. It makes sense, I suppose. I have plenty of used newspapers after the weekend, so I think I'll roll some pots tonight after the kiddies are in bed while Will is watching the Braves. There are a few different ways to do it, so I'll hopefully have a veritable armada of pots come Monday. (BTW, omalawsy at the last link, I have found another urban gardener and she rocks my socks off. I think I'll be spending all of today poring over her site and pretty being lazy as she talks about all the work she does.)

I don't feel all too upset about the laziness today, as I worked a good bit outside yesterday. Having abandoned my setting out plans, I elected instead to do some transplanting of various plants around the yard and beds. First up were the lavenders I've been growing for about a year in the transplant bed. I dug them all up and used them to line the walkway of the cottage garden. Darryl from Olive Forge told me last year that he thought they might be Spanish, and a quick Google proved this to be so. Spanish lavenders aren't typically as fragrant as French lavenders, but these particular lovelies have a wonderful, honey-tinged scent as they leaf and bud out in the spring. The two (rather straggly) plants that I had in the front flower garden greeted me every day with that scent and it made me smile, so I decided to haul them all out front. I was able to get eight plants from the original four or five. I hope they'll grow into a nice little hedge for me. Research shows that they just might, providing the very moist soil in the bed allows them to. (Research also shows me that the name comes from the Latin word "to wash," which makes me long for a bathtub deep enough to steep myself with a few sprigs of lavender...sigh...) Hopefully, removing a few of the bordering blocks to allow a path through the bed will help with drainage. I'll be trimming them back hard after the rain to give them a break from making flowers and to encourage root growth.

I've decided to turn the front bed from herbs (with the exception of the lavender) to straight flowers. There are a few reasons for this. The first is that I have yet to find an organic solution to blackspot and the Joseph's Coat is prone to it and I need to go ahead and treat the bed. I want anything I use in my cooking or home solutions to be organically grown, so I need to move the herbs back to the main garden. After the lavender, I took out a sweet grass I got last year from Olive Forge and a tiny itty bitty jewel weed that self-seeded (oh, I hope I find some more later in the season.) I rearranged the stokesia into an orderly cluster (stumbling upon a truly gigantic dark brown spider scurrying around with her egg sac tucked under her...yay, Mama!--also, *shudder*) and moved an aster from the path's edge.

Then back to the back to put in two rabbit-eye blueberry bushes. They're covered already with blooms and berries, so I have much hope for at least a handful of berries for a snack come early summer. (The raspberries also have a few buds on them, which makes me SMILE as we edge closer to the kind of self-sufficiency I crave. I'm hoping to get a couple more blueberry bushes, some blackberry brambles and maybe some self-pollinating kiwis next week--unless the nurseries say it's too late to plant. FRUIT! Woohoo!) Anyway, I put them in the transplant bed after removing the last small lavender and mulched them with the grass clippings Will swept out of the yard.

What few clippings were left were added to the Phase One composter (the aluminum trash can). I'm trying to be very good about chopping everything into smaller bits, because I've realized that has been the primary problem in my composting history. I also am more careful to layer dry and wet stuff. I checked on the contents of the Phase Two composter (actual tumbler-style bin that Will got me for my birthday) and was THRILLED to realize that (drummmmmrooolllll) I'm getting some compost!! I finally did it right and I'm so excited because that means that if all goes well, I'll be able to use it when I put my transplanted seeds in.

I was reading over some of my blogs from last year and taking into account the things I've learned. The biggest success so far this year is the sweet peas. The vines are so healthy and tall (worried about them come Tuesday and Wednesday night), I know I did the right thing by planting them so early. Next year, I'll do the same for the Swiss chard. The winter sowing/heat fiasco this year and the lack of seedlings last year taught me that they need to go in the ground at the same time as I do my lettuce and peas. Live and garden and learn!

Plans for the upcoming week (despite the fact that it's supposed to be really chilly):

1. Figure out what to do with all this chocolate mint. (It's the darker green stuff bordering the beds.)I don't mind having a bunch of it around (it's my favorite mint to use in charms and cooking) and in fact was afraid I had killed it dead, but this is ridiculous!! I might try to encourage it to grow around the little flower bed/not very much used spot under the bigger crepe myrtle. We're thinking about putting a little zen fountain out there, so it might work nicely.
2. Decide on the zen fountain. :)
3. Finish trellising the Joseph's Coat.
4. Fix the front bed gate.
5. Repot the seedlings.
6. Start working on the sidewalk bed--the foundation will be transplanted rosemaries. I'll fill in with a few trellises of mini-pumpkins and some inexpensive annuals for right now.
   

Off to do laundry and attempt some homemade graham crackers from the recipe over at Baking Bites.

Rain, Rain, Please Don't Go Away (Random Garden News)

The weatherpeople keep teasing us with promises of heavy rain, but so far we've just had light showers. My garden NEEDS some heavy rain.

I've been doing a lot of thinking about the winter sowing. I think that the concept of throwing seeds in a pot and waiting til Spring probably works best for colder climates--ones not prone to freak warm spells followed by freak cold spells followed by freak warm spells followed by...On the other hand, one can't deny the head start I've gotten on my squash and cukes. However, by the time the second round of seeds went in, it was already too warm for much more than sizzling death inside the containers. The tomatoes, peppers, and eggplant are up, but I'm not sure I'm going to be able to get enough growth to justify a transplant. Does that make sense?

So. I think I'll do this next year BUT I'm going to add a wheeled cart into the mix so that if it DOES look like we'll get a heavy freeze after freak-warm-spell-induced-seedlings come up, I can just push the babies inside for the overnight hours and return them outside during the day. I also am thinking about expanding the container sizes so that I literally have little mini-greenhouses. Am thinking about green ways to try to finagle this.

I'm feeling a bit slumpish about the garden right now. I feel as if my soil isn't "alive." Things are green at first when they come up, but then seem sort of tired and spent soon after, which just depresses me. (I am perhaps a wee too emotionally attached to my garden. :)) I plan to use the next few weeks adding as much organic material as I can to the soil and hooking up my watering system again. I also might work a little "live it up" charm with this girly. Isn't she precious? I got her at a yard sale last week from an African woman who does wire work. I luff praying mantises (manti?) and think she'd make a good guardian spirit for the garden.

Catching Up...Again

Seriously, early spring is a BAD time for my blog.

How about a list to catch y'all up? I think yes. (Also with a bit of stream of consciousness thrown in. Woohoo!!)

1. The garden is coming along swimmingly. I have learned sooo much from the winter sowing experiment. Like, cucumbers sprout so quickly. Why in the world would anybody ever start them as seedlings? I probably won't do this again with cukes. I also learned that Swiss chard grows in little clumps from one seed and is pissy about being transplanted or thinned. It will transplant, but it isn't all that thrilled about the whole thing and the primary leaves will turn a sickly yellow before agreeing to green up. Not sure I'll winter sow them again, either, maybe just start them earlier. Last weekend, I planted a vast assortment of stuff; everything from three different kinds of basils to four different kinds of tomatoes. I'm not exactly sure where I'm going to stuff all of these seedlings along with the beans and peas and carrots and onions that will come along with them, but I guess I'll figure something out. I also put out some more lettuce and spinach seeds, which have sprouted and been dug up (by me AND Frodo) and sprouted again. Still actively growing are the lettuce, spinach, and arugula I set out as plants. I doubt I'll do plants again when it comes to greens. It seems redundant and expensive now that I'm on this side of the winter. Still, we've had several salads off of the greens, so the investment was worth it. The broccoli is also growing well, but hasn't gotten any heads yet. On Thursday, I "rearranged the furniture" in the garden in order to take advantage of the light better. I realized when I saw this picture that the bird netting I use to grow cukes and peas shadows the plants behind it more than I previously supposed. (Note how much smaller the broccoli in the back is.)So I'm moving all of the trellises to the back of the various beds. Anything tall will be on the north and east side of the garden, mainly in the back beds where there's more shade. I know from last year that peppers and cukes will do okay in partial shade and I think some of my beans will, as well. Here's a shot of the garden complete, which isn't too different than it was a few weeks ago. What you can't see from here are the raspberries planted along the newly moved trellis and the transplanted sorrel and cutting celery. We love raspberries with a passion and Jeffrey would make himself sick on sorrel if I let him, so I'm trying to put a lot of "nibblies" in the two beds closest to the house. I'll be putting a "Jelly Bean" grape tomato in the bed on the left for River.You also can't see...Wait...is that a potato (and a random, unknown weed?)It is! (And, unfortunately, a highly identifiable bit of nut grass. Argh.) BUT!!! The potatoes are up! I am just THRILLED about this, as potatoes still seem like some sort of new and insane piece of craziness to grow--and I'm still worried about my soil. Further worries involve a disconcerting lack of earthworms. I seriously am earthworm deficient. My feeling is that the number of fireants in my garden is keeping the population low, and my soil is probably STILL organic material-deficient. So I have two plans of attack. The first is that I've found an organic fireant control that has good reviews. (I'll let you know if it works.) The second is that I need to get my compost cooking FAST and add it as a top dressing ASAP. Then, you know, I'll add worms. The leaves are doing a great job of controlling weeds in the paths so far, but I'm getting some in the beds. I'll have to do some weeding when it dries out. I also discovered (HORROR) that one of my beds has termites...the price to pay for untreated lumber, but not cool at all so close to the house. I read that some beneficial nematodes are used to control termites, and I found a seller who combines nematodes that work on ants, termites, fleas, thrips, loopers, and some beetles that were problematic for me last year. So...I think I'll do a double whammy on the beds and see what happens. I've also been cleaning out the front bed and readying it for spring. Still mulling over the idea of making it all medicinal and tea herbs. And then zinnias and other cut flowers for the strip next to the house? Not sure if I can convince Will of this. He's pretty anti-flowerbeds, because they always seem to get weedy and produce well. He thinks bushes are always the way to go.
   
2. In non-gardening news, I have FINALLY figured out a biscuit recipe that makes me happy. The winner is: Mama's recipe. For years, I've fought against it, because I wanted to have MY recipe, the thing that I do. But it really is the most workable. I've made changes to it, the first being that I use all purpose flour versus self-rising like she does. I also use my fingers to sort of smoosh the butter into the flour--and I'm going to start using unsalted butter because I feel that they're a bit too salty. I knead the dough a bit and then I poke holes in the finished biscuits for extra rise. Mama doesn't do all of the above, so I feel like I have my OWN version of the recipe and it makes me happy to have reliable biscuits every time. I'm contemplating getting a cast iron biscuit pan just because it seems cool. I also might try to do my own buttermilk with lemon juice thing next time to see if a tangy taste is better for my family. The pictures below are a fairly flat batch--it was very humid that day and I added too much milk. They still tasted great!
3. Still working on the organizing thing. It might actually make me go crazy really, really soon. I've developed a new way of cleaning, one that works for me when I'm not sitting on the computer writing blogs all day. I just take my timer from room to room and force myself to only work five minutes at a time on each room. It takes forty minutes to do the whole house and then I vacuum each room. You would think that this would mean every room is just a little bit messy, but I'm actually finding that I'm starting to have time to get a deeper clean and do stuff like wipe down baseboards or scrub windows with the leftover time. Each room has a day when I give it an extra thirty minutes for a total dust and vacuum and scrub down. The kitchen is different, of course. I work on it during meal times and when I get a spare second. I seriously doubt that it will ever be clean enough. Sigh.

So, here I'll make the obligatory "I'll do better about posting" statement. And I WILL try. When I'm not going mad on sunshine. Or dusting. Whichever.

Taking Advantage of the Loveliness

This weekend was one of those perfect clusters of days of warm sunshine and fresh breeze at the end of winter. You know it will get cold again, but you can revel in the loveliness while it lasts and get some prep work done in the meantime for actual Spring. (As I've been moping around about the bizarre weather, I wonder if Mother Nature is reading my blog!)

Saturday I puttered around the garden, cleaning up bits and pieces of miscellaneous trash that collects in a yard with children. I planted some lettuce and spinach and broccoli seedlings in late January and all are fine, having come through the bitter cold spell with ease. While I was picking some of the greens for a salad (with leftover salmon--yummy AND frugal AND green!), I noticed a yick smell--like a dead animal. But Frodo has occasionally ventured unwelcomed into the garden for a potty break, so I just sort of shrugged it off as puppy poo.

Here's a shot of the broccoli bed:


After a few more hours spent futzing around the garden and planning out the beds with the help of my trusty Vegetable Gardener's Bible, the whole family headed off to the park to do some exploring with Jeffrey's metal detector. This is the park we cleaned last year in preparation for the Earth Day that didn't quite get off the ground. They recently got the paths refurbished and it was so nice. This would be a great place to run. We only found one treasure--a rusted Pepsi can.


Alas. We had a great time anyway, running on the path and spotting Canada geese, a Great Egret, and one confused white duck.


I also thought I saw an alligator:


Sunday was spent much like Saturday was. We were outside almost the whole time. After a lot of messing around, Will brought his iPod outside and we listened to Jupiter Coyote and Jimmy Buffett as I started Winter Sowing Project 2009. Farmer Cathy gave me the idea, and I'm so excited to see if it works. I planted three kinds of tomatoes (Better Boys, Romas, and a grape variety--which I'm pretty sure will be a bust as River "helped" today by shaking the bottle up), some California Wonder peppers, eggplant, summer squash, Boston Pickling and Lemon cucumbers, some cantelope and some Swiss Chard. You will note that a lot of these names sound familiar--I'm using some seeds from last year. Ed Smith from VLB says that most seeds will last a few years, so I'm going to believe him. It seems as if I'm combining two unknowns and hoping for the best, but isn't all gardening like that? After filling up my WS containers, I set them in a nice sunny bed and pulled some of the leaves around the bases. The strip in between I planted with bunching onion seeds, yesterday being the last day the signs were right for planting above ground crops for a few weeks. I think it looked nice and tidy when I was finished, although I will say that I felt a lot like my daddy when I surveyed the reused bits. Daddy is a FAMOUS reuser.


While I was at it, I decided to put in a row of Sugar Snap peas in the broccoli bed. I have terrible luck with sweet peas. Last year, I managed to get the vines going for the first time, but it was too hot for any flowers by that time and so I was pea-less yet again. Starting earlier must be the key, I figured. While I was planting, I noticed, yet again, the dead animal smell. No poo was in sight. Hmmm...As I poked holes for the peas, I also discovered that some creature has been tunneling in my bed. And... as I bent forward to put in a pea, I realized that the dead animal smell was coming from the tunnel. Urk. I figure one of several things is happening. Either I've got a mole or mouse or something which died in there (barf) or I have a snake in there who took over a mouse or mole tunnel (not as barfy, but still not pleasant to consider.) I don't want moles or mice in my garden, although I wouldn't mind a king- or rat snake. They keep away mice and bad snakes, such as the copperheads I REALLY don't want to be tangling with. I'm not sure what to do about this...should I dig the bed up and risk running up on a snake or yicky dead things? This doesn't seem good for gardening...won't it pose a risk to our health? Blah. Maybe I should call the extension agency. Ideas?

Jeffrey got into the spirit of reusing while we were outside and went through the recycling bin until he found an old soda can. He got Will to help him cut out a piece of it and filled it with birdseed for a bird feeder. Will it work? No clue, but it was sweet that he came up with the idea all by himself!

Later that evening, Will and I were discussing the smell. Referring to my habit of tossing kitchen scraps directly into my beds in the wintertime, he said, "Yeah, all that rotting fruit and food seems like the ideal habitat for a snake."

My eyes didn't QUITE roll out of my head at this--um, YEAH, snakes are just MAD for some soggy carrot peelings--, but it was a near thing. I let it go, but I did go out this morning to take shots of our two respective areas of the yard.

Which looks more "snakey?"

My orderly, tidily-leafed garden


or his brush-cluttered, Christmas tree-piled, stacks o' wood-laden man camp?



That's what I thought.

A new kink has come into my plan to turn our yard into a semi-viable homestead--a piece of property at a crazy-low price. I'll be wigging out about it over at I'm Not Hannah later on.

Toast Cups and Fireworks

Does anybody else feel like it's the weekend? Whew, I am ALL confused about which day it is.

Anywho, this weekend...I mean...over the past few days (sheesh), we rang in the new year with our friemily, per tradition. What a riot it was to have eight kiddies running (or creeping or wiggling) around the house as we prepared our feast for the evening. Will and I went BONKERS at the Fresh Market in Nearest Large Town and my lovely ladies (and Vince) helped me create quite a spread.

First on the list were toast cups filled with chicken salad. I know. Foo to the fy. The recipe I was following for both was from The Gift of Southern Cooking: Recipes and Revelations from Two Great American Cooks by Edna Lewis and Scott Peacock (read a bit about them here). The toast cups were simple: roll out bread, cut out circles, butter the circles, smoosh into mini-muffin cups, and bake. Easy, peasy, and very pretty, too:


The chicken salad was a bit more problematic. First, I was going to make homemade mayonnaise to go in it, but couldn't find pasteurized egg yolks, and with kiddies and a dude who battled C-Diff potentially munching on the stuff, I was loathe to try it. So I went with store-bought. Then, the proportions were all odd to me. Either Miss Lewis and Mr. Peacock were using truly gargantuan chicken breasts (or my chickens were puny) OR there was a typo, but if I'd added the amount of mayonnaise specified in the recipe, it would have been a very unappetizing mayonnaise and chicken soup. The seasoning was great, though. I loved the licorice-y twist that tarragon added. I substituted apples for the Jerusalem artichokes (I wouldn't know a JA if it came up and bit me on the butt) and enjoyed the sweet touch, but I think next time, I'll either amp up the amount of apples or use some really firm grapes instead (or track down some JA). The finished cups were nice-looking and delicious. I feel a bit guilty about the left-over bread from cutting out the circles and am contemplating some kind of bread-puddingy thing composed of layers of the smished bread pieces and apples and cream. Throw some nutmeg in...lawsy, that sounds good, doesn't it? Um. Toast cups:


I also made venison sausage balls:


and Vince created some of his famous chicken satays and peanut sauce. Seriously, I kind of wanted to cuddle up with my new stand mixer and the satays and peanut sauce and make the world go away. That is some GOOD eatin':


We also had a cheese tray, some taco dip, mango salsa with blue corn chips, cream cheese with a spicy muscadine jelly made by my Aunt Nunu, a pickle and olive tray featuring almond-stuffed olives (which we deemed the "adult olives" while making supper for the kids), and Hello Dollies:


Um, we also had a lot of alcohol. Here are Vince and I being artistic. Or, you know, drunk:


It was too windy on New Year's Eve for our traditional (and, hi, illegal) fireworks, but we made up for it the next night. Fireworks are hard to capture with a little point and click, so check out some kiddies instead:


OH--and I got two garden catalogs over the weekend (week? whatever...): Baker Creek and Seeds of Change. I'm sooooo excited! I also got some of those annoying ad packets filled with gardening stuff, one of which featured a catalog for gardens for cooks, which I am all over like white on rice.

Off to go eat lunch--a makeshift stew of leftover black-eyed peas, collards, and pork tenderloin with a topping of crumbled cornbread washed down with cold milk. Yay, 2009!!!

Um...hi.

So, when I last wrote, the garden was growing great guns and I was reveling in it. The garden is now damp and cold and withered and I'm reveling in my warm and cozy house, up to my neck in craft and holiday shmussing.

The garden was a success. In particular, my herbs and tomatoes did really well. Too well, in fact, in the case of the tomatoes. If you'll recall, I grew my Better Boys in wire cages and the Romas on a rope system. I'll reverse this next year. In the deep, soft soil of my beds, the BB's vined out like crazy while the Romas stayed put and produced like mad. So those will be swapped.

A few things must be done before next growing season:

1. I'm transplanting some raspberry bushes to one of the shadier beds. They need less sunlight and more trellising than the plants I grew there last year and I can always grow lettuces and spinaches alongside it.
2. I MUST treat early for aphids and fire ants. The two thrived off each other and decimated my peas. Bastards.
3. The soil still needs to be amended with more organic material. I'm currently flinging kitchen scraps into the beds and will be applying some leaves when the wind stops blowing so frickin' much.
4. The paths need to be weed free. Will saw a snake in an overgrown patch over the summer and nearly lost his mind. So I'll be laying newspapers and maybe pine straw, again when the wind chills out.
5. I'm digging up the strawberry plants. They didn't do as well as I'd like, although I was fairly pleased with production. I might put them in the herb bed, but the bed they're in now is in prime sun location, so I feel like I need to put it to better use, maybe for lima or green beans.
   

There's more to do for next year, like culling through seeds and deciding if trying to start some would be worth it, but for now, I think I'll do some more reveling--I made bread today AND I've got a little pot of orange peels, cinnamon sticks, and cloves simmering on the stove. My house smells like heaven.

In Search of Strawberries

First, the weather? Is crazy here. Saturday and Sunday were lovely and blissfully warm. Monday was nice.

Tuesday, we had severe storms. In addition to this picture, I have video which is amusing mainly because of my "I'm so cool" commentary, but I hate my camera's restrictive software (and Blogger, which can't deal with it, and also You Tube, although it might just be my slow desktop...ARGH!) Anyway, here's the picture:

What you can't see here is how hard the wind was blowing or the slightly reddish tinge to the clouds over the horizon. You know there's going to be a doozy of a storm when the clouds are reddish here. I think the wind picks up all the red dirt south of us and mixes it up above us. Anyway, suffice to say that River and I ate our lunch in the closet.

After the storms, it got very cold and windy and then a stomach virus visited our house, but between all of that, I've been checking out various vendors in our area for strawberries. I'm looking for a good ever-bearing berry like Quinalt, but I'm finding myself struggling against the megolith that is Bonnie Plants. Apparently, they're shipping strawberries right now to all of the Big Box stores. I checked by Lowe's the other day while I was dishwasher shopping and found myself looking at a truly gorgeous crop of "Tennessee Beauty"s. The only problem is that they aren't everbearing. Huh. A peek at the garden section of Hell-Mart revealed more BP TBs. Huh squared. Things got really frustrating when I went by a locally owned farm supply store and found..."Tennessee Beauty" inscribed on each lucious plant.

Awash in green rage and muttering things about biodiversity, I went online to dig up everything I could about Bonnie Plants, but all I could find was positive stuff about scholarships and biodegradable pots. Dang it.

The problem is that I hate that even small mom and pop places are falling prey to the "Big Guys," who can sell them good stock on the cheap because it means that lots of smaller mom and pop nurseries can't get their stuff sold. And I HATE that every single place I go in town is going to have the same strawberries, tomatoes, lettuces, etc.

Sigh. I know that there are online options and I am aquiver with the idea that my heirloom, organic seeds are winging their way to me right now, but there's something so exciting to me about the trips to the nursery, touching and tasting and smelling all the leaves.

Am I the only one who gets a sinking feeling when she sees that "Big Guy" label?

Rain. Lots and Lots of Rain.

I am CRAVING sinking my fingers into some dirt, cutting up some potatoes, separating some onions, gently squooshing the roots of broccoli and lettuce sets.

BUT.

It keeps raining. And while we need the rain and I know the earth is just soaking it in and loving every minute of it, it's bringing me down. I think I'll head over to Baker Creek and snag some seeds for the warmer weather.

Then I might do some sewing to try to whittle down my massive piles of fabric.

Tomorrow, I'm planning on shoring up the out of control rosebush on our front gate (it's a Joseph's Coat and it blooms really early and beautifully, but it clearly plans to take over the world.) and transplant the daylilies in the front flower bed. I love my daylilies, but they smear purple and red pollen all over you when you brush past them and as they line my walkway...poor planning. I'm going to take out the yarrow, as well and plant the whole space with zinnias and daisies for cutting. I think. We'll see as it warms up and the flowers start popping up at local nurseries.

Rain. Lots and lots of rain...

The First Bed

On the fourth day, we got a big ol' truckload full of topsoil from a local garden center. I didn't take a lot of pictures, because it was on a Monday and Will picked the soil up on the way home from work, so we were boogying to get the frame filled before dark.

First, we placed two of the frames parallel to the house to form the entryway of the garden. We had planned to run the frames perpendicular to the house to take advantage of the path of the sun through our yard. (Our front door faces almost directly east.) However, our miscalculations (say it with me: math is hard!) meant that a perpendicular presentation would put us climbing over the rosemary bush (which we elected not to move) to get the rest of the garden. And while I basically climbed in it to get the full shot of Herb Bed One, it wasn't too happy with me about the whole thing. Also, we'd have to put some of the frames into the yard which would mean more tilling and Will giving up a precious strip of his grass. (Sigh.) I'm a bit worried about what this means for corn planting and shadows, but I'll try to put my corn on the north end of the farthest north beds and see what happens.

About the frames: we (again, I mean Will) built them from untreated two by tens. We chose untreated wood because even if they don't last as long, we won't run the risk of seasoning our peas with arsenic and other unsavory chemicals. The jury is out about this: there are some who say that the chemicals that leach from treated wood used in garden beds bind with the soil and therefore are less apt to be absorbed into the plants. I opted not to take a chance. It's true that my frames won't last as long, but if this experiment works, I'll probably replace them with stone or cement blocks, anyway. The Vegetable Gardener's Bible suggests using two by twelves, but I couldn't justify the almost three dollar difference in price for another two inches. We (Will) built and/or is building four eight feet by three feet frames and three six feet by three feet frames.

After laying the frames on the tilled soil, I used a spading fork (which looks a lot like an eating fork--don't use a regular pitchfork to do this) to further loosen the subsoil, which around here is basically hard red clay. I went about 8 inches down past the four or so inches of tilled soil and I was careful not to step on the soil inside the frame. I just rocked the tines back and forth to loosen the clay...I did not turn it over. Then I handed over the spading fork to Will and went to go get the topsoil.

Will's fullsized pickup was able to carry enough topsoil to fill one and a half eight by three frames. It cost about $16 for this load. We're actually going to get a bigger load delivered on Saturday or Monday. More fuel and cost efficient. We elected not to use a mix of potting soil and topsoil. I didn't want anything non-organic (in the carbon-based sense, not chemical-laden sense) in my dirt, and some planting soil has styrofoam balls in it. Plus, it was ten dollars more expensive. I filled the frame with topsoil all the way to the top. Then I added an entire bag of some water saver chips. This is basically coarse compost. I'm going to be adding my own compost to the beds as the weather gets warmer...the composting is going slowly now. I mounded the whole messy wodge of dirt an inch or so higher than the top edge of the bed. The soil will settle and I'd be displacing some of it with plants.

Now came the fun part: planting!

I filled the first bed with all of my culinary herbs: marjoram (oregano's wild cousin), sorrel (Jeffrey eats the sour stuff like lettuce, although I'm still searching for a recipe I can use it to cook with), thyme, bay (moving a plant from a pot in my front flower bed), chives, and bronze fennel. I actually might take the fennel out. I've never used it, although I think it is gorgeous and every year the swallowtail zebra caterpillars come out and munch on it, giving us lots of entertainment. I also transplanted my poor leeks again. Bless their hearts. Daddy gave them to me, thinking they were garlic. I let them get killed down to nothing in one drought after basically just sticking them in the ground in a very clay-y section of the garden. I moved them last year in the middle of the season to a different spot, at which point in time they died back to nothing. They came up again a few weeks ago, so I'm hoping they'll revive themselves for the summer. I think they make a pretty divider between the cooking herbs and the tea herbs, which are right now limited to a lemon balm that was basically forced into submission by my insane lavender last year and the catnip that refuses to die. It's the fifth or sixth generation of catnip I brought to The Manor from The Lovenest, our tiny little first house. I also plopped the volunteer lettuces in.

To the culinaries, I'll add basil, dill, cumin, parsley, garlic, horseradish, and cutting celery. I also might throw in some Greek or Cuban oregano (although I'm put off by the fatness of the leaf--anybody use this stuff for cooking?) and some lovage. I'd like to put in some orange mint, but it's sometimes hard to find. I like this mint in spaghetti sauce and it's not as invasive as some of the other mints. I'm going to get some Vietnamese coriander, as well, but it's crazy-invasive, so I'm going to stick it in the ground next to our garden hose, as it also likes damp soil. This is a great plant for warm climates--it has the taste of coriander (cilantro, whatever) with a peppery aftertaste AND it's a perennial. It goes wonderfully in all of the recipes that call for cilantro. Any other suggestions? (And keep in mind that although the raised-bed method allows for a good deal of stuffing in of plants, I'll be using the bed opposite this one for more herbs as well as lettuces, so I'm open to a LOT of suggestions.)

For the teas, I'm putting in chamomile and anise hyssop. I might sink a pot or two of apple or chocolate mint, but I'm wary of the invasiveness of it. I welcome any suggestions for good tea plants. I have lemon balm, as I said, but I really don't care for the taste of it--it seems sort of soapy to me. I do like to grind the leaves in the disposal to freshen it up, though, and I think it's a pretty plant.

I left the lavender in the wheelbarrow for now. I'm planning a medicinal/cosmetic herb bed for another section of the yard which will contain the lavender AND soapwort, meadowsweet, calendula, echinacea, feverfew, and maybe some elacampane.

Today I'll be buying some seeds online (it's too late to start seeds indoors here, probably, but I'm hoping that with my new and improved kickass soil, I'll have better luck with direct sowing than in the past) and checking out the lettuces available at our local nurseries. I'm feeling very excited about the garden this year.


Isn't it pretty so far?