Emerald Place Garden

New blog location

2008-06-20T12:13:00.002-04:00

I've decided to migrate my blogs to one new combined location. To that end, all new posts will be appearing there and all old posts have been archived there.

Additionally, I've decided to open up the topics, since I was feeling limited by having separate blogs focused on only one thing. This means that sometimes I'll be talking about movies, sometimes gardening, sometimes cheesemaking and sometimes family slides.

Or anything that strikes me. If you like what you've read here, I think you will also like the new blog as it develops.

Please come check it out: http://bravetiger.wordpress.com/

Week Two

2008-04-29T19:59:00.009-04:00

Thanks to some helpful readers, we've identified the Mystery Bush (actually, bushes plural, since there are two in the yard) as a Pussy Willow. Most of the blossoms have fallen off at this point, but the leaves were catching the setting sun this evening as I sat on the back porch with Dante.

I haven't got much in terms of a story to tell this week, so I'll pretty much just stick with showing some photos.

I did want to mention an article I read in The New York Times by Michael Pollen called "Why Bother?" The article addresses climate change and whether or not it's even worth trying to make small scale changes in our day-to-day lives. In the end, Pollen suggests that the best thing we can each do, the thing that will have the most impact -- even more than swapping lightbulbs and driving a hybrid car -- is to start a garden of our own. It's a pretty interesting article, actually. Pollen has a number of books in print, several looking at food and gardening. I may have to check them out.

Here's a quick excerpt from the article:

"A great many things happen when you plant a vegetable garden, some of them directly related to climate change, others indirect but related nevertheless. Growing food, we forget, comprises the original solar technology: calories produced by means of photosynthesis. ... This is the most-local food you can possibly eat (not to mention the freshest, tastiest and most nutritious), with a carbon footprint so faint that even the New Zealand lamb council dares not challenge it."

So, I guess we're doing our part to help the climate, by trying to grow stuff to make our own pickles, pesto, and pasta sauce. Who knew?

On to the pictures ...

The garden is pretty bare still, since it's still too early to plant most vegetables (and besides, the seedlings aren't available yet), but it still needs weeding and raking. In this photo above you can see the long rows on onions and shallots that go from the bottom left corner to the middle-right side. Above those, the beets and cilantro.

It rained all day yesterday and half of today, so the beets are covered in dirt and muck. They do look like they're growing though, which is exciting.

The chives have blossoms on them already. Like I said last year, supposedly you can use these flowers, once they open, in salads. I've never tried it though. Maybe this year ...

The cilantro's growing, so there's probably some salsa and guacamole in our future.

Can anyone clear up for me whether this is mint, returned for another year, or actually just a weed?

Outside the Garden, Tangent One: Down in the opposite corner of the yard, the blueberry bushes have quite a lot of flowers on them.

Outside the Garden, Tangent Two: On the banking along the garden, the fiddlehead ferns have popped up. These, too, are supposed to be tasty. I think you boil or steam the heads, but I'd have to ask my grandfather for more specifics. He loves them.

Outside the Garden, Tangent Three: These blue flowers have popped up in the yard, which are an indication that it's pretty much time to start mowing. That ought to be a blast.

Outside the Garden, Tangent Four: The flowers on the pear tree in the front yard (which might be the back yard, depending on how you look at things) are in various states of openness.

Outside the Garden, Tangent Five: The lilacs, which run all along the borders of the property, are getting ready to open up.

Outside the Garden, Tangent Six: The hostas on the banking went crazy this week.

Outside the Garden, Tangent Seven: The forsythia are all open.

Outside the Garden, Tangent Eight: The bleeding heart that is tucked in along the house, behind the pussy willow, is opening up.

Garden Blog, Year Three: The Beginning

2008-04-21T21:37:00.015-04:00

I wasn't going to have a garden this year.

Last year's efforts had gone pretty well, up to a point, before the garden grew completely out of control and we got discouraged and overwhelmed. The most important lesson learned was: "Don't try to do more than you can handle."

After the first year of the garden, we felt like we wanted to expand, adding a wider variety of plants and seeing what we could accomplish in our second go-round. The way it turned out, though, is that we got busier and busier as summer marched on and the garden was neglected more and more, especially by me. I blame it on the rain early in the summer throwing off the balance of the softball season and causing games to be rescheduled into the second half, just about exactly the same time as vegetable plants were needing attention. Towards the end of the season, it seemed like we were having games just about every day. With work, then softball, and band practices on the off nights, add the garden to the mix and it was too much for me to handle.

Once mid-July hit, I wasn't spending any time in the garden at all and the more it got overgrown the less I wanted to go out and deal with it. Cucumbers rotted on the plants, or if they got picked they were thrown in a bag in the fridge, until they were eventually thrown out. Tomatoes swelled, cracked, and fell to the ground. Pea plants toppled over. It made me sad and frustrated.

As as result, I wasn't going to have a garden this year.

And then, the weather turned glorious. We worked outside all of this past weekend, tidying up the property -- raking, trimming bushes, rebuilding a gate, moving dirt around. The garden was like the elephant in the yard. It was there, waiting to be tilled and the family tiller was available. On a drive through Hadley, the Garden Center's parking lot was packed with cars. We had to stop and just "see what they have." And what they had were seedlings.

I wasn't going to have a garden this year, but the weekend got the better of me. After much hesitation, we decided to try a significantly scaled down attempt, at least in terms of variety.

Onions, cucumbers, a couple tomato plants, some squash, and a few herbs. That's it.

When I started tilling the soil and saw how rich and healthy it was looking, I admit: I got excited again. So, now it's year three of the garden (and the garden blog) and we're at it again. Though, hopefully, on a much more controllable scale.

The plants we picked out at the Hadley Garden Center were red onion, shallots, cilantro and beets. We also found in the garden a parsley and mint that came back on their own and the chives we planted two years ago are back for more. Also, the garlic I planted last year is growing green, but I dug a couple up to check on them and they were all mushy. So, I think they'll have to go.

Last year, in addition to our own garden we also had a membership at a local farm share. While we were decidedly underwhelmed by the whole experience we did learn that we really love beets. So, when we saw that the Garden Center had seedlings we snatched up a tray. We didn't really know how to plant them, but the Victory Garden book that I own suggested to plant the beet seedlings 3" apart in double rows 6" apart. So we made two sets of double rows and pulled apart all of the seedlings carefully and got them in the ground. They look pretty traumatized, but we bought a new sprinkler ($15.99 at Wal-Mart) to replace the two-year older sprinkler that broke ($7.88 at Wal-Mart) and hopefully they'll perk up with a few days of good watering.

Here's the parsley that came up on it's own, left over from last year.

The onions (shown here) and shallots also look a little bit overwhelmed by their planting. I'm pretty confident that they'll get over it before too long, though. Last year's onions were Walla Walla, a yellow onion. This year we've gone with Red Onion, just to see what happens.

Outside the Garden, Tangent One: Three peony plants are growing quickly. Here's how one of them looked last year: Peony 2007.

Outside the Garden, Tangent Two: I have no idea what this bush is, but it's rapidly growing these crazy, hairy buds and probably will do something even more dramatic before too long.

Outside the Garden, Tangent Three: The lilacs are budding nicely. They're going to look really nice, but after they bloom we need to do some serious cut-back to get rid of all of the old, dead and thick growth and encourage the plants to send up a bunch of new shoots for next year.

Outside the Garden, Tangent Four: The Hostas on the Hill. They'll be opening up before long.

Outside the Garden, Tangent Four: And finally, the lone daffodil in the yard. Last year, he was also the first one to show his colors, although about a week later: Lonely Daffodil 2007.

I'm going to try to stay on top of things better this year, but it's going to be difficult.I know I have a tendency to start things that I never quite finish or follow-through on.

And besides, we have our first softball practices this coming weekend.

INTERMISSION, Part Four: Waxing the Cheese

2008-02-25T18:02:00.004-05:00

Well, here's cheese #2, the "Stirred-Curd Cheddar," out of the mold. I stayed up until 2:00 am on Saturday night / Sunday morning to take care of that. It looks superb, an even better looking cheese wheel than the first.

I can't wait to try them both.

*****

Below: photos of waxing the Farmhouse Cheddar on Sunday night. There must be some trick to waxing the cheese that I haven't gotten the hang of because it was really tough to not have it just be a big mass of lumpy wax. I tried dipping, but the cheese slipped out of my hand and splashed wax, which is no good. In the end it was a combination of dipping and brushing. It's kind of funny looking but should seal it nicely for the aging.

So, into the micro-fridge they go, set at the highest setting and with a container of water to help the humidity. My hygrometer clocks in at 45 degrees and a humidity of 82%.

*****

I waxed the Stirred-Curd Cheddar tonight (no pics, since it looked exactly the same), so they're both in now and aging.

Check back in 60 days, when I'll be cutting into them both.

INTERMISSION, Part Three: Stirred-Curd Cheddar

2008-02-23T11:11:00.005-05:00

Last night I made a second cheddar, inspired by what I hope will be the success of the first. I started when I got home from work and was up until 2:30 a.m. working on it. This is a different type of cheddar, referred to in the book as "Stirred-Curd Cheddar," as opposed to the Farmhouse that I made a few days ago.

The process was a bit different, and lengthier. Most of the difference came in after the curds had been cut, heated to 100 degrees, and drained. In Farmhouse I had to hang them up in cheesecloth at that point for an hour. For this Stirred-Curd cheddar, after having the whey drained off the curds are returned to a pot and maintained at 100 degrees for an hour.

Also, just a physical difference, for this recipe the curd gets cut into 1/4" cubes rather than 1/2" as in the previous batch, so the curds are finer. That first shot above is of the curds being loaded into the press.

There's the cheese starting to take shape, after the first 10 minute press.

Here's after the second ten-minute press, with increased pressure.

Then ... a two hour press at even higher pressure after which I snapped the photo above. Looks pretty darn good.

Currently this cheese is in the press at an even higher pressure, which will be sustained for 24 hours. That means I've got to set an alarm for 2:00 a.m. to get up and unmold the cheese.

Oh, one other noteworthy bit: I intended to use 2 gallons of Mapleline milk again, but the grocery only had two half gallons, one in glass and one in plastic (another $2.00 deposit on that glass bottle! ouch). I bought both of those and then mixed them with two half gallons of Our Family Farms milk purchased from a different store. As a result, the yield seemed slightly smaller than the first cheddar I made. After the two hour press, this new cheese was about an inch and a half tall while the Farmhouse wheel is closer to 2 inches. I also want to try to get a small scale so I can better quantify by weight exactly what the yield of cheese to gallons of milk has been.

I'll check back in with a photo when the cheese comes out of the mold (although I may not post at 2:30 a.m.) and also hopefully a photo or two of the Farmhouse Cheddar and it's progress.

The house smells cheesy, but I like it.

INTERMISSION, Part Two: No Pressure

2008-02-21T18:04:00.004-05:00

The Farmhouse Cheddar that I made last night came out of the press today after 12 hours, and it looks great.

Now, it sits for 3 days or so, air drying and getting flipped over a few times a day.

At the end of the work day, I came home and flipped it over. It's starting to feel dry on the surface and develop a lovely yellowish rind (see below). I don't know if I'll be able to wait the full 60 days for curing, but maybe if I keep making cheese I can keep my mind off of it.

INTERMISSION: A cheesemaking adventure

2008-02-20T23:59:00.009-05:00

Well, as you can tell from the last post, the garden really got away from us towards the end -- not the least of the reasons being that the softball season got busier. I regret neglecting the plants, and hope to do better this year.

In the meantime, I've finally revisited my cheesemaking interest, largely thanks to a birthday gift from my Aunt and Uncle. They took me to a Cheesemaking 101 class this past weekend, held at The Hitchcock Center in Amherst. During the class we made, as a team, Farmhouse Cheddar.

I decided tonight to try to make a batch at home.

I started off with two gallons of Mapleline Farms whole milk, purchased from the health food grocery store around the corner. At first I bought two half gallons, in glass bottles. Mapleline is charging a $2.00 deposit on each bottle now, which was kind of shocking, in an effort to get people to actually return them. When I got back home and looked at the Farmhouse Cheddar recipe a little more closely, I realized I needed two gallons, so I went back and bought two more half gallons, this time in plastic.

Heating the milk, in the sink with hot water, up to 90 degrees.

Then you add the starter culture and wait a while. Then you add rennet, the coagulating agent, and wait a while.

Checking for a good break in the curd. This was a little soft, so I gave it another five minutes.

Cutting the curd into 1/2" cubes, or an approximation thereof.

Heating the curds to 100 degrees, and stirring and further cutting any remaining large chunks.

Here, I think I was at about 97 degrees. See how the whey and curds have separated very well, and the curds have gotten smaller and harder.

Draining the curds in a colander lined with cheesecloth.

Close-up of the curds.

The curds again, after squeezing out more whey.

Strung up for draining.

After draining, I dumped the curd mass in a stainless steel bowl ...

... then broke it all up into "walnut-size" pieces and added cheese salt.

Then, the curds get loaded into the cheese press (a present from Christmas 2006 that I used for the first time tonight ...).

The press is lined with cheesecloth and the curds are loaded.

Under pressure.

After the first press.

After the second press.

A close-up of the cheddar after the second press. I flipped it over again and put it back in the press with increased pressure.

And that's where it sits as I write this. All in all, I spent about four and a half hours working on this cheese. It went into the press for the third time at 11:30 pm and needs a whole bunch of hours.

I'll check back in with photos when it comes out of the press.

Last Week's Photo Round-Up

2007-07-09T06:49:00.000-04:00

Last week's holiday fell right in the middle of the week, so between prepping for it and dealing with the aftermath I just completely missed the weekly blog update. So, to make up for it, here are the photos that would have been in last week's post.

Coming soon: the first wave of pickle making!

Let it Pea

2007-06-26T07:19:00.000-04:00

Last week our pea plants outgrew the supports that we built, stretching out much higher than we imagined they would, and toppled over. I thought the plants were going to be in trouble and was trying to figure out a way to increase the support and push the plants back up. They were much too heavy and everytime I pushed the plants upright I felt like I might break them, so I opted to just leave them be and see what happened.

As you can see from the picture above, they've kept growing and we have a ton of peas ready for picking.

The pea plants basically hit the ground and then started growing up from there, so they all have this funny sideways Z shape to them. It'll probably be tough to harvest but seems to be okay for the plants. They have a lot of flowers still, and seem like they're doing okay.

The Cherokee Purple tomatoes are getting larger and larger ...

... as are the Brandywines ...

... and the Romas ...

... and the first cluster of Sweet 100 Cherry Tomatoes have probably reached maximum size. Just waiting for them to turn red now.

The Super Chili peppers seem like they're going to give us a ton of peppers to use. Hopefully the timing synchs up a little better with the cucumbers, so we can use them in pickles.

We've picked a few of the peppers (including Joe Camel) already, and used them in grilling. These three are still out there, although they're looking a little brown and weak. I'm afraid they may rot and fall off before they get to a nice edible size.

Squash plants have pretty nice flowers, actually. Who would've guessed that?

The inside view of one of the squash plants shows a bunch of little finger size squashes. We picked a few fat fingered ones this past weekend for use in some grilling.

We need to start making some pesto ...

The dill is looking very pretty with it's yellow flowers. It's all mostly gone past already, and we haven't used any of it for anything. Come on cukes, we need you for pickles! You're holding everything up!

We pulled one head of lettuce this past week. Very tasty.

Onions, like most of the rest of garden, need some weeding. Who has time for that?

I take this photo as a sign that the carrots are growing well. They're causing fissures and earthquakes in the garden as they crack through the soil. It's probably time to start pulling and eating some. I'll bet they're sweet and tender.

Here's a view from the front right corner of the garden, looking back along the tomatoes, peppers and squash.

A view from above towards the squash end of the garden.

A view from above towards the pea end of the garden.

The peas tumble 4 ya

2007-06-18T18:47:00.001-04:00

The peas have many, many flowers on them this week. They've been looking really good, up until now ...

The plants outgrew the supports in a major way this past weekend, while we were away. Today, they toppled over, and have all but broken. It's hard to make it out in the photo, but that's them all bent over and such. We need to improve the support structure pretty darn quick before they the plants all snap off. I'm not quite sure yet of the best method, but I'm stewing over a few ideas.

The cucumber plants, by contrast, are still growing to fit into their new support structure. They seem pretty happy and we've got a bunch of small 1" baby cukes coming along.

The green peppers, like Joe Camel here, are almost to an edible size. They'll be finding their way into salads and onto skewers for grilling very soon.

A few chili peppers have gotten to about 4" long. Just waiting for some red.

The dill is flowering. We want to let them go to seed so that it all drops and reseeds itself and, if we're lucky, we get a second crop this year.

Squash is almost at an edible stage. The biggest, shown here, measures between three and four inches long, I'm guessing. Almost time to pick. We learned last year to pick them a little early, otherwise they have wicked growth spurts and turn into gigantic monster squash full of seeds before you realize it.

Another view of a different squash plant.

The onions are starting to bulb up. Exciting. Last year we didn't get any onions, so things are looking much better this time around.

Carrots continue to prosper.

We've used basil in a few recipes lately. The plants themselves seem to be growing slowly, but picking leaves every few days encourages new growth for sure.

Lettuce make some salads already, sheesh.

Tomato plants are getting large. The cherry is up front with three Romas, a Brandywine and a Cherokee Purple behind it.

One of the Roma Tomato plants has this bunch of flowers and a couple very very tiny tomatoes starting to form.

Cherokee Purple tomatoes have taken shape.

There's this one cluster of cherry tomatoes deep down inside what's going to be a giant plant.

New to the garden this week: Parsley. Give it a few days and it'll perk up.

We also added some mint.

The blueberry protection went up at the end of last weekend. Four posts with eye hooks in the end, and a length of cable stretching around from one to the other: Free (recycled from last year). Four 14' x 14' pieces of bird netting, zip-tied together: $28.00. Protecting your blueberries from hungry birds: Priceless.

The blueberries haven't changed color much from last week. They're still just barely getting a touch of pink.

Flowers in the Yard, Tangent One: Sundrops

I had snapped a couple photos of the flowers when suddenly hustle and bustle caught my eye. Ants are running crazy on these things, up, down, every which way. I'm not sure why the ants like the Sundrop flowers, but they do.

Flowers in the Yard, Tangent Two: I have no idea what these are called. They could be weeds, for all I know, but they're nice. And pink.

Another caterpillar, and a tomato lesson

2007-06-12T07:44:00.001-04:00

We spotted this guy on a dill plant. I think he's the big brother (or mother, or father) of the one I photographed last week. I took a few good pictures of him but then spotted a foamy egg sack looking thing a little ways below him on the same plant, so I pulled him off and broke off that part of the plant and tossed it. I don't know what kind of caterpillar he is, but I don't want to take any chances.

(Edit: a little bit of research revealed it's the adult larvae of the Black Swallowtail Butterfly.)

Over in pea territory, we've got the first flower. The plants are pushing five feet tall and have outgrown the supports we built. I need to call some engineering friends to figure out how to extend the supports in the most effective manner.

The squashes keep growing. This guy's about 2 and a half inches long now, and has two younger siblings hanging around, trying to look cool by association.

Here's a shot of the entire squash plant.

True to my word, we got some supports for the cucumbers erected. We'll just need to keep an eye on them and make sure they're using the twine to climb and not just sneaking under and spreading out. Up up up, I say!

There's a few tiny little cucumbers starting to form, which means it's not long until we get to make some pickles.

Is it just me or does this pepper, now almost four inches long, resemble Joe Camel?

Also in pepper world, the chili pepper plants have a couple little guys down deep in the center. They'll also go in the pickles, if they redden up in time.

Time to make some major salads with this romaine ...

The carrots are coming along. We thinned them some, which was kind of heart-breaking. In the end, though, I know it'll benefit those that are left.

Here's a shot of the Cherokee Purple tomato plant.

I don't usually go into instructional mode, but this guy needs a little bit of pruning to help encourage stronger and better growth and production of tomatoes. Last year a friend of ours told us how to do it, so I'll share that knowledge here.

Essentially, what you need to do in this case is break off any of the shoots that grow out from where the main stalk meets the larger branches, for lack of a better term. The illustration below (just a close-up of the photo above) shows the ones that need to be broken off on this plant, highlighted in red.

So, break all those guys off and the plant will thrive just a little bit more. Have I done it yet? Nope, but I will, I promise.

The onions and shallots are looking big and strong.

And so is the garlic. Which will also be used in pickles.

Caterpillar, my Deer

2007-06-05T07:06:00.001-04:00

It's been a very rainy few days, so the weekend was pretty much a wash as far as getting any actual work down out there. This morning it seems to have let up and I managed to get some photos without becoming too saturated.

The above shot is the forest of dill that we've got going on. It's all dill that grew from the seeds of last years dill plants. The little caterpillar seems to like it.

When we last saw this pepper he was about the size of a thumbnail. Now he's about two inches long and started to actually look like something almost edible.

The lettuce is enormous.

Carrots, while beaten down by all the heavy rain, still look pretty good. They're pushing 6" high. Yes, there are a lot of weeds in the garden right now. Like I said, we couldn't really get out there over the weekend to take care of that.

The squash plants are all about a foot and a half wide now.

The second wave of cucumber plants are growing like mad, stretching out and spreading little tentacles. I had intended to build supports for the cucumbers to climb on, but the rain, again, kept me from that this past weekend.

The cherry tomato plant is showing the rest of the tomatoes how it's done.

Way down deep inside one of the squash plants I spotted this very tiny little guy, which, if all goes well, will grow into a full-fledged squash.

The peas are looking tall and strong. We need to probably tie a few of the larger guys to the supports to be certain they don't fall over, but ...

... they're doing a pretty good job of it themselves, too, as you can see from how they just completely wrap their runners around the twine.

I shot this view from the back of the garden and then, looking down, I spotted ...

... deer tracks! There were about 5 steps all approximately 5 feet apart. I'm not quite sure what deer might eat but nothing looked like it had been chomped on, so chances are he/she was just passing through.

Do deer eat blueberries? There's certainly a ton of them to feast on if they so desired, since we also couldn't put up the netting due to the weather.

Next weekend, though, mark my words: Cucumber support, Blueberry protection, and tons of weeding.

More pepper!

2007-05-30T07:08:00.001-04:00

This little guy was there to greet us upon our return home at the end of Memorial Day Weekend. Only a matter of time now before we're eating tons and tons of veggies from the garden.

The chili peppers have some buds, too.

The second batch of cucumber plants look pretty good.

So does the squash.

The peas are all about 18 to 24 inches tall, reaching up to the third row of twine on their new support system.

Carrots are about 4" tall, needing to be thinned out a bit. I need to do some research to find out how far apart the plants should be after thinning.

The garlic's about 24 inches high, growing well.

Chives are flowering. Supposedly you can put the flowers in salads, but I've never tried that myself so I can't vouch for it.

The tomatoes, even though they don't quite need it, got some cages this weekend. There are a few flowers here and there.

The lettuce is getting huge.

The self-sown Dill patch is as thick as a forest.

The basil looks like it hasn't done much yet, but I think they're just waiting for super-hot days before impressing us.

Cilantro, ready for salsa anytime.

The Blueberry Bushes are loaded with green berries. Time to build some protection from birds ...

Flowers in the Yard, Tangent One: Irises, right?

Flowers in the Yard, Tangent Two: More Irises.

Flowers in the Yard, Tangent One: Even More Irises!

Flowers in the Yard Update One: Azaleas are blooming.

Flowers in the Yard Update Two: Rhododendrons are showing their true colors, too.

Support our peas

2007-05-20T18:49:00.001-04:00

In last year's garden, the star of the show was Super Chili #1 with the peas being a close second for me. I think the reason is that peas were the only thing we grew from seeds so the plants felt like the largest accomplishment as a gardener, even though they eventually got mildew and didn't give us more than about a dozen peas total.

This year, we've switched seed brands, which probably won't make much of a difference. What does seem to be making a difference, though, is that there were many more seeds in the package this year and we've got two long twelve foot rows that we planted earlier in the season than last year. The plants needed some type of support system to grow on, since they like to climb and put out little tendrils to help them do so. So, we pillaged last years cucumber trellises and found the bundle of leftover twine and rigged together the support structure shown in this picture ...

Initially I wanted to run just one set of stakes and twine, but the rows seemed to be just a touch too far apart to get both rows to climb up the same supports. We ran two sets of stakes and twine and over the next week we'll keep standing the plants up and trying to train them to climb by wrapping their tendrils around the twine.

Another victim of mildew last year was the cucumber plants. We got a ton of cukes but could have gotten more. This year's first batch of plants, which we got into the ground last weekend, isn't looking so good (as evidenced by the picture above). So ... we bought ten more plants this weekend and planted eight of them. The final two we'll keep aside for a week in case we need to replace any of the first batch. The nice new healthy ones look like the plants below ...

Don't they look happy and green? We'll see if it lasts.

Through the process of elimination we discovered that the second crop we're growing from seed, the carrots, have poked through and are starting to look pretty good. By pulling out everything that we knew was not either a carrot or dill the three rows of carrots quickly became apparent. The plants range from 1/2" high up to 2" high.

A lot of the self-sown dill has been trampled and/or pulled out to let the carrots have the space they need and not have to compete for root space. We have left a big patch though, seen in the picture above. And ...

... we transplanted a number of the larger guys from the carrot area to an open spot in the garden so that they can thrive and give us what we need for pickles.

New to the garden this weekend: Yellow Straight Neck Squash, four plants. We changed the location of the squash this year, to give them as much sun as possible. They are now out in the middle of the garden rather than tucked into a corner like they were last year.

The Romaine continues to get larger and more green.

The garlic also continues to make progress towards being eaten.

The peppers have already started to flower and have begun developing tiny, tiny little peppers.

Another addition to the garden this weekend: one Cherokee Purple tomato plant, seen in the foreground here.

The basil plants seem to be staying about the same size. I think they need really hot days before they really start taking off, just like the tomatoes, so I'm not too worried yet.

Here's a view from the front corner looking back across the tomatoes and peppers towards the new pea support structure in the distance.

And, a view from above of the pea end of the garden. The cucumbers are all in the one row at the top of the photo, six plants on the left from last weekend and eight plants on the right from this weekend. The three rows marked with string running perpendicular to the peas are the carrots, and you can clearly see the six lettuce plants to the left of those.

Hosta e Basta, as they'd say in Italy.

The blueberry bushes have begun dropping their little bell-like blossoms.

Flowers in the Yard, Tangent One: Azalea. We thought this plant was dead because it was brown for a long time and didn't look like it was going to do anything. Then, without warning, it suddenly had leaves and now it has red blossoms getting ready to burst open.

Flowers in the Yard, Tangent Two: Rhododendron. We also didn't have high hopes for the Rhododendron, but I guess both bushes get started a little later than we expected.

Froggy keeps an eye on the driveway-side flower beds, which clearly need some weeding and some help getting organized. Good thing he's got his umbrella because it rained for the last four days, on and off. As a side-note, he was inherited from the previous owners of the house and not something that we added intentionally to the yard. He's nice to have around, though.

And here they'll hang, until next weekend.

Peas, Bees and Sunsets

2007-05-14T22:44:00.000-04:00

It was a busy Mother's Day weekend, but we still found time to fight the crowd's at the Garden Center, pick up some plants and actually get them in the ground. We found a flat of six pickling cucumber transplants, one of which is pictured above. Those went into the ground and we want to get another eight plants to be certain we have plenty for making pickles again this year.

In addition to cucumbers, Basil went into the ground, which will be for making pesto and also for pizza on the grill along with Roma tomatoes and homemade mozzarella.

Speaking of Roma Tomatoes, three plants went in the ground.

We also planted Super Chili hot peppers, which some of you may remember from last year. They, too, will be ingredients in our pickles.

New to the garden this year: Cilantro, for use in salsa and guacamole.

And, yet another pickle ingredient, the dill is growing like mad. One problem that's becoming apparent is that a lot of dill has grown over the section where we planted the carrots. We'll need to do some figuring to make sure the carrots can grow well and not get choked out by the dill. I think we'll probably pull the largest and strongest dill plants and transplant them to another location and then pull out the rest and discard it. The longer we spend thinking about it, though, the larger the dill gets and the more I worry about the carrots. Something needs to be done soon.

The Romaine is looking green and healthy.

The peas are about 4" tall and probably need some thinning. That will be tough to do, since the peas, having grown from seed, make me excited about the garden as a whole, but I think it needs to be done for the good of the potential harvest. Come on peas, take one for the team.

The garlic is growing like crazy. The short guy there in the center left of the photo sprouted all of that growth only between last Tuesday morning, when I accidentally snapped off everything it had grown up to the point, and Saturday when I took the photos. That's about 3" of growth in four days, which I attribute to watering in the mornings and a lot of sun over the past week.

The Chives, which we planted last year and came up again on their own (since they're perennials), have small purplish blossoms which will turn into nice looking purple flowers. I think we need to start using the Chives for something, but I'm not sure what. Perhaps I'll make my own cottage cheese and add some chives to it?

Outside of the garden, in Blueberry World, this bee is a good sign that things will be well pollinated this year. Thanks, little guy!

Flowers in the Yard, Tangent One: Bleeding Hearts.

Flowers in the Yard, Tangent Two: Lilacs, all along the borders of the property.

Flowers in the Yard, Tangent Three: A funky looking tulip.

Flowers in the Yard, Tangent Four: Irises.

And finally, as we were wrapping up our planting on Saturday and the sun was beginning to set, I snapped this photo from the back yard.

Lettuce take a look around

2007-05-06T14:04:00.000-04:00

During a detour in the weekend plans, we found ourselves in Hampden, MA and driving past a number of garden stores and greenhouses. On a recommendation, we stopped at Bilton's, a very fine no-frills garden center. Purchases from Bilton's included a chicken pie, some fantastic large-curd Cabot extra sharp cheddar cheese (those who know me will testify about my recent fascination with and fixation on cheese, and this was one of the best I've had in a while), some potting soil, and the nice looking Romaine Lettuce seedlings shown above. The lettuce made it's way into the ground today. I've never grown any sort of lettuce or salad greens of any sort, so this is a bit of an experiment.

Nearby the location of the new lettuce, the peas are really taking off. The plants all range from about 1/2" to 2" high, and it's only been two weeks since we put them in the ground. It's nice to see some green in the garden, and peas get me excited for the season because they come up from seed. Last year they were the only plants we grew by seed. This year they're joined by the carrots, but those will be a while.

Here's a shot of the two rows of peas, to give a full impression of how good they're looking.

At the opposite end of the garden, in the Onion Family Area, the garlic has grown very well over the last week since we put it in the ground. Each of the cloves has about an inch to an inch and half of new growth shooting up from the dirt.

The chives, which grew up from last year's planting but were transplanted to a new location, are looking strong and healthy.

The onions (and the shallots out beyond) are starting to look like they won't completely fade away and die
.
The dill continues to grow, though I haven't been super careful watching out for it. I know we'll lose a lot when we start planting in areas where it's popping up now.

We also bought two tomato plants and some Dill seedlings this weekend, which I have on the back porch. I know we've got all that dill coming up by itself, but we'll need a lot for our pickles. The seedlings will all need to "harden off" over the course of the next week. We'll keep them on the closed-in porch for a few days, then to the screened porch for a few, then outdoors for a couple, and then probably next weekend put them in the ground. The tomatoes will need some protection in case we get any cold nights, but I think for the most part we should be fine.

Flowers in the Yard Tangent One: While the focus for me is really on the vegetables, I think it's important to note, especially early in the season when there's not an exceptional amount of interest in the garden proper, that there are many nice looking flowers in the yard as well. For example, The Peony that we cleaned up last weekend is taking off like mad, happy to be clear of the dead growth. It seems to have doubled in size.

Flowers in the Yard Tangent Two: Besides the two peonies already in the yard, we were just given this Peony by my aunt. It's actually part of a family heirloom of sorts, having been grown on the family farm by my Great-Grandmother and maintained by my grandparents and now by my aunt. This is obviously just a part of the plant that was separated and re-potted. Now we've planted this piece of the plant in our yard, which may be the first time part of this plant has made it's way across the river. Don't quote me on that, though. I need to get some more history on this plant.

It looks a little droopy and sad, but we planted it carefully and gave it some bone meal, at the recommendation of folks at the Hadley Garden Center.

We also got some Holly-Tone fertilizer and spread that around the blueberry bushes to give them an extra boost. Holly-Tone is a fertilizer that is supposed to be specifically for acid-loving plants, which besides blueberries would include things like rhododendrons, azaleas and hollies. When I looked at the packaging, though, I realized it's 4-6-4, not that different from the 4-6-6 generic over-all fertilizer we put in the vegetable garden when we tilled a few weeks back.

Flowers in the Yard Tangent Three: Don't know what this thing is called, but it was also a gift from my Aunt. Supposedly it grows big and swirls around, looking somewhat like an upside down tornado.

These blue flowers are in the yard, scattered throughout the grass. I think it might mean it's time for the first mowing, but for now I'll take them as a reason to put that off even longer. How could you mow over these guys?

A red tulip in the bed along the side of the house.

And ... two yellow tulips on the banking along the garden.

The Hostas on the hill are now 6 to 8 inches tall and looking green green green and healthy.

The onion family

2007-04-30T07:41:00.000-04:00

We found some shallots at the Hadley Garden Center this weekend.

After digging two rows four inches apart we laid them all out about 4" from each other. One flat of shallots gave us a lot of plants.

They looked pretty happy to be in the ground.

In my "Crockett's Victory Garden" book, I was reading about growing garlic. He had this to say:

"In most parts of the country garlic does best when it's planted in late fall for harvest the following summer. But in [Victory Garden's] first year we planted it in May and it did quite well ... Planting is simple. I bought my bulbs in a food market, separated each bulb into single cloves, and planted the cloves 4 or 5 inches apart, pushing them into the soil until the pointed tops were just barely covered. By fall each clove produced a large bulb with no more help from me except to keep weeds under contol."

So ... we bought some garlic at the supermarket and decided to give it a shot.

That makes the list of our onion family participants in the garden this year look like this: Walla Walla Onions, shallots, chives (re-sprouted from last year's garden), and garlic. Vampire's beware.

While wandering around the garden we noticed a bunch of little sprigs that looked like grass. Rubbing some between the fingers released the wonderful smell of dill, apparently self-sown from last year's batch.

Along the garden these lilies were growing. We decided to dig them up and move them to this patch of dead grass. Along the center, where the soil is packed down we placed some snapdragon seeds.

The forsythia are in full-bloom along the edge of the property.

We cleared last year's dead growth from the peonies, revealing all these nice new shoots.

On the banking leading down to the garden we spotted these fiddle-head ferns.

And here is the one lonely daffodil that's shown it's face.

Won't be long now

2007-04-23T08:01:00.000-04:00

We bought the Walla Walla Onions a couple weeks back and have been watering them and trying to keep them in a sun-lit window. The weekend was so nice that we finally figured it was time to get them in the ground. By this point they looked pretty sad in the containers, but hopefully some time in the ground will perk them up.

They're just little guys. They'll take a while, but it'll be worth it.

The peas are from a different supplier than last year, just to compare.

We put the pea seeds in rows, about 8" apart, spreading the seeds about 1 1/2" from each other. We wound up with two 10 foot long rows, covering the seeds with 1" of dirt. I marked the rows with sticks so we'd remember where things are.

A new crop in the garden this year is carrots. We opted for the packet of seeds embedded in paper strips that break down in the soil, since carrot seeds are so tiny that they're both difficult and time-consuming to sow. We dug three rows and laid one strip in each and covered the strips with an inch of dirt.

It took about 10 minutes total for a job that, with traditional seed packets, could have been unbearably tedious.

At the end of the night we had our first grilling experience of the season. After marinating some vegetables, chicken and beef in Italian dressing for fifteen minutes we skewered the whole lot of food and threw them on the grill, in an effort to remind us of the kinds of things we'll be growing and what we'll be able to do with our own vegetables, when and if we finally have some. I can't wait for it to be onions, peppers and squash that we grew ourselves on our dinner plates.

It won't be long now.

Tillin' Time

2007-04-18T07:50:00.000-04:00

Last summer we made our first vegetable and herb garden. This year we're ready to give it a try again. At the end of fall we turned over the garden and added whatever leftover straw in the hopes that the dead plants and such would add to the helpful organic matter in the soil and help us out this year. The veggies we grew, I reasoned, depleted a lot of the nutrients in the soil over the course of the summer and fall and so we'd give some of it back. The photo above shows how the garden looked last weekend at the start of Saturday before we did any work on it. The black piles are burnt charcoal lumps from last season's grilling.

We discovered that the chives we planted last year (which we never seemed to ever use for anything) seem to be starting to grow back. This one is the larger of two plants, the smaller being about half this size.

We also spotted two little onions left from last year that seem to be showing some green. We dug up both the chives and the onion before we started, to save them.

The tools for the day are shown above. We bought a 5.5 cubic feet bale of peat moss and a 50 lb bag of 4-6-6 Espoma Garden-Tone fertilizer. Conventional wisdom used to be that 5-10-5 was a good overall choice, but consulting my friends at the Hadley Garden Center lead us to go with this veggie specific mix. The numbers stand for the percentages of Nitrogen, Phosphate and Potash in the mix, in that order.

(Unrelated: if you google peat moss and fertilizer you might get to this link for a band called Peat Moss and the Fertilzers.)

Once we got the peat moss and fertilizer spread throughout the garden, we used the trusty family tiller to till it all in and cultivate the soil to get it all ready for planting.

The end result is a garden that's ready to go.

And then on Sunday, it snowed. Later in the day it changed to rain, and hasn't let up.

We bought some carrot seeds and some pea seeds and some onion seedlings that we hope to get in the ground once it stops raining.

Grim and Grimmer

2006-08-31T09:35:00.000-04:00

The garden is officially out of control. I missed last week's update because the rain kept me from being able to take photos. This picture pretty well sums up the state of things this week. Yes, that's a rotting tomato, and yes that's a big ole' slug feasting on it.

The squash plants are pretty well dying. They'll all covered in this white mildew and the leaves are turning brown and shriveling up.

Still some squash growing, though ...

In the back of the garden where the cucumbers were once thriving, things get darker and more depressing. A few cukes are still hanging on for dear life, but they're much to big to be edible at this point, so I think we may leave them on for a while and see if we can harvest seeds to plant next year's crop.

Some of the cukes that grew on the dying plants stayed small and turned yellow. I don't think they'll make very good pickles.

The peppers, much like the tomatoes, are rotting on the plants before they are mature. I touched this guy very gently and he fell from the plant and splattered on the ground.

A few peppers are still hanging on, but they are developing brown spots and never get to a good size. They'd probably taste okay but their walls are really thin when you cut them open.

We couldn't keep up with the basil and it's now all flowered and bitter.

On the bright side, we've still got a ton of chili peppers ... but no idea what to do with them since all the cukes are gone and we can't use them in pickles.

Also on the pickle ingredient topic, the dill has self-sown and there's all sorts of little sprigs of growth.

Not in the Garden Tangent: The other day as I was driving home from work I noticed these familiar looking leaves at the edge of the road, on the very edge of the property.

Upon closer inspection this morning, it appears to be some variety of squash or pumpkin.

Fungus Among Us

2006-08-17T08:49:00.000-04:00

All those little guys from last week's squash photo are almost ready to pick. Some of them might get harvested tonight, some tomorrow.

Here's a close-up of the fungus that's spreading over the squash plants. I have no idea what it is and haven't had time to research possible remedies, but it bums me out to see it.

I'm also still bummed out about the cucumber plants going the way of the dodo. They're doing their best to give us a few more cukes, though, before they go completely belly up.

All of the dill plants have passed on (and we're hoping they self-sow for next year), with the exception of this one that looks like it wants to flower soon. I don't think there are any usable bits left on the plant, though, since we've long since picked them all off for use in pickles.

The Beefsteaks are ripening up. We've picked a couple and I used one in a pasta sauce last night. Not as sweet as the Brandywine's, but still good.

Speaking of Brandywine Tomatoes ...

These couple Red Knights are looking good. We lost about 10 of these red peppers because they rotted right on the plant, before they were at an edible stage.

Super Chili #1. And some shamrocks.

Despite the squash plant fungus and the cucumber plant near-extinction, I still managed to pull 7 cukes and 4 squash plants out of the garden this morning.

Getting to the end?

2006-08-14T08:37:00.000-04:00

We've finally got usable chili peppers, and we've picked two small bowls worth already for use in pickles and some salsa. As it turns out, hot peppers from the garden are much hotter than what we've been buying in the store, and the oils linger on your hands for much longer.

Super Chili #1 looks good.

The Green Bell peppers are still doing okay. We've been leaving a lot of them on the plant so that they'd get larger with thicker walls, but they've just been rotting, so we'll have to start picking them sooner. This guy above is only about 2" tall, though, and I don't think we need to pick them quite that early.

The Red Knights are pretty red, but they're also rotting on the plants before they seem like they should be ready to be picked.

The Beefsteaks continue to ripen. A lot of them seem to be getting eaten by animals before we get a chance to pick them. Some are having the same problem as the peppers, and are rotting before they're ready to be picked.

The Cherry Tomatoes, on the other hand, seem to mostly be doing well, and we have an abundance. Last night we used a bunch in shishkabobs, which added a nice flavor.

These other tomatoes are ripening as well, but a lot of them are scarring before they're ready, which is diappointing.

The cucumbers are pretty much done. The plants have died back pretty far and only a few straggler cukes are still holding on. Next year we'll definitely stagger the plantings for a longer season. And keep an eye out for cucumber beetles sooner.

The squash plants are still huge, and still producing, even though there seems to be a white fungus spreading over some of the larger leaves (you can see it in the upper left of this photo). We've lost two of the smaller squash plants that live in the shade for a greater portion of the day. I think that the soil stays wet for longer in that section, so they just rotted from too much moisture.

As long as these guys all turn into edible squash, though, I'll be happy. I was never much of a fan of squash, really, but I've liked having them around for all the grilling that we've been doing lately.

The basil plants are taking over. They just keep growing and growing, no matter how much we cut off.

The view from above of the cucumber end. You can see that the back trellis is totally empty, as all of it's plants have died away.

The view from above of the squash end of the garden. The dill has all gone by.

In the other corner of the yard, the blueberries also have pretty well run their course. It was sweet while it lasted.

Flowers in the Yard Tangent: Black Eyed Susans. To add a little life to all the rotting, death, and old age of the rest of the garden.

I think the garden is starting to come to the end of it's lifespan this year. Maybe it's time to start looking into fall planting possibilities ...

A Hard Rain's A-Gonna Fall

2006-08-03T15:44:00.000-04:00

Actually, a hard rain did fall. Last night, for about twenty minutes tops. The dinky little powerful storm managed to fell a pepper plant, shown above, and ...

... totally beat up on the poor squash plants, breaking limbs and hammering the leaves and just generally making puddles and wetness for the leaves to lie in and rot.

In addition, the rain totally tore apart the tomato supports, making the plants into an ever bigger and more tangled mess than they were already becoming.

On the bright side, we've still got a ton of blueberries to pick and eat, and they're on the opposite side of the yard, so we don't have to look at the devastation in the garden proper.

And also on the bright side, even though the cucumber plants are totally kicking the bucket (see last weeks story of doom of gloom), we're still getting good looking cukes.

The Beefsteak Tomatoes are going to be edible soon ...

... and so are the Brandywines.

The basil keeps on keepin' on, no matter how much we cut and use for pesto. I think this adds credence to the realization that we probably only need 6 basil plants next year, instead of twelve.

The squash plants are getting the better of us, and will soon overpower us and take over the household. We can't keep up and they keep getting too large. We should be picking them when they're 7 or 8 inches, I think, but they've been getting to 10 or 12 or more. We made the most of it, though, by slicing a couple of the big guys and grilling them on our brand new $40 grill.

The Red Knights are still green, but have the perfect shape.

... and certainly look better than this Green Bell plant that seems to have died of mysterious causes. I don't think it's only because we left that one pepper on the plant so long that it turned red.

Super Chili #1, however, is turning all kinds of red -- way inside there -- and that's a good thing.

See?

Another view of the decimated tomato supports, and the garden beyond.

The view from the other front corner, over the squash plants and beyond. Yes, we've been lax with our weed patrol. We'll get on that again soon.

Week 10: A Study in Contrasts

2006-07-28T08:43:00.000-04:00

One end of the garden is full of gloom and doom, as the cucumber plants slowly but steadily wither away. I don't really know anything about the lifespan of cucumber plants but my theory is that their death is a combination of two factors: old-age and cucumber beetles. We noticed some brown spots on the plants a few weeks back, about the same time the little annoying beetles were spotted all over the plants after dark. Somewhere during my web travels I remember a little blurb saying that cucumber beetles can spread disease among your plants, so I think this may have occurred. We do have a package of cucumber seeds that I may throw in the ground, just to see if we can get another late crop of cukes for some more pickles.

Way down at the far opposite corner of the garden, the squash plants (on which we also spotted some cucumber beetles, but not nearly as many) are thriving. The plants are huge and tall with blossoms galore and plenty of squash growing.

And, here's our first red chili pepper, on Super Chili #2. The chilies were intended for use in the pickles, but the timing was way off. The cucumber plants are almost done and the chilies are just beginning, so we know for next year to get the chili pepper seedlings as early as possible. Also, I think we want to stagger out cucumber plantings by two weeks, so we extend the season and don't get overwhelmed by all the cucumbers arriving at once.

Super Chili #1 is being overwhelmed by Squashimus Prime. There are two or three little peppers just getting a hint of red on Super Chili #1.

Here is the tangled mess of growth that out tomato plants have become. Completely untamable.

The Red Knight peppers are looking good, really getting that nice bell pepper shape and size and hopefully they'll start turning red soon.

These guys, that are supposed to Green Bell peppers, don't look like any green bell peppers I've ever seen. I still think they were mislabelled at the farm where they came from, because they're growing long and kind of triangular. We've kept them on the plants for a long time, thinking they were going to grow to the right shape, but that really hasn't happened. Instead, they starting turning red ...

... like this guy, who needs to be picked and eaten.

The Beefsteak Tomatoes are also turning red, which is a good thing.

The Brandywines are looking good as well.

We've been picking a LOT of basil lately to make pesto and somehow it just keeps growing and growing and the plants keep filling out. I almost think that the basil could take over the garden if we didn't pick any.

The inner workings of the squash plants. Flowers, little squash, and clover.

The thriving end, from above.

The dying end, from above. Peas, cukes and onions have either bit the dust or are in the process of biting the dust.

Tomatoes, and no Peas

2006-07-20T09:09:00.000-04:00

Most of the action this week has been in the growth of the tomatoes. The Romas are turning red and multiplying.

Here's a string of cherry tomatoes in varying degrees of readiness.

The Beefsteaks continue to grow. No sign of red yet, though. And yes, those are my feet at the bottom of the pic betraying my amateur photographer status (and my tiredness this morning).

The Brandywine tomatoes are also getting large, and maybe that's a slight hint of pink in their skin.

The pea plants have pretty well bit the dust. We think they got sick, but I also blame the slugs to some degree, since I found a few shimmery, emaciated leaves a few weeks back. The plants are shrivelling up and turning brown, and the pea pods that they are producing are small and fat, with brown spots.

The squash is starting to be a real producer. The guy in the foreground was only about 3" long two days ago, now he's 6" or 7" long and pretty much ready to be picked and eaten.

Super Chili #1 seems to have topped off his growth and is putting his efforts into turning his peppers red. We hope. Squashimus Prime wanted a photo taken this morning, so he grew into the shot.

These will be red peppers. Eventually.

The view from the front left.

The view from the front right.

Flowers in the Yard Tangent: Lilies. As usual, I don't know what kind of lily, just that it is one.

Flowers in the Yard Tangent: Hostas. The flowers were pretty well in full bloom on the Hostas all week. It was pretty dramatic. They're starting to fade a little now, but still look nice.

Flowers in the Yard Tangent: Another Lily. There are a lot of these scarlet red and yellow ones in bloom now.

Flowers in the Yard Tangent: ??? I feel like I used to know the name of these, but it escapes me this morning. I was thinking Cornflower, but when I googled that it's a completely different looking flower.

Flowers in the Yard Tangent: Grated Cheese. The grated cheese flower is almost in bloom. Hopefully the japanese beetles don't eat it before it's ready, since I'd like some cheese on my salads and meatball grinders. (Okay, fine, I have no idea what this is going to be ... but it looks like long strands of grated cheese stuck to a blossom, doesn't it?)

Harvest: Cukes, Blueberries and Basil

2006-07-19T09:00:00.000-04:00

Blueberries and Cucumbers and 1 little Cherry Tomato.

A whole bunch of basil.

With the blueberries, I made these very tasty Blueberry bars, with a recipe I found on Farmgirl Fare. I topped it off with a scoop of fresh vanilla ice cream while it was still warm. Super yummy.

With the basil, we made pesto. Very easy and very satisfying. The basil photo way up above wound up being only half of what we needed to pick, since a lot of the basil has been chewed by bugs at this point and we didn't want to use any chewed leaves.

The pesto tasted really good on it's own. We had some whole wheat spaghetti left from a previous recipe and put the pesto on that, but the combination wasn't quite as mind-blowing as I thought it would be. I think I learned that I don't like whole wheat pasta. Oh well. Next time we'll probably go with gnocchi or tortellini, two of my favorite pasta types.

Payoff

2006-07-13T09:21:00.000-04:00

Last night's harvest: 8 pickling cukes, parsley, dill. Not pictured: 1 sugar snap pea.

Some more of the squash that's growing. This guy's about 4 or 5 inches long.

The margin of difference between the size of Squashimus Prime and all the other squash plants continues to widen.

These guys are almost ready for picking. 1 more day for the larger one, and probably 2 or 3 days for the other one.

It's time to make some pesto ...

These are supposed to be green bell peppers. The tags said green bell peppers. They're much longer and skinnier than the picture made it seem like green bell peppers should be. I think perhaps they were mis-labelled at the farm where the seedlings were packed up. The one we ate the other day still tasted like green bell, though, so who knows?

The Beefsteak Tomatoes are going to overtake us before too long. There are 3 or 4 clusters like this on each of the 6 plants.

Super Chili #1. He's looking good as a plant, but not producing as much as #3.

Super Chili #3 has tons of chilis growing.

The Red Knight peppers are forming. Each of the 6 plants has 3 -5 little peppers like this.

The dill has flowered. Which means the usable bits are starting to pass. We should've planted staggered batches, two weeks apart.

View from above #1.

View from above #2.

Flowers in the Yard Tangent: Hostas. They're starting to open up and beginning to look nice. Which is good because I think the plants themselves are really ugly and boring. The flowering stage is the only point at which they look nice.

And finally ... the entire impetus for even attempting this garden was to work towards one thing, and one thing only ...

Pickles.

The chili peppers were supposed to be for the pickle project, but none of them are ready yet and we've had an abundance of cucumbers over the last week. Last night we made use of the cukes and the dill we've picked and made five jars of what will be the best tasting pickles we've ever had. We used the same recipe for refrigerator pickles last year, which we got from my aunt and tweaked to our particular tastes, but we've never made them with our own produce. They'll be ready to eat in three days.

I thought I'd end this week's update with a few uninterrupted photos of the payoff for all this garden work. Enjoy.

Happy Harvest

2006-07-12T10:05:00.000-04:00

Last night was our largest harvest yet: 9 pickling cucumbers, 2 straighneck yellow squash (although one of them looks like a crookneck ...), 6 sugar snap peas, 1 green bell pepper, 2 sweet 100 cherry tomatoes.

Another view of the pile of good eats we pulled from the garden. Tonight we plan to make our first batch of refrigerator pickles, since we definitely have enough cucumbers saved up over the last week.

The pepper, tomatoes and peas became a small little snack salad, with a tiny touch of Italian dressing, to eat during a car ride last night. Very, very tasty.

Harvest: Dill, 5 cucumbers, 5 peas, 1 Roma Tomato

2006-07-10T09:14:00.000-04:00

Harvest: 5 pickling cucumbers, 1 Roma Tomato, 5 peas, and a bunch of Dill. I didn't mean to harvest the Roma, but I just barely touched it and it fell off in my hand. I have it in a paper bag now, hoping to ripen it just a touch more.

Flower in the Garden Tangent: Mystery. Anyone know what these cool looking flowers are? The buds look like little star boxes, as shown above. When they open up ...

... they look like this, although these few are starting to pass. They were a much more brilliant purple-blue a few days ago. The buds almost look like Chinese Lanterns.

Harvest: 2 Peas, 2 Cukes

2006-07-06T08:19:00.000-04:00

The other day I had a huge haul from the garden: 2 sugar snap peas and 2 cucumbers. The sugar snap peas are so tasty. I did some cooking for the 4th of July party that made use of store bought peas, and there was absolutely no comparison. Homegrown really is better.

These cherry tomatoes need to find their way into a salad, now.

Beefsteak! The bigger one there is about 3" in diameter.

The first Roma is starting to turn color.

All the peppers are getting big.

Squashimus Prime. The largest squash plant continues to put the others to shame. The little tiny squash that was on there last week shriveled up and died, though. I think it matured too early because of all the rain. However ...

... there are 3 little guys that look like this, spread out over this and the other squash plants. I think it looks like we're growing our own bowling pins.

Squash flower.

The cucumbers are getting to be an edible size. This one needs to be picked tonight. It's about 5" long and getting fatter by the day.

Super Chili #1.

View from above of the cucumber / pea end of the garden.

View from above of the tomato / pepper / squash end.

Added Bonus Update: Blueberries. I need some help picking the abundance of blueberries this week. Any volunteers? I'll pay you in, um .... berries.

Flowers in the Yard Tangent: More Lilies, taking over the flower beds at this point.

Growth, Growth and More Growth

2006-06-29T08:32:00.000-04:00

Yes, it's true, that is an actual peapod. I noticed it last night when I got home from work and I'm almost positive it wasn't there yesterday morning before I left. I think it's safe to say the peas are pretty happy with their new climbing structure, since there are roughly 5 of these brand new peapods all of a sudden.

After spotting the peapods, I looked at the cucumbers and found this guy: a two and a half inch long pickling cucumber. He'll probably be ready to eat in a few days. There are a ton of cucumbers that look just like his brother there, about an inch long with the little dying flowers on the ends.

... and more growth! On the largest and most impressive squash plant (with leaves bigger than my hands) we spotted this little 3/4" long mini-squash. I guess I don't need to hand pollinate after all ... I hope I still have the receipt for that Barry White tape I bought.

That's the plant that the little guy is growing on. While we were away over the past weekend he practically doubled in size.

Super Chili #1 keeps on keeping on. If you look carefully in the center of the plant (click the image to enlarge) you may be able to see a couple peppers sticking straight up.

This is Super Chili #3, who is showing a greater abundance of forming chilis. I think he was resentful of not making it into a solo photo yet, so he needed to show off a little.

A close-up of Super Chili #3, and the great looking chili peppers that will become part of our pickles.

The largest pepper in the garden keeps growing. He's a little dented, but he'll still taste good I'm sure. There are about 5 other inch and a half long peppers scattered on the various Green Bell pepper plants.

A view of all the cucumber plants. We added some straw below both the cucumbers and the tomatoes, to help in retaining moisture and keeping the soil warm. However, since it's been rainy for weeks and humid during the days and I spotted a few slugs crawling around last night, I think we might remove the straw since it's probably unnecessary.

The cucumber plants love the trellises, as you can see by this guy stretching out with a big thank you hug.

Front Right view of the garden.

Front left view of the garden. Look at that giant squash plant.

Added bonus update: Blueberries. There are a lot of berries that need to be picked, probably tonight.

Added Bonus: Pears? We think this is a pear tree in the yard, on the driveway side.

Flowers in the Yard Tangent: Hostas. It looks like there are going to be a lot of flowers on this big bed of Hostas.

Flowers in the Yard Tangent: Lilies. The Lilies are upon us, with more to come. Lots and lots of buds spread throughout the yard, with about 10 flowers open this morning in various colors.

Early Pea Update

2006-06-27T09:07:00.000-04:00

One of the things that has been really satisfying about trying to do this garden thing is that besides growing stuff we've also gotten to build stuff, and that's just plain fun. Last night I took leftover materials from some of the previous garden building projects and made a support for the peas to climb. Some extra wood from the Cucumber Trellis Project, a leftover length of bird netting from the Blueberry Preservation Project, and three bamboo stakes, extras from the Bridge Over the River Kwai Tomato Structure, were all pillaged and used to construct a simple climbing surface for the peas, which are now starting to flower.

In front of the peas, the sign has grown. I used two pieces of 6' long wood for the end pieces. We used our post hole digger, which is rapidly becoming the #1 garden tool purchase, and dug holes two feet deep to give them a lot of strength. I stapled the pea sign onto the support, for continuity's sake.

Then I stretched the netting across from one post to the other, running it between the two rows of peas, and stapled it to the supports on each end. Finally, I took three five foot long bamboo stakes and wove them down through the netting at regular intervals, pushing them into the ground about twelve inches. The idea here is that the stakes will hopefully help prevent sagging of the netting and give some added support for when the peas get larger and heavier.

The final step was to go along each row and stand the peas up, guiding the tendrils to grab onto the netting. A little gentle prodding and the peas were all standing upright, ready to climb.

Blueberry Bowl

2006-06-26T10:27:00.000-04:00

The first bowl of blueberries, picked in the rain last night and eaten while watching Boondock Saints. Somehow, blueberries from your own yard taste so much better than those from almost anywhere else.

Nothing Witty Today

2006-06-22T09:08:00.000-04:00

Super Chili #1, Week 5: Taller and taller, this fella is really becoming the star of the show.

The Spartans lined up for battle, spears in hand... Okay, actually, it's the pepper plants.

Here's the largest pepper in the garden right now. It's about 3" long.

And here's a little guy, just getting his start.

The parsley finally looks like it's grown, though it's still not very impressive.

The dill is started to bud.

The view of the best looking squash plant from above.

We might have lost the onions entirely. Disturbed by not seeing much growth, we dug up the row and discovered that we planted them far too deep. There were probably ten onion bulbs that had tried growing and then gave up because they were too far below ground, so we replanted them all only an inch or two below the surface with the growth sticking out above ground. I don't know if we got to them in time, but this guy was completely white two days ago and now the sun has given him some green so maybe there's hope yet.

The cucumbers are flowering!

We cut this cherry tomato in half and split it. It tasted so sweet. There are another dozen green ones still on the plant, so we've got some good tasting salads in store.

The Roma tomatoes are about 3-4" long, about the same size as the largest pepper.

The peas are still growing. We separated some of the ones that were real close and filled in some dead spots in the rows. I had thought that they were going to be bushy enough to support each other (and planted them in two rows 4" apart to accomodate that), but the plants are falling over. We'll probably need to rig up something with a few stakes and some twine to give them a chance to climb a little and get up off the ground.

The cucumbers continue to make their way up the trellises. I'm pretty psyched.

View from the front left corner, with squash in the foreground.

View from the from right corner, with tomatoes on the right and the pepper soldiers lined up on the left.

Added Bonus Update: Blueberries. We ate about a dozen blueberries off the bushes the other night. So sweet.

Flowers in the Yard Tangent #5: There are tons of these purple flowers scattered about, intertwined with blue ones. No idea what they are, as usual.

Rainbows in the Neighborhood Tangent #1: After a quick storm the other night, this was the view from the driveway, looking out over the neighborhood.

Cats in the Yard Tangent #1: Coming up to the house from the garden this morning, this guy was staring me down. He didn't stick around for a close-up.

Dragonflies in the Yard Tangent #1: Sitting on a Lilly, wastin' time.

Super Chili #1

2006-06-16T12:12:00.000-04:00

Super Chili #1 gets his own entry. 4 weeks worth of photos, side by side.

Click on the image to see it full size.

Mind Your Peas and Cukes

2006-06-15T09:03:00.000-04:00

The peas are raging. They desperately need to be thinned, but we want to wait to see if anything comes up in the dead spots of the rows. If not, then the peas we pull will get transplanted to those empty areas. I'm told pea plants don't transplant well, but if we're throwing them away anyway, we might as well see what happens.

Super Chili #1 continues to reach new heights. He earned his own bamboo stake the other day, even though he doesn't need it yet. We didn't want him to feel left out when looking over at his Green Bell Pepper cousins.

We finished constructing the home-made bamboo and zip-tie structure for the tomatoes. My uncle came by to see the yard and said it looked like The Bridge Over the River Kwai.

The cucumbers are growing well and starting to make use of the netting to climb.

Another view of the cukes. I think we could've planted another 9 plants in the spaces we have between the existing plants. Oh well, now we'll know for next year.

On the other end of the garden, the squash plants are looking good. I can't decide whether to leave them be and let them grow out across the ground or to try to get them to climb, too. I don't think they put out feelers the same way as the cukes, but I'm not sure. I was thinking that some simple old-fashioned tomato cages might work well to keep them a little contained, but it's something we need to think about a little more.

Another view of the peas, still growing behind the sign.

The parsley isn't doing anything very impressive. They still look small, but at least they're still green.

The dill has grown up, but not out. All six plants are about 12 to 14 inches high.

The view from above of the cucumber end of the garden and my shadow. It was rainy all night, but as I started taking pictures the sun came out.

Added Bonus Update: Blueberries. The structure to protect the berries from the birds is done and the netting has been put in place. No one's getting in there at those berries. At one point it seemed like we might not even be able to get in to pick them when they're ready, but at least we would know they were safe.

The blueberry bushes are pretty loaded up.

Flowers in the Yard Tangent #3: ??? What are these, daisies? I have no idea. I really don't know my flowers. They look nice, though.

Flowers in the Yard Tangent #4: ??? I have absolutely no idea what these are, either. They might be a weed for all I know. There sure are a lot of buds, though ...

Mosquito War

2006-06-12T12:06:00.000-04:00

An article in the local paper about the out-of-control mosquito population due to all of the recent rains definitely supports our experience in the garden lately. What used to be the calming evening round of garden work has turned into a yelling, swearing and swatting match with the swarms of hungry mosquitos that come out to dine as soon as they hear the porch door open. Just thinking about these guys (and looking at all of the bites on my arms) makes my blood boil.

To combat this problem, and ease the mosquito-caused tension, we've mixed up Garlic Spray, a little recipe we found online. Apparently, mosquitos hate the smell of garlic.

"Garlic spray is used with a spray bottle, and applied over the leaves of the plants. The residue usually lasts about a week, but if the plants are outside and exposed to heavy rainfall the garlic spray could be reapplied.

"Garlic spray is made by grinding or mashing about 30 cloves of garlic. These are placed in a glass container and covered with boiling water. The container is then covered and kept for about five days. This makes the garlic concentrate.

"A spray is made by adding three tablespoons of the garlic mix per half liter of water (pint). This is then sprayed on the garden plants."

We also added a citronella torch to the garden, which we've been lighting as we get towards the evening hours. At the store, we thought that the torch we picked out looked really nice, a little more elegant than the Survivor-style torches that you usually see in yards during the summer, and didn't realize the one flaw in the plan: Citronella fuel is yellow. The end result is that we have what seems to be a hanging pot of yellow liquid in the yard, which, to the talented imagination, could be any number of unsavory fluids ...

It's true, you really can grow food! I thought it was just a myth until I tasted these guys last night. We had the first harvest from the garden -- ten basil leaves that were chopped up and added to the pasta sauce. Sweet!

Added Bonus Update: Blueberries. The structure to keep the birds from getting berries is getting closer to being complete. We put in the posts and ran the cable along the top and got half of the netting in place. The photo makes it look like we don't know how to use a level, but that's really just an odditity of my camera and the way it bends straight lines to look crooked depending on the angle from which you're viewing your subject matter. I assure you, the poles are in the ground at strict verticle lines that point directly to the Earth's center.

Flowers in the Yard Tangent #1: Clematis? This nice vine is found on the front railing, along the parking area/driveway. We've been told it's a clematis, though we have no proof yet.

Flowers in the Yard Tangent #2: Peony. A nice little plant with one flower that opened up yesterday. It was all balled up through the last week of rain.

Dodging Raindrops

2006-06-08T08:51:00.000-04:00

It's been a rainy few days, which is good for the plants, but I'm starting to worry about things being too wet and starting to rot. A little sun would probably go a long way towards some serious growth in the garden. Even still, though, The Peas are looking great. We've got probably 50 little pea plants about this size and we'll need to thin them out before too long. We've been told that peas don't transplant well, but there are some spots in the rows where nothing has come up yet so we're going to try to move some of the little plants from dense areas to open areas to see if any of them take.

Here is the first of three cucumber trellises that I built this week. Some wood, some eye screws, some twine and a coat of polyurethane to protect the wood from the elements. We've got all three built and in place but the rain has prevented us from being able to string up the final two.

Super Chili, Week Three: He keeps getting taller and taller. Pretty soon the tag will be just a small detail in the corner of the photo of the plant instead of the focal point.

The onions have started to poke through. There are 4 or 5 that are about 3 inches tall and a few little guys just barely making their presence known.

We also started building some poor-man's tomato cages out of bamboo stakes and zip-ties. I like the Ultomato Cages that we saw at Home Depot, but they're a little out of our price range. Bamboo stakes are $1.50 for a pack of 6 five footers. We bought 6 packs to get us through the tomatoes and also have some stakes left over for pepper support.

Here's a close-up of one of the cucumber plants. They're looking green and healthy and tall.

The dill is starting to look really good, too. We were worried at first because they looked so scrawny and the lower leaves turned brown a few days after planting, but they're really getting their color back now and seem happy.

A view from the front corner. The cucumber trellises are all in place way back there and the tomato cages are taking shape in the foreground.

The basil is looking strong and vigorous as well. Can't wait to make pesto -- although I had some storebought pesto last night and woke up in the middle of the night with wicked heartburn ...

As predicted, behind the sign the peas are growing. And the sun has bleached most of the color out of the sign.

The view of the trellis from the cucumbers' perspective.

Looking down on the cucumber end of the garden, you can see the two rows of peas running down the length of the garden, and one of the chive plants. The back two trellises will hopefully get strung up tonight if the weather holds out.

The front of the garden. The ten tomato plants run along the top of the photo.

Eventual Restoration Project #1: Garden Bench. This bench was tucked in by the rickety shed. The arms and leg pieces are pretty rusty and the wood is moldy where the paint has flaked off, which is pretty much everywhere. We got the idea to get some new, fresh wood and rebuild this thing. I want to figure out if there's a way to the get all the rust and old paint sand-blasted off of the hardware (arm and leg pieces) so that we can put a nice fresh coat of Rustoleum on there ... because we don't have enough projects already, we needed one more.

Added Bonus Update: Blueberries. The blueberries are starting to turn color. We bought a bunch of hardware and wood at Home Depot and got some free netting from a friend. After the trellises are done the next building project is a blueberry structure to keep the birds out.

And finally, just to add some more color, here's another Iris found elsewhere in the yard this morning.

Grey Morning

2006-06-01T08:14:00.000-04:00

To me, the most exciting news is that we have peas pushing their way up into the world. They look tired, but it was a grey morning which doesn't really help with the whole 'waking up' thing. I think I'm the most thrilled about the peas because they're coming from seeds, whereas almost everything else in the garden is a transplanted seedling. The peas started out as nothing, just little shriveled up blobs, and now they're plants. And they're going to produce food.

Not only do we have peas growing, but there are also 5 or 6 small tomatoes taking shape on a couple different plants. This photo is of the Roma Tomato Plant.

As if that weren't enough excitement, we've got the beginnings of some peppers! Several of the plants look like this, with 3 to 5 small buds forming.

Another view of some small tomatoes starting to take shape.

This guy has definitely gotten some encouragement from the picture that he's planted next to. He's taller than the tag now and is showing some little buds.

The chives have purple flowers, which I'm told are great on salads ...

The cucumber plants reach for the sky. Most of them look like this fella, about 7 or 8 inches tall.

A view of the whole garden from the corner. Things are definitely growing.

5 of the 12 cucumber plants. The guy in the top right corner is looking a little dainty compared to the others. Hopefully he perks up before too long. I'm formulating plans to build some sort of trellis to train the cucumbers to grow up rather than spreading out across the ground. I've been reading that getting them to climb helps with the yield of cucumbers, both in terms of quantity and quality. Apparently if they're climbing the cukes turn out straighter, greener, and healthier. Plus I think it'll help make the garden look nice and clean. I wonder if I can do the same thing with the squash?

Added Bonus #1: Blueberries. Though technically not part of the garden, we discovered that 5 bushes in the corner of the yard are Blueberries. We had no idea until we spotted all the little green berries. The trees look pretty loaded up, so we'll have to find some tobacco netting soon to protect them from hungry (and greedy) birds. Our neighbors' cars will be happy about that.

Added Bonus #2: Irises. One side of the vegetable garden is adorned with dozens of these nice yellow irises. This is two plants greeting each other this morning.

Map

2006-05-26T14:17:00.000-04:00

That's how our garden is laid out. (click the image for a larger view...)

Some of the plants might be kind of tight, but we wanted to include a lot of things and this was the best way we could figure it out.

Worst case scenario: everything's crowded and we've gotten a sense of how much we can comfortably plant next year in the same space.

Best case scenario: tons of tasty veggies and herbs.

(ed. note: 5/30/06, the bottom right tomato plant is actually a "Sweet 100," even though it's listed in the map as "100 Grand)

... where once there was grass ...

2006-05-25T14:23:00.000-04:00

A wedge-shaped section that used to be lawn was tilled and transformed into garden. We finished planting last night.

Represented in the first garden at Emerald Place: hot peppers, green peppers, red peppers, onions, snap peas, chives, cherry tomatoes, brandywine tomatoes, purple cherokee tomatoes, squash, beefsteak tomatoes, basil, dill, cucumbers and parsley.

The cucumbers, dill, and hot peppers are all for refrigerator pickles, natch. Still trying to figure out how to grow vinegar. Maybe we can plant some apple trees to make Apple Cider vinegar?

Tomato up front, basil to the right.

Chives. How long before it looks like the picture?

Two rows of basil.

The view from above.

Hi, little cucumber plant. How tasty you'll be as a pickle!

I put the picture next to it, so the plant will remember what it's striving for.

Dill. Pickles. 'Nuff said.

More tomato plants.

Behind the sign, the peas shall grow.