Garlic

I got the garlic in the ground yesterday, planting it two beds west of the asparagus, where the peas were this year. I think that will be as far as I can rotate, which will put everything on a 4 year rotation around the garden.

Closest to the house is Kazakhstan, a tall and early season variety, planted there to keep its height from overshadowing the other varieties.

Next is Music, a really large-clove variety that is supposed to produce the highest yield of any garlic. Since I often use lots of garlic when cooking, the large cloves are especially appealing.

Then we've got Belarus, a smaller-clove variety but one that stores well. I'll have to try to remember to put these in the deepest recesses of the garage after harvesting next year.

Finally, the last variety I purchased from Territorial is Fireball, supposedly named for its appearance rather than its heat.

But that leaves me with room for maybe 30 more plants. I have several cloves from each of the varieties (besides Music) that I set aside because they were so small. I could plant a mix in this last portion of the bed closest to the lawn. Or I could plant some cloves that I harvested from the garden this year. After it seemed I was having disease issues, though, I'm hesitant to do this. Or I could see what I can find at the co-op or Farmer's Market.

What varieties of garlic do you plant? And do you do anything special with the cloves before planting? I've heard of soaking them in a seaweed/fish emulsion solution first, but I've never tried it.

First Frost

It's been a busy fall, as I've obviously not posted much lately. I have to add a little today to wrap up the season.

Our first frost was in the first week or so of October, not terribly out-of-the-ordinary, though maybe a bit early. There were two mornings of frost in those days, but they were both quite light. I had the remaining basil, peppers, and tomatoes covered and they all survived just fine. I'm lucky to have the garden in a microclimate in the heat sink of the city and sheltered on the north by the house, on the west by the garage, and on the south by trees and the neighbor's house (which are about 20 feet away). The frost was certainly harder in other parts of the region.

The first real hard frost, though, was the morning of the 18th. Everything was more or less picked clean, so nothing was covered and the last bits of remaining basil was finished off by the frost. The only thing left was some jalapenos and bell peppers that never ripened. I picked them first thing in the morning and tossed the jalapenos into the freezer to store over the winter. The bell peppers are still fine for eating.

Last year we didn't have a frost like that until the middle of November, but I wasn't really hurt by it this year. Time to await the last frost in May 2009!

Dill Fridge Pickles

It's been a long time without a post, but that's what a newborn will do to your free time. I've been meaning to post this since I made my first batch of the year a month ago, but now it's delayed and sans photos. Better than nothing, though.

Here's a great recipe for refrigerator pickles. I've never gotten into the hassle of canning, although I want to try canning some tomatoes eventually. But pickles stay so crisp and fresh when you don't can them. By simply refrigerating these pickles, they'll keep for up to a year, but I don't know why you'd want to keep them that long. They're too good to let sit around!

Here's a tip before you start. Boil the water and let it start cooling before you prepare the other ingredients.

4 quarts of 4" cucumbers, just picked and firm
-If your cukes have been sitting in the fridge for a few days, soak them in ice water for an hour or so to crisp them up.
-When I only have access to larger cukes, I cut them in half, spoon out the seeds, and then cut them into spears.

8 heads of dill
4 cloves of garlic
1 jalapeno or other hot pepper, sliced (include seeds and pulp for full heat)
1/4 tsp mustard seed
1/4 tsp celery seed
1/4 tsp pickling spice (optional)
-My philosophy with all of the above seasoning is the more the better. Feel free to add more of whatever you like best in your pickles.

1 quart vinegar
3 quarts water
3/4 cups salt

1. Boil water. Allow to cool completely.
2. Mix vinegar, water, and salt.
3. Disperse all other ingredients as evenly as possible in your jar(s).
4. Pour brine into jars, completely covering ingredients.
5. Allow to cure in fridge for at least a week.

Any other good refrigerator pickles recipes out there?

Havahart

Two down!

Early July Notes

No time for photos now, but it's time for some updates on the garden.

• I dusted the asparagus with rotenone a week or two after we stopped harvesting to get rid of our nasty asparagus beetle infestation. It worked nicely and the plants showed some nice new fern growth, but the beetles were back last week. After picking them off for a couple days, I wasn't seeming to put a dent in them, so I dusted again. So far so good.
• The garden loved the June weather. There were no heat waves after the nasty one the first week of the month. It seemed to serve to warm up the soil and get everything off to a nice start. The temperature was then about average and the rainfall only slightly above average the rest of the way. Yet the rain came several times a week every week with no dry spells and only one severe storm that I can remember. We had hail the size of peas, but I didn't notice any damage. Up in Wayne County's fruit country and in other CNY apple orchards, the hail was bigger and did some real damage. Anyway, the nice regular rainfalls kept me from having to water and made the plants happy.
  
• We started harvesting peas last week. The Oregon Giant came out first and the Mammoth Melting Sugar was delayed by only a few days. Both are tasty and of similar size, though so far the MMS seems to keep its pods nice and thin for a longer time than the OG.
  
• The peas were not attacked by critters again until we left town for 4th of July weekend. The night before we left I became another happy customer of Havahart's traps, but apparently the dude had friends that were still around. Across the street, Joe has caught 5 woodchucks the last I heard. He knew of two more that were still around. Maybe we're down to one? I hope?
• The tomatoes are growing like gangbusters. In my six years of gardening, these are the best I've seen at this point in the season. I tied them to the stakes for the third time tonight. They are dark green, bushy, and healthy. I love the smell of the plants when I'm in the middle of them.
  
• Volunteer sunflowers are nearly ready to bloom. I might have let a few too many stick around, because they've shaded out some peas, beans and tomatoes, but I think it will be worth it in the end.
• Pole beans behind the tomatoes are climbing nicely and seem to have finally outpaced the sunflowers. The ones behind the herb garden are still way behind because of the woodchuck. That soil is pretty lousy, so their lagging may also have something to do with that.
• Summer squash is nearly here. I had to cut off one fruit that was a dud, but we returned from the weekend to find two zucchini on one plant that are nearly ready to harvest. Cucumber beetles have done a job on that plant but, interestingly, not the other two that are smaller and have no fruit yet.
  
• Peppers are doing much better than last year, but they're taking their time. The first flowers peeked out late last week.
• I harvested a good cup or so of basil leaves off of the five or six plants for pasta salad on the 4th. A few of the plants look great, but the ones in with the tomatoes seem to be struggling for sun. They still look healthy but are trying to grow taller than they seem to be able to. The basil tasted great. I love the flavor before it starts to flower.
  
• The garlic is in trouble. I may have some kind of disease as several plants wilted and left me with crummy bulbs. Now it seems that others are in the process of doing so. If I pull them out now, some of the bulbs are turning kind of brown but others are okay. George had the same thing happen to him for a few years and now he's taking a several-year hiatus from garlic to try to let the disease out of the soil. Has anyone else had similar garlic issues?
  

Lily

6-23-08

Anyone know what kind of lily this is? It's about two feet high and has foliage that's similar to a tiger lily, though smaller of course.

Tiger Lily

Lilium lancifolium
5-23-08

Flower planting

I planted some roots and bulbs yesterday. Two each of Etna Astilbe and Straussenfeder Astilbe went in front of the neighbor's stone wall in the shade.

Six Grand Paradiso Lily bulbs were spread out between the telephone pole garden, the lily garden next to the front doors, and the garden in front of the fence and behind the grill. In the very back of the last garden went two Garden Pleasure Lily Tree bulbs. Still lots more to plant!

Mmmm...cheesecake

Here's the last slice of ricotta cheesecake I made from (mostly) local ingredients. I made the ricotta from Wake Robin Farm milk and added that to eggs from Two Hearts Farm in Morrisville and Organic Valley butter, which may have originated on Cobblestone Valley Farm, where I picked the strawberries we served on top.

I used Mark Bitten's recipe in How to Cook Everything and it worked pretty well. Lessons learned:

-Stir the milk less often while it's heating to result in ricotta that's a little less gritty.

-Get some heavy duty aluminum foil to wrap around the springform pan so the cake can bake in a water bath, resulting in more even baking.

-The orange zest was good, but it was stronger than I expected and distracted from the berries. Just vanilla would be perfect when you want to accentuate fresh local berries.

-Bittman says to double his graham cracker crumb recipe for this cheesecake for some mysterious reason, but it seemed way too much.

I picked another 16 pounds of berries this morning and hope to make one last trip to the farm before the season ends. All the rain we've been getting is starting to result in some overripe and moldy berries, but the picking was great today! I filled up the flat in less than two and a half hours.

Foxglove

6-23-08

Digitalis

Rose

6-12-08

A note about the photos: if you haven't tried it already, you can click on any of the images to see them much larger and in wonderful resolution. Try it with the rose, but especially with others, as there are many that I've already posted that are more interesting than this.

Mid-June Notes

6-12-08

Gold of Bacau Pole Bean

Planting is more or less finished after I finally got the sunflower and zinnia seeds in the ground today. I probably would have done those earlier, but we've got so many volunteer sunflowers that are stretching for the sky that it will nice to have these at their peak when the volunteers are petering out. Still left to do include planting some of the perennial bulbs, tubers, etc that I got for Kari for Mother's Day and arrived a week or so ago. I also still need to prune the lilac. By the time that's done, the garlic will just about be ready to harvest!

Cobblestone Valley Farm opened their strawberry fields on the 14th, the day before Father's Day. I made it down there on the 16th for an overflowing flat--16 pounds for $32. We've been gorging ourselves on berries at every meal since then. I also froze a couple quarts and gave a couple away. Today I made some ricotta cheese that I hope to use to make a strawberry ricotta cheesecake with tomorrow. If all goes well, I'll be back at the farm once or twice more before the season ends to make sure the freezer is stocked and we've had our fill of fresh berries for another year.

6-12-08
Thai Basil

After the terrible heat wave broke a week ago, we had a gorgeous four or five days of 70s/80s and sun. Now we're in the middle of a cool and wet week with temperatures barely getting into the 70s and showers scattered throughout each day. The peas love it and have recovered nicely from the woodchuck snack attack.

Today was all about the woodchuck. Every time I went outside I saw him scurrying out of the garden. This week's casualties include morning glory leaves, chard, lettuce, parsley, and (gasp!) some pole bean leaves. (The next set of leaves have started to come out, so I hope the plants will survive.) I repositioned the trap and tried a few different baits but still no luck. Right now we've got strawberries and some watermelon out there. I've tried carrots and even peanut butter and crackers to no avail. Any suggestions? I think it's a bad time to trap because he's got so much to choose from right now.

Cilantro Forest

6-12-08

As usual, the cilantro reseeded itself last year and has come back in full force.

Grace Episcopal Garden

I had to share with you this post from Cookin' in the Cuse which includes a video from msnbc.com. It looks like they've got a nice garden going over there. I'll have to ride by and check it out some day to see how it's growing.

Jennifer also has a good list of all the local farmer's markets in this post.

Painted Daisy

Chrysanthemum coccineum
6-12-08

Coreopsis

6-8-08

Time to play...plant identification!

I'll post a few pictures of flowers and you tell me what we've got! Here goes...

6-12-08

This seems to be coming from a bulb. It has foliage similar to a hyacinth, but it just bloomed a couple days ago. Those buds you see in the foreground are from the lavender it is next to in the bed.

6-8-08

This is a taller one that happens to be bending over.

6-8-08

This plant has green foliage that hugs the ground and turns reddish as the summer goes on, if I remember correctly. Each plant shoots up a few of these spindly stems with the clumps of little red flowers at the top, about a foot tall.

Greens

6-8-08
This is my favorite mustard green. Nice and pungent. It comes in a mix from Fedco and I've gotten it from Territorial in the past too. Anyone know the exact name? A mizuna maybe?

6-8-08
This rainbow chard is about twice this size today.

6-12-08

And here's the full bed. I planted a short row of rainbow chard and scattered a spicy seed mix for the rest of it. You can also see a broccoli plant I added in a bare spot. I typically don't have a lot of success with greens. Just as they are getting ready to eat many start to bolt because it's become too hot. I know I can fix that by starting the seeds indoors and transplanting them, but I'm not ready to take that step yet. It helps that George keeps us stocked with greens from his garden two doors down.

Peony

6-8-08

Chives

6-8-08
That's sage blooming in the background.

Iris

6-12-08

6-8-08

Early June Notes

Double Yield Cucumber

I haven't had much time to post (or garden) lately, so here are some notes on what's been happening over the last few weeks.

-I'm not sure when our last frost was. On May 1 there was frost in areas around the county, but I'm pretty sure we didn't get any in our garden. If we actually didn't get any frost in May, as I suspect, then our last frost might have been in the first week of April.

-May was only slightly cooler than average and quite dry.

-We are in the middle of a heatwave right now. This is day 3 of 90 degrees with at least 2 more to come.

-Unfortunately, I wasn't able to get everything planted before the heatwave. Thursday night I rigged up the trellis netting for the pole beans and I planted the beans last night. I also got cucumbers, summer squash, broccoli, thai basil and a few tomato plants in last night. Tonight I hope to finish the tomatoes and basil and plant as many peppers as I can.

-Most of my plants this year came from Black Brook Farm, who were selling at the co-op the Saturday of Memorial Day weekend. Our neighbor George starts his own plants from seed and he came through with peppers, tomatoes, squash, and one eggplant. I also picked up jalapenos and basil at the Regional Market this morning.

-After the vegetables are planted, we've got sunflower and zinnia seed itching to get in the ground, as well as some new perennials. I also need to prune the lilac bush.

-Strawberry alert! The local news was abuzz this past week that the first strawberries are ready for picking. Cobblestone Valley says they should have their organic berries ready in the coming week, which is slightly early for them. Since I have more free time with my June class being canceled, maybe I can make a weekly trip down for a season that might be four weeks long this year! Will trade berries for babysitting!

-Peonies bloomed this week.

-Someone is eating my peas. I've had a good-sized Hav-a-Hart trap set the last couple nights. I swear it was not tripped this morning but when I just went out to snap some photos, the trap was sprung and it was empty. And now I have both rows of peas eaten instead of just one. This means war. Or a fence.

Allium and Phlox

5-28-08

I know there are lots of varieties of phlox, but don't have a clue what these behind the allium are. Anyone know?

Jack-in-the-Pulpit

Arisaema triphyllum

This was one of the first plants transplanted from Avon when we moved here in 2005. It was a rough transplant and barely came back in 2006. 2007 was much better, but the flower still didn't last very long. This year the plant began flowering not long before this was taken on 5/18 and it's still going strong. It's in a nice shady spot up front, but also a spot that gets little rain. I'm sure it would like a bit more to drink, but it's nice to see it doing well. I find this purple-striped flower both fascinating and haunting.

Leopard's Bane

Doronicum orientale 'Magnificum'
5/11/08

The Leopard's Bane was already spent by this past weekend, but it was at its peak for Mother's Day.

Allium

Photo taken 5/11

A number of these came in the basket of bulbs I won last fall. We didn't note the exact variety, though.

Snow Pea Sprouts

After seeing how well my cover crop peas have done, I wish I had gotten these in the ground earlier! This picture was taken on 5/11. Another 5 days of seasonal weather with the right amount of rain have sped them up.

Snow peas are one of my garden favorites because they:

1) are easy to plant and grow;

2) deteriorate in quality very quickly after picking, so it's best to grow your own and eat them right off the vine;

3) are so tasty!

This year I planted Oregon Giant Snow Pea and Mammoth Melting Sugar Snow Pea. I'll have to get the trellis ready soon, as both like to climb. I'll keep you posted on their growth so you know when the time is right to stop by for a snack.

Forget-Me-Not

We had a few of these biennials, but Grammy transplanted more from Spring Street in April. Thanks Mom!

Lilac

The lilacs first started to bloom at the end of those hot weeks we had at the end of April. We were starting to get worried about them being spent too quickly for the Lilac Festival and general enjoyment at the traditional time in the middle of May. But the chilly weather (but no hard frosts!) over the next week or two slowed things down.

Green Manure Cover Crops

Austrian Winter Pea

Since I first started gardening, I've always tried to grow cover crops. They are an easy way to ensure healthy and fertile soil.

The idea is that in addition to the three elements found in any conventional fertilizer (Nitrogen, Phosphorous, and Potassium), soil needs plenty of organic matter. The organic matter, which is basically decomposed plant life, is filled with other minerals, helps the soil absorb and hold water (but not too much!), and generally makes life worth living for our plant friends.

When you just toss in a chemical-based fertilizer, you're giving your plants the basic N-P-K they need to survive, but your soil health will gradually deteriorate, beneficials like worms will find it harder to thrive, and your plants will get less and less happy, tasty, and nutritious over the years.

Now, a good gardener could and should work lots of compost into the soil every year to get a good mix of organic matter into your soil. I do a certain amount of this, but our family doesn't really produce enough compost to make the garden happy and I'm not big on seeking out alternative sources.

It has always seemed much simpler to just grow a cover crop. Flip through the seed catalog to find something that looks right, place the order in the Internet, and a week later the seeds arrive at your doorstep. Plant them when the time is right, watch them grow, and work them into the soil to complete the process.

Right now I'm growing a couple varieties of peas because they're hardy enough to go into the ground in early spring. In the past, I've also grown varieties of wheat, beans, clovers, and vetches. You mostly see Field Pea in the photo to the left with some Austrian Winter Pea in the background. I planted them the weekend of April 12th and watered them daily through a hot dry week because I had been too lazy and time-pressed to make sure they were deep enough in the soil to stay moist. Thankfully, Grandpa Bill visited at the end of the week, bought a few bags of topsoil, and covered them up. Four or five days later, they were sprouting through the soil and they've been thriving ever since. These pictures were taken May 10th.

As legumes, the peas are diligently fixing nitrogen in the soil that will be available for other vegetables to feed on all summer long. Additionally, after I work them into the soil, the foliage and roots will decompose and provide that all-important organic matter the soil needs. I dug up the first patch of peas to put my overwintered rosemary plant back into the garden. It's probably time now to work the rest of it into the other beds and let it decompose a bit before planting everything else. I just need the time to do it!

Like a few other things in life, there's still plenty more I'd like to know about cover crops. I'm especially interested in timing. I try to plant some in the early spring and work them into the ground before planting tomatoes, peppers, beans, and such in late May/early June. I also usually plant some in mid-late summer in the bed where garlic or peas were earlier harvested. But when is the ideal time to plant? Is it better for the cover crop to die off over the winter before working it into the soil? Is it possible to plant your vegetables too soon after you've worked your cover crop into the soil? Umbra tackled a portion of this question last week in Grist. Anyone else have answers?

Urban Farming

IN the shadows of the elevated tracks toward the end of the No. 3 line in East New York, Brooklyn, with an April chill still in the air, Denniston and Marlene Wilks gently pulled clusters of slender green shoots from the earth, revealing a blush of tiny red shallots at the base.


There's a great story in today's New York Times on urban farmers in New York City and other cities around the country. I've read about this spreading through vacant lots in Detroit, especially. We're not talking gardeners here--these are farmers, selling their produce in farmer's markets and elsewhere. Check it out.

Around the Neighborhood - International Fiber Collaborative

The abandoned gas station a few blocks away is now public art!

This project, called the International Fiber Collaborative, is scheduled to be taken down on June 14th. Come see it while you can! The installation was created by SU MFA student Jennifer Marsh and other artists. There's lots of information about the project and more photos up at its website.

Tulips

I entered the Westcott Bulb raffle last fall and won my choice of prizes! It wasn't a difficult choice considering one of the options was a basket full of a variety of spring bulbs. I was doubly lucky to have a wife who was happy to plant them all!

The crocuses have come and gone and the daffodils now are on their way out. Maybe today's rain will keep them around a little longer. The tulips, though, are spectacular right now. These are some shots from the front of the house yesterday.

You might be able to see the tiger lilies behind the tulips and some poppies coming up here too. One mission for this spring is to plant some more summer blooming flowers between the sidewalk and the street, probably in another bed. Any suggestions? It gets lots of morning sun and a fair amount more the rest of the day.

Asparagus is here!

We planted the asparagus in spring 2006. A rare perennial vegetable, it must grow a few years, building a root system and gathering energy through its fern-like vegetation, before it can be harvested. You can see what midsummer asparagus looks like in this photo of July of last year. You can see the ferns at the far edge of the image.

After two years of waiting, the time to harvest has arrived! April has been particularly warm and dry this year. I'm not sure how that has influenced the asparagus, but our first harvest came after a week or so of 70 degrees and sun.

We've now been picking for a week, just snapping it off at the base when the head looks mature, before it starts sprouting off it's branches. Tuesday, April 22nd was the first harvest.

The stuff grew like crazy the first week! We'd pick about 10 stalks for dinner and have 10 more ready the next day. It seems to be slowing now. Maybe it was too dry for awhile. Today it's 40 degrees and rainy, so we'll see how that impacts things. I've also been picking asparagus beetles off the stalks.
Here's the asparagus on April 23rd, the evening after the first pick. I didn't leave a single mature stalk the day before this picture, now we've got plenty for dinner!

So how do you like your asparagus? Our favorite is to splash some marinate on it and throw it on the grill. The fall back is a quick balsamic vinaigrette. This week we had a good Italian tofu marinate left over that I've been using up all week on it.

Here's our first meal on the night of the 22nd. The asparagus is paired with wild Alaskan sockeye salmon. A frozen cube of last year's garden basil pesto is on top. It's tough to beat this meal!

Welcome!

As the new garden season begins, I decided I should finally keep a journal. How things are growing...what the weather's like...dates of planting and harvesting...that sort of thing. I've never done this before out of laziness, but then I figured if I make it a blog I can share it with all ya'll and also post lots of pretty pictures. If you're so inclined, feel free to check in and see how the garden (and the kids) are growing.