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?