Seeds

I planted peas yesterday. A post about that is coming soon. In the meantime, I've been meaning to post about seed catalogs all winter but never got around to it. What are your favorite catalogs? When do you start browsing? And when do you really start to get serious about what you're going to plant come spring?

Fedco is my favorite place to order seeds, for a combination of geography, philosophy, and selection. Plus their catalogs are fabulous. Get yourself on the mailing list to read this year's letter, feast your eyes on the gorgeous line drawings, and enjoy the descriptions of the varieties.

This was my order, placed February 17th.

225BO-Royal Burgundy Bush Bean OG (A=2oz) 1 x $1.80= $1.80
262GO-Golden Rocky Bush Wax Bean OG (A=2oz) 1 x $1.80= $1.80
277DO-Dragon Langerie Bush Wax Bean OG (A=2oz) 1 x $1.80= $1.80
818GT-Oregon Giant Snow Pea (A=2oz) 1 x $1.30= $1.30
822BO-Blizzard Snow Pea OG (A=2oz) 1 x $2.00= $2.00
883GO-Sugar Ann Snap Pea OG (A=2oz) 1 x $2.00= $2.00
893SO-Sugarsnap Snap Pea OG (A=2oz) 1 x $2.00= $2.00
2981LO-Lettuce Mix OG (A=1g) 1 x $1.10= $1.10
2993GO-Greens Mix OG (A=1g) 1 x $1.10= $1.10
3314DP-Diplomat Broccoli (A=0.5g) 1 x $1.90= $1.90
5277SH-Scarlett OHara Morning Glory (A=3.5g) 1 x $0.90= $0.90
5278SS-Sunrise Serenade Morning Glory (A=0.25g) 1 x $1.60= $1.60
5401AO-Autumn Beauty Mix Sunflower OG (A=1g) 1 x $1.00= $1.00
5414RE-Ruby Eclipse Sunflower (A=0.5g) 1 x $1.10= $1.10
5427YO-Soraya Sunflower OG (A=0.5g) 1 x $1.80= $1.80
5433TO-Tigers Eye Sunflower OG (A=1g) 1 x $1.10= $1.10
5436VI-Vanilla Ice Sunflower (A=0.5g) 1 x $1.00= $1.00-currently on backorder
5468BM-Benarys Giants Mix Zinnia (A=0.5g) 1 x $1.20= $1.20
5491SF-State Fair Mix Zinnia (A=0.5g) 1 x $0.90= $0.90

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