Dehydrating

Sorry about the long absence, all my faithful fans :) There was a small IE problem at work and when it was "fixed" for some reason I can't get blogger to come up, and since that was where I did most of my posting... well.

Anyway, this week I picked up an Excalibur dehydrator off craigslist. It will actually end up going to my brother but since he can't get it for a while, I'm testing it out :) I just peeled and sliced 2 lbs of carrots and stuck them in. When I was doing that, I noticed that not only is this a dehydrator but it also has a setting for rising bread AND making yogurt. What a fabulously useful tool! Someday I will get myself one as well. In the meantime, I'll use his :) He's using the canner and so in the meantime I can dry what I need to put up.

I guess I should do a garden report. I'm about ready to dig all my potatoes. So far they have been pretty prolific and quite delicious. I can't wait to try the fingerlings, which I haven't yet. I'll dig them tomorrow with Eleora. Like I thought, I didn't have much time to keep things up so I have lots of peas, beans and cucumbers going to seed. Those Richland Green Apple cukes were FABULOUS though. I will definitely be replanting them next year.

The tomatillos and tomatoes have been doing well. We had our first orange tomato (Dad's Sunset) yesterday and it was very very delicious. The first ripe tomato was one of the paste tomatoes, though (it was about a month ago). I've got tons of those guys now, and I will definitely be replanting those too (Principe Borghese). Those are the italian tomato that they usually use for sundrying so I think I could dehydrate those too, at least the ones I have on hand. Our weather this summer has been cooler - we had a really hot stretch in July for a couple weeks but since then it's mostly been in the 70s and 80s. So I'm not sure how well things will continue to perform. Our "early" tomatoes (Siletz) haven't been too early, still haven't ripened yet. I will give them another chance because that particular plant was situated in a spot that got a lot less sun than I thought it would. There's a few of those on the vine that are almost ripe.

I have one small pumpkin that I know of... I'm glad about that, one should do me just fine for the winter. I don't think I'll get any melon, only one plant survived and it doesn't seem to have set any fruit.

I harvested all my garlic aboout a month ago and it did really really well. Some of the bulbs were pretty good size, and the smallness of the rest I could definitely see when you consider how LATE I planted them last year. I saved back the best of the heads to replant this fall.

In other news, the neighbor's dog paid a visit to my garden yesterday, tore up a spot in one of my beds. I caught him in the act and then he ran away, jumped the fence. I went over to assess the damage... and there is a dead GROUNDHOG in my garden. Yuck. It's still there, I was hoping to see the neighbor but I think I'll just take Tommy's advice and just pitch it back over the fence and let him deal with it. Seems a bit, oh, snarky to me, but then again I shouldn't be responsible for disposing of an animal carcass that his dog tried to bury in my garden!

garden update

Ok well I got yelled at this weekend because I haven't blogged in a long time. Truth be told, I've just been focusing on trying to go through and haven't had the time for my garden inspections and whatnot. Plus I'm working on writing a novel also and so that takes up a lot of my "write-y" time.

So the garden has gotten pretty messy. Mostly because I never got any mulch to lay between the beds. I've decided to pull up all the rotted cardboard and stuff in between the beds and just start having Tommy mow between them. At least it won't look as crazy with tall grasses and stuff.

It's almost time to pull the garlic. Yesterday I pulled a couple heads that had died back completely and I was very excited to see full-size heads :) I've pulled a couple here and there to use and they were pretty small so this was nice. This weekend I was at the property and pulled up the 3 heads of garlic that grew (from the 5 I'd planted) and they were pretty small. My mom said that our neighbors who also planted garlic ended up with fairly small heads too.

My cabbages and broccolis are growing like nuts but nothing forming on them yet. The pumpkins have blooms forming, and I think the one melon that didn't get eaten by the slugs has some on it too. I'm not sure if they need to cross-pollinate, but I hope I get at least one melon out of it :)

I've got some peppers and tomatoes forming, and a couple cute little tomatillos. Some of the onions are bulbing up nicely. My basil is slowly plugging along, not growing as fast as I'd hoped.

We've had a couple harvests of a couple strawberries. They are so delicious when homegrown! Incredibly sweeter and more flavor. Eleora likes to take them from the plant when they are barely ripening, though, so it's kind of a race to see who gets them first.

Peas are producing, which is fun. I've showed Eleora what they look like so she is having fun looking through the mess of vines for the pods. The beans are coming along nicely and will probably start blooming in the near future. I still need to plant more carrots, never did the succession planting that I'd planned and so I only have 2 squares of them right now. Gave up on radishes which is fine, we burned out on them anyway :)

OH and the nasturtiums I planted, one has a bloom. The most beautiful deep rich bright red I've ever seen in a flower. I think they are called "Empress." I'll have to take a picture of that one... absolutely gorgeous. Oh, and the cucumbers also have blooms and I have a few cute little ones forming :)

Hummus

Just made this yesterday and it's fantastic! I'm kinda excited to see all the new uses I'm gonna find for this stuff. Made with fresh garlic from my garden, of course.

1 can garbanzo beans, drained and liquid reserved
3 tbs tahini
3/4 cups reserved bean liquid
3 tbs lemon juice
1/2 tbs olive oil
2 cloves garlic
1/2 tsp salt
pinch cumin
pinch black pepper
1/4 tsp mediterranean seasoning (I have a gyros spice mix I bought in Germany to use for this)

Throw it in a blender and blend till creamy. You can use more or less liquid from the beans to make it the consistency you like. 3/4 was what I used which is about the minimum that my blender liked, I used Tommy's magic bullet blender.

So good... great with triscuits, veggies, and I'm thinking if I made a runnier one it would make a good pizza sauce... lots of good fats and healthy protein in this stuff, especially when eaten with a whole grain cracker or pita.

And it's CHEAP!

One more year...

Until Tommy is finished with school.

Sigh...

SO disappointed... they took my milk away :(

Well, not fully away, but mostly. We get WIC from the state which helps us a LOT right now. We go through probably 3-4 gallons of milk a week. I was so excited last month when I posted that there is now local fresh milk in the stores from the SPOKANE'S FAMILY FARM. The stuff is fantastic, tastes great, low-heat pasteurized... I can't wait to make cheese from it.

But apparently the fact that it isn't homogenized makes it a no-go for WIC rules. So the month or so we've been drinking it, while it has been wonderful, we will now need to go back to drinking regular trucked-in storebought :(

I called the WIC office at the state, spoke with a supervisor, then I called Trish at the dairy. She was a gem and was just made aware of the situation. She is looking into it and I hope she can figure out a way to make it WIC OK. Apparently, they don't homogenize on purpose. I didn't know this before, but homogenization breaks up the nice round fat globules into teeny pointy ones that are more damaging to your heart. Think... tiny little pieces of fiberglass. Great.

Anyway, I'm gonna cross my fingers and hope that at some point, they find a way to make it work. Maybe by going kosher, they can solve that problem. We'll see. In the meantime, if we ever need to buy milk out of pocket, I know what I'll be getting! :)

Here's a reprint from a recent newspaper article about the dairy, from
http://www.spokesman.com/stories/2009/may/20/udderly-fresh/.

“C’mon girls. C’mon,” Mike Vieira calls out his evening invitation to the ladies in black and white at Spokane’s Family Farm. “C’mon,” he repeats, walking into the pasture, “C’mon. Let’s go.” Visitors make the “girls” hesitate slightly, but they eventually oblige and line up behind the barn door for the evening milking. It’s a ritual repeated twice daily at the farm 13 miles west of Spokane where Mike and Trish Vieira bottle up to 2,000 gallons of milk each week. “This is what everyone thinks of when they think of a dairy,” Mike Vieira says.

The couple began milking cows a little over a month ago, after spending the winter retrofitting the 100-year-old barn with modern milking and pasteurizing equipment and preparing for the arrival of the Holstein cows. It’s a small operation, with just 30 animals in a state where the average dairy had 480 cows in 2007. Many of the state’s large dairy operations have more than 2,000 animals.

Mike Vieira worked as a dairyman near Othello, selling his milk to the Darigold cooperative, before coming to the Spokane area. Although he was known for being a top-quality producer, Vieira says the milk he produced was dumped together with that of the other 850 members and bottled. He longed for closer connection to the finished product.

So, the Vieiras decided to move near one of the state’s bigger cities to find a market for an old-fashioned dairy – where milk is produced and bottled on the farm and then sold nearby. The milk from Spokane’s Family Farm is no more than 72 hours from the cow and has traveled less than 20 miles by the time it lands on grocery store shelves.

“I have a lot of incentive to produce quality milk,” says Mike Vieira, who recently turned 38. “My name is right there on the label. It comes down to me.”

Spokane’s Family Farm uses low-heat pasteurization to kill the potentially harmful pathogens in the milk. It’s heated to 145 degrees and held there for 30 minutes before it is quickly cooled to prepare for bottling. Most commercial milk is pasteurized at higher temperatures (HTST) to kill the bacteria as well as other enzymes in the milk and extend the shelf life. Some milk is ultra-heat pasteurized (UHT), or heated to a temperature that kills almost all of the microorganisms and can be shelf stable if it is put in hermetically sealed packaging.

Food and Drug Administration researchers say the higher temperature pasteurization doesn’t significantly affect the nutritional value of milk. Others believe human bodies benefit from the natural enzymes that are left intact by low-temperature pasteurization. They also like the flavor better, and the remaining enzymes help with the fermentation of milk into cheese and yogurt.
The Vieiras like the taste of the milk and the “good bacteria” left behind. Although they like keeping the milk closer to its natural state, they don’t believe in selling raw milk. “It is a liability and it’s still a serious issue,” says Mike Vieira, who also worked for five years in dairy sanitation as a troubleshooter for Sunnyside Dairy Supply.

Spokane’s Family Farm doesn’t homogenize the milk, which means the cream rises to the top of the jugs. Most commercial milk has the cream separated out, and then sprayed back into the milk in a prescribed amount (1 percent, 2 percent or about 3 percent for whole milk). The cream is forced through tubes at high pressure to break up the fat so it no longer separates from the low-fat milk.

Milk from Spokane’s Family Farm averages about 3.5 percent fat. Shake the jug for creamy whole milk or, as the Vieiras suggest, store it in an iced tea dispenser with the spigot on the bottom. The milk that settles to the bottom has about 2 percent fat and the cream that rises to the top can be saved and made into butter, used for coffee or even whipped. It has about a three-week shelf life. The retail price is $4.29 per gallon. It is sold on the farm for $3.50.
Running a dairy is not easy work. Vieira wakes before 5 a.m. every day to feed the “girls” and get them ready for the 5:30 a.m. milking. Cleaning, sanitizing, bottling and other farm chores keep the couple busy until the evening milking. Most days are 18 hours long and sometimes end with the Vieiras delivering milk to stores that are running low.

“There is no pause button on these cows,” Trish Vieira says. Friends and volunteer hands on the farm like to tease them about the never-changing schedule, “They like to rib me. ‘What are you doing this weekend?’ they’ll ask,” Mike Vieira says.

The farm on Coulee Hite Road was used as a dairy until 1962. The Vieiras retrofitted it with state-of-the-art equipment, but it’s still what’s called a “flat barn.” Most dairy operations have a pit so that dairy workers are at eye level with the cows’ udders.

“You don’t have to bend over to milk cows anymore,” he says. “I still do.”
Actually, most of the time he’s squatting. For the first two weeks of operation, Vieira says he was sore from his toes to his ears.

“I’m in it because I love the cows,” he says. “It’s all I ever wanted to do. I think I started saying I wanted to be a dairy farmer about second grade.”

That was after a trip to his uncle’s dairy farm in California captured his imagination. His first job out of high school was as herdsman for a dairy. He recently told a group of veterinary students that if any of them were thinking about dairying, they needed to see a psychiatrist for at least a year. And then at the end of the year if they still want a dairy they should get a second opinion.
The Vieiras have five grown daughters in their blended family. They’ve been married for about two years and have a son, 1 1/2-year-old Kohl. There’s a playpen for him in the barn where the cows are milked, but on a recent evening he was perched atop the nightly feed ration in the wheelbarrow.

The dairy is not certified organic. The cows eat locally grown grains. Although the Vieiras wanted to reserve the right to treat a sick animal on the farm with antibiotics, they would never allow the milk to go into their tanks.

The farm is 160 acres, and they hope to eventually double the operation to 60 cows.
Mike Vieira takes pride in his contented herd, which he bought from an 80-year-old dairyman and his son. When he lets the first group of cows into the barn, they quickly assume positions in each of the milking stalls.

He quickly cleans each cow’s teats using an iodine and glycerin solution and then strips a bit of milk from each one before attaching the milking apparatus. The rhythmic sound of the machinery fills the small barn. The cows eat until the milking is complete, and the units automatically detach and are drawn back up into position for the next round.
Trish Vieira brushes the mud and dried waste from the hide of the cows while she helps with milking. She helps shoo the cows outside, and then they start over with the second group.
She walks outside while the milking and cleaning is finished. Tomorrow, they’ll start the whole process again.
“C’mon girls. C’mon.”


Old-Fashioned Vanilla Ice Cream
From Trish Vieira, Spokane Family Farm. Vieira says when she made this with additional milk from the farm instead of cream to lower the fat, no one noticed.
3 cups sugar
1/2 cup flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
6 1/4 cups Spokane’s Family Farm Milk with cream on top
5 fresh eggs, lightly beaten
5 cups whipping cream (can use whole milk for less fat)
2 tablespoons vanilla
Combine first three ingredients in saucepan. Gradually stir in the milk, cook over medium heat for approximately 15 minutes, until thickened, stirring constantly.
Gradually stir 1 cup of the hot mixture into the beaten eggs. Add to remaining hot mixture, stirring constantly. Cook for 1 minute, remove from heat, and refrigerate for 2 hours. Add whipping cream and vanilla to chilled mixture and whip with wire whisk. Freeze as directed.
For an electric home freezer, use approximately 2 cups of rock salt per batch and 1 1/2 bags of ice cubes. Vieira puts a little water into the freezer bucket (about 2 cups) to start the ice and salt melting process. Fresh fruit or chocolate cookie bits can be added to flavor the custard before freezing.
Yield: About 5 quarts

Homemade Yogurt
From Trish Vieira, Spokane’s Family Farm. This yogurt can be used in place of sour cream, she says.
1 quart whole milk
5 grams yogurt starter
Heat one quart of milk to 180 degrees and then cool down to 108 to 112 degrees Fahrenheit.
Dissolve 5 grams yogurt starter (or use unflavored yogurt) in small quantity of lukewarm milk. Then pour back into the quart of milk and mix well.
Incubate for 4 to 4 1/2 hours, or until yogurt has reached the desired firmness.
Refrigerate to stop incubation.
Fresh fruit or jam can be added to sweeten the yogurt. A yogurt appliance can be used to incubate the yogurt.
Yield: 4 cups yogurt

French Breakfast Puffs
From Trish Vieira, Spokane Family Farm. She says these are “simply divine.”
1/3 cup butter
1/2 cup sugar
1 egg
1 1/2 cup flour
1 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon freshly ground nutmeg
1/2 cup whole milk
Topping
6 tablespoons melted butter
1/2 cup sugar
1 1/2 teaspoons cinnamon
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Cream together butter and sugar. Add egg and mix just until blended.
In a separate bowl, combine flour, baking powder, salt and nutmeg. Stir in flour mixture alternately with 1/2 cup milk.
Fill muffin tins two-thirds full with batter and bake for 20 to 25 minutes.
While the puffs are baking, melt 6 tablespoons butter and mix together sugar and cinnamon.
When puffs are baked, remove from the oven and immediately dip them in melted butter and roll in cinnamon sugar mixture.
Yield: 6 to 8 servings

Hot Fudge Pudding Cake with Dark Chocolate Rum Sauce
From Trish Vieira, Spokane’s Family Farm.
1 1/4 cup sugar, divided
1 cup flour
7 tablespoons cocoa, divided
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup milk
1/3 cup melted butter
1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla
1/2 cup brown sugar
1 cup hot water
1/4 cup dark rum
Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
Combine ¾ cups sugar, flour, 3 tablespoons cocoa, baking powder and salt.
Blend in milk, melted butter and vanilla. Pour into an 8-by-8-inch pan.
In a small bowl, combine ½ cup sugar, brown sugar and 4 tablespoons cocoa.
Sprinkle over cake batter.
Pour hot water and dark rum over the top. Bake 35 minutes. Serve with ice cream or whipped cream.
Yield: 1 (8-by-8-inch) cake

Mediterranean Farfalle with spinach and feta cheese

Made this last night, I kinda threw it together to use up a costco-size container of baby spinach but it was a big hit!

1 lb sausage (we used kielbasa, but you could also even use chunks of chicken or any other meat, or even omit)
1 box (8 servings) of mini farfalle (bowtie) pasta
10 oz baby spinach
2 cans of garlic diced tomatoes
Feta Cheese (amount depends on your taste)
Olive oil
Balsamic Vinegar
Greek seasoning blend

In a skillet, cook the sausage with a little olive oil and a generous amount of the greek seasoning blend. When it has browned, add the tomatoes, some of the feta and balsamic vinegar. Cook until reduced.

In the meantime, begin the water for the pasta.

When the sauce is reduced to the right consistency (whatever you want!) turn off the heat and add the spinach. Mix the spinach into the sauce and cover until the pasta is done. When the pasta is done, toss with the sauce & spinach and top with the remainder of the feta cheese.

Milky goodness

The other day I was at the grocery store and I needed to get milk. I was walking through the aisle and as I was approaching the milk section I noticed something different. A strange new brand of milk was next to my normal Darigold. As I walked closer, I started to be able to make out the words on the label.

The music swelled as the chorus sang "Hallelujah!" There it was, on the jug's label - "Spokane's Family Farm."

I was stunned in disbelief. I picked up the jug, cradled it lovingly in my arms, and inspected the label closely. Yes, my eyes had not deceived me. Something I had been looking for since I moved here - locally produced milk! I immediately filled my cart with three gallons. We do go through about 2-3 gallons of milk per week (Eleora loves milk). I've been buying 1% but all they have is whole. I'm making the switch entirely, and I'll just drink less myself to compensate for the calories.

The best part? It's not homogenized. It is pasteurized but it's cream-on-the-top whole milk and so I'm THINKING and HOPING that I will finally be able to make a decent cheese. We'll see!

Mother's Day weekend

And what a weekend it was!

I did have to work a half day on Saturday so after I got off work we packed up the kids (OK after they woke up from naps) and went to the 2009 Garden Expo. I wanted to see if I could get my Mother's Day gift there and then maybe pick up a couple blueberry bushes.

They had TONS of cool stuff there. Totally not what I was looking for, though. I think next year I'll have to force my mom to come with me. There were lots of great booths with all kinds of outdoor decor, furniture made from thin saplings, antiques refinished (a FABULOUS potting shelf or two or hundred), tons of plants and veggie starts, etc. It was really fun! Except there was only one place to buy rose bushes and they were like $17 for one small stem (unique ones, though).

So afterwards we went to Big R and I picked out my rosebush :) And for those of you who think it's weird for me to get my own gift... well yeah. This is the first year we've implemented what will become our Dasko family tradition. Every year for mother's day, my dad used to get my mom a fuchsia hanging basket. I like that tradition, but wanted roses instead. T didn't have a chance to get one earlier this week and then when we decided to go to the Expo we just assumed they would be there. Apparently not. So I got a beautiful cream-colored rose with red edges. Similar to my old favorite Double Delight but a different type. I'll put it into a large container and then in a few years when we move to the property I'll plant my roses (at that point there will probably be several) in a permanent spot.

In the garden news, I planted more radishes yesterday with Eleora. She was a great help. I poked holes in the dirt, and gave her one seed at a time to drop in. We did 12 in a square around the outsides of a couple holes where I'll be putting in a tomato plant. I think we planted a total of 36. We'll be rolling in radishes soon! The 2 squares I planted a few weeks ago are coming up strong. Right next to them I have my first batch of spinach coming up. The lettuce is also coming up and the onions are really gaining strength. I do think, however, that I will be getting some starts from the nursery still. The strawberries have put on a ton of new growth.

On Friday, the girls brought home some marigolds potted in cups for Mother's Day. They went into the garden on Sunday. Eleora always talks about "Mama's special flowers" and finally she has some she can call her own! Still haven't seen any sprouts from the other herbs I've planted or my carrots.

The plant starts are still doing well. The Tomatillos are growing so fast, though, I think they are outgrowing their container. Next year I'll plant those a little later. One of them even has a bloom! I have all my starts potted in little 9 or 12oz cups (I can't remember which size). Next year I'll be doing soil blocks so I think it will be easier to keep them in the correct size.

I didn't turn my compost pile... I realized i'm gonna need another container to turn it INTO since I put the bolts on backwards (and therefore can't take the "bin" off the pile while it's standing like I should be able to). So I'm gonna see if I can get another one. It's still nice and warm and I've got lots of coffee grounds waiting to be mixed in.

Watching grass grow...

This morning Tommy came in all excited and said "Hey come look! Come look! My grass is growing!"

A couple weeks ago he spent a lot of time under the spruce tree in our backyard raking up years worth of accumulated pine needles that were choking the soil. It is a pretty much bare spot that would only grow the occasional weed and we wanted it to be grass. So he raked up the needles, replanted some grass seed and raked it in with compost, manure and peat moss. He's been faithfully watering it for a week or 2 and this morning he was so excited to finally see little blades of grass. It seemed like they came out of nowhere although they were in some places an inch long, so I know they have been there for a little bit but we just didn't notice them.

When we came back inside, he remarked that now he knew what it felt like for me showing him all the new sprouts in my garden :)

And in terms of the garden, here's the latest. My radishes (2 squares) are up. I'm going to plant another 2 squares this weekend. One of my potato bins has 2 potatoes showing. Some of my onions are going strong but since I never hardened them off a lot of them have died. I think I'm going to stop by the local nursery tomorrow or whenever I have a chance and get some onion starts. I could go by seed also, since I have plenty left, but I want to get the head start that I would from starts.

My compost bin is heating up! Although I don't think the entire bin is heating up... more like just in the spots where I've been adding my kitchen scraps. I make myself a lot of crudites to take to work for snacks and so I generate quite a bit of fruit and veggie waste. Today it was the peelings and trimmings from 4 large carrots, 4 large stalks of celery, one kiwi, a half a cucumber and the tops from about 6 or 7 large strawberries and 5 radishes. Add to that a banana peel from breakfast, Eleora's leftover toast you've got a good plateful of scraps already, and that's just the morning. We do this every day.

So the other day I went to take out the day's scraps and when I was burying them I noticed HEAT! My first time ever. Of course I was excited and made Tommy come out and see. I even dug a bit around so he could feel the heat and see the steam. The whole pile is definitely not heating up, though. I did see a couple sunken spots where I'd put scraps so I think it's just those localized areas. We'll see.

I've started picking up coffee grounds from the local Starbucks. I don't particularly like their coffee or support the big business enterprise... but as lame as it is, I haven't found one locally owned coffeehouse that is willing to save grounds for their customers. On the other hand, Starbucks even has a bin inside the store where they put them, they have a system set up that makes it easy for us. I've got quite a bit on hand already and will be checking for grounds in the mornings before work, since they are on my way. This weekend I'll turn the compost pile and add all the grounds that I'm able to collect. I know my pile isn't heating up enough just because I don't quite have enough greens... so that's the easiest source for me of a large amount of greens. This morning I got at least a kitchen trash bag size full of grounds, and yesterday I got 2 5-pound coffee bags full of grounds. I'll just keep collecting through the week and by Sunday when I actually do the turning I'm sure I'll have tons. That oughta heat up the pile pretty good and give me some finished compost pretty soon. I've been cold composting since all last year but I am ready to start working on heating it up and getting the right balances. I have a garage full of bagged leaves that I got in the fall (seriously, I have about 25 bags) and so that and the coffeegrounds, veggie scraps, garden waste, etc. will probably allow me to make enough compost this summer to top off the beds this fall.

And as far as my started seeds, my cucumbers. basil and marigolds are up so far. I admit I haven't checked in about 2 days so the other plants might be up also. I've been hardening off my other plants (the wrong way, I might add... I didn't start them as slow as I could have). I plan on planting them outside in the 17th, so they have a good 2 weeks to get used to being outside before being set out. Once all the rest of the plants downstairs germinate I might just let them go outside too. The seeds I have downstairs are 3 types of cukes, marigolds, basil, million dollar melon (I thought I got Charentais but couldn't find them) and also my Jarrahdale pumpkins.

My garlic yesterday was looking a bit yellowed, kinda like Granny's, and so I was thinking I should make some cornmeal tea (that's what you used, right?) but then this morning they looked green and strong. It did rain pretty hard last night so maybe they just needed a drink. I've got most of the hoses cut for my irrigation system, I mostly just now need to put them all together and install it in the garden. That will make it a lot easier to water it. I was going to get it done this weekend but didn't have the time... and really, I figure as long as I can get it in by the time most of my plants will go in (2 weeks) I should be fine. I still have few enough plants that I can water using a watering can at this point.

Staying home...

Yesterday Eleora brought home a note from the daycare director that her teacher was leaving because she has the opportunity to now stay home with her kids. I am really happy for her, but it also makes me melancholy.

Now that spring is here especially, it seems like every single day I wish I could just stay home with my kids and hang out with them, teach them how to do stuff outside, get my gardening done, cook decent suppers where we can all sit together around the table (more than just on the weekends), keep up on laundry, the kids can get the proper amount of sleep in their naps, and so many more reasons.

Only one more year... actually about 13 months till Tommy is done with school!

The Compost Fair!

So on Saturday I went with my mom to the annual Composting Fair put on by the Spokane Master Composters. We're both very interested in becoming master composters ourselves and might do the program next year. It's not really compatible with my current schedule although I was just thinking... I bet I could trade shifts for those days. Who knows, maybe I'll even be on an earlier shift next year. It won't be until next spring anyway.

So anyway it was really cool! It was an overcast drizzly day so we dressed a bit warmer than we have been and headed up to the Finch Arboretum. We found a fabulous front-row parking spot and went up to the displays. They were also having an arbor day festival and so there were lots of displays and people there.

The sad truth is, almost nothing they taught me was new to me. It sure was fun to go though! They had displays on what are greens & browns, how to build a pile, the different types of bins, composting with worms, making compost tea, etc. They also had a cool video that I thought was pretty informative. That's where I saw one thing I need to start doing. Actually 2 things, but I'll go over that in a bit.

My pile at home is pretty much a cold pile. I built it with kitchen waste and cardboard shreds but it was too far for the hose to really reach so it never got moist enough. I also didn't really mix anything in, I pretty much just dump the kitchen scraps on top and throw my browns on, either cardboard or now, leaves. The video showed the people actually sort of burying the scraps in the pile and just covering them up using a handheld garden cultivator, not adding any new browns or anything. I realized that it was probably a lot more efficient to do it that way and resolved to begin adding my waste that way. Also, they had pitchforks that they were mixing and turning the compost with, which I don't have.

I had a small pile of leftover manure that I'd been wanting to combine with my existing pile. At the fair they gave me a black plastic (or hard rubber?) compost bin. It's a sheet that you put together in a circle, much like my existing bin that's made of a circle of hardware cloth. So on Sunday, Tommy went to Big R for some more grass seed (I'll post on that later) and picked me up a pitchfork. After dinner we went outside and I put together the new bin (it turned out quite a bit bigger than the existing one), dumped my compost pile over and started redoing it into the big bin.

For one, it was pretty funny to watch the mice scurry out of my pile. I know birds come a lot and eat the stuff from my pile (sandwich crusts, etc) but I didn't realize how many mice had nests in it. At least one of them actually ended up in the new bin and unless it can manage to dig or chew it's way out, the holes aren't big enough so it will most likely become compost itself.

I set it up where the hose could reach, and Tommy helped me dampen everything while I forked the old compost pile (it was stinky!), the manure, and mix it together. It was fun! The manure, leaves, cardboard, and some (composted) kitchen stuff all went in together nicely. I think it's a pretty good blend, if a bit low on greens but we'll have to see. Hopefully it will heat up a bit and then I'll know it's a good pile.

The other thing I didn't realize itself was a good visual assessment of the proper mix and ratio. At the fair they actually had piles that they'd started earlier in the week and they were already heating up and in the process of being turned as we went by. It was a great way to really look and see what a good balanced pile looks like.

After we were done, we went home and had some nice hot taco soup. It was a really nice day :) I really hope I can find a way to do the master composter program next year.

Potted up today, planted strawberries

Today I had a half day at work with the morning off. Although, to my unfortunate luck, I also had to have a root canal today.

So I dropped the girls off at daycare, then went to a local nursery. I got a couple small houseplant starts that I'd been looking for an 5 strawberry plants. Then I went and spent about 45 minutes at the dentist. I have a very nice dentist and it went pretty well, all things considered.

Then I came home and finished installing my new shop lights, and got everything potted up except the 2 remaining flats of peppers and broccoli. Which, by the way, are so overgrown that they are pushing the humidity domes up. There were some tomatoes that were in toilet paper rolls and also egg cartons. NOTE TO SELF: DO NOT USE EGG CARTONS. They dried out way too fast, didn't have much space for roots, and pretty much all those tomatoes are gone. I transplanted a couple that I'm hoping might make it, but I have mostly doubts. The hard part is that was all the cherry (actually currant) tomatoes. I don't think I have any that survived... we'll see. But I have a TON of paste tomatoes. The tomatillos are actually growing extremely well.

The funny part was this - the tomatoes I'd potted into TP rolls had mushrooms! Yes, real ones. I inoculated the soil mix with a bacteria/fungus mix and obviously those containers provided the right conditions for fruiting because each one had mushrooms in it. They were very cute. Until I buried them when I potted up the 'maters :)

Tomorrow I managed to be able to take half the day off as well and so I'm off at 2 tomorrow. Hopefully I'll get some more done - I really need to get going on those 2 remaining flats and also plant stuff outside! I've been delaying planting outside because I don't have irrigation in place yet. I did find a place online where I could order everything I needed shipped for about $82. This includes the kind of soaker hose with the internal emitters and pretty much everything I need. Still... $82!

Need irrigation advice!

Hey all you readers out there (all 5 of you ;)!

I am trying to figure out the cheapest but effective way to set up some sort of drip irrigation for my raised beds. I'm looking online but all the DIY methods also involve lots of expensive stuff.

So... any ideas?

Pictures from the Property

3 posts in one day! Oh my!

Ok actually it's really really slow at work today and my mom who is up at the property right now took some pictures and sent them to me. Specifically I asked her to send me pictures of the garlic but she sent me some others, so I thought I'd post them :)

Here's my first compost project. I actually had a whole bunch, about 30 pounds, of old rancid soap that I'd made. I wasn't going to use it, so this was my project to try and compost it. Supposedly soap will compost. As you can see, it's been spread out quite a bit. I imagine the wildlife have been picking through it a bit. I layered it lasagne-style with cardboard, rabbit manure, leaves and the soap. It's kind of an eyesore, but was fun!

Yeah yeah, just another forest picture, right? Well yeah, I guess so. But it's a pretty picture, huh! This is actually the spot (I think) where I will be clearing it out and making a meadow that will someday become a farm.

This is the view from our homesite. Isn't it beautiful? This photo was actually taken from down below at the "bench" but it shows the view the best. We'll probably top off or clear out some of those taller trees since there's plenty of woods behind us and that way it will not obstruct the view. I can't wait!

Worm Composting

I think it's time to retire my worm bins. I'm horrible at maintaining them now that I have a backyard with a regular compost pile. Down in the basement, y poor worms, hardy souls that they may be, have been severely neglected.

So I think one of the to-do things on my list for this weekend will be to distribute the contents of the bins among my garden beds. The beds are filled with mulch-y food for them anyway, and I think they will do better out there. More room for them to expand in numbers, and a pretty much indefinite supply of food with all the compost, manure, shavings and leaves that fill the beds.

It's kind of a sad thing, though. Those compost bins really helped me through the time when I lived in the apartment and had no yard. I really hope and pray that I never have to live in an apartment ever again. Living with no yard to work in for me is a difficult scenario. So, it's bittersweet, but I think the only sad part is really my nostalgia kicking in. And if anything ever comes up and I need to set up a bin again I can always go grab some worms to start with from my garden beds. I'm sure by the end of the summer there will be bazillions :)

The weekend's work

So we went up to the property for the day on Saturday. Actually, a partial day. Eleora threw up a couple times on the way there and I think it wasn't just carsickness, but I think she had what Sophia had earlier this week. She seemed a bit better but lethargic, practically begged to take a nap later on. We ended up just going home around 3 after she woke up. But in the meantime it was great to tromp around on the property! We went around with my dad and brothers looking at the property lines and discussing home sites. Someday soon we'll need to start actually planning instead of discussing!

My garlic is looking fabulous up there! If you remember, last fall I planted a couple cloves of garlic and mulched them with old leaves. They survived and came up quite nicely. A little shorter than my garlic here, but the winter lasts a bit longer up there than it does down here. I'd say the garlic was at least 6-8 inches tall already. You can see in the pictures that it's definitely doing well. I'm just glad deer don't eat garlic! I did plant 5 cloves and only 4 seem to have come up but that's not bad.
I also had a couple bags of really badly sprouted potatoes. Not really good for anything but planting or composting, so I took them up there and Mom will find a place and plant them. Who knows what will come from that!

So then we came home and had a nice quiet evening. Eleora was feeling better on the way home, as indicated by the near-constant "Old Petonald hadda farm, EIEIO" we heard ;) Fia slept the whole way home. Eleora was still not 100% but at least she was feeling better... though it was an early bedtime for both girls. Eleora didn't even want to read books - she asked to go to bed right away. Weird!

Sunday was a really nice day. I took Eleora to Lowe's in the morning and we got some more annuals for my brick planter, some more shop lights with bulbs, a small charcoal BBQ, a timer for the faucet outside, some grass seed to patch the spot under the spruce tree, etc. It was a nice trip for us and we had fun :) I don't usually go to the chain stores, I prefer going to the locally owned Ace or Big R but Lowe's had these bulbs for the shop lights that supposedly have the same spectrum as sunlight. Same price as regular bulbs, I think around $6.75 for 2 of them. So, we'll try those out and see how we do. I have TONS of potting up to do and STILL didn't get my seeding done.

HOWEVER, in spite of the fact I didn't get my direct seeding done, I did get something major done. I wish I could take pictures but the stupid camera... nuff said. Anyway, my biggest issue was that I didn't have dividers for the square feet on my beds. The thing is, my beds are not perfectly square footed, if that's even a term. They are 3.75'x7.5' and so a couple sections are not quite a foot wide. Because of that, I don't want to "eyeball" each section because I KNOW I'd be off. I was trying to think of the best way to get some dividers, and CHEAP.

What I decided to do was this: I measured out my increments on the beds themselves and marked them. I took my biggest drill bit (about 1/3 inch or so) and drilled holes into the beds about a half inch below the top. I then just threaded and wove my string (got a roll of polyester mason's twine at Lowe's for $1.65) through the holes. It looks neat and tidy, and the best thing - it makes it VERY inconvenient for the cat to use the beds as his LITTER BOX. I'll take a photo as soon as I can because it's VERY cool. Now I have all the beds sectioned off, and my half sections are nicely marked as well. My neighbor commented on how organized I am about this. Well... if anything in my life can be organized I guess it could be this!

Other than that, I still have tons of potting up to do but I'm really trying to be relaxed about it. The truth is we do have a pretty long season here so it isn't like NOW OR DIE. It's ok if it takes me longer. It's OK if I have to wait another week or so to plant carrots. My garden will be fine. This is my first one ever, for crying out loud! The point is to have fun with my girls and to grow good food.

I think all this beautiful weather is mellowing me out :) We also did get some more annuals - I got some white impatiens and some purple alyssum to plant in the brick planter, and then we also got some magenta and purple primroses for the side flowerbed. I think the brick planter is pretty full... it's going to be so gorgeous this summer when everything is grown up. Eleora had fun helping me water in the plants. Then we grilled brats for dinner. All in all, it was a really nice day.

Sick days

So yesterday I ended up taking the day off work to stay home with Sophia who was sick. She's feeling much better now but the really fun part of staying home with a sick kid (especially when they sleep a lot) is doing all the domestic stuff I don't normally get to do! It's weird how much more fulfilled I am when I can spend a day doing that, rather than working, even though I really do love my job. So all in all, I have to say I really do enjoy when I'm forced to take a sick day for the kids.

So yesterday we did a little grocery shopping, and the store had some annuals there so I was able to plant some shade loving annuals in my brick planter railing that surrounds the patio. I got some alyssum, lobelia and pansies. My sweet peas are coming up very nicely.

I also was able to get laundry done, clean up the house and make a home-cooked meal. Sure was nice! I'd been lamenting to Tommy about how lately I've lost my cooking inspiration. I don't know if it's just being out of practice but even on the weekends when I'm home to cook, I go for the quick things like grilled cheese, etc. It's like I can never think of anything to cook or even anything to buy groceries to cook. So we talked about it, he refreshed me on a couple things I used to make a lot that he misses. One was my potato corn chowder, so I made that yesterday. I made it with kielbasa sausage, potatoes, corn, celery and of course garlic & onion in homemade chicken stock. It was excellent (I also bought some french bread at the store, didn't have time to make my own bread for the meal) and I'm currently eating some leftovers for lunch.

We're going to the Property on Saturday for a day trip. I've got a bunch of sprouted potatoes in the basement that are beyond use but I'll take them there, plant them, and who knows! I'm not sure if the deer will eat the potatoes but it's either that or the compost pile, so we might as well experiment and see what happens. I also am dying to check on the garlic I planted last fall. The stuff I planted here is growing like crazy. The Inchelium Red variety that I had is actually native to that area. It was found on the Colville Indian reservation, and our property is about a 10 minute drive from the city of Colville.

The weekend

Well, I didn't get everything done on my list. The kids decided to conspire against us and make it a practically nap-less weekend. Even Sophia fought it. It was really weird.

So... what I did. I made some baby food, although didn't have enough for all week. I did some laundry, I got the flowerbed cleaned up (T and I decimated the blackberry bramble that was trying to take it over) and so hopefully the mums won't have disease this year since all the old growth is cut out. I tried to pull up some of the grass that has a hold of part of it but I think that's a lost cause. It's a shame the bed wasn't maintained, there's a lot of really pretty flowers in there. When we pulled out the bramble we discovered a rosebush that had died. :(

I did get all the purple broccoli potted up and a lot of the cabbage. I got a yard of compost and was able to spread it all. I got my bulb onions transplanted outside and the scallions will be OK to wait another week. Potatoes are planted. I didn't get any of my direct seeding done, though. Still have the regular Waltham broccoli and a little of the green sprouting broccoli that's trying to grow out of the flat and take over the grow rack. It's hard when they are so big because then you break half the seedlings trying to untangle them!

The worst part about it? I can't find my garden plan! I spent all this time making one that took into account shady spots, crop rotation for next year, companion planting, etc. So, I just planted some of my onions in each bed except the one I remember I wanted to put my tomatoes in. We'll see. This morning I laid out a new one and it's waiting for me to redesign it.

Anyway, this weekend was frustrating because I just couldn't seem to get stuff done. And I was going to start running again now that it's light out early enough but I slept through my alarm. I'm just so dog-tired these days. I don't know how moms with young babies are supposed to get back in shape if we're so tired from being UP ALL NIGHT with a teething baby that we can't even wake up on time. Can you tell I'm annoyed? Still need to do a lot of direct seeding and a lot of potting UP. And I realized that I really should have 2 shop lights on each rack instead of 1, especially when I have the bigger cups. So I'll probably be spending more of my allowance this weekend. There's worse things to spend it on, that's for sure :)

One thing I keep telling myself is that I don't have ROOM for all these plants so it's OK if some of the seedlings die. I have 100+ potted up plants. I do plan on selling the extras on craigslist but the thing is, people are going to want herbs and tomato plants... they aren't going to be as excited as I am about french cabbage, purple sprouting broccoli, etc. So it's ok if I let some of those guys go. I still have a flat of peppers that will need transplanting in a week or 2, and a half flat of broccoli & cabbage & eggplant.

Any of you gardeners out there know exactly what I'm deeling...

Planting stuff this weekend

I have a really busy weekend ahead of me!

Saturday:

• Go get a truckload of compost
• Get a birthday present for little Shane and easter egg dye
• Make a Costco trip
• spread said compost
• Put together salad mix box
• fill box with compost
• Pot up broccoli, cabbage and rest of tomatillos
• Little Shane's birthday Party (I can't remember if it's at 3 or 4)
• Dye easter eggs with Wola

Sunday:

• Have an easter egg hunt with Wola
• Direct sow carrots, spinach, radishes, parsley, dill, cilantro, salad mix, and potatoes
• Make the week's worth of baby food - broccoli this week, with cheese and garlic. Lucky Fia!
• Make the week's worth of protein muffins and crudites for work lunches.
• Laundry
• Clean the kitchen

In other springtime notes:
I am absolutely LOVING the violets growing in the lawn. I think I'm going to dig some of them up and see if they will grow in the planter. It just seems like such a shame to have them in the lawn where they will be MOWED. I made a pretty necklace of them this morning for Wola which she promptly tore into pieces. Lol... oh well. My sweet peas are up and my garlic is going nutso. This weekend if I have time I'm going to stop by Big R and get some annuals to plant. Maybe Wola will have fun. I just hope she doesn't pull them up!

In a couple weeks, the Spokane Solid Waste is hosting a composting fair. What fun! My mom and I are going to go... they are giving out composting bins and tree seedlings. I'm excited!

Busy busy April

Well it's been a doozy last couple weeks, I must say. First off, the weather is FABULOUS. Days like today make me want to take a snooze in a hammock. It's supposed to be 67 tomorrow!

But who can snooze when there's so much work to be done! I spent a lot of time in the yard today, inspecting. Wola and I had a great time yesterday exploring the yard. We discovered violets growing in the lawn, one lone dandelion (which I promptly picked and threw into the street to prevent it from seeding), lots of buds on the trees, and the garlic is coming up VERY well. Lots of maple seedlings, also... but those will be smothered when I get my wood chip mulch down (when I finally get it!). We also dug all the weeds out of the brick planter at the end of the patio, in preparation for either my strawberries or herbs. I still haven't decided what I'm going to put in there.

I potted up all the tomato seedlings and ended up with 73 total! Wow... lol. 4 different varieties and also a couple tomatillos, although I still have to finish potting the rest of those up. I will also NEED to pot up all the broccoli, onions, and cabbage next weekend. I might even try and get it done during the week at some point... some of the cabbage seedlings were falling over even before they have their first true leaves. I think because it's pretty warm there inside the grow rack, especially under a humidity dome.

I might also instead of potting up, just stick the onions right into the ground. Next weekend will be busy. I'll need to get a bunch more compost so I can plant into it especially if I want to get my onions right in, and also I'll be planting my potatoes that I just got this weekend. They are in a flat in my dining room, greening up a bit in preparation for planting. I'm also going to sow carrots, radishes, dill, chives, cilantro and parsley (both the rooted and the regular type).

Then I also have to put together my box for salad mix (it'll be real quick, just 4 - 1x6 boards screwed together in a box shape), fill it with compost and plant! That's a lot of compost. Now that I'm thinking about it, I should just go get a truckload instead of buying bags. I think I'll make some phone calls today and see - I bet it would be cheaper and I could just top off all my beds with any remainder.

And the other thing I'll need to do soon is to arrange for a day off from work so I can work in the garden, like spreading mulch and whatnot. Of course, that assumes I'm able to GET SOME MULCH.

Note to self for next year - only plant similar items in each flat! It's a pain to have a partial flat of mostly tomatoes (which are all going nuts) and eggplant (which have only germinated one so far). Also, I am DEFINITELY doing soil blocks. Transplanting from a solid flat into smaller pots, egg crates, TP tubes, etc. is a pain. Soil blocks will be a lot easier, I'm thinking. I'm going to get one of the teeny size for the initial germination and then probably a 2".

Seeds are up! Woohoo!

I checked this morning and WOOWZA! The tomatoes are reaching for the sky! I see little rootlets on the peppers and onions. Everything else is officially up except I didn't see anything from the eggplant. I can't wait to get pictures!

I think, though, that the dome covers need to be changed somehow. They do a great job of keeping the moisture in, but they make it so I can't put the lights low enough. The tomatoes are a bit leggy (though they don't even have real leaves yet) and while I'm sure they will be fine, it makes me think about next time.

If I can get some sort of clear cover that's flat instead of domed, especially just for starters, then I could put the lights a lot lower. I'd just have to watch them a lot more carefully and make sure that once the sprouts get close to the top of the plastic cover that I change it, either removing it completely or replacing with a dome cover.

And I just got a ship notification that my potatoes have been shipped :) So this should be a busy next couple weeks.

Didn't plant my sweet peas :(

Well on Saturday when I went to go plant my sweet peas I had a sort of accident - I picked up the jar of soaked seeds, with the packet behind it, started carrying them outside... and OUCH! I got stung on my pinky. There was a WASP on the back of the seed packet.

First off, HOW was he still AROUND, much less in my HOUSE in MARCH? Needless to say, he became a FLAT SQUISHED wasp pretty quickly but my finger still hurt!

Anyway, that happened, and then I had to come back in and by the time the pain subsided it had started to rain too much for me to want to go outside. So I drained the seeds, wet a paper towel and wrapped it around them. Now maybe they will sprout but I should still be able to plant them one of these days. We'll see. I don't want to waste these ones, it's a beautiful open-pollinated blue collection and cost me $2.50 for 20 seeds. I was hoping to save seed from them. I guess even if I end up with a few of them I should be OK.

Finished super early seeds yesterday!

So yesterday I had some time off from work which I spent getting all the remaining hardware to suspend my light fixtures (I only have 2 of the 4 up right now). I also went and got some humidity domes and then spent a nice chunk of time planting the rest of my early seeds.

So far I have a whole bunch of tomatoes, peppers, broccoli, eggplant, cabbage and onions planted. Nothing's coming up yet, though. The humidity domes will really help though because the lights sit (literally) right on top of them. They aren't nearly warm enough to melt the plastic, but they warm up the air trapped inside the dome and keep it moist & warm. I can't wait to see what my plants will look like next week! So far no germination from what I did before, although it was all long-germinating stuff like tomatoes & peppers.

I also soaked my sweet pea seeds and I'll be planting them outside today after work. Maybe I'll find some working batteries so I can take a picture! I also will need to find some shade loving annuals like pansies, etc. We'll see how the day goes by. I think I want to add a bunch of vermiculite before I plant because I know myself well enough to know I won't be faithful with watering the flower areas every day. They aren't even in a real pot or container... they are just in a slim ledge thing that was made when the low brick wall was put in around the patio. So it's not very big and will probably dry out pretty quickly. So... I guess I'm on the search for annuals that are drought-resistant and do OK in the shade, since the area is shaded most of the day.

Started seeds!

One of these days I'll get new batteries that WORK for the camera and then we can start posting pics again!

On Sunday Wola and I had fun planting seeds. I planted 2 flats of peppers, some tomatoes, tomatillo, and some eggplant. Wola got a bag of pumpkin seeds and she had a great time planting them and mixing them in with the dirt. We put them under our lights, covered with saran wrap to trap in the moisture and here we go :) Nothing's happened yet, of course. Hopefully this weekend I'll get the rest of my early planting done - broccoli, cabbage, cukes, etc. I might wait a bit for the cukes though since I won't be setting anything out until the end of May. I'll also be doing some herbs, melons and squash soon.

I kinda wanted to do lunar planting but the way things are working out is that I am able to plant when I am able to plant. Maybe next year I can coordinate with the phases and whatnot. Apparently the gravitational pull of the moon makes a difference when you are planting. Next year I am buying a farmer's almanac. In fact, Mom if you are reading this, a farmer's almanac would be a GREAT Christmas present, this way I can plan it all out before I start anything. Next year I'm hoping to start my peppers quite a bit earlier.

I need to get pictures of my grow setup posted - it's so sweet! It's huge powder-coated steel shelf unit, 4 feet wide. So far I have 2 shop lights hung, I still need to get chains and bulbs for the other 2. I've curtained the whole thing with mylar space blankets to reflect the light from the shop lights and to keep in the heat. Peppers especially like it warm for germination and since it's not particularly warm in the basement it's been working pretty well, especially with the saran wrap on top of the soil to trap in the heat and moisture. I think I'll get some humidity domes to help them along but the plastic wrap will do in a pinch until I can get some of those.

I have a garlic sprout! I'm so proud of it. It's the only one up so far, but I did dig a little under the mulch and the others are coming up slowly. The neighbor's dog apparently did a little digging in my garden beds this winter looking for mice that I think nested in the mulch but I don't think he disturbed any of the garlic. I'm not going to be a happy camper if he digs up my plants after I plant them... my neighbor is a very nice guy though and so I'm sure he would be nice about it if I had to ask him to keep his dog in the yard.

That's all for today!

More work on the seed starting...

I've REALLY got to get this going! Big R hasn't gotten the fluroescent tubes back into stock yet so next weekend I'll have to go get some at Ace Hardware.

Yesterday Wola and I went downstairs into the basement to mix up our seed starting medium. Tommy lugged the (soaked) bale of peat, the 2 bags of compost and my vermiculite downstairs so we could work on it right away. I had a rubbermaid bin that I was going to use for the mix... so I cut open the bale of peat and we started scooping!


Saturday we'd made a trip to Target and I found some cool kids gardening stuff! I ended up getting Wola the cutest little cow print mud boots. The boots have eyes and they even have little tails in the back. I also got her a kid-size little red trowel.

So anyway, we scooped peat moss from the bale into the bin using our trowels. We filled the bin about a quarter full of the peat moss, making a "mig meth (big mess)" in the process. Then I dumped half a bag of compost and the little bag of vermiculite in. Then I added in the mycelium inoculant and also the bacterial inoculant I'd gotten from Gardens Alive. Mixed it all together with our trowels (Eleora had fun trying to put the mix back into the peat bale, but I tried to make sure most of the mix stayed in the bin), added a little water to moisten it a bit more.

Then we decided that we were "all deerty" enough so we went upstairs and cleaned up a bit. Now we have our mix prepped and moistened, I'm sure the bacteria and whatnot are growing away. I'll start planting next weekend, hopefully, provided I can get my light bulbs on time.

My grow rack

Well we've got things going underway now. I bought a nice sturdy rack at Costco for under $70. It's got 5 shelves and is super heavy, made from powder-coated steel. THe assembly was actually pretty simple. I realized that I could theoretically fit 2 shop lights on each rack if I wanted to. I have 4 right now, I might double them up and see how it does.

Tommy picked me up 8 plastic flats and 5 space blankets. I'm going to wrap the space blankets around the rack, leaving a "curtain" at the front that I can open and close at will. This will reflect the light and also trap in the heat. We've situated it pretty close to the furnace and so I'm hoping that the trapped warmth will eliminate the need for any warming mats in order to germinate my tomatoes and especially peppers.

Other than that, I've got my seed order and my seed starting ingredients. And I got a nice pretty green wheelbarrow to mix it all in, though I might just end up using plastic bins in the basement since I think that would be easier. I bought a bunch of peat moss, some vermiculite, and a couple bags of organic compost. I also have my mycogrow mycelium inoculant, and some different inoculant from Gardens Alive. I'm also planning on separating out my earthworm castings from my worm bins and using all of that. I've got some bags of dry, shredded leaves in the garage that I'll mix in as well. I'm trying to find a source of a larger amount of vermiculite but I'll have to settle for the small bag I got at Lowe's. I'm hoping that when the nurseries open up in a few weeks that I'll be able to buy larger quantities of vermiculite. Or maybe when Big R opens their lawn & garden shop for the season... I'll have to call them and see when that will be.

Other than that, I need to keep folding my newspaper pots!

Growing for Market

I got my first Growing for Market magazine yesterday! It came with a cool book with lots of ideas of how to increase your income for market year-round. I haven't looked at it yet, carefully set it aside for tonight. Tommy (hopefully) will be going out tonight to see a friend and so that leaves me with my magazine and a hot cup of tea :)

I keep thinking that soon I'm going to actually start working on my business plan. I think I might want to keep track of everything I put into the garden, even though it's going to be mostly for home use, but that's where everything will come from. Even just a one or two page plan at this point I think will help me stay organized and focused. I have so many ideas and they are just all over the place, so it would be good to get them all down on paper and think up some sort of timeframe.

Phoenix Oyster Mushrooms

My mom and I decided to cultivate some edible mushrooms up on our property. The acreage has been selectively logged and so there are all these piles of wastewood all over. We'll try and use as much firewood as we can from them, but there is so much fallen dead wood that it would take forever. So I thought it would be fun to do mushrooms!

I just ordered some spawn for the Phoenix Oyster mushroom. The logs are mostly conifer types, and those do well on the softwoods. I ordered from Fungi.com and I also decided to get a couple ounces of their MycoGrow to mix in with my seed starting mix this year.

Here's the description from the website:

This member of the Tree Oyster family thrives on conifer stumps and logs, especially spruces and fir; after incubating the logs may be partially buried, vertically-oriented, to conserve water during fruiting. This species enjoys warm climates, producing large, white-beige mushrooms.

The cool thing about Oyster mushrooms is that they are very difficult to ship, therefore any locally produced mushrooms would fetch a premium price. We won't be selling any for a while, but it will be a good option for us when the time comes if we're able to grow them. We also might try Chicken Of The Woods. I'd love to grow shiitakes but they need oak trees and I have none.

more ordering and Wola cuteness

This morning I used the $25 off $25 GardensAlive coupon my mom got me. I got a floating row cover, long enough to cover 3 of my beds, some organic houseplant fertilizer (for my plants at work) and some soil inoculant. I'm sure my soil in the beds is fine, with all the compost, manure, leaves, etc, that's in there (and I plan on moving my worms into the garden beds when it warms up a bit also) but for the started plants I wanted to get some mycorrhizae into the starter mix. I hope this will work!

This morning when we were going out to the truck Wola was walking on the hard packed snow in the yard like she always does. When I came to get her she said "Careful, don't fall down and get owies!" She's so cute when she copies us... :)

Garden planning for 2009

So I've started to formulate my plan for what I am going to plant. I even have a little sketch on graph paper of what plants go in which place in my garden. I'm doing square foot gardening combined with intensive planting, companion planting and sheet composting. I have roughly 165 square feet to plant.

I am going to order all my seeds except potatoes from Baker Creek this year. Potatoes I'll probably get from Seed Saver's Exchange. I like Baker Creek a lot - they have a good selection but not too much that overwhelms me. Since I want to be a market gardener, I want to try out some varieties that I think will be good for markets. I was, though, having problems restraining myself... I had to pare down the order quite a bit. I'm sure every other gardener reading this will understand! But besides the selection, I like them because they are committed to not selling any genetically modified seed - it's all untreated, open pollinated and heirlooms. In addition, they even do GMO testing on all their seeds that are more subsceptible to GMO contamination. Corn is a big one - corn pollen can travel for miles on the wind... and unfortunately, if the corn you have been saving seed from for years becomes contaminated by GMO pollen from a farmer who is miles and miles away, you are all the sudden liable and could be sued by Monsanto for copyright infringement. I know it sounds nuts... but sadly enough it has happened and put more than one small farmer out of business.

So I decided that I'm just going to buy seeds this year and I'm going to build a grow rack for my basement to start all my long-season plants like peppers, tomatoes, melons, etc. Considering the fact that I'll only use one or two of each, and I'll end up with about 20-30 seeds, I'm going to plant ALL of them and sell the extras on craigslist. I do plan on selling plant starts as a part of my business plan in the long run anyway. I thought about buying a soil blocker but I think I'm just going to fold newspaper pots origami-style and sell them in those. They decompose in the soil and are free!

I'm not sure what I'm going to use for my soil mix - I know I'll use compost, worm castings, leaf mold, mycorrhizae inoculant, and then maybe soil-less starting mix and throw it all together. I'll build my rack out of some costco wire shelving and it should fit 8 flats for 1 shelf. So we'll see how that goes!

So far, here's my plant list:
Blue Lake Bush Beans
Purple Sprouting Broccoli
regular head broccoli
Amarillo Carrot (Yellow)
Cosmic Purple Carrot
Snow White Carrot
Shin Kuroda Carrot (orange baby type)
Richmond Green Apple Cucumber
Snow's Fancy Pickling Cucumber
Rocky Top Salad Mix
Million Dollar Melon (green fleshed)
Charentais Melon (orange fleshed)
Flat of Italy onion
Australian Brown onion
Crimson Forest Scallion (red)
Oregon Sugar Pod Peas
Purple Jalapeno
Quadrato bell pepper (yellow)
Mini Red Stuffer peppers
White Hailstone Radish
Early Globe Radish
Chinese Red Meat Radish
Purple Plum Radish
Bloomsdale Spinach
Jarrahdale Pumpkin (pie type)
Dad's Sunset tomato (orange)
Principe Borghese tomato (red paste type)
Siletz tomato (early red type)
Land Race Currant Tomato (tiny cherry type)
Tomatillo Verde
Genovese Basil
Oregano
Flatleaf Parsley
Parsley Root
Chives
Borage
Slow-bold Cilantro
Orange Hawaii Marigold
Empress of India Nasturtium
Blue Reflections Sweet Pea

Phew! That's a lot of seeds! That's the order I plan, I'll actually place it later and we'll see what I end up getting, since I'm sure some of these will be out of stock.

Meatball Stroganoff

I'm just blogging this since I threw it together tonight and it turned out really good.

1 large onion, chopped
2 lbs mushrooms, sliced
cooking wine
2 cans cream of mushroom soup
1 can beef broth
italian style meatballs
10 oz or so of sauerkraut
1 box rotini pasta

Saute the onion in butter until it begins to be translucent, then add the mushrooms. Cook until the mushrooms are browning. Deglaze with wine (I used white but red might be better), add soup and broth. Mix until well incorporated. Add meatballs (as many as you prefer) and sauerkraut. Heat to boiling and then turn down the heat to simmer for about 10 minutes (or as long as it takes to cook the pasta).

Cook the pasta until it's al dente, then mix it in with the sauce. This was about a double recipe so I'd have leftovers to take to work for lunch this week. I think this would translate well to the crockpot.

It'll be nice when I can use my own mushroom soup, beef broth, sauerkraut, etc. For now, it's sure nice to have the shortcuts to use.

Spin Farming

I've been hearing a lot about this new concept called Spin Farming lately. It's really new and so is pretty introductory but was supposed to be revolutionary, focusing on teaching methods for urban market farming.

I decided to buy myself the spin guides. It cost over $80, and truth be told is not something I would consider worth the money. However, there are some really great concepts to be had in the guides. I wonder if the price puts people off from buying their guides? The best part has been once you make a purchase you are then allowed to be a member of their google email group which has been a plethora of great information.

A lot of it is general concepts, except they structure it really well and basically have a "template" for people to follow. I've heard it being referred to as a farming "franchise." The concepts are great - use what land you have in your yard, rent, borrow, barter for other people's spots. People farm little plots as much as 500 square feet, as long as they have enough of them. 2 foot wide rows, heavy mulching, minimal tilling. No chemicals. The best part is that you farm in the city, so it's a lot easier to transport and sell your produce - and you don't need a lot of space, just a half acre or so, usually made up of garden plots in different back yards.

I like the concepts. I am, truthfully, pretty attached to my wood-sided raised beds. I'm not sure yet how this will translate since I do eventually plan on market gardening on a large enough scale to support us. I don't think I'll be able to afford cedar sided raised beds for all of that... I'm also not going to till, being a fan of sheet mulching instead. I figure, throw down the mulch and let the worms till it in!

OK so I know this post doesn't have much structure, but it's been so long since I posted and I'm just trying to get over the fact that I don't have a picture to post. Dumb, I know... but it feels like it's a naked post without a picture!

We got 3 feet of snow last month. It was crazy! My garden beds looked like white marshmallows sitting on a blanket of, well, marshmallow. I took pictures... I'll get them uploaded someday. The worst part was not getting to the compost pile. Compostable waste building up on the back porch with everything else was NOT easy to live with. But at least it was so cold it didn't smell, right? :)

It's been melting now and it's interesting because I can see the beds and I had heaped up leaves on them pretty good and now the level is at least a few inches below the tops of the beds. I imagine by springtime it'll be down to about 6 inches, and I estimate I piled the leaves about 15 inches high.

I'll be making a seed order pretty soon, just have to pick out my varieties. I also decided that this year we'll inoculate some logs up at the property with phoenix oyster mushroom spore. They grow well on conifers and, well, we got PILES of old conifer logs from when the property was selectively logged. We'll see how it goes. It'll take about a year from when we inoculate the logs before they start producing, but this is a long term plan anyway. Oyster mushrooms sell from $6-10/lb in the stores and do not ship well, so are generally hard to find. Sounds like a boon to me! I like the idea of growing mushrooms since they aren't as much WORK.

Also, I had another idea - I wanted to grow shiitake mushrooms but no oak trees to grow them on. I know a lot of residential homes in the area have oak trees so I was thinking if I contact tree trimming places I might be able to get any oak trimmings/tops/chips they end up with, and those would grow mushrooms just fine. In fact, if I offer them cash for oak, maybe they might be real good about it... who knows. Though, I STILL haven't gotten my load of wood chips for the mulch (I'm thinking at this point, I'm NOT going to get them) so I'm not sure if it would work or not but would be a good idea. At $10/lb for shiitakes, I think it would be worthwhile to offer $30 for a ground up oak tree, especially if they would otherwise have to PAY to get rid of it.