Garden and Preserving Year in Review

We pulled up the last remains of the garden last week giving the kids a chance to really play in the dirt. Overall, it was a pretty good year. The weather definitely played a large role in that but I'd like to think we're getting better at gardening too, cucumbers notwithstanding. A few notes for next year:

On Gardening

• We did three cherry tomato plants and three roma type plants. And then we had two more cherry plants sprout up on their own after the peas were done. Next year we need to reduce the cherry and increase the cannable type. We had enough to can but it took about a week to gather up enough to make processing worth it. A few more plants would have helped that. And I've got a pretty good canning rhythm now so as long as I'm not pregnant again next summer, I think I could easily handle 5-6 plants worth. If I am pregnant, all bets are off. 
• Garlic. Garlic is good. We eat a lot of garlic and it's really nice to know that we actually produced enough for us to not have to buy any (we ran out of last year's harvest right before we harvested this years which is pretty much perfect) Yah us!
• Peas. I'm giving up. We have yet to see any real payout from planting peas. I think we got 3 pods this year. Definitely not worth it. 
• Green beans. Why did we not try these before? They did great. Again, we need to plant more though since it still took 2-3 days to harvest enough for a meal for our family because the harvest was so spread out but I kept thinking that they must be done but then I'd go look and there would be new ones out there. Next year, we'll be planting more than just a couple rows and maybe even freezing some. 
• Cucumbers. Try again next year but let's make sure we have good seeds. 
• Berries. All of our berries (strawberry, blackberries and raspberries) did awesome this year! We even had enough to take some inside whereas last year, the strawberries and raspberries were pretty much outside snack plants. At peak strawberry season we were getting about a pound of strawberries a day! I love getting our blackberries for preserving purposes but I still can't bring myself to "waste" any strawberries or raspberries on jam or cooking because they taste so good fresh. But still, fresh berries are one of life's true treasures.
• Asparagus. First year we could harvest. We only got to harvest a teeny tiny bit for the long term health of our plant. Everyone but me is probably excited for next year. I don't really like asparagus so I have to pretend for the kid's sake. But they do love it so I'm glad we planted it and it keeps doing well.
• Rhubarb. I think we'll start over again next year. This was supposed to be it's second year but we only got a couple leaves. 
• Peach tree. We actually got a few peaches! Our tree is still a baby so we weren't expecting any yet and some small animal ended up treating itself to some of the few we did get but I'm happy the tree is already doing so well. 

On Putting Away:

• Blueberries. We don't grow any but went with a friend to a local place to pick. I think we picked 7lbs or so and froze most of those but with our latest smoothie obsession they are already almost gone. Definitely need to pick more next year. 
• Peaches. Planned to pick 25 lbs, actually picked about 40lbs.  Made 12 pints of jam (7 peach, 3 ginger peach, 3 cinnamon peach), froze 5 cobblers worth of filling, and gorged ourselves on as many fresh peaches as a person can possible stand to eat. I'm really looking forward to eating a nice warm peach cobbler in January this year.
• Apples. Picked about a bushel's worth/40 lbs. Made 16 quarts of applesauce and 6 quarts of apple pie filling (not counting the apple pie we ate). I normally make apple pie from fresh apples so I'm not sure what I'll do with the filling. Perhaps try pie, or use it to fill crepes or hand pies or whatnot. Time will tell.
• Blackberries. Made 3 quarts of Jam. 2 blackberry and 1 Triple berry (adding in some store bought strawberries and some other kind of berry, maybe raspberries? Its only been a little while and already I can't remember. This is why I write these kinds of posts). We definitely likes the triple berry more than the plain blackberry although the seeds still drive me nuts. I think I might stick to freezing blackberries for use in muffins and smoothies. 
• Tomatoes. Canned 10 quarts. I only did two batches and one jar broke each batch although I'm not sure why since I did a hot pack in hot jars. Hot + hot into hot shouldn't break, right? Oh well. I will say my end result was much better this year. I had quite a bit of floating last year and while they were completely useable, these jars are much prettier and I think I will be a better equivalent to a 15oz can that so many recipes call for.
• Notes on jam: My goal was to make my jam without needing to buy additives (like pectin). I tried a couple different recipes, some with added apple and some without - this ended up being my preferred recipe/method so far. I also used both honey and sucanat and organic white sugar as sweetener. Some people swore sucanat/honey ruined their jam, others said it was a nice added flavor. I didn't really notice much one way or the other which is quite liberating actually. I still want to experiment more with recipes and flavors but it is really nice not to be so tied down to a box recipe anymore. 

Backyardigans

Here's what we've been up to lately in the backyard.

-Planted a peach tree. It should bear fruit next year, I think.

-Planted some rhubarb. These should also be harvestable next year.

-Dug an area in which to plant asparagus. I'll plant the actual asparagus this week. This will, once again, produce next year, and every year into the future. My dad tells me of driving by long-abandoned farmsteads and seeing asparagus growing.

-I had to put in a replacement blackberry bush to fill a spot taken by a bush I think those dang moles/voles killed. Unlike this one, my other blackberry plants will produce THIS YEAR.

-Here's a bat house we found at MacKenzie's dad's house and decided to hang up. It's not in an ideal location - posts are better than trees, but we have no posts. I also think it would have been better to hang facing more southward, instead of eastward, but I had to place the ladder on sloped ground, and go up 12 feet to hang it, so I did the best I could. If bats do find and colonize this house, it might be - wait for it - next year, or the year after. We will know they are present if there is a pile of guano on the ground under the box.

-Lastly, I planted the state tree of Missouri, a flowering dogwood. We went for a pink variety instead of a white one. Hopefully this will add some mid-spring color to our yard - everything else we have flowers in early spring.

-I also plan to build a third raised garden bed for vegetable growing. Hopefully I can get it done in time to grow tomatoes in it this year.

Time for a Com-Post

I thought I'd take this opportunity to discuss my composting activities. When we moved into our house, I decided that composting would be a) a source of free fertilizer, b) a way to reduce our garbage output, and c) an exciting activity. To begin with, I decided to just use pallets to make a basic frame for my pile, which I would place on the ground. I tied the pallets together with rope; when it was time to turn the pile, I would untie one corner so I could get in there with my garden fork. I don't have a photo of this since-retired composting system, but in this photo you can see where the pile was, on this side of the propane tank.

The problems with this system were that it was unattractive, it didn't contain the pile well enough, and the pile merged with the ground to become a muddy mess. Compost guidelines state that a pile should be at least 3 feet deep and 3 feet in diameter to create a critical mass of material to for the bacteria to efficiently decompose, but in the pallets the pile was too wide and too short. In addition, it rained a lot last fall and this spring, and water ran down the hill into the pile and kept it saturated. When turning the pile, it was hard to tell where the pile ended and the ground began.

So I found a different method. In a publication from the Brazos Valley Compost Corps, I found the design for a cylindrical pile that used hardware cloth, which is like finer chicken wire, or sturdier window screen. I used about 10 feet of 3-foot wide, 1/2-inch spaced hardware cloth, rolled into a cylinder and secured with zip ties. To get past the problem of a pile saturated from below with water, I laid 9 12" square concrete patio blocks on the ground, and placed my hardware cloth frame on top of it. I bought two T-posts to support the frame, and made spaces between stones to pound the posts into the ground. I zip-tied the posts to the frame. My setup was ready to use, so I put the compost from my old pile into the new pile. Here's a photo:

It is a little more difficult to turn the compost with this system, because the wire is in the way, but that is the only drawback, and it is minor. From what I can tell, compost items break down much faster than they did under the pallet system. There are hardly any undigested items below the top layer of material.

Near the end of the life of my old pile, some plant started growing out of it. I decided to follow my yard motto, which is "If you don't know, let it grow." At first I thought it was a bean plant, but then it came to resemble squash, both items that I have placed in the pile. But now I think it is watermelon. Or cantaloupe. Either way, I may just make this spot my new melon patch.

A turn about the yard

We are all doing much better now and spent much of the weekend working on the back yard. I love working on the inside of the house but the spring weather is too much of a draw and luckily, there is a lot to do outside too! It's also easier to work with Lucy outside since she gets distracted by grass and dirt and gives us a bit more space. Inside she practically crawls on top of us to see what fun things we are up too.

We have many many plans for the backyard, too many in fact. But a while back Craig and I walked around and made a list of all the things we even dreamed of doing. It was long. But that was okay. It gave us a start and allowed us to sort out where the different zones of our yard should be (play, entertaining, garden, etc). We don't want to work really hard to install raised beds one year only to find out that the spot we picked is the only one where chickens will work so we have to move them.

Once we had an idea of what and where we wanted to work, we had to deal with the when. After prioritizing, we came up with a three year plan. I'm sure our three year plan will be evolving and it will probably take more than three years to complete, but at least it is a start. It also lessened the stress since we know we have a plan of action and will get to everything in due time. This year we are focusing on the vegetable gardens, berry planting and getting our deck/patio outfitted with a grill and table so we can start entertaining more.

Here is a shot of the backyard. It's all weird looking because I made a panorama with photoshop but it gives you a good idea of the layout as long as you ignore the depth issues and imagine the pictures wrapping around you.



1) The vegetable garden. Craig finally finished up the raised beds this weekend! He has been working on them for a while but he doesn't have much time after Lucy goes to bed before it gets dark. Also, they are on a hill so while the assemble was fast, the installation and leveling was a pain. But they look amazing and should last a while. We just need to order our topsoil and compost. (In front of the veggie garden are pallets that make up our compost bin but we don't have enough to fill the beds so we will order it and use ours later on). We are going to try out hand at tomatoes, onions, beets, corn, green beans, lettuce and cucumber (garlic too but that is not until fall). There is also a bird feeder and bath over there too.

2) Strawberries go here! Yum. Of course, we will have to be patient but I think it will be worth it.

3) Here is the Lucy zone. This space is great because it is flat and while it is sunny in the morning, it is nice and shaded during the hot afternoons. It isn't really getting much attention this year in terms of work, but I have a feeling we will be playing here quite a bit this summer. Eventually we will be putting some sort of play house here next to the little well (that covers up our actual well). There might even be room here for a baby pool or sand box but for now it is home to Lucy's little farm playground.

I had been looking for a little playground like this on Craiglist after I saw  John enjoying his but I couldn't find anything. Then Saturday we found this one for free on a curb. What luck! I had originally thought I would let Lucy take over the little garden bed but Craig planted tulips last fall (you can just see them starting to peek up) and I love tulips so we will have to see how unselfish I am when the time comes.

4) A collaborative project with our neighbor is to install a gate here. Right now neighbor J and I have to hop the fence or walk down around to the busy road in order to visit each other. Neither option is ideal since we both have kiddos with us. Neighbor J has skills and can hop the fence in a skirt while wearing her cute chunky monkey of a 7-month old in a mei-tai but I'm not as brave. Both of us think that a gate would be a good addition.

5) Our clothesline area and soon to be home to blackberry bushes. We had to do some layout rearranging since we didn't realize that blackberry bushes get as tall as they do. But this new location should be ideal. Those windows are only our garage windows so it isn't a big deal if the bushes block them a tad.

Other than that, we will just be working on general yard maintenance. The previous owner took meticulous care of his yard but he used a lot of Scotts to do it (and even left us the schedule :-) but we will be trying a more organic approach. Eventually the yard should be healthier and less work but this first couple years will be a shock to it's chemical dependent self and it will probably look awful and need a bit more tlc. Craig's going to be re-seeding a couple areas and working together with our other neighbor on the mole issue. Moles give me the creeps so I hope they are successful since I love my backyard and want to be able to enjoy it!

Mary Mary Quite Contrary...

Now that we have a back patio, we can do some container gardening! A few weeks ago we planted our first batch - lettuce and peas and we just started our tomatos and pepper seeds inside. I'm so excited, but a little big nervous.

To say that I don't have a green thumb would be an understatement, I couldn't even keep Clyde alive! So why am I even trying? Well, I really want to grow my own veggies. Plus I'm stubborn and it infuriates me that I can't seem to get the hang of it.

I'm a book learner and gardening is really more of a hands-on activity. It's not that I haven't tried though, I even took horticulture 101 in college. I did well on the exams, I don't think I got below a 98 on any of them. But at the end of the 6 weeks we were supposed to bring back a plant our professor gave us on the first day of class to receive extra credit on how it grew. I thought I was doing okay, I watered it, but not too often. I gave it Nitrogen supplements like I was told to. I even named it (it was a Wandering Jew so obviously I named it Moses). The last day of class I showed up and realized that everyone else's plant was a dark green while mine was more of an granny smith apple color. Nevermind that if you research Wandering Jews they are described as "hardy" or "survivors," apparently poor Moses was on death's door. The professor couldn't figure out why since it seemed like I had done everything right. But of the dozen or so students in the class, the only person who got less bonus points than me was Martellus Bennet, and that was only because he didn't bring his plant back at all! Of course, it doesn't really matter that he didn't pass the class. If he wants to have a house full of plants or a vegetable garden, he can just pay someone to do it for him. I need to move on now before this becomes a rant against professional sports.

So...what I lack in natural skill, I will be attempting to make up for with persistence and perspiration. And luckily for me, Craig grew up on a farm where their livelihood comes from their ability to grow stuff like wheat and soy and cows and he will be attempting to show me the ropes. I just have to remember that this year is a learning experience and that I should not get upset if we only get one tomato out of the whole experiment.

But look what we've noticed! Maybe there is hope for me after all.