Cilantro raises it’s pretty little head. Once it gets started, it really moves! The basil popped up first, but is now just hanging out, still in the pajamas of it’s first leaves. Basil needs to get off it’s butt and into my pesto!
Archive
Our Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds order arrived today. Instead of the 60 seed packets we we expected, there were 78! It looks like we will be flush with tomatoes, green, yellow, orange, pink, and purple ones. Bea is very excited and started going through and taking notes for each variety from the catalog. Now comes the hard part… deciding when and how we will plant them. We will not be able to plant them all, and we still do not have the exact plan for the beds yet. So the next step is to determine which ones need to be started now, and get them in the plugs. I know onions and leeks are on the list, and we will start figuring out which things will be late summer plantings, rather than early spring.
A few of the varieties I am personally excited about:
- Purple Tomatillos
- Charentais (European melon)
- Chichiquelite Huckleberry
- Tal Jalepeno
- Cherokee Chocolate tomato
- White Wonder watermelon
- Hartman’s Giant amaranth
Who has a mustache?
Oh, but I did for about 10 minutes.
I did finally order seeds. But not from any of the listed companies. I forgot to mention that I also requested a catalog from Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds, and when that catalog arrived, I was no longer interested in any of the others. All the seeds listed are open-pollinated, non-hybrid, heirloom seeds, collected from seed-savers and gardeners from around the world. So, what did we order? Having a very limited experience with gardening and the qualities of any varieties listed, we opted for the Medium Homestead package for northern climates that includes 25 vegetables and 60 varieties (60 seed packets total). So we really have no idea yet what we will be growing, and in a way, that will make our first year of gardening just that much more exciting. There are few, if any, items in the catalog that I would not want (most likely candidates are the summer squash and the beets), so chances are, we will be happy to have whatever pops up. What I don’t care for, Bea will probably love.
I have also brought the grow lights* into the kitchen and we are now waiting to see if the 6 basil plants and 2 cilantro will come up for some early fresh seasoning. At some point we may have to find a window for them, but first things first. I want to know how this grow light thing works, so I am experimenting with the seeds we have. It has only been a week, and not a peep. Other bloggers are reporting sprouts at 10 days for some of their seeds, so maybe we will see some green next week.
Next up is the chicken order. We will be getting 25 chicks, and I have picked out the breeds. It looks like we will mix it up with Rhode Island Reds, Silver/Gold Laced Wyandottes, Black Australorps, and Buff Orpingtons. We are planning on ordering straight runs of the Australorps, Orpingtons, and Wyandottes, but only ordering sexed pullets of the Reds. The reason for this is that we want to have a cock, but don’t want to be stuck with only one to pick from if we order it sexed. So we will order straight runs, cull the cockerels that don’t make the cut, and end up with the favorite cock to watch over the hens. Why no Red rooster? Reds tend to have quite aggressive cocks, and I prefer to keep my spurs at boot level. The next week or so will be spent preparing for the chicks (heat lamp, feeder, waterer, quarters), and plans for the coop and the run will kick into high gear after they arrive (in late March?). Each of the breeds is a good dual-purpose breed, so we should end up with 10-15 good layers, and 10-15 meaty frozen chickens in the freezer. We are hoping to let them run amok (I mean free range), but if it seems like they are getting into things (like the house, or the road), or easy prey for hawks and coyotes, they will be confined to their run.
It sounds like a lot. It is. Still not sure how it will all work out, but it will. Sun is out this weekend, so optimism levels are high.
If you happen to live in a (sub)urban area, the book Keep Chickens! by Barbara Kilarski might be helpful. Many towns allow for small numbers of chickens, and they require so little space, and take care of many table scraps. Oh yeah, and the eggs!
* Bea’s dad did some work for a couple and they asked if he had use for the grow stand and lights. He said he knew some one who did! They are a great couple and have also loaned us an awesome stereoscopic microscope (2 eyepieces = magnification with depth). Frito’s are pretty nasty up close. Anyway, we are very thankful and excited about the grow lights, and will be even more so once we see some sprouts.
A while back Bea and I came to the realization that somehow, spending more money on food was more worthwhile than spending more money on non-food. Then we realized that we almost never had better meals when we ate out than we had at home. So, with the fiscal focus on food, and the reduced expenditure on eating out, we have been able to eat a lot better food. But it still seemed that we were getting an awful lot of packaging with this good food, and you know, I would rather not pay for, or have to throw away, packaging. So we started buying more good food in bulk. It started with rice, and then it was beans, lentils, bread, fresh organic fruit. Now it is cheese. It has been frustrating to drive by dairy after dairy, but never be able to find local cheese, let alone organic or raw cheese. I started looking online, and found that there is really only one place that can provide what we were looking for: Steve-n-Sons Grassfields. The price seemed steep at first, but as I thought about it, the cost made perfect sense. These were cows, eating exactly what they should eat, producing milk with all the nutrients that come from nature, without the extra processing that both kills beneficial bacteria, and reduces the nutritive content of the milk. Cheese has been one of the last hold-outs on our consistent march toward food with healthier origins (organic, naturally raised, raw, local). Only one grocery carries organic cheese, but it is $8/lb. and definitely not local or raw, and probably only organic in the loosest USDA sense. So when we found a source of somewhat local (still almost 150 miles away), raw, organic cheese, that would sell us a whole round, without a lot of extra packaging, for the same price, we knew it was time to switch.
The folks at Grassfields are very nice, and our round/wheel of Lamont Cheddar arrived today! We still have some cheese left in the fridge that we will eat before cutting into the wheel, but it is hard to wait! It is 13.5 lbs. total, and we will cut it into chunks to freeze. At $8/lb. + $13 shipping, it comes to just under $9/lb. It means we will eat cheese a little more slowly, but it is also stronger with more flavor, and we will need less of it. Quesadillas will have to wait until I can make my own “farmers” cheese. I do have a cheese kit, compliments of Bea’s brother, so that day may not be too far off…
I have never had a beet that I particularly liked. I just don’t eat dirt clods that look like they bleed.
But that was before this winter, and a recipe that came with some beets from a co-workers garden. I think it came from a Campbell’s cookbook (page 18), but I have copied it here in the way that we made it (more or less).
Creamy Beet Soup
A twist on traditional borscht. While usually served hot with yogurt, it is also tasty chilled (so I hear).
- 2 medium onions, chopped
- 3 Tbs. butter
- 1 medium potato, chopped
- 1 clove garlic, minced
- 2-3 medium beets, sliced
- 3 cups chicken or vegetable stock
- 1 tsp. salt
- 1 tsp. snipped fresh dill, or 1 tsp. dried dill weed
- 1/4 tsp. pepper
- Yogurt garnish
In a large sauce pan, over medium heat, cook onions in butter until tender. Add potato and garlic; cook 1 minute. Add beets and stock to saucepan; heat to a boil. Cover and cook over low heat 15 minutes or until potato is tender.
Place one-half beet mixture in blender or food processor. Cover and blend till smooth. Place blended soup aside and repeat with remaining beet mixture. Return soup to saucepan. Add dill, salt and pepper to taste. Serve with yogurt.
This bodes well for Bea’s plans to grow some of these strange veggies in our garden(s) this year.
As the temps have dropped, and outdoor activities have come to a halt, I am finding that I am thinking more and more about the spring activities. For the first time, I have requested seed catalogs. I poked around on the Internet, looking for companies that sell organic and/or heirloom, heritage, non-hybrid varieties. So, I have catalogs from Johnny’s, Seed Savers Exchange , and Park Seed on their way, and I downloaded the catalog from Fedco. I also started thinking about how we would lay out the garden(s) and how I should go about making a “master plan”. I started looking around for software for laying out a garden (freeware/open source, of course). For OS X I found GardenSketch, which I have used before. It is still in beta, but includes a extensive database of plants, and grabs updates an photos from the MSU (Michigan State University) plant database. I found it worked well, and had great features for planning and logging a garden, but for planning out a 1.6 acre lot, it was a little clunky. It would work very well for individual garden plots within the master plan, but not for the master plan itself. On the Windows side, there were not any good finds that were specific to gardening. I resorted to looking for CAD software, and downloaded several. I must say, some CAD software is infernally frustrating to try to use if you never have before. It is also difficult to find a simple 2D CAD program; most seem to be geared toward 3D drafting. So I did finally find free2Design and found that will a little time, I was able to do what I wanted.
So what exactly did I want to do? I want a accurate aerial view drawing of our property, including buildings and trees. So I went to our county GIS site, found our plat, took a screenshot, cropped it down to an approximate likeness to the actual property lines (209′ x 335′ 6″), imported it into free2Design, and began tracing out the features. When I was done, the image can be hidden, and I have myself a nice drawing to work with. Once I have all the “permanent features”, I can divide the lot into areas, and label them. For instance, we will have a garden area around our carport that will have herbs. That particular section of the yard is area 7 and can have more detailed plans. Same with the shed, the “orchard”, and so on. Now I can develop a master plan, and maybe use GardenSketch for individual areas. Exciting!
So here it is, the map of the piano lot, with trees and buildings, divided into areas:
The areas are really only intended to break up the space into manageable chunks, so there are a few places that the break-up seems illogical. I will still do some tweaking to get it to look more thought out… There are also overlapping areas and areas that consist entirely of other areas in order to provide a unified plan for a certain feature.
Anyway, I am on the road to a master plan, which will also include list and lists of specific plants, which ones don’t get along, and which ones attract bees, repel pests, or attract natural enemies of pests. It is a long term project (years and years), and it feels nice to be able to think that far ahead.
She is a good little dog, even if lame. One of my co-workers *drives for the Amish in the area, and heard that one family was getting rid of a female Yorkshire terrier. It turns out that they bought her for breeding, and thought that her limp and strange gait would go away as she grew. When they took her to the vet for her checkup, he told them they should not breed this dog. So they decided to get rid of it. My co-worker asked them to give her 2 weeks to find a new home, rather than just “putting her down”.
I had recently done some research on dogs, to find out which ones were good for livestock protection. I found a nice long list, and noticed that most were large. At the very bottom there was the Yorkshire Terrier, and I thought it was funny to find it there. So when we found that a Yorkie needed a home, we were ready to say yes.
She is a pretty little dog, but seems to have spine or hip trouble and does not use her back right leg most of the time. She does not complain, does not seem to be in pain, and is still very active.
Even so, I think we have decided on a name… Kalooy (ka-loo-oy), which is Bisaya for pitiful (or too be pitied). We find that we spend a lot of time saying or thinking “poor thing”, so I think it will be quite appropriate.
*Sometime the Amish need to get somewhere that it is impractical to use a horse and buggy, so they pay neighbors to drive them, and generally pay them pretty well.
Retorts