Garden Ups and Downs: a Season in Review

For the second weekend in a row, my gardening efforts have been thwarted. I really need to do some preparations for winter, but it's been too rainy. So today I find myself ruminating on my first year of gardening which, as expected, had its ups and downs:

The Ups:

• Strawberries: This is where it all started, as last year I had really let the strawberries go and vowed that 2008 would be different. This year I stayed on top of the weeds, and at their peak I was harvesting 2-3 quarts a day. Much of this went into the freezer, and I've really enjoyed using those berries to make jam and ice cream, not to mention the occasional strawberry shortcake.
• Potatoes: all things considered, these did well. I think we had some beginner's luck here, and I'm not sure we mastered the art of hilling but we did make an effort. The spuds turned out a bit smaller than expected, and I don't really know why, but we did manage to put a nice quantity away in our "new" root cellar.
• Green Beans: I was thrilled with the yield and the duration of my little harvest. We enjoyed them fresh, and froze about 5 lbs to use throughout the winter.
• Zucchini: Like the green beans, these were plentiful and we planted just about the right number of plants.
• Tomatoes: the Brandywines were delicious fresh, so much better than store-bought. The Marianas had excellent yield and I enjoyed trying my hand at canning.

The Downs:

• Tomatoes: Yes, there was a downside, too. We planted too many Brandywines, which don't preserve well. So I had to sacrifice an awful lot of them. And our trellises didn't hold them well enough either.
• Raspberries: I don't know what happened, but I only saw about 3 berries this year.
• Peas: They were delicious, but we didn't plant enough of these and the harvest was used up far too quickly.
• Lettuce & Spinach: I planted these too late in the season. The spinach didn't germinate at all, and the lettuce "bolted" early so only saw a few measly leaves.
• Carrots, Parsnips, and Leeks: we never got around to planting these. Oops.

There's Always Next Year ...

I've learned so much from gardening that I can channel into the next season. It's probably always that way, isn't it? Now I can spend the off season thinking about what I'll do differently next year. I have a few ideas already:

• Plant lettuce earlier, and try a different variety. The Amish markets near here all carry buttercrunch, which was deliciously sweet. Maybe I'll try it, too.
• Look into potato varieties and see if there are others more suited to our climate. Consider trying something new, but probably only two varieties, not three as we did this year.
• Plant root vegetables!
• Try onions.
• Try a different variety of plum tomato, just to compare flavors.
• Improve trellises and other supports.
• Be more diligent with compost.
• Keep on having fun!

Preservation & Preparation

The growing season is coming to an end, so my attention has turned to preserving what we've grown this year, and preparing the garden for next season. At this point, all of our garden beds have been cleared except for the tomatoes. Several pounds of strawberries and green beans are tucked away in the freezer, and I've been canning tomatoes and salsa.

We've also created a root cellar. This old spring house sits on the edge of our property:

A ladder leads down below ground, where the potatoes are now stored:

It's a good start, but there are still some areas that need to be sealed up before winter!

More adventures in canning

I picked ten more pounds of tomatoes this week. Watch the magic:

Tomatoes, red onion, jalapenos, dried red pepper, cilantro, garlic. Any guesses?

first step: blanch and peel, of course

after much chopping, mix all that stuff in a pot along with red wine vinegar and some spices

bring to a boil and cook for 10 minutes

can it!

enjoy the leftovers immediately!

This recipe for "SpicyTomato Salsa" can be found in The Ball Blue Book of Preserving. It's delicious!

"Pleasant thoughts" on tomatoes

It's difficult to think anything but pleasant thoughts while eating a homegrown tomato. ~ Lewis Grizzard

As expected, our first Brandywine tomato was just the beginning. Last week I picked more Brandywines and over 13 pounds of Marianas.

We're enjoying the Brandywines fresh off the vine. And the Marianas? Well, here's what happened to them:

blanched and peeled

We had a nice assembly line going from the stove to the sink that made short work of this task.

Then, I halved the tomatoes, stuffed them into jars, and processed in the canner for 1.5 hours. It was time-consuming, but so many of our favorite dishes call for tomatoes; it will be worth the effort come winter.

halved, in juice, ready to eat ... later!

The first tomato

Just half of the massive Brandywine Tomato I picked yesterday.

With dinner simmering on the stove, I went out to the garden to quickly pick some beans before the approaching rain hit. I grabbed a few zucchini too, of course (I think we have a lifetime supply going now) and, just as the first fat raindrops began to fall I spotted our first ripe tomato. It was huge, about 8" long and oddly crescent-shaped. But oh, was it ever delicious. We had some fresh mozzarella and basil on hand, so we made a very nice Insalate Caprese . The sweet, ripe flavor of the Brandywine Tomato was quite simply to die for.

In my hunger and enthusiasm I neglected to snap a picture right away. The kids, who think I'm nuts to take pictures of produce, encouraged me with thoughts that the camera angle might hide the fact the tomato had been cut. Well of course it didn't, so you have to imagine the other half of this; it was actually quite symmetrical.

I expect by the end of the weekend we'll be drowing in both Brandywines and plum tomatoes. I'm looking forward to doing some canning !

Produce Aplenty

July turned out to be a busy month, so it's been quite a while since I posted here. But of course the garden keeps right on growing, and has prospered even though I've not been able to give it the attention it deserves.


We harvested our first potatoes on Saturday. These are Maris Pipers (white, on the left) and Desirees (red, on the right). It was fun digging them up, a bit like hunting for Easter Eggs or buried treasure, filled with nervous anticipation of what lies beneath the ground. Once again, I was amazed that nature actually works, even under the care of a novice like myself. Many of the potatoes are smaller than we'd like, so I want to research possible causes and make some improvements next year.

Zucchini, which just started producing a month ago, have continued to pump out squash large and small. The green beans have done very well, indeed. I've been pretty vigilant about picking beans regularly. I usually cook some right away, and then blanch and freeze the rest. So far I have put away 3.5 lbs of frozen green beans we can use in the coming months.

The tomatoes are large and plentiful, but have been slow to ripen, which is apparently happening to everyone in our area this year. Well, everyone except, thankfully, the Amish family that runs Briar Hollow Farm Market. I bought some lovely tomatoes there today and am glad they can keep me supplied while I wait not-so-patiently for my own green Brandywines and Marianas to turn a beautiful red.

Sunday dinner will be a curry using home-grown potatoes, peas, and green beans. Now that's what this gardening thing is all about!

Mid-Season Garden Progress Report

There's been a lot happening in the garden! Overall I'm pleased with the results, and am keeping detailed notes to guide next year's planting: more of this, less of that, change the bed layout, rotate, and on and on ...

I met my personal commitment to berries, made last year. The strawberry harvest was great, yielding 3 quarts a day at its peak. It was much more than we could eat, but I now have several bags of berries in the freezer so they will not go to waste. Unfortunately our raspberries haven't done so well; we have a couple of bushes yielding pretty berries but several where the berries are tiny and dry.

We planted about 8 rows of peas this year, and the yield was OK. But we will plant more next year, because fresh peas are wonderful, and even with decent yields it takes a lot of plants to enjoy the peas for more than one meal. We harvested the dried pods to save as seeds, tilled the bed, and this is what we're left with. I'm trying to decide whether we want to plant something else this season -- carrots, perhaps?

The lettuce hasn't done so well; I think we planted too late. And then, just as some harvest-ready leaves appeared, we went on vacation. Bunnies enjoyed them during our absence.

Zucchini is known the world over for huge yields that send you searching through your cookbooks. Being new to gardening, I was sure I'd kill half the plants, so I've probably overdone it. Of course we're experiencing the yield that gives zucchini its reputation. Take a look at this guy, standing at attention! I just took two loaves of zucchini bread from the oven ... tasty! Surplus squash will undoubtedly be cooked in many forms, and foisted on unsuspecting neighbors and office colleagues.

Tomatoes are in flower. Like zucchini, these are relatively easy to grow so we may end up with much more than we could possibly consume. But with tomatoes, that's by design: I cook a lot of dishes that call for tomatoes, so I'd like to try my hand at canning and enjoy the abundance all year 'round.

It looks like we'll have beans soon as well; I'm seeing lots of pretty flowers like these on the more mature plants. I've tried seeding these rows in succession to stagger the yield.

And last but not least, the potatoes are growing like mad above ground; I only hope they are prospering below! This is a bit like waiting for Christmas, knowing full well I mustn't peek. In any case, we have about 35 plants which may or may not deliver more potatoes than we can handle. Stay tuned ...

Home-grown: First Strawberries!

While tending the garden last weekend, I saw two almost-ripe berries. I snitched a couple during the week, and this morning we harvested our first batch. There's well over a quart in that basket. Strawberry shortcake for dessert tonight!

Garden Progress Report

Tiny apple

There's so much happening in the garden right now ... time for a progress report. First, let's start with the big picture. On the left is a full map of the orchard and on the right, vegetable garden detail (click to enlarge):

Apples are just starting to take shape. We removed the fence surrounding each individual tree, and the fence around the veggies, and put a single high fence around the entire orchard / garden area. The fence is critical to protect from deer, but the trees had outgrown their original fences. One big fence also makes it a lot easier to access everything. The fence has really made a difference with the strawberries this year ... In fact, just this morning I found two nearly-ripe berries so we should be picking by next weekend !!

Berries forming

The potatoes, planted just over a month ago, are coming along nicely. The mounds of dirt, left over from digging trenches for planting, were used for "hilling" this weekend. The extra dirt around each plant provides lots of room for potatoes to form. We'll need to hill once or twice more during the season.

Potatoes @ 5 weeks, after hilling

The snap peas are a little sparse:

Snap peas

But the shelling peas are thriving:

Peas in bloom ... nice full rows

We also have raspberries, lettuce, tomatoes and zucchini all moving along, but nothing photo-worthy yet! Stay tuned ...

Spring Growth Spurt

The garden has suddenly taken off! After some rain this week, everything is growing:

About 2 weeks after sowing, the lettuce is just peeking out of the ground. And the potatoes are producing nice leafy bunches nestled between mounds of dirt , which stand at the ready to form hills around each plant when they get a bit larger:

We have some nice rows of peas, after about 5 weeks, although the snap peas have not done as well as the shelling peas. We think that side of the bed might not get as much sunlight.

The berries, which were planted a couple of years ago, are coming along quite nicely. The fence has made a world of difference by protecting the plants from the deer. We have both strawberries and raspberries blossoming:

And here's the best surprise of all !

Just when I had resigned myself to not having goslings this year, on Monday another pair of geese turned up with four goslings in tow. I have no idea where they nested, but then this is the "magic" that's occurred almost every year now. Yea!

There are no bodies buried here ...

I understand that 6-foot-long mounds of earth could spark lots of questions, so let me dispel the fear and rumors right now: those are potato beds. I did mention last week we'd soon be planting potatoes. This weekend's weather was fantastic, and of course I could think of nothing better to do than dig 6-8" deep trenches. Well, I did have some help. On Saturday the kids lent a hand by bringing glasses of ice water. On Sunday I convinced Chris that his superior digging techniques would get the job done more quickly (I was right!). The mounds of earth come out of the trenches, so to speak, and will be used to form little hills around the potato plants as they grow. The bed to the rear contains Maris Pipers, a British variety. The front bed has both Desiree (a European red potato), and Austrian Crescents (a fingerling potato). Can you ever have too many potatoes? No ....! Behind the potatoes are the peas, which are just starting to come out of the ground (pictured at right).

Finally, all the way at the back of the garden, are the strawberries and raspberries. Oh, and weeds. Those beds are kind of a mess but we're trying to improve on last year's neglect. This weekend we "recycled" some metal poles, formerly a silt fence, to create a barrier from the deer. This should give the berries -- and, in fact, the entire garden -- a fighting chance.

Next up: lettuce, in that bed at the very front. But that will have to wait for another day ...

Becoming Locavores

We live on what is currently the edge of suburban sprawl: just a couple miles north or west lies farmland, and lots of it. So why do we buy so much of our food from the local supermarket, where produce is sourced from all over the world? Sure, this guarantees that just about anything we want to eat is available year-round. But this comes at a cost represented by transportation, fuel consumption, and greenhouse gas emissions.

That's why, last Saturday, we went for a little drive, turning left at a sign that read, "Grass-fed Jersey Milk 1.5 miles." The road grew narrower, and the grass and cows more plentiful. We pulled into the driveway of an Amish dairy farm we'd found through Local Harvest. A young girl was sweeping the driveway, and a boy was dribbling a soccer ball. Their mother came out of the house to greet us. Trying not to look too much like city folk, we asked for milk and eggs. She escorted us into an immaculate room with a large tank, dipped a pitcher into the tank, and poured its fresh, creamy contents into a half-gallon glass bottle. We learned that most of their milk is sold to consumers like us, some is used to make yogurt and cheese (also for sale), and a truck collects unsold milk weekly for packaging and distribution elsewhere. The family's goal is to be a 100% local consumer business within the year. The milk was delicious, and the eggs made beautiful golden omelets. I'll be back this weekend, this time for a full gallon of milk, and more eggs.

Even closer to home is Briar Hollow Farms, another Amish homestead with its own produce market. Their selection is highly variable, but by July you can count on Briar Hollow for the best-tasting corn in Chester County. Local Harvest has details of other nearby farm markets, most of which open in May. I'm going to use these markets to supplement our own home-grown produce, and reduce supermarket purchases by planning our meals around what's fresh and available locally.

Ideas like these have been germinating in my mind for a while, and crystallized when I read Barbara Kingsolver's book Animal, Vegetable, Miracle (read my review). Kingsolver is a convincing advocate of local eating, and the internet is chock-full of resources on the subject. We are not going "cold turkey" as some have done, but we will learn by doing. And I expect we will enjoy the process!

Signs of Spring, and a Harbinger of Summer, too

Spring is always hectic where gardening is concerned. There's been a lot going on & I've hardly had the time to sit down and write about it. This is the first year of our vegetable garden, so there's a lot of preparation to be done. We've been creating the beds, trying to stay a couple steps ahead of outdoor planting. So far we have two large beds, about 6'x12, and four smaller plots, 6'x6'.


We planted shelling peas and snap peas in the first of the large beds. The second large bed will hold potatoes, which are currently chitting indoors. We have three varieties, including the Maris Piper which we came to appreciate while living in the UK. No more supermarket russets for us (I hope ...) We also started seedlings in flats under lamps: leeks, tomatoes, zucchini, fennel, and rosemary. That's the zucchini pictured. They're off to a good start, and just today we transplanted them into larger pots. Lettuces need to be planted ... hopefully soon. After last frost we'll plant the beans, and then later on the root vegetables (carrots and parsnips). I can't wait to see how this all turns out!

I've been caught up in all this wonderful springtime activity, but just two nights ago I was reminded that summer was on the way. We opened the door to let the dogs out (or was it to let them in? It's always one or the other!), and there was the little fella pictured on the right. Toads visit regularly in the summer months, and always perch on that step between porch and door. The dogs burst in and out, oblivious to the toad's presence (thank goodness). I know we'll see more as the weather warms up; for now I was happy to see this harbinger of summer!

I promise to be kind to my berries

The strawberries were 2007's biggest gardening surprise. We planted both strawberries and raspberries in 2006, and honestly thought they'd been decimated by deer over the winter. Then suddenly one day, strawberries were everywhere!

The problem was, these plants had been sorely neglected. The raspberry plants were obscured by weeds, and not yielding much fruit. The strawberry plants were also in heavy competition with weeds. And yet, these hardy souls had sprouted runners that were threatening to take over the planet. Having decided that 2008 is our year to get serious about home-grown produce, I knew I had some work to do.

This weekend I set about preparing the berry patch for great things in 2008. I began by weeding with a vengeance, starting on Saturday morning with the waist-high weeds (no, I am not exaggerating). Sunday morning was spent clearing smaller weeds from the strawberries, and weeds of all sizes from the raspberries. The next step will be to turn a large patch of strawberry plants into neat rows. This will mean sacrificing some plants, but will result in a more manageable bed, fewer plants competing for nutrients and, I hope, a nice yield.

Now, I need to sit down and write 100 times:

1. I will be kind to my berries
2. I will be kind to my berries
3. I will be kind to my berries ....

Autumn Ruminations

Today was a perfect autumn day. The morning was cool and comfortable, and the afternoon temperature was in the 70s. It was a great day to work outside.

In the morning, Chris and I ventured out to the pasture. I was assigned the monotonous but strangely satisfying task of picking up sticks. There are quite a lot of bits and pieces left over after bush-hogging. As I raked and stacked sticks, Chris expounded on two of his favorite topics:

1. Which trees need to come down (after his collarbone heals, of course)
2. Which model of tractor he wants to buy

I have learned after 2o+ years that Chris makes decisions by talking about the subject. My role in all this is to listen and offer the occasional opinion, but mostly let him ruminate. The purpose of the discussion is not to make a decision right then. It's to make a decision at some point. So, having taken down umpteen trees this year, we still don't have a completely clear view from house to pasture. This will change, once it is determined which trees are dead or otherwise unsightly. Second, we have a behemoth of a tractor affectionately called "Ned the Bull," who is old, unpredictable, and far from agile. It is time for Ned to retire; the question is, what sort of young whippersnapper will take his place? I think Chris has worked through enough options to know it will be four-wheel-drive with a front-end loader. But how many horsepower? Will it have a belly mower or a bush-hog? Can you attach a post-hole digger? My oh my, the permutations and combinations are endless. I had no idea. So I listen, and nod politely, and look forward to welcoming a new tractor in the coming weeks or months.

In the afternoon I moved to the front garden and went after the weeds that have piled up around the bushes. This was a solitary task, and gave me time to do some of my own ruminating. It's time I had a project of my own on our property, and I'm going to start a vegetable garden. I've been inspired by our strawberry patch that refused to die despite a year of neglect, and by the "eating locally" movement in general. And today I read this great post, "Lettuce Give Thanks," by A Mark on my Wall, where she is trying to eat mostly food that comes from within 100 miles of her Chicago home.

So I've chosen the spot for my veggie garden, and I've requested a book from the library that came highly recommended by some of my bookworm friends: John Seymour's The Self-Sufficient Gardener. I'll do some prep work as I can during the autumn. Over the winter I plan to read Barbara Kingsolver's Animal, Vegetable, Miracle which I know will be motivating. And, I'll pore over seed catalogs and other how-to books and internet sites. With any kind of luck, we'll have fresh produce in the summer !!

First apples

We spent today weeding in the orchard, where there are 18 heirloom apple trees and 4 dwarf cherry trees. 12 apple trees were planted in 2006; the rest, this year. The tallest tree is about 6' high now, and the smallest about 3'.

The weeds have been growing fast & furious and, in some cases, you could barely see the poor little trees. So we cleared 5' circles around the base of each tree and then replaced the wire fences we're using to keep the deer at bay. Much to my surprise, some of the older trees are bearing fruit! Unfortunately we will probably have to pick these before they ripen, because the limbs just aren't strong enough yet. Maybe next year...

Meanwhile Chris has made great progress clearing the area behind the pond, increasing our available land for pasture and preparing for fencing. The view is much more open than when we brought the property (see "Pasture, pond, and other developments" for an earlier photo). The fencing bids are in, the deposit is paid, we are now just at the mercy of the fencing company to schedule the work.