Remembering June

Here's a picture from June 13, 2011. The garden is lush, green, and full of promise,  with potatoes, onions, garlic and fava beans burgeoning.
 Today is December 19th, and winter officially starts in a couple of days.  It was 15 degrees  at 7am this morning, and I wore my dpwn jacket  with the hood up when I walked Sol this morning (he has a jacket too).
  This picture reminds me of what makes winter bearable for northern gardeners-- anticipation! You can't miss what you always have (so I tell myself) and gardeners in more temperate climes never have to look out on dead and dingy winter landscapes, dreaming of spring. Thus the full bloom of summer is not as  wonderful for them, because there is less contrast.
But I don't just dream.  I plan, and  seeing the planning pay off as the garden unfolds over the season is the greatest joy.   And that's what i'm going to write about over these winter months.  I'm going to analyze what worked in my 2011 garden, and what didn't, and plan a better garden for 2012.

The Great Thanksgiving Clean Up

Our first hard frosts at the the end of October killed the morning glory and lima bean vines on their supports at the back of the fenced kitchen garden.  I was intimidated by the task of cutting back and removing the vines, but the sad mess made me feel guilty every  time I looked at it.

Finally, on a warm Thanksgiving morning I tackled the job.  Among the dried and withered 'King Of The Garden' lima vines I found a  trove of seeds nicely dried-- here they are, next year's bounty in small white packages.

Next I tackled my blueberry patch, which was overgrown and unruly.  I cut out four wheelbarrows full of grayed old stems and whip-like unbranched waterspouts.

I have had no berries for two years because the wintermoth worms were eating the buds, and the shrubs were too tall to spray with BT.  I will fertilize in the spring, spray early, and see what happens. If there is a crop, the bushes will now be low enough to cover with netting to keep birds away too.

The 'Tom Thumb' bib lettuce has been growing well under a makeshift milkcrate  and remay shelter.

And the parsley patch loves the cool fall weather:










I harvested some greens from each patch for my Thanksgiving salad.

Finally, I dug and transplanted Jerusalem Artichokes. They are neither from Jerusalem,  nor artichokes, but the enlarged root of a native sunflower, and were very likely part of the first Thanksgiving feast. The name is thought to be a corruption of  Native American.
I have read that Jerusalem Artichokes can be invasive, so I originally planted them along the back fence behind my bed of large grasses in a unused waste space.  But in that spot they have been repeatedly eaten to the ground by rabbits slipping through the fence, and the production of tubers has been disappointing.
So on Thanksgiving morning I dug all the tubers I could find, kept the biggest to eat (only a half-dozen) and planted the remaining twenty or so smaller roots back into rich soil in one of my raised beds. Maybe this year I'll see the promised six foot sunflowers in September and a decent haul of roots  for next Thanksgiving.
Here are the biggest of the  tubers I took inside to cook.  They were delicious fried in butter until crunchy outside and soft inside, and I felt they made our Thanksgiving an authentic one.

Eight point buck

For the last week there have been three does feeding in the hayfield out back around dawn and dusk, so I wasn't really interested when I noticed a large brown presence over the fence this morning.  But then the deer came closer to the yard that the does ever have, and I stopped reading the paper and looked out the slider through the top of my bifocals.

Instead of the shy does, a brave and relaxed eight point buck was just beyond the fence.  I grabbed my binoculars and watched him for a while, then picked up a camera.  He looked healthy and fat, ready for winter.
I know that in some Eastern communities, especially in Connecticut, deer have been very destructive of vegetable and ornamental gardens. But  around here we've got lots of good deer habitat, as well as a healthy population of coyotes, so they are still good company rather than the enemy.  And that's the first time I've seen a buck in about ten years.

The last flowers of the year: Witch Hazel

My fall blooming Witch Hazel began blooming  inconspicuously when the leaves were still on the tree, but now that the leaves are gone, the flowers are still going.  The small clusters of strand-like blooms fill the air by my front door with a delicate citrus scent, and cheer me up when I come home from work in the early afternoon twilight of November.

After the snow

The storm   last week wasn't bad here-- we had only a dusting of snow and did not lose power.
Here's a shot of the
snow:

                                But we got a really hard frost on Nov.1-- just like last year:

But the hardy crops are still going-- chard, lettuce and parsley. 

I also found some overlooked onions re-sprouted as scallions, which I combined with parsley, potatoes and a balsamic vinaigrette for a tasty fall salad.

A storm is coming....

Last year we had  the first hard frost on November 1. This year we had frost on the 27th.  Still later than the old standard for this area of October 15th.  Now a long storm of rain and snow is bearing down on the Northeast and my garden.  My winter rye is sprouting in the barrel by the gate, and elsewhere in the garden.  It will help hold the soil in place during the winter storms, and can survive the cold.

I threw a row cover over the fence surrounding my patch of 'Lucullus' chard, and tucked it as well as  I could, but the winds will be up to 60 miles an hour, and I fully expect to find it either ripped to shreds  or on the other side of the garden, or both, tomorrow.   Or may be not-- the bed is surrounded by fence and a patch of blueberries, which may shelter it.   I did a  pre-emptive picking of both chard and lettuce this morning.  I did not cover the lettuce, but in past years it has survived well when sheltered in light snow.  Update tomorrow, after I shovel!

Fall Greens -- Heirloom pics

Here are two heirloom greens that produce wonderfully for me:

 ABOVE:
Tom Thumb lettuce--- wonderfully tender buttery little heads.  I had a spring crop that was also very heat tolerant, and here's the fall crop.
BELOW:
Lucullus Swiss Chard-- not as pretty as 'Bright Lights', but tender and productive, not to mention frost resistant! I've got them in a small fenced bed that I can toss a row cover over on cold nights. Great stir-fried with tofu and anything else you care to add in a ginger, sherry, tamari and sesame oil sauce.

Good Grass

I like my lawn.  There, I've admitted it!  The large swaths of green are bright and cheerful,  good for playing tag with Sol, and even excellent habitat for many of the  birds, reptiles and mammals who live in and visit my yard.  

There has been a 'green' outcry against lawns the last few years. They use lots of precious water, are treated with chemicals and fertilizers that damage the ecosystyem,  burn fossil fuel when cut,  and could be planted with vegetables instead...  all true in many cases, but not in regard to my lawn. 

I don't live in Arizona, Texas, or another area where the climate is all wrong for growing the typical lawn grass species.  Lawns in temperate climates like mine don't need a lot of water as long as the property owner understands the life cycle, and is ok with  some brown grass in August.  In twenty years I have never watered my lawn!  I have also never fertilized, and never spread herbicides or pesticides, yet my lawn look green and verdant most of the time.  

So how do I keep my lawn this way?  First, I don't worry about some plants considered lawn weeds.  One whole section of lawn on the shady side is really Ajuga, or  bugleweed. It mows just fine, and outcompetes the dandelions. Also, it is a beautiful carpet of blue flowers for a month in late spring. I also welcome sorrel and  clover, which are both  bright green, cut well, and have flowers that bees enjoy.  I will hand dig big dandelions and plantains, but nor obsessively. 

I cut the grass high, and leave some of the clippings in place to fertilize.  When I've let it go too long and the cuttings are thick, I rake them and use them as mulch and fertilizer in the vegetable and flower beds.  I cut my grass with a reel mower most of the time. It's so quiet that I can listen to a book on tape while mowing.  About four times a season the weather or my schedule keeps me from mowing, and I call a family friend who comes in with his commercial mower for a modest fee plus an assortment of garden produce. The clippings from these cuts provide so much mulch I don't have to buy any in-- thus meaning no truck burning gas to deliver.

I like my lawn, but I know that as I get older it will be harder for me to keep cutting it with the reel mower.  So I have a strategy; working in from the edges I make the lawn smaller each year.  Here's a picture of the big bed of  ornamental grasses I planted ten years ago just after planting:

 Here's the same bed today:
It requires some weeding, but because I mulch it with the cuttings from the previous year's grass each spring, the weeds are manageable.

 I dug and planted this bed two years ago. It's starting to fill in.

 This shady bed is about five years old. I built the gravel path at the same time.

 The bed in the picture below  surrounds the stump of an apple tree I cut down ten years ago. It's been getting a foot wider every year, and is planted with perennials in the center, and rhubarb and vegetables farther out.  Note the dead patch on the lawn-- I've been monitoring it for a month, trying to decide if I should rake and seed it with grass.  But it is half the size it was originally, so I think I'll leave it to it's own devices for now.

All lawns are not evil, and here in Southeastern Massachusetts  untreated lawns like mine are important wildlife habitat, especially when they border on hayfields like the one beyond my fence. Many species of meadow birds are in decline locally because of the reforestation of the East Coast, and fields and lawns can help them survive.  Did I mention  fireflies? The grasslands are key to their survival too.

Eventually,  I plan to have a manageable section of lawn on view from the slider, surrounded by flowers, shrubs and vegetables; small enough to cut in a day, big enough to host a crowd of fireflies on a warm July evening.

 

Cooking Frenzy

When I graduated from college the job market was tough, much like today. I worked in a video store for a few months, then lucked into a job as a cook at a busy, hip restaurant.  I worked as  a cook for the next ten years,  before moving on to horticulture.   That was a long time and two careers ago, but I still love to cook fast and furiously, making several dishes at the same time, just because I can!   And cooking food I've grown gives me a sense  (probably false, but comforting) of some control over my life. 

Here's what I made today. 

                                Baked Butternut squash casserole with my own squash and onions.

Yet more pickled peppers. No, I don't have a peck, but there are a lot.

Orchiette pasta with fresh lima beans, butter and parmesan and romano cheese.

Here's how I did it:

 First I put a pot of salted water on to heat.  I put bowls of  pasta and raw limas out nearby.

While the water boiled I cleaned the peppers, slit the sides a couple of times, and jammed them into Ball jars.
By then the pot was boiling, so I put the pasta in and set the timer to two minutes.

Next I filled the pepper jars with  cold water,  then poured it out into two measuring cups. There was  about three cups.

My timer went, and I added the limas to the pot of boiling water and put the timer on eight minutes.

I  replaced half the water from the peppers with white vinegar, and put the mixture in a pot on the stove. then I added  three coarsely chopped cloves of my own garlic, a teaspoon of whole cumin, three roughly broken bay leaves, three tablespoons each of sugar and kosher salt, and two tablespoons of  whole black peppercorns.  I turned the heat on medium.

When the pasta alarm rang I drained the lima bean and pasta mix, put it into a reusable plastic container and added a half tablespoon (ok, maybe a bit more...) of unsalted butter, two tablespoons of parm/romano mix, salt and pepper.  Lunch for tomorrow at work!

While my pasta cooled, I turned to the pickling mix. When it had simmered for about five minutes I turned off the burner, let it sit a couple more minutes, then ladled it over the peppers.  I put the lids on and moved the jars to the fridge to cool.

Then I turned the oven on to  400 degrees,  peeled and sliced my own butternut and onion, layered them in a casserole with salt, pepper, a pinch of nutmeg and some knobs of butter.  Once the oven dinged, I put the casserole on a middle rack to cook until tender (depending on the squash this can be anywhere from  30 to 60 minutes; some squash is drier and takes longer to cook).

While the squash baked I watched a DVD from the library-- a cosy British  detective series called 'Rosemary and Thyme' about a pair of gardening detectives.  I wish I got to take long lunches in the pub with a pint when I worked on other peoples gardens!

After a half hour the squash was tender, so I sprinkled some parm/romano mix on it, turned off the oven, and let it sit in the oven another ten minutes. It smelled so good I forgot to take the picture before I ate some!

Mark Bittman wrote a column recently about how easy it is to cook cheap good food at home.  I agree, but a few years of restaurant cooking sure help with the efficiency.  And I got some cool burn scars too.

October 12 harvest

I picked the last of my Hungarian wax peppers today.  Because of the spell of unseasonably hot weather last week (84! one day) they produced a bonus October crop of very hot peppers, some of which we'll use fresh, some of which I'll pickle. 

 Limas are still coming too, and I found some older pods that had dried on the vine that I will save for planting next season.  Some of the seeds dried, then sprouted in the pods (  thinking it was spring already, I guess) and others were clearly moldy, but a dozen of so look clean and healthy enough to save. 

I was lazy about thinning the 'Icicle' radishes, so many did not form good roots. Except for one, which was about eight inches long! The 'Bright Lights' chard is still going, and I'll be using it in a stir fry tonight.

 Sol waited for me to shell some Limas and feed them to him..... really, he's not spoiled.

 The kitchen garden this morning.

Road Trip to Stone Barns

I went to Tarrytown,  New York to celebrate my mother's birthday, and as always we went on several walks.  One was on around the farm at Stone Barns,  where we have visited many times before.  

I love observing the seasonal changes in their many gardens, comparing their success with crops to mine, and seeing crops I'm thinking of growing. Here's mom in the  'Dooryard Garden', their version of a kitchen garden.  We had many crops in common, including moonflowers, swiss chard, bush type butternut squash, and purple pole beans.  I was surprised there weren't more nasturtiums, which have been wonderful for me this year, especially 'Milkmaid'.  

 They also had several smaller mounded bed gardens, like this one full of bush beans (it looked like they were being left to dry for shell beans).

 In the larger fields I was envious of the amazing production they got from peppers, and noted that they used what looked like a biodegradable black plastic, which made a big difference in output. I will try that next year!  I also saw  row of  artichokes, and a few had been left to flower:

 Artichokes are beautiful plants, with striking silvery leaves, but looking at the remains of the crop  I felt they would not be worth starting from seed for my garden.  I might put in one or two plants if I can trade with someone in the area, just because they are so cool-looking, and because they remind me of travelling the artichoke fields of California with my father, and buying and cooking up bags of baby artichokes you could eat choke and all. A delicious memory.

Finally we visited the greenhouses. Wow, what  a lot of work.  It reminded me of my days in the perennial plant trade.  While I loved wandering the rows and seeing lots of interesting greens in person (so to speak) I never want to go back to gardening on this scale.  I talked to one of the staff hard at work weeding, and asked if I could take pics for my blog. He gave me permission, and introduced himself as Jason. Then he told about his blog- 'Have you ever picked a carrot?' I checked it out later and loved it--it is a mix of science and personal musings presented in a friendly but not cute voice.  Much better than a lot of the blogs I've seen. I'll be checking back regularly.

More Moonflowers

Eight Moonflowers last night! I stopped cutting the grass to take this picture.  Also a great third picking of  lima beans:

Moonflower Evening

It was unseasonably cool last week, with night temps dow  into the 40's, and I worried that my moonflowers would drop every bud and give up on 2011. But over the weekend the temps began to warm, and by Monday night the moonflowers were putting on a show.  

Each afternoon when I came home from work, I would visit the garden to count the buds that were  beginning their slow uncurling.  After dinner, as dusk descended, the flowers would flatten out and release their delicate, sweet perfume into the humid night air.  I always plan to watch them open, but somehow I get busy, and when I finally step out the slider to check on them, they are already open.  I sniff them and admire for a moment, then head back inside as darkness falls, and the moonflowers bloom for the night sky.

Moonflowers resemble their cousins the morning glories, but they are larger,  more elegant, and much more work to grow.  Because they are native to the tropics the seeds must be started indoors, and they must be soaked overnight or they may not germinate.  

I always plant my moonflower seedlings out into the garden too early, and as a result they sulk and refuse to grow for up to a month, or until it is hot both night and day.  The nights that moonflowers love are the ones so hot and streamy it's hard to sleep without air-conditioning.  

Wednesday night (when I took these pictures) still felt like summer,  but was made  more precious than an evening in July or August  by the knowledge that it was one of the few such nights left.  As I sat and smelled the moonflowers on the air, a pair of  monarchs landed on the Verbena Bonariensis for some last deep sips before migrating.  I caught Sol in mid stride in the third photo, between verbena and goldenrod, the purple and gold glory of  September.  Finally I picked up my bowl of peppers and went inside to make some more pickles, summer captured in a jar.

The answer...

The 'Dragon Tongue' mentioned at the end of the tour are beans, not peppers! Here is what I picked last night.  The Patty Pan squash have outlasted all the zucchini, and I found all the beans hiding under tired looking  (but apparently still productive) bean foliage.

September Garden Tour

Here is the garden tour for September.  There is one mistake in my variety descriptions- did you catch it?

Green Curb Appeal

My kitchen compost bin is just outside the front door because this location is accessible in all weather.  It's so convenient that I use it every day.  Here is a picture of how I have tried to make it less stark and utilitarian.

Rainy Day Thoughts

   It was cool and wet today, and I spent a few hours mid-day baking and reading.  I made what is probably the season's last zucchini bread, and while it baked  I sat at the dining room table and read a book about a boy's summers on his grandparent's farm in New Hampshire.   They were dairy farmers, and frugal by nature and necessity.  The title of the book is the punchline of an anecdote: a box is found in an attic, and it is full of tiny pieces of string.  The box is neatly labeled 'string too short to be saved'.
  One character in the book dies in a house filled with straightened nails he never used.  I thought of my boss at the nursery, who used to pay us to pound nails straight instead of buying new ones, even though the cost of our labor was more than the cost of new nails, and the bent nails were recyclable.
  When does frugality cross the line into the ridiculous?  I periodically look around my house and yard and ask myself that question, because extreme frugality that is beyond necessity is as soul destroying as obsessive buying.  Both are ways to avoid dealing with unfilled deeper needs for meaning, for creativity,  for love.  That frugality can lead to a life with too much stuff that is no longer useful, or too little stuff of quality.
  I buy good beer because I drink a little and enjoy it a lot.  I don't eat out much because I really like simple, fresh food, and because I love to cook.   I make these decisions after discussion with my husband, because he is important, and the beer and food would not be as good without him.  But I'm not perfect, and sometimes I pass up on experiences worth the cost because I worry too much about money, or I spend money on something I later find at home, like yet another tape measure or trowel.

Today I reminded myself to appreciate the things of real value,  like a good meal with an ingredient I grew myself from seed, such as this  grilled cheese sandwich with a slice of 'mortgage lifter' tomato between two layers of extra sharp cheddar on wheat  bread.  You can have your BLT-- I'll take a grilled cheddar and heirloom tomato.  And I won't save string, but I might straighten a nail or two.

Morning Glory

Accurately named.

Good Night Irene

  Irene wasn't a hurricane by the time she hit Massachusetts, but she sure left a mess of fallen trees and power outages.  We were lucky at our home and never lost power, but the next street over had trees on the power line and no electricity for five days.  Many in  more rural towns  in nearby Rhode Island are still without power as I write.
 My friend Margie has no cell phone, and lives alone.  I was so worried  about her after two days that I drove the detour-filled ten miles to her house, to find her just finishing a letter to me!  I delivered a fresh tomato and took the circuitous route home with a lightened heart.
 Two trees fell in our yard, both without causing any significant damage.  One just missed the fence, the other just missed the power lines. Here's a picture of the Black Walnut resting on the back fence:

Next door a much bigger tree came up by the roots and fell across the driveway.  Their car was parked about four feet from where it fell.

The lima bean trellis tilted, but didn't fall, and the rebar trellis was solid as a rock.

I've been busy harvesting late crops. Here's a trug full of good stuff:

I'm really happy with the delicata squash (that's the striped things, in case you didn't know) I got ten squash from three plants that were  in less than ideal soil-- next year I'll give them more love and see what I get.

I've brought all the ripening tomatoes (mostly 'Mortgage Lifter' ) inside the house because mice were nibbling them in the garage, where I had laid them out on newspaper.   Although the days are still warm, the nights are now much cooler, and the tomatoes ripen faster indoors where it is warmer at night,  so I pick them as soon as they show any color.   

I went out Tuesday morning and found a big section of the most perfectly ripe tomato gone, and mouse droppings all around the others. At least they were discerning, and did not just ruin them all.

Now the tomatoes are on the sideboard above Sol's bed. He doesn't seem to mind. That ought to keep the mice away.

Late Summer Crops

The late summer crops are peaking, including raspberries and pole beans.  My rebar tower is a battlefield between morning glories and beans, with the flowers dominant for now.
I know I should cut them back to increase bean production, but there are so many buds, and I love the flowers almost as much as beans.

 I also picked my first harvest of pole Limas.  Will these crops survive a hurricane? Tune in next week to find out.