Around the 'Stead

It's getting to be that time of the year around here.
Some things have been a surprise, others a little slow to get going, but over all, I've been pretty happy so far. I guess I just have to keep in mind that after all, it is only June 23rd.

I could go into more detail, but in the interest of my just getting caught up, I think I'll just give you all a little over view.
Enjoy.

These are my Hamson Tomatoes. A very good producing, heirloom, determinate canning tomato.

Peppers. Two varieties of Green Bells, some Reds, and Jalapenos.

This corner is harder to get to because of the fountain, so we filled it with Beets and Turnips.
This is the first year that we're trying out Turnips. So far they seem to be doing well!
Here's a new tomato trellising method that I'm trying. I needed to find a way to effectively trellis along my back wall. Hopefully this will hold up well. This trellis is holding 14 plants (7 heirloom San Marzanos, and 7 Roma Tomato plants that I saved seed from.). At the end of the row is some Eggplants too. The front is my spinach beds. They've been producing really well too.
One of my three cut and come again lettuce beds. These will be getting trimmed this weekend. Mmmm Salad time...
A perennial family favorite, Kohlrabi. I never seem to plant enough of these.
Early Girls setting tomatoes should be reddening soon.
Peas... filling out and nearly ready to harvest the bulk of them.
One of this years biggest surprises. Our Artichokes.
You can't see it very well from here, but there were 13 artichokes on the plants at the time I took this. I've harvested a few already too. These were the Artichokes that I over wintered in the greenhouse.

Like so many things, I sometimes have higher expectations of myself and my garden than are realistic, but it seems every year I feel behind. I can only assume that it's because the season seems so much longer as I work on my off season growing and preparing.

The biggest thing I can say was successful so far this year, is this. With the exception of the Artichokes. Every plant I just showcased for you was started from seed. This is a first for us. Some did better than others, and lessons still come with every year, but I have to admit I am proud.

Hope you enjoy the tour. More to come soon!

All the best to you all.
P~

When life gives you lemons...

Well, maybe it's because you have a new Meyer lemon tree??

Alright, I admit it, I'm cheesy. But I did get a new Improved Meyer Lemon Tree last weekend.

I've been wanting one of these for a couple of years now. Then, last year when I got some of my mom's lemons I was sold. They are soooo good! So Saturday afternoon, my gift for my (gulp) thirty ninth birthday, was a lemon tree.
And here she is. My little limoncello machine! right there in her current home in the greenhouse. We've been having some really off again on again cold spells punctuated by hot days so I think I;'ll keep her in there for another couple of weeks to be safe. Later she'll be in a nice pot that I inherited from my uncle and will be kept outdoors for the summer.

And there's lots going on in that thar greenhouse too. As you can see below. I can hardly move around in there any more.There's lots of tomatoes, a lemon tree, peppers, cantaloupes cucumbers, tomatillos, marigolds, herbs...
Even some pumpkin starts that are doing really well.
And I found this on one of the little heartland tomato clones that I was able to hold over the winter. Guess there's no better testament to a healthy plant than that huh?

But Wait! There's more... There's life outside too!
Our onions are coming along well, and just about ready for a good mulching with some straw. I would love to do it earlier in the season, but our winds here just undo all my hard work.
It may be hard to see, but this bed has one of our first carrot plantings of the year growing up in it. There's five rows with a couple of extra wide spaces in the middle section. On either side of the bamboo stakes that are laying there will be planted beans for this year. The carrots will grow right along with them in the shaded area.
Here's a closer look.

And some peas. These are not doing too well. Late winter storms beat them up. Not the cold mind you but the winds. They broke a lot of them off right at ground level.

The first Kohlrabi plantings had trouble too. notice the front (windward) side of both beds were hit the hardest?
This bed has my bok Choi Chinese cabbage and is surrounded by carrots. Later in the season I'll fill the bed in with pumpkins and squash.

Not much to say... more peas!
And last but not least, the potato garden. Lots of green popping up here too!

So there you go, all caught up right? well, kind of... still have a couple more posts that I'll try to get up soon. Too much to do, not enough time!

hope all's growing well with you all
P~

!! IMPORTANT GARDEN ADVISORY !!

I received a surprising and significant email yesterday from a representative of MOTHER EARTH NEWS magazine. I felt obliged to post and share the body of it with you as it contains important and relative information to consider as our garden seasons (In the Northern Hemisphere) begin to ramp up.

As the garden season ramps up, we at Mother Earth News want to let you and A Posse Ad Esse readers know that you may want to screen any hay, grass clippings or compost you bring into your gardens, to assure the materials are not contaminated with persistent herbicide residues (most often clopyralid and aminopyralid). As our reports included below indicate, these chemical residues can kill plants or severely stunt their production, costing gardeners money and time.

What do you need to know about contaminated compost?
•Affected plants show signs of curled, cupped leaves, wilting new growth and poor germination in tomatoes, peas, beans, lettuce and other garden crops.

•The chemical residues causing the problem can be present in grass clippings, in manure of livestock that has eaten sprayed plant matter or in compost made from contaminated materials. These herbicides do not biodegrade during composting and can persist in your soil for several years.

•Contaminated materials have been found in municipal, organic and conventional bagged compost.

•To prevent contamination, ask questions before buying manure or compost that contains manure. If the seller doesn’t know if it’s safe, don’t buy it, or use this cheap and easy home test to be sure it’s safe.

•Anyone who suspects they have detected contaminated material should notify their local Extension agent and news media, as well as Richard Keigwin at the EPA and the product manufacturer (if purchased).

This information isn't new, as you can tell from the dates of the linked articles. However, it is still very relevant. I can't help to think how much of an argument this makes for continuing to make any little steps that we can towards becoming more and more "closed loop" in our own gardens. By learning to make our own compost or building lasagna gardens and growing polyculture gardens with attention to the natural world we can go a long way towards that.

A few of my related Links:
Cooking in the garden
New Additions (Worms and kitchen scraps)
Compost Day IV
Compost Day III
Compost Day II
Compost Day I
Starting a Lasagna Garden

Hope something in there is of some small help!

Thank you Brandy, I appreciate your concern for my garden and my readers as well!

Local produce, Campfire-Baking and Canning info

This weekend was another busy one. I took Friday off, as I had already met my hours required for the week and we ran errands all day; and I do mean all day! One of the tasks we decided to do was to make a stop by our local you-pick-it farm. They are not an organic farm unfortunately, but I think supporting our local small scale agriculture is more important, not to mention the HUGE savings that we're able to get from it. Check out this haul.Clockwise from the bottom left we got Ancho chilis (to be roasted and frozen for salsas later), jalapenos (also to be roasted and turned magically into chipolte peppers), Yellow wax peppers, Black Beauty eggplants (made ratatouille this afternoon), Green Bell Peppers, Yellow Bells, and Big Jim green chili's (to be steamed and canned for later use.) All together we got two full bushels of veggies. Guess how much? Go on, bet you can't get it?? Twenty bucks total! Ten dollars a bushel of whatever we can get in the box.
We had some shopping to do later that afternoon so we checked on the going prices and we estimate the store value to be approx. $128.00. So if you count the time we put in, which was about an hour total from the time we left the house till we got back, we made a little over $50.00/hr. each. I can live with that!
An observation that A~ and I made to each other while we were there was that there was so much diversity of people there. We saw Asians, Eastern European and of course Mexican families there along with us. Sadly, we were one of only two families of what might be called the UT majority, i.e. non-immigrant whites. I think we have a lot we could learn from some of our immigrant neighbors on this front. I won't get into the issues of legality or immigration policy here because that's not what this blog is about, suffice it to say I have strong opinions. My point here is that these are families that are, generally speaking, on the lower end of the income scale. When we see them doing certain things, like sharing rides, harvesting their own foods and cooking fresh meals and not wasting them, you can bet those are pretty good ideas for someone wanting to live a little more frugally. Our standards of living are, in much of the world, in the top 5 to 10 percent overall. I think this has made us a bit lazy. That's all fine and good in a world of plenty, but I think we can all see that to at least some degree those times are creeping into extinction. Enough on that for this post, you get my point I think.

I alluded to having been inspired by our success with our outdoor Campfire-canning (as I like to call it), and as a matter of fact we did another batch of 4 qts and 1 pint of dill pickles this weekend using that method, what I was talking about was wanting to try my hand at baking some NY Times no-knead bread over the fire.I made sure that since this was a food product that was going to be exposed somewhat directly to the smoke from the fire, to use clean wood and not OSB or other treated woods for this. I burnt down a good deal of coals, and placed our large cast iron stove on them to preheat. After prepping the loaf and coating the bottom with cornmeal (to reduce sticking and allow me to slide it off the cutting board) I dropped it into the pot and placed a few coals on top.
And here's the finished product. You can see that the pot was a little too hot by the thick, blackened bottom, and the little too-dark top crust. All in all though I'd say it wasn't an all out loss. The texture and crumb of the bread was very good. Perhaps a slight bit more undercooked than I'd have liked, but the taste was the best I've made yet. It had a very similar taste to the sourdough pancakes that we eat for Saturday breakfasts. Not necessarily a true sourdough but a very bready taste. I attribute it to the longer time I allowed it to sit before the first forming. For the novice bread bakers out there time equals flavor and that's the real strength of this recipe, it's ability to be slowly made. To help you plan your bread making with this recipe check out my NY Times bread planning scheduler.
And last but not least, for Sandy, a quick bit of wisdom on starting to can. First off we, A~ and I both, are still novice canners. I think the best advice I can give is to not be afraid and to research, research, research. And after you research it thoroughly, respect what you find out. If the recipe calls for 'X' amount of sugar or vinegar or to cook it for 'X' amount of time then add the called for sugar or vinegar and cook it for the right amount of time. Canning your harvest is a great way to preserve your hard work for later enjoyment and it's really nothing to be afraid of with care and attention to detail. One book that A~ and I picked up from the library this year and have really been enjoying is the "Ball Complete book of Home Preserving" (seen below).
I've also read very good things about Balls, "Blue Book of Preserving". You learn about these books or find great resources on their web site as well. Another great resource is Causabons book, a blog with very detailed and concise information on not only canning, but dehydrating, freezing and myriad other food storage and peak oil survival information.
And now that we're up to date on my weekend, how was yours? Hope it was as fun and productive as mine.
Till tomorrow.
P~

simple...not easy

This weekend we did a lot of work around the house. Cleaning out the garage, pulling weeds, double digging beds, harvesting and canning spaghetti sauce, pickles and beets and making more progress toward our garden expansion goals for next year. It wears you out some days you know.

As I was working the garden beds this evening I was thinking to myself that this decision that A~ and I made last year to simplify our life together; to take more ownership of our food supply and to live a little lighter is a complex one. To say it plainly, it's called "simple living"...not "easy living". Oh we could just go about our way like everyone , maybe just have a little kitchen garden for some fresh tomatoes and peppers, you know, a hobby garden. But we chose to go big. Last year we headed off down a path that I don't think we really know where it ends and is a hard one to follow. We do, however, believe that it is what will be best for us and our family in the long run. Are we 100% in all of our goals? No. Are we improving every month? Yes.

I see around us, both in the neighborhood, and in the online communities, a surge in interest in this way of living. I want to make sure that, amidst pretty pictures of garden harvests and homemade goods, I give a realistic perspective on this stuff. It's a lot of hard work. There are times when we're tired or have an ache, or really just aren't motivated to get out and do what needs to be done. Plenty too are the times when we, or more specifically I, have to talk myself into completing the project I'm in the middle of because I'm just tired. This isn't our living, that takes the first half of the day. This is extra.

The rewards are plentiful though and are what really makes it all worth it. The surprise of gathering in fresh eggs everyday, taking our "garden walk" together every night after dinner or watching our boys learn responsibility and work ethic through caring for our animals and working in the yard. A~ and I enjoy exploring this journey together and learning what we can do and produce on our own and I think we're constantly surprised at just how independent we really can be. So be realistic if your thinking about taking these challenges on, but be optimistic too. It can be done, it can be enjoyed, but it will take effort and a measure of dedication.

Good luck and Grow On!

Reuse and Recycle

I thought I'd showcase a couple of great finds that A~ picked up at our local thrift store and surprised me with. We really like to take advantage of reused and recycled items around our house. It helps us to stretch a dollar, which we all know are getting pretty tight nowadays, and it feels good to know that we are helping to conserve resources at the same time.
Check out these bushel baskets that we got. They're a bit dry but are in otherwise very good condition. I had been using a basket that I picked up at the same thrift store until just recently but, with the HUGE hauls of food that I've been getting... naw just kidding, actually the handle broke off the basket. Although no doubt this was due to the poundage right? Anyway, we scored these babies for a buck a piece. Great deal!

Since we've been really been trying to put up the stuff we've been growing, we have noticed how expensive it is to buy these suckers new. I mean, yeah, we have bought them new. But if we can buy 10 of the quart size jars for $2.50 then you can bet we're all over it. On a side note, we always saw a glut of these in years past when we weren't really canning much but now, they always seem to be snatched up right away. It sucks if your in the market for some, but I'm really glad to see that more people are putting up food.
And my pride and joy. The Precision Garden Seeder. This is one of the coolest little gadgets. My boys saw this and somehow knew what the heck it was. It's a little big for the scale of gardening that I'm doing currently, but truth be told, I have aspirations of grandeur that some day I'll have some land and you can bet this baby will be in full use.
I wonder what these things go for new. This one was only 6 bucks and there's not a thing wrong with it.
Have any of you ever used one of these? They have interchangeable seed gears on the inside to allow them to be used for different types of seed.
Well, that's about it for tonight. It was a long day today, working on cleaning out our garage and straightening up around the house and tomorrow hold more of the same. Time to get some late season stuff into the ground you know. Plus it's about time we get serious about our expansion to liberate some lawn.

Till next time.

P~

The girls...

Well, as promised I thought it was time to post an update to how my girls are doing. I have to say that I am very happy that we decided to mail order our chooks. (Australian term for chickens. I just love it... sounds just like the noise they make... chook chook...) anyway as I was saying. I'm glad we decided to order them a month and a half before our local farm store was going to get them in. The white leghorns that we got in first started laying over a month ago and have been providing us with a consistent 3 eggs a day.
This is big momma, she runs the roost around here, and is really the only one that has a name. She matured before the others, and started the laying off first as well.
And here is one of the brown leghorns that are just hitting the 19 - 20 week mark and are starting to lay now too. These girls came from the farm store and if we had waited until they came in, we wouldn't have gotten any eggs yet but maybe one or two. Timing is everything isn't it?
Here's the browns again. They pretty much just sit around and watch what the whites do. Then when the whites are done, they do the same thing. After the picking on they got when being introduced the "pecking order" is pretty well ingrained in them.
They sure are nice to take pics of though. I have to say that now that we've had the chooks for a bit they are everything I'd hoped. (but friendly) they don't make noise, they give me healthy, tasty eggs, and their fun as heck to watch. The City Counsel here finally accepted the draft of the Title X change that is pending with the chicken law amendments in it. The first "reading" will be on Sept 9th, and hopefully they'll vote on it then too. A little at a time, I'll get them legal eventually.

Have a great Friday all, more to come this weekend. Sooo Many chores.
Take care!
P~

Reduce - Energy and Fuel

We received our power bill yesterday and I have some great news to share. Below are the stats as I've received them:

July - Aug 07	July - Aug 08

Are they the lowest power usage amounts in the world? No. The thing I am proud of though is the fact that there is a consistent down trending there. Take a look at the usage on the left from last year. You can see that we used 2501 kWh throughout the billing period, but what's really important though is the Avg kWh per day use because the number of days billed can vary from year to year and that number is 69, down 4 kWh from the year before. That reduction was last year when we had just begun to pay attention to our habits, and our power footprint. This year (graph on the right), I'm proud to say that we were able to increase that reduction further, by dropping another 14 kWh from even last years totals.

That reduction means a lot of things. First, of course, is the fact that we are truly beginning to walk the walk more in our everyday lives and this is a sort of validation to ourselves. Secondly, it is realized in actual dollars. This savings translates to nearly $70.00 for this billing cycle alone. When you're able to make these types of changes, it translates into serious savings throughout the year. Which brings me to the last thing that this means to me. By reducing our use, we begin to put ourselves in a place to be less impacted in the future by rising costs. That, more that probably any other one thing, is the reason that we try to strive toward these changes.

On a related note, I had to put gas into my old Toyota last Friday. Big news huh? Well, actually it really is. You see, the last time I had had to put any fuel into that car was on June 9th. So that's two months of driving on a 10 gallon tank. Not too shabby huh? Mostly that's due to the fact that I've had a little over three weeks of bike commuting so far this summer. Not as much as I'd have liked to have had, but it makes a difference.

I guess the biggest point of all the efforts that we make is just that, "we're making an effort." It's about trying things out, seeing what fits your life, and what changes you can make. Everyone can't do everything, we're not saints and there are things that we just aren't willing to do without, but to make the effort at least gets us into the game.

Till tomorrow,

P~

The Times are Changin' Tuesday 7-29

This evening we found a great article on our local news station about how local commercial builders are beginning to embrace "Green" building practices. Now I have to first go into my personal point of view on the whole "Green" catchphrase; I don't like it. I agree with much of what it implies yes, but the word has lost much of it's punch due in no small part to the mainstreamification of it. Which brings up an odd dichotomy. On the one hand, it's actually quite a good thing that "Green" has become a commonly used word. It means that the general masses are beginning to wake up to the fact that we've lived unsustainably for far too long and that they may have to actually take action in order to get away from the repercussions of that lifestyle. On the other hand turning "Green" into a word that either has, at best, little or no bite or worse yet is dismissed as being one of those nutty "liberal" ideas, takes away from the ideas and actions that are associated with it. I generally choose to use the term Sustainable (or unsustainable as it applies) because I personally feel that it better sums up the problem.

Back to the article. Whether or not they use the term "Green" or not, I believe it does good to have these type of larger local businesses putting themselves out there as role models and highlighting the benefits that come along with building sustainably. The more that businesses begin to see that they can actually realize real $$'s from these type of policies, the more the LEED services will become mainstream and the more it will begin to move into other areas.

It's all about growth. Managed, sustainable, smart growth. Hopefully this is another change for the good.

P~

Cars suck!! So, What can we do?

They do! They suck-up gas, they suck-up time, they suck-up resources and they suck-up space. But what the heck are we supposed to do? You’ll have to forgive me, I had an “I hate cars” day today and it’s most likely of my own doing which is the most frustrating part. A~ called me this morning from the store while she was out running some errands to inform me that our Ford Focus was dead. This wasn’t necessarily a surprised since when we got it a few months ago we were told that the battery was the original and was getting a bit weak after 8 yrs. The frustrating part is that while we have been trying to nurse it along through the summer months I thought just last night, “I need to check that battery and make sure it’s good, I’d hate A~ to get stuck somewhere.” Sure as heck I didn’t, I got caught up in something else and forgot about it. (Yep…I’m human!!) So now I get this call from A~ and I’m at work not more than a couple miles up the road. But I ride my bike to work, so what good am I? I borrow my co-workers car and run down to jump her (the car that is, not A~ ;-)) and head back to work. By then she’s gotten home and calls me to say our other car, the one I normally drive, is also dead. No doubt from lack of use, since I’ve driven it so rarely in the last month that I haven’t had to fill its 10 gal tank since June 9th and still have half a tank left. (Hey, that’s like a gallon a week. Dang that’s pretty good!) Anyway, so now I have two dysfunctional vehicles taking up space in our garage, and a generally bad attitude. I’ll get a new battery for the Focus and that’ll fix that problem, and I can charge the Toyota to fix that one but geez, what a pain. How much time and money do we spend on these “conveniences”? And what other option do we have? It’s kind of a quandary isn’t it?
A lot of the people that read this blog have expressed a desire to get “back to the land” so to speak; to get a little piece of land somewhere and work it, to have a bigger garden and raise a few animals, and live more sustainably. To a great degree I put myself in that group. But what does/will that mean in the future? Land out in the country is, by its very nature, out in the country and being “in the country” means quick bike rides to the store are out, as are most of the professions that many of us are in. So now we are in the position of having to drive everywhere we need to go. Not the best of circumstances to either increase our sustainability or our independence. The other thing, as was mentioned by Meadowlark the other day in a comment on “The Times are Changin Tuesday”, is that many of us already own the dread gas sucking SUV. What are we supposed to do with them? She states, "It is a dream world to think we're going to melt down all the SUV's and they'll disappear from the world." and you know what, she's right. They're here, many of us own them, and it's not realistic to think that their just going to go away and everyone is going to ride bikes or drive prius's Not only that, but what kind of impact on the local landfills do you think it would have if they suddenly got filled with old SUV's? That's not even mentioning the impact to our already stretched pocketbooks but I'll get to that tomorrow when I continue this post. Be well folks.

P~

The Right to Dry!

I mentioned before that this summer A~ and I added a clothesline to our backyard. We love it! I honestly have to say I don't completely understand it, as it makes very little sense, but we do. You would think that having to carry our clothes downstairs and take the time to hang them would wear out it's novelty pretty soon, but it hasn't. I have heard from a lot of people that I've talked to that they would love to have a clothesline too, but their HOA won't allow it. First of all, I don't have an HOA. If there had been one, I wouldn't have moved here. They're just un American in my view.
Well I believe we have a right to dry. A right to opt out of the normal way things are done. To take a bit of time in our day to save some energy, while not heating up our homes! And apparently someone else does too. Project Laundry List is a 501(c)(3) that is working to advocate laws in different states to guarantee people their "Right to Dry" As I looked through the site, I was a little surprised to find that one of the three States that they site as role models for this type of legislation was right here in Utah! Can you believe it? And California is one of the worst offenders. What's up with that?
Check the Project Laundry site out and see if there's anything you can do to push this in your state. It's something simple that we can all do to some degree. And if your in Utah and get told that you're not allowed to have a clothesline, or any other solar power / collection apparatus, just send 'em HERE and tell em where to go!
P~

New Additions

I got a package about a week and a half ago. When I opened it, this is what I saw.

Inside was a thin muslin bag...Interesting. What could it be?

WORMS!! About 1000 of them (give or take); I bought them from Uncle Jim's worm farm the week before and had just received them. I had been wondering why they waited nearly a week before mailing them, I ordered them on the Wednesday before, and they still weren't showing as sent on the web site so I called. Well I jumped the gun, they just hadn't updated the status' yet but the wigglers had been mailed on Monday. It seems this is the standard practice, mailing on Monday that is, so that the worms don't get held up over the weekend and dry out and die. Very considerate worm farming isn't that?

So anyway, I got out the compost crock from under the sink which had a bunch of "goodies" in it and got ready for a feeding. I've been using this crock for almost a year now. It's lid broke toward the end of summer last year, so I've been just placing a small tea plate over it. If you empty it regularly, it doesn't really even stink (too badly). I need to find a new one. It was just an old second hand cookie jar that I found at the thrift store.

Before I got the worms out of the bag I had put together a new home for them. I shredded some old cardboard that I had available, and added some peat moss that was also lying around to act as bedding. I wet the whole thing, and then squeezed it out till it was about like a damp sponge. I added this bedding material to a 15 gal. Rubbermaid tote that was one of our old book boxes before the library was finished and that I had drilled holes around the bottom and lower sides of for air flow.

So far so good. I received them not last Wednesday but the one before that and they seem to be adapting very well. Just tonight I went out to feed them and they are all densely packed around the scraps from the other night. The main reason I got them, apart from the tales of amazing nutritive properties of worm castings, was that I had a very tough time last winter with composting through the cold. This way I hope to have built a large enough colony of worms to accomplish our composting needs throughout the winter, and provide an occasional treat for the chickens.

Anyone else out there, worm farming? How's it working out for you?

P~

Laundry go-lightly

So this weekend we reduced our projected potential power use for the summer by dramatically reducing the need for one of our big energy consumers, the dryer. A~ has set a goal for the summer to reduce our power use dramatically. She has said by 50%. I'm not completely sure about that number, but as she is home more often than I, and is the one who uses most of the big power consumers I guess I'll just have to take her word for it and keep doing my best to enable her goal by doing things like hanging double clotheslines for her. I was honestly surprised to see how quickly the clothes dried on the line. I seem to remember my mom hanging clothes when I was a kid but otherwise, I have little experience with it. One more small step toward lightening our footprint and depending less on outside power.

P~

Garden Update (100 ft Diet)

Holy Crap, it's been a week since I posted last?? I'm so sorry for the intermission. I am almost done with the major stuff that I've had going on, but not quite. In the Next two days I will be installing the fence (I know now why people pay to set fence posts.) and wrapping that project up, Then on Saturday we're having some family and friends together for my three boys baptism. Faith is something we've always been open and honest about, but have never pushed on them and recently they made a joint decision that they all wanted to be baptised together. As if that weren't enough, all this will come together on A~'s birthday, and they will be confirmed as members of the church on our anniversary... go figure? What a blessing it will be.

Amidst all this chaos, I have been managing to keep relatively on top of the garden, and it has finally begun to really come into it's own. I didn't initially decide to participate in "The Growing Challenge" because, well honestly it's so hard to keep up with all the challenges, but I think I may participate in it after all since I really have a lot of new stuff going on this year, that applies to it. I thought I'd share some pics and updates.
My Cabbages that I planted early this year and had covered as a test did really well through the cold spring that we've had.
New crop this year. I tried Kale for the first time last year when it was too late in the season to grow it. I'll probably grow a late season crop too to see how long I can keep it bearing through the winter.
New crop this year. Grew up with pickled beets, and tried the greens for the first time from a farmer at the F-Market last year, very tasty.
New crop this year. I've never eaten it, but it looks so interesting and I have a co-worker that always had it growing up and loved it, so what the heck.
New(ish) crop this year. Bush beans. I've never grown a bush variety, but thought they would be a good determinant crop for our canning program this year.
New crop this year. Never grown onions, but we've planted approx. 150 starts this year. Some will be tested as storage onions, others will be chopped and frozen for quick recipes.
Rhubarb... what can I say, I love it. I'm trying out more companion planting this year, this is a good one. Broccoli, onions and rhubarb. They are all said to be complimentary, so again, what the heck.
Peas. Not a new crop but definitely a new method. I am using a sort of A-frame technique that I am trying out this year. It seems to be catching on too, three neighbors of mine going down the street have "adopted" my technique. (Hope it works.) I also have mesclun planted under the A-Frames. The idea is that the peas should shade the tender greens as the summer sun get progressively hotter.
This is my early, baby spinach, and radishes. Almost there, I should be eating this stuff this weekend.
Arugula (Rocket). This one took a little doing for me to like. It is definitely a "have with..." not a "have alone..." and gives a earthy, peppery flavor to salads and such, I want to try arugula pesto this year.
And of course the Apple blossom special... What can I say?
Finally, our dwarf cherry tree. This is the smallest tree we have, and last year it only yielded a couple of cherries. The big story here is that I think I have managed to beat a very high aphid infestation organically. Last year every time I walked by this tree, I inspected and removed any aphid heavy leaves and discarded. By the end of the summer it seemed to have beaten it. I hope for this year to be much better.

Well, That's about it folks. I have a bunch of pics of the front yard too. I'll try to get those up tomorrow night. I haven't even begun planting heavily in my main beds either so that ought to go on this week or weekend as well.
As for now, well, I'm beat! I'm going to bed. Hope your all well, and thanks for the patience.
P~
Tomorrow, AsparagusFest '08 begins!!