Tag Archives: gardening

Early May garden tour

Posted on May 11, 2012 | 5 Comments

Matthew and his mom have been hard at work this spring, putting in time weeding and mulching now to [theoretically] reduce the workload later.  For mulch, Matthew purchased several bales of straw — transporting them to the garden two or three bales at a time on our bike rack — and Pam picked up more coffee bean sacks.

I must admit that I haven’t actually been to the garden in a couple of weeks, and things change quickly in a spring garden.  Fortunately, you can join me on a virtual garden tour.  (Unfortunately, you can’t taste the food virtually.)

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A few things of note:

  • Most of the garden-fresh produce we’ve been eating has come from plants that wintered-over, some inside and some outside the low tunnel — lettuce, kale, carrots, and Swiss chard.
  • After years of struggling to grow spinach, we have a bumper crop this year, and it is delicious!
  • The attempts to winterize the artichokes failed, so Matthew started new plants from seed this year.
  • Our tomato seedlings look WAY better than anything I saw for sale at the farmers’ market on Saturday.  Just sayin’.
  • Some of the potatoes are already blooming, and Matthew cut scapes off of some of the garlic last weekend.
  • A rascally rabbit got inside the fence and dined on tender young pea shoots, so we mat not have much in the way of a spring pea crop.

Also, more exciting garden-related news: Matthew found out yesterday that he is the recipient of a Slow Food St. Louis biodiversity micro-grant!  His application included plans to grow celeriac and paw paws, both items that Slow Food StL identified as being of interest to local chefs.

If there’s anything I’m missing, I’ll let Matthew add it in the comments.

How’s YOUR garden growing?

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Posted in Food, Garden

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Garden goods

Posted on December 29, 2011 | 1 Comment

Despite the craziness of having a baby in the middle of the summer, we managed to have a great year garden-wise.  Understandably, my involvement in the actual gardening, and in putting up the food, was even more limited than usual.  I just sat on my butt all day cared for a very demanding baby and enjoyed eating the garden’s bounty.  We canned some green beans, and my mother-in-law canned tons of tomatoes and froze lots of other veggies for us.

Last week, we made one of our favorite soups, Country Vegetable Soup with Pasta, almost entirely with garden goods, including fresh tomatoes in mid-December (picked green before the frost in early November, and ripened slowly inside since then).

Homegrown goods in our soup included leeks, tomatoes (fresh, not canned), onion, celery, sweet potatoes (subbed for carrots in the recipe, because that’s what we had), green beans (from frozen), and basil (also frozen) for the pesto.  We didn’t have any zucchini, so we just subbed more of the other veggies. Hearty and delicious, and so fun to have grown almost all of the ingredients!

In the end, the only non-garden item in the soup, other than the pasta, was the garlic.  We had a nice garlic harvest, but at the rate we go through garlic, I’m not sure we’ll ever be able to grow enough (though Matthew’s working on it :) ).

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Posted in Food, Garden

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Monumental fennel

Posted on June 20, 2011 | 1 Comment

Look what our garden made!

A gigantic fennel bulb!  It’s always fun to try something new in the garden.*  We tried fennel last year, but never got beyond a tiny little plant.  Not so this year!

We roasted the bulb, and we’re using the stalks and feathery bits in salads.  Roasted fennel is quite the treat!  While we were at it, we roasted some garden beets and turnips, too :)

Roasted Fennel
Preheat oven to 400° F.  Cut fennel bulb into quarters.  (Reserve stalks and feathery bits for something else.)  Brush both sides of fennel with olive oil and sprinkle with salt.  Roast for about 40 minutes — flip to other side at the half-way point.  Finished product should be tender, golden, and caramelized.

*Growing Fennel (advice from Matthew)
We started the fennel from seed (look for “Florence fennel” or “bulbing fennel”) back in mid-January using our grow lights.  We transplanted them to the garden in mid-March, when they were still quite tiny.

What Worked for Us

  • When transplanting (or if sowing seed directly), leave at least 12 inches between plants to encourage large bulb formation.
  • Keep plants well-weeded early on — mulching will help with this.
  • Keep watered, too — again, mulch helps here.
  • Pray to the weather gods ;) The rainy, cool spring probably helped.
  • Click here if you want more details.

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Surviving the gardening blitz

Posted on March 21, 2011 | 2 Comments

Going into it, I honestly wasn’t sure how I would hold up during Saturday’s garden blitz.  We had one shot to get in our potatoes and spring crops — one day where the soil was dry enough (barely), we had a tiller, and all of the stars aligned just so = tons of work!

With only one tiller and three helpers, I spent I good bit of the morning waiting for the ground to be ready to plant.  Matthew and Pam did all of the tilling — there’s no reason I couldn’t have joined in, but the machine scared me a bit.  I did help spread some soil amendments, including lime, gypsum, and some alfalfa-based fertilizer.

 

That's not just dirt you're looking at -- it's four rows of potatoes, plus a bed of garlic!

Once the soil was prepped, we planted six rows of potatoes, a bazillion onions, some cruciferous seedlings (sadly, we had to buy these, as ours bit the dust once again, but we have a plan of attack for next time), and artichoke seedlings.

 

Artichoke!

Other than playing photographer (and a little help with clean-up), planting the artichokes was my last garden-related act for the day.  After that, my aching lower back and I retreated inside to bond with a yoga mat, while Matthew and Pam toiled for a couple more hours, planting peas, carrots, and more onions.

From left to right . . . far upper left corner: artichokes; then seeds: carrots, lettuce, peas; potato rows; the biggest green things = Egyptian onions; then rows of onion starts; a cage of broccoli, cabbage, and cauliflower; our low tunnel.

They finally called it quits when dusk turned into full dark, and the raindrops grew a bit more insistent.

We finally arrived home, feeling more zombie than human.  A hot shower and a hot meal (PTL for leftovers!) only slightly eased the zombified state for me.  I finally made it into bed, and despite not-so-great sleep, I woke up Sunday feeling surprisingly good.

How I survived:

  • Hydration
  • Frequent snack breaks
  • Frequent breaks
  • Stretching my back at the end of the day
  • And, last but not least, being the gardening slacker — from skipping some garden days altogether, to taking it easy when I’m there, between the three of us, I win the slacker award, hands down ;)   Matthew and Pam are the garden super heroes!

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Posted in Garden, My Life

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Seed starting: Make a functional, affordable heat box

Posted on January 30, 2011 | 2 Comments

Special guest post by Matthew

Functional, Affordable Seed starting heat source . . . I’ve used this one with great success and reliability for four sets of plants now.  We set our thermostat pretty low in the winter, so the heat box helps keep the seeds cozy (i.e., at an ideal temperature for sprouting).

The basics:

  1. Build a 5 sided wooden box to hold the heat, sized to fit your light source (or your tray size)
    1. Four 1”x4″ s (or whatever wood you want) for the sides
    2. Very thin plywood (or planks) for the top
    3. I left the bottom open, just set it on #3
    4. Nails or screws to join
    5. I made two boxes, each 10.5″ x 32″ x 3.5″
  2. A string of nightlight (4 watt) bulbs (or other incandescent lights) as a variable heat source (screw them in or unscrew some of them to get the soil temperature you want)
    1. Optional: Tack the wire of the nightlight string to the sides of the box to keep the bulbs out of direct contact with the box or radiant barrier –be careful to avoid damaging the wire’s insulation
    2. You may want to add a timer; I only use heat during the 16 hours of light I give my plants
    3. We have a string of lights that have a little metal cage around each bulb, so they sit directly on the reflective material
  3. A sheet of reflective radiant barrier insulation (see photo above) for below the box
    1. I used a scrap left over at the hardware store from someone’s home insulation project

Set your seed starting trays directly on top of the heat box.  When starting with this, put a thermometer into the soil of your seed starting tray and adjust how many bulbs are on in your box until you get the right temperature for your seeds.

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Posted in Garden, Green Ideas

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