Happy October, all. We woke this morning to the first frost of fall, and for the first time ever I didn't lose any plants. Just a few leaves off a basil.
A brief return to graduate work is taking me away from my home (and nearly everything else), but at least I get to enjoy gorgeous crisp fall mornings like this.
The last few days have been spent preserving, as Rachel over at Hounds in the Kitchen puts it, "working in quarts and pints." Seven pints of tomato sauce are done, and tomatillo salsa is next on the list. The next good-sized batch of tomatoes we get will either be diced or quartered, depending on how big a pain it is to chop them once the skins are removed.
My dear friends Michael and Ann have recently purchased laying hens, and another family we know have been considering getting goats. While I know we are nowhere near ready for that (I would need to convince both Joe and the Gambier zoning board), part of me is a bit jealous. Mostly, though, I'm thrilled to have a slowly-growing group of friends who, in their own ways, are exploring paths that, if they aren't necessarily the same as mine, run close enough by that we can chat while we walk.
This was a delightful surprise yesterday. It looks like we'll be harvesting grapes - Concords, from the look and taste - this year. We have lived in this house for over eight years, and never once have we seen ripe grapes on these vines. We'll need to move fast so we can get them picked before the birds make a feast of them (as I suspect has happened in past years).
And a good thing, too. The rain barrel is empty again. One or two more barrels are definitely on the wish list for next season.
We tried to convince the Munchkin to stand behind it, so you could get a true sense of scale, but the vines were a little prickly. It comes up roughly to his waist, and spreads eight feet wide in one direction, between five and six feet in the other. Not bad for his first foray into seed-starting.
We pulled our first cucumber from the garden yesterday. It was a teeny little one, with the spines still on, suitable for making cornichons, although this one didn't last that long. Judging from the number of blossoms, though, I should be able to put up a nice batch this year.
I finally pulled out the pea vines, and found a few stray pods while I was at it. Barely enough for one person to eat (and probably not very tasty at this time of year), but worth saving for seed.
The big surprise of the year has been the Munchkin's butternut squash. I'd saved the seeds from a squash we got through our CSA in 2006, and then promptly forgot all about them until they turned up in a baggie in the back of our spice cabinet this spring. (Hey - at least I labeled it.) I took a few extra peat pots, and let the Munchkin fill them with potting mix and then put all the seeds he wanted into them, figuring that if anything came up, great, but if not, it's not like we were counting on them. As it turns out, we got three seedlings, of which two survived the move to the garden, and are now huge, with gigantic star-shaped yellow blooms.
We brought in our first leeks this evening. They're still thin - roughly pencil-sized - but pulling them will make room for their brethren to grow big and fat. Another plus: at this size the greens are still tender enough to eat.
I also picked the remaining peas. There weren't many in this batch, so they will likely either a) be eaten straight from the shell without cooking, or 2) be frozen along with the bulk of peas we've gotten from the CSA, so we can devote our current veggie cooking to the items that don't save well, like chard and lettuce. Oh, the lettuce. We have the stuff coming out our ears. Three gallon-bags full, and the Munchkin won't touch the stuff. On the up side, we have discovered that he LOVES the bread-and-butter pickles our friend Bruce's mom made from summer squash. I'll be hitting him up for the recipe, you can be sure.
Two of the butternut squash plants are still going, although one is definitely a bit weak, and we have a cucumber plant with blossoms on it now. There are also about a bazillion blossoms on the tomatillos, which should make for some fun salsa-making in a few weeks. Anyone else have any good tomatillo recipes?
We nearly finished the new paths and garden beds yesterday. We were one bag short of mulch (not bad estimating, given that we used 16 bags), and there's one fiddly bit of edging that needs to be done. It looks pretty dang nice, if I do say so, and the beds will look even better with plants in.
I also planted two hills of cucumbers, four Kung Pao Hybrid chilis, and some basil, and I may have located my lost parsley. Although the seedlings I put in were munched into oblivion, the seeds I scattered around them on a whim seem to be sprouting now. All the remaining seeds have been started, save for a few herbs I'm doing in pots. The leeks still need to be thinned and there's a ton of mowing left, but all in all a good productive weekend.
The Munchkin was a huge help throughout, spreading mulch and planting sunflower seeds with us. I wish we'd read the label on the mulch before we bought it (turns out it had a ton of nasty pesticides in it), but at least we're not using it on the veggies. If we ever get around to putting pavers on the path, I'll see if I can figure out whether it's safe to compost.
By the end of the day yesterday, we were all filthy and hungry. Joe cooked, and the Munchkin ate more than he has at a non-pizza dinner in months. After that, baths and showers for everyone, a little Tony-award-watching (Rock of Ages? - possibly the least metal thing ever), then falling into bed exhausted.
Today it is raining, so no choice but to deal with writing, I suppose. *Sigh*.
Yeah, I know it's June. I couldn't very well make my list of all the stuff that happened in May until it was over, could I? Moving on.
What are y'all growing this year?
It's late for Garden Blogger's Bloom Day, but our indoor peas have started getting blossoms! Pods cannot be far behind.
Oh, and I promise to blog about something besides peas in the next day or so. The Munchkin turns two today, and there's plenty of blog fodder there.
The cold snap seems to be at an end. It's still chilly, but not so much as to be deadly to the plants. The watercress came through just fine, and if I lost any leeks I cannot tell. We did lose my two tallest pea vines, though. Three emerged unscathed, but those two took a beating one night when we forgot to go out to cover them until around 2am. Oops.
You can always tell when it's the height of spring in Gambier. Today, for instance: the daffodils have been up for a week and are in full glorious bloom in the woods. The Munchkin's climber and slide are out in the yard, and play-sand has made its way onto the shopping list. The crocuses are long gone, with only their little variegated leaves as a clue to where they once were. The hyacinths are up, and the ones on the south side of the house have bloomed. I've hung my clothesline. The white star magnolia is in bloom, and the pink is ready to go at any moment.
It is 29F outside.
This cold snap should ease up soon, but I've heard calls for freezes over the weekend, too, so every evening I've been going out and giving the snap pea vines a little insulation in the form of, believe it or not, packing material. My in-laws sent the Munchkin some Winnie-the-Pooh M&Ms for his Easter basket, and the company they bought them from used a fairly ludicrous volume of bubble wrap and one of those large inflatable pads to line the box. Honestly, you'd think they were sending a Ming vase.
Whatever the environmental headache it causes in the making, this stuff makes awesome insulation for the peas.
Each vine got a bit of bubble wrap, then was covered with either the box or the big inflat-a-thingy. This was especially handy, since some of the older vines had already started climbing up the lace curtain I'm using as a makeshift trellis.I didn't get out to cover the peas that first night (34, they said. Feh), and one of the vines looks to already have some damage, but hopefully nothing lethal. The leeks aren't out of the ground yet, so I think they should still be fine, and I am sure the watercress can handle the cold.
Indoors, there are four parsley sprouts up, and three fresno chiles. I was planning on starting the cucumbers and king pao hybrid peppers this week, but they may end up taking a back seat to thesis-writing, house-cleaning, and prepping for the Munchkin's birthday. Still, I'm just itching for this last cold spell to end, so I can open the house windows, air out the place, and get back out into the garden for longer than a few minutes at a time.
Our snap peas continue to grow like crazy. Last weekend I upgraded accommodations for the six largest, moving the peat pots from the old roasting pan they started in, into a window box, and built a fishing-line trellis up the window, so they'll be able to clamber their way up. I basically just planted the pots whole, although I pulled off some of the peat at the top, so the soil could be level without adding more around the base of the seedlings.
Don't they look happy? The fishing line is just barely visible here - it actually looks a little like an electrical line off in the distance or something. Since I took this photo, I've had to add some extra support in the form of chopsticks poked into the ground next to the peas. That first step is a doozy, as they say, and the vines needed a little help reaching the bottom of the trellis.
The remaining seedlings are still chugging away in their little peat pots, save for one, which just has not been able to get beyond the sprout stage. My runt was one of the soaked peas, which surprised me a little. It sent up a teeny little green sprout, just like all the others, but never took off. The rest - soaked and unsoaked alike - have progressed nicely, and are about ready for new homes. One of those will join the window box, to replace a vine that met an unexpectedly sticky end. (Did you know cats like pea vines? Me either.)
The rest, assuming I can get the planting bed dug this weekend, will be moved outside in a week or so. Thanks to some truly glorious weather, I'm pretty hopeful about that. Other chores include buying more potting mix and peat pots, and (assuming the Munchkin has recovered from the bug he's fighting) planting another small batch with him, along with the hot pepper seeds.
So - is anyone else feeling the garden itch especially strong today?
One week into the snap pea challenge, and we already have results!
Last Sunday, I planted twelve pea seeds in ten peat pots. Eight were pre-soaked for about 11 hours in room-temperature water, and four were planted straight in without soaking. Four of the pre-soaked peas were doubled up in their pots; this was actually an administrative error, as I grabbed the wrong number of peat pots at checkout, but it made for a nice experimentation opportunity.
Yesterday, we returned from a family wedding to discover that six of the eight soaked peas had sprouted while we were gone (either Saturday or Sunday), including three of the doubled-up ones. None of the unsoaked peas have come up, although a few look like they are close. It looks as though, all other things being equal, the soaked-pea technique may have an edge, and the doubled-up peas don't seem to have suffered any from crowding, although it'll also be interesting to see how strong all the plants end up.
Eventually, some of these plants will move out to a new garden bed on the south side of the house, so they can scramble up the dining room wall. The rest will be re-potted into a window box and left in the south-facing living room window, where, with any luck, they'll climb up the window. Although I don't have any sort of support in place yet, the plan is to make a trellis of sorts out of fishing line, criss-crossing the window. If it looks feasible, I might try the same thing outside. Ideally, I'll get to start another small batch of seeds in a week or so, with the Munchkin's help, so he'll get the experience of growing his own peas too.
Joe periodically teases me about my aversion to curtains. We live in the middle of a two-acre plot, so privacy - one of the very few reasons to cover a view of the outside, in my opinion - is not an issue. Who knows - maybe this will turn out to be a happy compromise!
Seeds and peat pots have been purchased, starting tips researched, and lighting options considered. I am officially all set for the 2009 Cold Antler Farm Snap Pea Challenge. Fancy joining?
Seriously, y'all - it's gonna be a good time. Swing through your local hardware store or garden center, pick up some seeds and potting mix, and join the fun.
Spring has, at long last, sprung. Sort of. Today is cold and I heard rumors of snow tonight, but the latest that is allowed to happen is tax day, so Winter, you are officially on notice. Hear that? I am not much of a poetry person, but yesterday I heard a poem by Richard Shelton called "Desert Water," which begins
once a year when infallible toads begin to sing all the spiders who left me return and I make room for themHere in Ohio (most definitely NOT the desert), our own "infallible toads," the peepers, have started singing. Their song is so constant that you almost don't notice them, but once you tune into them, they are almost unfathomably loud. It may be cold, and I may be dressing the Munchkin in turtlenecks for a little while longer yet, but I figure the peepers know what they are talking about. It won't be long now.
Day 7: We have (artfully blurry) blooms!
There was no discernible difference between the stems I smashed with the hammer and the ones I just cut on a hard diagonal. On the one hand, the hammer was a fun way of working out a little frustration, but on the other, those stems seemed to get punky and make the water brackish quicker.
Today is the first anniversary of Garden Blogger's Bloom Day, and while there aren't any blooms yet in this Ohio garden (right on the edge between zones 5 and 6), there's a lot of potential. Even the snowdrops haven't dared to show themselves yet, and how could they, through several inches of snow and ice? What we do have, though, are buds.
Lots and lots of buds.
but, frankly, I'm feeling a bit impatient this year. So, I'm trying my hand at forcing forsythia branches indoors. 
And, being a geek, I've turned it into an experiment. I cut several branches to force, but with some of them I am using the "cut the stem underwater" method, and with others I am using the "whack the stem with a hammer to smoosh it" method. I'll let y'all know if one way works better than the other. Oh, and profuse apologies for the photo quality. The flash gave it a bit of a bare-light-bulb-interrogation-room quality that leaves a lot to be desired.
Our two deciduous magnolias have actually had buds for some time now. They always gets buds on their branches early enough that I am convinced the winter freezes will kill them off. Every year, of course, I am wrong. It's only a stab in the dark, but maybe those buds need the cold to harden off so they flower properly? Perhaps some real gardener will read this and let me know. Oh, and as long as I am posing questions to the world, can magnolia branches be forced?
If I can come up with ways of bringing a little spring indoors during the February doldrums, I could get hooked...
