Wind is howling

The wind is howling outside, before it got dark it looked like we had two -three inches of snow accumulated. I am sure that the blowing winds will move it around to the most inconvenient places.

Gardening is in the air!

Yesterday when I returned from the Michigan farmgirl luncheon in East Lansing, I finally planted the chives and oriental cabbages that I dug up last weekend at the house in Ohio. I hope they survive, the chives seemed to be OK but the soil around little cabbages was a little dried out, and they seemed a little bit wilted.

The cabbages were a gift of mother nature - I think some of the seed pods from the plants I didn't harvest in time last year exploded! The garden here is still WAY too wet to even think about tilling up, so hopefully the cabbages will recover. The water table is very high, I'm told by neighbors. So I'm turning over the soil for the transplants by hand. I'm trying to avoid the strawberries that escaped from the garden of the previous owner, she bragged about how big the fruits were two years ago, but that will remain to be seen. I've never been successful with strawberries before so perhaps this will be my chance!

I checked on the rhubard that I did plant last weekend, it seems to be doing all right. Also the bees balm and the black-eyed susans I transplanted from my Ohio garden seem to be fine.

There seem to be a lot of daylilies in the flower beds around the house. There are several plants I can't identify yet, but I did definitely see "Autumn glory" sedum.

Today I plan to start my tomato seeds. It might be a little late, but hopefully will still be OK.

Soil Test Time?

It has been pretty hectic with new job, move, unpacking, getting settled in, finding our way around the new neighborhood, and all. I'm afraid the blog posts have been few and far between!

I didn't get any seed catalogs from seed companies this year -- I am sure they all went to the dead letter office since USPS only forwards first-class mail. But one of my farmgirl friends on Mary Jane's Farmgirl Connection heard my cry of distress and sent me an envelope full of her catalogs. I am in heaven right now, curled up on the couch with a cup of coffee and browsing all the wonderful vegetables, flowers and herbs and planning this year's garden.

The soil in Michigan is much different than Ohio's silty clay, I think. I am going to have to find out where to take soil samples in this county to get them analyzed. I wonder if the ground is too frozen right now to get a good soil sample? It is nice to sit here in the warm house and contemplate the question.

The former owners had a small garden that they seeded to grass two years ago, I can still see the outline where it was, and IT IS MUCH TOO SMALL. I will have to negotiate with DH for more space. There is also an acre at the back that they did not mow, perhaps I can find some space there for perennials like rhubarb and asparagus, and maybe even a small orchard.

New home

New location of Bright Meadow Farms! We are no longer in North Central Ohio but have moved about 20 miles north of Warren, Michigan.

popcorn, apples and pumpkins

Two weekends ago we were at the farm in Kent City and harvested our pumpkins and popcorn. It was a beautiful day and I didn't mind harvesting the popcorn by hand, picking each ear then stripping the husks back and throwing the kernels in the basket. I harvested 5 half-bushel baskets full of popcorn. The ears were very wet but I was hoping to dry them.

We brought them down in the back of my husbands truck with the tonneau cover over it. It was a couple of days before he opened the back of the truck.

Our popcorn was moldy. There was a white web on almost all of the ears. We have decided it is best to just throw it all in the compost pile.

The pumpkins were a different story. They are beautiful. A few are spoiled but there are many that are very nice. I hope to make a few pumpkin pies, but they may be decorations until Thanksgiving.

We also had planted some Indian corn. I picked a few ears and brought them back. They seem to be a success. Hopefully the raccoons will leave us some the next time we visit the farm I will harvest the rest.

I picked 6 half-bushels of apples, Northern Spy. I've made one apple pie but have a lot of canning to do to process the rest. When will I do it?

We're planning to make an offer on the house in Michigan this weekend, then come back and pack for a week. I'll need to do laundry on Saturday night and Sunday morning in order to be ready to go to work on Monday morning.

Arrrgh!

I'm Baaaaack!!!

So much has happened in the last few months with so little time to pause and reflect that it is all a blur.

I had knee surgery during August and had to use a walker, then a cane, to get around for a few months.

In mid-August, my father suffered side effects of a drug he was taking for his heart, a recurrence of the problem he had in February. This caused a major lung condition and he was in intensive care for six weeks. The drugs he took for the lung condition, plus the enforced stillness in intensive care, have caused his muscles to atrophy to the point where he couldn't stand, walk or otherwise move around freely.

Of course I spent as much time as possible at the hospital, while still doing the minimum high-priority tasks at work.

He is currently in rehab, and yesterday he stood five times for over a minute each time. It will be a long road to recovery, but he is definitely travelling down it.

While all this was going on, I was also searching for a new job since the manufacturing plant I work in is closing. I have found a new job that will entail moving to Michigan (my husband also will be relocating) and so we have also been house-hunting.

We found a couple or three houses that we both liked with a little bit of acreage (all under 5 acres) and we will be making an offer very soon. Imagine, taking on a new 30-year mortgage at our age! The home prices in this down market are very crazy. We haven't decided whether to sell our house here or not.

My new job starts November 2. We'll be staying with a friend next week. We'll see how much the "houseguest" stress and strain adds to the load.

All this life change has added a lot of "stress points" to my chart. I haven't been able to keep up with the Master Gardeners at all this year, and this distresses me.

One bright spot is that my daughter saw a post on Craigslist for "something that might be wool-pick it up and its yours" I picked it up, it was wool, I took it to Zeilingers in Frankenmuth, Michigan for processing one weekend when we were househunting and found out it was 10 fleeces, not two as I had supposed, and was "fine wool". It's since been cleaned and weighed out at 56 pounds of cleaned wool. I'm going to have 46 pounds spun into yarn and 10 pounds left as top for spinning.

My own garden hasn't been cleaned up yet and there are a LOT of weeds in it. I harvested broccoli side shoots for a casserole on Monday, though, and last night we had beets from the garden for dinner. Earlier this week I found a cucumber that hadn't been frost-damaged and we had it for our salad tonight. Planning when we are going to clean up the garden plot is beyond my capabilities right now, I have to take each day as it comes. I am only doing high-priority tasks, and sorry, the garden just doesn't qualify!

Thanks to everyone for bearing with me through this stressful period in my life. I hope to resume my blogging activities once we get settled in to our new home.

Out of commission

My father has been suffering some pretty major health problems so I haven't been able to spend time in the garden or online much recently.

Will return as soon as possible!

FWD:

there is a huge zucchini class! lol
~~wendy~~

Disaster!

I've been canning all day and my efforts have yielded 7 quarts of garlic dill pickles, 11 pints of green beans, 3 quarts of sweet pickles, and one quart of dilly beans. (OK, I know, about $35.o0 retail, and it took me all day...with the big burner going on the stove... I wonder how much the electric bill will be this month?) But I know where this food came from, I know which chemicals were used on it (NONE!) and I know how it was processed. That can't be measured in dollars.

Because the green beans are a low-acid food, they must be canned in a pressure canner. The pickles, however, can be canned in a boiling water bath canner. So I had both canners going on the top of the stove, rotating them in as needed to sterilize jars or process a batch of food.

When I opened the very last batch of the night in the boiling water bath canner, I found that one of the jars had cracked around the bottom and all the pickles were floating in the canner! I was heartbroken.

I'm taking "The French Chef Cookbook" to bed tonight for some light reading. It is a compilation of the recipes from the first few years of Julia Child's TV show, and many of the recipes come from the book featured in the Julie & Julia move, Mastering the Art of French Cooking. I don't know if the recipe for beef bourguignon is in it, but I certainly hope so.

I took 4 wheelbarrows full of weeds to the compost pile this morning. I quit when it started raining, but the rain didn't last long - fortunately for the weeds, I had already started my pickling adventures. Maybe I can do some more tomorrow.

DH went to the farm this weekend. He needed to get away, GM's bankrupcty is very stressful. He's not sure if the position in Detroit is secure or a good one, it could be a temporary position and he might have to take a pay cut. The cost of living is higher in Detroit than here, but that's true of almost any location other than here. Although Kiplingers seems to indicate that we're about average (100 on their scale) I will probably be taking a pay cut whether or not I relocate (see list of new items on google) so I guess it's a really good thing that I know how to garden and preserve the harvest...

I'm thinking about investing in a food dryer. Given my economic situation, does a $300 - $500 investment sound reasonable, or would I be better served getting a $40 appliance at WalMart?

Garden update

Tonight I went, alone, to watch Julie & Julia movie. I read the book a few years ago, and posted on Mary Jane's Farmgirl connection about it, and the movie moved me as much, or more, than the book.

After reading the book I was inspired enough to buy a Julia Child cookbook, but after seeing the movie, maybe I should have gotten Julia's biography instead.

I was definitely moved to tears while reading both the book and watching the movie. I find parallels in the lives of both characters with my own. I was surprised to feel the emotions when Julia and her husband were talking about having to leave Paris - very similar to my own emotions right now when anticipating having to leave Ohio due to my husband's job change.

I haven't posted much lately, that is because of my guilt complex about not choosing a winner for the zucchini recipe contest...

Now that that is over with, I can tell you my gardening experiences in the last few weeks. Since my knee has been recovering, I've been limiting my gardening to just picking the ripe (or overripe) vegetables and letting the weeds go. Bad mistake!

Earlier this week I pulled a full row of beets. Using a seed tape for the beets was definitely a good decision this year, and I will do it again. My daughters came over and helped me can pickled beets and garlic dills.

I've been a little disappointed with the cucumbers, I noticed I have some cucumber beetles and many of the leaves are turning yellow and drying up. I did have a rather large harvest the night the girls came over, and the ghostly white cukes are the most productive of all. The lemon yellow round cukes (what was the name of that variety?) haven't done so well this year, I think I planted them too close together. I did pickle seven pints of dill pickles, and still have several left to make another batch.

As usual, the zucchinis are quite prolific, all varieties, and because of my neglect due to the surgery, many are as big as baseball bats. I've made zucchini bread, stuffed zucchini, grilled zucchini, the recipes posted on the contest blog entry, canned zucchini salsa (10 pints) and made deep-fried zucchini. It is an ongoing battle with DH to keep them out of the compost pile.

I've been picking green beans (and wax beans, and purple beans) for several weeks. Last night I pulled up all the plants and took them to the patio to sit in a chair and pull off the mature beans. It is much easier on my knee to sit than to stand in the garden on the uneven ground and pick them, and I felt that there wouldn't be many more anyway.

After pulling the beans, I found that I had a huge harvest of green peppers that I hadn't even seen because of the bean foliage. That is a crop to harvest tomorrow.

My tomatoes are FINALLY starting to turn color. I have one Celebrity that is slightly orange, and the plum tomatoes are looking a little bit yellow. I believe they are delayed because the weather has been so cold this year. I am afriad that all will ripen on the same day and I won't be able to keep up with the harvest.

I am still harvesting the Bibb lettuce variety (?) from Territorial that claims it is slow to bolt. Since we've had an unusually cool summer, the claim has held true, and it has been delightful in salads.

Two nights ago we picked the first ears of sweet corn. They were just a little bit under-ripe, so hopefully the rest will come (if I can keep the raccoons out) to enjoy with the tomatoes.

I am trying to clear the garden of weeds this weekend so that I can plant some cabbage, some cultivated arugula, some more beets, and perhaps some cauliflower. This is just about the outer limit for planting the fall garden, except for perhaps some radishes. That is my plan for Saturday, on Sunday I will be working and babysitting my newest little grandchild, he is just adorable!

Contest Winners Announced! Finally!

OK, the contest is over, I've cooked the recipes (I apologize, it took longer than I thought) and I am announcing that Serene Bean is the winner for the squash-stuffed chicken recipe.



The runners up are 1badmamawolf for her stuffed zucchini, and Lisa Marie for the chip recipes.

Please send me an email through MFJ connection to claim your prizes!

Zucchini recipe contest

The zucchini are coming in, and they are piling up! I still have shredded zucchini in the freezer from last year, so I'm sponsoring a contest. Leave me your unusual zucchini recipe in a comment!


By unusual I mean -


- No zucchini bread
- No chocolate cake
- No ratatouille recipe or anything with canned/jarred spaghetti sauce
- No faux apple pie
- No chicken/cream soup casserole with or without stuffing
- No deep-fried anything


I already have a lot of recipes like those.

What I'd like are hors d'ouvres, soups, salads, something for the freezer that doesn't result in an unappetizing green icicle. Your recipe should be YOUR original recipe, and you must give me permission to publish it, acknowledging you as the author.



First prize is a vintage hand-embroidered table runner and creamer/sugar bowl set with goldtone (or maybe gold?) trim. Second prize is a vintage apron.

Deadline is July 20th at 5:00 pm. Good luck!

Limited mobility

I had knee surgery on Thursday. There was no question of gardening on Thursday or yesterday, because I was in quite a bit of pain, but today I was feeling well enough to venture out to the garden with my walker to pick a few of the zucchini - Rain was forecast for today and I didn't want them swelling up to football size. I took a small basket with me, and handling the walker and the basket was a little much. Trying to lift the walker over the large zucchini leaves must have been quite a sight - I was glad no one was watching me. I had to yell for my husband to come and get the basket of zucchini when it was full, but then on the way out I couldn't resist pulling a few of the perfectly-ready beets. With my hands full of beets, and a couple of green beans I found, I took a mis-step and knocked the walker over, out of reach. I had nothing to hold on to except the flimsy deer fence, so once again, I had to yell for my husband to come and get me. He told me several times how foolish I was to risk my knee for a few zucchinis. I had to admit, though that being in the sunshine and in my garden was very restorative, I am very glad I did it even though I may pay later today or tonight with additional pain. Even after being rescued twice, I still couldn't resist picking a couple of heads of lettuce on the way out. There are a lot of weeds (that stupid! hairy galinsoga and redroot pigweed) but they didn't tempt me at all.

I rinsed off the walker with the hose before coming inside. Once inside, I washed the remaining dirt off the beets, then cut the tops off, leaving about 1 inch of stems on the roots. I used a vegetable brush to scrub them really well, then put the roots in a pot of water on the stove, which I brought to a boil, then turned down to medium for about 20 minutes. Likewise, I cleaned the ends off the green beans and also put them on to steam/boil. I sauteed one yellow and one green zucchini with onions and a little garlic and a small amount of fresh basil and fresh oregano (which I had thoughtfully picked before I went for surgery and placed in a plastic bag in the refrigerator). When the beets were finished, I poured off the hot water and submerged them in cool water. At that point I sliced off the tip of the root, the remaining stem portion, and then just gently rubbed the skin off. I sliced them, and popped them into the microwave for 60 seconds to heat the outside back up.

Voila! perfect vegetable accompaniment to leftover lasagna from yesterday.

Unfortunately after dinner as I reached for my walker, I slid my wheeled chair over to it, and leaned forward too far -the chair popped out from under me, and I landed on the floor. I don't think I damaged anything too badly, but it was good that DH was home to pick me up, otherwise I would still be sitting there crying.

The forecasted rains came while we were eating dinner, and now the sun is peeking through. The garden really needed the rain as it had not rained for over a week.

Zucchini's in!

I've been harvesting zucchini - a few tiny ones before we left for the farm (didn't want to come back to footballs if it rained) and a few six-inchers yesterday. The yellow zucchini is also starting to come in.

The "Delicata" squash seeds I got from a fellow Master Gardener turned out to be VINING squash instead of bush squash - so I ended up building another trellis. Please note that the size of mature squash plants is the reason you don't plant them close together!

I've been picking a few wax beans and green beans each day for about a week from those little seedlings I showed you a month or so ago. The other beans are blossoming, and should be able to pick in a few days.

I have tiny green tomatoes on most of my tomato plants. There are several volunteers, I think from the red currant tomatoes from last year. I've ripped several of these out but let a few of them stay. I am very pleased to report that the little tomato seedlings that I thought would be failures seem to have caught up to the garden-center transplants and I hope to harvest from them also. I should have devoted another row to those seedlings - I had 72 plants of various varieties and I only planted one or two of each. I give credit to the scoop of compost I put in each hole with the transplant.

The peppers have blossomed and a few have tiny little peppers on them.

I continue to trellis the cucumbers, they require daily attention to make sure the vines don't flop over and fall into the cole crops. Speaking of cole, the Chinese cabbage are not all that great of a crop - they bolted almost immediately I planted them. Had the last kohlrabi a few days ago, and cooked kale last night as a side dish (steamed, then sauteed with bacon and onion and canned garbanzo beans). The broccoli and cauliflower haven't produced anything yet, and the Japanese beetles are moving in in the last few days - first they attacked the zinnias, then moved on to the coles.

I protected the corn from marauding raccoons and deer this year with my fence, but the wind blew the stalks over a week ago. I went out and piled up soil around the base of the plant to prop them up, and that seems to have been somewhat successful. As the corn keeps growing it stretches up so most of the stalks are a little curved right now, but I think it will be OK.

It hasn't rained for a week, so this morning I had DH put the sprinkler on for a few hours. I would have done it last night but remembered the warning that watering at night can lead to more fungus disease. I did cultivate some last night through the aisles with my Mantis tiller, and also hand-pulled several feet of row this morning. The hairy galinsoga and redroot pigweed are particularly troublesome.

It is time to plant cabbage, and maybe some more broccoli and cauliflower. I've been looking for seeds locally but it seems that the Burpee man has already come and taken most of them away from the big-box retail stores. I could still order from Territorial or Stokes.

Black Raspberry Season

The air here outside of Kent City is full of cottonwood fluff - it looks like it is snowing. I took my Gator out through the orchard today and found that the black raspberries are just starting to get ripe - maybe one of the cluster is turning black, the rest are still red. Too bad we are leaving Sunday, I will wait until Sunday morning to pick to maximize the harvest.

I pulled weeds in the four LONG rows of green beans, mostly lamb's quarters, but a few redroot pigweed (amaranth) and some plants I have not identified that are seeding now. They seem similar to a plant identified at Unger Farm as a native prairie plant -we have loads of them! The beans are blooming and should have beans by the next time I am here.

The deer's tongue lettuce I planted last time I was here in the shade of the 100-year old maple tree is doing spectacularly! The frizzy-headed drunken woman lettuce is not as good, I don't think it stands up to heat quite so well.

I found volunteer seven-top turnips in the field and cooked them for lunch. DH doesn't like them, but he took a small sample for politeness' sake.

I also cooked the baby zucchini I picked before leaving home. I sauteed them in a tablespoon of olive oil and a tablespoon of butter with carmelized chopped onion in the cast-iron fry pan on the grill, served with Bucyrus bratwurst. Ummm. DH had seconds, a new first for zucchini.

Two of the four tomatoes I planted are surviving, deer footprints tell a sorry tale. The four jalapeno peppers are still there and have tiny peppers on them. I also found some of the cilantro. Salsa is on the way!

DH pulled the lamb's quarters out of the pumpkins - last year the pumpkins were our cash crop. So even though he says he is not going to do "stoop labor" I think he felt sorry for me on seeing all the weeds. It is worth pulling weeds to know I do not spray my plants with broadleaf herbicides.

I noticed very little insect damage. The Indian corn looks healthy, the popcorn maybe not so good. I will try and side-dress it with some fertilizer later.

We took a ride through the orchard and found that the Yellow Transparents are not ready yet. A week, maybe two?

Kohlrabi

I've never eaten kohlrabi before, although I have seen it in the grocery store. My mother never fixed it; and I never experimented. But this year I was given a gift of four kohlrabi plants which I put in my garden (I thought they were cabbage!)

Today I went to meeting of the community gardeners at Unger Farm and our extension agent pointed out several gardens with kohlrabi that should be harvested "immediately", or they would be as hard as baseballs. Well, needless to say, the ones in my garden were even bigger than the ones he pointed out.

Tonight I prepared it, sliced very thin, and sauteed in olive oil with a little garlic and green onion slices, with a splash of lemon juice, salt and pepper, and a little cream cheese and milk. It was great! Two kohlrabi bulbs were more than enough for the two of us, we've got leftovers.

I found a great web site today http://www.theproducelady.org/ that features a North Carolina extension educator who shows how to prepare some lesser-known or used vegetables and fruits. The videos are really designed for produce sellers at farmer's markets so that they are able to help introduce their customers to using more produce. Her videos also are accessible via YouTube. I watched the eggplant video, and was enchanted by her accent.

And the rains came....

Title of Louis Bromfield's novel, and the way I am feeling tonight. It was SO HOT and muggy this afternoon - 90 degrees (our air conditioning isn't working at home, DH has ordered parts for the air conditioner) I suggested we go to the movie theater for the evening's entertainment. We watched "The taking of Pelham 123" which was a great movie except I hate the violence. But DH loves movies with car crashes and there were a few of them!

When we left the theater, it was raining. It has cooled off down to 70 and much more comfortable. Evidently we lost power at home, the clocks were all blinking when we got home, but only off by two minutes.

Bee balm in bloom

The bee balm (aka Monarda) is in bloom, just in time. In this 85-degree heat the hummingbirds have emptied their feeder. I filled it last night, the ratio being 1 cup sugar to 2 cups water.

The hummingbirds seem to like the bright red color and deep-throated petals of the monarda.

There are at least three separate groups of hummingbirds visiting my feeder. One goes to the woods behind the house, one always goes to the red-twig dogwood, and the other always exits by flying over the garage roof toward the neighbor's.

They chirp at me if I am in their way or get too close to their feeder.

I always thought of them as silent birds, but in fact they are quite noisy.

Seasonal Salad

Searched for a recipe in SOAR (searchable online archive of recipes) for arugula, and the first one that came up sounded pretty darn good.

2/3 cup pearl barley
1 pound green beans -- trimmed
1 cup fresh corn kernels
4 ounces arugula
1/2 cup extra-virgin olive oil
1/4 cup white wine vinegar
3 tablespoons minced shallots
2 tablespoons minced fresh thyme
2 teaspoons dijon mustard
3 1/2 ounces soft fresh goat cheese -- crumbled

Cook barley in medium saucepan of boiling salted water until tender, about 30 m inutes. Drain; cool. Transfer to large bowl. Cook beans in large pot of boiling salted water until crisp-tender, about 4 min utes. Drain. Transfer beans to bowl of ice water to cool. Drain well. Pat b eans dry with paper towels. Cut half of beans into 2-inch pieces. Transfer to bowl with barley. Mix in corn kernels. Coarsely chop 2 bunches arugula; add to bowl with barley mixture. Whisk olive oil, vinegar, shallots, thyme and Dijon mustard in small bowl to bl end. Pour enough dressing over barley mixture to coat. Season salad to taste with salt and pepper. Arrange remaining 2 bunches arugula around edge of large platter. Arrange rema ining whole beans in spoke pattern atop arugula. Mound salad in center of plat ter. Sprinkle with goat cheese. Drizzle any remainingdressing over arugula and beans and serve.

OK, I cheated. I used canned whole-kernel corn instead of fresh, and frozen green beans (grown in our garden last year) instead of fresh. I used 1/3 of a whole onion instead of shallots, and used my food processor to blend the dressing. I did have the fresh thyme. Remember, I planted it in between my cole crops, (the mystery plants turned out to be kohlrabi, never have grown it before, heck, I've never even eaten it before!) Just had to dodge the sprinkler to go get the thyme... And I used semi-soft Manchego cheese for the goat cheese because that is what I had in the bottom of the refrigerator.

Rest of the menu is baked pork chops and baked potatoes. Going to have to eat outside because it's too hot in the kitchen! Add a glass of chardonnay and everything will be fine.

Neon orange guck

I went out to check on my garden tonight after work and found this "stuff" on the backs of the leaves of one of my raspberry? Blackberry? plants (they are planted near each other and I have trouble identifying until the fruit comes on).

Is it a fungus? Bug eggs? spray paint? I looked on Ohioline, it could be orange rust http://ohioline.osu.edu/hyg-fact/3000/pdf/3010.pdf which does not infect red raspberries, (great! My Carolines and Autumn Brittens might be safe!) just black raspberries or blackberries - or possibly late leaf rust which ONLY affects red raspberries, according to MSU extension. http://www.canr.msu.edu/vanburen/e-1730.htm Question - how do I figure out which it is? Or does it really matter? I guess I just have to dig it up and "destroy" it. (How do I do that? Do I burn it or put it in the trash pickup?)