Beautiful spring day

It's the end of our fiscal year and one can only carry over so many vacation hours.  I did not plan well this year because I had about 2 weeks worth of vacation to take in April.  Emma and I went to Savannah for one week and I'm now taking the rest of the time off, a day here, a day there.  That's Brian you hear in the background playing his tiny violin!

I spent the morning in the vegetable garden.  I sifted several wheelbarrows full of compost and added it all to a couple of planting beds.  The potatoes are late arriving this year but the email just came from Territorial Seeds that they have been shipped.  So the bed for the potatoes is now loosened and compost worked in.  I also prepared the bed for the asian long beans and edaname.  Those were planted today along with more carrots, onions, purple beans, cilantro.  Rocks keep appearing so I spent too much time picking them out of the beds.

The first real harvest!

Mint.  Brian has been asked for minty limeade. 

Mustard Greens.  These wintered over and are about done.  I think I will saute in bacon grease.  Add a splash of vinegar.  Yum

Lettuce that wintered over.  The new seeded lettuce is coming up strong. 

Leeks!  These are beautiful.  Not sure what to make.  Either leek and potato soup or a tart of some kind.

Spring is almost here

I always love when the Hellebores bloom.  I was taking out the recycling and glanced over at the plants and saw they were in bloom.  Spring planting is not far behind

A couple of weeks ago, Sean and I went to the Community Forklift.    He loves this place.  It is a funky place to wander around and think of projects.  We were looking for a new window for the cold frame and something to put down between the pavement stones.  The bonus was seeing some bicycle rims so I can make a new trellis.

I want to do something like this

On Saturday, Sean put the new window on the cold frame

The seeds have arrived! 

The seeds have arrived

Today, Sean and I went to the Manassas National Battlefield Park and spent several hours walking the trail around the sites of the First Battle of Manassas (there was a second battle but that part of the park was on the other side).  We have a book on hikes around DC/VA/MD and we are trying to be more active on the weekends.  What does this have to do with seeds?  I was commenting on the way home how this time of year was very calm.  Normally, I am always thinking "I should be out in the garden" - either in my yard or vegetable garden.   This time of year there is nothing to do but plan for the Spring.  Although this year, the winter has been so mild, a couple of weeks ago I spent the day weeding the front yard.  The Bittercress is taking over the front yard and back lawn.  Luckily the roots are shallow and it's very easy to pull up in the wet soil.

Bittercress

Yesterday, I received in the mail a booklet called "Plant Invaders in the District of Columbia" put out by the Urban Gardening and Forestry Outreach Cooperative Extension Service - part of the University of the District of Columbia.  Who knew such a group existed?!  I had no idea. I will have to explore this group more thoroughly.  The booklet lists 14 of the most common invasive plants of the city. I think most of them are growing in my next door neighbor's yard (the rental house next to me).  Every summer it's a struggle to keep the honeysuckle, ivy and porcelain berry from taking over my yard from the neighbor's yard.

I have ordered some seeds and they have arrived. I didn't order too many this year because there are lots of seeds leftover from last year.  My gardening neighbor and I go in together on seeds plus the local nursery was having a sale in Dec - 50% off seeds.  So I didn't need to order too many this year.  I get almost all my seeds and potatoes, garlic, sweet potatoes and shallots from Territorial Seeds in Oregon.  I've used them for years and have been very happy.

I am going to try something new this year.  I ordered cucumbers and zucchini that are especially bred for containers.   I will try this in the front yard and see how it goes.

The end of Feb, I will start the tomato and pepper seeds and if this weather keeps up being warm, I should be able to start planting lettuce and greens the beginning of March. 

Day 2 of beanie vacation

Last night Sean and I went to a lovely 50th birthday dinner party.  That meant no eating from the pantry although I did bring some garden vegetables to the hostess.

I have a long to-do list that mostly focuses on yard work while the kids are away.  Sean and I went out to Homestead Farms to pick peaches and blackberries.  Before we left, I made scrambled eggs with chopped tomatoes and chives and parsley plus some of the heritage pig sausage.

Blackberries - these will be frozen

Peaches - still hard but when ripe, I will freeze these too

Once back from picking peaches, we took a look at the worm compost.  There is quite a bit of lovely compost but it's pretty wet and hard to sift out.  There didn't seem a good way to separate out the little red worms from the compost so I added food in one corner and prepared another layer of bedding for the 2nd tier. Let's see if that will do the trick to separate the worms from their poop.

After that, it was two hours weeding and pruning in the front yard.  It's supposed to get to 100 degrees later in the week so I'm going to hurry up and get the yard done in the next few days.

Lunch was leftover macaroni and cheese plus some lovely fuschia colored beet buttermilk soup.

I also made a batch of dill cucumber chips and used up all the cucumbers to date in the house.  While doing the dishes, I stupidly put a glass baking pan atop other pans in the dishrack and yes, it fell and broke over all the kitchen floor - I reached out my hand to try and stop it and in return cut the joint between thumb and first finger.  I think I will have a hard time typing tomorrow.

Beets - ready for the freezer

Dill cucumber pickles

Garden Harvest this week - July 16

The vegetable garden needed some TLC so Sean and I spent 3 hours there this morning.  He staked the tomatoes (they were staked but are heavy with fruit and many branches had fallen over) and I weeded my little flower garden.  Then I tackled weeding the vegetable garden.  Sean picked the edamame and decided he didn't like picking.  So he watered and I picked the everything else that was ready.

The harvest!  From lower left:  red potatoes, edamame, zucchini, carrots, parsley, beets, shallots and onions, tomatoes and kolrahbi on the far right.

What to do with all this?  The potatoes I stored.  The zucchini and kolrahbi went into the fridge.  The onions and shallots will stay outside to dry.  The carrots were washed and stored.  The beans and beets were also washed.  I boiled the beets, skinned and vacuum sealed.  I blanched some of the beans and froze on a tray.  They will also be vacuum sealed.  The parsley is being dehydrated.  The edamame was boiled and then shelled and frozen.  No wonder I'm tired.

Fresh Edamame.  This is the first time I've grown it and it's a big success.  This vegetable will be back next year.

Ready to be frozen

I weighed all the cucumbers and found there is enough for a batch of dill pickles with some cukes leftover.  Tomorrow I'll make the dills but in the meantime, I made a batch of refrigerator pickles.  Layer sliced cukes with chives, rosemary and sage.  Boil cider vinegar and salt and then add cold water.  Pour over cuke mixture.

Last week I pulled up all the garlic.  These heads were a little squishy so I decided to roast them. I'll then squeeze them out and freeze the garlic paste.   The rest of the garlic is in storage in basement

Tomorrow we are going to pick peaches so that means more preserving. 

Garden Harvest this week - June 10

Purple Kohlrabi!  this is delicious, just peeled and sliced thin and eaten raw in salads

This is the dinner I made with layered potatoes, chard, chopped ham and fontina cheese.  Bake until potatoes are done.  Cut into slices.   Chard from the garden

Chard, Ham, Cheese

Side dish of sauteed garlic scapes and fava beans - both from garden

Lots and lots of lettuce

Scapes from my garlic!

Favas - this is about it, I didn't plant that many and only a few pods grow on each plant.

What the garden looks like today

I finally remembered to take the camera to the garden.  My neighbor Edouard is away for the month so I am watering for two.  Went out early this morning to water and pick a couple of things.  The peas are ready to be pulled - I think I will just plant more green beans.

Beans in forefront, potatoes in upper right

Garlic with dill

Spent peas on left, tomatoes in back, squash to right

A new kind of bean for me this year - red! These should be ready in a couple of days

Kohlrabi - delicious, raw and sliced in salads.

Radish flowers. I let them go to seed because I think the flowers are so pretty

Sweet potatoes

Fava beans

Edaname - first try for these, there are flowers so I hope there will be soybeans

First CSA share

I'm exhausted already just thinking about my garden and the CSA and what to do with everything.  My first delivery of the season was today.  A bag of vegetables plus eggs - thank goodness I share all this with my friend Kathryn, who also has a plot in my community garden.  I'm going to try and blog every week about what I do with the vegetables in the share.  This is the 4th or 5th season of getting a CSA from Fresh and Local, a farm in Shepherdstown, WV.  To be known in future posts as Farmer Allan.  All my chicken and pork also comes from Allan.  Today I discussed with him how to tell if the fava beans are ready.  He told me his field of Favas look wonderful so I can't wait.

here is what was in my bag today

Broccoli and eggs

From left to right:  spring onions, turnips, lettuce, garlic scapes

Greens of some sort

What to do for dinner?  I asked Brian to come into the kitchen and figure it out with me. I laid out everything on the counter, took a look in the fridge and put out some suggestions.  Brian settled on a frittata with broccoli on the side.  In the frittata,  he asked if we could each have a section and I said of course.  So my section had sauteed garlic scapes and cheddar cheese while he put chopped chicken and cheese in the section for him and Emma.  Brian then got to work and pretty much made the whole frittata himself except for putting the pan under the broiler.

Scapes being sauteed. These are so delicious.

The master chef at work

This is a side dish for me.  I picked chard from my garden on Sunday so there are more garlic scapes in here, plus chard and salt and pepper.

Dinner!  Frittata with garlic scapes and cheese, broccoli and chard.