One Year Old

Today is the "hatchday" of our three chickens, Rosie, Daisy and Dot. Last year we went out to Canby on Sunday August 10th to pick up our two-day-old chickens. They were still egg shaped they were so young. We kept them in a cardboard box with a heating bulb in the basement directly below our basement and went to sleep listening to them peep, peep, peep.



And now they are one year old and producing an egg each a day. And boy do they let us know when they have laid their egg. They proudly announce every morning after they lay. Well Rosie and Dot do. Daisy typically lays in the afternoon.

So happy hatchday chickens!!!

Eating More Bounty and Some Extreme Gardening

One of our Hungarian Hot Wax Chilis that first appeared back in May finally turned a beautiful red color. It almost didn't even feel real when I held it in my hand. Maybe that is the "wax" part of its name.



April chopped up half of it and added the tasty, spicy little bits to some mac & cheese. That little red bundle of joy added so much depth of flavor and spiciness to that bowl of mac-n-cheese. It was a "wow" moment.

I harvested the rest of the garlic this last weekend and again got some close-to-fist-sized bulbs.



They joined the rest of the bulbs on our back porch trellis to dry, which shouldn't take too long in the weather we are having now. It was officially 103 at the Portland airport last night and I'm sure it was a few degrees warmer in our neighborhood in the inner city where there are numerous heat-sink concrete buildings.

We harvested the last of our Romaine on Sunday because I knew they were going to completely bolt in this heat. I gave two big heads away to two different neighbors. In continuing to eat our bounty, I sliced our last head of Romaine lengthwise, added some olive oil and parmesan, and tossed it on the grill after grilling some beef flanken ribs from New Seasons. The grilled Romaine was so tasty. This shot is the last of the heads just before harvesting them on Sunday.



And what did I do last night when the temps were still sitting in the triple digit range? I weeded. It wasn't too bad. I was in shorts with no shirt and I sat on my little garden stool. The chickens, who seem to be surviving this hot spell quite well, gathered around me as I dug up morning glory, dandelions and grass. After about 30-45 minutes, I was dripping sweat into my glasses as I bent over. So I had to call it a day at around 7 pm. It's supposed to maybe even push our all-time record high of 107 today. It was officially an all-time record high low temperature this morning of 75 degrees (the previous record for Portland was 74). I learned the hard way this morning that I need to do my finishing hand watering in my shorts the next couple of days. I pretty much sweated through my dress shirt just walking around with the hose. So no biking to work for me until the end of the week when the temps moderate substantially.

More Late July Garden Pics

First, the shot of the main garden beds taken this morning. The skies are cloudy this morning but we are supposed to be heading into some possibly triple digit weather next week.



Our chili peppers are full of fruit. Now we just have to let them ripen.



The corn is varying from waist to almost chest high at this point. This variety is supposed to get up to 8 to 10 feet tall. That will be cool.



And finally for today, a shot of one of the squash blossoms that open up wide in the morning.

Late July Update

So it has been almost a whole month since I last updated and stuff has really, really grown in the garden. First, here is a shot of the main garden beds from almost three weeks ago.



Back then, I was impressed with what I called the green explosion of the three types of winter squash. This is a shot of that from a few weeks ago.



But that was nothing. I have since taken down the chicken wire around this bed and the squash is spilling out across the lawn. I don't have a picture handy to show that right now. I'll try to post one tonight or tomorrow. There are a lot of green squashes on the various vines. This is a shot of what I think is our small pumpkins located diagonally across from their planted hill right in the middle of the garlic.



And I do have a recent shot showing just how big the squash leaves are. Talk about dinosaur food.



Specking of dinosaur food, we also recently harvested and ate some of our volunteer mustard greens. They were a yummy addition to a beet salad that April made.



And that beet salad used our Italian beets from our garden.



The sunflower in the middle of the picture above of the main garden is a volunteer. It continued to grow unabated into July and finally began blossoming a few weeks ago. This is a shot of it from a few weeks ago when its first blossom began to unfold.



Now the plant is just downright ridiculous. It has numerous large blossoms that usually have at least one or two bees on each head (yeah bees!). And it continued to grow taller. The stalk is so thick I may need an axe come Fall to be able to take it down. In the mean time it is performing its bee attracting duty which is helping greatly with the pollination of my squash, peppers and tomatoes. We got out a yard stick to give some perspective on its height.



And previously I believe that I mentioned that I was worried that my garlic may be failing. The garlic sprouted all right and looked super healthy into June. But they never flowered and then they began to go brown and finally began to topple over. Well, I got onto an Oregon State University agricultural extension service website and quickly figured out that the reason my garlic did not flower is that I most likely planted a non-bolting variety. And then when I read the section on harvesting I found out that garlic is ready to harvest when its leaves turn brown and then topple over. Woo hoo! I immediately went out to the garden with a small spade and dug up a brown, toppled over garlic plant and found a beautifully, fully developed bulb. April and I then dug up the rest of the plants that had toppled over. We still have about seven or so more that had not quite toppled over yet which we'll probably harvest this weekend. But we got some beauties.



We currently have them hanging on our trellis up on our back porch drying. They should be ready in about another week. It is so exciting to try something new and have it work and especially something that we will use time and again. Soon as they are dry April will put them into a braid and then we will make our first batch of pesto using our own home grown basil and garlic.

Taking a Break

April and I are headed down to Sunriver with the extended family for a week's worth of vacation. April's Mom, Liz, is going to take care of the watering, cat feeding and chicken feeding duties. She gets three eggs a day as partial payment.

I mowed and weeded the corn last night after work in preparation of being gone a week. The corn is a mixed bag right now, but in retrospect it does look like it's going to be "knee high by July." I did add some organic plant food in hopes of kicking it in the butt a little to urge it on.

Something doesn't need urging is our volunteer sunflower in the middle of the front middle bed. I swear the thing grew three to four feet more just since last Sunday. Here's a parting shot of me standing next to it with my kitty, Bo.

First 'Mato of the Summer

Way earlier than last summer, as I stripped four of the six tomatoes, I found two green tomatoes on two separate plants. This has to be the earliest green 'matos I've ever had.


Isn't she pretty?

A Respite From Watering

I was awakened by an unusual noise early this morning: water dripping. A nice band of showers swept through late last night/early this morning. It was a healthy does of rain, enough that I did not have to get up and water this morning before going to work. However, it also rained enough that I decided to not ride my bike into work. I thought I may have wussed out a little bit as I drove in on a dry freeway, but my bike does not have fenders and my latest look at the weather radar shows that more showers are on their way. The Channel 8 weatherman blew that forecast. He stated that the first band of clouds would not have any rain and if we got any at all it would come early this evening.

Oh well, it all added up to my being able to sleep in a bit longer this morning and that was welcome. I did get some good hoeing and hand weeding in last night, working until after 8 pm. That left us pondering what to do about dinner at such a late time. So we punted and went over to a wonderful little restaurant on SE Belmont, Wild Abandon. We picked that particular place because they were participating in Bites for Rights, a benefit for Basic Rights of Oregon ("BRO"). We each had an appetizer and some wine and some of that money went to BRO. The food was fantastic and their prices are very reasonable. I strongly recommend this place.

A View of the Garden Mid-June

As promised, here are some updated pictures I took on Monday which happened to be mid-June.

First our "greens bed" with romaine on the left, buttercrunch lettuce in the middle and arugula on the right.


And here is a view of our garlic and dry beans.

The potatoes are doing great this year. This is a view of our upper back corner in which I planted our blue potatoes back in early/mid March.


Here are a couple of our tomatoes with some chili peppers in the foreground.


My birthday was last week and my Mother-in-law gave me this cool little critter. I think fits right in.


And a view of his snout.

I just love this colorful front corner of the front bed.

And I'll finish it off with a shot of our beautiful yellow rose.

Mid June and Garden is Rolling Right Along

I will endeavor to upload pictures tonight that I took on Monday. The garden is really filling in now. We planted a bunch more flowers last weekend to provide more color more tasty stuff for pests to go after instead of our food. Actually April planted all the flowers. We have one tomato plant that is looking scrawny, but the rest are really starting to take off and I even have a few blossoms. I'm going to strip the bigger tomato plants this weekend and work in some organic plant food into the soil around the scrawny 'mato and into the ground around the sweet corn.

We've been munching on salads almost every night with our sorrell, buttercrunch lettuce, broccoli and peas. We are almost through the broccoli, so I have to decid what to plant there next. I may try some more beets from seed. Our beets and cabbages that we planted from starts are all looking healthy and strong.

Tonight, it's time to for my weekly session with the hoe. It worked well last week.

I've Got a Sharp Hoe

When we got home yesterday afternoon from our trip to Sacramento, I got out my metal file and sharpened up my hoe. I did a little bit of hoeing then to get proof of concept. When I got home tonight from work, I hoed the rest of main two front beds. Then I hand weeded in the areas really close to plants. In less than two hours I had weeded both big beds. Cool.

I need to weed the corn tomorrow, but after that I get to turn my energies to other areas in the yard.

And tonight, we had our first full-on salad with just stuff from the garden. The salad consisted of sorrel, broccoli, peas and a bit of butter crunch lettuce. April added some bleu cheese dressing, bleu cheeese and parmesan cheese which really balanced out the lemony flavor of the sorrel. Yum. It was so cool to eat what has come from our land.

Feral Rooster of Oaks Bottom and the 3 W's of Gardening

This morning I rode my bike to work and my route takes me through the upper parking lot of Oaks Bottom on Milwaukie Ave. As I rolled through the lot on my way to the bike path, I stopped to chat with a gentleman who was walking his two dogs. I asked if he had seen the feral chickens I thought I had witnessed a couple of weeks ago. Just after he said no, he looked up said, "Wait, there's one right now." Lo and behold, a rooster was foraging around the edge of the area. Thus, I now have independent verification of at least one feral rooster residing in Oaks Bottom or at least on its fringes. We both wondered how long it would survie until either a coyote or a bald eagle would get it. I'm guessing somebody got backy chicks and one of them turned out to be a rooster which are forbidden to keep under Portland's laws. They probably let the rooster go to get rid of it.

As for the garden, we are now in the zone of the three W's: water, weed and wait (or watch). All of the first planting is in and all seeded plants have sprouted except for the most recent planting of potatoes and I expect to see them by next week. So now it is the routine of watering in the mornings when needed (and boy have we needed it these last two weeks), beginning the cycle of weeding and waiting for the crops to mature. There is some aesthetic yard work to be continually done, but that will get done as I get to it through the rest of the spring, summer and fall.

And because the garden work is now limited to that, we can escape for a long weekend down in Sacramento. We are driving down tomorrow for two primary purposes. For me, it is to watch the Intercollegiate Rowing Association championship regatta which is the national championships for men's collegiate rowing. In its 114 year existence, this regatta has never been held on the West Coast, until this year. For April, she will be visiting her high school, Loretto, and some high school friends because earlier this year, the order of nuns that own and operate the school announced that the school will be closed down for good after this year. And they mean it. The property has already been sold to a charter school which will take over the campus next fall.

On our way home, we are stopping in Redding to visit a friend that will soon be living in Santa Monica and then stopping in Ashland for the evening to spend the night with a friend ours who also has chickens. While we are on our trip, April's mom will come over and take care of our cats and our chickens as well as water the garden as needed.

Until next week...

Jack and the Beanstalk (plus more pics)

So this is a picture of our dry beans on day two of their sprouting. The previous evening they were merely tiny little sprouts barely breaking through the topsoil. Oh my it appears I am going to be stringing these guys up as soon as this weekend.

And now for a dump of pictures as per requested from one of my readers:
First, a perspective view of the yard/garden as of this evening.



And for comparison, a picture from the depths of our snow storm back in late December.



Now that is a little extreme even for Portland. But we are now firmly into rose season. These are wonderful shots of our front fountain roses and our house.





And I absolutely love this rose called Berries and Cream which is just starting to peak.



And then there is our Rhododendron and our Oriental Poppy.





Last night we had this broccoli as part of our stir fry for dinner. Yum.



And as always, Rosie, Dot and Daisy have been there to scratch, eat and fertilize.


I got the Queensland Blue Squash seeds planted tonight. I have high hopes since all eight seeds of Sweet Dumpling Squash have already sprouted. I did confirm numerous corn sprouts this evening and I got the Buttercrunch and Romaine lettuce starts planted as well.

We are experiencing some unusually extended warm and dry conditions right now. It's Rose Festival which means it is supposed to be raining. Oh well. I'm watering in earnest each morning and doing damage control in the evenings with temps today hitting at least 84 and tomorrow a few degrees higher.

Enjoy.

Things Are Starting To Grow

...or at least sprout. I've got almost everything I want planted in the ground. I just have another two hills of winter squash and putting in some more lettuce starts to do. In the mean time, the pole beans, dry beans and sweet dumpling squash have sprouted. And I could have sworn I saw a corn sprout this morning when I watered.

Ah and watering season has begun. We are in a somewhat unusual extended dry, warm period with consistent highs in the mid to upper 70s each day. It's perfect weather for germinating the corn and squash. But it also means I get up every morning before work to water the garden beds, and this year the lawn in the main yard that I have left. I realized I need to water our lawn portion now because that is primary chicken food. We do not have a monoculture lawn of pure grass. We've got grass, crab grass, dandelions, clover, moss....you name it. I do mow it consistently to keep the weeds somewhat down. But the chickens love the variety, especially the clover and they also love to eat dandelion flowers when they are in full yellow blossom.

Within a week I expect the extended weeding season to begin. After my last planting it will mostly be maintenance from here on out.

Mowing and Planting

After work yesterday I mowed the surprisingly tall grass. Man it is just growing fast this year. Maybe it's the "help" from the chickens.

Then it was onto more planting. I put in two hills each of Sweet Dumpling Winter Squash and some yummy smallish sugar pumpkins. This same variety of pumpkin made for great pies last Fall and we still have two or three bags of frozen pumpkin puree in the freezer. I also planted three rows of sweet corn in the parking strip. It's a little bit of a tight squeeze out there, but I think it will work. And if it does, we are supposed to get 8-10 foot tall stalks with 8-9 ears per stalk. That will be cool.

First Major round of Planting Done

Over Saturday through yesterday, we got a lot into the ground. Some of the stuff is easy to identify a month from now such as peas and beans. However, we have six different varieties of tomatoes and twelve different varieties of peppers. So I made a hand drawn map showing the general location of each plant with a key to the numbers. Here's my crudely drawn map of the main yard:


This does not include the back corner or the parking strip. I do have some red and blue potatoes planted in the upper back corner which have come up. But I have not planted in the lower back corner or the parking strip yet. And I have not planted the winter squash, pumpkins or beets but I will probably do that this coming weekend. Here's the key to the map:
1. Green Zebra Tomato
2. Amish Paste Tomato
3. Maritan Giant Tomato
4. Perone Sprayless Tomato
5. Tangerine Sweet Pepper
6. Purple Beauty Bell Pepper
7. Sunrise Orange Sweet Pepper
8. Cilantro
9. Red Ruffled Pimento
10. Nardello Sweet Pepper
11. Corno di Toro Pepper
12. Pole Beans
13. Sorrel
14. Broccoli
15. Bush Snap Peas
16. Prize of the Trials Tomato
17. Amana orange Tomato
18. Ring O Fire Chili
19. Czech Black Chili
20. Bolivian Rainbow Chili
21. Ancho/Poblano Chili
22. Conquistador Chili
23. Hungarian Hot Wax Chili
24. Lemon Basil
25. Aromatto Basil
26. Garlic
27. Dry Soup Tiger's Eye Bush Bean
28. Red Cherokee Wax Bush Bean
29. Round Black Spanish Radish.

The radishes and some of the bush snap peas are left over from my experimental February planting. I had to replant more bush snap peas, and I believe our two attempts at lettuce were eaten by slugs.

My body was toast last night after two days of shovel work and then choosing to ride my bike to work on my hilly commute. But the planting got done at just the right time around 7 pm as it started to rain quite seriously at about 8 pm.

Next up, I need to clear the cover crop from the lower back corner and get the rest of the potatoes planted and plant my sweet corn, squashes, beets and some various greens. I'm going to break down and buy some lettuce starts but I will give the seeds a try again too. Then I will continue my ongoing battle against my invasive species problems of bamboo, blackberry, two different types of morning glory and a vine that spreads along the back cyclone fence.

A Time To Sow

Finally, it is time to plant. Well after five hours of turning manure and compost into the beds it is time to plant. I'm sore but not broken. After the shovel work I took April's advice, showered, made myself an aggressive margarita and then retired to the hammock. I lay in the hammock and listened to a really cool episode of Radio Lab on NPR and then nodded off for a good nap.

April planted our six tomato plants. We got them on Thursday via UPS. It is a little strange to get vegetable plants in a cardboard box:


But the pepper and mato plants are healthy and we have had fabulous luck with these in the past:



As usual, I had lots of help from our chickens when I was turning soil. They just love the worms. Last week they came up the back stairs probably because they thought I could get them some more worms.


I'll upload some more pictures tomorrow after we finish planting seeds and I start in on the potato patch and the corn in the space between the sidewalk and the curb. Well have to get some more chicken wire tomorrow to keep the chickens out of where we plant seeds lest they scratch them all up.

Great weather. Great weekend.

A Rainy Evening

I was able to finish cutting the rest of the sod last last night. And just in time since we got quite a dousing of rain this afternoon and evening. On top of that, I received emails late yesterday confirming that the tomato and pepper starts have been shipped and will arrive tomorrow. We'll unpack them tomorrow night and leave them on the back porch to harden for two days. I have a law school reception to attend tomorrow evening after work so I'll head to Portland Nursery after work on Friday to get manure, compost and a new metal rake. Saturday and Sunday will be spent turning in the amendments and planting. I'll then clear out the lower back corner bed and plant potatoes. If I have time (and energy) I'll clear the parking strip cover crop and plant our sweet corn.

In the mean time, since it was a rainy evening, I put my energy into the kitchen. I made a Potato Leek soup and have a French Bread dough now rising for baking in the morning.

Still Cutting But Getting Closer

I'm still in the process of cutting sod to enlarge the front middle garden bed. I forgot how tedious this can be. Anyway I should be able to finish the last couple of feet to the driveway this evening. Then I'll move the chicken coop off of the lower back corner, hack the rest of the cover crop down and turn that over. I'm going to plant the rest of the potatoes in that bed along with sunflowers along the edge.

I'm hoping that our tomatoes and peppers arrive soon. After I finish the middle bed tonight and then spread more manure and compost on all of the beds, we are ready to go to start planting. I'm going to call Seeds of Change to see if I can get an estimate on when the plants will be getting here.

More Maintenance

The ground is still pretty sodden and we're expected to get a little bit more rain over the next day or so. I worked the front corner under the Rhody for a bit continuing to try to rid ourselves of the dreaded bamboo. The chickens absolutely loved getting worms as I turned over dirt.

The peas are up and so is the lettuce. Our red Oriental Poppy popped open its first blossom today and the irises April planted last summer look like they may blossom this weekend.

As the weather dries out, I'm looking forward to expanding the planting beds this weekend and beyond. I should be able to start planting a whole lot more in earnest late next week. Oh, and I have to mow again already. I am so glad that I am slowly getting rid of more and more of my lawn. I am keeping a small stretch in the back on which we can hang out during the summer in the shade.

Wet Again

Lots of rain recently. But the timing has been good since I was finishing up crew season with our West Coast championship regatta this last weekend down in Sacramento. And down there it was three straight days of rain too. They desperately need that rain down there so it was a good thing overall.

I went out and did some blackberry/vine/invasive plant patrol. I cleaned out under a couple of my roses and weeded my radishes. We are about a week or so awa from radishes. That will be the first official harvest of the year. April kicked some butt over the last week and cleaned up some parts of the yard, planting more flowers where she cleaned up.

We moved the coop back over to the lower back corner so that the chickens will eat up the cover crop left there. Also that frees up the space in the yard that I have to turn over. It is still way too wet to try that. But maybe Friday or Saturday I can recommence taking out lawn to be replaced with food and flowers.

Busy Weekend, Just Not In The Garden

We had our last Saturday crew practice of the season and then April and I attended a wedding out at Edgefield after which we stayed the night. Thus not much got done in the garden this weekend. I am continuing to expand the front middle bed toward the driveway. I got about three feet closer to the driveway each on Saturday and Sunday. I still have about eight or so feet to go. I'm still mostly in preparation mode anyway. I feel like we are about two to three weeks away weather-wise from some of the major planting.

Fenced Off and Ready To Go

April fenced off the front bed with the rest of the chicken wire and a couple of pieces of metal screen to fill in the last few feet. After fencing off, I turned and planted some more peas. The chickens were just beside themselves pacing back and forth on the other side of the fencing when I was turning the dirt. But that is exactly why we put it up. Now I am ready to go with at least some of the tomato and pepper plant when they show up in the mail.

I turned the upper back corner and planted three rows of blue potatoes. I still have a little over half of the blue seed potatoes and all of the russet seed potatoes left. I'm going to plant them in the lower back corner bed. I haven't turned the lower back corner yet at all and plan on putting the coop over a big bunch of the cover crop still in that bed before turning and planting. I'll also plant our usual row of sunflowers along the Eastern edge of that bed.

On Sunday, April replanted some lettuce for us in the little bed I set up in February in which we have some radishes growing.

yesterday, I spread out a couple of bags of compost on the next bed over including spreading it around our very healthy looking garlic plants. I began the arduous task of turning the dirt that didn't get turned last year. It's still pretty wet and compacted, but a turn now will help uncompact it. This is going to take a couple of weeks of turning when I can until crew season is over. I intend to throw a lot of amendments at this area since it has seen nothing but lawn for a number of years. It is in this new portion close to our drive way where I am going to plant the rest of the tomatoes and peppers dues to its relatively good sun exposure even into the Fall.

April finished off the evening by planting flowers she got at Fred Meyer's and Portland Nursery yesterday afternoon. She stayed out planting until it was dark enough such that the chickens had put themselves to bed in the upper portion of the coop.

On an unrelated note, it took a little more determination this morning to get on the bike and ride into work. The accumulation of a regatta on Saturday, doing shovel work on Sunday, riding into and back from work on Monday and then more shovel work last night has left me a little fatigued. I redlined a little more quickly than usual during the steep portion of my first climb this morning, though the rest of the ride felt okay. And I still averaged over 12 mph for the ride which is right on my recent average if not a little fast. And my ride home on Monday included an unexpected and unpleasant surprise after I met up with some high school friends for a mini-25th year reunion. It seems that a honey bee made its way into my jersey during my ride home and decided it was a most uncomfortable place to be once I sat down for a beer. The sucker stung me before I was able to figure out what was going on. This morning, as I casually scratched an itch on my upper shoulder blade I discovered that he had stung me four times. Fortunately, some benadryl spray relieved the itching. Unfortunately the incident on Monday ended with one less honeybee in the world.

Progress

After a long, bittersweet day at our rowing conference championships Saturday, I was ready to focus on the garden on Sunday. I "slept in" to 7:30 am (I usually get up at 5 am or earlier during crew season), made myself some coffee, two fresh fried eggs and a slice of homemade bread toasted with butter, sugar and cinnamon. By a little before 9 am I was out in the yard, spade in hand, turning over some more soil.

The chickens love it when I'm turning soil. They stay right there picking out the worms as I turn each bit. I turned for a couple of hours and then took a break to go get my hair cut. While I was gone, April planted one of her avocado plants she's had in a pot into our yard next to our drive way. She had to dig pretty deep to properly plant it. In doing so she found a bunch of bricks really deep in the dirt (~3-4 feet deep) and found a whole bunch of old glass bottle bits and even found a whole glass bottle. The first pic is of the whole finding and the second is of the whole glass bottle:




I mostly just turned earth to get the soil loosened up. The sun should dry things out such that I can do a lot of planting Tuesday evening when I get home from work. I did eventually tire out enough that I ended up in my hammock. As I was dozing off, my cat, Bo, decided to jump up and join me. I swear that cat gives off sleep waves.



The chickens stayed outside of their coop the whole day starting when I came out just before 9 am and finally walking back into their coop around 7:30 pm while April and I ate dinner outside. We should have some nice healthy eggs today.

It's supposed to be close to 80 degrees today and I rode my bike into work. Woo hoo! No gardening tonight, though, because I am meeting up with a few of my friends from high school. It will probably be the closest I get to having a 25th year reunion.

I leave this post with a parting shot of our chicken, Rosie, posing on our clothesline pole:

First Lawn Mowing of the Year

Yesterday, after getting home from work I had to dig out the lawn mower from dark recesses of the basement. With my push to turn more and more of my lawn into food and flowers, mowing time is steadily decreasing.

It rained again last night and this morning but we are supposed to get some high pressure ridging over the next few days which should result in some 75+ degree days on Monday and Tuesday. I have a crew regatta all day tomorrow up outside of Everett, Washington. But that is probably better since it will keep me from jumping the gun on turning soil while it is too wet. Sunday I hope to expand the area of turned soil and probably plant on Monday and Tuesday. I'm looking at getting greens and potatoes planted first. I think we are still a little too early for planting beans and squash and I'm waiting for my tomato and pepper starts to come in the mail. If I can have the beds prepared, I should be able to plant those as soon as they arrive.

A Little Bounty

Today we received our pasta machine that April got us off of ebay. So after putting together some sandwich bread dough for the week, April took some of our fresh eggs, mixed them with some flour, olive oil and a little water and we made fresh pasta for the first time. The pasta cutter portion is a spaghetti style cutter. It wasn't completely cutting through so we had to hand separate a bit. But the results were great combined with the last of our frozen homemade pesto. Yum.

On a tangent, yesterday I made a rye bread for the extended family for easter dinner over at my sister's house. It was a variation on a recipe my buddy Michael taught me a month ago. I used more white bread flour, somewhat out of choice and somewhat out of necessity since I ran out of whole wheat flour. I also greatly increased the amount of caraway seeds.

2 t active dry yeast
1 C warm (~100 F) water

3 C Rye flour
2+ C White Bread flour
1+ C Whole Wheat flour
2 T really good cocoa powder
2 1/2 t kosher salt
2+ t caraway seed

1 C warm water
2 T honey (or malt but I ran out of malt powder)
2 T cider vinegar
2 T oil (I used peanut oil)

1 C more of cooler water

Dissolve yeast in the cup of warm water.
Mix dry ingredients together
Mix the other liquids into the yeast mixture.

Slowly add liquid to flour mix. Makes a stiff dough; add a little more water at a time until a dough is formed that will be very stiff. Knead dough, dipping hands occasionally in the cooler water, until the dough is satiny and springy. I put a little bit of flour on the board toward the end of the kneading and this transformed the dough into the satiny state.

Let rise until doubled (~ 1 hour). Punch down and rise again until doubled (~ 1 hour). Form into two loaves and put into two loaf pans. Let rise in the pans for another 20 minutes.

Bake at 350 F for 1 hour.

Glaze: 1/4 C cold water
1/2 t corn starch
1 t molasses
mix well

Brush loaves before putting into the over, again at 30 minutes and one more time with 5 minutes left.

This was great with ham and salami from our favorite local German deli, Edelweiss.

First Starts Planted

When i got home last night, I immediately changed into my overalls and began turning the front bed. It's still pretty gooey but I was able to get one section in a good enough state to plant the broccoli starts April got a couple of weeks ago. We also put out some paper cups with beer. I checked the cups this morning as I was heading out on my bike to work and no slugs, yet.

As per usual with our soil that sees continuous leaching rains, it looks like I'm going to have to throw a whole bunch of organic soil amendments at my beds.

We'll order flowers from my sister's school sale this weekend and should see those sometime in mid May. I like to combine a lot of flowers with my veggies. I like the disorderly colorful look. And the flowers are great for attracting bees (we get honey, bumble and mason bees) and deflecting pests toward the flowers and away from my vegetables.

As soon as crew season is over, I will have some time in the mornings before going to work to continue to expand and prepare the garden. The plan is ambitious this year, but the payoff in July through October (or even November like last year) is sure to be worth it all.

Too Tired To Turn

I was absolutely wiped by the time I got home from work yesterday. A full day of helping run a regatta on Saturday, followed by some good hard hours of digging on Sunday, topped off with my relatively challenging bicycle commute left me with no energy to do any yard work. I coached this morning, so I drove into to work today. On my way home from work tonight I'll make a stop at Portland Nursery for some more organic compost. Then I should be able to turn and even plant tonight. The high temperature ended up at 78 and the forecast is for 75 today and cloudy and 57 tomorrow.

Glorious Spring Weather

We did get our first 70-degree day yesterday. I started in on turning dirt around 8:30 am. I took a break around noon to head out to Portland Nursery for some organic compost and some lime. I then spread out 6 cubic feet of organic compost and a little bit of our homegrown compost. That barely covered the front bed. I was hoping to plant yesterday, but even at 3 pm, the ground was still too sodden. I'm now hoping today's 75+ weather in combination with my turning yesterday will dry it out enough to make it plantable.

April and I celebrated the first 70 degree day with some yummy margaritas and some home marinated chicken fajitas. I biked to work today and will probably overheat on the way home since I am not used to the warmer temperatures yet. We'll see how I feel when I get home as to whether I will do some turning/planting.

A Late Early Spring

Earlier this week on his blog, the channel 12 weather guy finally confirmed that this really has been a late early spring. The official Portland temperature did not get above 61 in either February or March. The last time that happened was way back in 1955. That fact on top of the relatively deep freeze we had in late December lends some sense as to why our crocuses were a whole month late and the daffodils have just begun to fully blossom in the first week of April.

But that is about to change. Yeah!!! We are expecting upper 60s on Sunday and Monday and we may even break 70. Heck, the channel 12 guy hinted at the possibility of a surprise "warm day" on Monday that could be up toward 80. This will be one of the latest first 70 degree days I can remember. April and I have a tradition I picked up from college of making and drinking margaritas on the first official 70 degree day. I'll have to pick up some Tequila before Sunday.

I will be at a crew regatta all day tomorrow. But Sunday I'll be able to turn some earth and maybe even plant some starts and seeds. I just received my first shipment from Seeds of Change in the mail yesterday. I got about 3/4 of the seeds I ordered and both sets of potato seeds. I hope I'll be able to get the rest from them. I have to double check against our ordering list. I know some winter squash and dry beans were missing in this shipment.

Enjoy the weather this weekend!

Better Than I Thought

I turned earth for about two and a half hours this morning. The dirt was in much better condition than I expected. I expected it to be much more clay-like and too wet. It was still pretty darn wet, but I think the cover crop and frequent chicken visitations helped it along well. The chickens have decided that when I'm turning earth I'm really just being their worm and grub provider. They hover around my shovel impatiently waiting for the next turn of the shovel. I dig, turn and they immediately start pecking away at the worms as I try to break up the wet clods of dirt.



I have a regatta tomorrow up in Tacoma, so no working in the yard. But I'm hoping that we don't get too much of a soaking over the next day and a half. If that happens, I can turn some more earth on Sunday and maybe even plant some broccoli starts we bought from a Portland Public Schools program recently. I'd also like to try replanting lettuce seeds. We bought some cheap beer tonight which I intend to use as slug bait.

More Garden Prep Today

The iffy weather last weekend led me to do non-veggie garden yard work. I pruned my big bay leaf bush back down to a reasonable size and cleared out more of my evil bamboo. I swear if that bush did not have yummy bay leaves that we use for cooking, I'd whack it all the way down to the ground just like I did with my out of control laurel hedge ten years ago.

In the mean time, my radishes have continued to grow and my peas are coming along. My two rows of lettuce, however, have disappeared. I suspect slugs may have ate them as we have had some relatively wet weather lately. I'm not too concerned because this early planting was an experiment.

I'm taking today off from work to get some garden prep done in the morning and then some crew coaching in the afternoon. Lewis & Clark is on spring break, so practices have been during my working hours and I have not been able to take time away from work until today. As far as my garden prep goes, I'm going to get out the shovel and start turning soil where I planted cover crop last Fall. Depending on how much I get done, I'll either turn in some compost today or on Sunday.

Happy Equinox!!!

As of 4:44 am this Friday local time (and I'll actually be up at that time to head to crew practice) Spring officially begins in a solar sense.

And this evening when I got home, I found the beginnings of my peas sprouting! Yeah!! Spring is here.

Corned Beef, Bikes and Plant Sales

Yesterday was St. Paddy's Day and I decided to celebrate the old fashioned way (no, not by getting snot-dripping drunk) by cooking up some corned beef and cabbage. I was very nervous because I had never attempted this before. But with good corned beef from New Seasons and a pressure cooker, about 90 minutes later we had silky smooth and almost sweet cabbage with tender, falling apart, succulent beef and broth infused potatoes. We really want to do this next fall with our own potatoes, cabbage, carrots and onions.

I got up this morning and retrieved the newspaper from the front porch (yes, I am an old school dinosaur that reads the paper version of the daily newspaper). I noticed that it was comparatively balmy and dry with some blue sky peeking through. I then checked the weather forecast for the day and found it was going to be dry and even in the upper 50s this afternoon. So I made the snap decision to ride my bike into work. After scrambling to get something in my tummy and work clothes packed into the backpack, I took off for my 10 mile hilly commute. I am so glad I was able to do that.

And finally I wanted to give a plug to a Portland Public Schools program plant sale taking place this week. Here is the text of the email announcement:

"Hello plant lovers!

Join Portland Public School's Community Transition Center for our Early Spring Plant Sale. The sale runs from March 16th-20th from 8:30am-3:00pm daily. We are located at 6801 SE 60th Ave. in Greenhouse #1. We are a half of block south of Duke St. and across the street from Brentwood Park.

We have a wide variety of plants for sale including:
-organic vegetable starts in 6-pack trays: broccoli, cabbage, kale, collards, kohlrabi, cauliflower and more
-indoor house plants
-lupine, hostas, bamboo, violets, ornamental grasses
-and much much more

The Community Transition Center is a PPS program for young adults that emphasizes vocational experience and life skills. Students in the program are responsible for starting, caring for, and maintaining the plant stock in the greenhouse. Your purchases return to our greenhouse program to support student learning.

Hope to see you all at the plant sale!

Sarah

********************************
Sarah Goforth
Greenhouse Coordinator
CTC Greenhouse Enclave
sgoforth@pps.k12.or.us
503-916-5817 ext. 71124
*********************************"

I'm thinking about sending April over on Friday to pick up some inexpensive starts in the optimistic hope that I can get some into the ground this weekend or next week.

Hope Springs Eternal

I got home last night from work and because of the recent time switch it was still plenty light out for me to go outside and let the chickens run free for awhile. It was then that I inspected my beds that I planted with ever-optimistic hope back in February. Lo and behold, my Red Oak Lettuce seeds had sprouted. And I think I fooled myself into seeing teeny-weeny Buttercrunch Lettuce sprouts, too. No peas or radishes yet. But with temps up into the 50s today and tomorrow and with direct sunlight on the beds in the afternoon, I am now officially hopeful. It is always exciting to see your first crops of the year surfacing in the garden. We're just eight days from equinox.

It's Still Early March

I keep having to remind myself of that fact. Or at least the weather continues to remind me of that fact. Snow flurries during the previous couple of days pretty much means that my peas and early greens are not going to come up yet. And, I ended up sick last week with the winter cold/crud. This week after a couple of frosty mornings, we are supposed to head back up to the upper 50s.

With being sick and the weather being cold and wet, I have not accompished anything more in the yard other than moving the chicken coop to a new patch of cover crop for fertilizing that portion of the garden.

In the mean time I have started reading "Animal, Vegetable, Miracle" by Barbara Kingsolver. I have not read any of her other works but understand that she is a well respected author. This one is her non-fiction depiction of her family's move back to an Appalachian farm and an attempt by her family to eat as locally as possible throughout a whole year. Working full-time and living within the city makes that a tough proposition for April and I. However, we have been generally trending toward that idea and hope to do much more canning/preserving/freezing of our own stuff this year and are looking at buying some pig locally through a CSA. It has inspired me to consider Asparagus for net year's garden.

In the same vein of food literature, I strongly recommend reading Michael Pollan's various works. The trio of his books I have read are "Botany of Desire," "The Omnivore's Dilemma" and "In Defense of Food." The first one is more of a fun read. But the second and third catalyzed me to really consider my choices of where my meat comes from and inspired me to attempt to eliminate High Fructose Corn Syrup completely (that's actually kind of hard to do).

Quiet Weekend

Not much done in the yard this weekend. I had crew practice Saturday morning and the river conditions were atrocious with ripping current, wind-caused chop and a few imbecilic fisherman not minding the proper river traffic flow. And Sunday was taken up by working on my car to replace some burned out lights and getting a long deserved oil change. And then I discovered that my home computer went on the fritz. I took that over to my favorite little computer repair place on Belmont but forgot to bring my power adapter. Once they had the power adapter they were able to determine that the hard drive was kaput. I'll have a new hard drive with our precious data recovered from the old, hopefully this evening.

We did move the chicken coop over a new patch of cover crop and I turned the soil where the coop had been previously. The soil looks pretty good and I'm surprised at how loose it is at this point in our typically rainy late winter. I think the cover crop was a great idea. In a couple of days we'll move the coop again to the area where I grew potatoes and sunflowers last year. This partly due to a request from our neighbors to move the coop to where they and their 2-year-old son can watch the chickens during their last couple of weeks in their smaller digs of their converted large garage (they're remodeling their main house and it is almost done).

I got our tax refund last Friday. So, after catching up on paying bills, we can sit down and order all our goodies from Seeds of Change.

Window of Opportunity Has Closed

I'm glad I got done what I could this last weekend. We are now back into the normal wet weather mode. It will be interesting to see if any of my planting actually sprouts.

Chicken Wire Because it is Chicken Wire

As I was prepping my two beds for planting some really early spring stuff, I had to keep shooing the chickens away because they just absolutely loved scratching in the newly turned soil. So I had to put them back in the coop to finish my planting. And then today, for the first time in my life, I bought chicken wire because I needed to use it for its name: "chicken" wire. I got some two foot wide stuff from Home Depot and encircled my two new beds so that we can let our chickens out of the coop and still get some crops to grow.

What I planted yesterday actually was not the first planting for this year's garden. Back in November on Thanksgiving morning, I planted a number of cloves of garlic. We now have around 20 garlic sprouts up which should be ready for harvest some time in August or September. We are really looking forward to adding our own garlic to our home-made, mostly home-grown pesto and marinara.

It was gray, rainy and cool today and I was tired. So no yard work beyond setting up the temporary chicken wire fencing and moving the coop to a new spot.

Planting in February?

Yup. I went to Portland Nursery and got some Seeds of Change seeds. I was sobered by the store-supplied chart showing what veggies should be planted when. No pole beans yet! But, with a little bit of a gamble, I planted some buttercrunch and red oak lettuce, some round black spanish radishes (radishes will grow in rocks so these at least should work) and some cascadia bush snap peas.

While attempting to sow seeds, I had the chickens out loose from their coop and they were absolutely obsessing on my freshly turned soil to the point of preventing me form being able to plant. I have now learned why they call it chicken wire and why I need to purchase some tomorrow.

I finished the Big Spring Prune of the roses and thought I would restart my never-ending battle with my bamboo. But, the muscle ache in my left forearm reminded me that I am 42 years old and need to dole these efforts out in doses, hopefully building up to more steady work as we approach April and May.

I'll finish this post with a view from our back steps out over the yard take early last last July. It's fun to compare it with my photo from yesterday showing where I turned earth. Oh, and the my two cats are cute too.

Early Season Gardening

I got up this morning and after a breakfast of oatmeal and coffee I got out my metal file and my good garden spade. I re-sharpened the edge nice and sharply. And then it was time to turn earth. I turned two smallish sections of the garden in preparation of planting some early season crops of peas, pole beans and various greens. About two-thirds of the first section was expanding last year's garden into the lawn, so that meant some back breaking sod cutting work and then turning. I finished both sections just before noon in time for the sections to receive some good afternoon drying sunshine.



I'm somewhat sore from my first of many days to come of shovel work. By the end of April I should finally have those muscles used to the work. If it looks like it will stay dry long enough tomorrow I am thinking about spreading some organic fertilizer, turning it one more time and...wait for it...
planting!! I may be jumping the gun but I'm willing to give it a try with these relatively cold weather plants.

I used the rest of the day to do the Big Spring Prune on my roses. I got through all but my big fountain roses near the driveway. I'll probably finish those off tomorrow. I usually do the Big Spring Prune around President's Day or when the Portland Parks have pruned the roses in Ladd's Addition. I noticed two weekends ago that the roses had been pruned over there.

I'll finish off with a picture of an egg from Rosie still in the nesting box of the coop. Tomorrow we have to move the coop. This time of year they are stripping the soil under the coop and it takes longer for plants/grass to bounce back. I'm going to start rotating the coop around various future garden areas to get those areas well fertilized.



All in all, it was a good, sunny, productive day.