Monday, April 27, 2009
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.
Wednesday, April 22, 2009
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.
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.
Sunday, April 19, 2009
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:
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:
Friday, April 17, 2009
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.
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.
Monday, April 13, 2009
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.
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.
Wednesday, April 8, 2009
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.
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.
Tuesday, April 7, 2009
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.
Monday, April 6, 2009
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.
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.
Friday, April 3, 2009
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!
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!
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