garden

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Can you guess the plant?

Friday, August 16th, 2013

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Isn’t this a beautiful flower?

What is it?

An exotic orchid of some type?

No…it’s a Bisbee cowpea (a kind of black black-eyed pea that is heat and drought resistant). I grew one bed of these, which were attacked early in the year by aphids. Usually, that’s the end of a plant, but I patiently rinsed these for a few days, and they eventually made a great comeback. They’re thriving now, and even as we are harvesting the first of the dried beans (in long pods with many peas in each), they are blooming again. Gorgeous.

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The lovely sound of rain

Friday, July 5th, 2013

The monsoons are in full force here, and we have had rain three times this week already. It is glorious. There really is no nicer time of year here. The clouds build over the day, and by evening or sometimes night, the sky erupts in a show of lightning fireworks and then opens up with rain.

The plants are all much happier with natural rain than piped in water, and things are growing like mad. The pumpkins are making pumpkins, and melons should be fruiting soon. With the slightly  cooler temperatures, I’m hopeful for the tomatoes as well. (The plants are very healthy but no fruit setting in the heat.)

We have a busy summer this year. Yesterday was the annual Rodeo July 4 parade, which was a good one this year.

Next week, I’m heading off to a two-week summer writing institute. Then I have several trips from coast-to-coast for some really enjoyable work projects.

Between all that, we’re continuing work on the house. Some dry wall is going up, and we’re finishing the framing of some detail work (closets – yay!, the bar in the kitchen, etc.).

Allium update 2013

Sunday, June 23rd, 2013

Our garlic were harvested a month or so ago. Today I harvested the red shallots and tomorrow the grey shallots. It’s been a great year for all.

shallots

After a year of smaller than I hoped for garlic, I put a lot of effort and guess work into a crop of bigger garlic. I am pleased to report that this year’s crop was the biggest yet in total and individual garlic sizes. I embarrassed to say that this was entirely due to luck.

One of the two beds of garlic produced bulbs 3 to 4 times larger than the other bed. The only difference in the way the two beds were handled is that one got sprinkled every night starting in early May. Karen and I took a vacation and part of our preparation was to water the lettuce on a timer. The only way to do this was to put a sprinkler between the bed of lettuce and a bed of garlic. (In fact, I worried this might hurt the garlic crop.) It was so convenient that we left it on after our return. I guess garlic like a lot of water in the spring. There were shallots in that bed also and they too are larger than usual.

Our Purple Maiskij garlic crop came in at 16 pounds this year — double last year. We grew a couple of new kinds of garlic this year which may account for an additional couple of pounds.

Purple Maiskij

Purple Maiskij

16 pounds!

16 pounds!

The red shallots will need to dry before weighing. But it’s a lovely crop which we hope will last til winter. The grey shallots look good too, but are a lot of work to peel. :)

I am very pleased with this years crop and am already looking forward to next year.

Garden

Monday, May 27th, 2013

UPDATE – Here’s another view of things.

We took these pictures to show how many garden beds we have in now.

This is a panorama of the main garden on the west side of the house (greenhouse at the far left).

garden panorama

And this is squashville (though this year it’s asparagus, edamame, artichokes, corn, and jerusalem artichokes), back by the solar panels. We’re putting in 4 more beds in the blank space.

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Things are coming along nicely. Fewer trips to the grocery store for us. And better food too.

 

A delicacy

Sunday, May 12th, 2013

There are some treats that are nearly impossible to enjoy if you don’t have access to local produce. One of them is scapes.

Scapes are the immature flower stem of garlic. They come out in late spring and are generally cut off before they bloom to allow the garlic to develop more fully. They have a lovely curl to them.

They are also delicious. They have a much more mellow taste than garlic and are something like a cross between asparagus, small green beans, and a chive. You can saute or steam them and eat them as a vegetable or mixed into an omelet or pasta. You can also make them into a pesto. Here is a pasta dish we made with cut up scapes and scape pesto. Delicious.

scape pasta with scape pesto

The tragedy of scapes is that they are hard to get unless you know someone who grows garlic (and they only appear for a brief period once a year). You might see them at a farmers’ market, but we’ve never seen them at a store.

Brad and I imagine that there are fields and fields of garlic somewhere with scapes not being enjoyed. Some day, maybe we’ll seek them out and spread the love.

 

 

 

Spring is here…

Sunday, April 21st, 2013

And we’re spending a lot of time outdoors. This weekend, I finally finished prep’ing the last of our six new beds. (The rock walkways between each bed were made from rock filtered from the dirt in the beds. We have lots of rock in our soil here.)

Our compost is finally going really well. I sifted out three big wheelbarrows full today. I think that some factors in the success have been: putting it in a big pile instead of the spinning composter, which never really worked (large mass seems to be a key), more water, and the addition of a microbial solution.

Our starts are thriving, and I’m getting anxious to get them out of the house and into the garden. Two more weeks and then everyone out! We’ve been eating asparagus, and of course, lots of lettuce, and we have our first tiny strawberries.

My winter rye has formed seed heads. (This was a green manure cover crop planted to enrich the soil and retain moisture.) It grew well, so we’ll save the seed and plant more in the fall.

Lastly, our hedgerow has been started. So far we’ve put in holly hocks, penstomen, gaillardia, salvia, Jerusalem artichockes, and sunflowers. They’re all very tiny right now, but stay tuned.

I can’t wait for the next step of getting seeds and plants into the ground!

A dusting of snow

Thursday, February 21st, 2013

We had a bit of snow last night. Most of it burned off by noon, though it’s still cold. It’s been a cold winter here, relatively speaking (lots of nights in the teens).

These are the garden beds, hoops blanketed with snow.

Gardenwise, my lettuce has been doing great, and broccoli is ready to eat. And all my starts (still inside) are progressing nicely.

We just got back from an organic farming conference in New Mexico. We learned a lot about cover crop, no till farming, recommended varieties for our area, year-round growing, and soil health.

We also recently finished our annual soup making sprint (fundraiser for our local fire and rescue). This year we made cauliflower cheese, garlic potato, potato leek, and cheddar beer. Yum!

Seeds

Sunday, January 27th, 2013

We had our first meeting our local seed library on Saturday, and it was a great success! There were 10 people there, and we met for about two hours, exchanging growing tips and, of course, seeds. From just the first meeting, we now have 15 types of seeds available. Everyone was very enthusiastic, and I am looking forward to future meetings and educational gatherings. (I’ve already learned a lot.)

In my own garden, we now have little broccolis…and unfortunately, some green worms as well, but I’m working on that. So far they’ve only eaten some holes in the leaves and have left the actual broccoli flowerettes alone.

I also have about 80 little starts planted. (They are taking over my office.) And on Friday, the first tomatoes sprouted. They are Georgia streaks from seeds I saved.

Spring can’t be far away!

Garden plans for 2013

Friday, January 11th, 2013

It’s weird to think about gardening when it’s supposed to get into the low teens tonight, but it’s already time to be planting starts inside.

Here is my garden plan for this year. Lots of new beds to fill!

I’m trying lots of intercropping this year (planting complimentary crops together in a bed). I’m also paying attention to crop rotation and trying to plant cover crops (including legumes) in the winter or in alternating years.

I’ve ordered my new seeds, but am ordering fewer this year due to seed saving last year. (By the way, our local seed library is starting! Here is the web site.)

And it is so nice to still be eating fresh arugula and lettuce in January!

My broccoli is seeming very healthy, but no actual broccoli heads yet. Soon, I think.

December 13

Thursday, December 13th, 2012

For the gardening record, today was the day I finally brought in the last of the green tomatoes.

Just enough for a pint or so of green tomato salsa.

We spent most of the morning here battening down the hatches in preparation for a big storm that is approaching. The winds are blowing fiercely, and ominous clouds are amassing on the horizon.