Buttoning up the Garden

Slowly over the last couple of weeks we have been getting ready for winter in the garden.  Garlic was sown, strawberry runners were transplanted into the kitchen garden in hopes of actually being able to eat some before the critters do next year, and the lowbush blueberries were also transferred over into the raised beds (which they share with strawberries).  We will cage and net fruit in the raised beds next year. (The three beds pictured below house garlic, strawberries, dahlias, chard, and lowbush blueberries.  The dahlia tubers will be dug for winter after a killing frost.)

We also ripped out the tomatoes and planted the two new apple trees.  Limb cuttings stake the whips, which will be pruned into a double horizontal espalier next year.  We will add in a new bed or two and expand the fencing by spring in attempt to compensate for all the kitchen garden square footage being dedicated to fruit production for 2011.  I may not get full sun in any new beds, but greens will tolerate those conditions so one way or another it will all work out.....I will greatly miss "tomato alley".  It is now "apple alley", with some grow space for shorter crops on either side of the trees.

BEFORE: A newly constructed, newly planted 'tomato alley' back in May of this year:

AFTER: The newly transformed "apple alley" (with some newly propagated red and black raspberry canes heeled in for winter):

We had no choice but to enclose the new apples after learning the hard way this year that one of my dogs likes to eat baby apples off trees.  Sigh, she also likes blueberries and strawberries.   The new location will keep away the canine bandit, leaving us with all of winter to come up with a plan to keep away the rodent, bird, and bug bandits as well.  The raspberries were propagated by sticking growing tips into grow-bags of compost this summer after the potatoes were harvested.  They rooted like crazy and surely didn't appreciate being torn up and out today....fingers crossed I didn't do irreparable damage moving them out of the grow-bags and into containers to bury for winter.

The coldframe was erected, and the greens were hooped and covered today as well.  Here is a side, and bird's eye view of the fall garden:

I think the new bed will be 2 feet wide and run horizontally just in front of the current fence line where the potato grow-bags were all summer (see all the round brown patches?), that is likely my best bet for full sun.

***

The citrus trees were moved indoors this week, and the little fig

 will be going in the basement for wintering over soon.

I spotted this stranded bumble on a dahlia while I was photographing the garden earlier, I think the dropping temps had it grounded.  I snipped the flower and the bee is inside in a critter cage to be set free in the morning if it survives the night, it has been moving around since being warmed by the house so our fingers are crossed.

***

I am off to peruse the 2011 catalogs (yes, they are arriving already!)- we are going to plant some more fruit between the road and the shed and see what happens, those newly rooted raspberry canes will hopefully survive the winter and go in over there, along with a gooseberry or two, maybe even some more highbush blueberries if I go really nuts!  ;)  We are stretching our options to the limits in order to capture any more square footage with sun, the area behind the shed gets morning light only, but we are hoping it will be enough to produce fruit.

HAPPY GARDENING!

Big Horse Creek

My apple trees arrived today, and the folks at Big Horse Creek Farm put a smile on my face.  It all started the first week of January when I placed an order for two apple trees.  BHCF will custom grow your variety on your chosen rootstock.  The trees are just about a year old now and are literally sticks.  In the first picture my fingers are on the taller of the two 'sticks'. ( My thumb is on the support stake.)  The second photograph shows the graft site on both trees.   I am very excited to have these babies, and I know with proper care and some luck they will put on beautiful growth come spring.

Now I was already thrilled to have my trees arrive, this wait has been close to that of human gestation, lol.  So imagine my joy when I found this along with the 3 pages of care & planting instructions:

Inside was an envelope with $3.00 tucked in and a note to "buy myself a gourmet cup of coffee"....well Ron & Suzanne- that is exactly what I will do!!  (The refund was given as a result of one of the trees being slightly smaller than their standard.  Now that is great customer care.)

So if anyone reading this is ever having an urge to plant some heirloom apple trees, please don't overlook this little company that truly cares about growing a healthy tree, and treating their customers right.

(P.S.- these trees are Hightop Sweet and Westfield Seek-No-Further, both on dwarf Bud 9 rootstock.)

Another green tomato recipe, and its a keeper!

I tried a new recipe today, and I am so glad I did!  The recipe can be found over at Farmgirl Fare, and it is for a sugar-free green tomato relish/salsa/sauce.  I can't stop dipping tortilla chips in the pot.  Do I even bother canning the stuff?  It may not last long enough, lol.  The recipe calls for green tomatoes, but there are also many onions & garlic, some peppers, and a green apple thrown in for good measure.  Erin, this recipe may be perfect for you, especially if you kick-it-up a notch......I halved the cumin and (seeded) jalapenos called for in the original recipe and it still holds a nice little punch.  Now, I must warn you that there is a very distinctive vinegar taste to this sauce, but hubby and I totally approve!  (Edit: Note to self- small dice jalapenos added *after* pureeing, not before)

The Final Countdown

The garden season really is coming to an end for me.  Though my tomatoes continue to produce, some of the fruit is diseased as of late so a fair amount of what I pick gets chucked.  Peppers are still coming in, but probably not for long with the continually cool temperatures, and I harvested the first of my leeks today.  (I remembered to take a picture, but only after they had been trimmed and rinsed.)  I think I need to be better at hilling them up, so much of the leek was green, and too little was white.  Maybe I tried 'blanching' them too late in the season?

I also made my first batch of pickled jalapenos tonight, I have never had them before but they look so good when others make them.  I am sure they will be enjoyed on nachos all winter long.

 The mustard greens and chard are covered in spiders, it really has become quite annoying to pick off so many spiders in order to have a salad.  Icky.  Icky as in the eight I flicked, shook off, and rescued from a sure drowning death during the harvest, sorting, and soaking of the salad I made today.  Icky.

That about sums it all up on my end, I have been way too busy, and miss keeping up with everyone's garden happenings.  I hope to catch up with what you all have been doing later on this week, and I hope you are enjoying the new season and all that it brings.  Happy Gardening!

TIME TO PLANT THE GAH-LIC

(This psot was written days ago, but I just never got around to publishing it.)

Yup, it is October, and it is getting cold.  Time to get those cloves in the ground.  Last week I gave the potato onions a home, this week it is garlic's turn.  I had read a very informative piece over at Daphne's Dandelions a few days ago, and I think I will try one of her methods which involves peeling and soaking your cloves before planting them out.  Daphne claims great success with this method, so now I just need to go check the proof on my bottle of vodka and decide which cloves will the best for seed.  The trouble is that a large head of garlic doesn't always mean large cloves are inside, in fact many of my small heads have few, but large cloves.   From what I understand, the larger the clove the better when it comes to next year's crop.

I ordered some hardneck garlic (German Extra Hardy), and will also be planting 3 other varieties that were harvested from the garden this year (a mystery farmer's market variety, Chet's Italian Red, and Inchelium Red- both softnecks).

**UPDATE**   I did in fact soak the cloves in a baking soda mixture w/ some minerals and seaweed, but only for a couple of hours as the rain was coming.  They were quickly peeled, then rinsed and soaked in rubbing alcohol for about a minute, rinsed again, and then run out into the garden.  I had a friend over so I didn't pause to take pictures as I already felt a bit rude for peeling and planting garlic while she was here, but what else is there to do when 3 or 4 solid days of rain are coming?

These are all the discarded cloves.  Some of these just may be bruised, but I do not have enough experience to differentiate between fungus, nematode entry hole, or "just a pimpled//discolored/brown spot" so aired on the side of caution.....but look at all these cloves- maybe I should cook them up?  I hate to just toss them in the garbage.  Thanks to all the discarded cloves I am shy of filling two 4 x 4 beds as I had intended.  Maybe I will just raid my stash and plant some more out once the rain stops.

HAPPY GARDENING!

Final Sweet Potato Harvest

We have had some rain, so I decided I better get into the sweet potatoes before we get any more.  Oh boy, did I find some monsters in there!!  These three were the biggest, coming in at 6 pounds:

A little frightening aren't they?

The majority were super-market sized, with a good lot of babies in there as well.  I stacked them in this bag from largest to smallest, so the tiny tubers are seen on top of the stack.  

The bag weighed in at over 10 lbs.

All together I harvested over 23 pounds of sweets.  I am so pleased with this harvest and hope that it will repeated again in the coming garden years.  The soil in this bed is gorgeous, as a matter of fact I dug up a bog old toad while digging for potatoes.  (It was a bit of a shock, I didn't realize they would completely bury themselves in search of worms etc., this stinker is about the size of a baseball, and it is never amused when I find it in the garden.)  I did 'lasagna gardening' in this new bed, layering cardboard, straw, dog food, amendments, and I can't remember what else.  Then I made some hills with a soil/compost mixture, and covered it all with black mulch.

The tomatoes appear to winding down, here are today's tomato and pepper picks:

My garlic has shipped and it on its way.  I better get my act together and figure out where the onions, garlic, and cold-frame are going in the coming weeks, once again I don't seem to have enough room.

Preserving Herbs

I really hate to see all the garden herbs go to waste when cold weather arrives.   I was able to winter over sage and rosemary last year with some straw and row cover, but there was nothing to harvest for the coldest part of our New England Winter.   If I wanted fresh herb flavor it was coming from the plastic containers in the produce isle.

Many sources recommend freezing herbs as an alternative to drying for preservation, and some are actually preferable this way due to their hight water content (like sage for example).  This will be my first year preserving them in this manner though I have purchased and cooked with frozen herbs in the past with good results.   So far it is going very simply, I have put up chives, rosemary, and sage to date.

Sage leaves were frozen whole, the chives and rosemary were snipped and chopped before being frozen. It is best to lay them out in a single layer before popping them in for the freeze treatment to prevent a clump of solid 'whatever' being the final outcome.

I have some small freezer containers (Tupperware used to make some special for this purpose, and they probably still do) that will barely take up any space for long-term storage.  The sage leaves I prefer to keep whole for things like seasoning the cavity of a roasting squash or chicken, so I left them this way as they can always be chopped up prior to being added to a dish.  They are being housed in a canning jar once frozen since they require a bit more space.

I dried some basil in the oven earlier in the season, and the dill and cilantro are sadly long gone.  I need to continue to add to my current stash and should also think about adding oregano and mint to the list.  I think this freezing thing will be a big hit this winter when we have fragrant sage for roasts, and zesty chives for topping potatoes, eggs, and nachos within quick reach in the freezer.  Anyone else out there freezing herbs for later use?

(HAPPY GARDENING!!)

Get Your Cran On

I have something to confess.  I, until now, this very week, have always bought cranberry sauce in a can.  Are you gasping??  Maybe.  But maybe some of you are smiling, because you too are guilty of canned cranberries.  This is a horrible thing considering I live in the land of cranberry bogs.  Horrible.  Now that I have stopped being intimidated by the raw cranberry I never want to eat canned sauce again.  I want to try bread with chopped, whole, FRESH cranberries inside.  Are you in?

Last night I made oven-baked cranberry sauce and it could not have been easier.  It involved a 350 degree oven, a bag of cranberries picked over for twigs and unripe berries (mine weighed about 14 oz. when done), one cup of sugar, cinnamon & nutmeg to taste, and 1/4 cup of Brandy.  This was mixed together in a pyrex dish (something similar to an 8x8) and baked (covered) for about 45 minutes.  Stir, mash, enjoy.  (I also added a little water once it cooled as I found it to be too thick.)

Now I need to bake a turkey.  Until then my sauce is off to the freezer.  It is soooooo good.

Go ahead gardeners and cooks, get your cran on while the fresh ones are here.

(Almost) Fall

It sure feels like Fall here in my little corner of the world, and well, it almost is.  We have been decorating:

I love Martha Stewart crafts almost as much as I like Halloween.

We have been picking and perusing the farm stands.

Since my Long Island Cheese seeds never took, I picked one up this week. 

 It is more than a little intimidating, not sure how to go about tackling this sucker once I am done enjoying it's decorative qualities.  That right there is A LOT of pie!!

We have also been hunting for a 'school' bookshelf.  Finally I found just what I was looking for at Target of all places.  Why did I waste my time in over-priced furniture stores?

Pie making, sauce making, and general enjoyment of the crops of the season will be underway this week.  I love Fall.  Hope you all will be enjoying the new coming season as well, and maybe getting a few more garden chores done than I am.  My poor, poor garden.

Stupid Dogs, Sweet Potatoes, and Relish

I know I have complained of my dog eating anything she has access to in the yard.  She is a classic example of being smart and stupid at the same time.  In reality, she is wise to help herself to all things edible, but in my anger I mutter how stupid she is all day long.  She has figured out how to get the gate open in the garden if things are not aligned properly.  Leeks have been trampled, uncountable numbers of tomatoes have been gorged on, and then thrown up.  Ewe.  She is constantly coming in the house with a big green tomato in her mouth.  So thanks to my stupid dog and her appetite for both ripe and unripe tomatoes I had to make a pathetically small pot of sauce yesterday.  This pathetically small pot even has some freezer tomatoes from last year in it.  A shame.  (Insert mumbles about the 'stupid dog' here.)

There is barely an inch of cooked-down sauce in the crock-pot.

I also decided to be a bit proactive and take some of those green tomatoes for myself.  I have a recipe for Green Tomato Relish that is quite tasty on a hot dog, at least that is how I first came to sample it at a birthday party.  I promptly asked for the recipe.

I hope it is as good as I remember it, because even after halving the recipe I have eight 1/2-pint jars of it sitting on the counter.  By my calculations that is two years worth after gifting a few jars to family.  For anyone that might be interested in away to use up those green tomatoes at season's end, or just to spite your 'stupid' Labrador Retriever, here it is:

GREEN TOMATO RELISH

3 qt green tomatoes (5 lb)

4 lg onions, chopped

2 sweet red peppers, chopped

2 sweet green peppers, chopped

1 qt vinegar

1 tsp turmeric powder

2 T mustard seed

2 T celery seed

3 C white sugar

2 T salt

Put green tomatoes through chopper, strain, and measure.

(I took this to mean that the 3 qt or 5 lb of green tomatoes

 should be post chopping and straining.)

Add chopped onions, peppers, and spices.  Boil 1 hour.  Pour into hot sterilized jars and seal.

(I also assumed the vinegar and sugar were to go in the pot for the 1 hour boil.

I left over a 1/4 inch of head space (but less than 1/2 inch) and boiled for 10 minutes.)

Now back to the subject of those sweet potatoes from yesterday!  Sweet potatoes are said to double in size (or was it weight??) every 2 weeks.  Either way the "babes" will mature if given another couple of weeks, but the "big daddies" of the bunch don't need any bulking.  I initially thought I could root around for the larger tubers and leave the smaller ones intact, but this was next to impossible.  So I harvested about half of the bed and will leave the others for a week's time or so.  We had some more sweet potato greens last night with dinner, and I gave some to my neighbor that so kindly shared a fig tree with me.

The sweet slips were planted in a 4 x 4 raised bed, in mounds which were covered in black plastic to help retain heat.  Initially a dozen were planted but I lost at least three or four in the early weeks.

This is looking in from outside the fence.

Here is another view, the tomatoes have gone over into the potato bed, 

and the potato vines have in turn made their way into the tomato jungle.

I harvested 6 lbs of sweets yesterday (and one dahlia tuber), and they are curing in my bathroom.  

Odd I know, but they like warm temps and humidity so I figured that was the best place for them to hang out for the next couple of weeks.

HAPPY GARDENING!!