Garden Tour

April showers have brought May flowers…and the vegetables are following suit.   A momentous day arrives each spring when we can officially “plant the garden”.  Leaving our fears of frost behind, we set out with tools, seeds, and transplants to organize the mulch-covered plot into rows and blocks.  Unlike the cold frame that has been steamily growing cool-season crops for weeks, the garden has been home only to the garlic, asparagus, potatoes, brassica transplants, and pea shoots.  All that changed on Monday.  A handful of the family members bent and stretched, dug and watered, sweat and ached. But it was worth it!

Cold Frame Update: There's a Radish in My Salad!

February 17th

In chilly February, Weldon and I planted a variety of seeds into our first cold frame.  In chilly March we hovered searching for tiny emerald shoots to emerge under the glass roof.  For weeks we watched as erratic temperatures and sporadic sunshine struggled to coax our radishes, kale, chard, spinach, and beets from the soil.  Now April is here...and it's still pretty chilly. Thankfully, a good warm rain last week and a few days of bursting sun did wonders for our adolescent veggies...

April 7th

Keep it Simple, Seedling!

I can't help but smirk when I hear the words "simple living" because the phrase and reality are as similar as black and white.  When the woodstove won't draw properly, the milk sours before there's time to make yogurt, the weather doesn't cooperate with drying the laundry, and "fast food" must be made from whole food ingredients that act more like Eeyore than Speedy Gonzalez, it can be really difficult to find the "simple" in the life we've chosen.  In some respects, there's very little that is actually simple about homesteading...which is why Weldon and I are finding it imperative to follow Simplicity as a guiding light.  My husband likes to call it "lazy", I prefer "efficient".  With each passing year in our farming and homesteading experience, it seems we aspire to be even "lazier" in our ventures ("more efficient", really).  All the while, we remain unwavering in our ideals. With so many worthwhile endeavors to engage in, it's not difficult to recognize the predicament and to concede that perhaps the lazy/efficient way of doing things is the most likely to yield fulfillment and balance in the bigger picture.  There's already an element of hard, why make it any harder?

And so, I'm only slightly hesitant to admit that Weldon and I are evolving into lazy (though passionate) gardeners.  Why till?  Why weed?  Why fertilize or spray?  Our gardening priorities have become whatever is low-maintenance, high output, and keeps the soil, microbes, plants, and us happy.  We both love to grow things, we just don't want to work overly hard at something Nature is pretty adept at doing already.  This year, we decided to turn part of our stubby, sandy anti-yard into a few raised beds for cultivating vegetables and herbs.  Along with our existing container gardening, we are trying our hand at year-round growing (a la Eliot Coleman's books) and using a methodology called square-foot-gardening (a la Mel Bartholomew's books).  Our previous seasons of experience with hay mulching and composting are leading us toward a system that will ideally keep weeds at bay, soil nutrients high, pests to a minimum, and good-eating to the max. Though the forecast this week says it's still winter, Weldon and I spent part of last week renewing our friendship with soil and seeds!

Totally Tomatoes: How To Can Tomato Sauce Starter

I've been known to go overboard with tomatoes.  I used to plant by the enticing mantra, "if some are good, more are better!"  In my first few seasons it wasn't uncommon for me to take up a third of my garden with staked tomato vines.  By July, I’d be scrambling like Lucille Ball at the chocolate factory conveyor belt – desperate to put up the overwhelming influx before the next wave tumbled into the kitchen.  Thankfully, the more seasons I have under my belt, the better sense I get for what we’ll actually use.  I've learned to reel myself in during planting so that later I won’t feel the urge to stash tomatoes left and right simply to get them out of my sight.  No matter what, canning tomatoes is a big job.  For me, the payoff makes it worth the effort -- the rest of the year I have the delicious luxury of canned garden tomatoes (in all their glorious forms) at my fingertips.  

Last summer I posted about one of my favorite finales to summer canning: salsa.  This year, the season has been wet and late, so our tomatoes are just now coming in strong.  I’m rolling up my sleeves and gathering pots and pans to re-stock my pantry with another canned-tomato staple – what I call “sauce starter”.  This simple recipe is the foundation for my soups, pasta sauces, and stews.  Though I've given a basic tomato-canning “how-to” with the recipe below, it is best to familiarize yourself with the guidelines from expert resources such as Ball’s Book of Home Preserving.

Syrup Sunday and Squash Flower Pancakes

Early in our marriage Weldon and I realized that breakfast had a myriad of bothersome time-constraints.  Plain eggs, homemade yogurt, or some other quick bite just didn't do justice to the variety of options that should have been at our fingertips.  So, we decided that on random Sunday mornings we would celebrate this oft-rushed meal.  We called it Syrup Sunday.  Whatever was on the menu, it would be drizzled with straight-from-Vermont pure maple syrup (locally purchased from an organic farm/orchard during our family's annual October reunion).  Waffles, french toast, and pancakes graced our plates.  It became obvious that pancakes won out as our favorite...so we had a household-sized IHOP on our hands.  Blueberry pancakes, peach pancakes, strawberry pancakes, banana pancakes, and the list goes on.  This weekend we were inspired to have a Syrup Sunday after visiting Weldon's aunt and uncle's garden on Saturday morning.  At one point, his aunt nonchalantly asked, "Do you want any squash flowers?"  With our own squash plants falling prey to vine borers, I jumped at the chance and instantly put a Syrup Sunday on the docket for the following morning.  "YES!!" Weldon exclaimed at his good fortune.  Below is my tried and true pancake batter recipe with an adaptation for squash flower pancakes. Here's hopin' you find a Syrup Sunday in your future!

How Does Your Garlic Grow?

Once upon a time there was a little girl who ate raw onions like apples, broccoli by the head, and garlic bread by the loaf.  As a tween, she thought it was cool to wear a t-shirt which read, "A Clove a Day Keeps the Devil Away."  She grew up healthy and strong (and routinely knocked out entire villages with her dragon breath).  Now she is living happily ever after in her garden where she grows onions, broccoli, and tons of garlic.  THE END...sort of.

Breaking Bread...and Beans

This past Thursday marked the 237th anniversary of our nation's founding. Americans from coast to coast celebrated with thunderous fireworks, patriotic melodies, and gluttonous cookouts.  Many inches of rain falling on south central Kentucky added a particularly sloshy feel to our week's activities. Our grills may have been dampened, but our spirits were not. Both sides of our family still gathered for belt-loosening cook-ins complete with mountains of potato salad and rivers of sweet tea.  There was much story-telling, many good laughs, and lots of family catch-up...a perfect holiday if you ask me.  Surprisingly, of all the meals, traditions, and visiting this week, it was another communal activity -- one significantly less detrimental to the waist-line -- that lingered in my mind as I sat to write this week's post.  It was the ritual of breaking green beans.

A Gardener's Dream

On Monday I was in my garden. Finally. Spring (or perhaps winter, depending on your perspective) has been a bit reluctant this year.  It wasn't until late last week that the tide seemed to turn and spring established itself. The past few days the temperatures have climbed into the balmy seventies. The fire in our wood stove was abandoned over the weekend. The windows have flung open their eyelids to take in the world and the warmth. Naturally, the plants are responding with countless buds and blooms. These were all the signs I needed -- on Monday I was in my garden.

Prime Time Gardening

There are cutesy sayings out there stating that everything we need to know in life we learned in kindergarten. I often read those and roll my eyes...but I sure hope I can summon my "Works well independently" ways alongside my "Works well with others" skills because I've just signed up to grow a massive garden with my husband's family.  I'm about to embark on a substantially coordinated, many-month endeavor with none other than...my in-laws.

The Scene: Garden Plot 2013

Because I can, can, can

Nothing says summer to me quite like the weekly, bi-weekly, or even twice-weekly process of transforming fresh-picked produce into a Technicolor glass menagerie.   Each winter I make a list of new recipes to try or gaps in the canning pantry I’m desperate to fill.  By spring I’m chomping at the bit to line up my Mason jars, wash up my canner, and break out new seals.  When spring’s mad rush of outdoor duties gives way to higher temperatures and a burgeoning garden, it’s the kitchen that once again takes center stage.  Lugging the garden’s bounty inside is merely the intro.  Then I rumple my hair like every good conductor and begin orchestrating the whoosh, plop, clang, sizzle, and hiss of utensils, pots, pans and jars.  I maintain this rhythm throughout May, June, July, and August in preparation for the coming year.  While it can be a formidable task and I don’t always look forward to it on the morning of a canning day, I know nothing will taste better on a cold February afternoon than a half-day’s work from last August.

Seeds and Such

My first vegetable garden was perfect.  It was the image of every sketch I'd seen from Peter Rabbit to Rapunzel.  Granted, at the time I was only eight.