Friday, January 30, 2009

Too Many Seeds

Well....I place my seed order yesterday.....seems that I think I live on 20 acres. I am not sure where it is all going to go so I guess Jen and I will have to be creative. These all should arrive in the next 4-6 days so I should be right on time to start the tomatoes and peppers the 2nd week of Feb in the basement...

Not much in the blogging mood so I will keep this short for now.

Radish, Early Scarlet Globe , Packet 250 seeds
Radish, French Breakfast , Packet 250 seeds
Chard, Five Color Silverbeet OG, 1,000 seeds
Pepper, Nepalese Bell , Packet 25 seeds
Pea, Dwarf Gray Sugar , Packet 100 seeds
Huckleberry, Garden OG, Packet 50 seeds
Beet, Bull's Blood , Packet 100 seeds
Beet, Detroit Dark Red , Packet 100 seeds
Carrot, Dragon , Packet 250 seeds
Carrot, Scarlet Nantes , Packet 250 seeds
Collection, Heirloom Lettuce
Bean, Climbing French , Packet 50 seeds
Corn, Blue Jade/Blue Baby , Packet 25 seeds
Prairie, Butterflyweed , Packet 50 seeds
Flower, Bee's Friend , Packet 1,000 seeds
Flower, Bunny Tails , Packet 250 seeds
Flower, Job's Tears OG, Packet 25 seeds
Flower, Great Quaking Grass , Packet 250 seeds
Sunberry OG, Packet 50 seeds
Tomato, Riesentraube , Packet 50 seeds
Tomato, Red Fig OG, Packet 25 seeds
Tomato, Opalka , Packet 50 seeds
Tomato, Purple Russian , Packet 50 seeds
Tomato, Hartman's Yellow Gooseberry OG, Packet 25 seeds
Tomato, Green Sausage , Packet 50 seeds
Tomato, Giant Syrian , Packet 50 seeds
Tomato, Dr. Wyche's Yellow , Packet 50 seeds
Tomato, Crnkovic Yugoslavian , Packet 25 seeds
Squash, Thelma Sanders OG, Packet 25 seeds
Flower, Platinum Blue , Packet 25 seeds
Tomato, Italian Heirloom , Packet 50 seeds
Tomato, Silvery Fir Tree OG, Packet 25 seeds


Food Harvested:
None

Things Planted:
None

Seeds Saved:
None

Preserved/Cooked:
Mustard Encrusted Leg of Lamb

Things to Remember:
To Keep Warm

Saturday, January 17, 2009

Origami and Seed Starting and a Cold Winter....

I guess it has to do with the weather, thinking about smoking (or not smoking in my case) and the fact that I do like it but I have become a little obsessed with folding paper as of lately. I picked up a book on Polyhedron Origami which outlined how to make over 70 different shapes. Although these shapes seem complicated and are borderline overwhelming, they are actually made up of a single folded flat shape.....50, 60 or 70 of them, but one flat shape none the less. This one was 60 shapes which took about 4 nights to fold and then almost 4 hours to put it all together. The putting together part was not easy but was fun and satisfying once together. If this is a sign of getting bored, I don't mind it, it is very focusing and relaxing....time seems to move quickly.

Trying to get ready for the spring has started to become a bit overwhelming. Not that any of the tasks with the garden are particularly large or hard to manage, it is the time and money that is making me a little crazed. Seeds need to be bought in the next 2 weeks, the sowing set-up built and running in 3 weeks, tomatoes, peppers and everything else germinating in 4 weeks, etc.... This combined with the 30 projects we have planned for outside it is easy to either become frozen with the overwhelmingness of everything or so disjointed that nothing gets started. I do know that the removal of the deck is the #1 thing for the spring closely followed by lots of fruit trees/shrubs and the garden. At this point, I cannot be any more specific or I will be frozen.
Trying to create a seed sowing station as sustainably as possible is hard in terms of thinking out of the box. Jen is much better with ideas like this which much of the time I quickly (and wrongly) dismiss. Trying to build something that is either re-usable from year to year or prevents something from going to a landfill is easier to talk about than to implement. The set-up is a 4' storage shelf (still have to find this), eight 4' 2-bulb T12 fluorescent lights (this was from Craigslist, $70 used instead of $500 new) and seed starting pots (picture to right, $12). The Potmaker is a cool tool that uses recycled newspaper to make the pots that you can sow seeds or put transplants in. The 3 pots pictured took me all of 1 minute to make in total...I picked this up from Seeds of Change for about $12. The trays to hold the pots will probably be the same nursery trays that you get with flats of flowers. These all usually go into the garbage when you plant your annuals and I will be able to reuse these from year to year. I figure the whole set-up will come together in the next two weeks (I hope).

It is cold here.....as predicted, we are in an extreme cold spell for New Jersey. For the last few days, it has been in the high teens and much lower with the wind-chill. This morning my thermometer read below zero. Everywhere I read about Garlic, it tells you not to worry, cold or no-cold, the garlic will be fine - I am not so calmed by this. Jack and Charlotte don't seem to mind the cold, I guess I didn't either as a kid. They have a whole routine in bundling up and play just as hard, I think it is Jen and I whom are getting old as we keep asking them "are you sure you want to go out....its REALLY cold out".

Food Harvested:
None

Things Planted:
None

Seeds Saved:
Red Crepe Myrtle (Jen actually saved these)
Marigold (Orange)

Preserved/Cooked:
Lentil Soup (which Jen did not like)

Things to Remember:
1. Order the seeds in Feb to start sowing by Valentine's Day
2. Have to get 3 sturdy logs for Trellis into Garden.
3. Need 3 4x6's to finish lower bed border
4. Have to move Apple Tree to pot until Deck is done.

Thursday, January 1, 2009

Maggie's Garden

When Jen and I got our first pets, Maggie was a timid, scared Shepard/Collie mix who was scared of her own shadow and didn't know how to bark. Since we lived in an apartment, walks included cars backfiring, people hitting their horns, kids screaming, etc... everything to make Maggie shiver from first step to last. Over the next few years, Maggie worked her way into our hearts, heads and souls in such a way that when she became sick last month, we were devastated. We both just sit and cry thinking of how different, how hollow our house is without her. Although there are other dogs and people have different relationships with their animals, Maggie was our first girl...now and forever.... Jen and I, unconsciously, agreed that if we ever owned a homestead, it would be Maggie's Farm; what I realize now is that my garden always has been and will always be Maggie's Garden.
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I am having a hard time switching topics....I hope the line above helps....

Seed Catalogs are in full swing as I now get about 10-15 different catalogs to look through. Some of my favorites are the organic catalogs. There are a few others but these seem to be where I concentrate my time. There is good diversity of varieties and each have unique offerings which at a minimum make it an interesting read. Some of the best catalogs so far are
As we are making choices on different varieties, I am trying to figure out an inexpensive way to set up a seed starting "station" in our basement. With money a big factor, I am looking into simple fluorescent (T12 or T8 preferable) from Home Depot or Lowes. These would not provide optimal light but would suffice with time spent adjusting light heights as the seedlings grow. A solution like this would run about $100 for every 4 feet.

More preferable would be a horticulture specific light (T5) from Sunlight Supply for instance The spectrum and intensity can be varied so much so that I would load up more seedlings under the lights, not be as concerned with light heights and they run more cool/efficient. These would run about $350 for every 4 feet but I would almost double the width of plants that I could stack in the 4 feet.

As a tentative plan, I am going to have the light station set up my mid to late January to start Peppers and Tomatoes by the 1st week of Feb. I will add a few annuals in the beginning of march. I still plan on winter sow'ing probable 30 containers (10" homemade greenhouses) worth of perennials like I did last year.

Cream of Curried Chicken Soup
  • 2 lbs of Chicken Breast (on the bone)
  • 2 Cups cooked rice (preferable brown)
  • 1/2 Gallon Chicken Stock
  • 2 Medium Size Onions (chopped)
  • 2 Cloves Garlic (minced)
  • 2 Carrots (chopped)
  • 2 Stalks of Celery (chopped)
  • 3 Tbsp butter
  • 1 Tbsp Curry
  • 1 Tbsp Paprika
  • 2 tsp Cumin Seeds
  • 2 tsp Mustard Seeds
  • 1 tsp Ginger Powder
  • 1 dash Cayenne Pepper
  • 2 Tbsp Flour
Start by cooking the chicken in the oven until done. Cool to room temperature and with your hands, pick the meat off the bone creating small pieces to be added to the soup later. While the chicken is cooking, cook the rice according to the directions on the package on the stove top. In a small bowl or cup, add all spices and mix together.

Once rice and chicken are done, melt the butter in a large soup pot. once hot, add all dry spices and stir for a few moments to allow the oils to be released. Add the garlic and onion and saute for 2 minutes. Add carrots and celery and saute for an additional 5-7 minutes or until everything starts to caramelize and the onions are translucent. Add the flour and stir for another 2 minutes. Add the stock, bring to a rapid boil and then reduce heat to simmer for approximately 20 minutes. With an emulsion blender, blend 80% of the stock, enough to leave little pieces of carrots, onions and celery but not enough to purify. Add chicken and rice and bring back to a slow boil for 2 minutes. Serve hot or is great the next day.

NOTE: The rice will absorb water the next time reheated so it will become chowder-like


Food Harvested:
None

Things Planted:
None

Seeds Saved:
Sweet Shrub
More Daylilies
More Chaste Tree

Preserved/Cooked:
Cream of Curried Chicken Soup
Healthy Mac and Cheese

Things to Remember:
1. Get as many containers as possible to pot up plants
2. Look into Wolf berries as well for the spring
3. If we do the arbor, put up to grape vines with it....