Slug motels!

Still no frost! But tonight is forecast to be a serious, hard frost at 29ºF. I'll probably get a last picking of beans today and that will be the end. But my broccoli and cabbage will be fine. The tomatoes are in the hoop house, so they will be ok too.

Yesterday I dug the potatoes. What a disappointment! I think I was growing slug hotels! I lost probably 10 pounds to slug infestation. Yuck! I hadn't thought of it, but straw potatoes make the perfect environment for slugs. Last year I grew them in a gravelly bed, which slugs hate, so I didn't have an issue. This year, I grew them in a bed that I had just built the year before and had filled with fresh compost. Perfect habitat for slugs once you put down 6 inches of straw. Oh well, now I know. Next year I'll try convention potatoes and see what happens.

That's the fun (and at times frustrating) thing about gardening. You're always learning, experimenting, and succeeding—or failing. But the point isn't the success or failure, but the experimenting. Our lives don't depend on my garden, so I can take the failures in stride. That's a major difference between gardening here in the opulent western world and the 2/3 world. For them failure is a matter of life and death. For me, it's the difference between fresh garden produce and a trip to the co-op or grocery store...

How does my garden go

Yes, go, not grow : )

The first year at a place is always an experiment, and last year was no exception. The previous people had 3 large raised (and I do mean raised—3 feet deep) strawberry beds in the backyard—12 feet by 4 feet. It took up the better part of the yard. I tore those apart last year, using the soil, which was excellent, in the beds. I used the old logs that the beds were made of as sides for the new beds.

That wasn't the brightest thing I've ever done. The logs were starting to decompose—some more than others—and attracted slugs. I've never had a slug problem before, but last year I did. They are destructive little creatures! They eat just enough of something to destroy it and then move on. I resolved to eliminate their habitat!

So, this weekend I began building beds from 2x8 untreated boards. It was a beautiful weekend to work outside and I got most of them built. I even managed to plant 34 feet of straw potatoes. I had them "chitting" for a few weeks; they were getting nice and sprouted, so I cut them into chunks on Wednesday. They need to heal a few days after that, so Saturday was perfect for them.

I cleaned up the beds, forked them over, and raked them out. Then I laid the potatoes out and put about 6–12 inches of straw over the top. Because these beds are exposed to a lot of wind coming off the ridge, I covered them with row cover to hold the straw in place. Once the potatoes start pushing up through the straw, they will hold it in place and I'll remove the row cover. The row cover also keeps them warmer, speeding their growth a bit.

I didn't have time to plant anything else, but I did transplant the broccoli raab. It should have been transplanted 2 weeks ago, but the beds weren't ready. It has started to bolt, so I may not get much production out of them. That's alright, though, I've started a second planting...

So that is how my garden goes...hopefully I'll be able to plant this week, although the forecast isn't encouraging. Neither is the weather right now; it's 40°F, rainy and very windy. Not the kind of weather that invites you to play outside!

Straw Potatoes

This begins a series of random thoughts about gardening. Over the weekend, I tried to collect my thoughts on some gardening experiments over the last 4 years or so. Today's is about straw potatoes...

Lay down a bed of shredded leaves (2-3 inches) and place the seed potatoes on top of the leaves. Put 3-6 inches of straw on top of the potatoes cover with row cover—you don't need to put hoops on it; the potatoes will lift it easily. I remove the row cover after the maple is done sending out helicopters. Check the straw throughout the summer; if potatoes are showing, either fluff the straw or add more. Pull any weeds that show through the straw.

Last year, I started my potatoes in the basement. I cut them into chunks, put them in egg cartons—one per slot—and let them begin to grow for about 3-4 weeks. Then I transplanted them into the garden, put the straw over the top, as well as row cover. That seemed to work well. The previous year, I had tried starting some early in the cold frame; it didn't seem to make a difference. They all got the same size at the same time.

They say that if you pinch the flowers off the potato, you will get a bigger harvest. I experimented last year: I pinched all the flowers in one bed and none in the other. I didn't notice a difference between the beds...

Putting it to sleep for the winter

We had a serious freeze last weekend; it got down to 26ºF. That was the end of the green peppers. I picked them right away in the afternoon, cut them up, and froze them. I ended up getting about 12 more that were of sufficient maturity.

I also decided it was time to harvest my cabbages. If you recall, the cabbage butterflies got a good meal out them. But, even so, I was able to get 8 decent sized heads out of the 15 plants that survived. I put them in the refrigerator to make into sauerkraut later. Later ended up being Tuesday night.

We bought a new hand shredder for the kraut; the old one was Debbie's from before we got married (33 years ago!). This new one is stainless steel and sharp. Very sharp. Extremely sharp. Painfully sharp. Ouch! The cabbage heads I got from the garden are much denser than the ones in the store. That translates into 5 1/2 quarts of sauerkraut from relatively small heads of cabbage. It also translates into more effort to shred them. It also translates into some serious cuts as I adjusted to the shredder being sharper.

It must be November, that's the only way I can think of to explain it. Last November, I tried to cut off my fingers. This year, I tried to cut off my thumb with the new shredder. As I said, it was extremely, painfully sharp. I have a nice flap of skin on the end of my thumb under a bandage. The next day at work, Marti noticed and asked if I had been playing with my lawnmower again. Nope, but the kraut might have a little extra iron in it :)

The garden—except for the hoop house—is pretty much done for the year. I dug the rest of the straw potatoes Wednesday night. We ended up with about a wheelbarrow full. Now, I just need to find a way to store them that is cool enough. Right now, they are in the garage, which stays cool. But, once the nights get colder, they will freeze. By then the basement will probably be cool enough I can move them there. But, I suspect I will get some growth on them come February...

Apples!

This Saturday, I picked a bushel of Gala apples. We've been drying them ever since; we should be done by Saturday, just in time to pick some more :) Last year we dried 2 bushels and made apple sauce out of a couple bushels. This year we plan to dry 3 bushels—1 Gala and 2 Jonathan. That should give us enough to eat and give away.

In other gardening goodness, I canned 8 pints of pickle relish and 4 pints of beet pickles. My second planting of cucumbers is full of blossoms; I just hope this cold weather (high of 65º yesterday and 60º so far today) doesn't keep them from producing. I still would like to can another 10-15 quarts of bread & butter pickles.

I should take a picture of the canning shelf in the basement to match last year's. I don't know why, but it seems to be fuller this year than last. There's room for the dried apples, but the space for the apple sauce is full of other things. Not sure what I did differently...

In the "this didn't work so well" department: The cabbage butterfly caterpillars are devouring my cabbage. I should have left the row cover on them :( They also are enjoying the Brussel sprouts and kohlrabi, but the cabbage is the big sufferer. I might not get any to speak of. Oh well, next year.

We dug our first potatoes last week. I did straw potatoes again this year; low maintenance, high productivity :) They sure beat store bought potatoes—even organic ones.

Various garden and related stuff

Well, we tried the sauerkraut last night. It had fermented for 7 days and we figured it was worth a taste test. I opened the jar (we made it in 3-one quart jars) and it made a popping sound as the air escaped—a good sign. It certainly smelled like sauerkraut!

I stirred it up a bit with a fork, then filled the fork with kraut. A bit hesitantly, I put it in my mouth...it sure did taste good! Still a bit mild, but we have 2 other quarts still aging, so that's not a problem. I must admit, I was a bit nervous about it turning out after my experience in Kentucky way back when. But, the finished product is very good. We put the opened quart in the refrigerator after munching on a bit more. It will disappear very quickly, I suspect.

We started growing alfalfa and broccoli sprouts a few weeks ago. I started some in a quart jar and we enjoyed them, so we got a Bioset sprouter. Not sure if I like it as well as the jar; the sprouts from it taste watery. The principle is that the Bioset leaves a bit of water on the seeds. The quart jar, on the other hand, is drained each time you add water... We're going to run a test later next week with both ways; if I remember, I'll post our final preference.

I transplanted the Roma tomatoes into the hoop house on Monday evening. The next night it froze, but they came through fine in the hoop house. I'm getting ready to put out the potatoes this weekend (or maybe sooner...). We do straw potatoes, so I put down a layer of compost last night; I cut up the seed potatoes earlier the week. Once I put the seed potatoes out, I will place a 6 inch layer of straw over them and add row cover to keep everything in place.

I transplanted the cabbages into the basement under the grow lights; 16 plants for the early cabbage. I think I'll do another 16 for later harvest; that would give us about 32 quarts of kraut, which should be enough—I hope!

random stuff

I just wanted everybody to know that my seed order shipped today from Johnny's! I'll be planting some stuff this weekend. Some will be inside as seedlings, but some will go in the hoop house for eating in early March (I hope!).

On a related note, we ate the last home grown potatoes this weekend. We'll have to plant double this year. I am now a firm believer in straw potatoes.

For those just tuning in, straw potatoes are regular seed potatoes that are placed on top of the ground and then covered with 3-6 inches of straw. I tried it last year for the first time with great success. Sure beats digging them! As an added boost, I set them on top of about 5 inches of leaf mold (partially decomposed leaves) and then added the straw. The leaves became a wonderful black dirt by year-end and fed the potatoes well.

Garden update

Well, the garden is winding down for the season. On Tuesday night, Jim and Shannon came over and we dug the potatoes. Not that we really had to dig; they were straw potatoes, so it was more a matter of removing the straw and checking the first 2 inches of dirt.

We harvested around 30-40 pounds. Not bad for a trial run of 6 pounds of seed potatoes. I will definitely do straw potatoes again next year—and increase the number, too. In case you are wondering, straw potatoes are simply seed potatoes placed on the surface of the ground and covered with 3-6 inches of straw.

In this case, we put them on 6 inches of leaf mold (partially decayed leaves). The resulting compost when we dug the potatoes was marvelously black, much nicer than the compost I get from the city. I'm definitely looking forward to more home made compost!

In other news, we picked the last watermelon. It was 18 inches long by 10 inches in diameter, weighing in around 20 pounds. Nice and sweet, but not as good as the ones from July; our hot, dry August and September definitely affected the flavor.

The fall planting of peas is in bloom. I ate the first fall radish earlier this week, the spinach is getting close to big enough to eat, and the fall planting of bunching onions (green onions) is showing itself. I definitely need to get the top on the greenhouse this weekend; they are predicting 35º F for Sunday.

More harvesting

I ended up canning the peaches on Tuesday; I got 12 quarts. Saturday I bought another 1/2 bushel, which I'll probably can tonight; it will give us another 12 quarts. That will give us 23 quarts for the year. I know, the math doesn't add up :) One quart didn't seal, so we are in the process of eating it. Even our failures are good eating... By the way, I use a light syrup in canning them; I tried no syrup one time and they were inedible :( My recipe is one part sugar to two parts water. Anybody have a different ratio? How did it taste? We also use unrefined sugar, which has a richer flavor; it looks better, too.

I made 30 pints of tomato soup last week, so now all I need is to stew some tomatoes. At the rate they are producing, I'll have about 3 times what I need. I guess we'll be eating a lot of fresh tomatoes! We had fresh tomatoes on our pizza last night, 3 Romas, but that barely made a dent in them. Last year, I froze a lot of the Roma; maybe I should do that again.

The beans are slowing down again. I'm thinking I will pull the ones in the greenhouse area in preparation for planting winter crops there. The top will probably go back on in early October. Not sure what I'm going to try to overwinter yet.

The cucumbers are about gone. My second planting got destroyed by the heat; I only got two cucumbers out the whole planting. Too late for another planting this year, although it is tempting to see if the hoop house would protect them enough...we'll see.

I finished canning the apple sauce on Sunday. I ended up with about 12 quarts, 36 pints, 24 half pints, and 39 4-ounce jars. What can I say, I ran out of pints and quarts! Also, the 4 ounce jars are perfect for my lunch and we had 3 dozen empties. I'm not sure how we ended up with that many, but there they were.

I'm hoping to plant some more stuff this week for fall harvest, but we'll see how it goes. I would also like to get my garlic planted for next year. You plant garlic in early fall/late summer for harvest the following year. I've never grown it before, so this is an experiment.

The potatoes are looking good. I managed to harvest a few this weekend, and they sure tasted good baked. They are a red potato, but very light. This is another experiment; I planted them in straw, which theoretically makes them easier to harvest. They also are a lot cleaner :)

So, how about you others? Is your garden doing ok?

Timberrrr!

I came outside Saturday after a very windy Friday night and looked around, expecting to see some tree limbs down. There was only one, relatively small one in our yard, but our neighbor lost a 2-3 inch in diameter sapling; it was sheared off about a foot above the base. Yikes! We didn't get off without damaged, though—look at this:



Yikes! My hoop house bit the dust. It wasn't as bad as it looked, though. The only thing I lost were some small pepper plants; I am restarting those from seed, but it will put the harvest behind a bit :( When we built the hoop house, the instructions said that if you are subject to high winds, you should glue the joints. A trip to the hardware store, a bit of dismantling, and 4 hours later, better than new:



Another, maybe better, view:



While I was playing around, I expanded the asparagus bed and added a few plants:



I also planted 4 blueberry bushes and 25 strawberry plants. You can see the strawberries in the foreground of the second picture.

What else can you see? The white row cover is over the potatoes, which have started putting out leaves. It froze last night, so the row cover was nice to have, plus it keeps the straw on in high winds, which we have had quite a few of lately. The plants you see in the collapsed green house are bush beans; they are doing well for only being 2 weeks old! The hoop house makes a big difference. On Saturday, it was only 50 F, but inside the hoop house (once I rebuilt it!), it was about 80 F. Nice and cozy :)

On other fronts, the brick cheese seems to have turned out. It is 2 weeks old and finally, on Friday, developed the red bacteria linens that they talked about. It also started smelling like brick cheese. Tonight I will wax it and let it age in the refrigerator for a bit. I think I will take a break from cheese making for the summer; I have more than enough to keep me busy without it!

Cheese making tip of the week: When they say that the starter only keeps a month in the freezer once you have started it, they mean it...

This week

has been a blur. Last weekend, Jim Baad and I started building the hoop house. We got the frame together and up, but no plastic on it Friday. Saturday, I got 4 pickup loads of compost, and one of wood chips, and bought the plastic. That about filled the day. Sunday, I started filling the boxes that were left to fill. And that about took Sunday.

Monday evening, with Debbie's help, I put half the plastic on the hoop house. Tuesday, I finished the plastic, including a door on the west end. Wednesday it was windy and it showed me that I really wasn't done—the wind managed to loosen some of the plastic on the ends and sides. So, Wednesday evening I tightened up the structure.

Finally, last night, I was able to plant stuff. I planted the potatoes and piled 6 inches of straw over them. To keep the wind from stealing the straw, I put row cover over the bed. Most of an 18 foot bed is filled with potatoes. Then I planted about 1.5 pounds of onion sets and some more spinach, radishes, rutabaga, and maché. I also planted some cucumbers, wax beans, 2 kinds of green beans, and kohlrabi in the hoop house.

The stuff I planted in the cold frames is doing well. The spinach is almost ready to cut; the radishes are developing nicely, the beets look good. The peas are almost too tall to shut the door at night and should start blossoming soon. The onions are looking very good; they are almost too tall for the frame, too.

With all this gardening, I haven't had time to make more cheese, but I'm hoping to make some brick tomorrow. The cheddar is now 6 weeks old. We tried some last Friday night; it is quite sharp and has a good flavor—at least that's what Debbie, Jim, and Shannon told me :) It is a bit dry; I think I pressed it to long, or maybe it got too hot. I still have 1.5 pounds aging in the basement.

We experimented with yogurt this week. Debbie was wanting thicker yogurt for something she was doing, so we made a quart with Half & Half™. It was just like sour cream, but sweeter. Wow! Get all of your daily fat and calorie needs in one small tablespoon full!

Here's two pictures of the hoop house:


Looking from the south. There are two 16 x 3 beds inside.


Looking from the west. In the foreground are the peas and onions in their cold frames