I’ve checked out my seed order for the year, minus the potatoes. I’ll order them in a day or so (after Seed Savers answers my question about garlic). Everything else will come from West Coast Seeds. I even remembered to check the stash of leftover seeds from last year and am not buying more zucchini or carrot or spinach seeds. The challenge veggie of the year will be eggplant, which is more a challenge for the garden and less for me. Meaning that the challenge will be to see if the garden can produce actual eggplants, since I have a …
Category: homesteading
Tomorrow is Monday, and the vacation is officially over. And, in the department of minor miracles, I might actually be mostly ready. The after-school muffins are made, the mail is processed, the email box sorted. Caitlyn and I harvested the remaining carrots that were still in the garden. Their tops were nasty, but the carrots are in surprisingly good shape, even after the freezing weather of last month. Caitlyn was able/willing to get into the harvesting this time, as well, since the soil just brushed off, unlike last time. I may leave them in the garden longer next winter – …
A note to my future self: when Cliff Mass says it’s going to be cold, get out there and bring in the rest of the root vegetables. I spent about an hour in the p-patch this morning (two pairs of long johns under the jeans, two scarves, hat, two shirts, sweatshirt, jacket, and gardening gloves) using a shovel to pry beets and carrots out of the ground, then chipping frozen soil off them with the digging fork (since maybe the dirt should stay in the p-patch and not get washed down the kitchen sink). I filled a 15 lb butter …
Ok, so I’ve been seriously slacking on this blogging/writing front, and I’m starting to have little niggling ambitions of getting back into things. I’ve been perusing other blogs and I’m jealous, so we’ll see how far I can capitalize on that. One thing I think I’ll need to do is more actively remember that we have a camera (several, actually) and that I could take pictures of what I do and post those. Which means, of course, that we need to streamline the process of getting photos to my blog, since the process right now involves multiple computers and too …
It’s a blustery day, with the leaves skipping off the trees downtown and swirling around before flying away, kind of like Ridley Scott was in town. It’s cold and wet and grey, much like someone threw a switch and our Last Gasp of Summer (mild, golden days that light up the color on the trees so everything just sort of glows, again, in some filmmaker’s lighting dream) is over. So, it seems reasonable to inventory the work of the summer: 39 qts canned tomatoes 12 pts peaches + 7 pts & 1 qt left from last year 2 qts + …
This past year, the garden and I (with help from Caitlyn) produced 48 pounds of potatoes. We grew lots of other things, but the potatoes I’m particularly pleased with. So much so, I thought it merited it’s own post, with nothing else.