frustration

Remember all those seedlings from March? Well, they died.

So I started them all again.

And those died. Maybe there was something wrong with the potting mix?

So I was forced to rely on the kindness of friends (thanks, Lisa M!) and the surplus of the 4H garden club and the varieties available by retail. Sigh. No hand-selected heirloom tomato or pepper varieties. No unusual veggies like bok choy or purple cauliflower.

Fortunately, there were still lots of plants to be had, and my friends also like unusual varieties. So my garden has tomatoes like Isis Candy and White Queen and Black Trifele that I got from Sugarbush Nursery. And Amish Paste and Beefsteak and Early Girl that I got from 4H. And, of course, the annual Mystery tomato that Lisa always ends up with. They're growing well, and so far the squirrels have not started eating them. Of course, I haven't either, as they're still green.

It's kind of a drag to go from 50 pepper seedlings to 10 stunted last-picks. But at least there are some pepper plants growing in my garden. Still have to see if they actually bear. Last year's didn't, so I don't have high hopes.

We added some more raised beds this year -- two 4' x 8' beds full of mushroom soil, peat moss, and Rodale Institute compost. One has just tomatoes (and a few peppers), and the other has 3 pounds of potatoes -- fingerling, yukon gold, and purple beauty. These are the best two beds of the farm. I cannot believe how lush the growth is in these two beds. I'll try to get a photo soon. Hopefully the potato plants are not just leaves. I'm really hoping for some yummy potatoes next month.

The other plots -- the ones with the PVC-and-chicken-wire cages around them -- have all been infiltrated by varmints. I have replanted my beans so many times that I've given up -- and I can't for the life of me figure out how the (bunnies? chipmunks?) are getting in!! No beans this year. The carrots are fighting to survive -- the tops are mostly gone, but hopefully there will be some bottoms in the end. Argh. The only plants left in these beds are things like onions, garlic, and turnips. Try to make a meal out of those.

It's a real bummer to try to sit down and blog about gardening when everything feels like a failure. Maybe in some future year I'll have all this pest-control figured out, then I'll look back on this and... what? Laugh? Cry? All I know is I look back on my last month or two -- all the time spent working in that blasted garden -- and cry over all my wasted time feeding the stupid animals.

and they're off!

Seven weeks until spring and the broccoli, pak choi, collards, and cosmos are up!

Need to get the tomatoes and peppers started...

the subversive garden club

After 6 months, I have finally gotten around to posting again. I'm sure it's directly related to the fact that I started some seeds today.

I always start each gardening season full of optimism -- this year, I'm going to grow so much! I'm going to keep track of everything! I'm going to keep my beds weeded and watered! I'm going to keep the critters out and the bugs off! I'm going to can and freeze and dehydrate! And, of course: I'm going to blog every day!

Reality usually sets in, though. The weeds grow, the critters come, the rain doesn't... and neither do the words. But this year, I know it will be different. This year, we started a garden club.

Today it was just three friends getting together for white-bean-and-kale soup (thank you, Lisa M!) to talk about what we are thinking in terms of a garden club (what were we thinking?) and maybe to start some seeds. (According to the farmer's almanac, we're 7 or 8 weeks before last frost, so we'd better get our cole crops going!) A printed email from a fourth friend lay on the table, full of ideas and potential garden club names. "Cathy likes subversive things," Lisa said. Thus, the subversive garden club.

I now have a tray with twelve 4-packs of newly planted seeds on my dining room table -- broccoli, kale, pak choi, impatiens, basil (I just couldn't wait) -- and a fire in the fireplace. We still have a long way to go, but spring is coming, and there will be a garden!

spring retrospective -- part 2

April was beautiful in the orchard. The peach and nectarine trees were especially beautiful, covered in flowers.

The apricot and one of the Northstar Pie cherries had some blossoms, too. The Red Rome apple tree had a few flowers later in the month. Unfortunately, those photos are back in Broomall on the server. I'll upload those after the weekend. :/

Eventually, there were baby cherries, nectarines (on both trees), and peaches (on 4 out of 5 trees).


We harvested about 2 cups of cherries in June!

At the end of spring, the peach trees were full of peaches. Dana counted 115 on one of them (the Starking Delicious). The nectarine and apples trees had just a few fruit on each. Didn't see any apricots. I'll add our pictures when I get back to Broomall...

spring retrospective -- part 1

Well, school is finally over and the grades are in. Unfortunately, spring is just about over, too. We did get a fair amount of spring gardening done, but not enough for my liking! A little bit more every year...I hope.

It seems that we spent more time this spring building cages to protect the gardens than we did actually putting in the gardens themselves. Hopefully this is work that won't have to be repeated each year. This is the biggest cage, built by James out of PVC and heavy plastic netting. It's where we planted the peas -- has to be tall to let the peas climb and also covered to keep out the birds. Pole beans will go here when the peas are done.

We planted about 250 peas in here -- 125 sugar snap and 125 garden peas. We harvested about 2.5 pounds of each so far. Not really enough for freezing -- they're so good raw, so who cares -- but it's a start.

The square foot garden had a lot of cole veggies during the spring. We got one tiny broccoli (head was the size of a ping-pong ball). It looked beautiful one day, but so tiny, so I decided to leave it. Then, when we went back a few days later, it had started to turn yellow. So hard to garden when you're not there every day! Plus, we left it in the car when we got home, so no one got to try it. The chickens liked the two green caterpillars on it, though.

The pak chois were the prettiest, imo. Can't wait for fall so I can grow more. They looked so beautiful one weekend but had bolted by the next. Now I know how big they'll get (not very big) and will harvest them sooner. And plant more of them. We needed three plants to make enough for one dinner. (One from my garden, one from Julia's, and one from Xing Hua's.)

Still in the gardens are collards (supposedly heat tolerant, thus their popularity in the South) and kale. Hope the kale doesn't bolt on us.

The onions are doing well. We pulled one a week or so ago to see how they were growing. The bulb was about the size of the broccoli. Bigger than a scallion, but not quite an onion bulb.


I think I got the lettuce and spinach in a bit too late. All the spinach bolted with just 4 leaves on the stalk. Lettuce is iffy. We did get one butterhead. Very spotty, though, and not good eating. And a bunch of radishes. But who likes radishes if there's no lettuce?

My friend, Lisa, gave me gobs of lettuce from her garden. She did it right -- plant early and often! I ate salad for lunch every day for a week. Salad with her lettuce, my radishes and garden peas. And some left-over roast chicken (from Julia's 4H bird, of course.) Now that's living!

so much to do

I am realizing the biggest problem with writing a gardening blog. In the winter, there was never anything interesting in the garden to write about. Now that it's spring, there is so much to write about but so little time to write!

I have started lots of seedlings, which are growing under lights in the basement. I have removed last fall's leaves from my gardens and noticed new growth. (Oregano! Chives! Peppermint! Sage! Julia even picked a bunch of second-year parsley already!) But it's too early to plant much outside besides peas, greens, and cole crops.

We have done a lot this past week, though. The weather has been gorgeous -- sunny and 70s all week. I'll have to catch up a little at a time, as I can't write everything now. (Back to school. Ugh.)

Ever since I'd discovered the book Square Foot Gardening (in our Lansdowne-gardening days), I've always wanted to try actual square-foot gardening. So this year, Dana bought me the newest edition, and I am going to try a few SFGs with my smaller crops. (Meaning, those I'm not planting lots and lots of plants.) So, on the last Saturday in March, Dana and I went out to the farmhouse and built a 4' x 8' SFG raised bed. I planted 4 squares of onion sets (they were starting to sprout already), 4 squares of lettuce (various types), 2 of spinach, 1 of turnips, and 1 of carrots.

On April 3, we spent the whole day working in the farmhouse garden. James built some (hopefully) squirrel- and rabbit-proof cages out of PVC and chicken wire, so I was able to cover my SFG. (Someone had already dug up some of my onions!) I planted 8 squares of cole seedlings (2 broccoli, 2 kale, 2 collards, 2 bok choi -- one seedling in each square) and 1 square of onion seedlings (hoping to get scallions!). Hoping the new cage works.

I also planted 246 MORE pea seeds (same kind as last month). And James built a HUGE cage for that plot. (No SFG here!) We didn't have time to finish it, but hopefully we can get back to do that before the seeds come up and the animals eat the seedlings.

Okay...back to grading papers. Tomorrow I'll tell you about the flowers and the fruit trees, and maybe even the baby bunnies in Xing Hua's garden. Sigh.

spring is coming!

The snow is almost melted, and I am getting started on the garden.

Two weeks ago, my first box of seeds arrived -- from Rohrer's Seeds. It took only 2 days from the time I placed my order! At that time, the ground was still covered with snow. Since then, we have had several days of mild weather (highs in the 50s and 60s). Today, the ground is visible, and the small raised bed where I garden in Broomall is actually workable. (Yesterday, I actually saw crocuses blooming here!)

So this afternoon, I cleared out the dead tomato and pole-bean vines, stirred up the soil (mixing in the chicken poop from last fall), and planted 240 peas -- 120 garden peas (Early Freezer) and 120 Sugar Snap peas. I have barely made a dent in the half-pound packets I bought. Perhaps I was a bit over ambitious. I'm hoping to get out to the farmhouse and plant a bunch more before it gets warm. We'll see if that happens.

from poult to platter

These are Julia's 4-H turkeys, taken sometime in August when they were just a few weeks old. Three are hers; the rest belong to other 4H-ers.









Here they are about three months old, early November.













On Monday, November 23, we loaded the turkeys up and took them to the butcher. (Well, some of the 4H-ers took them. We didn't want to watch the butchering.)









We picked the turkeys up and delivered Julia's sponsors' turkeys Tuesday evening. We brined ours Wednesday and cooked it in the rotisserie. OMG! It was the absolute best turkey I've ever eaten!


Happy Thanksgiving!

remember my compost pile pumpkin?

Stupid deer.

end of season

Went back out to the farmhouse yesterday to get the last 107 bulbs planted. I know, what an odd number... I had 100 of my little shade bulbs left, and the guys just could not get those last 7 daffodils bulbs planted last week. "We were just so tired!" I learned that they are both very different from me: I don't care how tired I might be or how dark it is...I would never stop with only 7 out of 200 bulbs left!

Total bulbs planted this fall: 454. We've barely left summer and I cannot wait until spring!

We also decided to pick everything that was left in the garden, since we'll probably get a killing frost before our next trip out. We cut off all the fall lettuce plants, picked all the green peppers, dug up all the carrots, and snipped a bunch of herbs -- parsley, cilantro, and dill (left some of the herbs in case they can go to seed for us). Oh, also pulled the scallion. Yes, I said scallion. We got one. And it's thinner than a pencil. sigh. The only things left are a few turnips.

We were pleasantly surprised to find 3 watermelons hiding in the tall grass! Haven't tasted them yet, but I'm hopeful.

More things to remember for next year:

• If I decide to plant cucumbers again (which I do plan on), I will start my dill very early. It's kind of a drag that the dill came in after the cucumber plants had finished.
• I need to plant way more cilantro.
• I'd like to plant more carrots, too. Wish it weren't so much work to prepare the soil for carrots. Maybe we'll try raised beds next year.
  
• Lettuce is a very easy fall crop.
• Watermelons need to be started much, much earlier. And probably fed a lot, too.
• Sweet potatoes need to be covered with chicken wire. It seems that bunnies like sweet potato leaves almost as much as bean plants. (Didn't get any sweet potatoes this year.) I've never grown sweet potatoes before...I guess technically I still haven't.
  

bulbs

Yesterday, we planted bulbs ... lots and lots of bulbs.

We have an area of the yard at the farmhouse that doesn't grow much grass, so we decided to try naturalizing daffodils there. We found a nice assortment of daffodil bulbs for naturalizing from White Flower Farm in Connecticut and bought 200 bulbs. While we were at it, we bought 200 of another assortment of small, shade-loving bulbs for our shady garden (which has grown pretty much nothing but weeds since 2005). And we threw in some popeye daffodils and red and yellow tulips to plant by the front stairs -- 448 bulbs altogether! Got all but 100 of the small bulbs planted...hope to get to them next weekend.

Using the new bulb planters Dana picked out ... very expensive, but worth it if you're planting hundreds of large bulbs. (I used a trowel to plant the small bulbs.) Petra kept picking up the bulbs and running away with them. I think she thought they were tennis balls.

We also discovered that frost comes a lot earlier to Berks County than it does to Delaware County. In Broomall, I still have beans and peppers and herbs coming in, and we don't really expect frost until November. But at the farmhouse, it got cold enough to kill the basil and bush beans. So we picked all the rest of the mature peppers, pole beans, and squash, just in case it freezes harder before we get back. We also found a watermelon in the long grass.

Another fun thing I found was a salamander by the front of the house (where I was planting the tulips). I think it's a red-backed salamander. Very cute.

shorter days

The days are getting shorter. The chickens must know this, too, because the new laying hens have stopped laying. I figured that would happen when the days got really short, but not this early in the season. Yesterday was the third day in a row that we got eggs only from our heritage chickens -- and even then, only one each day!

Yesterday, I tried something new -- I let the chickens out of their run. I did this late in the day, just in case they decided to wander (figuring they'd want to go home when it got dark). But they didn't really wander much at all. They stayed near the coop, and near me. They enjoyed finding worms (guess they pretty much cleaned all the worms and bugs out of the run by now), and some of them got the chance to stretch their wings and fly. Caleb and Christina had fun (I think) helping me herd them back into the coop when we heard something moving on the hill behind the coop.

Check out our compost pile pumpkin. (The compost pile is up the hill; pumpkin vines creeped down the hill all summer, on top of the azaleas, leaving only one pumpkin hidden underneath.) I think this is our best pumpkin of the year, and we didn't even plant it, let alone purchase seeds for it. I'm never buying pumpkin seeds again.

more chickens

We picked up the girls' laying hens from the 4H barn Friday night -- put them in the coop after all the hens were asleep, hoping to minimize pecking. When we checked on them Saturday morning, the new birds all had slightly bloody combs. Guess the pecking order is being worked out.

Sunday we discovered that the new laying hens are not really afraid of Petra. She barks and barks at them, and they just stand there looking at her, cocking their heads in that chickeny way. She gets so angry and frustrated that they won't react, and even angrier when they peck her nose.

Barlow (the blue cochin) and Superchick (the mottled java) spend a lot of time "herding" the layers into the cubbies. At one point yesterday, all three of them were packed into one tiny foot-square compartment with Barlow standing guard in front of them. So today, I shut the heritage chickens outside in the run just so the new girls could get to the food and water.

fall harvest

Boy...between school starting and all those veggies coming in, September just flew by.

We got Caleb off to college in Massachusetts, and the rest of us started school here. My goal this year is not to get too bogged down correcting homework to have a life. So far, I think I'm doing well in that regard.

This past month, we have been smoking pork from a pig we bought at the 4H auction. (I think there is a learning curve there...how do you smoke everything thoroughly without it getting all dried out?) We have been trying to clear space at the farm to plant blackberry bushes later this fall or next spring. And, of course, we have been trying to keep up with the harvest of veggies at the farm and in Broomall.

Although the cukes and tomatoes are pretty much done (stupid tomato blight), there's always basil (for pesto!) coming in. Also a few pumpkins, carrots, summer squash...but the best harvests this year have been beans and peppers. I have picked upwards of 13 pounds of green, wax, and purple beans and frozen about half of them. Gave away a bunch, and ate most of the rest raw. Most of us prefer them raw.

Things I have discovered about growing beans:

• bunnies love bean sprouts, so bean plants must be covered with netting or chicken wire.
• it is much easier to see wax and purple beans than green ones on the plants, but green ones taste marginally better.
• pole beans are much cleaner than bush beans when you pick them -- no dirt or slug damage.
• purple beans turn green when you blanch them (actually, I learned this one 20 years ago!)
• blemishes on purple beans are hard to see until after they're blanched.

Things I have discovered about growing peppers:

• purple peppers aren't worth it. the color is interesting, but it's just on the surface, not through-and-through. plus, they tend to be thin walled and bitter.
  
• cherry peppers ripen quickly, so you can start harvesting early on.
• one cherry pepper plant and one jalapeno pepper plant are generally enough hot peppers for a normal family. hot peppers are pretty prolific. plus, pests tend to leave them alone.
  
• pepper plants need to be caged just like tomatoes -- they get pretty tall and the branches get heavy (I learned this one 20 years ago, too!)

Kind of wish I had weighed the peppers as I picked them, too. We got some real beauties. One of my goals for the garden each year is to get enough good peppers to have pepper steak and stuffed peppers at least once during growing season. We did! I actually took pictures...

So a friend of mine has a blog -- www.girlymama.com, a really amazing blog -- I don't know how she does it. She actually gets sponsors and has giveaways. Wow. This month, she's giving away a Paula Deen cookbook (signed!) if you submit a recipe for comfort food. Well, stuffed peppers certainly is a comfort food (to me anyway), so I think I'll just put the recipe in this space and see what comes of it. Who knows? I may not win the cookbook, but someone may actually read this blog someday and decide to make my mom's stuffed peppers...

Mom's Stuffed Peppers

4 large peppers, various colors
1 cup Minute Rice
1 pound lean ground beef
2 T oil
2 eggs
2 tsp salt
1/8 tsp pepper
1 onion, minced
1 16-oz. can tomato sauce

Cut tops off peppers to make a large opening. Remove seeds from peppers and lids. Arrange in a deep pot just large enough to hold them upright. Mix together rice, meat, oil, eggs, salt, pepper, onion, and 1/4 - 1/3 c. tomato sauce. Spoon into peppers loosely. Replace lids and use a toothpick or two to hold the lids in place. Cover (almost) with water and remaining tomato sauce. Cover; bring to boil and then simmer on low for 2 hours. Serves 4.

Can also be assembled in the morning and cooked in a crock pot.

chickens

We have a small chicken coop at our suburban home in Broomall. It currently houses 3 heritage chickens, but we plan to add a couple more soon.

Our daughters have been doing poultry club at the Delaware County 4-H, and this year, we decided to bring their chickens home after the projects were over. The heritage chicken project ended a few weeks ago, so we brought home Julia's chicken (a mottled Java) and two others (a buff orpington and a blue cochin). When the laying hen project ends in October, we will bring home the girls' two laying hens (red sex-linked, whatever that means).

(I think it is very cool that Julia named her chicken Superchick. The other two are named Barlow and Eisley. Get it?)

Anyway, on Sunday, Dana found the first egg. Small, speckled, and brown. It's about time!

the first one

We bought a farmhouse in Berks County, PA, in December 2005. We have about 32 acres -- most of the farm's land was sold to developers, so we are surrounded by suburbia. The house itself is a beautiful, old stone house with 3 fireplaces, two of which work. Someday, we plan to retire there, but for now, it's just a weekend, summer, and holiday getaway. (Albeit a working getaway.)

I wish I had started this blog back in 2005. It would be nice to have had a real-time journal about everything we've been doing. Instead, I'll just fill in the blanks as the need arises (and time permits).

The nutshell version looks like this: we've been planting fruit trees and vegetable and flower gardens, battling deer and bunnies, and laying plans for our future "hobby farm." All this while "living" an hour away, raising 3 teenagers (and one almost-teen), and homeschooling.