Spring Is In The Air

Renewal
April, when I heard
Your lyrical low word,
And when upon the hawthorn hedge your first white blossoms stirred,


Something strangely came--
Something I cannot name--
And touched my heart, and cleansed my soul with a reviving flame.



When the yellow gleam
Of your hosts that stream--
Jonquil, buttercup, and crocus--made the world a golden dream,



Something, April, said
To my heart that bled--
Bled with old remembrance--
'Lo! the grief-strewn days are fled!



Sursum corda!
Now,
When blooms the apple-bough,
April, of your pity, let your light rain kiss my brow;



Heal me, if you will;
Bathe my heart until
I am one with your first primrose or the shining daffodil.
 
-Charles Hanson Towne

Springtime is a busy time for any gardener. There is much work to be done, and much beauty to be soaked in. I have most assuredly been busy, trying to eek out garden chores between unwieldy hours at work, and you know, personal life. So, I am behind, as usual. But only, of course, by my own self imposed schedule.

I have pruned all the trees in the back that weren't done by my landlord. My plum tree, cedars, birch, lilac, and ridiculous hazelnut. This left me with piles of branches to deal with. Not to mention, I finally talked to my neighbor about cutting back her walnut tree that hangs over my garden and shades half of it. Hubs and I chopped off what we could reach, increasing the amount of sun the garden will get (yay!).

Lots of walnut to chop up.

Who says brush piles can't be fun?

I started cutting up and stacking all that wood, but its a lot. After some research, I decided to do a couple Hugelkultur beds in the garden to use some of it up. If you not familiar with Hugelkulture, you can read about it here, or just google it.

Hugelkulture FTW!

I finally got the chickens fenced in. I let them out to graze, but I have to say, I am really loving not having chicken poo on my patio. They yelled at me for days, but have finally settled down. They are still mad at me though. We have plans to build a coop really soon, then, I will likely get a few more chickens.

These girls are not pleased!

Marla says, "You Madam, are a jerk!"

My starts are just about ready to plant out, and I have quite a few things to direct sow. I have big plans over the next few weeks. Until then, Happy Spring!

Back To Basics

You do not have to be good. You do not have to walk on your knees for a hundred miles through the desert, repenting. You only have to let the soft animal of your body love what it loves. Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine. Meanwhile the world goes on.

-Mary Oliver

So, I didn’t do so good at keeping up the blog. However, you will be happy to know that nothing happened over the fall and winter that bears mentioning.  I became caught up in the work flow of life that does not lend itself to free time. I did begin a poppy seed head family of small dolls, but quickly abandoned them, when hours needed to be traded for money. All thoughts turned away from creation and instead focused on getting through. 

I didn’t enjoy the holidays this year. Halloween and Christmas where dismal. Thanksgiving was a lovely bright spot, as we visited family in Seattle and spent a couple days exploring downtown from our airbnb.com rental (a fantastic service btw). I got swine flu on christmas eve and was sick for a solid month. During that sickness however, my oldest son came to visit, and that was a supremely magical time. 

For any of you that followed the blog last summer and were following totals, I failed. I set out to harvest 500 lbs of food from my property. I did not make it. But, I came REALLY close. Some particular soul told me I was cheating since the majority of the food came from my fruit trees that were already here when I moved in. Considering that I pruned and cared for those trees, and hand harvested all the fruit, I am counting them. I harvested a total of 442 lbs of food last summer, just 58 lbs short of my goal. 192 lbs of that was what I planted. Here are my totals:

10 lbs cherries

10 lbs beans

1 lb  strawberries

9.5 lbs  carrots

17 lbs onions

4 lbs rainbow chard

12 lbs lemon cucumber

62 lbs plums

1 lbs Blackberries

12 lbs Victoria plums

145 lbs apples

3.5 lbs Corni De Toro peppers

4 lbs Poblano peppers

32 lbs tomatillos

10 lbs ground cherries

16 lbs potatoes

72 lbs tomatoes

31 lbs pears

-FAILURES-

Potato Buckets- Apparently they were serious when they said use at least a 5 gallon bucket. While I did grow 4x my seed potatoes, I should have been able to grow 40 lbs of each type instead of around 4 lbs of each type. My free 3.5 gallon buckets just didn’t have enough space. 

I will be trying again this year, but this time I will have a proper tower. When I harvested my yukon golds, they got washed, chopped, and thrown right in a pan. They made a most heavenly breakfast, the likes of which I lustily dream about. I can’t say enough good things about growing your own potatoes. 

Buried herb buckets- In theory, this should have worked well. In my over zealous enthusiasm, I started the herbs too soon. There may have been a drainage issue, and I should have used better amended soil. So, I did not get to play around with the Valerian, or Meadowsweet. Bummer. 

This year, I think I am going to build an herb box right outside my front door. If you cook, growing herbs is a no brainer. It will save you tons of money.

Garden planning- I am positive that other people have made this mistake, but I feel fairly silly that I planned my garden layout in early spring . I notated shade zones and hours of sunlight, but didn’t take into account all the leaves that would be on the trees, nor the different position of the sun come summer. What that means is I actually had a lot less usable space than I had originally anticipated.  I utilized the extra shade to grow greens and lettuces, but the chickens devoured them every damn time they found a way in, and I got NONE. No kale, no spinach, no romaine, no baby greens salad mix. Only chard, cause they don’t like it. Ha! Also, the side of the house and front bed definitely should have been better amended, nothing grew that well there.

This year I will be properly amending all the beds first thing. I am planning on building a couple boxes to utilize, and possibly a couple of smaller moveable ones on wheels, so they can move in and out of the sun. 

Irrigation- I hand watered all season last year. That is a huge time sucker and I felt that sometimes I didn’t water enough. 

This year, I am going to try to come up with some budget irrigation ideas and build them into all areas. 

-Successes-

It was all a success! I learned so much last year, by simply doing and experimenting. I loved every minute that I spent in the garden and can’t wait to do it again this year.  Here is my current working list of things I will be growing:

Chinese red noodle bean
Atomic red carrot
Amarillo yellow carrot
Lemon cucumber
Parisan Pickling cucumber
Boston pickling cucumber
Lacinto kale
blue de solaise leek
Parris island cos melon
Flashy butter oak lettuce
Rich sweetness lettuce
Oregon sugar pod peas
Japanese minowase daikon radish
Pink beauty radish
Amsterdam prickly spinach
Gray zucchini
Purple tomatillo
Dad’s sunset orange tomato
Black icicle tomato
Purple bumblebee cherry tomato

Cilantro
emily basil
chives
dill
parsley
german chamomile
wild thyme
valerian
vietnamese mint
mammoth sunflower

Other goals for this year

Build a chicken coop with deep litter method, and get another chicken or two
Learn how to make soap
Brew beer and try making cider again

Explore shrubs, ratafias, and fruit wine

Paint more

Learn to play guitar

So friends, lots in store. Stay tuned.  

Victoria Plum Vanilla Jam

Beautiful Victorias!

Victoria Plum Vanilla Jam

This makes a beautiful golden jam that is hard to resist.

10 cups of Victoria plums, washed, pitted, and chopped

2 cups of vanilla sugar

1 cup of brown sugar

1 teaspoon of vanilla extract

1 lemon, juiced

1 Tablespoon of butter (if desired)

Add all ingredients to heavy bottomed pot and stir to combine. Bring to a boil over medium heat, removing any foam. Cook 15 minutes, remove from heat, allow to cool. Reheat and cook another 15 minutes. Repeat until you reach desired thickness. If you want it smoother, hit it with a stick blender. Ladle into hot jars with 1/2 headspace, and process 10 minutes. Makes 5 pints

In the works!

Plumageddon!

Too much of a good thing can be wonderful.
-Mae West 

 Plumageddon has come! I have a medium sized italian plum tree that was FULL of fruit.  When all was said and done, I harvested 62 lbs of plums off of it.  Unfortunately, these are not freestone, and I don't have a pitter (I will be getting one before next season), so dear readers, I processed them all by hand.  My hands and fingernails were stained for days, but it was worth it. They turn into delicious things.

About a third of said plums

Processing by hand sucks

The first thing I made was Plum BBQ Sauce. It was a perfect combination of flavors, hitting your taste buds in waves. Beginning with sweetness, then moving right on into just the right amount of tartness. As soon as the tartness starts to fade, you feel the heat rise, and ride out the spice until you take another bite and start again. After using quite a bit of it, I canned the remainder, 4 pints.

Next began the string of jams and a butter. We had been hitting up our local blueberry U-Pick pretty hard, and had quite a stock of those suckers, so, you will see them in a lot of these recipes. Plus, its just an all around awesome flavor combination, and makes a beautiful jam.

Can you smell it?

This came to pass in Plum Blueberry Jam, Plum Blueberry Butter, and Plum Blueberry Vanilla Jam. To be clear, these plums can easily stand alone, like in this Plum Ginger Vanilla Jam.  Or, they can be paired with other fruit like this Plum Apple Ginger Jam. Sometimes you get volunteer plums from your neighbors tree that overhang your yard, and get to try Victoria Plum Vanilla Jam.

A few jars 

After all of that, I still have about three 1 gallon ziplocks full of processed plums in my freezer.  Next round, baked goods, and possibly an attempt at plum wine.

Food totals: 213.5 lbs since last post

10 lbs cherries

5 lbs beans

1 lb 2 oz strawberries

9.5 lbs  carrots

17 lbs onions

1.5 lbs rainbow chard

5 lbs lemon cucumber

62 lbs plums

.5 lbs Blackberries

12 lbs Victoria plums

145 lbs apples

.25 lbs Corni De Toro peppers

.5 lbs Poblano peppers

4 lbs tomatillos

2 lbs ground cherries

 

224.75 lbs to goal

Plum Apple Ginger Jam

Plum Apple Ginger Jam

6 cups of plums, washed, pitted, and chopped

4 cups of apples, peeled, cored, chopped

1 inch piece of ginger, peeled and diced

1 cup sugar

2 cup of brown sugar

1 lemon, juiced

1 Tablespoon of butter (if desired)

Add all ingredients to heavy bottomed pot and stir to combine. Bring to a boil over medium heat, removing any foam. Cook 15 minutes, remove from heat, allow to cool. Reheat and cook another 15 minutes. Repeat until you reach desired thickness. If you want it smoother, hit it with a stick blender. Ladle into hot jars with 1/2 headspace, and process 10 minutes. Makes 5 pints

Plum Ginger Vanilla Jam

Tarty goodness!

Plum Ginger Vanilla Jam

This is a tart jam, please ignore if the tang is not your friend.

10 cups of plums, washed, pitted, and chopped
1 inch piece of ginger, peeled and diced
2 cups of vanilla sugar
1 cup of brown sugar
1 teaspoon of vanilla extract
1 lemon, juiced
2 teaspoons lemon zest
1 Tablespoon of butter (if desired)

Add all ingredients to heavy bottomed pot and stir to combine. Bring to a boil over medium heat, removing any foam. Cook 15 minutes, remove from heat, allow to cool. Reheat and cook another 15 minutes. Repeat until you reach desired thickness. If you want it smoother, hit it with a stick blender. Ladle into hot jars with 1/2 headspace, and process 10 minutes. Makes 5 pints

Plum Blueberry Vanilla Jam

Plums and Blueberries, an awesome combo!

Plum Blueberry Vanilla Jam



This is a heavenly jam, and, possibly my favorite. It is made extra fabulous by the addition of Vanilla sugar.  Make this sugar by adding a whole or already scraped vanilla bean pod to sugar, I use quart jars. Let sit for several months for best vanilla flavor. Refill when empty (use same pod) and start again.

6 cups Plums, washed, pitted, chopped
4 cups Blueberries, cleaned
2 cups Vanilla sugar
1 cup Brown sugar
1 teaspoon Vanilla Extract
Juice of 1 lemon
1 Tablespoon of Butter (if desired)

Add all ingredients to heavy bottomed pot and stir to combine. Bring to a boil over medium heat, removing any foam. Cook 15 minutes, remove from heat, allow to cool. Reheat and cook another 15 minutes. Repeat until you reach desired thickness. If you want it smoother, hit it with a stick blender. Ladle into hot jars with 1/2 headspace, and process 10 minutes. Makes 5 pints