Vegetable Gardens

Before I pack up the laptop for tomorrow's trip, I must show you the new guardian of the garden. The sparrows were taking their toll on the greens this morning, so something had to be done! One broomstick, a nail and a piece of 1"x2", an old shirt, my sweat pants, a panty hose head with Mr. Granny's cap...................Granny Junior!Can you see her standing out there?Otto and Annie went crazy when they saw her! Otto was pretty brave, but Annie did her barking from the protection of the patio. Otto wouldn't stop barking at her, but see how fast that tail is wagging, LOL! I can only hope the birds are as scared of her as Annie is.The new car (it has 14 miles on the odometer already) is packed and ready to go. The alarm is set for 5:00 a.m. Granddaughter Alicia is coming over to dog sit with "the kids". I'm taking the laptop, so if I get bored with all the down time I can always blog, or at least keep up with reading your blogs. I'm ready for some fun!

5/19 - Fallen Flowers:We got hit with yet another windstorm yesterday, and it knocked down some of my lilies. Just as they were in full bloom. I went out and put a couple of screw eyes in the fence, then tied them up as much as I could. Not an easy job with all the flowers and plants around them, plus I could have used a few more hands. Luckily the entire clump was already tied up, or they would have all fallen flat.Fallen lilies, before & after tying.This morning I was giving myself a permanent when I noticed the fallen lilies, so I grabbed the camera and went out to get a photo while the sun was hitting them. As I came back in, Mr. Granny said "You didn't go out looking like that, did you?" "Of course", I replied. "OMG!" says he. Big deal. So I had my hair up in perm curlers, with a plastic grocery bag over the top of my head. And I was wearing tennis shoes, socks and a shortie bathrobe. What's wrong with that?5/20 - Harvest Monday: Visit Daphne's Dandelions to see what others have harvested!I've finally been picking something besides lettuce and spinach....strawberries! They're awfully small, but plentiful, and a whole month earlier than usual. Mr. Granny and I have enjoyed fresh strawberries with whipped cream (for him), and yogurt (for me), as well as our first strawberry shortcake of the season.Salads have been plentiful. I've been eating two large salads a day, a total of 8-9 ounces of lettuce. I barely get caught up with what's in the refrigerator, then it's time to pick again. so what did I do? I planted more lettuce, of course! I'm really going to work at keeping it coming through the summer months. Keeping up with the spinach is no problem at all, since we like it cooked as well as in the salads. If I find myself with a glut, I just steam it, and it cooks down to nearly nothing. 5/16 - 9.1 ounces (Not shown, a first picking of 2.8 ounces)5/18 - 1 pound 4 ouncesThe spinach and secondary lettuce bed needs to be harvested.19.4 ounces of spinach...........into the pot.Reduces to just enough for two meals. Some of the lettuces are almost too pretty to pick, but pick I must.Into the basket with the green lettuces. All together there were 27.4 ounces, way too much for us to eat right away, so I gave it the "big batch lettuce" treatment! I washed it well, then put the wet leaves into a clean pillowcase. I handed Mr. Granny the camera, and I headed for the back yard. Swing that lettuce, round and round, up and down!!!Then wrap it up in the now damp pillowcase, and store it in the fridge. It should be nice and crisp when I'm ready to use it at the end of the week.This week's harvest:Lettuce: 27.4 ouncesRadishes: so few, I didn't even weigh themSpinach: 19.4 ouncesStrawberries: 31.9 ouncesTotal this week: 78.7 ounces ( 4.9 pounds)Total to date: 12.09 pounds5/20 - Goodbye (but I'll be baaaaack):Tomorrow morning, before sunrise, I'm going to jump into my new car and head for this....Once I arrive, I'm going to spend a lot of time relaxing here....And when I'm not relaxing, I'll be eating here....One of the best hotel buffets ever, dieting not allowed :-)See ya next weekend.

The big spinach harvest was early last week (above is only half). Four pounds of winter spinach was picked, washed, blanched, and frozen. I still have the spring spinach to go. I'm contemplating giving lots of it away. I filled my harvest basket with greens for salads. I had the first radishes of the season. I also picked some kale blossoms. Kale blossoms have been a mainstay vegetable this last week. I seem not to be able to keep up with them. But their season is really short. I picked the first of the bok choy. I found the purple kind (on the left) not quite as good as the green kind. It is just slightly more bitter and also a bit tougher. Not much. They are pretty close. But enough so that I probably won't grow it again as it also grows more slowly. I forgot to take photos of the kale harvest. But I chopped the last of the kale down to make way for beans. I blanched and froze all two pounds of it. I actually find frozen kale as good as fresh. I never eat it raw so having it precooked saves time. I was going to a evening around the firepit with some friends. I gave our hostess some freshly picked spring spinach. So the giving away of the spinach has started. Last year I just preserved all the spring spinach too. And then I didn't need to preserve any chard. But I figure this year I ought to mix it up and freeze both. I have a whole bed of spinach. I'll work on eating it this week, but it won't last long as the weather warms up and there is just so much of it. A nice big basket of oregano. I put some in a quart jar to make flavored vinegar, but still got a cup of dried oregano from the rest. Alliums 0.13lbsGreens 7.73 lbsGreens Asian 2.69 lbsHerbs 0.44 lbsRadish 0.37 lbsWeekly Tally 11.37 lbsYearly Tally 18.15 lbs, -$317.43 Harvest Monday is a day to show off your harvests, how you are saving your harvest, or how you are using your harvest. If you have a harvest you want to show off, add your name and link to Mr Linky below.

PLANTING UP May is a crazy month in the garden, there is so much planting up to be done and regular garden maintenance needs to be kept up with as well.    I am running a little later with planting out a few items this year, but all-in-all I am managing to get things done and am closing in on the finish line of the spring planted crops.    I had a road trip to Spokane over the prior weekend to see my family and did not get back until Sunday night.    I took the following Monday (13th) off from work as well as the actual days I was traveling, so that I could have a day to decompress and catch up in the garden before returning to work.    It was a productive and truly relaxing day.    I started it off by getting the trellis netting hung on the vertical support structures for the snap peas.    This was on my “to do” list and it was good to get it done.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                           As you can see from this picture, our many rhododendron trees around the property are in full bloom right now and are simply gorgeous to look at.    The snap peas are growing in this bed under the support structures, but the snap peas and the spinach (also in this bed) appear to be being eaten by birds this spring.    The peas behind the lettuce in this bed are growing without pest problems and are twice the size of the rest of the planting – apparently the lettuce is keeping the birds from finding them.    The rest of the peas are not so lucky.    The big shelling pea patch is growing really beautifully in another location and without any bird damage because the entire bed is covered with bird netting.    I just hope enough of the snap peas survive to provide us with sufficient peas for our regular fresh eating needs.    I am writing off the spring planting of spinach though because they are so stunted from the bird nibbling and it is so late in the season that they have no chance of rebounding and growing before they would bolt to seed anyways.    I need to come up with something else to plant in that bed area so the space does not go to waste.                                    

Friday morning I spent watering the garden. I didn't know really what to do with my rock wall garden. I didn't have time to hold the hose on them and my soaker hoses hadn't come. So I put on the oscillating sprinkler on its narrowest setting and moved it down the row. Then that afternoon, wouldn't you know it, the first of the soaker hoses came. I put it in and it wasn't quite long enough. I ordered one 75' hose(the one the came) and one 50' one. Since I knew it was too short I went back online and canceled the 50' one and ordered another 75' one. I think they may overlap just a touch, but otherwise I'd be watering a 10' section by hand when we don't get rain. I'll also bring the hose out to the end of the bed more which will use up a little bit more length. Then it was on to my supports. I got the fava beans supported. I only put the first layer of string up. When they get past that rung I'll do the top. Saturday I only did some picking in the morning. I picked what was still good in the kale patch as I needed to rip it out. It all got frozen. Then I went hiking instead of gardening for the rest of the day. It was a beautiful day. I was so exhausted when I got back I couldn't bring myself to go out to do anything. Well I did pick a bit of spinach to bring to a friend's house in the evening, but nothing else. Today was a morning work day. I had to rip out what was left of the kale plants. And put up the trellis for the beans (it still needs some twine lines for the beans to climb). It is the start of the warm weather planting season. I'm going to be planting some beans this week. Putting up a trellis is hard work. And it is very hard on the hands as the twine I use to tie the poles together really rips them up. But I got this double sided bean trellis up. I've got one more to build in the future. But that will be later. When I was coming in I noticed the lovely oregano. It really needed to be picked and dehydrated. So out came the scissors. The house smells wonderful now. I had so much that I decided to make some Italian seasonings vinegar. I'll put other herbs in the jar later, but for now it is just oregano covered by cider vinegar. Tomorrow I ought to pick the thyme.

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.....we bought today.The dealer didn't have this color in stock, but he located one nearby so we take delivery on Monday. There's only one problem. Mr. Granny isn't going to let me haul manure in it.We had been talking new car for some time. Mainly due to Consumer Reports, we had narrowed our choices down to a Subaru Impreza Premium, Hyundai Elantra GLS, Mazda3 i Touring or a Chevrolet Cruz Eco. We haven't been extremely happy with our present Chevy Malibu, and the Cruz had a so-so rating for fuel economy, so we scratched it off the list and headed for the Subaru/Mazda dealer. We wandered around the lot, looking at the various new cars, while two salesmen watched us out the window but never made a move to come out to help us, so we decided to head for the Hyundai dealer's instead. We ended up buying the Hyundai Elantra GLS on the spot, so Subaru/Mazda may have lost a sale today.What was so funny, and made me lean toward the Hyundai, besides the best warranty of the bunch, happened as I was loading my groceries into the trunk at the store yesterday. A lady parked next to me in her 2013 Hyundai, the Indigo Night color sparkling in the sunshine. As she got out of her car, I approached her and asked how she liked it. She loves her Elantra! From the way it rides, to the way it drives, to the heated seats......she just couldn't have been happier with her automobile!I had originally wanted, actually had my heart set on, red. Unfortunately, red only comes with tan upholstery (it's more camel colored than tan), and we didn't care for it at all. We much preferred the black or gray interior. Indigo Night comes with dark gray, so blue won out over red.Anyway, we will pick up our new car at the dealer's on Monday, and we're heading out of town on a short vacation on Tuesday, so it will get a good highway tryout.

No activity on this blog because there’s been so little movement on the allotment. It’s still so very cold. My roses, blooming at the end of May in a good year, are barely out of winter dormancy. Chestnut trees, usually in full flower on May 1st, have only just produced their first white candles. I had to re-sow my cauliflowers last night. The first batch, sown in early April, were stunted and hopeless. It’s just too bloody cold for anything to grow properly. The worst of it is that the weather pattern is beginning to look depressingly like last year’s: A low jetstream ‘trapped’ over the UK bringing endless low pressure weather systems from the northern Atlantic. I really don’t think I can face a fourth CRAP summer in a row. Related PostsSpring cancelled (2)OK, enough rain already (8)Snitch on your neighbour… not (7)Emerging lilies (7)Snow update: No update (10)Zemanta

You would think it would only be things in the garden, but nope. My order for glass jars showed up. Above is a non-quilted jelly jar. I'm not a fan of the quilted kind so I decided I needed more and would order them online. Now I have nice smooth jars with places to put on a label if I want to. Or I can forgo the label as I can actually see what is inside. I got a case (12 jars) of both the 8oz size and the 4oz size. I hope they hold up as well as the quilted jelly jars do. Canning trivia fact: Ball put out a line of blue jars this year as a 100th anniversary tribute to to its original jars which were blue. I'm staying away from them. Blue isn't a color I want to see my food through. I prefer the original coloring. Original color of the food that is not of the jars. I also learned that these bottles are called woozy bottles. Well these are 5oz wide mouth woozy bottles. Anyone have a clue as to why they are called a woozy bottle? I bought them so I could make some infused vinegars as gifts. It is just about herb season around here. So this morning I was thinking about my bottles and what I would fill them with. I needed to clean the bathroom, but somehow that didn't get done in the morning. I cleaned out my pantry instead. I got rid of the failed experiments from last year, so I can have new experiments in food this year. It is always fun to make new things. Do you see that middle shelf in the above photo? Well that is two jars of jam (one peach/blueberry and one plum) and three jars of strawberry syrup. I need more jam on my shelf. I really don't eat that much jam, but the strawberry jam was SO good. I need more. My favorite use for it is to make thumbprint cookies. Pure butter shortbread with a drop of jam in the middle. Just heaven. And it is almost strawberry season. The lower part of my pantry has some pickled onions, beans, sweet potatoes, and applesauce. And just a few jars of tomato sauce left. I gave most of it away when I found I couldn't eat tomatoes anymore, but I'm going to make chili and pizza sauce for my husband until it runs out. Cleaning the pantry is so much more fun than cleaning the bathroom. I get to dream about all the things that might get put in here over the year.

Two weeks makes a big difference in the garden. May 2..........................................................May 16May 2..........................................................May 16 May 2..........................................................May 16May 2..........................................................May 16