The Taste Of Green
I simply love this time of the year when the days are clear, the nights are cool, the maples are blooming, the buds are swelling on the trees, and so many green things – good to eat too – are poking out of the ground, …
Author: sylvie
Growing Babies
Seven weeks old (seeded on January 25), and growing. Transplanted once already and soon again! Those are my super early batch (The main batch was started on Feb22). They are a reliable tasty and prolific cherry tomato for me (Wetsel Red Cherry) and – cross …
On Spinach
A month ago, we were under 2 feet of snow with night temperatures in the single digits. This week we garden in short-sleeve shirts and harvest mache, baby lettuce, just-emerging sorrel, baby arugula, escarole and… spinach – lots and lots of spinach. Finally! The spinach …
A Gross Of Tomatoes
It does roll good off the tongue, doesn’t it? or is it just me?… “a gross of tomatoes”… Except of course, they are not yet tomato plants, just 144 seeded cells with the promise of 144 seedlings. Seeded on Februray 22 (although the labels read …
Seed Starting Madness Starts
Seasonal madness has started. Seed starting madness that is. There is still snow on the ground – although slowly melting, but this is the time of the year to start seeds for earlier crops.
In late January (1/25), I started a few Red Cherry tomatoes, as well as 2 flats of peppers. Four weeks later, Wetsel Red Cherry (2009) has had excellent germination. With true leaves showing, most of the seedlings have been transplanted and moved to the greenhouse 10 days ago. I purposefully did not transplant a few seedlings because I need them to demonstrate transplanting techniques in my upcoming Seed Starting Workshop on Saturday Feb 27. Cherry tomatoes are the easiest thing to eat, freeze and dry. They are simply wonderful in winter green salads. Can’t have too many of them. Every year I start a few plants extra early so we can start eating garden-grown tomatoes in June.
Not surprisingly, the fresher pepper seeds are doing a lot better than the old ones:
The spicy hot peppers have had good germination. They are about to be moved to the greenhouse for transplanting in individual cells: Continue reading Seed Starting Madness Starts
Planning for Tomatoes
We may have two feet of snow on the ground, but the early tomato seedlings have germinated. I do like to pick my first tomatoes in June, so I plant a few seedling in late January. They germinate in early February, and I keep up-potting …
On Relativity
100 feet to clear of snow to the chicken coop cum compound… … or 1/4 mile up an unplowed dirt road and then 1/4 up the hill – plowing as you go, and don’t forget the gates – to bring hay to the cattle? Makes …
On the Value of a Hoophouse
Cost: $100 (mostly recycled materials).Value? priceless.
After a hard day of trampling paths up & down the hill or shoveling the 22″ of snow that have graced us since Friday (or plowing snow for Keith, including the road and the driveway of several neighbors), we have worked quite an appetite. Tonight dinner is homemade pizza (the dough was rising while I was – of course! – shoveling snow; canned tomato sauce from last summer) and a big mix green salad of lettuces, arugula, mache, parcel, frisee endive – freshly harvested at 4:00 pm today. Dessert? Quince fool (canned quince from last fall). We may even try the quince liqueur. That’s probably still too rough though, so we may have to settle for strawberry liqueur instead… sigh…
Like El at FastGrowTheWeeds, I see my pantry as the traditional dry pantry, the freezer and the fresh outdoor pantry that the hoophouse is. Not only do we eat fresh, but the chicken get to have something green too. Rather precious at the moment. And you know, chickweed grow really well in there, really really well…
It’s a good thing we build the with metal arches – PVC would have collapsed – and we put the arches closer than suggested…
I trudged up through the snow to clean it off the hoophouse before the thaw and freeze cycle started. I mostly had to clear by hand. For sure I got exercise today! The garden was blanketed by 20″+ of snow, but inside the hoophouse, it was as beautiful as ever… and smelling so good…
