Off to a Slow Start

I'm having a really difficult time getting the garden started this year. On the days when it is not raining, I have no energy or am out of town or have appointments or errands to run.

When I'm ready to garden...it rains. Or the ground is still too wet from the previous rain to do anything with.

The 1/3 of the garden that I planted seems sort of, well, sparse. As of June 2, the lettuce was coming up pretty well, so I think I'll have plenty of that to eat. The spinach wasn't doing as well, but the radishes (not pictured) are flourishing. I'll have radishes very soon. Beets (also not pictured), I'm not too sure about yet.

I have a lot of volunteer tomato plants in this section of the garden (which is where the 40+ plants I had last year lived), and I suspect they'll bear pretty well this year, too. I've decided to let them live in this part of the garden--a little "chaos gardening," if you will. A garden shouldn't be too neat; let Mother Nature have a bit of her way! (Maybe she'll be kind to the neater parts if she feels appeased by the chaos.)

Another 1/3 of the garden is ready for planting...if the rain will stop. The final 1/3 of the garden still needs to be tilled, but I think our tiller died. We have some checking to do before we know for sure.

Today, June 8, I picked up our weekly CSA share, which included three heads of lettuce, one bunch of beets, one bunch of garlic scapes, one head of broccoli, one healthy bunch of cilantro, and a few sugar snap peas. We still have all the greens left over from last week's pickup, so we are up to our ears in greens!

As a result, we ate our very first fresh salads of the season tonight for dinner--a mixture of lettuce, beet greens, and arugula from last week's CSA pickup, along with some radish slices, broccoli pieces, and some crumbled feta cheese, topped off with an asiago-peppercorn dressing.

One or more of the beets will end up combined with carrots and apples as juice, and the rest will get cooked and diced for salads or snacking. The broccoli is likely for snacking (not quite enough yet to cook f or two people for dinner), as are the sugar snap peas. The cilantro is currently in the dehydrator; the dill it replaces is now in jars, ready to be used on seafood or perhaps in some garlic-cheese biscuits.

I am really enjoying the CSA. We're eating foods we wouldn't have otherwise tried (or even thought to try), and I'm learning a lot about them. Each week, Henry's sister, Terra, sends out an e-mail that tells us what foods we are likely to be getting, provides us with some background on the more unusual foods, and serves up recipes as suggestions for how to use the produce. I wouldn't have even thought to eat beet leaves--I've always dumped them into the compost pile. Now the compost worms only get the stems; we eat the roots and the leaves! I'm looking forward to experimenting with foods a lot more this summer.

Now, if I can only get my own garden moving...

I Bet My Thistle Can Beat Up Your Thistle

I mentioned in a previous post that I had tilled up 2/3 of the garden, but had not yet gotten to the final third. Thistle (and dill--more on that later) has taken over that untilled 1/3 and the largest thistle plant is five feet tall!

Yes, I know, I should have pulled it up before now, but it's been rainy. That's my story, and I'm sticking to it! Hubby tried to weed wack it, but to no avail--the trunk of the thistle is nearly as strong as a tree trunk! We had to switch to a hoe and shovel, and we chopped them down this evening. The roots are still in the ground, but I'll be tilling soon, which will chop the roots into worm food.

Behind the thistle was a nice area of dill. Last year, I had planted dill too close to the cucumbers, and the cucumber leaves ended up overgrowing the dill. I got a little bit of dill last year, but not much; I had to purchase most of my dill from the local farmer's market. But apparently the dill went to seed, overshadowed though it was, because I have a ton of volunteer dill! I harvested a bunch a week or so ago and let it dry out in the refrigerator (it's finishing the drying process in the dehydrator as I write this post) and tonight, harvested the lovely bunch of dill you see in the picture!

The rest of the volunteer dill will be tilled under, food for the worms. I want to plant my herbs in a more permanent place where they can seed themselves each year. I haven't figured out where that will be, exactly. But I'll let you know when I figure it out!

Everything's Coming up Lettuce!

Well, not everything is lettuce. The picture to the left is of radishes. But the lettuce, peas, beets, and spinach are also coming up!

It's funny how anxious I feel after I've planted seeds, checking each day until I finally see the seedlings poking their tiny heads through the soil. In many cases, it's difficult to tell whether the slight bit of green I see is the actual plant or weeds growing in the recently tilled soil. Now that the early crops are planted, it's time to turn my attention to some of the other planting that needs to be done.

For instance, it's time to plant the seedling tomatoes--the Sun Sweet and Super Sweet cherry-size tomatoes, the Big Beef, and the Best Boy tomatoes from the local community college's horticulture program.

I also have a lot of other seeds to plant and seedlings to grow; hopefully we'll get some dry weather soon so I can do that!

Meanwhile, I will just have to be content with harvesting the runaway mint that lives in our yard and the volunteer dill that is coming up in the part of the garden I have not yet tilled.

Purple Is Not Just for Barney

I promise--I did not Photoshop this picture to get the purple hue you see here. This head of cauliflower is truly purple.

It was the last head of purple cauliflower the farmer had at today's farmer's market in downtown Bloomington. I try to get to the farmer's market every Saturday morning to pick up organic meats, produce, and herbs. I couldn't believe how beautiful this cauliflower was, and decided to try it.

The coloring comes from anthocyanins, phytochemicals responsible for the purplish color in cabbage, leaves, and other vegetation; this cauliflower variety is richer in antioxidants than its white counterpart. The color is a little off-putting, but the farmer assured me that it takes just like "regular" cauliflower. I will cook it up tomorrow and then let you know what I discover.

In addition to the cauliflower, I purchased a 5-lb. bag of sweet walla walla onions, more green and chocolate beauty peppers, some green onions, radicchio, red-leaf lettuce, dill, cilantro, and chicken drumsticks--all chemical-free. I also picked up a 3-lb bag of hard red winter wheat berries. I had no idea what to do with them, but the farmer said I could grind them to make my own wheat (although I do not yet have a flour mill, although I'm looking for a reasonably priced one) or could soak, cook, and eat them like hot cereal. I found a couple of recipes online that use red winter wheat berries, so I will soon give those a try.

My goal with farmer's market food is not only to eat fresh healthier, chemical-free produce now, but I've started freezing the produce so I'll have almost-fresh, healthier, chemical-free produce over the winter. Today I managed to chop and freeze the green onions (about 1 1/2 cups, separated into 1/2-cup packages) and green and chocolate beauty peppers (about 5 cups total, separated into 1/2-cup packages). I also baked two loaves of zucchini bread (which won't make it to the freezer) and am in the process of shredding some more zucchini and also chopping some zucchini for winter soups. The cucumbers I'll throw in the refrigerator for future bread-and-butter pickles and perhaps even freezer dill pickles (I just found a recipe).

Tomorrow I'll tackle chopping the walla walla onions. I'm not sure how powerful they'll be--today's green onions were powerful enough to get my eyes burning and tearing--but I'll manage somehow. Come winter, it will be a delight not to have to chop any onions--just open the Ziploc bag and pour!

The One That Got Away (from Me)

Another day, another harvest. Only six zucchini yesterday (although the one in the middle is probably worth three regular-sized zucchini). I had one small sun sugar tomato (which I promptly ate after taking this photograph). The largest zucchini in this harvest is really bigger than I should let them get (it got away from me), but it will actually be perfect for my stuffed zucchini recipe! I'm also going to try a recipe I found for zucchini-pineapple bread. It sounds yummy.

With the cooler weather we had, the growing had slowed, but once the weather snapped back to hot and humid, the tomatoes grew like wildfire. I have tons of sun sugars pulling down the branches of tomato plants that are nearly as tall as I am (5' 6"), and clusters of Beefsteak tomatoes loading down another couple of plants (see picture). The heirloom tomatoes haven't blossomed yet, but they've grown so much, they look like they will bust out into blossoms any time now.

The okra is up and continues to grow, but I won't see okra for probably close to a month. The plants are still very small. The sunflower plants are growing, as are the cilantro and dill, but there's a problem--the cucumbers are taking over the far end of the garden. I put in a couple of edging fences to hold back the cucumbers, but in just a few days, they have grown over the fence and are once again smothering the dill and encroaching upon the few cilantro plants that have come up!

What I am very excited about is that the cucumbers are now blossoming! It shouldn't be long before I will be overrun with cukes and trying to keep ahead of them. I can almost taste those freezer bread-and-butter pickles now!

Mom Always Said "A Watched Pot Never Boils"

Sometimes daily, sometimes every second or third day, you will find me out in the garden, camera strapped around my neck, looking for blossoms, bugs, and produce. So far, the sun sugar tomato plants have produced one very small round of tomatoes (but O. M. G. when they produce the next round, it will be an explosion of fruit); the zucchini have been giving nonstop now for over a week. In fact, today I harvested 9 more zucchini, many of which are destined for a zucchini chocolate sheet cake. The picture shows one of my cats, Dakota, checking out the zucchini to see if it is kitty-worthy. (Yes, Dad, I will wash off the kitty hair before cooking with it.)

But I am ever-so-anxious for the rest of the garden to bring on the food! My beans are blossoming and vining and just beginning to produce some beans (as evidenced by the picture), but they have a lot more work to do! Plus, while I love zucchini and have lots of recipes to fix it many different ways, it would be nice to have some variety in my garden diet...some rich, juicy tomatoes, a crisp cucumber, a little cilantro to spice up a salad or some salsa.

But despite my whining, the plants are doing very well. The cucumbers look absolutely amazing. I do wonder, however, WTH I was thinking when I planted the dill in the very next row. I am going to have to put some fencing or something between the cukes and dill or move the dill so it won't be literally overshadowed (and killed) by the cukes. Only about three dill plants took hold, so I'd really like to keep them growing!

The beans are vining and blossoming nicely, including the ones that I planted too close to the zucchini. The onions and shallots look pretty good, too, although only a few shallots actually came up. I'll probably end up simply using those for seed shallots next year. But the onion greenery is fantastic, and I can see a thickening of the stalk at the bottom, which hints to me of a decent size bulb growing.

I didn't think much about companion planting this year, so eager was I to get the plants into the ground. Apparently, beans and onions do not companion well. I'm not certain what this will mean for bean production or flavor...I'll have to do a bit more research. But even though I haven't gotten much produce out of my garden yet, I have high hopes that I will soon be eating more of a variety of food from my garden. And I suspect that once the tomato fruit begins to ripen--there is already a LOT of fruit on each plant--I will be complaining that I can't keep up with the variety.

Rules for Mulching with Grass Clippings

It's 80 degrees out with no breeze and an ungodly percentage of humidity that only the Midwest seems inclined to produce. It rained just a little sometime this morning, so I thought maybe I could get some planting done before the next rain, which could be any minute now.

As flies, gnats, and other buzzing creatures swarmed around me, I began to suspect that this was not the best time to plant.

However, I'm seriously behind in my planting, so forward, hoe! A planting I did go. I planted a row of Old Mother Stallard soup beans, and decided I have planted way too many beans. We will have to keep windows cracked this winter to dispose of the excess methane produced by so many beans as it is. I skipped the Hutterite and October beans, which was a good thing, because these poor seedlings have been bound up so long in their little peat pots that they are near death. The cuke seedlings didn't make it, either, so I planted cuke seeds today straight into the garden. I took the two boxwood basil plants that have been on the verge of dying in their pot as well and planted those, and threw in a row of Mammoth dill seeds next to the cucumbers. I mulched everything and then, arms flailing at the bugs, I marched quickly into the house to shower.

As I was planting and fighting off a determined swarm of flying annoyances, a couple of thoughts occurred to me that I would like to share with you so you may learn from my experience.

1. Do not leave grass clippings in a wheelbarrow in the rain. They will smell like cow dung and attract flies. Big, nasty, annoying flies that scare the crap out of you when they buzz your head.
2. If you despise spiders, it is best to use FRESH grass clippings, not the clippings that have been sitting in the burn pile, mildewing in the rain. Apparently spiders really dig these kind of clippings.

Once I have cooled off and rested, I will plant some tomato seedlings to plant in a couple of days. Provided the rain stops long enough.