Today's Harvest

The garden is giving us ever more food each day. Today we were able to pick enough greens for a very large salad for dinner tonight. It is so amazing to be able to simply go out to the backyard and find something wonderful.

Dinner yesterday was a great stir fry using all my Asian vegetables...too bad I didn't think to take pictures for you all to see. Kim

Mother's Day

Things have been very busy in the garden the past few days. The kids came over as a gift to help move a 6 yard dump truck full of compost to some new raised beds. I added 2 beds of 3'x8'. One bed is for raspberries and the other is for lignon berries and blueberries. A 4'x8' tiered strawberry bed was added along with 2 beds of 4'x8' for trellised plants and tomatoes.



Everyone helped including my 4 year old granddaughter and garden girl, Jordan. It is amazing how much enthusiasm she has for gardening! She helped move the entire pile of compost to the new beds. As a matter of fact if we tried to take a break, she would tell us we are not tired yet LOL. Here she is with both her daddy and grandpa.


Once the garden beds were filled, she just had to start planting. You must know that she is "a big girl" and "I can do it all by myself". Here she is planting the beans that will grow between the tomato plants. I heard tomatoes love the nitrogen that the beans help fix and will grow stronger and larger.

Things are beginning to grow and green up well and hopefully the weather will stay warm enough to have things planted over the next couple weeks. I'll update again soon so please come back to My Little Corner of the World. Kim

Time for an update

Sorry to have been gone for so long but as you may have read my husband is very ill. Between work and taking him to numerous doctor's appointments, I have very little time left. What time I do have, I have been putting in new raised beds and starting the summer crops. The plants in the hoop house are growing like crazy and I am able to get large dinner salads daily from it. I also planted lots of Asian vegetables which are now able to be harvested for stir fry twice a week.

Today I tilled under the large raised bed, moved some some soil from another bed into one of the new ones and borrowed a trailer to pick up some compost this weekend to fill the new beds. I am already tired but now have to get ready to work this evening. I'll post pictures soon so you can all see the progress...thanks for stopping by, Kim.

Geraniums

Geraniums are one of the simplest flowers to propagate. Today I took several cuttings from 3 geraniums I am overwintering so I will have enough to plant out this spring. I take off about 2/3 of the mother plant which still has leaves of mass to grow into healthy, beautiful plants. The cuttings are then stripped of all but 2-3 small leaves, dipped into rooting hormone, and placed into damp medium. I find that the roots will be stronger with this method. Another method of propagating geraniums is to place cuttings into a vase of water. No matter which method you choose, you will be blessed with an abundance of beautiful flowers all summer long.

Don't forget that in the fall, you can take cuttings from those you planted out this spring to save over the winter to repeat the process next year.

Garden Journal

The weather was incredible on Saturday! It was 75 degrees and sunny. I was able to get outside for most of the day to get some yard work done. Our city gives away wood chips so I decided to make some nice paths to keep me from sinking ankle deep in mud this spring. My tomatoes and peppers got a little sun also today...but not too much as it was their first time outside.



The plants are doing really well in the hoop house as well. I am able to pick some incredible salads daily. All the other varieties of vegetables I planted as seeds are sprouted and look very happy. The box you see in the back contains 4 potato plants. As they get larger, I will continue to fill the box and hope to get a nice size harvest. I will be planting another similar box in another area in about a month to stagger the harvest.

I am in the process of making rain barrels out of 44 gallon trash cans and will post a few pictures soon, unfortunately, it is raining out too much to go take pictures LOL. Hope to see you again soon. Kim

A quick check in

Sorry to have been away for so long. The doctors are frantically working up my husband for his transplant and between doctor's appointments and work, I have little time to do anything else.

I do have about 60 tomatoes and 40 peppers along with a few other vegetables growing under lights in the basement which keeps my thumb a little green. The vegetables in the hoop house are looking great and today I was able to pick a nice salad for lunch. Unfortunately, I think I may have put my potato in a pot outside too early as it looks pretty sad. I took it out of the pot to see how things were looking and found a lot of tiny potatoes trying to grow. I placed it back into the pot but don't expect too much from it at this point...but you never know so I am not giving up yet.

Tonight I am trying my hand at making sourdough bread. I made the starter a few days ago and have some dough rising. Hopefully it works out so I can post a simple recipe for you all.

I'll check in again as soon as I can. Kim

Queso Blanco

Queso blanco is a very simple cheese to make. Queso Blanco is not typically used as a table cheese on crackers such as cheddar and does not melt like mozzarella but definetly has its place in the kitchen. Queso Blanco can be use as a substitute for tofu in recipes and will have no ill effects on people who are allergic to soy products. Queso blanco is a good way to use up extra milk and also freezes well. It takes less than 10 minutes to make and is very high in nutrition.

Supplies to yield approximately 1/4 cup Queso Blanco:

2 cups milk (we drink 2% so that is what I use)
1 to 2 teaspoons white vinegar
non-aluminum sauce pan
thermometer, I use my digital meat thermometer
spoon
small square of muslin or very fine cheese cloth
sieve
extra pan or bowl to catch whey

The process is extremely simple. Since I only wanted a small amount of Queso Blanco to use for dinner in stir fry, I started with 2 cups of milk. You may make a larger amount of Queso Blanco by simply using more milk and vinegar.

Place the milk into a sauce pan. Place the thermometer into the pan and slowly bring the milk to a temperature of 180 to 185 degrees and cook for 5 minutes. Keep the heat low so the milk does not scorch on the bottom of the pan.


You will see a thin layer of scum develop on top of the milk. After 5 minutes using the spoon, skim off the scum and discard. Now pour the vinegar into the warmed milk and stir. You should see curds (lumps) develop immediately. If needed to get a good curd, add a little more vinegar 1/2 teaspoon at a time. The liquid which separates is known as whey.


Place the muslin or fine cheese cloth into the sieve over a container to catch the whey. Now pour the curds and whey into the muslin. Allow to strain until all the whey is removed. The result will be a white, sort of rubbery cheese.




The resulting whey will have a slight green tinge. The whey contains a lot of nutrition as well and can be used in place of water when cooking. Refrigerate both the Queso Blanco and whey until ready to use or you can freeze both.

Queso Blanco is a great way to use up milk that is soon to expire. I usually purchase milk by the gallon because it is the same price as a half gallon, but since my husband and I do not drink a lot of milk, before it was going to waste. Also, milk is extremely inexpensive right now in our area. Just last week I purchased 3 boxes of cereal and received 3 gallons of milk for free. Knowing there is no way we would use up the milk before it expires, I thought it would be the perfect time to start making and freezing Queso Blanco for use later when milk will cost more.

Dinner tonight will be vegetarian stir fry with Queso Blanco over rice made with the whey....yum! I hope you give Queso Blanco a try and if you do let me know how it worked out for you. Kim

Just wanted to add another note (4/8/09) last night for dinner I used some of the Queso Blanco crumbled into spaghetti sauce...it was delicious! I am also thinking of using it as a replacement for ricotta in a 3 cheese (Queso Blanco, parmesean and mozzarella), vegetable lasagna.

Garden Journal

It looks like the garden is going to expand a little this year. My honey was feeling pretty good (and our son was over visiting) so he made a couple more raised garden beds for me. I have been wanting to expand this year but thought it was out due to his failing health and limited funds. John was able to find "culled" lumber at a really good price and used some to make the beds for me. Now it is my turn to find some good compost to fill them with.

I finally finished transplanting the tomatoes into larger pots...but wouldn't you know it, I forgot to count how many I ended up with. In many of the pots there were double and even triple seedlings and since I am such a tomato nut, I didn't have the heart to simply snip any off so...I gently swished the roots in room temperature water to remove the soil and then gently separated the plants. Now I have even more to get rid of but, I already have a line up of people asking for a tomato plant or two this year.

My next big transplanting project is going to be the peppers. I have at least 30 or so of those started as well. This is the first year I have had this type of success with peppers and believe it is due to placing them on a heated seedling mat.

I am a little worried about the plants in the hoop house but will keep the faith...we are supposed to have 3-5" of snow tonight. I'm crossing my fingers (and toes) hoping everything makes it to harvest time.

Well, I'll update again after the big snow and let you know how my little darlings made it through. See you next time, Kim

Garden Journal

The weather was a sunny 50 degrees today and was perfect for planting some seeds into the hoop house. The plants are looking good and showing signs of new growth. Seeds were planted close together in 2 ft rows and consisted of shallots, chiogga beets, golden beets, clindra beets, danvers half long carrots, purple dragon carrots, rainbow blend carrots, turnips, french breakfast radish, watermelon radish and sugar snap peas. I'll report as soon as I see the first signs of emerging plants.

The plants under lights are looking very healthy and some needed transplanting. A dozen tomatoes went into larger pots and 3 types of basil were started (purple opal, lemon and genovesse). My plan was to begin many more herbs but my husband decided to paint one wall of the basement and since I am extremely allergic to latex, I had to stop for a few hours until the paint dries. Well this give me enough time to figure out what to make for dinner and to write a quick blog entry.

Dinner tonight needs to be very soft since I had a tooth pulled yesterday. I thought a nice omelet sounded good. I found some chives, walking onions and oregano growing well in one of my permanent beds and cut some for the omelets. A nice treat later will be some biscuits with maple cream...that should be soft enough for me to chew. Now that I know what to make, I'd better get started. See you next time. Kim

Garden Journal

I was caught totally off guard yesterday by a rather large snowstorm. Thanks to my hoop house, all the plants outside are alive and looking very healthy. Hopefully in the next couple days, I will be able to plant out some early spring crop seeds as well. I will be planting out beets, carrots, peas, radishes, radicchio, spinach, turnips and rutabaga. I'm not sure the temperature of the soil will be warm enough to germinate but since I am trying to push spring a little bit, it will be worth the try.

The seedlings of tomatoes and peppers under lights in the basement are looking happy and growing well. Now that they are about 2", it is time to add a fan gently blowing on them to stimulate stronger stems so they can withstand the winds outside when they are a little older.

Spring is ever so slowly warming up which means much more planting to come so please come back and join me in My Little Corner of the World. Kim

Maple Cream

Since I have never seen nor tasted maple cream, I am hoping this is the real thing. Making the maple cream was very simple and not as time consuming as I thought it would be...well at least in comparison to making the syrup. The taste is so incredible!

Supplies:

thermometer capable of reading at least 240 degrees
very DEEP cooking pot (I used the one from the turkey fryer)
4 cups (2 pints) maple syrup
ice water bath
strong wooden spoon or Kitchen Aid mixer

Place 4 cups water into the cooking pot. Bring to a boil and test the temperature. In my case, water was at a full boil at 210 degrees. Carefully pour out water and dry pot.

Pour the maple syrup into the pot. You may add a teaspoon of butter if you like to keep the syrup from boiling up too high. WATCHING AT ALL TIMES!!! Bring syrup to a boil. It will foam up considerably and you DO NOT want it to boil over! It will make a mess that will NEVER come off your stove.

Continue to watch the syrup boil, but do not stir, until it reaches 24 degrees above the point your water boiled. It took me about 13 minutes to get my syrup to 234 degrees (remember your temperature may vary).

Once syrup has reached 24 degrees above the boiling point of water. Carefully place the cooking pot into a sink of ice water. DO NOT DISTURB! Allow to cool, undisturbed, until it reaches 80 degrees. This took about 35 minutes.

Once cooled to 80 degrees, begin to stir. You will need a lot of muscle at this point and may even have to ask the husband, kids and neighbors to help. I poured my cooled mixture into the bowel of my Kitchen Aid mixer and turned on the lowest setting. I mixed for approximately 20 minutes until it reached the consistency of peanut butter.

Pour into 1/2 pint jars, screw on the lid and refrigerate.

Enjoy! This is absolutely heavenly on fresh, homemade biscuits.

Garden journal

The lettuce I planted in the hoop house last week still looks healthy so I decided to give spring a little push again today and put out some more plants. I still have lots of seeds so if things don't do well, I can start again. Today I planted, 9 kohlrabi, 6 Japanese pak choi, 10 bok choi, 3 Michili cabbage, 2 pak choi, 2 swiss chard, 1 kale, 6 broccoli, 6 cauliflower, 4 purple glazer garlic, 1 yukon gold potato, 1 red potomac potato and the rest of my salad greens I was growing in the basement this winter. The salad greens that went outside are: red sails lettuce, grand rapids lettuce, spinach, mache', freckles lettuce and black seeded simpson lettuce.

We are supposed to get one night this week below freezing so I will keep my fingers crossed that all my little babies will do well. I am running out of space under my growing lights with all the tomato, pepper and other vegetables! Hopefully, we have a bountiful harvest this year.

Medical news

For those of you who visit my blog, first thank you...it makes it worth writing. Just in case I seem to disappear for a little while, I wanted you all to know I will return. My husband is in very poor health and needs a liver transplant in the very near future. He is going through a lot of testing and as soon as they are done, he will be listed. Since his health is failing rather quickly, he will be near the top of the transplant list. Hopefully, he will be visited by an angel and receive a new liver soon. Please keep him in your prayers...love and hugs, Kim

New toy

My husband found this nice little battery powered chainsaw on the clearance rack at Lowe's for me. It is easy to handle and works great for trimming small trees. I usually don't use any type of power tools except the lawnmower, but I think this one is going to be quite handy. It made easy work of trimming the small landscape tree in front of the house.

Looks like I have a new toy! Next stop, trimming the fruit trees at my daughter's and mom's house.

Potato in a pot

As I mentioned in an earlier post, I saw a video on YouTube that showed a woman growing potatoes in pots. I wanted to give this a try also.

On February 20th, I took a large pot, approximately 2 gallon size, placed a 3" layer of potting mix into the bottom. I then layed a potato from a 10# bag into the bottom and covered with more soil and watered well.


On March 1st, the potato sprouted. As the potato grew taller, I kept adding more soil until it reached the top of the pot. As you can see by the picture, it looks very happy and healthy. I am now in the process of hardening off the potato so it can be placed outside in the hoop house until I need the planting space. The potato will then continue to be grown in the pot until the top dies off. At this point, the potato will be ready to harvest, in about 90 days or so, and I will know how successful this experiment was.

I'll post at that time how many potatoes I was able to grow this way. If successful, I plan on growing potatoes in pots in the house into next winter to extend the fresh potato harvest. Kim

Hoop house update

I needed a way to keep the side pieces of the hoop house from blowing around in the wind and I have to admit, my husband had a great idea. He took 2 more pieces of the 1/2" pvc pipe and used duct tape to secure the plastic to the pipe. Now I can roll it up and use some clamps to hold it in place when open. When closed, I use the clamps to secure the side pieces to the raised bed because they are so light weight. I keep the ends closed with old bricks.


I transplanted some of the lettuce I have been growing indoors for salads. I have been hardening them off for the past week in anticipation of placing them out in the hoop house. I have another flat I plan on planting out sometime next week. I just wanted to make sure these took off first. We are expecting a couple nights of below freezing weather this weekend which will be a good way to determine if the plants can tolerate living out in the hoop house.

Ok, now let me tell you the way I was going to make the hoop house in case anyone wants an easier option. (See previous post for materials list.)

First I would have taken the 3/4" pvc pipe and cut it down to 8' since I wanted to be able to move it to different raised beds...I plan on making 4 4'x8' beds as my next project...but this one will have to stay put since the measurements are off because my husband decided it was too much work to cut to 8 ft...lets just leave it at that :)

So again, take the 3/4" pipe and cut to 8 ft (if desired). Make a mark 2" from the ends. Then make a mark at 2', 4', and 6' from one end. (In order to use the type of clamps I used on the raised bed, I had to come in 2" from the end to properly secure to the wood of the raised bed.)

Take 5 of the 10 ft sections of 1/2" pvc pipe (ribs) and make a mark in the center, approximately at 5'. Using the 1/4" bit and drill, drill a hole at the marks on the 1/2" pipe.

Drill a hole through one end of the 3/4" pvc pipe (spine) at the 2" mark.

Now take a bolt and washer and place through the center hole of the 1/2" pipe then through the hole in the end of the 3/4" pvc pipe. Place another washer and then the nut and tighten down. Lay flat on the ground. This will allow you to drill the rest of the holes without the pipe rolling around so everything will line up properly.

Now drill through the remaining marks on the 3/4" pvc pipe and secure the ribs to the spine as above.

At this point, it would be good to have a helper. Carry the soon to be hoop house to your raised bed and stand it up on the 5 rib pieces. Place a clamp over each of the ribs and tighten into place.

Now go to the other side of the raised bed and loosely screw your clamps into place...at the 2" mark, 2', 4', 6' and 2" in from the ends. Now bend the ribs and place into the clamps and screw down tight.

Place the plastic over top of the hoops making sure you have enough to be able to secure down the ends. Now take the remaining 2 pieces of the 1/2" pvc pipe and cut to 8 ft lengths. Place the pipe on the plastic at the sides of the hoop house and tape down well with the duct tape. You will now be able to roll up the sides as in the picture above and secure them with clamps when you want to keep it open to plant and on hot days.

Hope this all makes sense but if it doesn't, feel free to let me know and I will try to clear things up. Kim

My adventure into hoop house building...

After 4 long hours, I finally have a completed hoop house. It should have been a simple project but you will soon find out that things at my house are not always simple.


Supply list:

7 pieces of 1/2" pvc pipe 10 ft long
1 piece of 3/4" pvc pipe 10 ft long
5-1/4" machine bolts with nuts and washers 2 1/2" long
10 pipe clamps (holders) to secure to wood frame
tape measure
marking pen
10 ft wide by desired length clear plastic
saw to cut pvc pipe to 8 ft (if desired)
duct tape
a couple clamps borrowed from the husband
20 1" or 1 1/2" deck screws



Now this is one item on the supply list that can either help or hinder any well thought out project. Sorry guys but I am sure you ladies know what I am talking about. The hoop house was supposed to be a simple project. Take a 3/4" pvc pipe, measure out where to drill holes and drill holes to make a spine. Take the 1/2" pvc pipe, mark the center and drill some holes. Now take the 1/2" pvc and bolt it to the 3/4" piece to look like ribs. Now screw the clamps to the raised bed frame, place the pvc ribs into place and tighten down....yeah it should have been that simple.

Enter the husband. It started out with something like "No, no, no, you don't just drill a bunch of holes and start bolting things together. Where is your measured drawing?" It was precisely then I knew I was in for a very long day. Now don't get me wrong, I love the man but simple is just not in his vocabulary! "Well dear," I say, "I was watching this utube and I know what to do. Would you like to see it?" Of course I knew exactly what he was going to say, "I don't need no stupid tube thing to show me how to make this thing". So I quietly explained what I wanted and where, pulled up a chair and grabbed a book and told him to let me know when he needed me to hold things or hand things to him.


A couple jigs, lots off cuss words, and a few hours later, my hoop house (and most of my book) was done. The only thing left to do is to place the plastic over the top. But then, someone insisted that he was positive he had enough so there was no need to buy another roll....

If you need a measured drawing just let me know and I'll see if my husband will share. Also don't forget, the little clamps need to be precisely down 2 1/2" from the top of the board and the bottom of the pvc pipe needs to be precisely down 4" from the bottom of the clamp and the center of the pvc pipe needs to be precisely 28" apart and...well lets just say I'm glad it was a nice sunny day outside.

I did get him to also agree to let me have another 10 ft of lawn to add 4 more raised beds so I am sure I will have another story to tell in My Little Corner of the World. Kim

Maple syrup

I have finally found a good way to boil down my sap into syrup. I first tried an electric frying pan since that is what I had. It did the job, but it was very slow and made an extra light colored syrup that tasted and looked like butterscotch. It was delicious, but the time involved prohibited it from my chosen method. The second batch was made with a large kettle on a hot plate outside on my patio. The sap never got to a good boil and was taking way too much time. That batch was finished off on the stove with all the windows in the house open to prevent extreme condensation on the windows and walls. My husband actually came up with the last and, for me, final way to boil down the sap. He suggested a deep fryer run on propane that is also used to deep fry turkeys. He has been wanting one for quite some time, so we purchased one. We both win with this solution. He gets his deep fryer and I get an easy way to boil down my sap.


Here is a picture of my syrup made with the deep fryer. It is very rich and flavorful! The tree at my house is giving me about 5-6 gallons of sap a day while the tree at my daughter's house is giving me another 3-4. The process of boiling down the sap is simple but time consuming. My neighbors must think I am pretty strange sitting out in the garage for hours at a time reading a book. Oh well, I don't care since I am the one enjoying the wonderful taste of spring in a jar.

More to come soon as spring is finally near so please come back and join me in My Little Corner of the World. Kim

Tomato madness

It's official! My yearly tomato madness has begun! Each year I cannot wait for that first ripe tomato exploding with flavor in my mouth. Jordan and I planted all 20 varieties yesterday along with 5 varieties (so far) of peppers. Now I will obsess over the little tomatoes until well into the summer months. I have many new varieties this year and cannot wait to try them out. The varieties this year will be: zapotec pleated, Kellogg's breakfast, green zebra, Italian market wonder, cabot, garten perle, opalka, yellow pear, roma, nyagous, Brad's black heart (so far my favorite!), cherokee purple, Oleana's, Ludmilla's red plum, rutgers, New Yorker, brandywine, marmande, black cherry and mennonite orange. This is a nice variety of color, texture, and taste. I'm not sure where they will all be grown and know for sure I must expand the garden to accommodate the larger assortment of tomatoes and the other vegetable seeds I acquired this year.

Looks like we will be eating good in My Little Corner of the World. Kim

Updates

I thought you might like to know how some of my little experiments are going so I think an update is in order.

Winter Gardening
I saw the first green in my winter sown containers yesterday. The radishes are already putting on their first true leaves. The other containers are in a slightly more shaded area and are still pretty much frozen solid.

Lettuce under lights
I am thrilled at the amount of greens I have been able to produce under the cheap shop lights. I planted in early January and am able to eat a large dinner salad every night from the containers I have growing. In fact things were going so well, I added more lettuce containers, spinach, mache, beets for greens and radishes.

Potatoes in pots
My large pot containing a store bought potato that sprouted is now full to the top with soil. Since the pot is full I will just have to wait a couple months for the plant to finish growing and for the top to finally die off to see how this experiment works. I have the pot sitting so it is just barely under the end of the shop light. I wrapped the end of the light and the pot with foil a few days ago to give the potato as much light as possible. It really greened up and looks really healthy.


Garden planning
This is still ever changing. I am in a swap for cuttings and have lots of different food items coming. I also received an incredible variety of seeds through friends from Garden Web and I want to plant at least a 1 foot square of each of them. Looks like I need to get the plans out once again.

Propagating
The propagator I made works beautifully! I used it to root things to send out in the cuttings swap. The geraniums rooted well and some of the hard wood cuttings had little root nodes starting. I did learn that the geraniums did not like the top on the container yet the hard wood cuttings did. Next time, I will simply make more than one and keep the different types of plants separated.

Worm bin
The worms appear happy and are doing their magic. Things are getting broken down on the bottom and I have a thin layer of castings. Not bad for only a half pound of worms. I am positive that next spring I will have enough for all my little seedlings.

Simple sprouter
I am enjoying different types of sprouts pretty much daily in my salads. These are a great addition to the lettuces and greens for added flavor and nutrition. I especially like the radish sprouts which add just a little bit of zing to the salads. I am not a fan of a cut up radish but really enjoy them as sprouts.

Maple syrup
This is working out so well. Yeah it takes a lot of sap to make just a little bit of syrup but for me it is so worth it. I simply put a pot on outside and keep adding sap a little at a time while doing spring clean up chores outside. The first batch was at more of a simmer than a boil and made a flavor like a cross between honey and butterscotch. It tastes amazing and is wonderful on biscuits. I actually prefer this to the taste of maple. I may make another batch later on and put it away just for me!

Well spring is in the air so I am sure there will be much more action to come so please come back and visit me soon in My Little Corner of the World. Kim