Working outside in the garden

After weeks of work, this is what I have to show for it.  A garden that is just beginning to look ok for the year, with a new 100 square foot area being used for 1 year as a three sisters garden.

I am slowly but surely changing the layout in a barely noticeable way.  One by one, the beds made with pine boards back in 2008 and 2009 are rotting away.  I am replacing them with cedar frames, but I will also be resizing them from their current 6 foot width to a more manageable 8×4 feet.  Basically it’s just going to be a whole bunch of digging and moving dirt.  It’s actually a great workout.

Do yourself a favor if you’re reading this in time.  Make your garden beds 4 feet wide or less.  6 foot width is NO GOOD for raised beds in most cases.

I planted some herbs out and I am hardening off everything else when the weather cooperates.  I hope to plant some tomatoes this weekend, probably.

The garlic is growing well, both in this yard and at my off-site garden where I planted 4 rows as a test last fall.

And if I can get my hands on some reasonably priced apple trees, I will be attempting to create a two-dimensional fruit tree.

Sending Seeds in the Mail

I have test-sprouted (>90% germination), packaged, packed, sealed and sent your envelopes of Cabin Tomato seeds. 7 envelopes went out on Wednesday, and 6 more are going out in Thursday’s mail. I still have about 4 or 5 more remaining.

I am incredibly grateful to you growers who are willing to try growing your own Cabin tomatoes in the 2013 season. If you can, grow a plant for friend too. If you can, save seeds for the next year too.

If you don’t receive the seeds I promised you within a week from today, please contact me again. There was one pack going to Canada, so I don’t know how long that should take.

Everything is going well for Jimmy, I just haven’t had much blog motivation lately.

Thank you all!

Small-Audience “Blogging” – Cook Book Notes

I don’t trust the memory of my future self.  I learned this the hard way many times.  So I write notes to…ME…in all our cook books.  Surely I’m not the only one?

Below you can tell which pieces were fried after I figured out the missing ingredient in this recipe.  Both are fried, but the left side is more my style.

Sauercrock Sauercracked, Sauerkraut Sauercanned

My Sauerkraut was finished some time ago.  I held it in the refrigerator to SLOOOOW down the fermentation for a while, then I canned 2/3 of it.  The remaining third will be eaten the proper way…alive.

While I was scooping kraut out of my fermenting crock, I noticed some bad news:

My 4 gallon crock has developed a crack all the way through from the inside, out.  That stain is dried cabbage juice and salt.  This is disappointing, because I don’t want to spend a small fortune on a new one, but I can’t trust this one again.

This is the color I achieved this year with my mixture of purple and green cabbages.  I hate to kill the beneficial bacteria by canning it, but the kraut won’t last until next July if I don’t can some of it.

On an unrelated note, today is the first day in 8 days that I haven’t taken any headache medicine.  I have been down twice with a migraine, and it’s still up there, lurking around, threatening to come back again.

 

 

It’s dead, Jim.

Cucumbers

Sweet Potato Vines

 

Brussels that didn’t sprout

Gourd Vines

I am giving up on much of the garden for the next few weeks. Isn’t it nice that when there is a drought I can just run to the grocery store instead of worrying about how I’ll live until spring on a few gourds?

Yes, I am done watering everything except two of my four tomatoes, and MAYBE my sweet potato hills, we will see.

Bigger Cabins

16, 17, and 20 ounces

20 ounce Cabin tomato on the scale

Compare this with an average of 6 to 10 ounces during the last 3 years and you can be sure that I had them in a much shadier spot before.  I didn’t save seeds from any of these.  We ate them!  And they are good.

Drought Stricken Tomato Giving Up

One of my two Cabin tomato plants is giving up the fight for water!

The basil is badly gone to seed as well. It’s hard to convince the plants to play nice when they are seeing extreme weather and all they really want is some water.

However, on the other other end of the patio, this Cabin tomato is looking healthier than ever.  It’s basil is horrible, yes, but the tomato is doing FINE.  It has just reached 8 feet tall and I expect it to live through fall.

Large Cabin Tomatoes this Year + Saving Seeds Round 1

I have been seeing some Cabin tomatoes that are much larger than the last 3 years.  I guess when they get full sun they produce at a better size!

I saved seeds from these two tomatoes. They are fermenting in this jar on my counter. Soon I’ll clean them and dry them.

Only 4 of the 8 people who said that they wanted to grow Cabin tomatoes next year have sent me their mailing address.  If you are interesting in growing Cabin and you didn’t reply to my e-mail last week, please comment here.

 

Ripe Tomatoes mean 2012 Salsa…soon

My first 6 pounds of ripe tomatoes.  They’re an ugly bunch, due to the weather, but they’ll taste fine when I make them into salsa!

I didn’t even see the squash bug in person. I only noticed him in iPhoto.  This is a Cabin plant.  I’ll be saving a whole bunch of seeds soon.

Okra time

According to my plant it was okra time.  I haven’t ever had okra time before, so I didn’t really know what the moves were.  I ended up putting these into a quart jar with dill pickle brine and straight into the refrigerator.  They’re pretty good that way.

Isn’t the okra flower beautiful?