garden
pronald | June 28, 2010 For the Grow your Own Bakeoff, a blogging event that celebrates the foods we grow or raise ourselves and the dishes we make using our homegrown products, I baked a Swiss chard-Gruyere pie.
Here is the recipe: First, gather as many ingredients as you can from your garden. In our garden, I found multi-colored swiss chard, Kale, chives, thyme and parsley. Our young hens, Snickerdoodle, Lemon Drop, Raven, Cheez-It and Oreo provided the eggs.
The backdrop to our garden is a mural on the side of our barn, painted with California poppies, rice plants, sunflowers and (look closely) a red…
sastyk | June 24, 2010I wrote this post in 2008, which was one of my worst gardening years ever - I made the insane mistake of setting the deadline for _A Nation of Farmers_ for June 1, which meant I spent most of the planting season in front of my computer. But I knew I wasn't the only one, and I've come to worry a lot less about it - because an awesome fall garden is worth a lot. BTW, not entirely coincidentally, I'm going to teach a 4 week online, asynchronous class on fall gardening during the month of July, beginning Tuesday, July 6. The class will help you either get started or begin to make use of fall…
pronald | March 16, 2010Tomorrow's Table's Swiss-Gruyere pie made it to the pi day Pie Bake off finals.
If you have time to peruse the entries, please do. Vote here.
sastyk | March 15, 2010Reaching the hellacious end-of-book period where I do nothing but merge endlessly with my computer. Thus, low on new content. So you can read this stuff instead.
First, check out "Little House in the Ghetto" which will be going on my blogroll just as soon as I figure out how to change my blogroll.
Waking up from this entrancement and becoming aware that options exist has given me opportunity and motivation in my own life. As hobo poet Vachel Lindsay remarked, "I am further from slavery than most men." This has been an unexpected gift from downshifting (dropping out) from mainstream…
pronald | March 10, 2010 For the 2010 Pi day bakeoff, I baked a Swiss chard-Gruyere pie.
Shown here is the backdrop to our garden:a mural on the side of our barn, painted with California poppies, rice plants, sunflowers and (look closely) a red double helix. Artist: Jim McCall, Elastic Media.
Here is the recipe:
First, gather as many ingredients as you can from your garden. In our garden, I found multi-colored swiss chard, Kale, chives, thyme and parsley.
Next, prepare the crust:
1 cup barley flour2 cups white flour
1 tsp salt
1 cup unsalted butter
1/2 cup unsalted margarine, frozen
grated rind of 1 lemon
1…
sastyk | March 1, 2010
Note: Most of the Independence Days material will run at ye olde blogge , but I wanted to post the year three start up over here too, since my readership isn't entirely overlapping. If you want to post status updates, the weekly thread for that will be at my other blog, but you can sign up here too! I hope you'll join us!
Many of us need nothing in the world so much as more time. Adding new projects is exhausting - and stressful. And yet, we know that there are things we want to change - for example, most of us would like to grow a garden with our kids, or make sure that we know where…
jstemwedel | February 26, 2010Younger offspring: Hey, look what I grew!
Dr. Free-Ride: Wow, those are tall.
Younger offspring: It's a bean plant.
Dr. Free-Ride: I recognized the shape of the leaves. From the looks of it, you actually have more than one bean plant growing in there.
Younger offspring: When it gets warmer, we should transplant it into one of the garden beds.
Dr. Free-Ride: Mmm. We could try that, but all my garden books warn that beans don't transplant well.
Younger offspring: Then we can just grow it in the cup.
Dr. Free-Ride: OK.
Younger offspring: And then I'll harvest the beans. But I won't eat them…
sastyk | February 18, 2010Note: This is a repost from ye olde blogge (which, I am informed by the kind gentleman who is helping me debut it will be back to function by early next week - thank you all for your patience!). Aaron Newton and I are starting up our farm and garden design class today, and we'll be posting a lot of material on growing of all sorts for the next six weeks. I've got a post about winter sowing and stratification coming up next, but thought I would preceed it, since so many people don't realize this, with the observation that you can actually start an astonishing number of woody and herbaceous…
sastyk | February 5, 2010Note: This is a rerun from ye olde blogge. As the book deadline approaches, expect to see some of my previous opi making appearances here. Since I've got more than 1000 of them, it shouldn't be too boring, I hope. I hope this one will help some of you in garden planning this year.
There are a million gardening books out there to tell you how to grow perfect tomatoes and lettuces. And that's important, especially after the blight disaster last year - in my house, salsa is a food group. But the reality is that for those of us attempting to produce a large portion of our calories, tomatoes…
sastyk | February 2, 2010At first glance, swept yards, derived from Africa, at one time traditional in the south and now mostly the province of a few, aging African-American southerners; and Cottage Gardens, invented in Britain under the feudal system and now evolved into a trendy " flower garden style" meaning mostly a mix of abundant plants and mulched paths as seen in any supermarket magazine, have nothing to do with one another.
But looking past the obvious, the two of them have a great deal in common indeed. Both emerged from the need to make good use of a comparatively smaller piece of land for a family with…
sastyk | January 28, 2010Note: This is a repeat from ye olde blogge, because I think this is a really useful, and probably obvious tool that wasn't obvious to me. It has made everything so much easier. I also wanted to put in the plug for the Ozone House Calendar!
Those of who know me in real life will probably already have noted that organization isn't my strong suit. So how to keep up with all the garden tasks is a chronic problem of mine. I get particularly muddled in late spring, when there are plants to be seeded outside, tender crops to be hardened off in cold frames, and long-growing fall garden plants like…
sastyk | January 13, 2010The best estimate I've seen is that in 2009 alone, we had more than 2 million first time gardeners, and from 2007 on, we've added 8 million new vegetable gardens. This is one heck of a movement. Unfortunately, it also meant that millions of people started gardening in what was, in the Northeast, the crappiest garden year ever.
Well, maybe not ever. There was eighteen-hundred-and-froze-to-death when volcanic activity meant hard frost in July. But at least in 40 years, according to CR Lawn, head of Fedco Seeds. Here in the Northeast it rained - I don't mean a little. We got 23 inches of…
sciencewoman | July 27, 2009Sprinklers. Wading pools. Picnics. Dogs. Playing with Minnow. Hanging out with good friends. The hallmarks of well-spent summer weekends. Just don't forget the cucumbers...
One day's worth of cucumbers, after a few days of rain. This picture was from a few weeks back, and fortunately the cucumber flux has eased somewhat, but it's still difficult to maintain the cucumber mass balance in our house. Anybody want some?
What do you do with so many cucumbers? Make 2 versions of cucumber-tomato salad for a friend's house-warming party, and bring 2 extra cucumbers as her housewarming gift. Too bad…
jstemwedel | June 18, 2009... from a secret location. Because, in light of fluctuations in the slug and snail population when I go away, I think they may read my blog.
Tuesday (day 39 of the snail eradication project) and Wednesday (day 40 of the snail eradication project) I found ten slugs each. No snails to speak of.
Both mornings were dry and overcast. All the slugs were located underneath the bags of compost and potting soil by the side of the house.
I didn't go snailing today on account of being in the aforementioned secret location. Where it is both hot and humid. I haven't seen any gastropods here, but…
jstemwedel | June 15, 2009When the snail hunter is away, the gastropods will play.
It should be noted, though, that the slugs and snails I found today were not playing in my vegetable garden. That's progress.
Conditions this morning were dry and overcast. However, it rained a little over the weekend, and our wee lawn was watered once with the sprinklers. Most of what I found today was on the lawn or in easy gliding distance from it.
Another observation: I found some slugs clustered around wee, shriveled fallen lemons on the lawn. These slugs were much less responsive to touch than were the gastropods who hadn't…
jstemwedel | June 14, 2009One of the fabulous things about living in our Northern California climate (zone 16) it the ability to transform our yard into a mini orchard. The biggest challenge so far has been patience, given that it takes fruit trees at least a few years to hit a level of maturity at which they produce fruit.
Even if we want fruit right now!
Currently, we have a lime tree, a pomegranate tree, and an avocado that are only making "practice fruit". You can tell they're trying, but they're just not yet at the point where they can produce anything full-sized or edible.
We also have a fig tree which last…
jstemwedel | June 13, 2009
A highlight of reunion at my alma mater, as far as I'm concerned, it that they open up the boat house and let alumnae paddle (or sail, or crew, depending on their druthers) around the lake.
I've missed the lake.
I was also missing the rest of the Free-Ride family, so I took advantage of the excellent cell phone reception from the middle of the lake and called home.
Among other things, I learned that the younger Free-Ride offspring went snailing in the yard this morning. The yard was reportedly wet in the aftermath of a light rain. The younger Free-Ride offspring took 18 slugs and five…
jstemwedel | June 13, 2009There are two main reasons I like harvesting crops from the Free-Ride garden. First, it means we'll have yummy, super-fresh fruits and vegetables to eat. And second, it often means we're freeing up space to plant another crop.
Even in Northern California, where it is said we have "climate" rather than "weather," there are crops that are seasonal. We are definitely past the "spring" planting season, and some of the spring crops are really looking happy.
For example, our peas.
As I mentioned yesterday, I planted two varieties, sugar-snap peas (whose pods are meant to be eaten) and shelling…
jstemwedel | June 12, 2009Owing to the fact that the snail eradication project (or at least, my direct involvement in it) is on a brief hiatus while I'm on the East Coast (and while my yard is still in Northern California), I'm going to be bringing you up to date on the garden in whose service I have been trying to control the gastropod population.
Long time readers may recall that the raised garden beds are almost a year old. We actually didn't get the first seeds planted in them until near the end of July, 2008.
Some of the seeds we planted then are just now giving us plants that are ready to harvest.
Our onions,…
jstemwedel | June 11, 2009Dry and overcast again this morning. I've never been a big fan of humidity, but I was really hoping for some today.
Close inspection of the garden beds indicated that they were gastropod free. The bag of compost and the bag of potting soil on the ground by the side of the house each had only a couple small slugs underneath them. The only other action was on the side of the house, where a snail had attached itself.
Wherever these gastropods are hiding, they seem ready to sit tight ... until they see an opportunity.
Like, if the snail hunter is going to be missing three consecutive mornings…