Our New Tenants

We acquired some tenants on the property this year. They live in this nice little shelter:

They really are tenants, because we don't own them and we don't have any desire to own them. They belong to my brother-in-law who took up bee-keeping as a hobby last year. He has two hives at his house and wanted a third one but didn't feel he had the room, so he asked if he could set one up at our place.

Here they are a little closer. I don't get too near, because they make me nervous, but I'm not terrified of them either. The rent they pay is to pollinate my vegetable garden. And maybe, it they're productive enough we'll be gifted with a little honey too.
Each hive is supposed to produce up to thirty pounds of honey, but my poor b-i-l, after spending tons of money on equipment and sugar last year only got about one and a half pounds out of two hives. What a bunch of slackers! Hopefully, he'll do better this year.

Get to work little bees and earn your keep! I've already seen them buzzing around my garden, but they also seem to be delighted with the hummingbird feeder. Hmmmmm! Not sure how I feel about that! I can't say I've seen any noticeable improvement in the squash and tomato pollination yet, but hopefully they will do their jobs.

Hello Harvest Monday!

It's been quite awhile since I've joined in posting for Harvest Monday and there's a lot to show and tell this week as the season of growing heats up (literally) here in Connecticut. I have lots of pictures today!

Swiss chard and sugar snap peas were big winners this week. The snap peas have peaked I think and there will be smaller harvests in the coming days. I can only hope the chard stays healthy this year! I also harvested the last of the Little Marvel shelling peas and only have Tall Telephone left to give me any more shellers. I plan to try planting some fall peas this year, but have never yet had success with them.

 I love to plant many different varieties of each vegetable and the beets are no exception. I was surprised to get those bright orange beets in the mix, but when I checked out the variety I'd ordered called 3 Root Grex I discovered it grows several colors. Do I not read those catalogue descriptions carefully or what? Well, it was a fun surprise anyway.

I have no idea how to rotate the picture above, but it is my very first cabbage of the year, a Farao which is a very tender and delicious early type, though the heads are smallish. This one is just one and three quarter pounds.

 I managed to plant the celery out this year! Yay! Most of it is in the garden, but these four that I planted in a window-box planter are doing the best. Which is odd, because I am a complete failure when it comes to container gardening. Usually what I plant in a container dies a quick and ugly death.

 These are the last of the garlic scapes. The es-scape-ees actually. I planted way too much garlic and thought I had removed all the hardneck scapes weeks ago, but found this little batch had gotten overlooked. Garlic should be ready to dig up soon.

 

There was a huge harvest of lettuce earlier in the week. Many of the early varieties were starting to bolt. The ones that weren't bitter yet were harvested to eat along with the maturing second planting lettuces. We have been in salad heaven!

We also got a great batch of broccoli this week. Broccoli is probably our favorite vegetable and I have high hopes for lots more to come. This year I finally grew some large heads, although I'm still getting my share of small ones too.

And, finally, here are the first kohlrabis. The variety is Kolibri. I have to say I am not impressed with the kohlrabi this year. They were early on the victims of cabbage worm attacks and few of them are really bulbing up like they should. Perhaps in the fall there'll be more.
That about covers this week's harvest. Harvest Monday is hosted by Daphne's Dandelions where you can see what gardeners all over are getting from their gardens!

 

Garden Update Part 2

I'm finally getting to finish up the state of the garden update from the other day. Is it me, or do the days just get busier and faster the older you get? I can't imagine being bored! Anyway:
I tried Charming Snow Cauliflower again and like last year I was rewarded with a bunch of nice little heads that added up to one meal's worth of cauliflower. I have some seedlings started for a fall batch, so it'll be interesting to see how that goes. I also planted a variety called Amazing, which so far hasn't lived up to its name at all. They didn't germinate all that well and so far I haven't seen any sign of a head on any of them, but they may yet "amaze", time will tell.

My beets are doing really nicely this year, which makes me very happy! We love roasted beets in salads, speaking of which, my spring lettuce was also a winner. I grew some 18 varieties and like last year I had so much I was giving it away to friends in huge bagfuls. Both beets and lettuce leave me with challenges I have yet to master. I am never successful with beets after the first sowing, no matter how hard I try. If the seedlings survive at all, they don't tend to form bulbs. My initial beet bed is thriving and thankfully it is pretty large. I sowed a second one and every day I find fewer healthy seedlings. The heat just seems to get to them before they are big and healthy enough to fight it. I thought this time around I would finally succeed with the second sowing of beets, but it's looking tenuous. And with lettuce I have yet to get a decent harvest of lettuce when the weather gets hot. My initial spring lettuce is all gone now and my second batch is at its peak. I have a third bunch started from indoor seedlings that's coming along, all of more heat tolerant varieties. They'll be ready to harvest soon and we shall see if they turn out bitter or not. And I planted a bed of heat resistant lettuce from seed last week, but I'm not seeing much of any germination, likely due to the warm weather. I'd love to be able to extend the lettuce a bit more!

I tried Scarlet Runner beans for the first time, but planted them a little too late to get any beans out of them. But they are presenting us with a beautiful display of the lovely red flowers they get their name from and I'm hoping our humming birds are enjoying them! They make the garden look happy!
My cabbages are running behind last year's crop. By this time last year I had finished harvesting the last of the earlies whereas this year I just harvested the first one today! My red cabbages were looking beautiful till a week or so ago when they were ravaged by cabbage worms and I caught them a little too late. Bummer. I have yet to have any real success with growing red cabbage which is an irritant to the German in me. Sweet and sour red cabbage is a favorite with much of my family.
Oh, and I should mention that I had an early and successful crop of bok choy, mizuna, semposai and komatsuna. Asian greens are so quick and easy to grow but unfortunately not so easy to store.
And that's where things stand as of today. My June harvest total in pounds was 6 pounds less than last year, but I had a blockbuster May so I'm still ahead of the game. Hoping we get a bit of rain tonight so I don't have to water tomorrow. How is it possible it will be July already???

State of the Garden...An Update

I said I was going to get back to this blog and by golly I mean to! I promised myself a post by today and though the day has surely gotten away from me here it is: an update of the 2013 garden as it stands in late June.
Last summer's garden was the best I'd had yet, but not without its share of disappointments, mostly in myself for letting things go that I should have been on top of. I vowed not to let that happen this year and I have to say, so far, mostly so good. What has helped me a lot is that I got a freebie calendar, you know, the kind that banks and auto repair shops hand out, and I wrote goals for when I wanted to get things started either as indoor seedlings or planted outside and I have stuck pretty well to that schedule. So things that were overlooked last year got done this time around. It's been a great season so far! Here's a look at things:

Not that everything has been hunky-dory. My eggplant seedlings that were so robust and beautiful were set back majorly when I hardened them off. Don't know why, I can only figure it was the cold spring. Then when I planted them out they were attacked by flea beetles and just about destroyed, a problem I have never had before. I mean, I've always had flea beetles, who hasn't, but never so that the poor eggplants were skeletonized! Anyway, they are hanging in there, but I suspect it won't be a good year for eggplant around here.
Then there were the tomatoes. I always plant my seedlings on the same date and in the same way. For whatever reason, my tomatoes, all 21 varieties, refused to grow! They sprouted and looked healthy enough, but they stayed mini until the day they were planted out in mid-May. Thankfully, they have taken off once they were outside and don't seem like they are too far behind normal at this point. Weird.
I had my first ever terrific year for spinach. I wish I had a photo of it to show you! The cool spring was a boon to spinach growers in the northeast and I harvested a few bushels of it. It was just wonderful! Spinach quiche! Greek spinach pie! And it looks like my onions, which were so pathetic last summer are going to be nice this year, barring any unforeseen disaster.

 Above is a closer look at the onions, which are thriving. I have a little more sunlight this year since my husband took down some trees that were really restricting the light and I think it is improving things a lot. The plan is to take a few more down next year, but for now I am happy with the extra sun that I've got.

 My zucchini plants are smaller than this time last summer, again due to the very cool spring we had. But the first baby zukes are showing themselves so we should be getting some soon.

 My swiss chard last year became diseased very early on. So far, so good for this season. The bed is smaller, but they all look healthy. Behind them is the garlic. I planted way too much this year so my friends will be the recipients of a lot of garlic I think! I haven't even come close to using up last year's supply and then I went and planted twice as much. Well, now I know. That won't happen again, because space is always at a premium.

 Here is some kale off to a good start. I planted a number of varieties: Siberian, Red Russian, Winterbor, Beedy's Camden and Tuscan.

 The winter squash is beginning to take off too. I have finally got a handle on the svb's I think, but last year the squash beetles were brutal. I already found my first one the other day along with a cluster of eggs which I destroyed, but will really have to be ready for them this time.

Sugar snap peas have hit their peak today. I picked six and a half pounds of them and there are still plenty for the coming days. My Little Marvel shelling peas are about done and I will likely be pulling those plants next week sometime. Well, that's some of the report and I will continue it tomorrow if I have the energy in the evening. I'm spending the day babysitting 2 adorable little toddlers who usually wear me out completely by the time they're done with me. It's my way of helping a young couple out and I get a little shot of second childhood out of it. And exhaustion...

You Don't Have to Ask Me Twice...Er...Three Times...

Or, The Return of the Prodigal Blogger

It all started with a head of broccoli. Well, two heads. The ones pictured above. I came to my husband with them, all excited and said "Look! These are the largest broccolis I've ever grown!" To which he replied "Wow. They're as big as the ones you get in the grocery store. I hope you took a picture of them for your blog!" Hm. Eyes down, feet shuffling I told him I really wasn't doing my blog, hadn't posted to it in months. He was disappointed with me. He said I shouldn't give up my blog and disappoint my readers too. "What, all three of them?" I thought. But I never started this blog to get readers, I started it to write about my life as a gardener and to enjoy the fellowship of other bloggers and to try something new and exciting in my "golden" years. Well, I walked away from that conversation like a sulking child wrestling with my conscience. Maybe I really should discipline myself to get back to the old blog but I wasn't ready to think about it yet. This was two days ago.
Then, today, what should I get but a message from the very first person in blogland who encouraged me when I got started and whose blog I have loved, Annie's Granny wondering if I was OK and saying she missed me. Aw, wow. Sniff-sniff. Thank you Granny! You are such a caring person, you put me to shame! Thanks for asking!
Here's the deal: I'm OK. Pretty OK. It has been an up and down year here in the land of the wooden nutmeg. My older son got divorced which has been tough on us, but to make it even more tough it resulted in his moving to Florida. I have been struggling with lonliness for family and disappointment with how some things have turned out. All the younger generation have moved far away and the older ones have moved even farther. None of the young ones seem to want to have children. Thank God I have a large and loving church family so I don't wallow in depression, but there is no substitute for having your own family nearby to love, share with and cook for. I am coming to grips with the changes slowly but surely. I am not a wallower, but I have my moments. On the joyful side, my younger son who lives in New York City got married and we had a great time at his wedding where the far-off family members got together again like in the old days. Ah, that was nice.
I also turned sixty this year. Not that I mind it, but it is part and parcel with this feeling that I have to refigure what my place in life is meant to be. And those are my lame excuses for not keeping up with the blog! I had every intention of documenting this gardening season from the very first seedlings that I planted in February. I even took all the pictures to post them and redesigned the look of things. But I let myself be consumed with the day-to-day minutiae (and my new ipad mini which takes up way more of my time than it ever should!!!) I also had my share of writer's block, because sometimes I really don't think I have anything interesting to say! I stopped reading blogs too, mainly because if I read them I'd feel guilty about not writing mine. And that won't do, because I miss all the great bloggers who share their gardening and their lives and their encouraging words of wisdom!
So there's the story. I will post an update on the garden (which is doing great!) in a day or so. I am looking forward to catching up with everyone else's gardens. Now I am off to lunch with a friend who is the queen of upbeat and positive and try to learn from her!

Using the Harvest: Stuffed Peppers

For the past several years I have started most week-days with a 45 minute walk with several girlfriends. It's been a great way to start the day, other than the ridiculously early hour we do it (due to the fact that one has to get her kids off to school and go to work and another has to get her grandson off to school too.) It is therapeutic, not just for the obvious excercise we get, but it is a great time to share what's on our minds regularly and in the gray, cold time of year to combat the winter doldrums. Unfortunately this very cold and snowy winter has really limited those walks and I miss them! I am just not a self-starter with the excercise unless it's working in the garden, so the couch potato syndrome is settling in on me altogether too much. I was given one of those Maxine daily calendars this Christmas and today's little joke expresses my situation quite well: "I was planning to go to the gym, but I got a better offer from my refrigerator." Yup, altogether too much eating going on around here.
Still, I am trying to modify my diet somewhat and limit the amount of dairy and meat I'm eating. It helps that D is a vegetarian. I thought I'd share how I used peppers from our garden to make stuffed peppers for supper the other night.
We had such an abundance of peppers this past summer and many of them grew large enough for stuffed peppers. So while most of my excess harvest was sliced up or cut into large chunks for freezing, the biggest ones were just cut in halves and frozen just that way to be used for stuffers. It worked out great and eliminated the need to par- boil the peppers before baking them.

The picture is not the most colorful, but I can assure you, they looked good as they came out of the oven. This recipe does not have to be vegetarian, in fact, the original does call for about a pound of ground beef in it, and that tastes marvelous. But I substituted chopped mushrooms for the ground beef, which worked very nicely.

I just took my frozen pepper halves and layed them out in a baking dish. Didn't bother to thaw them out. At this point I would brown the ground beef (or in this case, saute the chopped mushrooms) with chopped onion and garlic.

Add a mixture of rice (a half-cup uncooked white and half-cup uncooked brown) along with tomatoes from my garden. These were frozen, but usually I would use two pint jars of canned. I also add an undrained small can of chilis and a cup of frozen corn. Season the mixture with about a teaspoon of chili powder and a quarter teaspoon of cumin (more if you like it), some vegetable bouillon, salt and pepper to taste.

I'm still using my home-grown onions, although they are not much bigger than sets and rather annoying to peel and chop. This mixture is cooked over medium heat until the rice absorbs the liquid. Fill the pepper halves generously with the filling mixture.

Finally, sprinkle some shredded cheddar cheese on top and bake, covered for about 45 minutes. I was very pleased with how these came out. I would say the only major difference in using the frozen, unthawed peppers to the par-boiled fresh ones was that there was a fair amount of liquid in the pan after baking. Maybe I should have baked them without the cheese, uncovered and added the cheese the last 15 minutes. I'll try that next time. This is a very forgiving meal as you can really adjust the recipe any way you like to change the filling. I'm feeling all healthier-than-thou having the vegetarian version, but with the hamburger they are really even tastier! But until I get into that walking habit again, I'd better pass for now!

Back In The Saddle Again

...I hope! No, I have not abandoned my blog although you'd think so when noticing that I haven't had a new post in a month. Adding the extra steps of uploading my photos to Picasa, after first shrinking them so as not to take up too much space, then finally being able to put them on the blog has really put the brakes on my posting. But I am hoping to have finally overcome my resistance to the new regime.  My patient spouse, who is so much better at working with computers than I am, has helped me to learn to do these things and even helped me to finally customize the look of the blog a little bit. Probably not for the last time!
So, what have I been up to this past month? Seed starting! At last! Onions, shallots and leeks were planted on February 10 and are just beginning to pop up. After our big blizzard this past weekend, it is amazing how much seeing the little green sprouts has lifted my spirits!

HA! And after all the trouble of learning the new regime, I now find that Blogger is allowing me to add my pix the old way again. Shall I tear my hair out now do you think? Well, live and learn. Anyway, aren't those cute little onions a beautiful sight? I have all kinds this year, because I can never resist buying new seeds and I am trying to use up last year's too. I planted Prince, which did very well for me two years ago, Copra, Stuttgarter, Pontiac, a new- to- me variety called Varsity and Ailsa Craig. I have Redwing on back order, but if it doesn't come in soon it may be too late.
For shallots, I planted Prisma and Ambition. Last summer's onions didn't do too well for me, but the shallots sure did. And I planted Tadorna and Bleu de Solaize leeks. I'm sure you can see that I do like my alliums!

I bought some cheap dollar store storage boxes and used a wonderful hint from Annie's Granny, making drainage holes in the bottom using a hot glue gun. Thank's for the idea Granny! These are great for planting alliums in. I also planted two small containers with celery yesterday, Tango and Afina cutting. I started these last year too, but never got them into the garden. This year will be different. The celery takes about ten days to sprout.
Another thing I have been busy with is turning 60. While the actual birthday was last week, about a month ago D gifted me with a new ipad mini. It has been nearly impossible to get off of that tiny little portable computer since! I can check my e-mail, my facebook, read blogs, watch Netflix, get the weather, practise German, play mah jong games and read books all in the comfort of my lazy chair. Not necessarily good for my health or weight! Birthday week a group of close girlfriends took me to a ski resort in the Massachusetts Berkshires for the day and we soaked in hot tubs, ate and did what girls do best, talked, talked, talked. And on the weekend of the big blizzard my husband took me to Newport, Rhode Island to a lovely little inn downtown and we enjoyed the storm in the coziest way, until it was time to come home to a very snowy driveway and lots of shovelling.

Yup, that's me, looking very happy and comfortable. Wish my house looked so nice! Oh, and what's that in my lap? My little ipad companion!  I'm not sure how I feel about being 60 since it seems that only yesterday I was 40, but I have plenty to be thankful for, not least of which is friends, family and health. And starting those seeds! Blogger, it's good to be back!