The Year of the Garden 2025

 

This is the Year of the Garden! I bought a mini-greenhouse and started seeds inside this spring.  It worked! My house was built in 1903. It is cold in the winter and all the porches mean there isn't a lot of winter sunshine in the windows. Growing seedlings has always been a challenge, but the mini-greenhouse was a game changer. With grow lights on each level and with it positioned near my desk, I never forgot to check the plants. Most of what I started came out healthy and strong. I had some that suffered from a fungus or just weren't viable seeds, but, hey! I'm was so much farther along than ever before. 

 

Big Greenhouse

Leon has been my right hand in all of the summer projects. He may be sorry he hangs out with me, but he is game! In April, we put up an outdoor greenhouse.  It was another new toy and just as big a factor in my 2025 gardening experience as the mini-greenhouse. When the plants got too big for inside, they moved outside. We had a thermometer on the wall, and heat sinks (various pieces of iron) to hold warmth in the early part of the season. Later I added two small fans to circulate air when it got warmer.  

I got the wild hare that I wanted to move the garden and put a dog yard north of the house. I've wanted a fenced area for the dogs for a very long time. A friend created a doggie door and small wooden pen off the north side of my house several years ago, but it was far too small for our growing dog pack. (Presently one 90 lbs., one 55 lbs. and one 30 lbs.)  This was the year I had to get a bigger dog yard. Where? Right where the old garden was, naturally. So, in late February, I realized I needed to start hustling. The garden needed to be moved in time to plant potatoes by St. Patrick's Day. Oh, oh! 

The last spike

I'm 77; Leon is 71. My son came by and moved two of the existing raised bed frames to the new area outside my back door, but most of the garden change was done by Leon and I. We built two more raised beds and then laid out a traditional garden parallel to the raised beds. We moved the red tiles that made a hopscotch game down the center path and the red tiles that supported the garden table. Leon built me a potato bin so I could see if that would be a better way to grow potatoes. (It wasn't).  We built trellises. and trellises. and more trellises... It seems everything I grow wants to climb on something. 

Leon was my engineer and partner in crime, but I had another assistant that kept me on task and helped me every step of the way. He isn't even human: Norby, my ChatGPT, advised on everything. Leon once said if Norby had been human, he'd have to get jealous of all the time I spent talking to Norby. :) How many trellises should we make? Norby had an answer. How should I orient the garden? Norby kept me from running the paths east/west the way I had in the old garden. He said sunlight and breezes would reach the plants better with a north/south orientation. How many XX should I plant? Norby found that answer. It isn't that I couldn't have dug through my gardening books for the information, but I could talk to Norby like a person and he would search the internet and give me the answers as if he were an old neighbor sharing hints. 

August 1, 2025

The resulting garden has been attractive and effective. The garden is a true kitchen garden, just outside my back door. I never stepped outside without finding myself wandering through the garden. I'd adjust a vine here, watch for ripening fruit there, pull a weed somewhere else. The old garden wasn't that far away from the present location, but it was on the north side of the house and out of my traffic pattern. I didn't see it if I wasn't deliberately going there. This placement invites me to wander. I did. So did Leon and Jen. Heck, even the dogs had to check out the plants. Lady, Jen's dog, is hell on grasshoppers. 

Sweet potato harvest

Even though Norby had a mathematical suggestion (grow X plants for this anticipated yield) I didn't listen. If I had 45 tomato plants growing in the greenhouse, it didn't matter that Norby told me 28 was all I needed. I found a home for all 45 tomatoes. This led to some interesting canning projects later in the season. I grew far too many cucumbers. I don't even like pickles, but I put up close to 150 jars of pickles for my grandkids. The Texas granddaughter sent about 30 of her share back to me. She couldn't store that many dill pickles! Fortunately, her brother in Topeka has a basement. AND he loves dill pickles. He has them now. I put up over 100 jars of tomatoes. (I love that) and froze corn (from the farmer's market), broccoli, Brussel sprouts, carrots, and peas. I canned tomatoes and green beans and froze and dried four different kinds of peppers. There were onions and garlic to dry and freeze, too. The white potatoes gave the best crop I've ever grown, but it was still too small to mess with. I'm not going to waste my time growing them anymore. The sweet potatoes, however, went crazy in the new ground. Not only did I get more than I can probably eat, but they were also huge! We will be growing these again. 

Wildflower garden

With all the vegetable gardening, you would think I had enough on my plate, but I also added to my flower gardens and moved the herb beds. I started a wildflower bed on the west side of the house. On the south side of the back porch, I planted a Jacob's Coat climbing rose and just a bit further south, I added a Julia Child rose to the bed I call Mom's Flower Garden. It contains tiger lilies that Mom planted more than 40 years ago. They have nearly taken the bed, but there is still a small corner for purple coneflowers and the new rose bush.  The herb gardens were moved to areas near the back yard. Most of them are around the white fence where I have one of the Blaze Climbing Roses. Others are in the holes of the concrete borders around the triangle bed and the north property line concrete beds. As you can see, my herbs get tucked into the flower beds so they can be decorative as well as functional.

New strawberry bed

With the advent of the new dog pen, I also had to move the strawberry bed and the asparagus bed that lived in the old garden. I built two new raised beds along the north property line. they are edged with concrete blocks. One bed holds asparagus, and the other holds the overflow from the new strawberry location. I thought that 4x12" raised bed of strawberries would transfer easily to the old triangle garden outside the back door. Fancy that. Strawberry plants seem to expand when transplanted. I filled the triangle bed and then built the concrete bed near the asparagus because there were still strawberries that needed a home. It was hard watching all those plants growing this spring and not getting any berries from them. NEXT YEAR I'm going to be bathing in strawberries. The strawberry bed was also Norby assisted. I complained that the triangle bed has been taken over by bind weed. Norby suggested planting the strawberries and then putting down cardboard between the plants to smother the bindweed. Once the cardboard was in place, I covered everything with cedar mulch. It worked well. I have had a few bindweed come up. I pulled them when I found them. Next spring I may need to refresh the cardboard and mulch to keep discouraging the bindweed. Oh, that brick bordered bed is garlic.

All and all, it has been a great garden year. I put by the harvest and also learned new skills. This was the year I started canning broths. I used a whole chicken to create chicken broth; marrow bones to make beef broth, and a wide selection of fresh vegetables to create vegetable broth. I also canned dry beans (kidney beans, pinto beans, lima beans) to add to that stash. Jen and I both love having these staples at our fingertips. Neither of us want to go back to buying such basics at the grocery. Norby's kitchen alter ego is a ChatGPT named Miss Melba. She has helped me perfect canning recipes. She checks to be sure my old recipes are using the most current canning times and processes. (Oops. My 1966 canning cookbook is a bit behind on how to process tomatoes. Definitely look for current data for canning times!)  She also helps with these new canning skills. I'm really enjoying this kind of artificial intelligence. 

South Room Pantry

Utility Room Pantry

It has been a very full summer, but I am glad we did it. I enjoy having a well stocked pantry and two freezers full. I feel Mom and my grandmothers standing behind me smiling. I come from a long line of gardeners/canners/cooks. It is good to have a full larder at the end of the growing season.

Those Pesky Maple Trees!

It's so  nice to have family near. When I started my vineyard a few years ago I expected to have two rows of grape vines. The vines had a different idea. They took off on the west row and the east row died. Totally. All I was growing on that trellis was bindweed and volunteer maple trees. Today was the day to tackle the trees. Pull them one by one or take down the trellis and mow the suckers?  I voted for mowing.

I got the support wires off fairly easily with my handy dandy bolt cutters, but how to remove the t-posts? The ground was soft, but there was no wiggling them out. I dug out 2 1/2 of 5 and ran out of steam. I called my son. Can you finish this?

  "Piece of cake, Mom. We have a t-post puller. I'll send Lisa over with it."

 A bit later, here comes my lovely daughter-in-law with this bright red gadget I'd never seen before. It works like Grandma's old waterpump from the farm. You attach the tool to the t-post and pump the handle. It just lifts that baby out of the ground! Whoo-hoo!  Lisa did one and let me do the other two. That was a fun toy!

She had also brought a crow-bar to use as a handle to unscrew the ground anchors. It was too thick for the eye hole but we found one of the 16" spikes I bought to make the raised beds. It fit nicely and Lisa had the muscle to unscrew both of them.

As it happens, she is using t-posts to build a fence at her place, so she happily took my t-posts and the ground anchors. I couldn't wait to fire up the riding lawn mower and say Bye Bye! to all those trees.

Gardening in The Time of Covid-19

Tomato vines trellised

The Covid-19 pandemic hit just as gardening season began. There were shortages. People were hoarding toilet paper. Farmers were having to slaughter or sell their cattle because the packing plants could not process the meat. Grocery stores were raising prices on meat when there were farmers with an excess in their pastures. Folks were seeing shortages and feeling the need to be more self sufficient. Gardening became a survival skill, not a hobby.

I got around the meat shortage by using some of my stimulus money to go to Bolling's Meatery and Eatery in Iola, Ks. for locally butchered beef. So far I've topped off my deep freeze on three occasions. I won't be buying beef at Kroger's again. This is flavorful meat!

First planted

The kids were eager to garden, and I was feeling the need as well. Last year was odd. There were no bulk quantities of tomatoes to be had. All I could can were what Lisa and I grew ourselves. For the most part, my raised beds performed better than her traditional garden. I think that was because the raised beds could retain water or let it go better than a flat garden. I have also been building the soil in my raised beds for several years. About every third year I buy 6-9 tons of composted horse manure and fill the beds with it. I mulch with ceder mulch and do a middling fair job of keeping the weeds down.

Now I like put away 100 pints of canned tomatoes for my house before I begin on juice or sauce. Since my daughter-in-law Lisa is an over-the-road truck driver, I do her canning as well, and I want that many for her, too. Last year we got only 50 pints of tomatoes total. Ugh. :(  With that memory behind me, I got carried away with planting tomatoes this year. Instead of my usual 8 or 10 plants, I planted 50!

Bundle of 50 lath

One section of trellis being laid out

In the past we have supported the vines with wire cages built from fencing that we inherited from my parents. Those cages are at Joe and Lisa's place. I didn't want to make that sort of support this year. Pinterest saved the day. Lisa found a post about building trellis from lath. Lath can be found at Sutherlands and Lowe's in bundles of 50 that are 4' long. (I used 4 bundles).

Reyes and Merisa helped me construct more than 32' of trellis to put in the garden.  We spaced the uprights 12" apart and the horizontals about 10" apart. That left us a 6" foot at the base of each trellis to pound into the ground. I didn't sharpen those stakes when we made them, but it would be easier to place them in the garden if they were pointed.

Reyes and Merisa at work

The Pinterest post suggested using hinges to hold two sections of trellis together. I didn't want to go to that expense. We experimented with various materials for hinging, starting with a Tyvek type mailing bag and later duct tape. After we were done and Lisa was viewing the garden, she suggested we cut soda cans into metal rectangles and hammer them in place for hinges. If the duct tape doesn't hold, I may do that.

First trellis went into the cucumber bed

We put the first trellis in the cucumber bed. They have loved it! By July the vines have reached the top and are falling over the frame. The tomatoes aren't as enthusiastic, YET, but I anticipate they will have the trellises covered before the season is out.

It is much easier to spot ripe fruit and pick them using the large openings in the trellis. I find it easier to wander around and weed the bed, too. The trellises are more open than those wire cages were. Now I just have to build up my stamina for all the canning that is coming on!

It Is So Nice to Have a Son

 I have been doing raised bed gardening since about 2010. There hasn't been much "raised" to the bed. I framed the area I intended to garden with landscape timbers, tilled the dirt and put seeds in the ground.

This year my son, Joe, decided it was time to improve the raised beds. I need them deeper for root crops like potatoes, sweet potatoes, and carrots. I need them deeper to continue to improve the soil. Joe counted the beds I have (9) and computed the number of landscape timbers I needed to bring them up to 3 landscape timbers high, and off he went to Sutherland's Lumber. He began by making me an entirely new, huge 4'x32' bed (bed #10!) west of the circle garden. Our friend, Dave, in the dark blue shirt, helped him with it.

Practice improving the first two raised beds told Joe that driving 12" spikes into those landscape timbers with a 3# mini-sledge wouldn't be fun. Not even pre-drilling the holes was enough to keep him from groaning about his aching back and shoulders.

He invented a special tool for his air-compressor that would be a modified air-hammer. With the air-hammer he could drive the spikes nearly in place. The sledge would only be needed to seat the heads.

As simple as it looks to make a rectangle out of landscape timbers, the process is very time consuming. After all the timbers are staggered like bricks and placed just so, with levels stacked to the right height, Joe has to drill pilot holes for the spikes. Usually it takes someone, in this case, Dave, to steady the timbers while he pounds the spikes in place. Each joint requires a spike on either side of the seam. Corners need three spikes. We use 12" spikes to reach through all three timbers. If they poke through to grip the earth below, that's gravy.

Finishing this bed means three of ten beds have been brought to full height. It's going to take all summer to bring all of the raised beds up to this new standard. Thank you, Joe and Dave, for this bed.

I love this new bed! It is as long as my parent's garden was wide. I can see it being used for lots of things, particularly things I want to grow in quantities. I had first thought I would plant yard-long beans here, but on second thought, this will be home to the tomatoes. It takes a lot of tomato plants to put up all the things I like to can.



Update July 2014: Here's a photo taken in July with the tomatoes going strong. I've already picked three or four Roma tomatoes. It won't be long before I have enough beefsteak tomatoes at one time to start canning. YUM!

So Many Photos -- So Little Time

Ah, the potential of an unplanted garden!

I spent a lot of last summer photographing my garden and incidentally posting some of the views on Facebook. Did I ever update my blog? Not like I should have. It was off my radar.  I still have the photos, and Blogger does allow a person to set the date for a post, so all is not lost. I can go back and fill the gaps.

Now it's spring again! I so love spring! My friend Dave gave me a small electric tiller last fall as a birthday present. I love my tiller!!! Now I am going crazy tilling various raised beds and making new ones. I have pretty much tilled every possible vegetable bed I can put on this property without touching the front yard, the orchard or the area around the fire pit. Of course I could garden those areas, too, but dang. The kids are grown. I don't need the entire 100'x150' yard turned into a garden!

 With that said, I do have a lot of raised beds (10 last count.) I want to grow enough food to can. Yes, I supplement my canning supply from the farmer's markets in Ottawa, Lyndon and Emporia, but if I can grow it, I don't have to pay for it. :)  I will be adding one more raised bed behind the circle garden. That will be the last bed that can fit in the area that was my parents' garden. I have ventured into "new" zones -- the shade garden under the ash tree (near the metal dog pen) and the kitchen garden just outside the back door. I love that kitchen garden! It was full of tomatoes last year, with kale, lettuce and a few other greens squeezed in along the edges. I will plant tomatoes there again this year but down the center of the bed, not across the back of the triangle. Considering how they spread, tomatoes, a bit of basil and some marigolds and nasturtium may be all that grows in the kitchen garden this year. Lettuce, kale, spinach, etc. will all be shifted to the shade garden.

The first of several raised beds built this spring

My son, Joe, and I are slowly increasing the height of the raised beds from one landscape timber high to three high. This will allow me to improve the soil more easily and to grow root crops better. So far the only root crops that worked well were the sweet potatoes I grew in the shade garden last year. That was probably because that ground had never been tilled before. Every Christmas Uncle Robert gives me a gift card to Sutherland's Lumber. (Ah! I love that man!). The gift card will go toward more landscape timbers and spikes for the other beds.So far we have two beds completed.

The one shown has potatoes planted in it. I will be spreading straw over the potatoes this week. (Yes, I got the spuds in the ground before St. Patrick's Day. :) )  The other quote is "Plant peas when the daffodils bloom." I'm on track with that, too. The potatoes in wire cages didn't work out last year, so we built the first 3 timber high bed for potatoes. This year that bed holds two kinds of peas: English peas and snow peas.  Rotate your crops! I don't want nightshade family following itself (potatoes, tomatoes, peppers) so I tend to move peas into a nightshade bed the following year. Legumes restore nitrogen to the soil.

Pantry Joe built me last year

The pantry shown is just one of the spots where I stashed last fall's produce. I have more shelves in the South Room. (Need to get a better name for that room.)  Joe built me this pantry section last year when I knew I was going to be doing a lot of canning. He had the presence of mind to use adjustable shelving. I've already had to have him cut more boards as I inserted more shelves to hold more jars. If you notice lots of pints and half-pints in my canning, it is because I don't anticipate cooking for more than one or two people, so I want smaller portions in the jars. If company should show up, just open more jars!

Two things I learned. First, some things are better in quart jars. Diced tomatoes, for instance. Many of my recipes (soups and chili in particular) need two pints of tomatoes. Pie filling also requires a quart of fruit. So don't waste effort. Can them as quarts. This year at least half of the tomatoes I can will be in quarts.

Second, it's nice to can soups! When I make too large a batch of chili or stew, I can the extra. It makes a quick meal ready on the shelf later on. This year I will try my hand at canning stews directly, not as an afterthought. I do love soup. Check two of my Pinterest boards for recipes I'm going to try someday: http://www.pinterest.com/tilla2/canning-and-preserving/  or   http://www.pinterest.com/tilla2/superb-soups/.  In the same vein, I have really enjoyed having canned chicken broth on hand. Three whole chickens and about 1/2 a left over turkey gave me 2/3 of the winter's needs for broth. I canned them in both pint and half-pint jars. Some of the broth was canned with mushrooms added. This became the base for homemade cream of mushroom soup.

I have really enjoyed having canned beans on the shelf. I posted recipes on the canning-and-preserving board of Pinterest on how to can dry beans. I like to can pinto beans and navy beans. My daughter likes black beans. I am still looking for the right mix of spices to make my own Ranch Style Beans. The recipe found in the Homesick Texan's blog is not quite what I want.

Dehydrators are a great addition to canning 

When I wasn't canning last summer, I was dehydrating. I have dehydrated onions, corn, green peppers, jalapeno peppers, celery, and carrots as well as various air-dried herbs and spices. The jalapenos were ground in the coffee grinder to become a fine powder. Just a few shakes give taco soup and chili a new tang. The dehydrated corn wasn't a big success. It takes far too long to reconstitute, but the other dried veggies are great soup starters. I toss them into the liquid early in the cooking process. They re-hydrate by the time the dish is ready to eat. Frozen green peppers and onions are handy to toss into a quick omelet.

I swear, I have been channeling my Mother! :) It's either that or I am in danger of becoming a half-hearted prepper.

Evolution

When I started this blog, it was to document the remodeling we were doing as we made our mark on the home I inherited from my parents. That started in 2006. It is now 2013 and a lot of the work has been done. Not all. I still have three or four rooms that need to have cosmetic work (mostly tape, bed, texture and paint.) After all that has been done, that seems pretty minor. 

I will be documenting those changes as they occur. I hope to have most of them finished by this time next year as long as money and child labor holds out. (Hm... is it still child labor when the baby is 34 years old? She's my child...)

In the mean time, the content of this blog has changed to be more of a record of small town living. I tell you about my gardening and canning. I mention the critters or things the family has done. 

So -- I'm changing the name from Bungalow Blues to Bungalow Blues and Country Delights. That should cover just about everything I talk about here. 

Spring! Time to Play in the Dirt!

I can't wait for the snow to melt and the ground to warm so I can get outside to play! I couch potato all winter, but the minute it is warm enough to be outside, I go out in the morning and find things to do all day. This time of the year, it isn't hard to diet. I'm active and not thinking of food... and not near the kitchen! :)

It is hard to remember that we has snow for Palm Sunday. The weather is beautiful now. Jen has been doing Spring Cleaning on the lean-to of the garage. (You go, Girl! I'm getting out of your way!) and I have been digging holes and planting/moving trees and bushes all over the yard. Last fall I purchased a lot of tired arbor vitae trees at Home Depot when they went on clearance. I didn't expect all of them to survive, but the price was low enough, I could give it a go. About half of them made it. One of the first things I did was "police the line" moving out dead trees and shifting live ones to fill gaps.  

This is the year for grapevines. I like Concord grape jelly and Thompson seedless raisins. Lala just likes grapes. With that sort of encouragement, I have planted five Concord and five Thompson seedless vines on the west side of the old garden. They are two-year vines. I don't know how long it will be before they will be producing, but I'm ready! (Hm... where was that book on raising grapes?)  


For the last two or three years I have been working toward planting a living fence along the north and west property lines. The arbor vitae that I mentioned earlier have filled a large part of that need along the northern line. I was suffering from the need to make all my plantings the same. In my head I was remembering the 100 ft. long spirea hedge that stood there when I was a kid. It had been my job to trim that hedge every summer that I lived at home. As soon as I went to college, Dad pulled out the hedge... Grr. I liked that hedge.

When I was talking about my vision for my yard with a friend who is a landscape designer, he said I am going for a "cottage garden". These are by definition eclectic and random in their placement. I can -- and should! -- mix plants. He helped me plant the Washington Hawthorne, Crepe Myrtle, Flowering Dogwoods, and more that I got from the National Arbor Day Foundation  They are in the line where I had started my lilac bushes. (Okay, he did say these one-foot high plants would take forever to grow and I should always buy the largest tree or bush I could afford so I could see my efforts sooner...) 

Thanks to his work and all the new plants, my western property line is also complete. I just have to wait how many years to see the bushes/ trees big enough to bloom? :) I think I see his point. If you look very closely at the photo of the grapevines, you will see metal stakes along the line of the ditch. They mark the lilacs and other plantings in the "fence row". There is also an arbor vitae showing at the end of a grape row. It's now been moved to one of those gaps I mentioned.

When Joe rebuilt the front porch last fall, I was afraid the Blaze Climber that has always been on the west side would get damaged. To save it, we shifted it to the east yard. It stands now in the company of the two rosa rugosa that I purchased at Arnold's Nursery last fall.  One of the first things I did when the weather improved was to haul the trellis that used to support the rose bush  and stand it up as a wall behind the climber. Now I have to decide if I want to add two more trellis panels to make a fence, or if putting something tall, like Pampas grass, on either side would give it a finished look. Hm... both ideas have merit.  But if I made a fence, I could have an arbor crossing the rock walk. That would really get into the cottage feel... Hm... (wheels turning...)

In the mean time, the trellis and rose bushes have acquired company. I finally ran the wheels off Joe's little red wagon. My folks gave him that wagon for his first Christmas in 1976. I don't know why the attach points would rust out and let the back wheels collapse. It's only been 37 years!  I just couldn't trash that red wagon, so I filled it with dirt and a few of those durable daffodils from the compost pile, and then parked it near the Blaze Climber. Jen found one of their old Tonka trucks in the lean-to, so I've put dirt and more daffodils in the dump truck bed and added it to the display. They look pretty chipper out there.  One of the neighbor kids was riding down the street today and he hollered at me to say he liked the toys in my yard. 

Plant Potatoes by St. Patrick's Day

Dad always said you should have your potatoes in the ground by St. Patrick's Day. Mine aren't quite "in the ground", but I did put them out today.  I planted three cages of Yukon Gold potatoes. The ground under the cages was dug to one-shovel deep, raked to remove clods, then the cage was set down and the soil leveled a bit. (The cages sit on the break of a slope.)  I probably planted more potatoes per cage than I should have, but I've had trouble getting potatoes to grow. It will be lovely if I have to thin them! 

The potatoes are spaced in a ring around the outside of the cage, then straw was placed on top of them. When they grow up through the straw, I'll layer more dirt on top and another round of straw. If this goes like the places I've been reading on Pinterest, I'll be able to reach under the straw and pick potatoes the way I pick tomatoes. 

Wow! I'm, excited. I hope it works! (And I have enough tomato cages left for at least some of the  plants that are growing under the grow light.

It Takes So Little To Make Mom Happy

When March got here, I was stuffing seeds into potting mix. I have three kinds of tomatoes, watermelon, luffa gourds, birdhouse gourds, mugwort, motherwort, lavender, catnip, Thunbergia vine (in the dishpan), summer savory, broccoli, basil, parsley, and more in the little seeding trays. I am keeping a running list of what I plant on the "blackboard" that I painted on the doors of an old metal cupboard.

The red tub on the floor is our "reclaimed" lettuce. Jen bought three "living lettuce" that still had the roots attached. After we cut off the leaves for eating, I stuck the roots in dirt. The first one planted is already putting out tiny new leaves. The next two will be added as they are eaten.

I had been getting by with two small 2-foot grow lights, but they didn't really reach all the plants. Today my son came by and rigged the four-foot light you can see in the top of the photo. It lights the top shelves beautifully. The 2-foot units have been suspended via twine from the center shelves of the little book cases. They are lighting the bottom shelves. I plugged everything into a surge protector. One switch at night, and all the plants go to bed.

And yes, the bare insulation showing tells the tale that my remodeling project is still in (slow) progress. I want to finish the sheet rock in this room after the grow lights come down.

It doesn't matter. I'm having fun with my plants. The house will get done when the house gets done.

Gardening Season Has Officially Begun

 It's February. We have close to three feet of snow outside. Snow! Lovely snow! It has been unseasonably warm most of the winter. I'm so glad to see the moisture!! Granddaughter Lala was too busy working on her home schooling to get out in the weather, but three of the neighbor kids borrowed my sled and had a good time dragging it and falling down in the snow.

Inside, I've got the urge to garden. I've been reading Month by Month Gardening in Kansas. Mid-February was the time to plant broccoli. Mine was dutifully started on February 13th, under a grow light.  I will be adding more plants around the first of March.

Canning Budget

   Mom kept a copy of a flyer pinned in the back of her favorite cookbook. It was called Your Canning Budget. We used it to anticipate how much to can each year. My biggest problem is figuring out how much to plant to get 110 quarts of food per person. :) 

FYI: The photo is a section of the pantry shelves my son built me.

Your Canning Budget

From Modern Guide to Home Canning, National Pressure Cooker Company, n.d. (1940s)

Planning your work… and then working your plan is essential to carrying out your canning program. While it is difficult to devise a canning budget that can be followed exactly, it is important to have at least a rough estimate of your requirements before you start in on your program.

          Working out a canning budget need not become a bookkeeping task, nor is it necessary to plan in minute detail the meals you are going to serve for months to come.

          What is important is to make a list of the various foods you want to can during the season. Decide, insofar as possible, whether you are going to put them up in pints or quarts… basing your decision on the size of your family, the types of foods and the containers available.

          Then calculate the approximate number of times you think you will serve each type of food in planning nourishing meals for a week. Multiply this figure by the number of weeks you expect the canned supply to last, and place the result opposite each food on your list.

          As an example, presume that you figure that you use about ½ cup of tomatoes per serving, and there are four in your family. If you usually serve tomatoes at, say, three meals a week – then your family consumption will total 2 cups, or 1 pint, per meal amounting to 3 pints or 1 ½ quarts a week. Figuring 34 weeks out of the year, then you would need approximately 51 quarts to take care of your requirements. Add an additional 14 quarts for other cooking purposes, and you can put down 65 quarts of tomatoes in your canning budget. Follow the same method deciding other needs.

          If you have your own garden, working out your canning budget before you plant is a good idea for it aids in deciding how much to plant and when to plant certain foods. Of course, you must keep in mind that you want a supply for use fresh, in addition to your canning needs.

          Just as a suggestion, the following canning budget has been worked out for a family of five.

         

                                                                                                             Quarts

Spinach and other greens………   30

Tomatoes…………………………    65

Other vegetables……   …… …… 100

Fruits……………   ……   ……… 220

Meats………………   … .……      100

Soups......................…  …             25                                                                                               
 Total....... ..  ................. ......... 540 

         

However, while arriving at a figure may be easy, it is sometimes difficult to budget the amount of each type of food needed to fill a pint or quart jar and what the approximate yield will be when you convert fresh foods into canned foods.

NOTE :

          Mom and I estimate that following this budget, one would need roughly 110 quarts of food per person canned for the season. We discounted the canned meats and soups because we do not go in for that kind of canning. These items are frozen, made fresh or purchased at the grocery store

Potato Update

Here is the volunteer potato growing in the compost pile. It REALLY likes growing in the compost pile. I will be interested to see if any potatoes make. The green part is going crazy.

2012 -- Year of the Yard

Circle Garden at Top of Raised Beds

I have been having so much fun working in the yard this year. The raised beds and circle garden are coming together. I created a rose garden with lilacs on the west boundary of the property. When Jen thought she was buying a house, she purchased 10 small trees from the National Arbor Day Foundation. By the time they arrived, she had changed her mind, so the trees came to this yard. Squeezing ten more trees onto this property has been interesting, but I found homes for all of them. Some (dogwood and hawthorne) are in the east yard. They will eventually replace the shade we lost when the butternut tree died. Some (redbud) are on the front terrace between the sycamore trees, and some (crabapples) are in the orchard and old garden (golden raintree). The lilacs were added to my circle garden.

Raised Beds -- new on far right is strawberries

The two crabapples are near the 5-in-one apple tree. The 5-in-one is about five years old. It was one of the first trees planted when we moved back to Kansas. I saw my first bloom on it this spring. Aunt Roseanna has a similar tree in her yard. She says hers has never bloomed. We speculated that the trees might want a polinating source, even though the seed companies where we purchased our trees never mentioned such a thing. So-- crabapples cross polinate apple trees very well. By the time my crabapples are big enough to bloom, the 5-in-one will surely be producing more than one bloom! :) I may get apples from it sometime in my lifetime. Speaking of polinators, my second cherry tree died last summer, so replacing it is on my to-do list for this year. 

There were a lot of young plants in my yard that didn't survive the hot weather. I planted two weeping cranberry cotoneasters last spring. They appeared to die, but I gave them one more chance this year. They didn't leaf out in the spring, but the trunks seemed supple. I moved them to a more sunny location (in the circle flower bed). They are coming back! I have new growth from below the graft. Hm... I wonder what I will get? Will it be some sort of non-weeping cotoneaster? Time will tell.

The project for moving all the root bound plants from Mom's old flowerbed is over. I have dug and replanted more lilies, narcissus, daffodils, peonies and Iris than I can count. I gave away plants till the neighbors ran when they saw me coming. After starting rows of foundation plantings around the north side of the house and in areas around the garage and the garden shed; adding Irises and peonies to the circle bed; and lining the front walk with dafodils and narcissus, I closed my eyes and tossed the rest of the plants in the compost. The composter is about half full right now. I wonder how many flowers will try to sprout? They can join the potato that is growing there.

All in all, It's a great time to play in the garden. I hope this summer doesn't get so hot I hide inside and barely stick my head out to water. I'd like to enjoy this till the snow flies.

Overflowing Wastub

I have a Pinterest account. One of the ideas I found there was a photo of a clay urn tipped on its side, spilling blue lobelia onto the lawn like water. I love that picture!

Now, I don't happen to have a clay urn. I DO have two old square washtubs. Last year they held herbs and flowers. This year I planted potatoes in one. They drowned, so I retired the tub. However, the other tub was available. I tipped it on the side, propped it up with bricks, and filled it with blue lobelia. Now, this is spilling wash water, right? Hm... A trip to the store and a six-pack of white alyssum later. Viola! Now there are random soapsuds floating in my spilled water.

I can't wait for the flowers to spread. I want to see the tub filled before half the dirt washes away.

I wonder if I should have had the plants well established before I tipped the tub? Hm... Nah. I'd never have been able to tip it if it were full of wet dirt.

Potatoes, Reprise

I DO have one potato plant that survived. It is growing in the compost bin! When I dumped the compost today, several leafy arms waved at me. I am sure it is one of the potatoes we found going bad the other day. Usually tossing things in the compost does not encourage them to grow. I guess things were just right for this one potato.

Since potatoes like to be buried -- it promotes the growth of more tubers -- I'll leave this one in place and see how it does. In fact, I'm going to make a point to keep burying it under compost so more tubers will form. One thing for sure, it will have good soil.

Potatoes

My effort at planting potatoes in the washtub didn't work. The tub wasn't well enough drained and sitting directly on the ground. The heavy rains we have had this month flooded the tub. There have been INCHES of standing water that just don't go away. I'm going to empty the tub, spread the dirt around the yard and try again another day.

Spring! I love Spring!

          Every March, even if there is a dusting of snow on the ground, I have to plant potatoes by St. Patrick's Day. We made it -- just! -- this year. I wasn't going to plant potatoes, but my daughter found some in the house that had started to sprout. I didn't want to put them in my raised beds, so I tried something different. I planted them in one of the washtubs that are decorative planters in the back yard. Now it is April. I don't see any sprouts yet. I wonder if they have survived?
          Ah! but a lot of things did winter over. Most of my herb garden came through intact. We had a particularly mild winter (only a couple of light snows), so they may never have realized we had winter. I did have to replace the rosemary and lavender. They didn't come through. The tarragon didn't either. I have enough dried tarragon and basil in the cupboard that I won't be planting those herbs this year. Instead I put chamomile in the square where the tarragon was last year. The basil was always planted with the tomatoes. This year I put marigolds with the tomatoes. I don't know if any companion plant thing will go on from it, but the marigolds will be cheerful!
This week I have been outside whenever I could be. I spent all day Easter Sunday working with the herb and flower beds. I installed a new raised bed next to the dog pen, and dug it up. I dug up a small flower bed in front for cut flowers. Then I dug both sides of the circle bed for more flowers. After doing all that digging, I grabbed the trowel and dug some more, making trenches to place the plastic edging that divides my raised beds into squares. Do you know, after all that digging, the things that hurts most are my wrists? They just about scream when I do a turning motion like tossing dirt off a trowel. I expected my back to be tired from all the digging.
Just about everything is planted now. I have two more beds to complete. The strawberries didn't survive the heat last summer. Or was it the drought? Anyway, only 5 plants out of three 4' beds survived.  They are now resting their toes in one of my ornamental wash tubs. I took this opportunity to move the beds.
The painted pine boards that the first beds were made from didn't last past three seasons. I am framing the new beds from landscape timbers. The new beds will be located between my keyhole garden and the asparagus beds. That looks better and will make mowing by the blackberries easier. After the timbers are secured I will dig the beds inside (oh, no! More digging!) and enrich the soil with manure, peat and top soil. When that is done, I'll find more strawberries and get the bed started for next year.

Putting the Garden to Bed

Raised beds

 It's already fall. I didn't do much with my garden after the heat/drought struck, but I'm pleased with it none the less. It did well for its first year.

The raised beds have been put to bed. I harvested my herbs and have them drying. Two out of three of the beds have been mulched. I didn't mulch the bed where I grew the tomatoes because I am not certain how I will use it next year. This year it was open. Next year I may want to divide it into square-foot sections as well. I really like square-foot gardening. It lets me dabble in several kinds of plants in a small space instead of planting 90' rows of one thing.

Trellis bed

The watermelons on the trellis were a partial success. Two or three melons actually grew, but I didn't realize I had planted an ice-box melon. They were past the door before I had any clue they were ripe. Heck, the melon wasn't much bigger than a soft ball! I thought it needed to keep growing. There is a bright side. The raccoons didn't get my melons either! The last time I had melons I watched the cantaloupe religiously, poised to pick them at their prime. The day I was ready to get them -- all the melons were broken open and eaten. Coon tracks in the mud told me who the bandit was. :(

Herb bed

Jen and I picked all of the cilantro and dried it about a month ago. We have some nicely labeled jars in the cupboard now. I see volunteer cilantro coming up. We may have some fresh herbs for her salsa into the winter if the weather holds. I hope the rosemary winters over. It survived last year, but was in a more protected area. I'm mulching everything heavily. Time will tell.

Now, I wonder when I'll know the leeks are ready?

Sloughing off

I should be posting more. I have been knitting, more off than on. Once the summer heat struck, the knitting bag got hung on a door knob in my bedroom. I doubt I'll pull it off that knob till the weather cools down.

I have made a few Granny's Dishcloths and given them away. There are socks in that lonely knitting bag, and a sweater in another one. I am so slow to work on the sweater that I have to frog it back to the beginning each time I come back to it. I don't know where I left off. Perhaps I should pin a post-it note to it next time. "I am at xxx spot on the pattern."

And what HAVE I been doing? Reading my new colorNook. It is so much fun to have an entire library at my fingertips. Some days I finish one book and move right into the sequel. (I love series books.) After finishing all the Elemental Masters Series by Mercedes Lackey (for the second time), I discovered Juliet Blackwell's Witchcraft Mystery Series. That lead me to her Haunted Home Renovation Mystery Series. Waaaw. She's just starting those series. Three books in one, only one book in the other.

My daughter and I loaded up at the library book sale a few weeks ago. I grabbed all the Dorothy Gilman books I could find. I have always loved her Mrs. Polifax series. (Heavens! I'm old enough to be Mrs. Polifax now. She knits. She gardens. She does a little spying for the CIA... just your average little granny...)

One of Gilman's stand-along books isn't a mystery. It's more a romantic comedy (think Tom Hanks/Meg Ryan). Title Thale's Folly, it is a nice little summer read. Each chapter is started with a quote from a old herbal. I found that delightful because Jen and I and our friend Rosanne have been going to herb classes all summer.

The herb classes are taught by Joanne Bauman of Prairie Magic Herbals. http://prairiemagicherbals.com/ Joanne has taught us how to use wild plants for healing, as well as how to use the things I grow in my garden. I am developing a lot of interest in herbs thanks to her. The last two classes were particularly interesting. They were on Plant Spirit Language. She draws heavily on Cherokee traditions when she teaches us about communing with out plants and learning to listen to what the plants have to offer us. It is fascinating and opens an entirely new way of seeing plants and my garden.

I commune with my garden when I'm watering it. The chives enjoy my company. Some day I will sketch them. So far the only plant that I have sketched is the watermelon that is growing inside the toe of an old nylon. My watermelon plants are trellised to grow upward instead of sprawling all over the yard. Yes, I'm still square-foot gardening.

And yes, again, I did post this word for word from the Iris Knits blog. True confessions of being lazy and doing nothing but reading and watering the garden during one of the hottest summers on record in Kansas. Mea Culpa!

That Horse Shit Was Worth It!

Remember me posting about Reyes and Pat putting horse manure on the garden last spring? This was Pat's third try to get a good crop of corn. In the first two efforts he may have harvested six ears from the entire planting. Now he's a believer in horse manure (also extra nitrogen and side dressing with blood meal when the tassles form). We put up 19 pints of whole kernel corn and 24 ears of corn on the cob. If the entire crop had been planted in Bodacious corn, we would probably have had twice that much corn.

We planted two types of corn. Many years ago my Mom was enchanted by Iowa Chief corn. It was one of the first extra sweet corns she found. Not knowing which kind of corn to grow, I found that and planted it the first two years. Later Pat picked Bodacious from the Gurney's Seed catalog. We put in two rows of Iochief and 2 rows of Bodacious. Hands down, Bodacious is the one to grow! Not only was it sweeter, it outproduced the Iochief all over the place.

Besides corn, we have been busy with peas, onions, green beans and now tomatoes. I'm busy nearly every day canning or freezing what ripened the day before. I have never grown Roma tomatoes before, so it's an adventure figuring out how to process tomato sauces. I have put up two batches so far. One of classic tomato sauce (it came out pretty thick) and one of Italian Tomato Sauce. (runny, but full of carrots, onions , celery and other chunks. ) I have about 1/2 a basket of tomatoes to process today, so I'll have to see what recipe I want to try this time. The Big Boy tomatoes will be ripening soon. That's when I will put up diced tomatoes and tomato juice.

The green beans are going crazy! I have over 30 pints of beans put up and the beans are still producing. I thought they were "spring crops" that died off in early June, but the beans didn't, only the peas did. We will have beans until frost at this rate. I'm not complaining. Pat and I love green beans. Reyes doesn't get a vote -- they are on the table, so he gets to eat them. :) I don't think that's a problem.

The cucumbers went wild and I have put up all sorts of pickles -- Kosher dill pickles, dill pickle chips, sweet gherkins, sweet gherkin chips, as well as bread and butter pickles. I don't eat pickles, so I have to take the kids' word for it that they are good. Reyes and Lala smack their lips over the dill pickles. I do believe they could eat the entire quart in one sitting if they were allowed to do so.

I'm proud of the onion harvest, but frustrated, too. I can't grow large onions. I want them the size they come in the grocery store! Guess that will be one of my winter assignments: read up on growing large onions. Maybe they need something besides horse manure... I wonder if I can plant onions in a fall garden? As much as I'm using them for sauces and cooking, this won't be nearly enough to go through the winter.

The spaghetti squash is our mystery plant this year. My folks always planted one vegetable they hadn't grown before and didn't eat (yet.) One year it was globe artichokes. Another year it was peanuts. Okra became one of their staples after they tried it one year. [Dad had to harvest it because Mom was extremely sensitive to it's thistle-like nature.] So, for us, this year was spaghetti squash. It's doing great! But when do we harvest it? I've read that it is a winter squash, so I'm figuring it will harvest when the pumpkins do. I did pick one this week and cut it open. It was still green around the edges and the seeds weren't properly formed yet. I did cook it and the pulp did it's string thing, but we didn't eat it. I have time to perfect a good spaghetti sauce to eat with the squash.

We also have cantaloupe, two kinds of pumpkins and sunflowers planted. Reyes loves sunflower seeds, so he's been keeping a close eye on them. Next year I'm going to plant them against a building because every time we get a big rain, we loose another plant. We will be lucky to have 4 plants make it to maturity.

The pumpkins are Jack-o-Lantern pumpkins and one vine of Giant Pumpkins. The package said to pick off the buds and let the vine concentrate on producing one pumpkin to get the largest size. I let two pumpkins stay on the vine. I guess that means we will get two 150 lb. pumpkins instead of one 300 lb. pumpkin! It's going to have to hurry. Right now they look like light bulbs, not pumpkins. (That's it on the left.) The Jack-o-Lanterns have grown to be decent sized and LOOK like pumpkins, but those others, well... time will tell.

All in all we have a good garden and are enjoying it. This has been a good year for us.