Autumn Haze

I love Autumn. The dusty, musty smell of the soil winding down in the garden for the year. The low slung golden light filtering through leafy trees just beginning to give in to the inevitable lack of light that will turn their trusses into a fiery crown. Falling to the ground, their beauty spent, their leaves will nourish the next flush of  green with the warming of days next spring.

The early morning garden had started shrouded in fog. I now look across this little farm where the holly hocks stand guard at the garden gate the setting sun  turning their blossoms into little panes of stained glass more beautiful than any church window. Beneath them between the lavender and the rosemary I can see divots in the soil where the chickens spent the afternoon happily tossing dust a foot or more into the air as they took a languorous dust bath. I make a mental note to repair them. For what purpose I don't know. They will only be at their happy destruction again tomorrow. I don't mind. I love having animals that are so obviously happy and healthy. I call the masses home with a "chook chook chook" and lock them safely into their run. They seem to  visibly relax once tucked inside, searching for bits of food or just resting in a corner, waiting for the sun to tell them it is time to go to bed.

Picking up my basket I head for the garden to see what the days offerings will be. Tomatoes perhaps.  Green tomatoes for sure but I'm not quite ready to give up on the possibility of a late flush of ripe tomatoes and another Caprese Salad (recipe follows) before cold weather takes these little beauties. If there are enough I can dehydrate them for using on pizza in the dead of winter. Yum! Summer in January!

Zucchini would be great too. I discovered that my family will eat all the
zucchini I can grow when I make baked Zucchini Fries. (Recipe to follow) I see spots of orange peeking out from under giant prickly leaves and make another mental note to write in my garden book to plant more pumpkins next year. They are so much fun and a versatile calorie dense vegi that stores amazingly well if not allowed to get too cold.

Green beans dangle from tangled vines and I pick the garden's offering. Pencil thin and straight french fillets and big fat Blue Lake beans. There is also tender wax beans and a collection of long purple beans. They will turn a deep green when steamed but it is always fun to bring a basket of multicolored beans into the kitchen. Boring vegis are not in our repertoire of daily fare at this time of year. The beets I planted in August look gorgeous with their ruby colored stems glowing in the setting sun and the ferny foliage of new carrots as a backdrop. They will be a tasty dish this winter. The beets need thinning in order to have room to become beets so the "culled" leafy greens will  be dinner tomorrow. I leave them until then.

Walking back toward the gate I spot some small pear shaped tomatoes hiding under the skirts of a protective branch. I pick one and pop it into my mouth enjoying the sweet acidic explosion on my tongue. I haven't any lettuce or greens big enough to make a salad but decide a small bowl of plain naked tomatoes would be just the ticket. Better than a candy dish without the guilt.  

Picking up my basket I trudge toward the house with my booty wondering if we will get tired of green beans before they are done for the season and if they will taste nearly as good when I use the frozen beans that I have put by.
In the kitchen I pour the beans into a large bowl to sort into beans for dinner and beans for pickling. Shining jars of peaches have cooled and sealed on the counter and are waiting to be labeled and added to the growing larder in the pantry. Partly ripened tomatoes are covering every available surface including an extra table that I have set up specifically for that purpose. Not trusting the weather I brought in all the tomatoes except the Pear and the Pacino's to ripen in the house. This year I am going to beat the blight to the harvest. I place these tomatoes into a zip bag as they ripen and place them in the freezer to be turned into sauce later. The smell of blackberry jam is still heavy in the air and reminds me of my mothers late summer kitchen. All this is a lot of work now but so easy this winter when I need a jar of something to round out a meal and I don't even have to go to the grocery store. I take the peaches out to the pantry and admire the colored jewels preserved in gleaming jars.

 I'm tired after the days work but it is a happy contented tired. The kind that means you will fall asleep tonight and sleep clear through until morning and wake up ready to do it all over again. Perhaps tomorrow I will try making green tomato relish right after putting out eggs and a few bags of green beans for my customers that make the long trek down our dusty driveway. It's fun to share the harvest and see the appreciation on other peoples faces. My only regret about the waning summer is that I didn't find the time to use the hammock set up in the front yard. So tomorrow morning I will make it a point to enjoy a steaming cup of coffee on the front porch and admire the turning of the season before starting my day.

Baked Zucchini Fries

Italian seasoned bread crumbs
Grated Parmesan cheese
Seasoned salt
Zucchini
Olive oil or egg whites (depending on your diet egg whites can be used in place of oil)

Preheat oven to 425 degrees. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper or foil
Combine bread crumbs, cheese, and seasoned salt in a pie plate. 

Cut the zucchini in half length wise and remove seeds. Slice into 1/2 x 1/2 x 4 inch pieces and place in a large bowl. Drizzle oil over the zucchini and quickly toss with your hands. (Zucchini absorbs the oil)

(Or beat egg whites just until frothy and toss with zucchini).

Press zucchini into crumbs gently shaking off excess and place onto the prepared baking sheet.

Bake in preheated oven until the fries are golden and tender about 15 minutes. (I find that a convection oven makes them even crisper.)

Serve with catsup, sweet chili sauce, or just plain.



For those that don't know what a  Caprese Salad is here are some directions. (my youngest calls this leaves and cheese)

Caprese Salad

Fresh garden tomatoes sliced about 1/4 inch
Fresh basil leaves
Fresh Mozzarella cheese slice about 1/8th to 1/4 inch
Your favorite olive oil and vinegar type salad dressing. (ceasar works)

Alternate tomatoes, leaves, and cheese in a circle around the edge of a plate piling left overs in the middle to make an attractive display. Drizzle with dressing. Let marinade for at least 15 minutes before serving. You can also drizzle a thin line of balsamic vinegar along the salad.

A Winter Garden? Everyone Should Have One

Last years Cheddar Cauliflower 

Ok. I know your tired. Fall and winter you are looking forward to a little down time and book time, holidays, etc. But if you happen to think about it you can get a fall garden started. It is just a little bit closer to being more prepared and self sufficient. I have chosen to put in some basics for the winter. Cauliflower, three different varieties of broccoli, beets, carrots, lettuce, and maybe some spinach. Although I think I am a little late for the spinach I will try it in my cold frame.

Here in the Northwest cool weather crops are the only thing that will grow with a little protection. I don't want anyone to think I am some expert because just about everything I do is an experiment but I have had some pretty good results. Last year I grew broccoli, brussel sprouts, and a variety of cauliflower called Cheddar that was to die for. I also grew a variety called snow crown with terrible results. I didn't know you had to "blanch" cauliflower or that there are self blanching varieties. I didn't even know what blanching was but I do know it doesn't mean using hot water.  Apparently when cauliflower gets to be about baseball size you are suppose to wrap the leaves around it and hold it in place with something like string. This protects it from the sun and helps it turn white. Turning white was not a problem for me. Knowing when to harvest was. Harvest when the heads are about 6 inches in diameter otherwise they get a ricey look and are past their prime. Since I lost my cauliflower to hard frost I think perhaps this is a better reason to blanch.

This year I put in some simple raised beds to make the job a little easier and to battle the constant crappy soil. I bought three pieces of 2 x8 x8 foot Douglas fir and cut one in half for the ends so the bed would be 4 ft. by 8ft. I didn't want to use treated lumber and cedar was just too darned expensive. So following the lead of my friend Cindy, I applied boiled Linseed oil to all surfaces and let it dry then had the man screw it

Beets in the foreground carrots in the back

together for me with 2x2's in the corners. I filled, fertilized, and planted beets and carrots in it and did it in August. A little late for beets so I chose a fast maturing variety called Merlin (55 days) and another that I had in my seed file called Chioggia (65 days). Beets and carrots were direct sown into the first raised bed about mid August. Although I had doubts about the beets due to the late planting they are doing great. I planted thick enough that we have had two meals of beet greens. Not bad for a four foot square planting. During August in spite of my attention to watering, my beets would wilt slightly during mid day. Too much sun. So I placed a piece of 4 x 8 lattice on the west side of the raised bed held in place with three metal fence posts and plastic ties to hold the lattice to the post. Worked perfectly. No more wilting. My carrots need thinning but look great. The beets have formed little one inch beets already. The only thing I would do differently is not use so much compost. I can see the beet roots are going to be somewhat hairy.

 Around here you need to plant your fall and winter gardens in late July and August to allow for adequate growth prior to the onset of fall. The difficulty comes with the fact that you are planting cool weather crops and it is still hot at that time of year. So it is very important to water, water, water. If you let broccoli and cauliflower dry out even once it will bolt instead of growing. Because I was building the rest of the raised beds at the time I needed to be planting them I opted to start the Cole plants in pots on my patio. My patio gets morning sun until about 1pm then it is in shade the rest of the day. A perfect place to start cooler weather plants. I also put the pots in flat pans so that the pots could sit in a 1/2 inch of water lessening the possibility of drying out when I forgot to water. When transplanting be very careful to not disturb the roots as this will cause a set back in growth.

I went ahead and put in two more raised beds that were 4x12. These I am using for the Cole crop and because I grew the plants in pots I had a ready made garden as soon as I was able to fill the bed with soil. This time I used a three way mix from the local soil company.

One of the things I don't like about Cole crops is the green caterpillars and aphids. The caterpillars are the larvae of the white cabbage moth or butterfly.

You will see them flitting around your garden looking for a spot to lay their eggs on your lovely broccoli. Brussel sprouts seem plagued with a grey aphid. Both are a real pain. The caterpillars can be controlled with a couple doses of BT but not only do I not relish the thought of eating that stuff no matter how harmless I also don't like paying for it. So I came up with this idea. As soon as I plant the broccoli, cauliflower, and brussel sprouts I cover them with nylon netting that I purchased at the fabric store last year. Not to be confused with tulle. It's cheaper than row covers or tulle and does the job. (Tulle also blocks more light than the nylon netting.)  Not one greenie meanie. Last year when it got cold enough that the butterflies where no more I took the cover off. Unfortunately the grey aphid attacked the brussel sprouts when I did so this year I am leaving the cover on all winter. According to my companion planting book Cole crops do well with onions so I planted some bunching onion from seed between the broccoli and cauliflower in the hopes of getting green scallions for the winter.  They are just starting to come up and are about 1-2 inches tall. Nice thing about planting in the fall is everything seems to germinate faster and better. The bad thing about my set up is the onions skinny little spikes want to grow up through the netting because it is just gently laying on top of the Cole crop. So I placed some hoops to hold the netting up off the soil. I sure don't want those onions to grow through that and have to either cut them out or rip them off. In general I am pretty happy with the job I have done so far. I will plant the cold frame with lettuce and spinach and then relax a little and just do some clean up and weeding and putting the rest of the garden to bed for the winter. The chickens and ducks will be invited in to the garden to clean out any lingering pests. Then I can get started cleaning and winterizing the coop. Guess I wont be relaxing after all. Hmmmmm.

Sunday the oldest came home with her boyfriend to partake in a small family tradition. We celebrate the first day of fall with a family dinner. We had a pork roast on the rotisserie and a Caprese salad, acorn squash baked with butter, brown sugar and a slice of bacon, Zucchini and potato fries then topped it all off with home made pumpkin pie. We even had a little goat milk ice cream. All out of our garden and home made. (The goat milk was from a local farmer) Of course I forgot to take a picture so here is a picture of the table instead. Both of our girls start school the next day. First day at junior college for the youngest and first day as a junior at the University for the oldest. There are many things to celebrate.

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Strawberries, Canning, Gardening, Ducks, the Milk Man and a Berkey!

When I was a kid we had a milk man. It was normal to have milk delivered to your doorstep and put in a little insulated box every week. As a kid I never gave it a second thought. The Smith Brothers Dairy was just a few miles from our house. When I became a teen some of Smith Brothers Farm was bought and a really big shopping mall was built on some of the best and richest farmland in the valley. We stopped getting milk on the porch and the dairy moved several miles further south in the valley. As an adult I moved in the same direction only up on the hill above the valley and I still didn't have milk delivery. The store was so close. Now I live several miles north and west on an island and guess what I just discovered I can do? Ya! Milk delivery! Half and half and buttermilk and anything else I might want. And who have I chosen to get milk from? You guessed it. The same dairy I grew up with. And why?  Because I am tired of wasting my money on dead ultra pasteurized milk.

 I'm also tired of lugging home that yummy milk in the cute heavy glass bottles that cost twice as much and that requires a deposit. Then you have to remember to return the bottles. Not to mention the occasional broken 1/2 gallon of milk in the bottom of the grocery bag and the fact that the nutritional value of milk is depleted when it is exposed to light.  Smith Brothers delivers for nearly the same as the grocery store charges, delivers in cartons that are made of recycled material and the milk is fresh and NOT ultra pasteurized. This means I can actually make cheese out of it too! Haven't tried it yet but I am about to. I will let you know how it works.

Strawberry season is finally here. In a good year the season would have started the last week in May. A normal season starts sometime in the first 2 weeks in June and only last a couple of weeks maybe three.  I know this because it was always so easy for me to miss it. The last few years strawberry season has been extremely late due to wetter and cooler than normal weather and has actually been overlapping raspberry season. Around here we have a saying that summer doesn't start until the 5th of July. I never minded that it was wet for the 4th. I figured it just cut down on fire hazards. But this berry thing is getting a little hard to manage. I need the time between strawberries and raspberries to get another pay check. Not to mention Bing cherry season is in full swing. I can a lot of cherries. It is very handy to open a quart of cherries and put them on the table with dinner in the dark of winter when you need to round out a meal. At any rate

strawberries are finally here. I bought two 12 lb. flats two day ago. I made jam, canned ice cream topping, and froze the rest. They weren't the greatest tasting berries I have ever had. We have had way too much rain and way too little sun so they were big, plump, and watery tasting. Now that the 5th of July is here (and so is the sun right on que) I will give it a week and go see if they taste any better.
Notice the picture of my jam to the right?  In the background is a gift from my man. Recognize it? Ya! A Berkey water filter! I have been complaining about the taste of our water since we moved here. For the first time in years we are on city water and it is very chlorinated. It taste awful and sometimes it taste like dirt. Nothing like the clean fresh tasting water we use to get from our well. Even our finicky cat hates the taste. I have also not been too keen on having to rely on the water company in the event of some catastrophe to provide clean potable water. With the Berkey we can filter the pond water if we have to. This could come in handy since the Cascade earthquake fault runs right in front of our four acres. In the mean time I'm going to drink water that resembles the good stuff we are use to.

The garden is finally almost under control. (if that is possible) I will be harvesting sugar snap peas this week and from the look of it we should have a bumper crop. The tomatoes have some size to them and I was smart enough this year to space them far enough apart to have room to grow. I did get the out of control section of garden weeded and the squash, pumpkin and zucchini plants all put in. I bought those as starts so

they should be taking off here in the next week. The potatoes are huge and I have pulled a few out here and there for a couple of meals. They were nearly the size of my hand. The plants are still green and growing so I will keep hilling them up in my potato towers and see what I get. I planted green, wax, and purple string beans about three weeks ago and the plants are about 4 inches tall. The day time temperatures were still in the forties to low fifties so I was a little concerned the beans wouldn't germinate. So far so good. Cucumbers are not very happy. I didn't have much luck with those last year either. The lettuce in the cold frame finally bolted but we had several salads from that. I pulled the rest out and fed it to the geese and replanted bell peppers and cherry tomatoes.
I'm on to planning a winter garden. I am hoping to convince the man to help me with a small hoop house/row cover to plant broccoli, cauliflower, beets and other fall crops.
The geese and ducks are all doing well and seem to have got past what ever was making them sick. I still don't know what it was for sure that was doing it and I still can't help but look out the windows and count heads every hour or so. That is my update. Now I am  going to try to switch to the updated blogger interface so if I disappear you will know what happened. Blogger ate me.

Cold Frame and Garden Update With a Splash of Goat Milk

Remember the cold frame that the man built for me? We are finally getting greens and they are great! No bugs or slugs and easy as pie to wash which makes me want to make more salads. You in southern climes probably can't relate because you are already getting tomatoes and your squash plants are huge. We up here are waiting for peas, and it hasn't been that long since our last frost. (April first-ish?) Our last bout with snow was March 17th even though it didn't stick it wasn't what you would call gardening weather. Since then it has been windy and almost constantly rainy (really cold and wet rain that lasts all day) with just a few days of reprieve so our growing season doesn't really start until May. You still have to get the stuff in the ground in order to get anything out so gardeners here are a tough breed. Temperatures here can be as low as mid forties upper 30's. The highest so far have been barely 60. This is great for lettuce, peas, potatoes, and cabbage type stuff but not beans and tomatoes. So that is why the cold frame. I need fresh greens before June! My potatoes are in and coming up although I still have a few I haven't put in. Mainly the russets.

I am (as usual) experimenting with a technique for the peas. I love fresh sugar snap peas. I hate trellising them. It's a pain in the a$$ and the string type trellis just seems to be flimsy and falling over all the time. Not only that we have birds (robins I think) that love sprouting peas. They come down in the garden and peck out the newly emerging pea plant so that the next time I go down to the garden I find neat little holes exactly where my plants were, all in a neat little row as if they just went down the line and plucked them out one by one. So this year I think I have foiled the little buggers. Like last year for the broccoli and cauliflower plants I covered the ground with nylon netting from the fabric store. bug covers for cool weather gardens This stuff is cheap, reusable, lets in all the light and water, and the birds don't like it. heheheh. I simply spread the netting over the planted area and put in a garden stake to hold it in place so the wind couldn't blow it off. You only need to do this until the plants are about an inch tall. The birds leave them alone after that. Then you can remove them so the peas don't grow up through them.  For trellises I am trying upside down tomato cages. I'm not sure if the pea plants will be able to grip the metal on the cages but if not I will figure out what to do about that but I am hoping for pea tee pees. I wrapped the fabric around the bottom of the cages and held it in place with clothes pins. It has worked like a charm. I removed the fabric and I have lots of peas coming up. In case you noticed that some are planted in rows and some in tee pees it is because I didn't think of the cage idea until I was half way done. So this will be a real experiment with a control group. Ha!

 So here are the results!



Other than that I have been very busy baking, teaching a class last weekend and making cheese. I don't have goats anymore but I still go over to my breeders farm and buy goats milk from her. She has Kinder Goats which is what I had. http://www.kindergoatbreeders.com/ They are the best little goat ever. They are great milkers, easy kidders, and a good size for meat. They also seem to be less trouble than the bigger goats as far as escaping and taking care of in general. I guess I will have to dig out some of my old pictures and do a special blog on them. I do miss the babies and she had a ton of them. All of them friendly. I even had one that jumped into my arms. At any rate I have been making simple cheese with the fresh milk and a chocolate goat milk ice cream that my kids ate up as fast as they could get it in their mouths. Come to think of it the cheese is gone too. Guess I better go make some. I'll take pictures this time.

Comments are a way of Communicating

I want to thanks those of you who take the time to click on the word comment at the bottom of my page. Sometimes it is hard to get up the gumption to write these blogs because you think "what's the point". I love hearing from all of you and suggestions for blog post are encouraged. What would you like to read about? Let me know. Communication via blogs is more fun than e-mail!

Cool Weather Gardening

Last year I experimented a little with winter gardening. I planted broccoli, cauliflower, and brussel sprouts in late August and early September to be harvested in the fall and early winter. What I got was broccoli with green worms, cauliflower with ricey looking heads, and brussel sprouts with tons of grey aphid. I swore I wouldn't try it again. Instead I was going to sit on my butt and read, have fun during the holidays, and cook. Somehow I couldn't resist the siren call of the garden this fall. I planted all of the above plus sugar peas and lettuce in early August. I am now harvesting sugar peas and lettuce for our October and November dinners. The aphids are so far leaving the peas alone and the plants themselves are adding nitrogen to the soil. The lettuce is incredible especially compared with store bought and will last about two weeks in the fridge (except we always seem to eat it before that).

 In July I attended a garden tour in my old stomping grounds on Lummi Island with my friend K. It was a lot of fun and there were some beautiful gardens. However K's garden gave me the tip of the year for my own and she didn't even know it. She had netted her blueberries with netting purchased at a fabric store. You know the kind used for petticoats and tutu's? It's cheap and easy to get and she used that instead of garden netting because the year before she had found a bird tangled in the garden netting that had died. Anyway I went home and bought a few yards at $1 a yard, planted the broccoli and Cauliflower and covered them all with the netting. I noticed the white butterflies trying to get in to lay their eggs all over my plants but to no avail. Come September I was harvesting big heads of broccoli that was worm free and believe me I looked really good. If my kids EVER saw a worm in their broccoli that would be the end of

ever eating it. Now the plants that I harvested from in September are providing side shoots of broccoli. Some of them quit sizable. The white cauliflower is coming along and I have harvested an orange cauliflower called cheddar that was very yummy. I will plant more of that one next year. Once the white cabbage butterfly season was over(when the weather got colder) I removed the netting. Guess what happened then? I got grey aphid. Yep! Guess I should have left it on. Lessons learned. Aphid isn't a real big deal. Hit them with a strong spray of water from the hose a couple times and you should be good. Any left over can be washed off or in the case of brussel sprouts the outside leaves can be peeled off.

This summer's project for the man consisted of trying to figure out how to keep the geese off the porch so we didn't have to pick our way through goose poo every time we wanted to enter or leave the house. Yes they were looking for me. Standing on the porch rattling the screen door until they got my attention then looking very innocent. We came up with a solution that consisted of a short cute fence around the patio with a cold frame for winter lettuce and spinach and a grape arbor over the top. This has turned out to be a great solution and I love the way it looks. Now all I need is the time to fill the cold frame with soil and plant it. However nothing is easy because I am always looking for a better way to do things. The cold frame is made of untreated blank T1-11 siding on a frame of 2x2's. The four lids on top are poly-carbonate panels that we found in the remnant pile at a greenhouse supply place. He mounted them in frames made of 2x2's and installed them with hinges to the top of the box. Then he lined the inside with plastic sheeting so the soil wont rot the untreated wood poking slits in the bottom for drainage.  My plan is to layer organic material that will decompose and give off heat starting with leaves and manure and topping it all off with a "growing layer" of soil for the lettuces and spinach and what ever else I decide to experiment with. I am also planning to line the back wall with some kind of water filled containers that can heat up during the day and release the heat back to the growing area at night. What I would love to get is 3 or 4 of those black plastic flat things that they sell at the auto parts store for draining oil out of cars but they are about 40 bucks each. I will probably end up with one liter soda bottles painted black. I guess you could call it a passive solar grow box. What ever you call it the man did a great job as usual. He even installed a gate in the fence that swings both ways and is spring loaded so you can push your way through it in either direction with arm loads of stuff and it springs shut behind you. I discovered one little problem. When the dog wanted out I was having to walk outside in my bare feet to open the gate for her so she could go outside and pee. I have now taught her how to open the gate herself. She doesn't like doing it but if she wants out bad enough she will push through it. (No she wont pee on the patio. She has manners.) I will let you know how this is working out when I get it planted. I will take pictures along the way so you can see how it's put together. Stay tuned.