Tag: Garden

Jam and Garden Update

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I managed to make Jam last Friday. I took it easy all week, so I could do it.

This is fifteen jars of strawberry rhubarb jam. I could not have done it without over six pounds of rhubarb my real estate gal brought over to me. I got up super early and hit the business version of Costco at 7am, and grabbed the strawberries. So far, in my area, Costco has better fruit than anywhere, and it’s cheaper in bulk.

I was up and jamming, done by 10:30am, and back to bed for the rest of the day! That’s definitely a success because I got it done. Baby steps!

As for the garden? See for yourself.

My garden is looking good. You’ll notice I am missing broccoli in the upper left bed. I harvested it, and then all it was doing was attracting cabbage moths like crazy. I decided to pulled it. It will compost it down for next years beds. My bush tomatoes are going crazy in the back. Even with careful pruning I am no match for them.

My cucumbers on the lower left are also doing amazing. I hope I have a lot to can as pickles!

This is my old broccoli bed. It was planted with beet seeds that I soaked overnight. I also laid out some of that Rainbird irrigation tubing so I can keep them watered with the rest of the garden.

I was using the dripper ends on the broccoli going to each plant, but honestly, I prefer the drip lines. They provide enough water, and may not go to each plant, but setting up individual drippers takes time, and is hard on me to hunch over and get it sorted out. This takes minutes and works just as well.

This right here? That is the first tomato of the season. Getting the 55 day tomato seeds from botanical interests really allowed me to hedge my bets. I got a version called Glacier from Botanical Interests which is a semi-determinate, whatever that really means is up in the air for me.

I have ordered seeds from a few different places, but I find Botanical Interests has way better packets, and has information on the plants inside the packets too. Plus, I feel I get a higher germination rate on their seeds. One of the guys who runs that business has a Youtube channel called Epic Gardening. He has good videos, and tutorials, and explanations on there, with a generous side of sales. That’s how I learned about Botanical Interests, so I guess it worked out.

I am in zone 8b, and am closer to the coast. I am in a weird little microclimate that is always breezy too. Like you could be blocked on either side, but our little valley is constantly just a little breezy to outright windy. In this heat, that is a bonus.

While I am not a fan of temperatures above 70F, my garden is loving it. I have been in the Pacific Northwest my entire life, and we hit record temps all July, and are looking to do it for August as well. I figure since this is happening, my beets may get a good bit of sun and warmth to grow up.

This is the first time I have ever had this much space, and a lot of the plants I am growing are first time plants. I am shocked and pleased at how well it’s all going.

Canning Jars Have Arrived

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All my canning jars have arrived. I have some more 8 oz and 4 oz ones, but I have a plan for this next month that will be canning heavy.

My canning list is as follows:

  • Blueberry Jam
  • Blueberry Syrup – for pancakes!
  • Blackberry Jam
  • Raspberry Jam
  • Strawberry Jam
  • Marmalade
  • Pickles – from the garden.
  • Tomato sauce/paste/in general – from the garden. I don’t know what form this will be in, but boy howdy! will there be a lot of tomatoes this year!

The raspberry and strawberry are on the end of the jam list because I still have some from the last time.

We eat a lot of jam, though. We have it on toast, with peanut butter, and on waffles and pancakes. It’s also good with crackers on a cheese plate. Discovering home canned jam was like a doorway into accelerated jam use. From my estimate we have probably doubled how much we eat now. I’m cool with that. It’s easy and fun to make.

My plan is to maybe do some this weekend, and then try for two jams at a time until we are done with the jam and syrup list for the year.

Marmalade is new to me, so I have to figure that out. My wife loves orange marmalade. I have a recipe and will figure it out. I use pretty exclusively Ball recipes because there are some very dangerous canning directions online, and I am not really okay with sources that are not Ball or the US government preservation sites. Botulism is not the end I want, so I am going to stick to safe recipes.

I have never done pickles or tomatoes. I just have them growing in my garden, and wanted to water bath can some for the year.

That’s super ambitious, but I am into it. We will see how far I get on my plan, but I am all set up and ready to go.

Herbs & Poverty

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Yeah, yeah, I know. this bed needed quite a bit more dirt, but you work with what you have!

Today I got to use parsley and basil in my garden for the first time. I mixed them in with my tuna salad for dinner today. Just basic tuna salad. I mixed in some green onions for good measure, and that was it.

However, the parsley and basil were fresh with the green onions. The flavors were shocking to me because it’s been so long since I have had ready access to fresh herbs.

This is what happens when you were steeped in poverty when you were young. I was on my own by the time I was 16, and for reference, once I spent $10 for 2 cases of top ramen and damn near gave myself scurvy because it’s all I ate for three months. Not because I wanted to, but because I was a teenager trying to problem solve not starving to death.

I just didn’t have the education to know what to do with food. It’s not that my family, before I was on my own, were poor. They were anything but, yet their food decisions weren’t really big on fresh raw vegetables and home cooked meals. My mother’s cooking nemesis was the box brownie mix. We either chiseled it out of the pan half burnt, or used a spoon.

My first experience with real fresh well cooked food was when I worked at The Black Cat in my home town. It was a four star restaurant, and I learned the basics of cooking that would put me into the kitchen in every place I worked until my mid-twenties.

When I was 16, I wasn’t even sure I would get food the next day, and I certainly could not have imagined owning a home, and having an honest-to-god food garden.

I also feel like a proud father because my mint plant is blooming.

That manky Trader Joes mint is finally taking off. You know what that means? My mint jelly dreams will be coming true next year. Not to mention the cocktails. Don’t worry. It’s contained in its own 2 foot raised bed. It can have that bed, and no more! If it bleeds into the lawn? It’ll just smell good when I mow.

Cutting up that basil made me grateful all over again that I even got this chance to do this. There’s no way I could in an apartment. Sometimes I think about how far I came from that homeless street rat, and it’s hard to believe. I’d have never believed I could come this far back then.

Garden – Bugs and Broccoli

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My brassica’s have taken a beating from bugs this year. I am a new Gardner, so my first mistake was mistaking cabbage moths for cute white butterflies. Then the white powdery mildew showed up on the broccoli.

But I could not figure out what was eating them. I tried some neem oil for the broccoli to help with the powdery mildew, and BT spray for the cabbage. Still, I am fighting them.

I suspect, I planted too much of each, cabbage and broccoli, too close together. Next year I will change it up and intermix things so there isn’t one giant buffet for things to get out of hand. It will also help me separate and treat individual plants without the whole crop being effected.

However, some of my broccoli was ready to harvest.

Taste-wise and it’s very different from grocery store broccoli, which is lower on flavor and more woody in texture. Not all the plants were ready, but that’s fantastic because I can spread the broccoli harvest out and get more still as time goes on. So my leftover pizza dinner plans for tonight will be put on hold, and broccoli and chicken teriyaki will happen instead.

My last issue is with earwigs. I found them in my sunflowers first, and wasn’t sure if they were a good or bad bug. They eat plants so they are definitely bad. I mean, I am okay with them existing, as they are plant eaters, not ear eaters, and actually protect their young and not really worried about the ear wig public relations disaster they have going on. I’m not sure who decided they go into people’s ears, but it’s kind of funny disinformation campaign.

I learned I could set out olive oil or fat traps. I had some extra bacon fat from breakfast yesterday’s and mixed it with enough olive oil to maintain liquidity, and set them out. they are nocturnal, so I waited until this morning to check.

Earwigs are assholes because they eat your plants. I have been seeing them everywhere, and I think it may be the uncharacteristic heat this summer. I’m not an earwig expert. Maybe they are always everywhere every year. I won’t know until I have a few more years here.

I was pleased I caught some, though.

I’ll leave the traps out until it rains. With the new irrigation system, they won’t get in the way so they can happily sit out there for a bit. Maybe thin the population down.

Hopefully, I can win the battle and hold all the pests off long enough to get my harvest in from the cabbage and broccoli.

Rice Porridge – Congee for Breakfast

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We eat a lot of rice dishes and my favorite way to use up leftover cooked rice is as a breakfast porridge or congee.

Ingredients

  • 1 TSP ginger paste from those convenient grocery store tubes, or use fresh. Whatever works for you.
  • 1 TBSP Better Than Bouillon Chicken Flavor – Don’t use a cube of bouillon. It’s not as tasty. This stuff is a different world of flavor, and I hate brand name anything.
  • 2 Cups cooked leftover rice. Bonus points if you made it with MSG the night before. Don’t fear the MSG.
  • 2 Cups water, then maybe extra at the end if needed
  • 1/4 Cup Crushed or Chopped Peanuts
  • 1/4 Cup Low Sodium Soy Sauce – Or regular if that’s what you have.
  • Enough chopped green onion to top

Directions:

  1. Add rice, water, ginger, and chicken Better than Bouillon to the sauce pot.
  2. Bring to a low boil for somewhere around 20 minutes, or until your rice reaches a rice pudding texture. You can go longer or less, depending on your time constraints. I often do chores while it’s going and forget for a while.
  3. If it looks too thick, add a bit of extra water, mix thoroughly, then give a minute or so to integrate.
  4. Stir in the crushed or chopped peanuts.
  5. Put in a soup bowl, and drizzle soy sauce on top, then add your green onions.

Notes:

I also sometimes add a fried or over easy egg, or sausage, or leftover chicken teriyaki. Basically whatever I have in the fridge at the time, or whatever I have the energy to make for it. It’s very versatile.

Garden Note:

I have these grocery store green onions I have planted in my garden when I was done with them, and I cannot emphasize enough how much better they taste planted in my garden. They have so much more flavor.

I was not holding my breath as they came from the grocery store, but apparently proper care and growing time makes them a whole different plant.

Irrigation Systems and the Physical Limitations of my Body

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I bought some Rain Bird drip irrigation kits on Amazon. I was super excited, and ready to make watering my garden easier. I have bad days where I limp and it’s hard to just stand there and water things physically. I was hoping by setting up an irrigation system that it would be easier on me.

My first set back was when my neighbor knocked on my door to let me know that a silver van was following the Amazon truck and stole my boxes. I was in the garden at the time, and only 20 minutes past the delivery point. Reporting this to Amazon was near impossible and the cops in my jurisdiction won’t even take a report for petty theft. I went to get what I could locally, and reordered what I could not.

Not counting the stolen items, I am in for roughly $200.

Everything started off well, and it turns out splicing a hose is pretty damn easy. I also have quick connectors I attached, and then started laying out the actual irrigation tubing and dripper ends.

Dripper end on my tomatoes.
Dripper end on my broccoli, and an extra bit that I forgot to pick up.
Drip hose in my onions.
Drip hose in my herb garden.

This is where I hit my second set back. While it is relatively easy to set up, if you have a physical limitation of any sort, this may be difficult. I had a garden seat to sit on, but being hunched over each plant in each bed? Ouch!

Then my final set back? I ran out of supplies. It took significantly more than the kits. I added a dripper to each of my larger plants, such as tomatoes, broccoli, and cabbage, and dripper tubes to the rest. It took significantly more time than I was expecting.

It was probably for the best I ran out of supplies because I was really hurting by this point. I’d been out there for a couple hours, and my wife was worried.

I also realized my original plan would need redone. My original plan was to use quick connects to attach hose sprayers for general yard work, but under pressure these do connect and unconnected with they will soak you. Not the best idea when I am usually in my PJs before bed when I am watering the garden.

Original quick connection set up.

I have ordered some more stuff to revise this to be easier, and here’s hoping it doesn’t get stolen off the porch again!

New plan:

  1. Get more supplies and a four hose manifold? I think they are called manifolds or splitters when you have a one in, and four out situation?
  2. Redo the hose connections with dedicated hose sprayer areas so I don’t get sprayed with the quick connects.
  3. Add dripper lines to the last 2.5 beds in the big garden area that still need it.
  4. Add dripper lines and tubing to the two beds on the other side for my mint and rhubarb.
  5. Plan enough time, and down time afterwards to I don’t have to rush, and I can recover more easily.

Bonus picture of my first tomato this season!

First tomato!

Garden Update – Late June

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My garden is really starting to take off. I am so inexperienced, but I feel I am still doing pretty well.

My cucumbers, above, are doing well. If they all take off I might be buried in pickles, though. I planted a lot of them because of my inexperience and I wasn’t not sure if I’d kill them or not. I will hang some twine on the front brace and train them upwards. The sunflowers are also great. Those are taking off. I don’t know if they will survive the birds, and if I will get any, though.

My sunflowers are doing well, but my herb garden seems slow. I have no point of reference, and I did start direct from seed because my house was so buried in new home projects and boxes and work that I didn’t have the space or mental head room for starting seeds early. So I am hoping the basil, parsley, and dill take off.

The green onions are taking off. The top two big squares are grocery store green onions. the rest are ones I planted. The seed planted ones are starting to work, but they are taking some time.

My broccoli is taking off. I had to add more support ties to my stakes, and take a few leaves off that were overshadowing my green onions.

I also got some unwelcome visitors:

These are cabbage moths. At first I was thrilled with the white “butterflies” in my garden, until I started finding my leaves eaten. Then I looked it up, and realized I have cabbage moths. The bird feeders mean they are eaten pretty quick, but those caterpillars are like crazy greedy. I keep finding them and flinging them away from the garden. I mostly feel tricked and betrayed because I like butterflies. Stupid cabbage moths!

My tomatoes are starting to take off. I did prune off some of the lower branches for easier watering, and I have been training them up the support. My biggest plant already has flowers. I am very excited. I have some good Ball canning recipes for tomato sauces, juices, and whatnot. I hope I get enough to do that.

My red cabbage is also huge. I had to trim a couple leaves that were overshadowing my strawberries.

My strawberries continue to do well. I am even getting a couple of berries. I have been trimming off 2/3 of the flowers like the directions say, in order to force better growth. I won’t probably get enough to do another batch of jam but it’s nice to see them going.

I also bought this garden stool on Amazon. My joints are bad, and I am only 51, so I felt like an old man, but this really helps. I can flip it over to kneel, and I can sit on it and work on my beds. It was very much more comfortable. Worth every penny.

Lastly, to get my plants enough water, I am spending a lot of time every day watering. I think it’s time to invest in a watering system. I was going to do it next year, but this is a lot. I have some bits and bobs coming from Amazon this weekend for the 4th, and I will see if I can get it put together. Even if it’s not a permanent structure, but just something I click the hose into for an hour, that would help. If it does work out, the system has a timer so I will try that too.

Garden, a Dragon Onesie, and iPad Storage

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I got the stakes to fix my broccoli. It’s been windy and rainy here, so all my broccoli fell over. I had no idea it needed staked, because I hadn’t ever grown it before, but now it looks much better. No more sideways plants, with upside down leaves. Ignore that tiny one. It’s a replant when that square of broccoli didn’t come up. He’s doing fine.

Also, my Amazon purchase for my wife came in. I like to buy her things. Today? It was a red dragon onesie. I love it and she was thrilled with it. The cat? Tally is really not too sure about this development. She’d only just gotten over the balloons my wife got as a get well soon gift from her coworkers for after surgery.

Behind her is a router and all sorts of internet cables on the shelves. I was supposed to drill a hole through the wall, install 2″ desk grommets, so the wires could go through, but instead I made wall pockets for iPad and laptop storage next to our bed.

I found a unicorn tote for my wife, the lovely disaster unicorn, and a hail gay satan one for me. Yes, yes I did find a hail gay satan tote bag on Amazon. You can find anything there. It’s amazing sometimes.

We both use an iPad in bed, and my wife also uses an old laptop for writing her YouTube scripts and gaming notes. I am always concerned they will get stepped on, so I made them a place to go up off the floor. We can’t use a normal nightstand arrangement because our bed is literally in the closet, sticking out, which is cool with star lights, but I don’t want to do pictures until I finish the canopy for it. This means we have to get creative with storage.

Also, my wife has ADHD, and tucking anything in for a nice clean look was out the window 30 years ago when we married. I find keeping everything in easy to access and visible areas increase the likely hood that it will get put away, and that she will remember where it is.

This is actually straight, but the picture makes it look crooked.

Construction was just a fabric envelop made out of tote bags with pictures I liked on it, and then I used the straps for the totes to make a small loop at the top, then I put some hooks in the wall, with carabiners I had laying around. The rainbow ribbon was just what I had on hand because I bought 100s of yards of it on Amazon once, so I use it in my projects when I need a bit of ribbon tab.

The most exciting part about this is I own the whole damn house, and I could use actual hooks that screw into the studs in the walls. It’s not a rental, and if I want to put holes in my walls, I sure as hell can. The sheer freedom to put 6 cup hooks in the walls? Worth every penny of my mortgage.

Cheese Prep & Mint Plants

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When we went grocery shopping on Thursday, we also hit Trader Joes. They have better snacks and frozen ready-made foods with less ingredients I question, and for a pretty good price.

I bought a mint plant because my teeny tiny mint is barely there, and I planted it in the 2 foot planter with my mint seedlings. Mint is generally a contagious plant that overtakes everything, so I am hoping either the seedlings or the plant overtake that planter.

I also got on with the cheese prep. I had a 5 pound Costco log of sharp cheddar and another 5 pounds of pepper jack, and a couple frozen squares of similar items from last time we went to Costco that needed shredded.

That flat of peaches in the back is for my wife. She’s making peach cobbler this weekend, and she will make it all into cobbler filling, and will freeze any she doesn’t immediately use.

I use a kitchenmaid attachment I bought off Amazon for shredding. I don’t have a food processor. I have a Ninja blender food processor bowl, but it doesn’t have a shredder or slicer attachment. I absolutely will NOT shred this much cheese with a box grater, so this was a good solution for under $30.

My original plan, 6 months ago, was to cut it into squares, then shred it once it was thawed, however, while it does work, it’s not my favorite. You can see the texture difference below. The big bowl on the left is fresh grated cheese, but the small Tupperware is the stuff I froze, then grated after thawing. It still uses the same, but I think it impacts my nacho game with how it melts.

Fresh cheese in big bowl versus previously froze cheese in the small bowl.

I ended up with a lot of cheese.

I started doing this because the cost of cheese was insultingly high, but then I discovered that the cheese I was buying in the grocery store proper wasn’t as good. The sharp cheddar wasn’t as sharp, and the pepper jack was just bland as hell.

Don’t even get me started on the pre-shredded cheese. It’s just wrong. Like it doesn’t melt right, and tastes, I dunno? Dusty? Because of the anti clumping agents. It was just crap.

I did a quick cost analysis. If I paid Fred Meyers prices for the Sharp Cheddar? I’d have paid $39.95. I’d have paid $22.48 for the Pepper Jack. I did not take into account the Ziplock bags. That would add a few cents per package.

While that is not a lot over the course of 4-6 months in differences, it’s still aggravating. Especially for a product that tastes worse. Plus I can buy it once, pack my freezer, and not have to go back to the store or pay MORE when the corporate grocery pricing fiasco reduces the size of the package to give me less for the same price.

I think my next step will be a vacuum sealer. That will definitely help prolong the life of my food, and I suspect if I get one, I can buy the bags in bulk, reducing prices.

Garden, Grass, Squirrels, Clover, and salt

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My garden continues to grow, but I’ve never grown broccoli before, and did not stake them. We had some wind and they are all falling over and I will have to see if I can stake them this weekend.

It’s not terrible, but I need them to grow up due to my limited space.

I did tie up the jute twine for my tomatoes. I am using tomato clips. I think I got like 300 for a ridiculously cheap price on Amazon.

You just clip them on the twine and the tomato and you are done.

I am also fighting the animals. Squirrels dig a lot of holes in the dirt in my yard. Since it’s not full of grass, they really go to town.

I do it to myself because we have so many bird and squirrel feeders around.

We have several of those black basket peanut and corn feeders. We get a lot of crows with them. I love crows and they won’t eat out of a feeder, and honestly I love the squirrels too. We have an enormous number of squirrels all over.

When we redo the deck, I will make a more permanent set up for them. This is just until then.

Below is the disaster that is my front lawn.

My lawn is half dead because they got it green enough to see the house, and it’s just dying. That crap fill dirt is the same in the front of the house. It’s filled with rocks, glass and rusty nails. I don’t like grass anyways, so I am re-seeding with clover. It’s actually starting to work.

I think it’s doing better than the dying grass. I have seeded twice, and will do it again in July here. It doesn’t grow as tall, and is way greener.

Then I have this problem:

The driveway and front walks have a bare inch of gravel and no landscaping fabric was laid down. I had thought it was weird there was like a gallon of heavy duty weed killer in the shed when we moved in. I guess that was their solution. I am not so keen on that. I don’t want to put damaging chemicals in the ground.

Instead, I am trying rock salt. Just Morton’s rock salt. I have mixed it up in solution of 2 cups for a gallon of water, and sprayed it with a hand held sprayer, but this last time I got tired of carrying it so I just sprinkled rock salt all over. I got more salt in, and then watered it in. It’s working, but slowly.

You do have to be careful to not get it in your lawn. It will kill anything. I am hoping after several treatments, this will make the driveway and walk ways ungrowable. the walkway is kind of temporary?

We do plan to install a large fence when we do the decks, and change the walkway layouts. We will add another walkway straight to the road, and straighten out this one in the picture to the driveway. I will probably do like I am planning in the back, and make a wide gravel walk, done right this time, with big 2′ X 2′ pavers for stepping stones. It will carve out more grass out of my small lawn. The less grass the better. It’s not ecologically a good ground cover choice.

It’s just so novel for me to be able to work on these things and make a difference. I am not used to this, having been a renter for so long. I still feel grateful every day we managed to get into a house.