New Things for the Garden

I sat down with my box of garden seeds this morning, checking to see what I'm lacking, and then put in an internet order for the seeds I know I can't find locally. One hybrid I just had to have was Joi Choi, the only bok choi I've found that doesn't bolt to seed once our summer heat gets here. I also wanted Kuroda carrots, an Asian type that handles our summer heat nicely, yet keeps well in storage until the following summer. And I'm trying Delfino Cilantro in my on-going search to find the slowest one to bolt.

I also ordered seeds for a few more heirloom vegetables. I'm trying to move more and more to heirlooms, so I can save even more of my own seeds. This year, I'm trying Lutz Green Leaf for my beet crop, and Danish Ballhead for storage cabbages. I found the things I wanted in the Jung Seeds catalog.

I like additions to my perennial plant selection even better. I ordered a Wolfberry herb plant, also called a Goji berry. It's supposed to be a hardy, drought-tolerant, vining perennial shrub, and the berries, high in anti-oxidants, are commonly dried like rose hips. Sounds like it will fit right in around here. I wanted a couple more blueberry plants. I already have a dwarf Northland that is doing ok in a little bed where I've added sulfur, plus mulched with pine needles and coffee grounds, to make the soil more acid. Blueberries are supposed to do better with three varieties cross-pollinating each other, so I'm trying a dwarf Northblue and a Rubel to complete that planting group - I need to find varieties that can both take the heat of our summers and survive our freezing winter weather without snow cover.

Then, I'm trying something new for my sweet husband. He likes to make beer, getting the ingredients from a brewers supply place in Reno, but has always wanted to play with home-grown hops. So I ordered both Nugget and Willamette plants. Before they get here I'll have to decide if I want to just grow them as summer privacy screening on the fence and treat the hops flowers as a bonus, or set up a trellis system designed for efficient harvesting of the flowers. I've thought about growing them up a string outside the south side of the chicken pen to a pole just inside to give the chickens some more summer shade, or maybe I'll design a hops arbor. Aries is pretty good at figuring out how to make my design sketches a reality, and we've got quite a bit of salvaged wood for building projects.

Putting By the Grape Harvest

No freeze yet - it only went down to 35. The harvest continues, just not quite so frantically. I have a red seedless Reliance grapevine, about 18 years old now. It's the one fruit I can almost always count on, blooming late enough to miss most Spring frosts. It's planted on the east side of the dog run/chicken brood pen (I also have a green Himrod, that never produces much at all but shades the west side of the dog run, and a very young Golden Muscat just getting started on the east side of the deck). The Reliance is shaped into a four-arm Kniffen, with two branches running south and two north. By pruning it back each year to just those four arms, the new growth gets plenty of sunlight each year, and it's easy to net the whole thing from the birds. I've got one long piece of netting that will stretch all the way up and over, clothes-pinned underneath to the chain link fence, and more than long enough to go around the corners. I use an old broom to lift the netting on and off, and wind it around an old Christmas wrapping paper cardboard tube for storage year-to-year.

I now get probably 40-50 pounds of grapes each year. Some I freeze to use like blueberries in muffins, smoothies, and cereal (I love frozen grapes, with their little casing of ice milk, in my cereal bowl). Some we eat fresh out-of-hand. Fresh grapes will keep into December, laid out in unwashed bunches one layer deep on newspaper-lined trays in the cellar. Some I give to the neighbor kids. And the rest I dehydrate into raisins.

I used to dry my raisins out in the sun on the deck, moving the laden screens inside every night. But when an elderly neighbor across the street decided to get rid of everything and move to India, she gave me her old dehydrator (it's harvest-gold color - at least 30 years old), plus the paperback book that went with it; Food Drying at Home by Bee Beyer. It's a really nice dehydrator, the size of a big microwave, with eight rectangular screens, a fan (a bit noisy), and an adjustable temperature control. I still use the sun for dehydrating summer produce, but it's so much easier to do the grapes in October inside. So today, I watched a couple of movies on TV and de-stemmed enough grapes for a full load.

Morning, Morning Glory

Just a quick little post today - got lots of things to do. The shallots are all cured, and hung up in an net stocking (like oranges come in at Christmas time) in the pantry. Of course, I saved about 20 of the nicest biggest ones to plant later on this fall for next year's crop. I've pulled the soaker hose off the onions and bent the rest of the tops down. They'll be ready to dig and set out to cure next. Now's the time of year to start watching the night temperatures, but they're staying the the 40's for now. Cleaning the cellar is still on my list of things to do - once I get that done I can start opening up the door nightly to get it started cooling down. We're eating lots of eggplant and cucumbers, but not many tomatoes yet, and the corn and beans were meager this year. Got a beautiful red seedless grape crop just about ripe (it's growing on the dog run fence, in the background of the picture) - at least I'll have lots of raisins this winter. Switched my home decor over to autumnal colors (my favorites!), and just last night put the flannel sheets on the bed (still sleeping with the windows open, though). All relatives in Texas are ok - they got only rain and wind, no tornados around Bryan (although Mom's winter home in Port Isabell was completely demolished earlier this season). Things can be replaced - everybody stay safe, my thoughts are with you all. Ah well, things to do, people to see - later!

My Happy Place

I love my garden, and especially this time of year. I wander out there all the time, just looking - pulling a weed here, checking for bugs there, snacking on the first, perfectly ripe, blackberry (or two), guiding a bean tendril over to a support pole. The smoke has cleared out, and our sky is blue again. But, things to do, people to see.

Soroptimists luncheon today - I got the books closed out for the fiscal year, and have just about finished up with the annual dues paperwork. After that I'm volunteer-ushering a Shakespeare For Kids show at our local Community Center. The same company puts on full-fledged plays at a summer outdoor theater on a beach of Lake Tahoe, and I'll be working a few of those nights too (and even got Aries to join me a couple of nights - a free, fun outing for the both of us, working the crowd, in a wonderful setting under the stars).

And politiking too. The Primary Election is August 12th, and I have to place first or second to go on to the General Election in November. Both local papers are running election special editions this weekend, just in time for the start of early voting. So I've been researching and crafting my answers to their questionnaires to meet their deadlines.

We gave away eight guinea babies, via Craigslist, but still have seven left. We've had lots of initial responses, but then they don't follow through. I think the price of feed might be affecting people's decisions on acquiring any more mouths to feed. And I'm expecting Missus to bring in her clutch any day now, too. Three adult guineas are enough for us around here. They're really good on weed and bug patrol, but we really don't want to keep any of the little ones. The chicken coop would get too crowded. Oops, time to move - later!

Oh, Brrrrr!

Well, that cold front definitely came through. Night before last, it snowed a bit and temps went down to 27º. The fruit trees were looking pretty ragged. Then, last night's low was 22º so that's probably enough to do in most everything currently in bloom. I'm afraid to go look. The cold was too much for Spots, our old Barred Rock hen, too - we found her dead in one of the nest boxes this morning. We don't butcher our hens, they're our pets as well as egg factories. We keep them around as "boarders" as long as they live. I'm not sure, but think Spots was about 12 years old. She was slowing down quite a bit, but would still come up to eat out of my hand, and even laid an egg a couple of weeks ago.

So that leaves us with 9 hens and a rooster (plus 3 guineas - 2 hens and a cock) in the chicken house. Of the ten chickens, six are Missy's offspring - including Ivan, our rooster. Baldy is still wanting to set, so I'm still thinking of trying to get her to foster some feed-store chicks. I want to get her moved from a nest box to the brooding pen I've made out of the dog run. I'm thinking about moving her in the dark of night, after this full moon wanes, so she won't try to go back to the coop. Plus, the weather is supposed to warm up again in a few more days, so if she does reject the chicks they'll have a better chance of surviving until I can get them inside and under a light for warmth. I'm new to fostering out chicks - we've raised chicks inside until feathered out, and just kept the ones that Missy brought in. Missy's been acting squawky and sneaky, but is back in the coop every night - I think she's getting too old to lay any more. She might foster a brood, but I'm also afraid she'd know they weren't hers and kill them.

There is good news around here too. I saw four bees out on the grape hyacinths, so at least I know there's still a surviving hive around here somewhere nearby. And the asparagus is starting to come up. The first sprouts are all flopped over from the freezing weather, but at least I know the roots are still ok. I repaired the fence around that plot, added some compost, and fixed up a new section of soaker hose. Now that the weather is supposed to warm up again, I hope to be eating fresh asparagus soon. I also added compost to the strawberry patch. The first blooms there are black in the center, so they froze too. But that means I'll get a better harvest later of lots of medium-sized berries instead of the one big one with lots of little ones (barring many more 20º nights, that is).