A New Gadget

Oh my goodness, I am in heaven. I agonized for quite a while over whether to get a tomato press. Would it be clutter? Would I prefer the red plastic Italian version at Williams Sonoma or the stainless steel version from NapaStyle?

In a moment of frustration, I sent my Dear Husband into Williams Sonoma for a deep fryer and the red tomato press.

Wow. I have saved myself hours of work. Beautiful tomato sauce gets bagged and goes directly into the freezer. Pulp, seeds, and skin-- all dry-- get placed into the compost.

It's a beautiful thing, especially now that I've got tomatoes coming in. (Romas, finally! Of course you come in once I go back to work!)

Dead.

Peach trees, that is. One tree I'm not exactly sorry to see go-- we are talking about putting up a garage/shed and I inadvertantly planted it right in the way. It was the healthy one-- the other died right away.

As I looked through these posts tonight, I realized that my two big successes of the season-- peas and garlic-- were the ones that I messed up in planting. Tomatoes have been underproducing, fish peppers shriveled, and on and on. Not the best planting year for me.

On the canning front, I'm trying to get my water-bath mojo back. Three rounds of canning tomatoes at 85 minutes of processing time each did me in.

Steam bath

I am so direlect in these postings, it's not even funny.

But an update: herbs bolting include oregano and basil, roma tomatoes a bust, re-planted corn a bust (doggone deer), squash dropping blossoms (japanese beetles perhaps), and yellow tomatoes thriving.

It's been mainly farmer's stand produce that I've been canning.

And it has been a good year for that. Today, I put up three gallons of tomatoes. I have quarts and pints of plain tomatoes and 1 1/2 quarts of tomatoes with my oregano and basil.

I also have three pints of peach BBQ sauce, six pints dill beans, three pints of peach conserves, three pints of plum almond jam (runny, but oh well-- Chicken with plum almond sauce, anyone?), and strawberry jam/clementine marmalade from the spring and early summer.

Thank goodness for the farmer's stand.

Sprouts

Well, things are sprouting here. I have spinach sprouting, the pea plants are coming up, and baby lettuce leaves are popping up.

We also dropped in a bed of asparagus and planted two peach trees.

Good eating is just around the corner!

The first casualties of the season...

Well, I took a gamble. I wasn't a winner.

I had three good Amish paste tomato seedlings that I knew would dry up and shrivel if I left them in the house when I went to Florida. I chose to plant them. They did not survive.

In addition, not all of the pea plants made it. I lost about three of the plants in my pots. My peas in the raised beds all made it.

There are lettuce 'sproutlets' starting to come up. (Yugoslavian Red lettuce-- looks yummy.)

Soon, soon, soon, there will be fresh peas. Yummy!

Sunday update

My garden beds are in the back of our yard. In these, I mainly get peas, tomatoes, squash, and corn. There are a few herbs in the front of the left bed (rosemary, thyme, chives, basil, oregano, and cilantro). In the back of both beds, I planted the incompatible peas and garlic. There is one row of peas in the left bed and three rows of peas in the right bed. The right front of the right bed holds blackberry brambles, which are eating valuable planting space and must be moved. (We have our spot-- we will move them on a day that we are not drowsy from the time change.) In the right front corner of the left bed, I sowed Powers Heirloom tomato seeds today (these seeds are a yellow paste variety). I'm experimenting with directly sowing tomato seeds this year. I am curious to see if it works. Also in the left bed, midway between the rosemary and incompatible peas and garlic, is a sprinkling of a mixed greens (mesculun) mix. This mix was spread today.

In this pot, I sowed a Savoyed leaf Spinach. The seed was purchased last summer at Johnny's in Maine. This pot is on the far end of our garage, and the other two pots contain peas. (If I'm feeling like I need to create symmetry, I'll move this pot to the middle and move the other two on either end.) I like these locations because they catch both good sun and moisture. The other bonus is that I'm taking blacktopped ground and making it produce. My middle pot has about 10 pea sprouts, the tallest of which is about an inch tall. The far end has just a couple of sprouts. (Both pots were planted on the same day, so I'm not sure what is causing the delinquency.)

We're off to a Spring Break vacation as of midweek, so my blogging and planting will be without me for a while. If you're enjoying the blog, or have comments to make, please let me know that you stopped by in the comments section!

My First Mistake of the Year...

I purchased a really nice organic gardening book when I visited Seed Savers in December. Did I look at the book before I planted?

No, that would make sense.

So I planted two incompatible plants together. I planted garlic (for the first time!) last fall. So I planted my peas all around the garlic.

Why do I spend good money on books that I don't use when I should use them?

Stocking up before the harvest...

I have been gardening for a few years now-- perhaps six, maybe seven. It's been fun to go from container gardening (well, drowning) tomatoes on our apartment balcony to full-blown gardening in raised beds.

One of my biggest problems in the last two years has been keeping up with the harvest as it comes in. I've had a few (okay, maybe more than a few) bowls full of peas, tomatoes, etc. that have spoiled on our counter.

I was inspired by Barbara Kingsolver's Animal, Vegetable, Miracle to do more preserving. I've gone from taking six hours to make six pint jars of salsa to getting twelve pints of tomatoes preserved in two hours.

It was in that spirit that I made a book order tonight. I'm a few weeks out from a ten day road trip to Florida (four days in a minivan, folks-- I NEED some pages to turn while I listen to the Cars-Madagascar-Bob the Builder marathon). My reading list includes Michael Pollan's In Defense of Food: An Eater's Manifesto, Carlo Petrini's Slow Food Nation: Why Our Food Should Be Good, Clean, and Fair, and Alice Water's The Art of Simple Food: Notes, Lessons, and Recipes from a Delicious Revolution.

My hope is to be even more inspired to put up my fresh produce.

Sprouts!

My Amish Paste tomatoes have sprouted already! Whoa-- I really wasn't expecting it this quickly. It's time for me to order the water bags and get them going.

I want to get the Amish paste seedlings somewhat independent before before I start more seedlings. I'm thinking of starting some yellow tomatoes (Powers Heirloom) next.

These little sprouts caught me off guard. Yeow!

And so it begins...

The seed starting, that is! I know that the Zone Gods are frowning upon me as I defy them. I'm a zone 7-- 7B, to be exact. I'm close to the water, to the East, West, and South. Therefore, with the moderation of temperatures due to the water and with the miracles of a water bag, I think that I can push my luck.

I do want to give you a bit of background, as well. For years, I have been failing at seed starting. I got the compostable peat pots, and I dried them up. I got the seedstarting trays with the covers, and I overwatered to the point of growing molds instead of seeds.

This year, I'm going with my old tried and true terra-cotta. I love terra-cotta pots and I'm attempting to start tomatoes. I am hoping that this year, I'll be successful in my efforts. If I am, I'll have some tasty tomatoes to can and make into salsa!

Frost

This morning, I woke up (alone, since both my husband and my son were sick and sleeping) and came down the stairs. I looked out the french doors to the backyard to see that my garden beds were frosty. Except for the portions in which I had sown peas over the weekend. I love how observant gardening makes me.

And I noticed on Monday as I watered my pots of peas outside that there is germination goin' on. Man, I love fresh garden peas! If only it were days rather than weeks to go!

A Fresh Start

Last year, in my third year of gardening, I decided that I should keep a journal. I realized that if I documented my failures and successes, then I would not keep re-inventing the wheel.

As I planted yesterday, it occurred to me that I could get a fancy bound journal, but that I will not keep up with it. So, I'm going to keep my records here. I was inspired to keep my journal by Barbara Kingsolver's Animal, Vegetable, Miracle.

Last weekend, I began my planting for the year. I purchased three big terra-cotta pots from Ikea. They've been set up next to our garage doors. (Why in the driveway? Because I forget about my plants and seeing those pots will remind me to water.) I planted Green Arrow peas in the pots and put 4-foot stakes in the pots. Only two have been planted so far, because I ran out of potting soil.

Yesterday, I planted four types of peas in one of my raised beds. I planted Little Marvel, Oregon Giant, Carouby de Mausanne (love these gorgeous heirlooms!), and more Green Arrow. Both Oregon Giant and Carouby are snap peas while Little Marvel and Green Arrow are shell peas. I'm very curious to see how it goes, because I'm trying seeds from Johnny's Selected Seeds and Seed Savers this year. Last year I purchased seed from Gurney's and did not have good success. (I could have attempted to get a refund-- but I decided not to order from them again instead.) My goal is to collect seeds from the Carouby this year, because I picked them up on a whim at Target (the Sean Conway seeds) and they don't carry them this year.

Anyway, there is more to come. I look forward to sharing it with you!