Garden Pests ...

I'm trying to grow an organic garden ... I do pretty well keeping the slugs and other pests at bay...but look what I found this morning!!!

That would be my 14 year old Maltese, Taffy, grazing in one of my potato boxes!

So...does she look guilty because she knows she was caught in the act?  Or does she look smug because she knows that she's Mom's baby and she's going to get away with it?

And, yes, I do have the garden fenced off to keep the dogs out, I'm the one who let her in ... to keep me company ...

*sigh*

Wordless Wednesday...

Use the talents you possess - for the woods would be a very silent place
if no birds sang except for the best.

~Henry Van Dyke


The call of the Northern Flicker ....

Enjoy!

In My Own Backyard...

Spring makes its own statement,

so loud and clear that the gardener seems to be only one of the instruments, 

not the composer... Geoffrey B. Charlesworth

Enjoy!

Drip...Drip...Drip...

I could be talking about our weather here in Washington (I think we've had one day this month that it didn't rain), but I'm actually talking about installing an automatic drip watering system in my raised beds.  I had the first two beds done using the standard system of laying the tubing on the soil and holding it in place with metal staples.  This was the third drip system I had installed in the last 20 years and I have never liked messing with those staples, especially in a vegetable garden ... they are always in the way when it comes time for harvesting and replanting.  I was thinking that there had to be a better way when light dawned ... literally and figuratively ... the rain stopped long enough for me to go set up a bed with my new system.

I used Rain Bird products purchased online and from the local Ace Hardware.  I attached the system to a hose (temporarily; it will go on a faucet with a timer eventually) with this gizmo...

 

... and then attached some 1/2" tubing ...

I attached some 1/4" tubing to the main line of 1/2" tubing ...

... by punching a hole with this thing ...
















...and using a drip system connector ...












Then I used the same gizmo above to connect some dripline tubing (I was able to find some with 6" drip spacing at my local Ace Hardware) ...

... and I closed the system with a couple of small cable ties (the gray line you see in this photo is the soil warming cable...I'll do a post about installing one of those soon ) ...

... and here's the simple little light bulb that went on to make putting the tubing into the bed so much easier ...

I laced the tubing through these neat little eyelet screw thingies that I attached to the sides of the bed!

TAH DAH!

I still have more beds to set up and the first two beds to redo and then I'll attach the 1/2" tubing to the outsides of the beds so it's nice and neat and bury it where it becomes a trip hazard.  And I'm going to add a line into the greenhouse with tubing and emitters for the plants growing in pots there.  I'll post again when I can show you the finished drip system.

I'm glad my beds are all ready for automatic watering come summer ... Uh, we are going to have a summer this year, aren't we??  Please??

Enjoy!

Harvest Monday ... and Easter Dinner ...

I still haven't been doing much out in the garden since my fall last week.  I am feeling better and am in the planning and testing phase of a new drip watering system for the raised beds, but haven't been harvesting since I haven't felt much like cooking by evening most days ... but I did go out and cut some herbs for the marinade for our Easter lamb...

Grilled Lamb with Balsamic Vinegar Marinade

Marinade :
1/2 cup balsamic vinegar
1/2 cup olive oil
1/2 cup Dijon mustard
10 cloves garlic, coarsely chopped
2 sprigs fresh rosemary
2 sprigs fresh thyme
1 sprig fresh marjoram

Mix all ingredients in a small bowl.  Place a boned leg of lamb in a large freezer bag and set into large bowl (just in case the bag leaks).  Add the marinade to the bag and seal.  Place in the refrigerator and marinate for 2-3 hours.  Remove from refrigerator and allow to come to room temperature (about 30 minutes).  Preheat BBQ grill. Remove lamb from marinade and grill, turning often, until a thermometer inserted in the thickest portion registers 130 degrees (about 30 minutes).  Remove lamb to a serving platter and tent with aluminum foil.  Allow to rest for 10 minutes.  Cut across the grain into slices.

I'm joining other bloggers over at Daphne's Dandelions as we share our weekly harvests...it's fun to see what others are harvesting and what they are cooking up with it...check it out! 

Enjoy!

No Harvest Monday...and FitzGyver again...

I had no harvest this week ...   actually not much gardening or cooking or much else going on.  I did a face plant last week stepping over the threshold from the dining room onto the tile floor in my studio (or actually NOT stepping over, but running my right big toe right into the threshold).  I've been more prone to falling since I had my knee replacement ... the new knee just doesn't react the way the old one did and I feel off balance all the time.  This was the worst fall to date ...I landed right on the new knee .. and in trying not to land on the knee twisted and messed up my back and neck and must have tried to break my fall with my hands because both wrists ache  And then I put on my brave face, took some pain meds and went with my husband to his company dinner the next evening (not particularly bright of me).  So now I am laid low, alternating between pain meds and white wine (I'm convinced the wine works better) to get me through the day and waiting for my poor bruised body to heal....*sigh*

Since I have no harvest to share  with the folks at Daphne's Dandelions this week, I thought I would share a couple of photos I took early last week instead.  I was finishing up my early spring planting and reorganizing my potting shed and greenhouse.  The potting shed is also the pump house for our well.  It was in need of repairs last year so Mike (aka FitzGyver) enlarged it and added extra insulation so it would act as a potting shed for me as well.  I had my FitzGyver'd germination stand in my little pop up greenhouse and had decided to move it to the potting shed for convenience.  As long as I had it out I took some photos...

Here you can see how Mike attached a power strip to the side of the fixture ... the lights are attached to the underside of the shelves which can be adjusted...

...by moving the rods (metal in this case but wood dowels would work as well) from one set of holes to another drilled in the framework (DH does nice work ... I love being married to an engineer : )

Here is the pump house/potting shed...

...I gleaned the trays and pots from a local nursery that went out of business (they were going to take them to the dump!)  The blue tub by the door holds vermiculite, perlite and other soil amendments).

There is a counter with a light fixture for seedlings and for me to do my potting with room underneath for storage...

And room behind the door and beside the pump for my germination stand ... and I don't have to feel bad about keeping it warm in there for my plants ...  it's a pump house ... it has to be kept warm so the pump doesn't freeze (OK...maybe I raised the temperature on the heater just a few degrees  : )

Enjoy!

PS:  The finches are back!  Three days earlier than last year : )  Summer, I hear you singing ...

The Rest Of The Tour....

Raised Bed #6 is planted with leeks (Lancelot), carrots (Yaya), onions (Walla Walla), beets (Touchstone Gold), and more onions (Candy).

Bed #7 is growing garlic, beets (Merlin) and peas (Dakota).

This is one of the four potato boxes ... it's almost time to add another layer of soil over the growing plants (Desiree).

Bed #8 is the all new, hopefully improved, but definitely more interesting pea patch.  I made the teepees and trellises from twigs that I cut on our property and then laced up with twine...

I have some lettuce (Bambi) planted between the trellises of peas...

And finally...Bed #9...horseradish and potatoes....

So there is is...finally finished after three years in the making.  And all planted for spring!  Now if the weather would just cooperate and give us some sunshine so that things would start growing.....

Enjoy!

A Tour of The Farm...

Yesterday morning I finished the last of the Spring planting in The Farm, so I thought a tour might be in order.  This is a schematic of The Farm's layout (made using Territorial Seeds Garden Planner)...

(click on the photo to see a larger version)

The Farm is now nine raised beds with hoop covers, a 6 x 6" pop up greenhouse, a potting shed with a lighted germination stand, four potato boxes and a few half wine barrels ...  

The first two 4 x 4" beds are pretty much identical...snow peas on teepees in the center, chard (Bright Lights), kale (Red Chidori) and spinach (Bloomsdale Savoy) around the edges and cabbage (Primero and Derby Day) or broccoli (De Cicco) in the four corners.

The Farm #3 is 4 x 8" and has a soil heating cable installed.  This is my "last ditch" tomato bed; if we have a repeat of last year's "non-summer" I'm going to install a couple of lights over the plants and turn this bed into a mini-greenhouse!  I have five tomato plants;  three indeterminate (Sweet 100's, Cherokee Purple and SunGold) in the back and two determinate (Siletz and Oregon Spring) in front.  Next there is a row of lettuces (Black Seeded Simpson and Red Sails) and three rows of carrots (Yaya).  There are borage plants in the corners and a row of onion plants (Ailsa Craig) on each end.

Bed #4 is 4 x 8" and grows mostly Asian vegetables and greens; Tatsoi ,Shungiku, Komatsuna, Turnip Hakurei, Radish Shunkyo, Green and Purple Mizuna, Cabbage Orange Mini and several types of Pac Choi ( I'll be telling you more about these vegetables and how they are used in my "Asian Vegetable" series of posts).  I have some Candy onions tucked into this bed here and there; they will be harvested early as spring onions for salads.   There is also cauliflower  (Snow Queen) growing in the four corners of the bed and a cabbage (Primero) on each end.  The copper wire coils you see on some of the plants in the photo are an attempt to discourage slugs; slugs love Asian vegetables almost as much as I do : (

Bed #5 is 4 x 8" and is home to broccoli (De Cicco), cauliflower (Cassius), cabbage (Primero) and has room on each end of the bed for onions (Copra) which are still in the greenhouse and will hopefully be ready to transplant soon.

As you might gather from what I have planted I am quite interested in Companion Planting, a way of creating what I call a "community" in my garden; one plant helping another " Live Long and Prosper" :)

Here are a few resources for information and lists of Companion Plants:

Companion Planting : The Natural Way To Gardening

Wikipedia : List of Companion Plants

Golden Harvest Organics : Companion Planting

This has gotten quite long and I still have a lot to show you...so I think I'll break the post into two parts and finish it on Thursday...

Enjoy!

Harvest Monday...and my FitzGyver'd Barrels....

I had a couple of small harvests of greens and lettuce this week...sorry, no pictures : (   I used some of the greens to make a dish I'm calling pork chops with beans 'n greens.  I made it up as I was cooking it and it was great!  I'll pay attention to what and how much when I make it again and get a photo and a recipe posted.... I'm joining other bloggers over at Daphne's Dandelions as we share our weekly harvests...it's fun to see what others are harvesting and what they are cooking up with it...check it out!

Not much happened in the garden over the weekend...the weather wasn't too bad on Saturday so I took a play day and went diving with Mike at Sund Rock on the Hood Canal.  And Sunday the weather was awful so I curled up next to the fireplace with a good book :)

Today I wanted to show you what FitzGyver has engineered for my garden from polyethylene drums...this is my new rain barrel...

I found the old dippers and bucket hiding in a corner of our tool shed...aren't they cute?

And these are our composters....one for new stuff and one for compost in progress....

For information on composting and buying or making your own composters try:

Composting 101

Seattle Composting Guide

Building A Drum Composter



Enjoy!

Growing Asian Vegetables...and a cooking video

I've had a lot of response to my post about growing and cooking with Asian greens and vegetables and thought I might start a series of posts about these nutritious and easy to grow vegetables ... and the food that I love to cook with them.

I started growing Asian vegetables last year after reading Eliot Coleman's book, The Winter Harvest.  Many Asian vegetable are very cold tolerant and grow well all through the winter months in a cold frame or hoop house.  Mike and I love Asian cuisines and I was spoiled while we were living in Federal Way...we had many Asian markets in town and it was only a short drive to Seattle and the best of all Asian markets ... IMHO ... Uwajimaya (if you are visiting the Seattle area put this place on your list of things to see; and go hungry ...the food court is incredible!!)  Now that we are living in rural Mason County finding fresh Asian vegetables is not as easy.  I'm really glad that I can now grow my own.

I thought I would start my Asian Vegetable series with an introduction to one of my favorites, a variety of Pac Choi (Bok Choy) called Joi Choi.  It's available from Territorial Seed Company (under the heading of Oriental Vegetables).  It's a mild, sweet Pac Choi that grows very quickly;  this one will almost double in size in another three weeks...

I was first introduced to Asian cuisines when I moved to Washington in 1991.  I was working at a reference laboratory in the SODO area of Seattle (SOuth of DOwntown).  On the weekends (read no management staff on site :) the microbiology lab staff would get take out from Uwajimaya.  I had no idea of what to order the first weekend I worked and all my coworkers agreed that for an initial exposure to Japanese take out there could be nothing better than Yakisoba ...and they were right!  It was delicious!!

I had tried making Yakisoba at home many times since then and was never happy with the results.  A few months ago I went on the Internet, looking for a better recipe ... and that's when I met Francis and Chef ...




This is the best Yakisoba recipe ever!!  I usually use chicken instead of pork...and I vary the vegetables depending on what is ready for harvest ( Joi Choi is one of my favorites to add to this one).  Most groceries in our area carry the noodles for Yakisoba, I'm not sure about the rest of the country ...but you can always ask your grocer to get some for you...

Enjoy!