Planting: Tomatoes, corn, delicata squash, thyme, chives, habanero peppers, daisies, and basil. Also, more beets, green beans, and pumpkins. Lots more herbs to plant this week.

Harvest/Preserve: I’m combining these as I harvested mint and preserved it in the form of mint jelly. Also picked up a bag of small cucumbers at the market and made my first ever batch of (sweet) pickles. Yum. And so easy. Who knew?

Store: Realized I was out of sugar when I made the pickles, so used brown sugar instead. Worked fine. Went out and bought some more sugar. I hardly ever use sugar, I had no idea I had so little in the house.

Prep: Bought more canning jars and lids. Most of my time was spent “prepping” the garden/urban farm, as I’m planting in containers and I had to go out and buy all the containers and soil, wrap slug deterrent copper tape around each, and drill holes in them all.

Manage: Lots of weeding accomplished. Lots more to go.

Cook: See pickles, under Preserve. Also mint jelly. Both completely new to me.

Local Food: Volunteered to either pick or transport local backyard fruit harvest through Greenwood-Phinney Harvest 2008

Reduce Waste: Made a lot more waste than I reduced this week, what with all the bags of soil and compost I had to purchase. However, have started composting to my compost bin instead of (or in addition to, but mostly instead of) the city collection bin.

Learn: Learned about pickles. And How to use pectin. Also started reading “Preserving Food without Freezing or Canning”. Very interesting.

All that time spent picking out of worms? Surely you just need a reasonable number in the remaining worm farm sections to keep it chugging along. What is it with people and their worm worship? They waste hours picking them out of the way and carefully burying them. Worms are more a symptom of fertility than the cause of it. Don’t go out of your way to kill them, but for everyone you dig up and chop in two there are a hundred unseen underground, waiting to breed again and balance the numbers.

If your garden is getting over grown with large weeds like thistles with concentrated flowering spikes the least you can do is run around with a good sharp knife or kama and cut off the flowering heads and leave the roots for later. If you get them early enough the seeds wont mature and they can be left to mulch down. Too late and you can collect the late flowers/seed heads to compost under water in a plastic bin (=weed tea fertiliser). Better yet use a hoe to do this job and save your back.

I manage to go over my entire cleared ground (well over half an acre) in under two hours by walking around with a sharp hoe. It is a great way to have a look at everything in your garden too. The only reason I can weed like this is because I do this routine every two weeks or so, every week during peak growth periods, so nothing has a chance to get big.

Every week you leave a sprouted weed seed to grow the effort to hoe it out doubles. Do it first before you do any other jobs- unwanted weeds are just too destructive, and letting them seed is making years worth of make-up work. But make sure you recognise the handful of well behaved weeds - for me it is a soft spineless thistle the chickens love, and a very low nonstrangling ground cover (probably a Dichondra).

Lastly if your garden really is too big to make weed free, separate it out into sections for things that really hate competition (eg lettuces, carrots- tiny seedlings, low canopy profile) from things that are more tolerant (potatos or pumpkins, strong growth from day one, and robust canopy).

We’ve been so wet here that it’s been difficult to get more planting done, but I managed to squeeze some in this week, probably working the soil a bit too wet in the hoop house, so I hope it doesn’t come back to haunt me.

This week I planted the gourdseed corn down in the grain test plot. I got some more lettuces planted in the hoop house: slo-bolt, red salad bowl, oakleaf, and salad bowl. And, the rain held off yesterday, so I finally got my basil in the market garden. I didn’t get my tomato and pepper seedlings in yet, but at least they’re growing, so there’s no big rush there. Next weekend looks to be nice, and everything should be dry enough, so that’s my big project on slate for then. That and the cotton—gotta get the cotton in. Oh, and the amaranth.

2) Harvest:

Harvested black seeded simpson lettuce, romaine, speckled romaine, red salad bowl and green salad bowl lettuces, green onions, chives, rosemary, thyme, oregano, dill, cilantro, turnips, radishes and chard.

3) Preserve:

Still working on clearing out old preserves: pesto, dried tomatoes, turkey. Jim vacuum sealed and froze remaining pork from last week’s butchering.

4) Store:

Put up 50 pounds of baking soda and one bulk pack of toilet paper. Not gonna go crazy on the t.p., but having one back up package in case of shortages seemed to make sense. Let’s face it, it’d be easy enough to switch to cloth, but it’s gonna take a mini-crisis to manifest that change. It’s the only paper product we still use on a regular basis, and the family has no desire to give up that little luxury.

5) Prep:

Jim finished with the shelving in my larder—yay! I’ll be spending this rainy Sunday organizing everything down there. The shelves in the background are the new ones, creating even more usable storage space. The shelves on the right were stored up in the barn loft when we moved into the house. Jim was able to reassemble and anchor them directly into the wall last year. These are bomb-proof and hold all my canning jars at the moment.

6) Manage:

I spent Thursday working in the kitchen garden—weeding the garlic bed and clearing out the hoop house. I pulled the turnips, which were too hard hit by the slugs to be worth keeping. I sorted through and kept those and fed the rest to the piggies. I also pulled the arugula, which I was hoping to let go to seed, but it was creating too much slug habitat to leave in place. I brought two hens in again to help clear the bugs before I planted.

I also got the market garden weeded yesterday and put out the new agribon row cover I bought to help with the flea beetle damage on the brassicas.

7) Cook:

This week I made a lemon cake from scratch for my son’s birthday. Unfortunately, he wanted the mix that his gramma makes, so it wasn’t a huge hit.

Add:

CSA delivery to three families: eggs, red salad bowl lettuce, romaine, green salad bowl lettuce, swiss chard, oregano, dill, chives, cilantro, and radishes. Exchanged eggs with neighbor across the way who brought his tractor to help till a new bed Jim made for the kids in the front yard. He saw Jim using the hand tiller and the kids raking it out, so he drove over to help out. Gave 6 raspberry plants to neighbor next door.

9) Reduce:

Using packaging bags for trash can liners, since unrecyclable plastic is one of our few garbage items. This at least reuses them before throwing them away. I also purchased some reusable chico shopping bags to keep in my purse for stores other than the grocery. I’m good about grabbing my canvas bags for grocery shopping but often forget to grab them when shopping for other things, so this should further eliminate our plastic accumulation.

10) Learn:

Continued to learn about bees and installed my first nuc in their hive. Picked up second nuc yesterday evening and will install this week at first sunny weather. I learned about Housel positioning of the foundation after I installed the first nuc, so I’ll be using that with the second hive. The efficacy of Housel positioning is questionable, but it should make for an interesting variable between the two hives.

This past week, I:

Planted: in containers: Beets, more Ground Cherry (the others never sprouted), more Brussels Sprouts (request to grow them from a friend), Cilantro (second batch, aiming for continual harvest), Marvel Stripe tomato, onion (seeds), catnip.

Planted: outdoors: Catnip, strawberries, stinging nettle, valerian. Discovered that my oak barrel blueberries (which are still at R’s house) are alive! I didn’t think they’d survive the winter. I know that’s not a new planting, but it means I don’t need to buy and plant more blueberries! And it also means they can survive the local winters.

Transplanted, pot to bigger pot: Dipper Gourd, Honeydew Melon.

Harvested: Nothing this week.

Preserved: Set some onions out to dehydrate — just did this Friday morning, so they’re still out there. Not sure how to know when they’re dry enough!

Prepped: Set up the dehydrator, washed off two of the screen trays, testing it out now with one tray of onions. Ordered a Lehman’s Best Grain Mill, plus a small black speckleware pot that looks to be a good size for the solar oven or [future potential] haybox cooker. Dug more garden beds, pounded a few more fenceposts for the garden fence.

Managed: Made a big pot of Jerusalem artichoke soup when I realized I still had a whole bucket of them from the root cellar at R’s. Followed the recipe properly this time. On the downside, I only had two meals from it before it spoiled (I left it out on the counter, thinking I’d reheat it every day, but the weather got hot FAST and soup didn’t sound appealing and I didn’t remember about it in time to put it in the fridge…)

Advocated for Local Food Economy: shared my organic onions and oranges with my herbalist friend/employer. She brought me nettles, catnip, and valerian from her garden, and shared some of her organic kiwi from the store. Agreed to grow Brussels Sprouts for a friend. (I asked if he wanted me to grow him some starts, and he said no, he just wanted to buy the finished product at the farmer’s market!) Started collecting ”disposable” food containers — a yogurt cup, a takeout soup container, a tofu tray, a cherry tomato ‘basket’, a tin can, etc — to put extra seedling starts in, for giving to friends or for selling at the farmer’s market.

Other Local Economy Happenings: Okay, this is neither about food nor is it about me, but I just have to share — we now have on the air a ‘community radio’ station! It just started this week, and it’s run by the husband of the woman who owns the wi-fi cafe, the same woman who is starting a commercial kitchen (the kitchen is her new project — the wi-fi cafe is transferring ownership to the manager, who is the one adding the new farmer’s market on the cafe’s front porch on Saturday mornings — are you keeping this all straight? Right now the station is just music, but he plans to add local shows — perhaps a someone doing a cooking or gardening show, perhaps someone else doing an astronomy show talking about what the night sky is doing each month, etc. It’s a great new piece of local infrastructure for this very remote, rural community, that could be used in so many wonderful ways in the future! The music is “western”, I guess you’d call it — certainly not top 40 country, but definitely cowboy-y. But also funny! Hard to describe. And I simply love their call letters for this “wild west” flavored community — they are KDUP — pronounced K-D-up — say it out loud — get it? Giddyup! :))

Cooked Something New: Millet. Soaked it overnight and cooked it like rice for breakfast, with soymilk and salt. I oversalted it, but even accounting for that, I thought it was only so-so. The taste was bland but not unpleasant, but the texture was unfamiliar. I think it’s likely that I undercooked it without realizing it. What I’m learning is that my food tastes are very much about habit — I come to crave certain tastes, textures, and temperatures in my food, and something that doesn’t meet those cravings is hard to find satisfying. This is all the more reason, as far as I can tell, to keep trying new things and building up a tolerance for them, against the time when it’s essential to eat whatever’s available.

Reduced Waste: I began collecting those ‘throwaway’ containers to use for giving away starts. On the other hand, I cooked lots of food that didn’t get eaten, and even though it gets composted, that still seems like waste.

Learned A Skill: Nothing this week, although the whole process of starting seedlings indoors and then transplanting them is new to me, and garden bed digging and fence-building is not something I’d done much of, so I’m definitely adding to those skills.

Harvested: rhubarb
Preserved: rhubarb sauce
Cooked something new: rhubarb/walnut bread. It called for sour milk, so I used slightly sour milk. My mom said she usually adds lemon juice to milk to make “sour milk.” Haven’t gotten sick yet Tasted yummy. I suppose that also qualifies as managing reserves.
Managed reserves: putting extra yogurt in freezer.
Planted: Sweet potatoes.
Reduced waste: I’m experimenting with hand washing clothing with a plunger. I’m hoping to reduce water/electricity. I’m also using the rinse water for watering ornamental plants in my garden.
Work on Local Food system: Going to look for Megan’s post on the food storage group!

http://helwen.livejournal.com

Had a great time last weekend at this farm, weeding strawberries, laying drip irrigation in the raspberries, and building a retaining wall. How nice to be out in the sun. At the end of the day, I got to pick chard, kale, and strawberries. Seems like a great way to start learning about gardening. I’ll definitely go back.

Now looking for a nearby place to U-pick cherries. We eat dried cherries year round, and I’d love to be able to make my own.

Here is my week’s meager list:

Planted: A third of the tomato seedlings, eggplant seedlings, Heirloom turkey beans, yellow summer squash, zucchini, more potatoes, seeded basil, dill, oregano and nasturtuim, transplanted mint and lemon balm from other house. Yikes, I am really behind.

Harvested: More eggs, mint, garlic mustard, wild garlic, nettles, raspberry leaves

Preserved: Put the mint jelly back in a water bath hoping it would jell, but it is officially mint sauce (will try to use it under “cook something new” one of these days), dried some mint, raspberry leaves and nettles for tea

Stored: Water in unused carboys (hadn’t thought of doing this until I read it on someone else’s IDC list!)

Prepped: Bought a few boxes of canning lids and jars. Wrote out a pocket “wishlist” to carry with me and refer to if I happen to be at the thrift stores or yard sales (e.g. canning jars, kid’s clothing/shoe sizes, books, etc.) This way I will be less tempted to pick up “coololdstuffthathasnopurpose” (which I am purging). Oh, and I also started cataloging the wood’s edible/medicinal plants (like cattails, wild onions, mullien, hawthorn, nettles, etc.).

Managed: Checked on the bees which are following all of their bee society rules (e.g. bringing out the dead, guarding the palace, etc.) I still need to try out the smoker and make sure we have wee bee babies growing in there. Priced stuff I am putting in my sister’s rummage sale.

Cooked Something New: Not this week

Work on Local Food System: Bought local asparagus and arranged a purchase of three milking goats (deposit sent today!)I’ll be picking them up in a few weeks after they have had a visit with the billy. Picked up 30 white rock chicks from local harvest lady (On Mother’s Day). Found local Amish family that processes a small amount of chickens or ducks at very reasonable prices ($3/bird which is a bargain compared to the amount of time I don’t have to invest right now). Now if only the local coyotes had left my chickens alone (bad week for the bird part of my independence…)

Reduced Waste: Composted veggie and coffee/tea scraps to pigs, chickens and garden. Hardly bought anything this week, so little garbage or recycling for that matter.

Learned a New Skill: This is bad-I did not learn any new skills this week.