Feruary's Seeds & The Newspaper Pot

This month I have a few seeds I'm trying to start. They consist of the seeds that I think will take the most time to reach maturity/harvestability.

Leeks and Chives both have a long period of time before maturity (as do most onions I'm finding) and then I have several flowers, including German Chamomile and some seeds gathered from my own perennial plants (of which I do not know the names). Last year I grew lots of flowers, like snapdragons, marigolds, and nasturtiums, but the snapdragons especially took FOREVER to grow! And then those snapdragons survived all winter out there (we even had a good week of lots of snow!). I can't find my snapdragon seeds (maybe I used them all up last year) but I am starting some other flowers early just in case.

Last year and this instead of buying seed flats (which I may still do later for my veggies) I am using a newpaper-pot maker. It's a small wooden two-piece contraption that you use to make little newspaper pots that then can have seeds grown in them and be transplanted straight into the ground. This really helps with the money side, and I feel good recycling newspaper instead of buying more plastic pots.

It's super simple to use and since I'm using newspaper that comes in the mail, it's like getting free pots! My mother gave me the pot maker, but I think they are not too pricey and will easily pay for themselves especially if you grow from seed instead of buying young plants.

Garden 2012

It's already the middle of February of 2012! I have been thinking about my garden all winter long and now finally is the time I can start doing things.

I purchased all my seeds at the end of last month. I tried out two new seed companies this year: Bountiful Gardens (www.bountifulgardens.org) and Le Jardin du Gourmet (www.ArtisticGardens.com).

Bountiful Gardens is a sustainable agricultrure research company located Willits, CA. All their seeds are open-pollinated and heirloom, and most of them are also certified organic. Since I want to be able to learn how to gather my own seed for the next season, I chose to try out this company. They have an extensive amount of seeds they offer, and all are very reasonably priced. They only have seeds, so no live plants, so you have to be confident in your seed-growing, but I am very excited and am very impressed with the quality of their seed and what their business supports.

I actually found out about Le Jardin du Gourmet from a flyer in a mailer packet (go figure). They specialize in the "40 cent sample seed packets". Since this was very inexpensive I decided to give them a try even though I knew nothing more about them. Their website is obviously simple and not super proffesional-looking, but it's effective and I was very glad to have an option to order online. They had a very nice selection of garden fruits and veggies, and also had some live plant options. I opted to just try out their seed this year, but if they grow well I may try their live plants next year to add some more herbs and perrenials to my garden. They also sell onion and shallot bulbs which I may try next year. All their products are very reasonably priced, and the 40 cent seed packet option is just right for a small gardener like myself. I still got a very decent amount of seed in each packet, definitely enough for my one-family garden.


So now I have all my seeds. I have sorted them by the month in which I should start sprouting them. With my new baby it has been a challange to make time to actually get things done, but here's hoping she starts sleeping longer!

And they all came tumbling down

The other day I looked out my window, and much to my non-astonishment discovered a tragic sight.

Those pole beans finally did in the plastic posts I had attempted to support them with. Since I haven't been able to be using the beans anyway, and it's near the end of the season, I just pulled them all out, poles, twine, and all. It never ceases to astound me how much these pole beans just keep GROWING! And I still have the beans in my planter (on the right in this pic) so I am not lacking in beans after pulling these suckers out. (I am really hoping to get some seeds out of the beans still in there, but the weather is turning yucky real fast so I'm a little worried).

Next year we are most definitely doing something different with these beanies. I have thought about growing them against my house, but I think it does not get enough sun for beans. I have also debated about growing them up a part of my fence. The back fence would be ideal since it is chain-link, but our yard is quite large (three-quarters of an acre large) and I had a hard enough time getting out to pick the beans when they were right next to my house. I also may grow them up the fence behind my flower bed which is just off my house, and I know they'd get plenty of sun there. The only catch is that I would have to put some netting or fencing against the fence for them to grow up since it is a wood slat fence. And then there is my original idea of building a wood frame, which would look very attractive and still may be my method of choice but does require the most effort of the three.

A long and tiring time...

So I have not posted in a long time due to my pregnancy starting to really take its toll on my energy level! I have not even been out in my garden very much this month. All those poor beans I picked just got sent to the compost pile, because I just did not have the energy to blanch and freeze them! And then I just haven't even picked any beans after that! I even have a bowl full of tomatoes in my fridge right now that desperately need to be frozen. There is just a lot that needs to be done that hasen't been. I am getting some things done, but not as much as there is to do. *sigh* I didn't think quite far enough ahead when I decided to grow a full-blown garden this year. I have been learning a lot this year, though, so it's not a total loss. And we did get to eat quite a bit of the stuff from the garden, epsecially earlier in the season when I had more energy and it was exciting that things were starting to grow! I am glad for all the things I have been learning and am excited for next year to be able to do things even better (and hopefully with a lot more energy!) One idea I am getting really excited about for next year is to have a farm stand out in front of our house. I just kept thinking it was a shame to be composting so much of our garden's produce, and then I decided woudln't it be fun if I could try to sell some of it! And with a little more structure of the space out there, I could easily have plenty of plants growing lots of produce to sell! We'll see where I am next year but I am very excited to try out this idea.

Veggie Pizza with Sorrel Sauce

I made this veggie pizza for myself tonight (made a more normal pizza for the rest of the family), and I thought it turned out the most delicious pizza I've ever tasted!

So this was after I had eaten one piece, and decided I just had to put it in here. It looks somewhat weird, but it tasted SO good!

The sauce I made with sorrel, which is a leafy green I discovered from my friend's farm this summer and absolutely love (and plan on growing next year!). It has a very strong lemony-taste and can be eaten both fresh or cooked. When you saute it, it "melts" into a sauce, which is fascinating! The whole leaf just kind of melts all apart. So for this pizza sauce, I sauteed some shallots in butter first, then added the sorrel leaves (with the stem parts removed - probably about ten medium-small leaves, they really melt down a lot) and sauteed that out until it was all melted down, then I poured in some heavy cream - just enough to make it a little thinner than I wanted, and then I simmered it for just a few minutes to thicken it up to be just the texture I wanted for my pizza.

Then I spread the sauce on the pizza, and topped it with sliced tomatoes and zucchini (the zucchini was sliced very thin) and covered it all with some parmasean cheese and mozzerella (I could have used more mozzerella, as you can see).

The sauce is what made the whole pizza! It was creamy and tangy, and complimented perfectly with the tomatoes and zucchini! I would have never thought before to put zucchini on a pizza (or sorrel for that matter) but it turned out spectatular! I shared a piece with my husband, and he said it was really good (this coming from a "I don't like veggies" guy). I definitely will be getting more sorrel from the farm this week and making this again (especially since I have TONS of tomatoes and zucchini coming out of my garden now!).

Now I just need to find a good gluten-free family sized pizza so I'm not having to do so many personal sized ones!

Garden Veggie Shepherd's Pie

Here's my on-the-fly version of a shepherd's pie kind of dish with my garden veggies:

(Ok, so I confess, those are ALL from my garden. Actually, only the green beans are. But those veggies COULD all be from my garden. I had some produce from a nearby farm that needing eating so those went in there instead. But I do have all the veggies in there growing in my garden, including the onion.)

All I did was put in chopped scallop squash, green beans, carrot, onion, and browned ground beef in a cassarole dish. I poured over that some chicken stock and cream, and added summer savory, salt, and pepper. Then I made up some biscuit dough (I'm gluten intollerant, so I use a gluten-free baking mix that is superb!) and dolloped that all on top. Then baked it at 350F (it might have been 375F) for about half an hour. The biscuits were nice and golden, though some of the veggies were still a little crisp, so it probably would have been better to cook on a lower temp for a little longer. But it was really yummy still! I was pretty proud of myself for being able to toss it all together, and even my husband said he really liked it. It's a keeper.

Tomato Pruning

So this year I tried a new method of pruning tomatoes that I learned from my farmer friend (this is how they do it on the farm and it's suppose to boost the plant's production). I'm not sure officially what it's called, but I call it the tall and skinny method.

It's simple - you find the main stem and prune the suckers out.

Not so simple is to figure out what exactly a sucker is.

But I tried it on a couple of my tomatoes, and I think I actually got it right finally on one! Here's what it looks like now:

This is one that I am growing under the eves of my house on my deck where it's nice and hot and sunny and the Seattle summer rains won't bother it. It has been growing fabulously, despite my son hacking at it several times with a pair of scissors (hence the reason it is pretty bare on that bottom half). As you can see it has grown very tall. I actually have twine strung up from the base of the plant to a nail in my house eves to support it, and that has been working quite well. It did take a little longer to show flowers and produce tomatoes, and I think starting to prune it earlier would have helped. But now it has got some tomatoes and lots more flowers in the works at the top!

It turns out the sucker is the little part that grows out between a leaf and the main stem:

And here's another pic (sorry it's fuzzy).

You can see with both of them the sucker grows out of the middle of the stem and the branch. So you let all the branches grow, just not these little suckers. If they grow, they become another stem. (That's how tomatoes normally get so bushy)

This method is suppose to help the plant concentrate on just that one main stem and since it's spending less energy growing stems all over the place it's supposed to grow more fruit.

(And another benefit of the tall and skinny method: my kids can't reach all the tomatoes!! Hooray to actually having tomatoes ripen on the vine!)

I really like this method, and next year I plan on doing it with all my tomatoes. It saves on tomato support as well - they will all only need one long stake or some stringing up like I did here!


A side note: as you can see I have basil planted in the pot with the tomato. According to my new favorite book, Roses Love Garlic and Carrots Love Tomatoes, it is mutually beneficial to grow basil and tomatoes together and since I love cooking with basil I love that I can have it grow with the tomatoes right by my back door! (Tomatoes are also good to grow with a whole slew of other plants because apparently they have a chemical they produce in their roots that deters a lot of bugs that pester other plants). I highly reccomend this book. I wish I had gotten it earlier since it is a fabulous book and very fascinating! I plan on using that book as my guideline for planning next years garden! (Something to do during those cold winter months when I can't be out there in the dirt!)