kandas-adventures

Summer Bounty

For mid-sommer my husband enjoys making Grav-Lax out of wild Alaskan salmon.  It takes 3 days of salting, chilling, and pressing.

I love being able to fill my plate with greens harvested directly from the garden.

My stepdaughter is at the far right, home for a visit.  We love having her home because she is a "foodie" and we have spectacular meals in her honor.

Buffets are my favorite way to serve a meal.  Each person can take exactly what appeals to them, try a bite of something new, and load up on their favorites.

July is raspberry season in the Pacific Northwest, and this was an especially good year.

We made jam and froze them whole for use throughout the winter.  During the school year when I pack the girls' lunches I toss a few frozen berries into their yogurt, which we buy in giant tubs and portion into small reusable containers.

Late July and most of August is blueberry season.

Our favorite farm in the shadow of the mountain didn't disappoint.  We made pies, muffins, jam, and froze them whole.

My neighbor Al stopped by with a plate of fresh figs for me.  He is so proud of his trees, which he propigates and has filled his entire yard with.  He gave me an offshoot which I have in a giant pot for now, but my tree produces only about a dozen figs since it is still young.  Al, however, is inundated with hundreds of these luscious fruits, which all ripen over a 10 day period and are too juicy to dry or preserve.  Few of the neighbors like figs, but I love them, and he and I can enthuse over their virtues for hours.  On my evening walks I pass his house and he's up his ladder picking, and as soon as he sees me he rushes over with handfuls of fruit, and we stand there on the sidewalk gorging ourselves, seeds and juice dripping down our chins, both of us making orgasmic moaning sounds over how delicious they are.  We provide great fodder for the neighborhood gossip mill!

Good food in the garden means lots of animal visitors.  There was speculation over what animal left this giant poop near my raspberry plants which had recently been stripped bare.  Was it a deer, or was it a black bear?  It came from an herbavore since it didn't stink and no flies were interested in it.  I posted the photo to my Master Naturalist group, and also asked a few of our local park rangers, and the consensus was about 50-50 deer-bear.

 OK, I just realized what a weird post this is.  Lots of photos of food, and then a photo of poop to end it.  Sorry!

Garden June 2013

I have a lot of pent up garden desires since I was traveling most of last summer and unable to plant a good garden.  This year in an ongoing effort to thwart the abundance of slugs I am putting more energy into container gardening, and getting those containers up off the ground.

Tired of pulling weeds and stepping in mud (and slug slime), I've laid the whole area with pavers and pea rocks.  I hoped that the heat absorbed and reflected by the pavers would also accelerate growth, and it looks like it has been successful.  I planted the same variety of peas in the earthboxes above, and in our raised beds, and the earthbox peas were ready weeks ahead of the raised bed peas.

We've been feasing on these peas, specially bred for containers, for weeks, and as they've started to die out I've placed compact bush bean seeds in their place.  

You can see how excited Little K is with the abundance of fresh peas we have this year.  In past years most of our peas were devoured by slugs and the few that survived to fruiting were eaten al fresco by the kids, never making it to the kitchen.  This year I had the girls shell the peas and I lightly steamed them for dinner one night.  They were stunned at how delicious they were compared to the frozen peas from the store that we usually have.   Although I am going to be away from home June 19th - July 4th, when I return I plan to really go crazy in the garden and push for maximum production this year.

Here's a nest of baby Juncos in our garden this year.  They are ground nesters, and thankfully my husband found the nest shortly after the eggs were laid so we could avoid weed-whacking and watering in that area.  The nest is lined with the soft hair from our neighbor's American Eskimo dog, and some of our Himalayan cat's fur.

Green Elephant Plant Swap

I was mucking about in the garden, removing maple leaf mulch and checking for the emergence of bulbs and perennials, when I noticed my raspberry canes seemed to have decreased in number from when I put them to bed last fall.  Turns out my husband had tried to be "helpful" and cut them back to the ground, not realizing that the variety we have produces fruit on the 2nd year floricanes, not the new growth primocanes.   This meant no raspberries this coming summer unless I got more canes.  Thankfully the Green Elephant Plant Swap was coming up.

This year I brought strawberry runners, bucket loads of mature sage, bird feeders, and blue columbine.  Although it's a "swap," and trading and bartering is suggested, most people, including me, just lay everything out for the taking, and leave to walk around to see all the other offerings.  I think there is no score-keeping over who brings vs takes.  Some people with no plants to give were walking around with plates of cookies and muffins to share.  Others were downsizing and wanted nothing in return, just hoping all their plants would be taken and they wouldn't have to haul any of it back home.   It was a generous atmosphere of sharing, asking planting advice of each other, and comparing tales of challenges with voracious slugs and pesky rabbits.

 

Because it was early spring and this was an informal exchange, pots were optional, and most plants were offered bare-root, pulled from the ground just hours before.

I came looking for raspberries, and I scored two, but also went home with a few of these prickly marionberry canes.

The girls were excited to see Chinese Lantern up for grabs, so we took a few roots and we'll see how they do for us.

Some people couldn't stay, or didn't want to do any trading, so they dropped their plants in an area marked "Free Stuff."  Really, everything at the event was free or trade, and no money was to be exchanged.

 

It was a successful visit to the Green Elephant Plant Swap for us.  We went home with raspberries, marionberries, ornamental grasses, ferns, forget-me-nots, Chinese lantern, various seeds, and four fresh chicken eggs!

 

Cider Pressing

Last spring I sat on my hands when it came to gardening because I was planning our summer in Europe and didn't want to burden the housesitter with watering a vegetable garden in our absence.  I also neglected to thin the fruit trees.  With apple trees, if you don't thin, you end up with an abundance of tiny apples.

For a few weeks we made gallons of applesauce, but peeling, coring, and slicing all those tiny apples was lots of work.  Making applesauce is so much easier with large apples!  By early November we still had bushels and bushels of little apples crying out to be consumed.  One of our neighbors has a 100 year old cider press they were willing to let us use, so for the first time we pressed cider with our apples.  Before we hauled our apples over to their house, we washed and sorted all those apples -- probably 800 or more of them.

Spartan and Braeburn apples are really good for cider!  Nice and tart, and plenty juicy.  

We didn't peel or core them, but any "bad spots" were cut out just before they went in the grinder.  We tossed out any bruised or wormy apples, using only sound apples.   The press had an "apple eater" grinder on top that was operated with a handcrank.  From there the ground apples landed into a mesh-lined slatted wooden bucket below.   

When the wooden bucket was full, the mesh bag was twisted shut, and the bucket was slid foward to the screw press, and cider then drained into an enamel bucket below.

Since we didn't core, peel, or add citric acid (lemon juice), the cider was rich and dark.  We got 11 gallons (not including what we drank while pressing!), which surprised us since the apples were so small.  We left some of the cider with our friends in thanks for letting us use their press, which is a big deal because it is a pain to clean afterwards, and the rest we put directly into our chest freezer.  

Of course we left a few dozen apples on the trees for our deer friends!

A Bird in the Hand...

On a blindingly sunny day this Golden-Crowned Sparrow struck our kitchen window.  It was in shock when we rushed out to pick it up so the cats or hawks wouldn't get it.

It was panting hard at first, but then calmed down.   Initially it could only sit in our hands, not really moving other than heaving.

Eventually it regained its ability to perch.  It didn't appear to have any broken bones or trouble balancing.

It wasn't ready to fly just yet, so we put it in a kennel with a towel over it so it could rest for a half hour.  Later, we opened the kennel door and it flew off, so we assume it was fully recovered.

I've never done an inventory on the different varieties of birds that come to our garden, but every year it seems we identify a bird we'd never noticed before.  This was one of them.  Perhaps because we'd never gotten close enough to notice this wasn't just any little brown bird.

Tiiiimmmmmber!

 

 

The shaded-in veggie gardener's favorite sight: Man with Chainsaw removing overhanging trees! We planted these cedars years ago when the property behind us was clearcut and a 3 story duplex was built.

 

 

For a number of years it was good to have the giant structure behind us obscured, but soon the trees grew so large that they shaded our veggie garden most of the year. Another row of trees planted behind those had filled in, so this row of trees closest to our garden had to go. Let the sun shine in!

Here's the "After" picture.  You can see there are 3 nice cedars still standing between us and the townhouse behind us.  But now, even in early March, I again have direct sun (for part of the day, sometimes) on all three of my vegetable beds.  Also, that apple tree to the right, which was being crowded by the cedars, now has room to spread it's branches and get some sun.  I am so happy, even if it is raining today.

February 2012 Garden Surprises

After snow the 3rd week of January, I expected a final die-back in the garden after an unusually mild winter.  Even after being buried in nearly a foot of snow for a week, and enduring a heavy ice storm, plants that should be dead live on.  In fact, I think it spurred increased vigor, and the 50 to 60 degree days that followed in early February convinced the plants that spring is here.

 

Last summer when I planted this radicchio I was so disappointed because it refused to set heads.  Week after week it would send up long, flimsy, furry green leaves that were not what was pictured on the seed packet, and didn't taste anything like radicchio.  After 8 months it not only survived the snow, but finally decided to set beautiful, firm heads of the radicchio I know and love.  I've been enjoying several leaves a day in my salads.

The Swiss Chard is still coming on strong.

Chives have emerged.

The mints usually die back, but not this year.  They are as vigorous as ever.

Pieris Japonica is in bloom.

Spring bulbs are bursting up from the japanese maple leaf mulch I cover the beds with in the winter.  I usually wait until March to rake away the mulch, but I may have to lift it earlier so as not to encourage slug overpopulation.

If it ever stops raining again, I obviously have lots to do in the garden.  I finished pruning the fruit trees and though I'd have a couple more weeks before getting my hands dirty again, but maybe not!

 

Fall Has Come

The house at the end of our street that was vacant after foreclosure last year has new owners now, so we couldn't play in their yard like we did last year.  About half of the houses in our neighborhood have a maple tree in their front yard.  Ours is a Japanese Maple, with probably a million tiny leaves.  Others have giant-leafed maples, with bigger, but fewer leaves.  Most homeowners deal with their leaves by mowing them into bits with their lawn mowers, and dumping them in the yard-waste bins for collection by the waste management service.  Others let their lawn-service people use those annoyingly loud leaf blowers to disperse them off their property -- sometimes into the street, often under the bushes to be left as winter mulch.  Few people seem to own a rake and make a pile for children to jump in anymore.  That leaves me.

Perfecting the peak of one of several piles.

Even after dark, it's fun to go out and play in the leaf pile.

During a quieter moment, after the jumpers had collapsed from exhaustion, we even brought a foster kitten outside to explore the leaves for a few minutes.

When we move from this house, I'm really going to miss this maple tree.  We can't take it with us, because it is huge, and also because the developer was very thoughtful about siting all trees directly over all the underground utilities -- gas lines, water lines, electric lines, sewer lines.  Some of our neighbors have had trouble with root intrusion because of this.  Stupid developers!  They had good taste in trees (sometimes), but poor judgement in placement.

Now that the leaves have all fallen, the kids are anxiously awaiting the first snowfall.

Late Summer Garden 2011

It's been a crazy summer.  June and July were colder and wetter and darker than normal.  Seeds rotted before sprouting, those that did manage to sprout got sheared off by slugs.  Finally, in August, the weather turned warm.  Now that the kids are back in school we are having an unusual heatwave: 80's all week, possibly 90 by the weekend.  Our Royal Epineuse plum set a lot of fruit this year, enough that I had to bring out the dehydrator and make prunes.  Of course I ate them fresh, too, to the point of having a belly-ache every night, but I'd be right back out there the next morning gorging again.  There's nothing better than sweet, juicy plums (except maybe dark chocolate).

We didn't get any beans until mid-August, which was about 5 weeks late.  Now I am harvesting, blanching, and freezing daily.  About another week of beans to go, before the shorter days and cooler nights kill back the vines.

The freezer is looking pretty full!  We went to a local farm to pick blueberries (also weeks late) and froze about 15 pounds for use through the year.  All that rain plumped up those blueberries to colossal proportions, and many were the size of grapes.  I still have 3 "blocks" of apple sauce from last year, and it's almost applesauce season again, so I better start using it up.  For applesauce I freeze it into silicone containers, pop it out when solid, and then vacuum seal it to prevent freezer burn.  The potato towers turned out pretty well.  I did have some problems with this design, though.  First, getting the dirt in from the top when the plants were small was challenging.  The plants were very tender and easily broken by the falling soil as I scooped it on from the top.  Second, the dark, moist environment became a magnet for slugs, and overnight they would completely denude entire plants of their leaves.  Luckily potato vines are tenacious, and once it warmed up their growth finally outpaced the slugs appetites.  Third, I ran out of dirt.  I couldn't fill the towers all the way to the top without spending more money to buy more soil.  Also, following the advice to use straw as a filler wasn't appropriate for our wet climate, because it just gave the slugs more places to hide, and reproduce.

The Gardman Potato Tubs were more successful.  They were easier to fill without damaging the plants because they were more shallow.  The little flap at the bottom where you could reach your hand in to harvest potatoes without disturbing the plant didn't work, though.  The opening was too small even for the girls to get their hands into, and the dirt was too packed to dig through from the underside.  Nice thought, but not practical.

Potato harvest is fun, especially for the little ones.  For the "tubs" I just dumped them out onto a tarp and let the kids dig in.  For the "towers" I undid the sides and peeled them back to reveal a column of dirt.

This tower was the least-filled.  When I realized that I wouldn't have enough dirt, I focused on filling just 2 towers about 2 to 3 feet high, and letting the other 2 towers get by with the initial 6 to 12 inches.   You can see a potato peeking out from the soil.  The yield wasn't bad, actually.  That potato found it's way into a potato-leek soup, along with about a dozen of it's brothers and sisters.

So despite some earlier crummy weather, the garden wasn't entirely a bust this year. 

The 20 Dollar Oyster Mushroom

We recently bought an Oyster Mushroom growing kit.  We live in a damp climate where mushrooms pop up everywhere (including on the interior walls of the vacant house at the end of our street), but I can never tell which are edible and which are not, so I don't eat the ones I find in the wild.  Both of the girls love mushrooms, so I decided to get this mushroom growing kit we saw at Whole Foods for $19.99.  

It is basically a sack of used coffee grounds impregnated with mushroom spawn.  All you do is soak it, then mist it twice daily, and supposedly in 10 days a flush of mushrooms will appear.  Well, after 3 weeks of waiting, we got one mushroom.  It doubled in size daily.  You could almost watch it growing!  

We ate half of it raw with blue cheese dip, and the other half became part of a mushroom green bean saute.  It was delicious.

We've turned the bag around in the box and supposedly more mushrooms will grow from the other side.  Hopefully we'll get more than one this time.  Next we're thinking of trying shiitake mushrooms, a family favorite.

Next week is June and it's still in the low to mid 40's at night, and mid-50's during the day.  And raining.  A lot.  So the outdoor garden is in suspended animation, nothing's really growing except the spinach, sage, and kale, but the weather's fine for mushrooms, so I guess that's what we'll focus on.