Can There Ever Be Too Many Tomatoes? Or Socks?

Spring is officially here, which means it's time to plant more seeds! Today is the all-important day of tomato seed planting, and we have 9 varieties going in this year. Yes, perhaps that is going a bit overboard, but there are so many beautiful and delicious tomatoes to choose from out there that it's hard not to. Plus, we're looking forward to a bumper crop so that we can make plenty of sauce to preserve for next winter. We're also planting some onion seeds today, although we really should have done so about 3 weeks ago. Typically onions can be planted in the garden several weeks before the last frost date, but due to some factors outside of our control, there's a pretty good chance we won't be getting our spring plantings done before the middle of May anyway, so our late seed sowing shouldn't be a problem. Along with the veggie seeds, we'll also be starting some herbs and flowers - sweet Genovese basil, purple Dark Opal basil, sage, rosemary, stevia, lavender, chamomile, and bee's friend.

Also of note, our hop rhizomes have arrived!


In other homesteading news, we have completed our first scarves! They're very simple, just done in knit stitch. Mine is made from a nice thick wool yarn with a size 7 needle, so it's very warm and almost wind-proof. And green! I was so excited about how well it turned out, that I went straight out and bought more yarn to make a throw blanket. The Gardener's is in manly shades of olive drab, but is softer and squishier. He now dreams of knitting his own socks! Our dear friend Pragmatiste has given us an awesome set of interchangeable circular needles to try out. They will be perfect for making some thick, wooly socks for the next time the Gardener goes camping up in the mountains!

Well Worth Watching

The sprouts are sprouting and we're trying to keep ourselves distracted. I managed to mulch some of the beds with hay and bought a few supplies for creating a new raised bed last weekend. And though there are plenty of books on the nightstand that need finishing, we decided to watch TV instead.

I found a recent BBC series called Victorian Farm, which gave a much needed escape to someplace green and growing. The show focuses on three historians who try their hands at Victorian farming with authentic equipment and practices. The six part series covers the span of a year on the farm. The hosts grow and harvest an acre of wheat, lamb ewes over winter and raise a litter of piglets. Pretty much a dream year.

If you have access to a copy of the show I really recommend it.

Signs of Life

A mere 14 days into our 30 day wait, what should I spy but these luminescent little signs of life! A handful of our strawberry seeds have already begun to poke their heads above the dirt. As exciting and encouraging as this discovery has been, it also means we need to hurry up and get our grow light hoisted from the basement ceiling a bit sooner than anticipated.

In other news, we've started two flats of asparagus seeds, which are surprisingly large and not at all what you would expect them to look like until you realize that they come from little red berries. Starting asparagus from seed rather than crowns means we'll have to wait four years instead of three for the bed to be established enough to start taking cuttings, but seeds are a heck of a lot cheaper. And besides, we like a good challenge!

We also wanted to mention that we've chosen to start our seeds in homemade paper pots, as you can see in the photo. Several seed catalogs sell the wooden pot maker that you can see in the photo in our last post. We thought this would be a great way to recycle newspaper, and it's also the most sustainable solution we could find. One purchase will fulfill our seed-starting needs for a lifetime, it's environmentally friendly, and it's easily shared. We did buy some plastic flats with lids, but they should last for years, and are recyclable. We also bought some seed starting mix this year, but next year we hope to be able to use compost from our back yard.

Meanwhile, as we wait for the weather to warm up, the Gardeness and the Gardener have been learning how to knit! I must say, if you ever find yourself stressing out, especially if it's due to having to wait for something, knitting is a wonderful way to distract yourself. Plus you get something warm to snuggle with when you're done!

Waiting for Spring

This week we attended the second session of a two-part program on Sustainable Small-Scale Vegetable Production given by our local cooperative extension. The organizers were really excited because they had a record turn out! It was just an introduction to the concepts of sustainable farming, so none of the speakers went into a lot of detail, but what they stressed repeatedly was the need to plan carefully, and the importance of soil testing. Luckily, a soil test kit was included in the price of attendance! Once the soil thaws out this spring, we'll definitely be out back digging up a sample, and we'll be back here with the results. If you haven't already looked up your local cooperative extension, you should - they have tons of resources and people who can answer almost any question you might have about growing things.

All this talk about growing vegetables was in stark contrast to the snow, ice, and freezing temperatures we've been having. Luckily, seed starting time has arrived, which is keeping me from going completely stir-crazy! Last weekend I started a flat of alpine stawberry seeds. Most strawberries are planted as crowns and spread by runners, but alpines (aka fraises des bois) spread by seed and are great for urban gardeners because they don't need a lot of space, and can do well even without a lot of direct sun. They take about 30 days to germinate, according to the seed packet, so we'll have to be patient while we wait for signs of life from these tiny seeds.

Dreaming Big in 2009!

A new year has begun, and you know what that means: seed catalogs galore! It may seem as if the Gardener and Gardeness have been neglecting their readers lately, but we have in fact been very busy working on blog-worthy projects these past two months. One of those projects has been diligently perusing our catalogs and planning this year's garden. We've been dreaming big, and our order lists are ambitious! We'll be procuring the majority of our seeds from the Seed Savers Exchange for several reasons: they're a non-profit organization with proceeds going towards the preservation of heirloom varieties, they offer many rare and interesting seeds, and their prices are very competitive. We have also decided to plant only open pollinated varieties, so that we can try to save seeds for next year. Not only that, but we've also decided to be really brave and try growing things like asparagus, strawberries, and onions all from seed - no crowns or sets here! Oh boy, wish us luck!

In other news, in our search to find entertainment without a cable subscription, we recently discovered a wonderful old sitcom on Netflix, and have been watching it voraciously. It's a British program from the mid 1970s called "The Good Life," (also called Good Neighbors) in which Tom, along with his wife Barbara, decides to quit his corporate job and start a farm in their suburban back yard in an effort to become totally self-sufficient. They till up the lawn, plant lots of veggies, get chickens, pigs and a goat, and build an electric generator that runs on methane, all to the disdain and amusement of their snobby friends and next door neighbors. We recommend it highly!

Stay tuned, as we hope to announce more of our aforementioned projects, both BIG and small, in the coming weeks! For now, please keep your fingers crossed for us! Happy 2009!

Apple Butter - or - Overcoming the Fear of Canning

On Sunday, feeling domestic and a bit brave, I decided to get out our new freecycled canning pot and make some homemade apple butter from the apples I had bought on a whim the previous day. Now, I've been interested in canning for quite some time, but I've always been a bit hesitant. Knowing the principles of homebrewing, I'm not sure why I continued to fear the process of preserving food, but now having the tools to do so, including the Ball Blue Book, I no longer had any excuse not to just go for it. I peeled and sliced four pounds of apples, and simmered them in a little water until they were nice and soft, then put them in a food processor. To that I added sugar and spices, and let it gently bubble for about four hours until it was just the right consistency. By that point the jars were done sterilizing in the dishwasher and were keeping warm, the lids were simmering in a small pot of water, and the canning pot was starting to reach a boil. The apple butter filled six half-pint jars, which went into the boiling water for ten minutes. When I pulled them out, I heard the reassuring pop pop pop of the lids and I knew everything would be ok :-) The Gardener and I sampled some of what was left in the pot, and it was delicious! One jar we will keep for ourselves and the rest will make some nice Christmas gifts, but five jars is not nearly enough to go around, so I'll be keeping my eye out for another fun recipe to make. Hopefully next year we will have enough of a harvest from our garden that we'll be canning some of our own vegetables. I'm thinking salsa!

Garlic on an Autumn Morning

Now that it's November, and the risk of scaring off any Halloween vampires has passed, I took advantage of my extra hour (given the fact that I forgot to change the clocks until after I woke up this morning) to finally plant our garlic. If all goes well, we should get about 70 heads of garlic come sometime around July. We ordered two varieties of organically grown garlic - Transylvanian and Romanian Red - however the Transylvanian was back ordered and then replaced with Russian Red Toch. Romanian Red is an heirloom hardneck porcelain variety, which should have large cloves and a strong flavor, and should store very well. Russian Red Toch is a softneck artichoke variety which should have small to medium cloves, a flavor mild enough to enjoy raw, be ready to harvest early, and be able to be stored for 5 to 6 months. My big hope now is that the squirrels don't dig up all the cloves before the ground freezes. You wouldn't think they'd be interested, but they've been eating everything from pumpkins to jalapenos, so I wouldn't put it past them. I've never planted anything this late in the year before, but I have to say that I really enjoyed having one last chance to get outside and put my hands in the cool dirt before winter. Soon enough there will be snow on the ground and we'll be knee deep in seed catalogs planning for next year!