No where close to "too much."

This time of year, we have more tomatoes that a person can sensibly use, so we make a lot if pizza. If you are going to make pizza, you might as well make it for 16 people. The outdoor kitchen has made that much better.

New outdoor kitchen on shoestring budget

We find we use it for lots of different things, but Mike particularly loves cooking out there. Last night we had some (16) friends and family over, and ate pizza for the second time in three days.  Mike made six pizzas, and we still had sauce leftover.

Typically we use about three pounds of tomatoes  in the sauce, and Mike has some new heirloom tomatoes we used for the sauce.

Mike makes the whole pizza using the pizza oven, even the sauce

We also made one with brie, apple, honey and sage that doesn't use sauce, and one with a pesto sauce made from our basil.  Mike has gotten so obsessed with the pizza that we do most of it outside unless there is wind (it blows the parmesan away) or rain, which there was last night.  Even so, Mike made the sauce outside on the pizza oven (he takes the top off). You can see the full set of summer project pictures in his photo album. It is important to note that making six different types of pizza is no where close to too much pizza by Mike's definition.

In addition to pizza, we mostly make things that use up what we have in the garden.  I made a slaw with cabbage, onion tops, apple, carrots and sugar snaps, and a salad with roasted beets, cucumber, feta, pumpkin seeds, carrots, red onion, greens and roasted veggie chips. We bought the feta and the seeds (too late in the year for our own seeds - we'll make some next month), but the rest is mostly from our house except some of the greens.  I also made a dressing of Mike's pesto, garlic, salt and pepper, mayo and homemade yogurt. Apple crisp (using up our apples), our salsa and chips, and a tray of plain veggies rounded out the meal.  Thanks to Jodi for the pop, which was not grown in the garden.

Before we had everyone over, Mike and I did a big biking circuit on the river bank and tried out the new workout area, which was super fun.  I tried all the equipment as designed, and Mike played with everything in as many illicit ways as possible.  That was a great morning, but the afternoon was better.  I harvested onions and Leo made them into a 6 foot braid.  We planted garlic together and I dug carrots, and picked the beans and the last of the peas. I also picked five large zucchinis which I frozen down in 30 cups. I had a sixth that I tried to get Anna to take, but she was too smart. I have a few more apples to pick today, but I am mostly done.  I absolutely love picking processing and cooking my own food, even when Mike frowns at the zuchini and declares, "That is way too much."  A day like yesterday is not about excess, it is about largess, right?

Summer Projects

I love the opportunity to putter around the yard in the summer for lots of reasons, but my two favourite are picking fresh foods to eat and doing summer projects.  This year, they have intersected in Mike's summer kitchen.

Summer Kitchen
We went to Gus and Greta's in early July, and while we were there, we saw their summer kitchen. They have an outside table, and a grill, burners and an oven.  They also have a covered area where they can eat.  The covered area is less important here, where if it is raining it is usually cool enough to cook inside.  However, we were generally inspired by their ability to be outside so much, and Mike decided he needed a kitchen, too.

We have toyed with the idea of building a cob over or buying a pizza over for years. We liked the idea of being able to make pizza at the right temperature, and liked the idea of baking outside in the summer.  We've thought about building an outdoor kitchen a number of times, but just not acted because we were waiting to decide with option to do.  Then I found a pizza oven at Canadian Tire. Alton Brown might have called it a uni-tasker, but Mike already has it doing nan, bannock and breakfast scones.  As soon as we knew we have the oven solution (and at a fraction of the cost of the other options), Mike wanted to build a kitchen to go with it.

Last week during Mike's off days, we got most of the way finished the construction of the kitchen.  We still need to mount the hose sink and put up the trellis, but it is perfectly functional already.  It has a pizza oven, BBQ and a large cedar L shaped counter.  I like a lot of the details like the hanging utensils, the covered storage and the copper sink. I'll post pictures when the sink is done.

We've been using the cooking area a lot for cutting things, making pizza and flat bread, and serving.  It will be even better for me when I wash veggies out there and I have completed the compost area.

Picking Fresh Foods
This week the garden in in full swing.  I have been picking a lot of peas, beets, beans and cucumber, and we've been enjoying cherries, strawberries, raspberries, and saskatoons as well.  Sunday we went to a U-Pick to get saskatoons.  My usual place doesn't have them anymore, but Moon River was a great place to pick and the prices were reasonable.  They were shocked how quickly we picked 6 pails, but they didn't expect Leo and Anwyn to pick any because they are teenagers.

I have been making lots with our fresh veggies, including stir fry, many salads and bruschetta. I also love fruit salads, crisp, and fresh salsa's.  Mike has been pickling and making yogurt to eat with all the fresh fruit and sauces. We are having a picnic at the river today at lunch and we are eating fresh bruschetta and nachos, devilled eggs, cherries and bean salad - all made fresh with our food.

My side bed has been doing well, but I am growing cauliflower and broccoli for the first time and they have both gone to seed. My kohlrabi and greens are doing well in the same bed, though. I'll need to pay closer attention in the future.

Not Yet Swing of Summer

Mike's favorite rose

My job keeps me very busy, and when it doesn't, I do. When summer comes each year, I start it in high gear. My yard is great for me because there is always something to do, and at the same time, there is nothing to do.  I spend the kind of time I never spend during the year just wandering, sitting and dreaming.  I also spend some of it deadheading, weeding, and projecting.  Fortunately for me (and for Mike) my yard is pretty small, and there is really very little left to colonize.  It forces me away from the working and into the slowing down to smell the flowers, in a way that my mother's acreage never does.

My yard is at its most beautiful right now.  Each bed has at least seven types of perennials blooming. Other than the elm seeds (which I continue to hate) my weeds have slowed down.  I spend quite a bit of time sitting in the sun and admiring, usually accompanied by homemade iced-tea or Leora's strawberry and basil infused water. This summer I feel a strange mix of slowing down and uncertainty.

The picking is still pretty slow. I am currently eating cherry tomatoes, greens, strawberries, rhubarb and herbs. I just finished making a tabbouleh for lunch to use up a couple of cups of parsley. That means I can really enjoy cooking with fresh ingredients, but there is no big press to harvest anything. I have been cooking and picking this morning because we are waiting to hear from the vet.

When Mike and I travel with the girls in the summer, it is usually at this time because the harvest hasn't started.  We were scheduled to leave to visit my youngest sister and a her family and our cat became very sick, so we have been waiting.  Test results were due in today, but when we called the vet, they didn't have them yet.  If the results were were pills, or a delayed surgery we'd get to leave tomorrow and I would spend the day packing very quickly.  If not, I would be very sad both for the cat and seeing my family, but I would be in the yard and home in a time I am rarely here.

Instead, I am waiting.  Did I mention that waiting is not really a good state for me?

Rain barrel distribution system

The vet has kindly agreed to call the lab and see if she can rush things for us. Lyla has been vomiting less, and we are no longer giving her all the medication, which is positive.  However, there is just nothing I can do.  I read in the yard for a while, then I cooked, then I weeded and now I am still waiting.

I am no yet in the swing of summer but I really want to be. Perhaps a project is the ticket.

A number of years ago our friend Brad recommended we put in a drip watering system for our square foot beds.  It was a good idea as we always spend a lot of time carrying buckets, but I really wanted to use the rain barrels.  This week Mike has developed a drip system that attaches to our front barrel and it works really well. The hot bed on the south side of the house stays lightly damp all the time and the plants are supper happy.

 Maybe if I go sit with them for a bit, I can get in the swing of things. Check out Mike's pics of the set up (and the great cover he sewed to keep the cabbage moths off of my square-foot bed in the driveway). Both projects were very satisfying in their own ways.

Straw to protect the strawberries

In case you are interested, some other projects of the last few days include mulching, dealing with aphids in the greenhouse, and transplanting.  They were all great distractors in the swing of summer until this day of purgatory.

I really am going out the yard now.

Rainy day lull

It was a late spring, and the last week has been a hard one. Lilah has been very sick, and the human parts of the family have been, too. I was home two days last week, and Mike and Anwyn were each home three. Leo is just getting sick now.  In the midst of all that mucous and vomit, it has rained.  In the last two weeks, there have only been two days where it didn't rain most of the day. When you are sick, though, it doesn't mater as much that you are housebound.



The rain has slowed garden production, which means it is the right pace for my ill family. The asparagus just finished, and we have been eating herbs and a variety of greens for a couple of weeks. Mike ate one cherry tomato today and I made a nice brochette with the fresh basil yesterday. The big star, however, is the flowers.

It was a hard winter and I lost some perennials.  Because things were late, however, my tulips, narcissus, flox, iris, chives, anemone, and lily-of-the-valley are all blooming at the same time (check out Mike's June album of garden pics to see all the purple and pink). The yard is a sea of pinks and purples and the rain has kept them all frozen together for a protracted period of time.  Mike and I look out our window in the rain and admire the view. Everything looks incredibly lush, and it is cool and humid.

In breaks in the rain in the last couple days (typically no more than 40 mins.) we go out and do a bit to try to keep the yard under control. Mowing, weeding the garden and picking rhubarb to freeze all occur in these little windows of time. That is also about right for sickness, as we need to recover for about 2 hours for each 1/2 hour slowly pushing the mower. As you might imagine, we've been mostly eating out of the freezer as no one was hungry and no one was well enough to cook except Leora, who is writing finals.

Today we finally felt well enough to make all our meals: blueberry pancakes in the am, veggie soup and rhubarb crisp for lunch, and a fresh garden salad for supper later tonight. My greens and brasicas (think cabbage and kohlrabi) are happily co-habitating in a square foot bed on the driveway that tolerates all the damp very well.

All things considered, the misfortune has fit together so well as to actually seem like a pleasant lull combined with feeling crummy.

Belated Mother's Day x2

It has been a yucky spring.  Most days in April and May have been unseasonably cold, and then there is the wind and rain.  My crocuses haven't even bloomed yet (read last year's blog about the late snows waiting my crocuses until the first week of May). Two years ago at this time, I had my typical long list of flowers and vegetables - I am usually eating asparagus right now. Anyway, when the weather man said it would be nice yesterday, and cold, wet and windy for the rest of the long weekend when local gardeners always plan, I believed him. Unfortunately, that meant yesterday was crazy.

Mike had done the tilling and we'd bought bedding plants Friday night and the Saturday before. Since it frozen 3 times last week and nearly froze two more, everything has been living in the greenhouse with only a few days hardening off. Usually we plant a couple hours each day over the three day weekend, but we did all 6 hours yesterday.  Mike didn't complain once. My teenage assistants were less restrained, but everyone worked hard and was very tired.

Anwyn transplants

We started the day be creating the mixture we use for potting our plants. Mike laid a tarp out and we combined compost, peat and soil.  Then
we started transplanting strawberries, which is hard work.  It took us nearly two hours just to complete that and some general potting, and then we started in the garden.

Moving strawberries

This year one third of what we planted we grew ourselves or it came from seed we saved. It is always really exciting to put seeds from Leo's work back into the ground or go from bare dirt to corn, tomatoes and squashes that are already up.  Because I use a staggered planting system, not everything went in this weekend. I will plant additional beans, chard etc. over the next three weeks. We pre-started kohlrabi and beets as well, so I am looking forward to seeing how those do.

I still have a few more things to do today, like cleaning the fountain and installing floating row covers, but they are all things that can handle the rain that's coming. So far the week ahead after the long weekend looks finally sunny, so my plants should really get growing. I am the most excited about two new iris I picked out for myself and first food (likely greens, asparagus and strawberries). View Mike's other spring pictures.

Today is fake Mother's Day at our house. Anwyn was at National's last weekend placing 13th when she could have been home loving up her mom.  Since I don't care much about the formal date, we just moved things. The Diakuw family celebration also moved, so I am doing that at 11 and looking forward to a great breakfast from Leora.  While Anwyn was gone she sent me a little writing about my habit of petting her hair (which she tolerates in private and hates in public).  I think it made me as happy as my exhausting/triumphant day of planting yesterday.  Here it is with her permission.

One of Two Anwyn Mother's Day Compositions:

I just lay there. Her warm hand stroking my hair. Even though I hadn't brushed it, or washed it. That happy feeling you get when you hug someone you love pulsed through my veins. I looked up at her and she smiled down at me, with eyes that could never hate, never cause pain.

"Now you just have to let me do this in public." she sighed longingly, yet jokingly. I laugh. As if.

"Stroking my ponytail in a public setting is very different from in a private one." She sighed mockingly. 

"I can't help myself," she said feigning innocence. "its just there, and its so pretty. Its subconscious." I smiled to myself, what was it about my hair that she loved so much?

"Well," I mused. "if your not careful I might withhold the privilege all together." I jested. She looked at me with puppy dog eyes. Even though thats the daughters card to play. The she discarded the act and chuckled as I lay my head back down on her lap.

"Sure you will sweetie." She said, and resumed petting my hair. 

Resident dancer,

Debate extraordinaire,

None of it matters,

As long as your there. 

You see me at my best,

You see me at my worst,

Your beautiful and numerous sweaters,

Are stained by my tears, and you know me to the letter.

Your better than my best, 

And I'm constantly impressed,

I've known you all my life

 and know you to the core,

I have always loved you 

and you I will adore. 

Happy Mother's Day mom, I love you 

Seeds of Sping

I am about two months away from planting my garden and there has been some serious melting in Saskatoon. It was also -27C with windchill when I woke up yesterday, so it must be spring.

Last year at this time I was blogging about planning a good garden, crop rotation etc. This year I am going to start with seeds. Because I like to grow my own plans from seed whenever I can -  I'll actually start planting next weekend in my grow table. I start with the things that need the longest time to be ready to plant like tomatoes, flowers and basil. I go shopping for the seeds the weekend before so I have time to hunt around the city for varieties I want, but cannot find.

When I figure out what I need to buy, I consider four things.

• What seed did I grow last year that I can plant?  I am at the early end of the seed saving journey, but this year I have already replanted my garlic in the fall.  And I have seeds to plant for sunflower, climbing beans. basil, dill, cilantro, and corn.
• What seeds did I buy last year that I can still use?  I don't usually hold seed beyond a year, because the germination rate drops too sharply. However, a seed package can range from $1.59 to $7.00 depending on the type of seed or how much there is in the package, and I buy a lot a seed. I try to save what I can. I have small peppers left (Cayenne, Jalapeño, Hungarian Wax, and Habanero) so I only need to buy Bell peppers. I also have some tomatoes (Lemon Boy, Tiny Tim and Yellow Pear), two colours of zucchini, basil, red beets and carrots.
• What do I want so little of that it is more economical to buy seedlings?  This is a small list, usually varieties I am testing or things I don't want much of, like eggplant and pumpkin.
• How much do I need of the seeds I am buying? I am headed out to my closest supplier (Early's) later today, so I need to do a quick calculation of what to buy. My shopping list will include: 2 medium bags of peas (sugar snap and shell), one type of climbing bean (not the type I already have), a medium package of green bush beans, small squash packages of two or three varieties, larger tomatoes like Early Girl, usually two or three different types I want to try that are zone 2 hardy and a variety of small packages I don't have left over. This year that will be Bell peppers, spinach, lettuce, chard, cabbage, kohlrabi and two types of cucumbers. I calculate the amount based on a map I build with number of seedlings per foot. It is based on a square foot intensive gardening technique.

My only exception to the obsessive planning are flower seeds. They are always spontaneous selections that compliment what I have now.

This will be all the seeds I have for the year, except onion sets (bought in May before planting) and maybe seed potatoes. I am considering not growing potatoes this year, as they are still a very cheap food and I'd like to give them a rest because we had potato bugs last year.

One other change this year is looking for plants with a smaller rootball. I got a book on straw bale gardening from Brad and want to give that a try.