Good kind of Frozen

A month ago, we hefted our old freezer upstairs and moved the last of the frozen things from last year (cherries, apples, zucchini) into a new freezer we got from a friend. It was a big commitment because we had to downsize, but with Leo gone and Anwyn leaving in a year, it seemed like good timing.  I sorted through everything in our old 1970s freezer, which had with light and a hinge that no lolonger held the door open. Since I was downsizing to a freezer half the size, I told myself I was doing well to let some food I had grown and processed go.  Carrying it up the stairs was an epic odyssey of skids and door removal for the whole family, and we were all revealed when we heaved into the trailer. Mike ripped the door off so no child could be trapped in it, and it was ready to go to the dump.  In the end, I was glad to see it go.

The new freezer had an exciting hum, was small, and fit well. Unfortunately, it did not work well and over the period of three days everything in it defrosted.  I was sad about the veggie burgers, baking, and especially the ice cream, but what I really missed having all the things made and ready to go, and having all the home grown produce I had. We are always making smoothies with our frozen berries, our own pesto, and pies.  Having no freezer was a big deal to me because it cut off the bounty. You know you have an excessively strong relationship with food when...

Since we were buying a new freezer, we decided to avoid our usual used appliance (I didn't want another failure) and buy a new energy star appliance.  It helped me feel like less environmental damage came from throwing out two freezers. We priced out various models and got a stand up one which is large and nice, but a bit loud.   All of this corresponded with the early crops in the garden.  We had no freezer when we ate asparagus and all the early herbs, and I would not have frozen my lettuces. But just in time, the freezer arrived to store homemade pesto, haskap blueberry chutney and jam, and a large ziploc of  rhubarb. It is funny how happy it makes me to see each item go in. If it were not for my environmental streak I might hold the door open just to see the awesome.

I just got off work three days ago, and two days ago Mike finished the city walk, so I was driving and working more the loving the yard.  But today and yesterday I spent the morning out there, loving the flowers, reading, and picking berries.  I can already feel the rhythm, with iris finishing and peony in full bloom, just as the lilies are starting. You can enjoy the views with my yard by looking at Mike's photos. Each spot I go, I think about what it will be like over the summer and what I'll enjoy about when I eat the bounty in the winter.

I love the yard.  The food and flowers are an unbeatable combination and the space is tranquil and relaxed. Now that the freezer is up and going and the caner is ready, I can enjoy the best kind of frozen that fruit and veggies can have.

On Saturday, the city walk day dawned misty, and I sat out on the back patio and watched layers of the yard gradually come in to view.  It reminded me how much I enjoy my gardens and love time to myself with the plants and the quiet.

Serious eating

As the lilies go into serious bloom each year, the serious eating also starts.  We had pancakes this morning with raspberries and saskatoons from our yard, I had our strawberries for snack, and supper was a taco salad featuring our greens, our tomatoes, our zucchini, and our single ripe pepper (thanks greenhouse). I also picked two types of cucumbers, beet greens, dill, and onion stalks today.

Anwyn and I were sitting out in the backyard this morning just soaking in the beauty.  The peonies are finishing up, but there are lots of other things blooming, particularly roses, lupines, delphiniums, sedums, and lilies.  The front has four colors, all versions of orange and yellow, with a mix of day-lilies, tiger lilies etc. The back also has some errant orange which I should dig up, and lots of pinks, whites, and maroons. Lilies are such great cut flowers, and  they will bloom in various forms for the next couple of weeks, ending the time when massive swaths of perennials bloom in the yard.

My sisters start arriving with their families in the next several days, and almost everyone will be here except my parents.  Mike made a video for you, Mom, so you can see what is up right now in the yard while everyone else is here in person. I hope I get to see a picture of the garlic you just dug, even if it was a bad crop due to heat.  I need to dig mine this week, too, and I am expecting the same crummy state for my early garlic.

The cherries are changing color, and one of the trees has an infected branch that I need to cut off once it freezes.  I always want to eat them as soon as they change color, even though they are much sweeter later.  We'll see how all the small cousins do with them, as they are very low hanging fruit. The apples are higher, and the ripe raspberries and strawberries should give the grazers a focus.  Teela is hoping to arrive in time for the peas, and it is looking good.  I think I will have my first pods later this week.

Mike is busy laying down additional soaker hoses for watering.  He set up our two boxes on the south side of the garage and house last summer, and is irrigating the strawberries and one front bed this year.  We have so many beds now that the three rain barrels only keep up for 4 days without rain, and we've had little rain for a couple of weeks.  Hopefully this will reduce serious time spent watering, and focus more of his time on the serious eating (and, of course, video production).

My only unhappiness is that our local rabbits have finally discovered our yard.  We found scat, and one sent of my bean plants went from blooming to stubs in one night.  You can see it in the video. Hopefully the bunny doesn't find a way into the backyard where most of the veggies are, or notice the north bed of salad greens. It is exactly the sort of place that Peter Rabbit would pig out.

Finally, fruit

Every year I wait for my strawberries to come in. For years, some would look ready and the birds seemed to get them just before they were ripe.  I was super sad until it became clear the birds were actually Leora.  Then with ordering, cajoling and constant vigilance it was possible for the others in the family to get berries (although still not usually the first ones).

Leo is getting ready to graduate and leave home after the summer, and she just got her second ever job.  Although all her plays have finally finished (I have never seen her care more than playing Juliet at the Persephone), she still has lots going on. Mike and I got home last night and we ate the first two berries.  It made it so clear, and bittersweet, that Leora is leaving.

The yard had another good week this week. Last week asparagus was completely done, and I picked a bit more rhubarb this week, but now I will wait till the fall.  We are eating lots of greens off the shade bed I grow in the driveway, and the herbs are awesome.  I really like watching the garden bound forward in growth - reminds be of the early teenager years. This week I did a lot of training plants on vertical growing surfaces, and I pulled out the last of the major baby elm seeds.

Perhaps the most exciting part (other than the first new strawberries in 17 years) is the flowers. My backyard is right in its best stage, and the front yard is about take over and show off for over a month. In the back, irises, bell flower, roses, daisies, geraniums, and a wide variety of other flowers are blooming. Mike and I have counted over fifty different types. In the front, Mike is excited about his orange irises and orange roses, which hang out side by side in the heart shaped bed. Soon the lilies and  money wart (ground cover) will be out. My favorite in the front right now is the thyme path (predictably purple instead of the warm color palette). All photos can be viewed here.

I (and in this case I mean Mike) have been taking videos of the yard once a week this year to chronically changes. Check out this week's video.

Sea of purple

It is hard to get me out of my yard this year.  I have a leave for school, so I have time to be in the garden during the day at watch everything start to bloom.  It has been such a luxury.  I write for a couple of hours, hang out in the yard for an hour, write more, then go out more.

The tulips, which were lovely shades of purple and pink in the back, and the daffodils from Mom, leading the yellow in the front, are mostly done now. The iris and anemone have taken over.  Three iris types in different shades of purple iris are my beloved colours, but I also have lots of yellows and yellow/purples.   My double white has been transplanted this year and isn't doing much.  I did a count in the yard, and including bushes, I have over fifty different things currently blooming.  Not a good sign of personal restraint.  Predictably Mike's current favourites are in the front, his thyme path and his bright orange poppy. His rose will be the big hit right away. Everyone else keeps commenting on the lilacs on the left in the back, and Mike loves the white bleeding heart.

We put our garden in at the usual time, and most things are doing well despite early drought.  I start many things inside now including unusual things like beets and carrots, so things tend to take well when we plant.  I have tried carrots three ways with year, from seed, from transplants with just the starter leaves, and ones two weeks older.  I'll let you know what I find.  We get so little rain that carrots don't always germinate well in the garden, and thinning hurts my heart, leaving me with small, thin carrots who are overcrowded.

We have just finished eating asparagus and made a batch of stewed rhubarb and some fresh crisp this weekend.  All the spices are ready and Mike is using the March basil seedlings for pizza.  Strangely, the winter was so mild that both my oregano and my sage made it through, which has never happened. The sage is even about to bloom. I am trying a new curry rosemary that Jodi bought me - I will let you know what I like it in. My lettuce is also ready to eat, and I put in my final planting of lettuce and beans this weekend, nearly a month after my first seeds.  I usually plant for nearly a month in addition to all the seedlings I start, as it gives a variety of ripe veggies at different times. I'd far rather eat beans and peas fresh all summer than can them or freeze them in large batches because I planted all at once.

I put in two new beds at the end of last year.  The one above is in the front, and I will keep expanding it.  I has the two new honeyberries and Mom's daffodils. The one in the back has a new trellis and is designed to keep basketballs in the court. Luckily for me it is full sun, so I get to grow some new things.  You can view progress in all the beds for this week and last week.

Mike has taken some new video of the yard, which is great for those of you who aren't here right now.  It is from last weekend, so it is already outdated in terms of blooming, but it gives the idea.

Backyard video 1
Backyard video 2
Front yard video

Spring Sprang, Away

It has been an unusually warm winter, nearly 3 degrees warmer than Saskatoon typically is.  As a result, we've been enjoying early edibles.  The picture on the left is the garlic, which is providing early greens. You can eat the everything about garlic if you get the time right. Garlic greens are good in anything you'd use the bulb for, and when they are too tough, we'll eat the scapes.  Like the garlic, the chive greens are also great. We had fresh chives in our biscuits tonight, and I have onions up that I can steal greens from too.

Like my edible bulbs, my floral bulbs also got excited early.  I had flowers last weekend, and was out enjoying Jodi's crocuses yesterday.  I think all the plants were excited about the high teens and low 20s on the thermometer. Of course, that was last week.  This week we have had highs of plus ten and lows of minus five, so everything that sprung early is now sitting tight waiting for the risk of frost to go away.  Mike and I had been speculating everything was five to ten days ahead (a big difference in spring) but it now looks just like any other spring.

This time of year, much of my leisure time is spent looking at the yard, prodding various small plants, and cleaning up the beds.  Since it was a very dry winter, I have been in the garden beds early checking for winter-kill. I have my chair out, and sit in it with my hot chocolate, contemplating where various things should be planted. It has been so nice until this week that Anwyn is up reading on the roof and Leo has been out in the hammock.

Now that spring has sprung away and left April weather cold without any showers, everyone is complaining. When Mike and I went for our walk today, an older lady stopped to complain I shouldn't need my toque. I wish I didn't, but have been consoling myself with my grow table. My basil and peppers have been going for almost a month, and my tomatoes, melons and kohlrabi/beets are all up. I plant everything early either because it need to extended season or I like to stagger when the crop comes in.  We are about one month from our last frost date.  This week I will start the corn and peas in the greenhouse so I can put them in the garden early with floating row covers. I'll also need many items from my seed trays. The upside of my early seed starting is I have lots to occupy my time with until spring decides to come back.

Still about the Fruit

In July, I wrote about how it is all about the fruit in my yard right now.  Well, it is three weeks later, and it is still all about the fruit.  And also the house painting.  But mostly the fruit.

After we finished painting the house this afternoon, we took a well deserved break.  I spent time in the hammock, and Mike sat beside me in the shade playing guitar.  Cue my bad habit - one that my mother and I share. Really it is a trait that might be good or might be bad, depending.

I am looking at the yard and thinking about how happy I am.  Then I see another apple fall off the tree, apparently as the result of nothing in particular. 20 minutes later I am handing Mike a massive wicker basket of apples after having picked four other ice cream containers full.  We already have three large ziplocs frozen down and have made apple sauce once.  Next our relaxing time is used with making apple sauce, drying apples in the dryer, and baking fruit compote. I have barely picked 1/4 of our apples to date so this insanity will happen over and over.

Today we rearranged the freezer to prepare for more apples and the cherries we will pick soon.  So Mike knew what he was saying when he innocently suggested that perhaps some of the apples could fall without us doing much beyond tossing them into the ferns. He had already canned 5 quarts of apple sauce when he commented, but I still gave him a black look.  No one gets between a James girl and potential fruit without collateral damage.

I felt this same way visiting Teela last week, even when it wasn't my garden and even when it was just tomatoes, which do not count as real fruit in the James girl lexicon.  She has a large garden in Virginia, and it has a number of volunteer cherry tomatoes. Teela doesn't like to limit the choices of anyone (which includes tomatoes), so she let them live while she weeded out not fruit bearing weeds. As a result, she has a lot of tomatoes.  We picked at least 4 cups of cherry tomatoes every time we went to her garden (every second day).  She doesn't eat tomatoes and Peff was out of the town.  The kids eat a few.  Teela also had her own beef steak tomatoes as well, many of which get slashed by crows and need to used right away to prevent rotting.  I was obsessed with how all those tomatoes could be used no tomatoes were wasted.  Even when there were clearly too many and I don't love them.  I know it is not quite sane...

Mike is in for a long couple years. Especially when the kids leave home but all the fruit keeps producing more. It will still be about the fruit.

On the upside, we've all been enjoying wonderful garden based meals everyday since I got home and Mike is happy to be off bachelor food (which appears to be veggie hot dogs, pizza and a variety of non-meals like crackers.  He has already had tomato/basil pasta, lentil soup with fresh tomatoes, fresh salsa and bruschetta, apple pie and roasted new root veggies like potatoes, carrots and beets with chard. It will be long years, but with good food.  Really that's what James girls are all about.  We have many projects, but you eat well.

It is all about the Fruit

As any good James Girl knows, summer is all about the fruit. James girls love virtually all forms of fresh food, but nothing beats summer fruit for the flavour, colour and sheer amount of natural sugar. It has been very hot and dry here all summer, and there are a record 601 forest fires burning as of yesterday. This means the fruit is ripening quickly in desperation to get consumed - James Girls are happy oblige.

When Leo was little, she used to sneak outside and eat all the strawberries before anyone else got any. Strawberries are always our first fruit beyond rhubarb, and we are usually eating them from mid-June to early July. Our strawberries finished last week, and this time Leo ate only her share.

Saskatoons are the next fruit that ripens, and I can't say she was as well behaved about them. We've been eating them for about the last 9 days, and Leo has had a few cups each day. She is an awesome help with the picking, though.

Anwyn has reluctantly helped picking raspberries, the picking of which is the bane of my girls' existence. There is always heavy negotiation about who will have to pick next. We have to pick every second day in the height of the season, and today it was 37 degrees celsius, so lots more fruit has ripened. We'll definitely need to pick tomorrow, and we just picked six cups yesterday.

Our next fruit to ripen is cherries. We have two trees, and the back one ripens first. The cherries on it are already ripe, but still getting sweeter. Mike is the arbiter of when we can pick cherries, as they are his favourite. I have threatened to dig out the front tree, which kept suckering (growing baby trees in the lawn off of its roots) but not producing fruit. This year, in agreed upon year of its death, it has finally produced to save its own life.

Our final fruit (I don't count tomatoes) is apples, which we'll eat in August, so now is the prime fruit time. I have been eating berries, making trifle and pie, canning stewed rhubarb (okay that was Mike) and freezing down lots of the new crop. We've also been enjoying omnipresent fruit salad and smoothies. You'd think with all the fruit, I wouldn't buy any at the store, but James girls like lots of variety....

Even as it is all about the fruit, it is also about the flowers and veggies. We are currently harvesting early tomatoes, cucumber, sugar snap peas and more lettuce and herbs than one family can eat. Mike has made pesto twice. For those of you who like the flower pictures, there are a few new favourites.

Mike coloured Iris.

Variegated tea rose, bought with Jodi
 

One of 22 bee picture this month. Thanks Mike 

So Much Dynamic Fun

Backyard bed in bloom

I love everything about gardening except the weeding. I love the fresh food, the planting, the picking, and the preserving.  But mostly, I love the evolving design.  I think that I could have been an interior designer in another life, but that sort of design is so static. My garden changes every day this time of year.  I had two busy days without much yard time on Monday and Tuesday, and today I went for a look around and everything is different. Let me show you my favourite parts of the design right now.

In the Front

View from the front step in May

Before the yard really gets going, you can just see the bones. This is my front yard in May. There are rock paths and sprinkled rocks throughout the yard.  These are the elements that will anchor the design.

As the spring progresses and the plants grow, the front yard goes in waves of colour from yellow, to yellow and red, to yellow and purple, to yellow and orange.  Yellow anchors the colours just like the rocks anchor the design.  For comparison, here are some June pictures of the front yard's colour and design.

Stone steps with greenery

Thyme between the stone steps

Orange tulips from the yellow red colour palette

The rocks that looked so barren a month ago are now floating in composition of green and rotating colour. 

The front yard also has rhubarb and fruit like saskatoons to add to the colour and texture. These same plants, along with the cherry tree and climbing vines, add height and variety.

Rhubarb flowering

Saskatoons

The Backyard

My back yard is a mix of vegetable gardens and perennial design.  It has a less vibrant (Mike thinks much less interesting) colour pallet that I find tranquil. It has purples, pinks, whites, blues and yellows as its base.  This time of year, the stars in the back are iris, flox and lilac. Take a look at the April pictures,  May pictures and June pictures to see the overall progression. Like the back there is great height in the green walls, little garden rooms and rock providing bones.

Grape on back fence

Allium, clematis and iris in bloom

A sea of anemones

New Haskap's star in planting weekend

The May long weekend, the traditional planting time of Saskatchewan gardeners came a week early with year, with lows well below seasonal.  As a result, I held off my planting as long as possible for all my bedding plants, and many annual flowers are still the greenhouse keeping warm.  Mike and I covered things last night and the night before.

On Saturday, Leora and I mapped out the beds and began planting. I usually have a detailed plan with crop rotations built in, but I am getting so used to it that no really writing was necessary for me. Of course, work on a team, it is helpful to record your plan in a way others can access. Leora was very patient, as was Mike, when he and Anwyn got home in time to help with the bedding plants on the Monday.

After a one year hiatus due to potato bugs, potatoes are back.  Mike complained they got too little territory, although his tomatoes currently use 1/2 of the total space and have their own personal hot house. Also on pest control, the brassicas (think kohlrabi, cabbage etc) are well sheltered under fleece.  As soon we had my bedding plants out to put in the ground, the first cabbage moth came by. Arrgg!  Hopefully the shelter is enough.

The beds are looking great, with grape hyacinths, tulips and crocuses heavily featured. We are eating lots of asparagus and chives, and start on mint, rhubarb and basil soon. I am happily puttering about, waiting for the rain of elm seeds that begins my weeding season.

One of the exciting new additions is haskap berries. We haven't grown them before, but James says they are great. The U of S breeding program describes the good ones as a mix between raspberries and blueberries, and the bad ones as tasting like tonic water. Hopefully we have the good ones. This brings the list of fruit grown in the yard up to:

• raspberries
• strawberries
• apples
• cherries
• saskatoons
• haskaps

A historical retrospective of the last 5 years of May long weekend planting indicates this weekend is almost always spent the same way in this family.

2010

2011

2012, after the great die off when Darwyn was born

2013

2014, my most depressing spring of snow

Nippy Long Weekend Saved by Second Greenhouse

We traditionally plant on the May long weekend, but the projected -3 low for Saturday and Sunday looks likely to
deter us.  The greenhouse is chock full of bedding plants, as is the grow table in the basement.  I will likely put in some seeds, because the frost won't be an issue for them.  The other potential is the second greenhouse.

Second greenhouse, you say?  Yup.

Mike's aunt gave us her old plastic and metal green house, and we'll be using it in the garden itself this year for some of our tomatoes.  Mike has been using it to enjoy the early sunshine while it was parked in the sandbox. Parked in the garden, it should warm the tomatoes the way it has warmed Mike. Now, if only we could find a way to warm the bees for our fruit trees...




We use other structures in the garden, too. We have an early row cover to keep our corn warm (I plant half inside the house 2 weeks early so we have about a month long period of ripe corn in August).  We also use a cloth type covering to protect the cabbages and kohlrabi from Cabbage Moths. Neither will provide enough protect for tender seedlings in -3, though.

All in all, I can't complain too much about the cold.  The snow has been off the ground for over a month, unlike last year at this time.  Check out last year's planting day blog to feel the pain. Also, we are eating our first asparagus, so harvest mid-May takes the chill off the night-time lows.

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.

Happy Yard Time

My sister came for a recent visit and really enjoyed the yard.  After we left for a camping trip and she stayed on to visit others in town, she has declared my yard "a lot of work, even without the weeding." She had watering for 3 days, and did some picking as well. While she is not wrong, it is also a lot of fun if you actually like picking, processing, watering and weeding, which I do. The weeding is a pretty minor job this time of year (minus the large thistle I found today), but the picking and processing is pretty time consuming.

The camping trip was great fun and I loved being out in nature 24 hours a day, but when we got home and I was out in my yard, I was so happy I was actually skipping a bit. Everything is much larger and there is so much to pick when you've been away a bit. In the last 2 days we picked 3 ice cream pails of cucumbers and 2 of raspberries alone. Those became pickles and raspberry muffins today, with the extra raspberries getting frozen down. This time of year we eat a lot of fresh fruits and veggies from the yard - salads, fresh salsas, etc. more than we freeze things down, but we've just started the big freezing season. Now that I use ongoing planting we tend to freeze less and eat a much greater variety fresh.

Currently eating:

• 6 types of greens
• kohlrabi
• beans (purple, green)
• zucchini (yellow, green)
• cucumbers (picklers and slicers)
• tomatoes
• peppers (chili, green and Hungarian wax)
• peas (snap and shell)
• herbs (basil, mint, parsley, oregano, sage,  and chives)
• chard
• strawberries (second picking)
• cherries (one tree is done, but another is ripening)
• raspberries
• apples (I think we should be eating them all, Mike thinks they need a few more days)
• baby beets and  carrots
• fresh garlic (thanks Mom)

We've only really frozen fruits so far (mostly saskatoons, raspberries and cherries), but I will start with zucchini and beans next week for sure.

I find time in the yard so peaceful and social.  Mike and I sit out in the morning while he drinks his coffee, kids play on the play equipment, we eat outside and we have friends over for a fire or a drink in the evening. I lay out in the hammock and read. Our yard makes our entertainment space so much larger. Tomorrow night we are having a couple of families over for a potluck, and everything I serve will be yard food.  Since I love to cook, be outside and grow things, it doesn't feel much like work. However, sometimes my girls agree with my sister, especially when it is raspberry picking time. Happy Yard Time is more a Wendy thing than a teenager thing.

High Maintenance

Two days ago one of my friends and I were discussing being high maintenance. She said she knew she was, and stated that I was too. I said no, I am very self-reliant. But I decided to ask Mike, who agreed. Once again, I pointed out my preference for doing everything for myself. He said that was definitely true, and sometimes to a fault. Then he said it was more high speed. He went on to say that I am not much for sitting around and I have high standards.  I gave that about 2 seconds of thought and I must say I do agree with that, but I think he is right there enabling me.  We are busy doing everything ourselves at high speed. Take this week for instance....

The girls are away and we have unprecedented relaxation time. We've taken it and loved it.  But we've also done lots of yard work, cleaned the house and done a lot of cooking. This week Mike made yogurt, cheese and bread.  I've been cooking lots everyday - yesterday I made cherry bars and granola, in addition to scones and a variety of garden meals. I picked enough cucumbers we'll be making pickles tomorrow.  That sounds really busy, but it was mostly really fun. We love to do things together and we've had so much time to do that.

Sometimes, like my Mom and Dad, I do get too much projecting. This week we also roofed the garage and took down a large tree in the front. Each one was a big, full-day project.

You can see from this before picture of the garage that it really needed it. When I point this out, Mike agrees with me. He also notes that some people pay other people to do these things.  I guess that it true, but those people are working over the summer. Mike is half time and I have 6 weeks off.  I wonder what I would do if I just sat around and watched TV. I'd be rounder and apathetic.

The yard is a lot of work, and I could not do it all if I worked full time in July and August. It (and

maybe me) are high maintenance, but really worth it. The yard is beautiful and always teaching me new skills. I eat great food, and get exercise all the time.  I have colleagues who are paying lot of money to eat organic and train in a functional fitness gym.  I say, "Get a yard and high octane wife. You'll spend less and be highly maintained."


Also, the garage looks great.

Bugs and Bounty

This time of year, I am always out enjoying the bounty of the yard, which makes it hard to want to be inside on the computer.  Since I blog about gardening, it is almost always hard to blog when I have something I want to talk about.  However, since the pouring rain just drove me away from my mowing, it's a great time to blog.

I just finished work a week ago, and am really enjoying my summer. The girls are off visiting my youngest sister's family and my parents, so Mike and I have a ton of time. We've seen shows, attended the Jazz festival, gone out for meals, had picknicks and friends over, but mostly we've been in the yard. Right now every vegetable is blooming and we are eating lots of zucchini, strawberries, greens and herbs.  I am making strawberry rhubarb crisp, salads, soups and dozens of other goodies.

All that time in the yard also gives me two other things: beautiful bouquets and bugs.  Given the amount of rain you'd think I mean mosquitoes (I have never seen them so bad in the city) but I actually mean  variety of cawlies that  haunt the organic gardner.  So far the nets are keeping my brassicas (kohlrabi and cauliflower) safe from the cabbage moths that have haunted them, but my moneywart, potatoes and my roses have unwanted guests. The caterpillars on the moneywart are small but very hungry, in the tradition of the picture book. You can see the size of them on Mike's hand and in the picture above.  Since I have many feet of moneywart, I also have many, many feet of caterpillars.

For most gardeners, all these bugs would be devastating. I must admit the sawflies in particular have me a bit down, but Mike is so delighted and dedicated to nabbing them (more on film than in person) that they have a real upside.

Picture this conversation:

Mike: Wendy, come quickly.  I have found a great beetle.  Do you know what it is?

Me: (glancing over from weeding the strawberries) That's a potato bug.  Kill it.

Mike: It sure is great.  Look at the stripes.

Me: It isn't great.  Kill it or it will strip the leaves off of the potatoes.

Mike: Are you sure? It looks so cool. We don't want to eradicate it if its a good bug.

At this point Mike goes inside.  I weed the rest of the berries, the garlic (whose scapes I picked this week - delicious), and the beans. Mike comes back out carrying a lot of camera equipment.

Mike: Well, it is either the Colorado Potato Beetle or the false Beetle.  I'll investigate.

I weed the onions and start cutting the comfrey to place around the plants as compost. 10 minutes later, Mike pipes up again.

Mike: It's the Potato Beetle.  I've found eggs on this leaf.

Me: Have you killed it yet?  There are probably others.

 Mike: Wait till you see the close up of the eggs - they're orange. 

In all fairness to Mike, he did eventually do the deed, despite his vegetarian love of all animals and insects (minus mosquitoes - even he can't take it that far).  And his diagnosis and dedication to bug picking did save the rose bush.  He's spent a few minutes each day helping me squish or drowned caterpillars, too. 

But while I am marvelling over the fresh Saskatoons on the bush, he is so busy editing bug pictures that he forgets to taste them as he eats them.  I guess that it is a match made in heaven, in that I don't have to compete for the food and he doesn't have to compete for the insects.  Now if only he loved to kill weeds.

Looks Like Green

In my last post, I was writing about how early planting looks like mostly like dirt. Two weeks later, the yard is a beautiful, lush green. I sit on my patio and look at a mix of blooms and food I'll get to eat.  I am already enjoying asparagus, spinach, lettuce and a variety of herbs, but I'll have strawberries and beans soon. The yard is feeding me in so many ways.

One of my favorite things once the yard greens up is how I can put things together to create a specific feel that I want. There are a number of things I do to create the look that I want:

Color:
My backyard is all in pinks, purples and white, so all the colors blend well. I have a wide variety of textures and heights so that color appears like accents in all the various main parts of the backyard.  My front is the same, but the colors are oranges, yellows, reds and whites, so the palette is much more energetic. In the back, the color provides contrast and calm.

Bloom time:
My beds are planted with perennials that take turns blooming throughout the sprint and summer, so that there are always flowers to look at. The picture on the left is a bed that currently has tulips (white), phlox (purple and pink), chives (purple), irises (white) and columbine (pink).  In less than a week the tulips will be gone, but two types of purple iris, white bell flower and pink roses will bloom.  As they finish up, lavender and pink peony will start.

Layout:
I use a variety of levels so that the plants draw the eye around the yard, or into certain sections at certain times. I also have leafy screens, arches, and trees/bushes that create hidden sections or areas with specific purpose. I don't really have many "outdoor rooms," but I do have zones. Sometimes I use formal levels (like on the stairs to the patio in the picture on the right).  Other times I just have a variety of plants that create the stepping up look. In the back, most of the beds are edges, so they move from flowers that are 10 cm. in the front about a meter in the back.



The picture on the left in a classic example of that stepped layout.  It boarders the play area, screening the play fort and the trampoline. It has two types of clematis climbing it (the purple is currently blooming and the white will bloom in August) and layers of other plants in front.  This type of layout helps to make it feel like you are surrounded by a verdant landscape even though you are just in a city backyard.


I have attached a couple other pictures of interesting examples to show some key concepts. The one to the right is an example of thick layers of greens to create different textures for the eye to look at.

Here are two examples of creating spaces that are zones but not really rooms. One is a planting bed made out of old bricks under a tree (left).  The other is the dry south side of my house where quack grass was struggling (below). This bed turned this small space from an eye sore to the most productive growing space in the yard. Cucumbers, peppers, tomatoes and squashes ripen here first, and live longest in a mini-zone 4, when the rest of the yard is a 3A.  The reflected heat off the wall and the shelter provided by the two houses create a very productive little alley a meter wide.

 I love the look of the rich greenery and the way in which the space is laid out throughout the yard. It is a great combination greenery, color and productive spaces that make the most of a pretty ordinary rectangle that is my yard.  It is funny how two short weeks turn it from dirty and work-filled, to green and tranquil.