The Bees Will Hate Me

Gardener's dilemma. I had a month before I had to plant my garlic so I planted buckwheat in the two beds. It's a good quick cover crop but I forgot that it bloomed in just a couple of weeks after planting. Now its blooming and the bees are loving it as there is very little other forage available. I need to turn it under and plant the garlic but I hate taking away the flowers the bees are enjoying so much. What to do? 

Fooled Again

Fairly decent day yesterday but a little hot. Today is heavily overcast and forecast to rain. I got good work done in the garden yesterday after the days of rain that kept me out but I only got two hours in this morning before it started to sprinkle. I headed in thinking I was done for the day and changed clothes. I ate lunch and the sprinkles departed. I changed back into my garden clothes and the sprinkles started again. Screw it...I'm in for the day.

This overcast day is calling for chili so that's the plan. Madam will be unhappy but every once in a while I just have to have some chili. My chili has beans and  tomato sauce along with onion, garlic and ground beef. The standard seasonings, chili powder, cumin and chipotle chili. Nothing fancy but very tasty. Today I have a container of fresh salsa that is still sealed but past its sell by date that will wind up in the chili as well.

All you folks up the coast from me, say Norfolk and to the North better hunker down because is looks Joaquin is going to roll in over the weekend. It's a Cat 3 right now  but it could gain a little strength if it stays over water a little longer. Stay safe and Goddess' sake pay attention.

Going With The FIre

Too wet to do anything but weed in the garden today but I did get a lot of that done today. Staying ahead of the weeds without chemicals is really getting to be a PITA. I did try to use an organic weed killer made from orange oil and it knocks the weeds back but doesn't seem to kill them. Long story short I've decided that fire is the answer and I've just ordered a 400,000 BTU "Red Dragon" burner. Reviews are pretty positive so I'm giving it a try. A whole day on my hands and knees was a big incentive. Going to have to figure out how to haul a 20 pound around the garden but I think I can rig something with my hand truck. Amazon should have it to me in a couple of days and we'll see if fire is the answer. I refuse to go back to Round-up or the generic versions now available so this had better be the answer. I'm also think walking around and flaming things might be  fun.

Nice Birthday

Nice birthday yesterday. Number 66 but who's counting? Indulged myself with bacon and cream cheese on homemade sourdough toast for breakfast and then a BLT for lunch. I splurged a while back and bought 3 pounds of Benton's bacon which many consider to be the best. It is very good but Madam doesn't like it because it is very smokey. Dinner was a nice rib eye and frites. I pan fried the steak is some of the bacon grease from breakfast and that was tasty. I splurged on a nice Bordeaux as well. St. Emillion Chateau St. Louis. Very nice.

Got a lot of work done in the garden. Purple top turnips in as well as bok choy and more peas. I also got two beds turned and planted with buckwheat for a cover crop and it will be ready to turn over in about a month and a half.

All in all a good day. Looks like rain most of the day today so gardening may be minimal. We'll see. Right now a little dog is looking at me and wanting to know why it's already 830a and still no walk.

Labor Day

Happy Labor Day. As is usual I'm going to be in the garden. I finally got my mowing done yesterday. I started on Saturday but broke the mower belt. That precipitated a trip to the Home Depot which said they had six of the 48" belts in stock. They didn't but fortunately the Lowe's across the street did. You have to remove the mowing deck to change the belt and while it was off I decided to change the blades to the high lift ones that came with the grass catcher. It is not a hard job but it is time consuming and I didn't finish until Sunday morning. So I got the maintenance tasks done and I can go back to the hobby. I have to replant spinach today as I got ZERO germination from the Martha Stewart seed. I have Botanical Interests to try now and we'll see.

I put my pork shoulder in the crock pot this morning instead of firing up the grill or smoker. I just don't have the bandwidth to tend a fire all day long and properly seasoned the roast will come out just fine. It won't be all smoky but otherwise will be very tasty. I am probably violating some secret rule about BBQ on Labor Day but whatever.

Everyone have a safe holiday.

Summer is Back

I got run out of the garden early this afternoon by the heat and humidity just as yesterday. I got in just before a real frog strangler went through and it looks a bit like we might get another today. The forecast is for a rainy weekend as well. The fall garden is coming along fairly well. We had a few nice day where I could spend the bulk of the day out there so progress is being made. Lettuce, cabbage, broccoli and peas are all transplanted and the direct seeded beets and arugula are peeking out. For some reason not one spinach plant has appeared out of the whole packet I planted so I guess I'll have to replant. I won't use Martha Stewart seed from Home Depot again. The local nursery carries Botanical Interests and I've had good luck with their seed.

Just to make sure I have stuff to keep me busy I got a batch of whole wheat sourdough started this morning and it is doing a slow ferment in the fridge. I decided that I will extend the process out for a third day and see if the extra time fermenting adds more flavor. I'll take it out of the fridge in the morning and let it come to room temp and then shape the loaves.

I also took a Boston Butt out of the freezer that I got sale last month so I can do the obligatory BBQ for the holiday weekend. I won't drag out the smoker for just one roast and I'll do the Weber half grill drill. Not ideal but good enough.

Everyone half a safe Labor Day weekend and get all your summer stuff out of the way.

Catching up and Bread

I've been bad about not posting but I have been putting some stuff over on Facebook. Any how, the garden is winding down for the summer and I am spending most of my time cleaning up and getting ready for the fall garden. Our friends from the UK are coming the last of October and Wendy has already warned me that she is expecting some 'produce' from the garden so I's better be getting on with it. As usual I'll be putting in garlic that will grow slowly over the winter and which I harvest the end of June. Bumper crop of 4 different varieties this year and all of it is better than what you get the in store. Most of the store garlic is California white which is reliable to grow but not nearly as flavorful as some of the lesser known ones.

I'm back to baking regularly with a new twist. I'm grinding my own flour from hard red wheat and it is amazing how much better bread I am producing. Store bought flours have oxidized and lost a lot of flavor and worse nutrition by the time they get to your store shelf. It is extremely easy and I have the grinding attachment for the KitchenAid which cost me a hundred dollars but I already feel I have my money's worth as I also use it to grind corn for cornmeal and grits.

Here is my current recipe for a simple whole wheat sourdough.

600 grams whole wheat ground finely (see note)
400 grams of 100% sour dough started refreshed (see note)
375 grams water(preferably spring or at least filtered)
20 grams of kosher salt
1 tsp rapid rise yeast
3 TBSp honey

Mix everything except the salt in the bowl of your stand mixer or in a big bowl and mix until the flour is fully moistened. Let it stand covered for at least 30 minuted to allow the whole wheat to absorb the water. Add the salt and knead with the mixer or by hand until you have a good pliable dough it is nice and smooth. Put it in a lightly oil bowl and cover letting it rise until double. Turn it out and divide into to two or three balls. I do two. Form into balls for a boule or a loaf shape for a batard or even put it into a standard loaf pan(s). Let it rise again until double and then bake at 425F for 25 minutes. At the beginning of baking a throw a cup of ice cubes into the bottom of the oven to steam the loaves for the first bit of cooking. This insures you get the maximum oven spring from the dough.

Note:
I grind my own wheat but you can use a good whole wheat flour like that from King Arthur or Arrowhead. You won't have the flavor or nutrition but it will still be good.
If you don't maintain a sour dough starter, shame on you, but you can make a poolish of 200 grams of all purpose flour(again preferably King Arthur) and 200 grams of water  and the yeast from the recipe. Mix this all together the night before and let it stand covered on the counter overnight. Add this instead of the 400 grams of starter. This will have all the yeast you need so you don't need to add more.

Bees and Cucumbers

Too hot to really work in the garden today but the early morning was OK for a little macro photography.
Here is a little nature for you. First there are bees we hope and then there are cucumbers. It's a great system we are trying to destroy.

Milkweed Success

I planted milkweed last year as was very disappointed. I actually though it had died. This spring it came back with a vengeance and I have a very nice stand. The variety is Virginia Silk if my memory serves me and it is just now blooming. The bees are having a go at it. Still haven't seen a Monarch but I have my fingers crossed.

Garden Progress

As you can see from the photo we are making progress. Things are growing and we are beginning to get some produce....peas, arugula, lettuce, radishes and baby carrots. Finally, the crunch is over and I can just maintain. Still want to build three more beds so I won't be constrained as I am now. I have to wait until the peas finish before I can put in the butternut squash and I would like to plant another bed or two of corn. So far so good.

Missed Spring

Struggling here with the early summer weather. We here in the Atlanta area basically went from Winter to Summer overnight. We got no Spring. It's been running into the upper 80's with no real sign it's go to let up. We are supposed to get some much needed rain later in the week which will cause the high to only reach 80 or so which is something I guess.

Working hard in the garden in spite of the heat. Ran out of raised beds with more needing to be planted so I built and filled another yesterday and will do another today. I have room to do three or four more before I start getting into areas that get too much shade for most of the year. I'll have twenty 4'x12' beds when I finish today and that is getting to the point of being too much for an old man to handle all by himself. We'll see.

Not much else going on around here other than gardening right now. Walk Miss Zoey in the mornings and then garden until 4 or so. I've got one more treatment tomorrow for my leg veins and then all the "very close" veins will be collapsed and not so visible and painful.  The doctor will only do one small section at a time so I've been going once a week for what seems like forever. Not too bad except for the fact that you have to wear support stockings for a period after each treatment which means I've been wearing them for a couple of months and boy are they a PITA. They don't make working in the garden in the heat anymore fun either.

Time to get Zoey up and on the walk and then tackle the cinder blocks for another bed. Need someplace to plant butternut squash. I'll probably wait until I harvest the green peas, fava beans and other early stuff before I plant anymore. More beans, pickling cukes and corn need somewhere to go. I have one bed of corn planted (Hopi Blue) but I also have some Bloody Butcher heirloom corn that I would like to try.

Happy Easter and Passover

I know you have probably stopped checking for anything new here. I don't blame you but I do promise to try and do better. This time of year is for getting the garden in and little else. I've been working hard and it is starting to pay off. Spinach and carrots went in yesterday and radishes and beets the day before. I'm trying to get two beds ready a day but I have failed in that goal so far. The excuse yesterday was that I had to mow the yard.

With everything else I am having some work done on my legs which eats a day a week and sometimes more for recovery. The "very close veins" as my grandmother used to call them were beginning to bother me so I am having all of the surface veins in both legs eliminated. I thought it was going to be with laser but there is a new treatment that uses a chemical and is less painful with faster recovery. So any way, the doctor only does one area a week so it took a month to do the right leg and we started on the left this week. Not too painful but there is some tenderness for a few weeks. The worst is having to wear support stockings for 30 days after the work. What a pain.

So if you celebrate the day then happy, happy. If you don't just enjoy the spring. It will be another gorgeous day here in the Atlanta burbs and after Miss Zoey has her walk we will be back in the garden.

Ostara Is Upon Us

Ok, here we are just a week away from Ostara also known as the beginning of Spring and it is time to plant some of the warm weather seeds like tomatoes and eggplant. All the pepper, leek, shallot and onion plants are up and going. It is also time to get your flower seeds going. Marigolds. zinnas, and nasturtium to attract pollinators and discourage pests. I'm going to try and get all my different peas in the ground this weekend as well. I'm a little late as I was waiting for my inoculant to show up. Insuring the legumes like peas have the proper bacteria they need to fix nitrogen from the air makes a big difference in yield. Everybody get planting.

I'm running a little slow as I am having some laser surgery on my legs and it makes them a little tender, not to mention that I have to wear compression stockings which limit my flexibility a bit. The old "very close vein" thing. Getting old sucks but the other option isn't too great either.

Spring Really Is Coming

In spite of the record cold over the last week, Spring really is coming. Here we are at the last week in February and it is time to get the slow growing garden plants going. Peppers are the big thing for me since around here I target the last week of April to get the peppers and tomatoes in the ground. Pepper seeds planted this week will, with luck, be ready to go into the garden when the soil temperatures warm. Slow to germinate and slow to get going you really need them started in the next few days.

My shallots and leeks are just peeking through the soil. I started them a couple of weeks ago and they have been in the greenhouse keeping nice and warm with a grow mat underneath. They don't mind cool but need some warmth to germinate.

I won't start tomatoes for another couple of weeks as they germinate quickly and grow much faster. If I start them too early they will be too leggy before the ground is warm enough. If the ground is too cold the tomato plants will just sit there and do nothing until the ground warms.

Time to think about companion plants for the garden as well. The right plants in the garden will go a long way in helping you with pests. They also have the added bonus of bringing some color.
You can't beat Marigolds as companions with just about any garden plant. They repel beetles, nematodes, and even some animal pests. I plant them everywhere I have a square foot of space. They typically stay small and compact and they also attract bees and butterflies. Zinnas are good too but they can get pretty tall.

Other good companion plant can act as trap plants, luring insects to themselves instead of your precious vegetables. Nasturtiums, for example, are so favored by aphids that the devastating insects will flock to them instead of other plants.

Carrots, dill, parsley, and parsnip attract garden heroes — praying mantises, ladybugs, and spiders — that munch on insect pests. I always have plenty of dill, basil and parsley planted in the garden. Besides their value as pest prevention they are a must for cooking. The parsley will even overwinter in many parts of the country.

Don't forget about what I call "quickie veges": Lettuce, radishes, and other quick-growing plants sown between hills of melons or winter squash will mature and be harvested long before these vines need more leg room.

Seed Day

Ok, madam is away for the day, so after taking Zoey out for our walk it is seed catalog day. All the catalogs spread on the kitchen table and then from arugula to watermelon we look at each catalogs offerings and select the varieties we want to try. I always lean toward Seed Savers Exchangeand heirloom and next Botanical Interests followed by Territorial Seeds, Park, Burpee, Jung and then all the smaller ones like Humble Seed ,Sustainable Seed Company, and all the rest. I'll make my lists for each company and then order them on the web. Still haven't decided if I am going to try corn this year but just to be only the safe side I'll order seed. For sure this year is Bloody Butcher and Hopi Blue and another yellow sweet corn of some variety. All the rest is up in air.

Not Really Pumpkin

The Huffington Post has a story up about canned pumpkin not actually being pumpkin but a variety of butternut squash called Dickinson...at least when it comes to Libby's, Libby's, Libby's. Whatever. it still makes my favorite pie and the best recipe is still the one on the canned Libby's pumpkin label. There are actual pie pumpkins out there and I actually grow some. I actually got a pretty good crop this year with about 10 good sized pumpkins from a relatively small space. I haven't made a pie out of one yet to compare to the Libby's canned but I'm sure it will be good. These are an heirloom Amish pumpkin specifically grown for pies. We'll see. The picture is half my crop and aren't they cute.

Raining With a Chance of Garlic

I missed the dark of the moon on Wednesday for planting my garlic since the seed garlic bulbs hadn't arrived. They did arrive on Saturday and I got them in the ground today. Four days past optimum but we do have a waxing moon which should do the trick. Going big this year with four varieties and dedicating one whole bed to just garlic. (Kettle River Giant, German Red, Chesnok Red and Inchelium Red if you're interested.) A mix of hard neck and soft to see which does best for me. Even when I only plant half as much I usually can't get it used before it dries out so I really don't why I am planting so much other than curiosity and variety.

Been really busy cleaning up the summer garden and planting the fall one. Yesterday was two more beds of various cool weather things like Savoy cabbage and red cabbage, More broccoli,Giant Japanese mustard, Romaine lettuce and Swiss chard also went in.

I tagged along with Madam's garden club on Friday to tour Joe Lamp'l's garden. He is the producer and host of Growing a Greener World on PBS and his home and garden are just a little North of here. It's very nice. All his 16 beds are made from 6x6 redwood stacked three high and are like mine 4'x8'. Makes for a nice working height and allows for very good soil depth. I'm going to make mine a little deeper but with the addition of a pressure treated 2x10 hooked into the cinder blocks with a 4x4 on the corners...should do nicely. No way I can afford to use redwood 6x6...especially since mine wouldn't be tax deductible. Since he films some his shows in his home garden his expenses are deductible. Oh well..I'll post a picture I took yesterday at Joe's....really a very pretty garden and yes I am a bit jealous of the beds.

Rain is starting to move in so I was just in time with the planting today but I did have enough time to harvest some leeks. We have a house guest for the next week or so and tonight they are getting leek and potato soup from the garden(all completely home grown except for the chicken broth).

Rest Day

I decided I needed a rest day today. All I've done in the garden is water. Madam and I took Zoey for a walk around the park. I've started a batch of sourdough bread. That's about it. Mabon is upon us (23 Sep) and the Autumnal Equinox finds me pretty much finished with the summer garden and hard at work putting in the stuff for fall and winter. The experiment with transplanting beets from flats to the garden has been pretty successful as I only lost a couple of percent...I actually did worse with cabbage and even more worse with cauliflower. I am actually going to restart some more cauliflower seeds since I lost so many of the seedlings....might have still been too hot. The broccoli, however, is doing fine...who knows.
I'll swing back into action tomorrow but today is chill. I do have picture of Zoey I took the other day to share. She likes to spend the day with me in the garden until it gets too hot and then she moves indoors. She also keeps a watchful eye out for evildoers.

Fall Cleanup Is Not Going Well

I am still trying to get the garden ready for fall. In between the rain and thunder storms I am trying to clear space for the fall planting. The peppers aren't cooperating. Today I picked all the ripe sweet peppers but there are still a lot of green peppers to go so I can't pull up the plants yet. I also went through and picked about half the green jalapenos and all the red ones. Still a lot of those left to go as well. At this rate, unless I just pull up the still producing plants, I am not going to have enough space for everything I want to plant. Anyhow, all of these peppers are going to the food bank, where they are much appreciated. And yes, I plant too many peppers.
The box on the left are Burpee's Big Guy Jalapeno which are really huge compared to the regular Early Jalapenos on the right. The other peppers in the right box are Peach Habanero and boy are they hot!

Garden Critters

Lots of critters in the garden today. Nice cooling off from the last few days and we all enjoyed the morning. I actually remembered to take a real camera with me this morning instead of just the phone. The phone is an HTC M8 and has a pretty good camera but for stuff like close ups it can't match the Nikon D80. Got some good shots which I thought some you might enjoy. For thos interested the butterfly is an Eastern Tiger Swallowtail and there were three in the garden this morning. I was very excited to see the praying mantis and since he/she is from this season I would guess there are more and that means help with bad bugs.