Since the subject harvesting potatoes is important enough for artists like Breton, Pissarro and Millet to create paintings around the event I guess I can share some stories about my experiences yesterday. I harvested most of my potatoes from one 12 by 15 foot bed I had.
Now, to begin with it has to be understood that my vegetable gardening is a personal style not written about as standard method of gardening. I allow my chickens to walk though this bed, stop and scratch this area at will and occasionally uproot a potato. Of course, I have been eating these gems that have been exposed in the last couple months as a matter of course.
In the morning, I used the shovel for a while, then sat on a small stool with a hand trowel. I pulled the plants and weeds making one pile for them and another pile of the potatoes. I was joined by Autumn, one of my chickens. She quickly discovered the newly exposed earth meant it was easy to see worms. Autumn was my companion for most of an hour and rapidly sensed my repeated patterns of movement. She would occasionally do a few energetic two step moves but mostly she let me do the hard work. As I progressed across the bed, I started to look for worms as much as potatoes, that is called bonding with a chicken!
The surprising thought about digging potatoes is how the grocery store bags all the same size so neatly. Potatoes come in sizes ranging from the size of a grape to grapefruit. What happens to the odd size potatoes in the commercial world? I knew in the morning how I was going to fix those grape size tubers. By noon I had two piles of mostly red potatoes and a few whites.
Later in the afternoon, John joined in the fun as we both sat near a wash tub in the middle of the yard. I placed a cloth of screen near us so as scrubbed the dirty off we could make new piles according to size. I encouraged John to only do the really big potatoes. All during this time, John is questioning when will this job be ended and I answered him by asking what was on his schedule later. Those little grape potatoes were of special interest to me as I reached into the wash tub of dirty water. As the pile of the screen grew I felt I had done this job many times before or at less it was implanted in my Irish veins.
Last night for dinner we had tiny potatoes with sea salt, rosemary and olive oil. Those little gems made John smile with pride.
Showing posts with label gardening in the Pacific Northwest. Show all posts
Showing posts with label gardening in the Pacific Northwest. Show all posts
Friday, September 23, 2011
Tuesday, June 7, 2011
Best pocket in the world
Two events in the last week in this area are worthy of mentioning, YES! Magazine had a 15 th anniversary party in Seattle and the Mother Earth News Fair in Puyallup. Both reflect the changing society that is not covered by most media.
The speakers at the YES! event were internationally know experts on the global climate changes and the social movements that are grass root and frequently ignored by popular news outlets. The website is http://www.yesmagazine.org/about/15-years-of-yes. This magazine is positive and hopeful in a time when most of the news only prints stories of doom. This magazine talked years ago about buying local. They showcase the individuals that are leading the way in thinking and acting out ways to control their own lives. One of these people is Bill McKibben founder of the 350.org. I find him to be a balance to the newly elected 100 congressmen that all believe in Creative-ism, don't believe in Climate Change and feel to default on the National Debt will probably not affect the world economy. The source of sanity and change has to be with the population at large, with thinking like that in our national capitol.
A couple facts that McKibben shared should give all of us pause. The planet's warmest temperture was recorded last year, 129 degrees in Pakistan. I have to ask myself, what is the temperture that humans can no longer survive living in a region? Moscow last year had 8 days with 100 degree temperatures and the Russia government realized that they had seen a change serious enough, to hold on to their wheat reserves. They no longer will export wheat. The earth has warmed one degree and the Arctic cap has melted. What will happen if it goes two more degrees higher? When will the earth changes be enough, for our government to act? Local governments are acting but there is no large national movement yet. Seattle was the first city to sign the Kyoto Treaty and the city has moved beyond that requirement. All of us gardeners in the Pacific Northwest are aware of the 10 degrees cooler temperatures this spring and double the amount of rain in recent months. I feel there is a pocket of like minded thinkers living in this corner of the planet sense the change and are acting on it.
A world where we don't know the source of our food, who grew it, who processed it or made it available for us is a disconnect. A world where we don't know who made our clothes, our shoes, our furniture, our vehicles, our drugs, our amusements is a world of disconnect. In our hearts, all of us suffer from the lack of knowing, this is affecting our health and our spirit. YES! MAGAZINE opening talked about this as an issue. All of us need to be on the path of simplifying our lives and connecting to daily matters that touch us physically and emotionally.
One of the highlights of the Mother Earth News Fair for me was listening to a gardener from Salt Island. Linda Gilkeson quickly explained why residents of this part of the world can grow food year around in an easy to do manner. BACKYARD BOUNTY lays it out with charts and suggestions while always practicing organic methods. Gilkeson is a practical gardener for this climate with no double digging, little weeding, mostly natural ways amending the soil and routating crops. She pointed out her favorite blue chair as her favorite spot in the garden. I have my grape arbor and my napping spot, this woman was talking directly to me.
Recently, I was talking to my grandson, Ahman, while tending to my worm box. "I love my worms, Ahman, they give me the best tea in the world for my plants," I said. "Grandma, you have so many things you watch grow, don't you. The chickens, the worms and all those plants in the garden, your fruit trees. You just like to see things grow, don't you."
"I guess that is true, Ahman."
The speakers at the YES! event were internationally know experts on the global climate changes and the social movements that are grass root and frequently ignored by popular news outlets. The website is http://www.yesmagazine.org/about/15-years-of-yes. This magazine is positive and hopeful in a time when most of the news only prints stories of doom. This magazine talked years ago about buying local. They showcase the individuals that are leading the way in thinking and acting out ways to control their own lives. One of these people is Bill McKibben founder of the 350.org. I find him to be a balance to the newly elected 100 congressmen that all believe in Creative-ism, don't believe in Climate Change and feel to default on the National Debt will probably not affect the world economy. The source of sanity and change has to be with the population at large, with thinking like that in our national capitol.
A couple facts that McKibben shared should give all of us pause. The planet's warmest temperture was recorded last year, 129 degrees in Pakistan. I have to ask myself, what is the temperture that humans can no longer survive living in a region? Moscow last year had 8 days with 100 degree temperatures and the Russia government realized that they had seen a change serious enough, to hold on to their wheat reserves. They no longer will export wheat. The earth has warmed one degree and the Arctic cap has melted. What will happen if it goes two more degrees higher? When will the earth changes be enough, for our government to act? Local governments are acting but there is no large national movement yet. Seattle was the first city to sign the Kyoto Treaty and the city has moved beyond that requirement. All of us gardeners in the Pacific Northwest are aware of the 10 degrees cooler temperatures this spring and double the amount of rain in recent months. I feel there is a pocket of like minded thinkers living in this corner of the planet sense the change and are acting on it.
A world where we don't know the source of our food, who grew it, who processed it or made it available for us is a disconnect. A world where we don't know who made our clothes, our shoes, our furniture, our vehicles, our drugs, our amusements is a world of disconnect. In our hearts, all of us suffer from the lack of knowing, this is affecting our health and our spirit. YES! MAGAZINE opening talked about this as an issue. All of us need to be on the path of simplifying our lives and connecting to daily matters that touch us physically and emotionally.
One of the highlights of the Mother Earth News Fair for me was listening to a gardener from Salt Island. Linda Gilkeson quickly explained why residents of this part of the world can grow food year around in an easy to do manner. BACKYARD BOUNTY lays it out with charts and suggestions while always practicing organic methods. Gilkeson is a practical gardener for this climate with no double digging, little weeding, mostly natural ways amending the soil and routating crops. She pointed out her favorite blue chair as her favorite spot in the garden. I have my grape arbor and my napping spot, this woman was talking directly to me.
Recently, I was talking to my grandson, Ahman, while tending to my worm box. "I love my worms, Ahman, they give me the best tea in the world for my plants," I said. "Grandma, you have so many things you watch grow, don't you. The chickens, the worms and all those plants in the garden, your fruit trees. You just like to see things grow, don't you."
"I guess that is true, Ahman."
Tuesday, January 18, 2011
Onions and Garlic
Onions and Garlic
These are basic for cooking any cuisine so a home gardener has to figure out the best for planting space plus the best for the climate that one lives in. If you think about famous or favorite onions like Hawaii, Sweet Onions from Georgia or the Walla Walla from eastern Washington it relates to long hot growing season. Currently, in Olympia Washington planting onions and expecting good results is like our tomato crop, it may happen but it is to be consider a bonus year.
With the mild rainy winters garlic is my approach to suppling myself with one of the two vegetable. I plant a ten by eight foot area with garlic in the fall of the year. The first winter I was here I did not get my garlic in the ground until December but in June or July the following summer I realized what an easy crop it was for me to grow. The added bonuses include the tops that appear about a month before harvesting. The top in a short week of time does goes to seed in manner of curling and dropping downward. It is important to cut these tops off so the plant does spend it energy sitting seed but instead sends the the energy to enlarging the bulb in the ground. The tops are often sold at farmer's markets for $10 a pound for a good reason. If you have had any stir fried with a little sea salt you would understand. It is a summer treat like the first strawberries.
The key to getting large garlic bulbs, I believe, is by starting with large cloves and secondly stopping all watering of the garlic for the weeks right before harvest. I love the rhythm of gardening and one of my favorite times of the year is to pull out my bulbs and lay them to dry on a side patio with the weather forecast is clear of rain. A few weeks later, my skill from childhood of braiding comes into play and I quietly sit under the grape arbor twisting and weaving the stocks of garlic into long ropes I can hang on the side of my tool shed to dry more. The routine of annually doing this connects be to the cycle of gardening in a way that I particularly enjoy.
Saving garlic changes each year for me. All the years, I pull out the largest cloves for seed to use in the fall. Of course, after two years all sense of what varieties are now being planted are lost on me, even though the first year I have six different kinds. Following that separation, the remaining bulbs are sometimes stored in a refrigerator, some are skinned and frozen as cloves, some are put into oil and frozen and a few are roasted and them frozen. Keep them fresh, I find difficult because you get the little green in the center growing and they become strong or bitter like the ones in the grocery store. I use garlic almost daily so I treasure my ability to grow my own and have it available most of the year for cooking.
These are basic for cooking any cuisine so a home gardener has to figure out the best for planting space plus the best for the climate that one lives in. If you think about famous or favorite onions like Hawaii, Sweet Onions from Georgia or the Walla Walla from eastern Washington it relates to long hot growing season. Currently, in Olympia Washington planting onions and expecting good results is like our tomato crop, it may happen but it is to be consider a bonus year.
With the mild rainy winters garlic is my approach to suppling myself with one of the two vegetable. I plant a ten by eight foot area with garlic in the fall of the year. The first winter I was here I did not get my garlic in the ground until December but in June or July the following summer I realized what an easy crop it was for me to grow. The added bonuses include the tops that appear about a month before harvesting. The top in a short week of time does goes to seed in manner of curling and dropping downward. It is important to cut these tops off so the plant does spend it energy sitting seed but instead sends the the energy to enlarging the bulb in the ground. The tops are often sold at farmer's markets for $10 a pound for a good reason. If you have had any stir fried with a little sea salt you would understand. It is a summer treat like the first strawberries.
The key to getting large garlic bulbs, I believe, is by starting with large cloves and secondly stopping all watering of the garlic for the weeks right before harvest. I love the rhythm of gardening and one of my favorite times of the year is to pull out my bulbs and lay them to dry on a side patio with the weather forecast is clear of rain. A few weeks later, my skill from childhood of braiding comes into play and I quietly sit under the grape arbor twisting and weaving the stocks of garlic into long ropes I can hang on the side of my tool shed to dry more. The routine of annually doing this connects be to the cycle of gardening in a way that I particularly enjoy.
Saving garlic changes each year for me. All the years, I pull out the largest cloves for seed to use in the fall. Of course, after two years all sense of what varieties are now being planted are lost on me, even though the first year I have six different kinds. Following that separation, the remaining bulbs are sometimes stored in a refrigerator, some are skinned and frozen as cloves, some are put into oil and frozen and a few are roasted and them frozen. Keep them fresh, I find difficult because you get the little green in the center growing and they become strong or bitter like the ones in the grocery store. I use garlic almost daily so I treasure my ability to grow my own and have it available most of the year for cooking.
Monday, January 17, 2011
The Lemon Pot
It occurred to me while reading a gardening magazine sipping tea at a bookstore the other day, there is little new in this magazine for me to learn. I guess that comes when you get older and have garden for a life time, at less that is how it seems. I decided then and there I should spend a month writing about the little habits I have formed for myself over a life time of trying to do is successful in an easy manner. So this is the first.
Pots that are sold in the spring have always been a big temptation for me. The rustic Italian Terra cotta look that is featured in the movies, in the glossy pictures with the vineyards in the background and the bountiful gardens are stage pots. I have found them to be more work and trouble than they are worth.
In the heat of the summer terra cotta dries out very quickly and it becomes a twice daily job of watering any plants that are in them. Oh, I understand that some very expensive imported varieties are better because they are sealed on the inside but the cost puts those out of my budget. Terra cotta is also much more delicate about freezing weather. As the years has passed the weight of pots are an issue to be considered very carefully.
The first year I moved to the west coast I found a woman in the warehouse district of Tacoma selling pots there made in Vietnam. It took be a few minutes of walking around to decide the color that I was going to live with for the future. Then there were the shapes and how I was going to use them in my yard.
I now have five yard pots of turquoise color with a wash of navy blue under it, all different shapes and mostly placed near my grape arbor sitting area.
After couple years I have used two of the pots for the same thing each years, mint and lemon.
Mint is a weed, a delightful weed but a weed and it must be contained. For a period of 15 years, I was digging it out of my perennial bed as it accidental come with a transplant from my mother's garden. On a couple of those occasions I actually totally removed very plant in the bed and when though it on my hands and knees pulling out roots of mint. Alas, to see it reappear, again. Mint belongs in a pot, probably on a strong metal stand at less 24 inches off the ground.
Mint can survive the winters anywhere, I believe. A couple years, I thought I lost it but wait long enough and with warmth of the sun it will not fail to reappear. Over the years, I have leaned to cook using mint and I value it more than just the green leave that goes into summer drinks.
As to the favor of lemon, oh, I love to use that in the summer. I create a herb pot with only lemon scented herbs. Lemon thyme, lemon balm, lemon basil and lemon grass. I walk out there in the afternoon and cut a few inches off a plant that is getting a little too wild and in the salad or on the vegetable it goes. Time to time, a pinch of it makes it into a glass of my ice water while I read on the lounge in arbor. Actually, I find it is very handy to have lemon herbs just feet from the back door.
Pots that are sold in the spring have always been a big temptation for me. The rustic Italian Terra cotta look that is featured in the movies, in the glossy pictures with the vineyards in the background and the bountiful gardens are stage pots. I have found them to be more work and trouble than they are worth.
In the heat of the summer terra cotta dries out very quickly and it becomes a twice daily job of watering any plants that are in them. Oh, I understand that some very expensive imported varieties are better because they are sealed on the inside but the cost puts those out of my budget. Terra cotta is also much more delicate about freezing weather. As the years has passed the weight of pots are an issue to be considered very carefully.
The first year I moved to the west coast I found a woman in the warehouse district of Tacoma selling pots there made in Vietnam. It took be a few minutes of walking around to decide the color that I was going to live with for the future. Then there were the shapes and how I was going to use them in my yard.
I now have five yard pots of turquoise color with a wash of navy blue under it, all different shapes and mostly placed near my grape arbor sitting area.
After couple years I have used two of the pots for the same thing each years, mint and lemon.
Mint is a weed, a delightful weed but a weed and it must be contained. For a period of 15 years, I was digging it out of my perennial bed as it accidental come with a transplant from my mother's garden. On a couple of those occasions I actually totally removed very plant in the bed and when though it on my hands and knees pulling out roots of mint. Alas, to see it reappear, again. Mint belongs in a pot, probably on a strong metal stand at less 24 inches off the ground.
Mint can survive the winters anywhere, I believe. A couple years, I thought I lost it but wait long enough and with warmth of the sun it will not fail to reappear. Over the years, I have leaned to cook using mint and I value it more than just the green leave that goes into summer drinks.
As to the favor of lemon, oh, I love to use that in the summer. I create a herb pot with only lemon scented herbs. Lemon thyme, lemon balm, lemon basil and lemon grass. I walk out there in the afternoon and cut a few inches off a plant that is getting a little too wild and in the salad or on the vegetable it goes. Time to time, a pinch of it makes it into a glass of my ice water while I read on the lounge in arbor. Actually, I find it is very handy to have lemon herbs just feet from the back door.
Saturday, June 26, 2010
On these Days
The old Hopi prediction says something about when the ocean turns black, it is another sign of a major change to the human race. In one way, prophecies are very interesting because they are sign posts to watch for but in another way it doesn't matter because I live my life only controlling my little space. I have little power.
Today I will build an arbor over my blueberries. Between a rainy spring and a little better care of my bushes I have bumper crop this year. The man at Lowe's was very helpful and experienced about listen to senior aged women talk about the need for arbors over blueberry bushes, he even referred to his grandmother. I found that interesting, probable is my gray hair that made him think of her. My design is truly simple or I could not undertake it.
The strawberries this year also benefited from all the spring rain, they are unusually large and with the sun of the last few days they have sweeten up. The thing about strawberries is they multiply like a good weed, I have been all over the yard. So it pushing me to the point I may have to make jam this year. I really never thought of myself as a jam maker. I have frozen many packs of berries in the past but never got into preserving them any other way. I need to think more on that .
My garlic is probably still a month off because we have not had the heat. I am cutting the curly tops off and using them daily . Unless you are a grower you can imagine what a special treat, extra bonus these scapes are for a cook.
I have let a whole bed of kale go to seed. It is the backbone of my winter and spring greens. Many of us realize that kale is so much better to spend time growing that lettuce or other greens. My tomatoes are a month behind, their little yellow flowers are just starting to appear.
Read the other day that Victory gardens produced 40% of the food during that time period. There are laws against that now. Neighborhoods rules say that weed free lawns are the best use of land.
Today I will build an arbor over my blueberries. Between a rainy spring and a little better care of my bushes I have bumper crop this year. The man at Lowe's was very helpful and experienced about listen to senior aged women talk about the need for arbors over blueberry bushes, he even referred to his grandmother. I found that interesting, probable is my gray hair that made him think of her. My design is truly simple or I could not undertake it.
The strawberries this year also benefited from all the spring rain, they are unusually large and with the sun of the last few days they have sweeten up. The thing about strawberries is they multiply like a good weed, I have been all over the yard. So it pushing me to the point I may have to make jam this year. I really never thought of myself as a jam maker. I have frozen many packs of berries in the past but never got into preserving them any other way. I need to think more on that .
My garlic is probably still a month off because we have not had the heat. I am cutting the curly tops off and using them daily . Unless you are a grower you can imagine what a special treat, extra bonus these scapes are for a cook.
I have let a whole bed of kale go to seed. It is the backbone of my winter and spring greens. Many of us realize that kale is so much better to spend time growing that lettuce or other greens. My tomatoes are a month behind, their little yellow flowers are just starting to appear.
Read the other day that Victory gardens produced 40% of the food during that time period. There are laws against that now. Neighborhoods rules say that weed free lawns are the best use of land.
Monday, May 25, 2009
The first warm days of spring are there is so much to do in the yard and garden that it is overwhelming. I feel all the penned up day dreams of the winter have to be done in the first five days.
My tomato starts look so sickly compared to the nursery's that I have started giving them a booster. I have been taught not to use Miracle Grow. The long list of reasons, mentally, I understand but then I have to consciously think about my home make magic. The easiest and quickest is from the grocery shelve, Brer Rabbit Molasses. Some say that is all one would need. I add also from the nursery a liquified organic kelp --seaweed extract and Superthrive. I have had the same small bottles for three years now but this summer I will be using it more as I feel my soil is in need of much.
Potatoes have not interested me until this year. I have a narrow side six foot area along a side fence not seen or used. This is the year to experiment. Since potatoes and strawberries are the mostly heavily sprayed with pesticides I want to see if the difference in taste is as great as it is in strawberries. John and I have moved miles away from potatoes as we have aged but part of that is we have developed a taste for dried beans. It is said a home grown potato is so good you don't need that butter and sour cream, we'll see.
The other thing I am trying this year is a Peruvian ground cherry plant, well, two of them. They are related to tomatoes, very easy to grow spread three to six feet in two directions and have small yellow cherry like fruit that taste a little like strawberry or pineapple. Can be eaten fresh or dried for winter use. The Peruvian man that sold the plants to me also explained about saving sticks the plant to start next years. I am going to try making my grow up a sunny fence.
My tomato starts look so sickly compared to the nursery's that I have started giving them a booster. I have been taught not to use Miracle Grow. The long list of reasons, mentally, I understand but then I have to consciously think about my home make magic. The easiest and quickest is from the grocery shelve, Brer Rabbit Molasses. Some say that is all one would need. I add also from the nursery a liquified organic kelp --seaweed extract and Superthrive. I have had the same small bottles for three years now but this summer I will be using it more as I feel my soil is in need of much.
Potatoes have not interested me until this year. I have a narrow side six foot area along a side fence not seen or used. This is the year to experiment. Since potatoes and strawberries are the mostly heavily sprayed with pesticides I want to see if the difference in taste is as great as it is in strawberries. John and I have moved miles away from potatoes as we have aged but part of that is we have developed a taste for dried beans. It is said a home grown potato is so good you don't need that butter and sour cream, we'll see.
The other thing I am trying this year is a Peruvian ground cherry plant, well, two of them. They are related to tomatoes, very easy to grow spread three to six feet in two directions and have small yellow cherry like fruit that taste a little like strawberry or pineapple. Can be eaten fresh or dried for winter use. The Peruvian man that sold the plants to me also explained about saving sticks the plant to start next years. I am going to try making my grow up a sunny fence.
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