Jungle Time

We've had a few days of rain,  like we often do in the first week or so of August,  so the grass is greening up again,  the rhubarb is robust, and the pole beans continue to outgrow whatever I put them on!

A neighbor was taking down her wooden porch railings.  One was 8 feet long, the other was 14.  We cut the longer to match the shorter and installed them with braces.   The trimmed piece was put to use as a snap pea trellis further back in the garden.

You can see the watering jug for a cucumber planted under this trellis.  The bean didn't grow over the horizontal spindles until I cover them with chicken wire.

I never pick more than a third of the stalks from a rhubarb plant at a time.  This year I mulched them. When it was brutally hot and dry (no rain in several weeks), I did water them twice.  No longer now in August!  But I'll have rhubarb to combine with elderberries for wine and preserves.

How 7 Bales of Straw Saved My Sanity (and Garden)

Last year we had a dry July -- simply no rain.  And the hot weather came in June.  We finally returned to a better rainfall cycle in August. 

I watered every odd day on the calender for six weeks!  I use rain water for my "kitchen" garden -- greens, herbs, peppers, and cherry tomatoes in a space on the east side of house -- so I could water every day there if I needed to (with peppers and tomatoes in pots I sometimes needed to!).  The fenced-in main garden and the perennial foods area (rhubarb, elderberries, grapes, asparagus, some berry bushes, and Jerusalem artichokes) are too extensive to be served by rain water alone.  Our city limits watering to every other day.   I used little mulch and my watering system was overly complicated.

We had a dry winter.  We got some spring rain.  The forecast was for a hot summer with lots of dry days.  Things had to change or I would grow to hate my garden.  We got a trailer; it was big enough to haul 10 bales of straw home. 

I moved my blueberries so I wouldn't have to water their old location; they weren't getting enough sun anyway.  (In their new spot, they don't get enough acid -- I think next year they go into big pots.)
I pulled up the soaker hose that had fed them and re-routed it through the asparagus bed with bean patches on either side of it.

Grapes don't require a lot of watering since they have deep root systems.  A bale of straw went on them so I could get by watering them only every ten days or so.  A bale and a half of straw went around the berry bushes,  the plum tree,  the elderberries, and the rhubarb.     I didn't water anything in that area until mid-July or so.

A half-bale went around the apple tree.  I mulched the black raspberries (but not soon enough or deep enough -- another change for next year).  More straw on the potato beds, but they simply did not do as well as last year.  It might have been the seed or that this was a second year in that place. 

A half-bale went around my kale plants in my kitchen beds and around the kohlrabi.  Dried grass clippings mulched all my herbs and pots.  My peppers were withering  quickly until I did that.  A 37 degree C  day will still send them into a droop, but they perk right up with an evening water.

In the main garden I mulched as I planted.  I didn't even think about watering until the end of June.  Then I got out my hoses,  simplified the joins, and came up with a system that involved no Ys,  only two hoses,  the ability to turn off flow at the last end, and my rain sweeper attachment. With it I could water everything in about an hour.  I still used my 2 gallon jugs for watering the grapes, zucchini, squash, and cucumbers (filling them with the free hose end), but the attachment can gently feed a 30 inch  long section of trellis planting.  I'd often get weeding done while jugs were filling or the attachment was watering a section of bean or pea trellis.

I had snap peas and greens aplenty.  The pole beans are producing the dried beans I like.  If I get rain, I don't water.  I've eaten, dried, and canned kale.  My jalapenos are super happy and my other hot peppers are pretty chirpy.  I've got a late crop of snap peas coming up in one of the potato beds.  It's not perfect, but I don't dread odd-numbered days on the calender as much.

Making Winter Magic Hot Sauce

The snow was like magic as it graced the trees and road banks. It was magic I was able to get out of the driveway without shovelling it. Vroom, front-wheel drive and new tires does it again. I had a bag of ingredients and some jars and I was going to Greg and Mary's to have lunch and make hot sauce. My street, at least, was plowed. They thought theirs was, but it wasn't, but I got to their house all right and parked on a side street.

Homemade soup, homemade bread, homemade fruit crisp, and then we started throwing things in a pot to make winter magic: hot sauce. I had a pint of tropical fruit cocktail (mangoes, pineapple, and lime slices in a ultra-light syrup), Greg cut up a fresh pineapple, Mary and I chopped up a couple of carrots. I had them taste-test a high-heat skinny red pepper and a fat fire-roasted chipolote. One of each went into the sauce. Then a couple of cloves of garlic, two-thirds of a cup of homemade tomato paste, about 2 tablespoons of fresh ginger, and a dollop of date syrup. We had to have a little more sour, so a tablespoon or so of white balsamic vinegar went in too.

We let it simmer for a half hour or so, until the carrot coins were soft. The smell that wafted into the kitchen as we lifted the lid to stir was full of warmth. Taste tests affirmed we had the right amount of heat. Then we set it outside to cool enough to whirl in the blender. We figured we had enough for 4 half-pint jars and 1 quarter pint. Actually it turned out we had enough for 5 half-pints and the quarter pint. We added two more tablespoons of the white balsamic vinegar to assure the mixture was acidic enough to preserve with a boiling-water bath. But the taste was not sour at all.

I should have brought my jar lifter, but we were able to improvise with tongs. We pasteurized the jars while the pureed sauce was heating again to a boil. Into the jars and thence into the boiling water bath for 15 minutes. The tongs worked to take the jars out and we listened in delight as the lids all sealed with satisfying pops.

The plow had come while we cooking, but the magic hadn't left: no car in front of me and the CRV just drove through the plow-line and kept going down the snowy street and air full of fluffy snowflakes .

Is This Really April?

It was unseasonally warm where we were on vacation: highs in the nineties (Fahrenheit) in Williamsburg, Virginia the last three days we were there. It was unseasonally warm here in Peterbrough as well. We came back the Wednesday after Easter. I hastily uncovered the garlic and the herbs. I got out the heat mat and began sprouting seeds.

It's now the last week of April. Our grass could really use a cut. The rhubarb is almost ready to pick. The dandelions are ready to pick for wine -- it wasn't until Mother's Day last year that they were ready. By Mother's Day this year they will be all fluff and gone.

I've got strawberries blossoming. I covered them one night we had frost so they wouldn't all die. Will I finally get red currents this year? I don't know. It looks like the bush is blossoming but I'm hoping it's not done it too soon.

I put my tomato seedlings in the green house -- after I fixed the vent lifter. Without venting, the inside temperature easily tops 100 F.

As far as April showers bringing any May flowers ... we haven't had any rain for nearly two weeks. The one rain we did have only half-filled one of my two rain barrels.

At least I'm not worrying that the hose will freeze overnight. It's just not getting that cold.