Category Archives: Gardening

Gardening, Homestead

The optimism of winter

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Once again, we’ve cycled through another year. This past year is – like any other – not one to forget, but not one especially grand. I suppose in the overall balance, the good and bad canceled each other out and we’re left with another year that is fairly normal, and usual for anyone simply living their lives in the best way they possibly can. A lengthy illness followed by a death, another completely unexpected illness followed by surgery and extended recuperation, a couple of new additions to the extended family, and in between all of that the constants in our lives: food, family, work, gardening, animals, and moving forward.

Many people find nothing in particular to be optimistic about in winter. After all, it is generally bleak, cold, and there isn’t a huge amount of activity going on in the garden. The snow peas are hanging tough against the wildly fluctuating weather we’ve had (going from teens overnight and the next night in the 40s, which must be terribly confusing), and the almost fifty pounds of garlic we planted doesn’t seem to care one way or the other what’s happening, snuggled under its blanket of hay. Beyond that, nothing is growing – not in the garden, at least.

In my head, it’s a different story. The best thing about winter is that the seed catalogs begin to arrive, until I have a nice large stack of them by my side. By far, my favorite for actual reading is the Fedco catalog simply because of the commentary and stories scattered about the listings. I’ve also received Johnny’s (another favorite, and from whom I tend to order a great deal), RH Shumway (from whom I’ve already ordered up 200 June bearing strawberry plants, as the old everbearing we had ordered from somewhere else a couple of years ago never gave us enough at any one time to be satisfying), Gurney’s (already ordered a couple of almond trees for mom), Vesey’s (a Canadian favorite – or should that be favourite? – from last year, due to exceptional germination rates on the things I ordered), Bountiful Gardens and Territorial Seed (who always have some fascinating items in addition to things I see in most catalogs), Totally Tomatoes (which is not, despite the name, only tomatoes), and of course, Burpee (who always have some interesting hybrids). It’s fun to spread out nine catalogs, all open to tomatoes, and figure out what I want to plant. Ditto for beans or peppers or brassicas or anything else: there is much fun in the initial kid-at-Christmastime looking.

From there, it’s a matter of paring down and when two or more have the same thing, picking one to get that item in my order. I figured it up a few days ago, and I have about 2200 square feet, not including the garlic area, for planting. The past couple of years I’ve never really filled out the space that was available completely, and of course last summer was a complete bust with everything going to hell because of my surgery. This year, though, I intend to fully utilize all the space out there in some fashion.

That, my friends, is where the optimism of winter comes in. It is at this time that all avenues are open to the gardener, that no possibility is off the table, and that the grand dreams about growing things that have failed in the past still take root (so to speak), holding you with the force of the promise of what could be. When the wind is whipping around, and you’re out turning on the taps and covering the wellhead and bladder against freezing, you can look at the rows of empty frames and picture five foot high okra, beds of luscious tomato plants, cucumber vines meandering up trellises, mirrored by beans doing the same in another area of the garden, sprawling squash plants and zucchini that hide until they’re big as baseball bats and know that the winter will eventually end, moving aside for the sake of spring and summer.

That is certainly cause for optimism.

Gardening, Life in general, Sports

Closing in

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The turf on the field at Eastern Washington is red. Blood red. Or, if I were in a jollier frame of mind instead of becoming more miserable by the second because I feel like total crap, a holiday-flavored red. It isn’t enough that I’m watching FCS football on a Friday night while fixing someone’s photo gallery that they’re completely hosed, but my eyeballs have to be bleeding as well? I thought the Smurf Turf at Boise was bad, but this is even worse. Too bad it isn’t snowing out there to cover it up a bit.

The late-round attempt at tomatoes and peppers was a failure, unfortunately. Things were going fairly well, but then we went to Disney for the day, and although I’d left the ends of the hoops open to get some airflow, but keep things toasty inside, the winds were horrendous and picked up the (weighted down) plastic and flung it up and off the hoops. By the time we arrived back at the ranch, it had already been freezing for several hours, and the unprotected plants were history. The sugar snaps seems to be hanging in there, and I pulled up all the peanuts yesterday and today  – a fine crop of late round peanuts, too, it appears.

For the rest: the garden has been put mostly to bed for winter, such as it is. We’ve had several weeks now where we’ve had at least three straight nights of freezing weather – the last round took us into the mid-teens, in fact – and experimentation for the season is over. The garlic is fine beneath its cover of hay, and the sugar snaps we may begin harvesting in the next ten days or so. Other than that, there are some leeks and carrots in the ground, and a few stay cabbage or broccoli plants (I’m not quite sure what those tiny plants are and I’m too lazy to dig out my planting roster). I’m debating whether to start some more cabbage and broc and cauliflower, but I know one thing I must do is get the parsnips in before the real winter blast comes in late January/early February here, as the frosty weather will make them sweeter than they usually are.

An aside here…I know the most overused/overrated word this year was “whatever”, which for my money only narrowly beats out “Palin”, but could we vote “Are you kidding me?” as the most overused/overrated phrase? Perhaps as a tie with “I know, right?” as a top annoyance? Thanks.

No progress on the garlic steppes as yet, but there’s still almost an entire year to get that put together for next year’s garlic season. Right now I’d like to get the remaining frames built out and filled so things will be ready to go as immediately as possible for spring. I’m planning more sweet potatoes next year, fewer varieties of tomatoes, just a handful of pepper varieties, and only a couple of varieties of cukes – all things that performed well and tasted better than others, and in many cases, varieties that took tops in both categories. I’m ever hopeful that there will be no disasters (deaths, cancers, surgeries, etc.) to knock another season out of whack, so in addition to my please regarding overused words or phrases, how about we add a little cooperation from the universe to that?

Food, Gardening, Homestead

Reprieve

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I just noticed that last post is number 500 on this incarnation of the blog.

A reprieve from winter today: glorious, spring-like day, with a light breeze, a clear sky, and the scent of air that makes you want to draw in breath after breath, deeply inhaling some of the best Mother Nature has to offer. It was me and the boys today, traipsing out to turn off the taps and uncover everything so the plants could enjoy our one day stay of winter weather. We’ll start up again tomorrow in our quest to get summer loving plants to survive through what will be a brutal week here on the ranch: we expect to get into the upper teens here around mid-week, which will be a challenge in protection under the covered wagons. I have no idea if things will make it through, but that’s sort of the point in all this, isn’t it (until I can build a real greenhouse, that is): experimenting.

Another experiment we’ll be trying here on the ranch: growing garlic for seed stock, not just for our own use. It occurred to me while chatting with some folks that this would take expansion, but what if we went vertical rather than horizontal, terracing it much like the rice paddies at the feet of mountains in far off lands? There are seven eight foot fence panels at the back of the pool, and over that fence is nothing that’s in use. The failed attempts to grow corn in that area gave way to a massive effort to rebuild the sand/clay into real soil – an effort that has worked, I might add, since I worked to break up the area and then sow it with alfalfa, clover, buckwheat, and other good nutrient-dense vegetation. There is no question there will be no corn planted there in the immediate future, but a series of steppes along the back of the fenceline would provide more area to grow a crop that is tasty, economical, easy both in terms of maintenance and growing, and that yields good prices when sold for seed (especially if grown naturally, without chemicals as we would be doing). With that, of course, will necessarily come some meetings with my accountant and lawyer, as no doubt there are rules about this sort of thing, and why do that research on my own when that’s why I pay them?

I started five horseradish roots a couple of months ago. Someone helpfully dug the holes for me and filled them with a nice mixture of soil and compost to give them a fighting chance. At first, I thought they’d died right off, as the roots had been languishing in the fridge throughout the summer of surgery and recovery. As it turns out, the roots will last practically forever if they’re kept chilled, and they have turned into quite healthy things indeed, with giant leaves soaking up sun and moisture. The boys, though, keep peeing on them, so a fencing adjustment is in order for those and for the berries that we put in along the main fenceline (grapes, blackberries, blueberries, raspberries).

We’re also considering selling seed – organic only, if possible. This and the garlic would be a good starting place for Lazy Dog Ranch branding, I do believe. At least, the dogs don’t seem to be presenting any particular objection.

Food, Gardening, Homestead

Letting go

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The okra gave up the ghost.

I knew it was simply a matter of time. After all, between the laws of diminishing returns and the downward creep of the thermometer, it was a given that even the hardiest of summer-loving plants would not survive the onslaught. And so it goes for the okra, finally giving in to the inevitable. They now stand in place, like guardians cursed to remain in one location until relieved by those who never arrive, becoming more gaunt and weary as time passes.

I haven’t pulled them out of the line yet, unlike the jalapenos, from whom I took the last fruits and then took to compost yesterday. I’d like to see how long they can stand before collapsing entirely, but will probably take the shovel and dig them out tomorrow – the shovel is absolutely required, as anyone who has grown okra can vouch for the rather strong roots the plants put down, anchoring them to the earth even as they reach toward the sun they adore. I suppose they could be tested as greenhouse-type growers, but this seems counter-productive, and it would be very difficult to cover them every night and uncover them each day, since they are taller than me at this point. There is also the promise of starting anew next year, planning for which has already begun in conjunction with the arrival of the seed catalogs for next year.

Now, we settle in for what passes for winter here, but which would be laughed off as mild by our counterparts to the north. For us, though, it is no laughing matter to be faced with shorter days and languishing temperatures when for at least some of us, the warmth is what brings us seriously to life.

Food, Gardening, Homestead

Preparation

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This afternoon, it was time to break out the plastic once more and create covered wagons everywhere. With a forecast low of 27 at the ranch, and with my continuing quest to have one ripe tomato in the winter here – one that will get to red or purple without cracking – wrestling with plastic to cover for the impending weather is just part of the routine.

I know some people poo-poo the idea of growing tomatoes in winter. “I won’t eat things out of season,”, they say, pointing to the additional environmental issues involved in raising things out of season, like the transport of the item from wherever it’s grown (South America, for instance) to the local market, or to the energy consumed in forcing things to grow outside their usual time. In this case, however, I am not transporting the item anywhere – except potentially to a tasty meal on my table – and we are expending no additional resources to keep the plants alive beyond the human energy necessary to pull out the plastic covers and get them set in place. That particular energy is fairly significant, because I have to say, high mil plastic is rather heavy. But, from an overall standpoint, beyond the initial purchase of the plastic, the environmental impact is pretty much zero, since it can be reused, likely for years with proper storage, without then sending it off to the recycling center.

Thus, the quest for summer vegetables in winter continues here at the ranch. I’m certain the weather will finally kill the okra that has been so productive for us, but that staunchly held up through previous freezes without benefit of protection. It’s a hardy beast, and as of this afternoon, still flowering with beautiful buds signaling another round of fruit. If it is still there in the morning, it will be a most pleasant surprise, although I’m aware there is still the issue of diminishing returns even for what was the star performer of last season.

Gardening, Homestead, Life in general

That seems a tad off

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Earlier this month, while perusing the weather looking at the forecast, the current conditions output was a bit of a shocker. I’m certain we would have noticed this if had in fact been the case.

Generally speaking, we don’t see wind speeds like that unless we’re seeing a hurricane come through, and I’ve have expected the house to lift off and that evil bitch from the Wizard of Oz go biking by. But there wasn’t, and it didn’t, and she wasn’t. A run of the mill typo to inject some humor into an otherwise round of cursing about freezing weather. Said cursing will be worse tomorrow, as we are expecting the first hard freeze of the season, with lows about 29, and windchills a few degrees under that, followed by another night or two of at freezing temps. This means the plastic most definitely needs to go up, preferably a couple of hours before sunset at the horrid time of around 5:30 PM. In case you’ve not noticed as yet, I’m a bigger fan of summer and long, sunny days than I am of winter. I guess I’m just a sunshine kind of person.

Food, Gardening, Homestead

Squeaking through

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Is there anything better than a nice cup of hot chocolate (with marshmallows, and lots of them) for breakfast? I think not.

The forecasts were all a bit slippery for the overnight, but they all agreed on one thing: it would be near or at freezing inland here. And so it was freezing, right at 32 this morning between 4AM and 5 AM somewhere. Having made the executive decision last night after many hours at the NOC doing various things that dragging out the heavy plastic when everything sailed through the last (unexpected) light freeze was not happening, I am once again pleasantly surprised to see – from the comfortable distance of the kitchen windows – that nothing appears to have been torched by frost. That is one of the benefits to our peculiar weather: no rain, and humidity under 40% does not lend itself to coating the plants in an icy sheen that will eventually cause their cells to burst when the sun hits them. We’ve been lucky, but we’re looking at a few days in the middle of the week for more of the same, so I suppose it is time to rig the covered wagons for ease of shuttering for the evenings.

Today: work, work, work, both in and out. The snow pea variety we have out currently (Oregon Sugar Pod) cares not about either 80 degree heat or 32 degree freezes. One of the trellises needs to be reworked so the peas have somewhere to climb, but every single frame has flowers, and we should be harvesting the first of the peas, whole pod, in the next week or so, with those reserved for shelling in about two. Yes, I know, you don’t usually grow snow peas to shell, but various people – including my mother – have decided they love those peas even better than the usual shelling peas I’ve grown, so who am I to argue?

Cancer, Food, Gardening, Homestead, Sports

What I did on my non-vacation weekend

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I worked. I cooked. Worked. Cooked. The usual.

I wasn’t feeling quite well over the weekend, and today still do not feel as well as I did last weekend. I’m not quite sick now that whatever minor sinus infection I had cleared itself out, but also not quite feeling a hundred percent. Generally, I blame this on the fact that I’ve had far too many doctor/hospital visits, and there are simply too many sick people in those places. Fortunately, I’m done with the doctors until November unless something comes up, since the last visit to the pulmonologist this past week gave me an all clear after an xray followup to track that nasty fluid buildup to make sure it was fully drained. But like I said, hanging around in hospitals and offices brings with it the potential for random bugs to crop up, and I’m guessing that’s what this nonsense is.

On the plus side, I cooked, a lot, this weekend. Today is mom’s birthday (happy birthday, Mom!), and we just had a small dinner for immediate family Saturday night: my sister was down from Georgia, my brothers both up from Orlando, and my other sister and I. Saturday night: classic steakhouse dinner, with steak (grass-fed, organic, no less), shrimp three ways (boiled, scampi, and asian-inspired), baked potatoes, corn, bruschetta (I made two loaves of Italian bread, and by the end of the night, both were gone). Sunday morning, as is his habit, my brother made breakfast, and people went about their business for awhile before returning for a day of football. The football food: roasted red pepper soup, guacamole, more bruschetta (and two more loaves of Italian bread), roasted sweet potatoes and carrots from the Lazy Dog Ranch garden, and two chickens that had been brined in a honey-pepper mixture and then smoked for about four hours (plus a fresh batch of bbq sauce). I also made some cherry-chocolate-toasted almond ice cream for those who like that sort of thing. The youngest brother also assembled an eggplant parmigian after I fried off the eggplant slices, and one of my sisters made sauce, since my sisters were bugging him to make it.

We watched the Dolphins take a win against the Vikings, and turned off the Jaguars game in disgust after the Chargers reached the 30-point mark. The battle of the Mannings was not all together that interesting as the Colts put the beatdown on the Giants, but that is what younger brothers are for, as everyone who has a younger brother knows.

Overall, a very nice weekend indeed. The weather is not yet modulating into fall for us here, even though some mornings have dipped near the 60 degree mark. This is actually a good thing in my book, as my seedlings in the flats will go out into the garden in the coming weeks, hopefully to give us some good output now that the captain is back in the game and not having another chunk of something cut out. I could use about five degrees of cooler weather in order to get the fall snow pea round started. Out in the frames directly, I put in a round of limas, snap beans, carrots, cukes, leeks, beets, broccoli, cauliflower, and cowpeas. We’ll see how they do in what can still be some brutal heat, with no rain and only the standard watering. If I can stay healthy, with no more nasty surprises coming up to kick me in the ass, and I’m able to hold the bugs at bay, I’m hoping to get some kind of decent production out of this season yet.

Cancer, Gardening, Homestead

Bugs, redux

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The problem with spending quite a bit of time in doctors’ offices and hospitals is that these places are more often than not filled with sick people. While this is not entirely surprising – after all, how often do well people go to the doctor or visit a hospital unless they’re visiting someone or working there? – it is rather annoying for those of us who are otherwise healthy but are susceptible, thanks to being blasted with radiation and chemicals, to picking up bugs from various places in their travels.

Such is the case on the ranch, where yours truly has a typical case of the flu or a cold or something, resulting in an amazing amount of snot being blown out of my head.

Speaking of amazing amounts of stuff: this week, a return visit to the pulmonologist, for a followup xray to make sure that massive amount of fluid they drained out of the left lung last week remains at bay. It does, although there is still a bit of hazy “pneumonia-like stuff” hanging out at the bottom of the left lung. Do we know what it is and why it’s there? No. Do we want to preemptively treat it with antibiotics or anything? I voted no, and the doctor concurred. In two weeks we’ll have a followup xray to see what progress the body can make on its own.

On another note, I got to see the xrays and scans from before and after he drained the fluid. I have to say, it was one of the most incredible things I’ve seen on a scan, and more than a little scary: my left lung was pushed almost to the point of collapse by the sheer amount of fluid, and the CT scan results, when rolled back and forth like a film, are rather awesome in demonstrating just what medical technology has the ability to do (of course, I am a great fan of technology in general and medical technology in particular, because hey, it has saved my life rather spectacularly, twice, in the span of five years). When viewed as a film, the CT scan results, working from the top of the lung downward, show a massive black space where the fluid has displaced the lung – a bit of 2001: A Space Odyssey, minus the stars bit, because there was absolutely nothing there but a huge amount of (thankfully benign) fluid.

Right now, although my head is stuffed to the point where I want to chop it off, breathing deeply no longer is the agony it has been, and is getting better daily. A slight twinge here and there, but overall, recovery is back on track. The other day I went out for about 20 minutes or so and actually worked in the garden by chopping off some of the giant okra fingers that were threatening to topple some of the plants. All of those went into compost, as they were inedible – some had dried on the stem, the seeds rattling around in the now zebra-striped pods as I cut and tossed them.

I’ve decided to try another round of tomatoes, as a last hurrah to the season. I’ve also decided that instead of starting other things in flats, they’re just going to head straight for sowing in the frames. Since Earl is not going to pass closely enough to our coast to bring us any weather, and the daily rains appear to have moved along, there is no real danger at this point of the seeds being washed out or the soil staying wet so long so as to cause the seeds to rot in place. That means the broccoli, cauliflower, and other assorted goodies will be directly sowed at some hopefully short time in the future – but after we go through another week of 95-degree weather here, according to our forecast. Summer does not want to let go its grip, and who can blame it, really? Summer, to me, is the very best of seasons.

Gardening, Homestead

Bugs, bugs, bugs. And I’m not talking coding here.

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After awhile, bugs landing on you while you’re in the garden are as ho-hum as finding pocket lint: you’re so used to it by long exposure that it is a mere annoyance to flick one off your arm (or face) and stomp it dead.

This is what happened to me this evening as I wandered out into the back garden for the first time in quite some time after taking out a couple of very light garbage bags. Despite serious neglect, blight, and a complete invasion of leaffooted bugs, stinkbugs, and who knows what else, partying along like it’s their personal buffet, there are some things that are still growing – some completely out of control. The okra, for instance, is actually starting to lean from the weight of the uncut fruit on the stems, the largest of which are starting to curl into themselves much like those crazy fingernails people grow in a strange attempt to get into Guinness.The eggplant continues to thrive even though it was transplanted hastily before my surgery and virtually ignored since that time. The new round of peanuts, planted post-surgery, is coming up well, although we won’t be able to pluck those out until around December, assuming the weather holds. The cukes are spent, and need to be pulled, but all three varieties were excellent producers while they were producing, but next year I think we will stick with two varieties that everyone judged tastier than the third.

There are also small watermelons scattered here and there, ready to be picked, as they are hybrids specifically bred to be what amounts to a single-serving melon. I pulled one while out looking around, since the bottom was starting to yellow and get soft. After breaking it open, it showed itself to be slightly mealy from having been out too long, but otherwise a perfect specimen of a tiny version of the behemoth watermelons that are so often seen: deep, ruby red flesh studded with black seeds, the clear, strong scent of fresh fruit wafting up from the split pieces.

Other things have not fared as well, and it is a significant disappointment that another season has been lost without what should have been a bounty of zucchini, tomatoes, and peppers, both sweet and hot. Late transplants, poor weather, and medical issues both in the family and for me personally have led to pitiful looking plants, both earlier in the season and since I went in for surgery. But, like a good Cubs fan would, all I can say is: wait until next season. The good part for me is that my next season is right around the corner, even if the continued 100-degree weather makes it seem as if summer will last quite a way into the fall.

Next up: I should be receiving the shipment of garlic for fall planting. That will go into the cold room until the weather moderates a little, since these particular garlics do not like overly hot weather (not to mention that the frames where these will be planted are not ready to receive them yet). In the flats, I plan to start brussels, broccoli, cauliflower and in the frames directly, carrots and onions. If the weather cools off into the low 80s consistently, we’ll also put in a late round of snow peas.

Overall, today, looking at the state of affairs, considering all the work that has been plowed (so to speak) into the effort: disappointing and depressing.