Category Archives: Gardening

Food, Gardening

Local dinner

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Before I was stricken with that nasty bug, I had harvested some broccoli and carrots from the garden.

We’re ready for our closeup, Mr. DeMille.

Don’t forget us!

I figure you shouldn’t leave fresh vegetables all cleaned up with nowhere to go. Einstein agrees. You can tell.

What to make? We were feeling like a little stirfry: carrots and broccoli right from the garden, and beef from the quarter cow we bought from a (local) producer.

Grass-fed beef, marinating.

The beef went in first, with various spices and a little soy.

The carrots, broccoli, water chestnuts, and bamboo shoots went in, with another round of seasonings and a little liquid.

Serve it over rice, and you have a healthy, homemade meal that didn’t take terribly long to put together. This is my plate – I skip the water chestnuts and bamboo.

Good stuff, but I think I’m having an issue with rice as a cause of heartburn for me. Both after that meal and after tonight’s (black eyed peas, rice, cornbread), a dose of pepto was definitely in order. Suppose I’ll have to test this theory, even though if it is true, it involves at least one more round of this burn. The things we do for science…

Cats, dogs, chickens, and other critters, Gardening

Maintenance

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Spent a bit of time outside, the sun on my face, enjoying the fresh air warmed by the magic of a turning season.

The carrots went in the frames in early October, as seed, not transplants. By this time, even with the cooler weather, I figured most, if not all, should be completely ready to come out. This is not the case. There were, to be sure, a great many to pull.

Two pounds, two ounces worth, actually.

The celery has survived being planted as seed, through torrential downpours, frosts, and hard freezes without cover and cheerfully continues what I hope will be a fruitful journey.

To remind me that while I may be the master of my domain, there are canny – or lucky – creatures out here as well, I also found poo inside the fenced area, although there were no tracks in any of the frames and no obvious easily accessible hole in the fencing.

There is also a weed I have yet to identify growing absolutely everywhere.

I pull the weeds I find and drop them on some black plastic to allow them to roast in the sun.

The broccoli was right on schedule based on its planting date out in the frames. Like the celery, it survived some rather brutal weather for a plant and came out the other side suitable for harvesting.

About twelve ounces of broccoli from seven plants, which I judge to be quite fine for their experience with the elements. Of course, what good is a harvest if you don’t do something with it…

Food, Gardening

Lazy day

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I had plans today, I really did. Gorgeous day, which means outside time, in the garden.

As it turned out, Mom and I wound up taking a short hop to Whole Foods, to look at chicken – comparing costs of organic chicken from various places to the pricing from our source in Lake City – and pick up a few things, like buffalo mozzarella and, amazingly enough, raw milk (marked, appropriately, as for pet food only).

The boys were making breakfast when we got back, carving up thick slices of the bread I made for french toast. After a breakfast break, I intended to go outside, but wound up having a nap instead. My energy levels have been rather low lately, because I’m not getting enough good sleep, not eating enough, or because of the meds (or a combination of all of the above). When I got up, my sister was here, with the baby, and the kids were playing Scrabble. So, instead of going outside, I did a few work-related things and then made dinner while they moved on to cards.

Honey barbeque chicken tenders. I carved up some breasts, gave them a tumble in a flour mixture, fried them for a couple of minutes, then dipped them in barbeque sauce and honey and stuck them in the oven to finish.

We had some green beans and potatoes with parsley and garlic.

The little man loved it.

So did the other little man and his cohorts, when I dropped a couple of tenders trying to pack them away.

Tomorrow, as they say, is another day. Bread, for certain, but I’d really like to get out and get the peanuts going, along with the next rounds of potatoes, and replace the beans that killed themselves by coming up right before the hard freeze. It’s also time to take another look at the flats and see which of the seeds just are not pulling their weight and replace them with something else. I found one seedling that came up, but after a few days, the stem thinned to the width of a thread and it fell over, dying. Since the other seedlings haven’t exhibited the same thing, I’m not overly concerned about them falling face first into the soil – just one of those wonderful variations in the natural world.

Food, Gardening, Life in general

Waiting for spring

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This is what happens to my hands in very cold weather.

Those are cracks. Yes, they hurt. Yes, they bleed. Luckily for me, extreme cold doesn’t last very long here, and this will clear up in no time.

On tap today: more bread.

Enough for another three loaves of bread. One of those loaves is now down to a quarter of its size, only 30 minutes out of the oven. Tomorrow will be another bread day, I can feel it.

The seedlings went back outside to bask in the full, warm sunshine.

We brought them back in for tonight, as there’s frost (but no freeze) forecast for the area. Better safe than sorry, at least while they’re portable.

We are definitely having broccoli with dinner tomorrow night.

(Sidebar: you know, if you don’t want to renew a domain, perhaps notifying us of that fact when the invoice is generated would be better than telling us this when the invoice is processed – and the domain subsequently renewed. The renewal invoice generates in advance, after all.)

The cheddar cauliflower, alas, did not make it through the hard freeze Thursday night. There are apparently limits for it, and the upper teens plus a windchill in the single digits was not an environment it likes. No problem: I have more cauliflower seeds started in the flats.

The garlic is doing quite well, judging from the tops.

I can’t wait to start pulling some, to get a good look at it.

The brussels survived the freezes and are starting to take shape.

Shouldn’t be too much longer for these, which is good news for the people who actually eat these things.

The new round of peas (mostly) made it through the freezes this week.

There are a few here and there that look iffy at best. If they don’t perk up, I’ll pull them and reseed those. The snap beans that had come up all withered in the freeze and must be replanted.

While I was watering and weeding, and checking for damage, it felt like I was being watched.

And so I was, in a way.

Cancer, Food, Gardening, Homestead

Another day

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Another root canal. One of the rather unfortunate side effects of having your head blasted with radiation, I’m afraid. By the time I’m finished, I’ll probably have an entire mouth full of root canals and crowns. The procedures are quite painful, and not because of the root canals themselves (although those are painful while they’re being done): rather, the pain is in my jaw and the connective tissue in my mouth from having to open as widely as possible so they can work at the back of my mouth. They had someone training today, as well – how lucky was she to get to assist on my appointment? Two hours and fifteen minutes later, part one of the procedure was done. Canals found, drilled, filled. Next time we get to do the remainder of the buildup, and then the attempts begin to get an impression of a crown. On the plus side, the vicodin knocks the aftereffect pain down to manageable levels and after about three or four days, things are back to as normal as they can be.

This morning it was 18 degrees when I left the house, with ice all over the car. There are reasons I don’t live up north. This is one of them. I checked out the new pea sprouts, and they appear to have made it through – atleast, they were all standing, frozen – but the beans didn’t like the hard cold snap at all and I didn’t see a single sprout left. Luckily, I have a large bag of bean seed, since my uncle requested some, and we want to do a lot of canning of beans and peas this spring before the weather gets too hot and it’s time to yank them out. Tonight, with any luck, will be the final freeze of the season, and work can begin in earnest outside. The flats return to the great outdoors tomorrow and will stay there, basking in the glory and heat of the sunshine.

Several of the heirloom tomatoes have sprouted, but I can already see one that has snapped at the base of the stem. Since they’re inside, there is no real reason for that to happen, and I’m afraid that some of these varieties don’t want to work for me here. That’s fine: I’ll just replace them with somthing else. This weekend, it will be time to pull the original pea sets and take some photos of what’s going on out there in the garden. The brussels have little sprouts on their stems, and about time, at that. There should be some broccoli for harvest, and the garlics will be coming into the end of their season, ready for pulling and hanging.

We are coming up on spring, and that means spring cleaning – of the cages at the NOC. I forced the boy to come along for the ride, and we pulled out a dozen old servers and old hard drives that need to be destroyed. My goal for the weekend: scavenge the servers for spare parts, replace the drives in a couple that are fine but need larger drives and more memory, and get the dead/replaced drives ready to go to that big bit bucket in the sky.

What a life. We still need to go through some of the cheesemaking projects we have planned. We did a round of mozzarella, which was quite delicious, and worth another round for our homemade pizzas. Next up, some simpler items, like cottage cheese (we made this in my AP Chemistry class, back in the day, and I recall only myself and a couple of others were willing to eat it) and ricotta. Then, some more ambitious plans, like our own cheddar, with a homemade cheese press. That’s going to be something, and yet another experiement to document for the blog here. I wouldn’t mind trying some parmesan, too. Eventually, our raw milk supplier will be able to provide some more milk, or we’ll just go get some elsewhere, because mom found an old fashioned butter churn that we’re anxious to try. Plus, that milk will be better for cheesemaking than the ultra-pasteurized stuff in most cases.

Gonna be a good year for all these sorts of things. I can feel it. And I don’t think that’s just the pain meds talking, either.

Gardening

The count is on

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“I wonder how many tomato plants I’ve started.”

That’s what Stacy said the other day.

I know exactly how many tomato seeds I’ve put in: 127. Total varieties: 27.

Admittedly, I probably will not get that many transplants, although it won’t be for lack of trying. Some of the seeds simply have poor germination rates, especially some of the heirlooms that I have from last year. Last year, several had a zero percent germination rate, in tests varying from three to nine seeds. I’m trying most of them again this year, to see what we get. At worst, we get nothing. At best, everything comes up and we’re up to our eyeballs in tomatoes. The reality will likely be somewhere in between those extremes. Now, if we could just get rid of this very un-Florida-like weather and get to spring, already.

Cats, dogs, chickens, and other critters, Gardening, Homestead

Hunting chicks

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The hunt is on for a few chicks of the two legged variety.

What, you thought that meant something else? Sickos.

We’re trying to find another five or six chicks to go with the lonely girl out back. The group with which we ordered the chickens last year don’t need any more, got rid of theirs because of complaints from the neighbors, or are out of town (turns out one of the group is the daughter of the founder of Habitat for Humanity, who died this week). The problem with chickens – or, rather, chicks – is this: most hatcheries will not ship for orders fewer than 25 assorted chicks. Like my tender seedlings, curently sitting inside on the table here, they need to stay warm. More peeps equals more heat, and a better chance of all of them making it through the shipping process.

So, we’re looking locally to see if any of the more rural supply and feed stores will have chicks available. Eggs for everyone!

(Short interjection here to complain about people who send frivolous legal threats to us about a site we host, where said site has zero content, claiming that we are somehow infringing on their rights. Engage your brain before you fire off nonsense like that, people. Or at least engage an attorney.)

I thought today would be a good day to get out and do some maintenance outside – specifically, putting down mulch between the frames. Mild weather, coolish, perfect for that heavy lifting job. The problem is, the weather was much too mild, barely reaching 40 degrees here, with windchills in the 20s. That is not, to me, a “good day” to be outside. My pea and bean plants out there are probably going to bite it tonight, since it’s supposed to be around 18 here inland. While peas can take a bit of frost, I don’t know if they can take that kind of hard freeze – although the peas did come up out of the ground after a couple of nights of hard freeze, so there may be hope for them. Everything else will have to take its chances as well: the original batch of peas are due to come out of the frames to make way for the corn that will go in that spot in March. The broccoli and brussels should be able to handle the freeze without cover. Carrots and parnips? Fine in place in the frames.

Gardening, Geek stuff, Homestead

Soothing

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I am officially giving up trying to figure out why people have to be douchebags. Not just that, actually: why they have to be lying douchebags, about things that are so easily checked that it would be laughable if it were not so insulting. For instance: don’t try to tell me that you get “thousands” of pieces of spam a day that you then have to clean from your mailbox. We can check the logs, you know. We can see exactly what has been delivered and exactly what is sitting in that mailbox and exactly the time that mailbox was last checked. We know you receive maybe – maybe – 30 pieces of mail a day, almost all of which is spam and which we can see is deleted by the scanner, with the other three to six pieces of mail delivering because they are not, in fact, spam. Don’t try to tell me that you’re missing our billing invoices because of this supposed spam problem you’re having here when the billing address is at another provider entirely – can’t you see the failure of logic in just suggesting that? And don’t tell me the responses you’ve received to the very, very infrequent tickets you’ve opened have been short with just a “sorry – server’s busy” answer. We can look at the tickets you’ve opened and see that there’s nothing of the sort in them, and there are some very lengthy responses from us with quite a bit of detail about various things in there, almost nothing of which is related to this supposed horrendous spam problem you have. Beyond that, you haven’t opened a ticket since February of last year. One would think that for such an issue of such importance would have resulted in a ticket or ten in the span of a year. And finally, don’t try to keep changing your claims on subsequent emails, to things even more absurd. It won’t make you look any less foolish. Nor will informing us after three rounds of long emails that you’re not going to “waste” your valuable time doing our job – which, by the way, we haven’t asked you to do.

And that was my tipping point today. Yet another asshat who apparently knows more about running servers and networks than we ever will, lecturing me about a massive and entirely nonexistent spam problem. So for them, I say: fuck it. I will reserve my caring for the people who don’t pretend to know more than they actually know and/or who genuinely need assistance with something. Like the guy who needs help resetting his email client to pick up his mail because he managed to delete it somehow and the woman whose forum was attacked by porno spammers. For those occasions – rare though they are – when assholes like the lecturer appear, bitching for no reason whatsoever, they’ll get an answer to whatever the actual issue is (if there is one), and we’ll move on without even bothering with the nonsense they’re spewing. There’s gardening to be done. Menus to be planned. And there are these guys.

Best buddies.

All of which is much more enjoyable (helping people who need it is really my downfall, gardening brings good things to the table, food keeps people filled, and the animals are darned cute) and much less stressful (well, maybe beyond picking and squishing hornworms, which can be rather icky) than exerting any energy on miserable people.

Tonight begins what will hopefully be the last cold snap for us. I’m also hopeful that the new round of peas and beans, getting a very nice start out there, will make it through (especially tomorrow, which is supposed to be around 20 or so, and then the crazy kicks back in by the weekend when it’s supposed to be 70 here). March is just around the corner, and March around here means time to plant corn. When even Mom is over the cold, cold weather, you know it’s time for spring.

Gardening, Homestead

Guessing game

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The seedlings are making good progress, and with a couple of days out in the warmer air and sunshine, even the peppers are coming up. Of course, Mother Nature has decided to turn down the heat a little, but only to just freezing at night – that still means bringing in the flats during the night, but does not mean rigging covers for the plants currently out in the flats. Next week, we’re forecast to have another hard freeeze, into the 20s, which will probably finish off our freezes for the season if that holds true. That, in turn, brings us to the guessing game: when will it be safe to begin direct sowing certain things, like cukes and melons? I could start them in three inch peat pots, I suppose, but for these, I really like to start them direct in the frames in which they’ll live out their lives – plus, I won’t have to tote them anywhere, and watering out there is much easier than watering a bunch of flats and individual pots (right now, that is: next season, I expect to have the greenhouse up, which will make a lot of this much simpler). The beauty off all of this is that gardening itself, once everything is in place, is a cheap hobby with great rewards and in almost every case – like the sungolds last season – the return is huge. Those leggy flats I had? All reseeded, for less than five bucks in seed. The most expensive seed I have is for the corn, and that only because there’s five pounds of it.

I suppose this will, in the end, be much like anything else in life: you make a decision, and you take your chances. Assuming that everything (or almost everything) in the flats comes up in the next couple of days, the first couple of weeks in March is the target date for transplanting outside. With any luck, we’d then have the first tomatoes appearing in mid to late April. That would be something for planting that is done without the use of a greenhouse.