The Beer Garden

Roots CSA garden pics

2011-08-08T18:12:00.000-07:00

These are some pics from the local Roots CSA where I farm. As you can see, we have lots of lettuce to provide to our shareholders and then some.

We have lots of cucumber plants as well. I lost count but we have some cool varieties such as Dragon's Egg, Lemon, Hmong, Diva, Straight Eight, and yes, we have lots of pickling cukes.

The 100+ tomato plants are now a jungle but doing very well...Each year I tell myself I will get them all staked before they get out of control....oh well...maybe next year.

I never realized how good Swiss Chard is if you know how to prepare it...I am a huge fan now!

This is one of our basil beds....it smells fabulous!

The asian greens are one green I never really paid much attention to until now. I had some seed from the previous farmer's supply and decided to give them a try. I am impressed. Of course you can stir-fry them but they are most excellent lightly blended with lettuce greens, some finely sliced radish, and a tad bit of Arugula. The blend also makes a fantastic filler for wraps. I like to add a little ranch dressing and some pulled chicken.

Every Friday is harvest day! Check out the beautiful beets harvested last week. The lovely ladies in the last two pics are Korrine and Kara..the garden gals : )

Bent knees ... Both ways

2011-06-20T22:55:00.000-07:00

I was talking to a friend of mine a couple of weeks ago at a picnic, and he asked me how in the world I wound up in the place I am at today... he was referring to my BBQ ventures and the success I have been enjoying .

Most of my friends know me as a former hard rock miner, a journalist or a government affairs specialist. Not many people knew my hobby and passion for grilling and BBQ -- let alone my passion for brewing beer. A little more than a year ago that changed when my brother Bobby asked me to share some BBQ secrets on a blog he wanted to start... until then, I pretty much kept that stuff to myself. Sure, I blogged about it occasionally over the past few tears, but it was nothing really.

Well, as some of you know, Bobby and I took it to the next level and decided to enter into a season of competitive BBQing, and then that led to a crazy winter of cooking for friends and friends of friends, which then led to me securing some equipment, commercial kitchen space, a catering and vending license and insurance in an effort to make a little money at this thing ... and now that has become a little uncomfortable because now I have an investment to maintain -- or, if you like -- this animal to tame ... but, however you choose to look at it... it's both exciting and terrifying.

So, I answered my friend with an explanation of how I was feeling about everything and the best way to explain it was to refer to the forward of one of my favorite books: "Illusions" by Richard Bach. (I think I told my friend the passage was in "One" another great Richard Bach book, but I was drinking beer... which is an allowable foul because it was a picnic and I was cooking for fun, but anyway)... the forward starts out with Bach explaining how he felt like the book illusions came through the wall like animal grabbing him by the throat and refusing to let go until he put the words to paper.

My new business is doing that to me...

Bach goes on with hand written notes -- presumably an outline for chapters the book -- that detail a process of giving in and letting go to the forces of *whatever* and riding the current with grace and ease to wherever it takes you. In this outline process Bach creates a character who masters the process of letting go and becomes the Messiah who tries desperately to explain to his followers the simplicity of the process ... the Messiah speaking to crowd uses the analogy of life in a river...

To make a long story short: the life at the bottom of a river clings to rocks for survival. It's a tough life yet survival instinct will hold you back if you give it all the power you can muster, but eventually all creatures loosen their grip to the rocks and get swept away in the current -- some at the beginning of life and some at the end.

At first it looks painful as the creatures are swept downstream banging violently against the rocks, but they are soon pulled into the current and away from all that and then it's just a matter of riding it out and taking on each new thing as it comes your way... (well that's what I took away from that forward years ago.... I was going to re-read the passage tonight, but one of my kids probably has my copy, and amazon only let me read so far without buying a new copy).

So what does this have to do with Bent knees?

I can count the times I have ridden a horse on one hand, but every time I did, the horse always tried to get the best of me... one time my uncle Larry put me up on a pregnant horse who wasn't too happy about giving me a ride, when I got on her she took off across the pasture like a scalded ape. I was bouncing so bad I was terrified... then I heard my uncle cry out "Bend your knees to absorb the shock" and I managed to do just that. My whole ride changed at that moment... I was in heaven and gliding across a pasture at lightning speed...

Well, that was until I realized that mare had bloated her stomach when we tightened the saddle, then she relaxed at full gallop, the saddle slid down and I fell off that horse and rolled for about 50 yards... as that accident played itself out I went from Bent knees for shock to Bent knees in prayer...

That's kind of where I am at right now... full gallop, full prayer and knees fully Bent... BOTH ways ;-)

Community Root's growing update.

2011-06-18T22:42:00.000-07:00

June has been a busy month at the Community Roots CSA. We started out by planting pumpkins with several first grade classes from Dalton Elementary School. The kids started their pumpkin seeds in their classroom and later transported the seedlings to the CSA. Albeit, many of the poor transplants did not survive the short trek to the garden but that was anticipated so we had extra seedlings on hand to cover for any pumpkin casualties. For the most part, the kids were excited to get out and play in the dirt but I could tell for some it was a foreign experience. One child found a worm while digging a hole for their seedling and thought it was "gross" when I picked it up and offered it to him to hold. Another child was thoroughly into the whole farming experience. He said he was going home to tell his mom that he wanted to be a farmer when he grows up...that totally made my day!

Then there was the annual Community Roots yard sale fundraiser which was a huge success. Thanks to all who supported our cause! http://www.cdapress.com/news/local_news/article_72a3a97d-e741-531a-a72e-e8fe72dc947f.html

In other exciting news, yet another gracious community landowner in Dalton has agreed to let us use their property to grow even more vegetables. As many of you know, there is a waiting list of 50 families who want to become shareholders at Community Roots and while we are not adding shares this year it certainly opens the door for future expansion. This year will be a trial run to see how successful we are (and it's been a challenging growing season to boot!). Currently, we are only growing several varieties of squash and potatoes on the new land but it certainly opens up a lot of growing space for a diverse range of crops at the main CSA location. Below is a pic of volunteer Linda Michael and CSA crew member, Kara Carleton hard at work planting potatoes at our new space. With the new land, there was much to be accomplished as far as fencing and irrigation lines. Thanks to all the volunteers who spent countless hours helping make that happen. You are greatly appreciated!

Now some info and photos of what's growing...As you all know, the weather thus far has been a bit challenging for everyone. Nevertheless, we are anticipating a great season of wonderful veggies. To date (and I am estimating on my last formal count) we have over 100 tomato plants (several varieties, which include Roma, Amish Paste, Sungold, Early Girl, Cherokee Purple, Nyagous, Stupice, Siberian, Oregon Spring, Riesentribe Grape, Red Cherry, Yellow Pear, Trophy, Granadero, Beefsteak and Sweetpea Currant.) Next we transplanted peppers. Bell varieties include Orange Sun, Chocolate, Purple, Apple and Karma. For those that like hot peppers we have Serrano, Jalapeno, Thai, Cayenne, Georgia Flame and Red Habanero. (all great for spicing up your pickled vegetables). Other transplants include broccoli, cauliflower, red and green cabbage, celery, basil, lettuce, eggplant and cukes. Directly sown seed includes carrots, beets, kohlrabi, radish, lettuce, sugar peas, spinach, several bush bean varieties, onions, parsnips, kale, arugula, basil, corn, asian greens, swiss chard and many different herbs. I'm probably forgetting a few, but you get the idea....diversity is good! As the weather warms up (and I'm sure it will) watch for weekly photo updates to see more of what's growing.

He thinks my rototiller's sexy

2011-05-16T11:51:00.000-07:00

Today, Jeff and I spent the day preparing the family garden for our planting day. It was going to be my first lesson in using the "big" rototiller. My dad thought I should have the guys do all the tilling.... but if you know me then you will know that when I set my mind to doing something there is no stopping me...So, Jeff patiently explained the gears and taught me all the ins and outs of operating the beast. I had a procedure down in no time and actually thought it was quite fun. Every once in a while, Jeff would stop raking to watch how I was doing and give me a grin and a thumbs up. When he would give me "the look" I had to laugh to myself because I could only think of that country song called "She Thinks My Tractor's Sexy."

Many of you already know that Jeff and I were high school sweethearts. We both graduated from Coeur d' Alene High School in 1983...Initially, Jeff was forced to quit school to keep his full-time kitchen job at "The Other Place" so he was in his senior year and I was a junior. He later came back to CHS during my senior year to get his diploma and that's when we first met. From the beginning I could tell we were meant to be together. He was definitely trouble..but that's what appealed to me...that and his big teddy bear heart. : )

We were actually just friends first....and we skipped many a class together to go to Denny's (for nasty, watered-down coffee and french fries smothered in tarter sauce.) Although, my mom kept insisting "that boy has a thing for you". Turns out that mom was right because shortly after graduation, our friendship quickly turned into a serious relationship and we were married on May 25th 1985. Within 2 years we were proud parents of two beautiful little girls, Brittany and Tylah, and a few years later we were blessed with our baby boy, Dustin. On our ten year anniversary, Meghan Sue, our fourth child was born. This May 25th will be her Sweet Sixteen birthday and our 26th Anniversary.

26 years seems like a long time but it sure flew by fast...I am extremely blessed to have a wonderful husband and awesome family...it's really all the little things we do to support one another that has really made our relationship strong. It's the simple things like him helping me in the garden or me helping him with a big barbecue gig. Our love is strong because we support each other in all our endeavors. Plus, after all these years, he still thinks my rototiller is sexy! : )

Bent's BBQ is Born

2011-05-09T20:04:00.000-07:00

Well, it's not a sure thing yet, but I am working on deal to serve the best BBQ you've ever eaten on Saturday nights at a new brewery in Wallace, Idaho starting in June. So, it's about time I get licensed and insured to make this thing happen. I got my business registered today and I will be permitted and insured by sometime next week ...

As some of you know, the Bent family started a competitive BBQ team last year called Rub 'em Raw BBQ, and the whole BBQ thing unexpectedly took off like a wildfire. We started out winning grand champion at our first professional competition, while cooking the traditional four meats: beef brisket, pork butt, pork ribs and chicken. From there we won at least one category at every event we competed in last year.

This year is looking pretty good too, as I just won grand champion at Tim's Rib King competition on April 30th, where I placed first in spare ribs, second in pork belly and third in ribeye steak. the rest of the people cooking under our canopy won as well. Steve Everett tied for second place ribeye, and Denise Durflinger, a first time competitor mentored by Rub em Raw, took first place ribeye, and second place spare ribs. That is all three of us cutting up our steak entries in the picture above. (note: with the exception of a tie score for second, we swept the steak category using the Rub 'em Raw BBQ steak method, and we nearly swept the ribs category). Below are pictures of the rib turn in and the pork belly turn in.

Above is myself, Denise and her husband slicing ribs for turn-in

This is my pork belly, and Steve is in the left of the frame slicing his

Anyway, back to the brewery in Wallace... It's called North Idaho Mountain Brewing Company... They are in the process of building a brewing pub, but they have no kitchen at the moment, so of course my rustic BBQ skills will come in handy up there...

I am talking with the owners about providing food service for them on Saturdays and possibly Sunday lunch at least through the summer months and we'll see how things go from there. I am in the process of developing a menu and a formal proposal now and I will post the latest as it progresses here... Rub 'em Raw is a great competition name, but I decided to tame my food service name to Bent's BBQ...

Oh, and you can be sure I'll be watching that commercial brewery process ... I can always amend the name to Bent's BBQ and Brew House later...

2011 Community Roots CSA - Garden in the making.

2011-04-18T10:26:00.000-07:00

As I mentioned some time ago, I am extremely excited about being the new lead farmer at our local Community Roots CSA in Dalton Gardens. The following links explain both the history of our local CSA and what a CSA is all about : How Community Roots got started. , What is a CSA?

The Roots team, (or garden gals, as we call ourselves) is made up of Korrine Kreilkamp, Kara Carleton and myself. Korrine, with the help of the Kootenai Environmental Alliance, founded the Community Roots program back in 2007. Kara, is our Outreach and Education Coordinator and I am the farmer. For the past couple of months we (along with several volunteers) have been busy behind the scenes preparing the garden, building and repairing fences, starting seeds and brainstorming new ideas for the 2011 garden season. We were lucky enough to share some growing space with Shared Harvest at the Jewitt greenhouse this season. The Root's seedlings grown in the greenhouse will be available for sale at the Kootenai County Farmer's Market sometime in May. I will keep you posted on those dates.

Follow this link for more pics and info on sowing seeds at the Jewitt greenhouse from the Kootenai Environmental Alliance blog: Seed starting at the Jewitt greenhouse

Garden clean up day!

Flying the coop! We are sad that there won't be chickens at the CSA this year (however, they may be back next year) but there will be...drum roll please......

Bees!!!

Thanks to our local honeybee expert, Evert Wilson, who will be placing and maintaining our hive at the CSA.

Before and After

2011-04-11T08:37:00.000-07:00

It's amazing that in just a couple of weeks the tiny seedlings grew so much. Here's a few before and after pics.

Tomatoes

Peppers

Broccoli

And the greenhouse

Sweet Seedlings.

2011-03-29T09:06:00.000-07:00

As we head into April I decided I should probably take a seedling inventory and decide what other seeds need to be sown. So far, this is what we have and it doesn't include seeds sown and not yet germinated...that's another post : )

Greenhouse:

87 Gypsy Broccoli
75 Blue Wind Broccolli
75 Marathon Broccoli
36 Orange Bell
25 Apple Peppers
25 Sweet Chocolate Bell
19 Orange Sun Bell
14 Karma peppers
33 Cayenne peppers
10 Jalapeno peppers
40 pepperoncini peppers
51 Early Girl tomatoes
48 Cherokee Purple tomatoes
40 Nyagous tomatoes
53 Trophy tomatoes
10 Persimmon tomatoes
18 Granadero
19 Lavender
19 Parsley
51 Nasturtium
18 Oregano
18 Thyme
24 Purple Bell

Grow room:

30 Grape Riesentribe tomatoes
30 Sungold tomatoes
42 Early Girl tomatoes
24 Beefsteak
30 Red Siberian tomatoes
102 Amish Paste tomatoes
24 Sweet 100 Cherry tomatoes
72 Sweet Pea Currant tomatoes
210 combination of red and green cabbage
144 Snowball Self Blanching Cauliflower
72 Belstar Broccoli
60 Waltham Broccoli
48 Jalapeno peppers
24 Georgia Flame peppers
15 Quadrato peppers
37 Thai hot peppers
30 Ancho
42 Serrano
20 Apple Sweet peppers
36 Habanero peppers
36 Lemon hot peppers
50 Pandora Striped Rose Eggplant
80 some cilantro
Lemon Balm
Catnip
Thyme
Sweet green and red basil
Miniature green basil
Marjoram
Borage
Sage
Oregano
Parsley

What's growing on?

2011-03-10T10:35:00.000-08:00

Here's a few pics from The Beer Garden grow room. The basil, thyme and oregano are growing well in the beer mugs. We have harvested them many times since starting the seed back in December. The celery (in the last pic near the back) takes the longest to grow. It's recommended that you start celery seed indoors 12 weeks before your last frost date. I started these in February again and they seem to be growing slow but steady. The Nasturtiums are growing like weeds. I had to transplant them after just a couple of weeks. Last week we sowed 511 pepper seeds and countless other herbs that I can't even remember at the moment. Now we are on to the tomatoes. In all, there will be 600+ tomato plants if I can find room for them all in the greenhouse. My goal is to get most of the plants moved into the greenhouse by March 20th. Last year we started up on March 4th but the propane proved to be too expensive when the temps dropped for several weeks. Having the grow room with more lights this year should really help increase production though. If you've been following the blog, you know we definitely need increased production this year. Now, let's just pray for nice warm weather.

Growing and Snowing.

2011-02-27T17:29:00.000-08:00

Two weeks ago I took the pups on a walk at Black Bay Park. It was a beautiful sunshiny day and spring was definitely in the air. I was thinking wow, Punxsutawney Phil finally got it right! An early spring was sure to arrive. I even spotted a few blooming buttercups which only reinforced my notion. However, it turns out Phil couldn't have been more wrong. Yep, Old Man Winter made another appearance this past week and if the snow alone wasn't bad enough the temperatures fell down to the single digits. Mother nature is definitely messing with my emotions lately. So, to survive the whole snow ordeal I bought another grow light and started some more seed. (Take that Old Man Winter) The lights are actually a great investment since I will be starting most of the seed indoors and we're trying to hold off on firing up the greenhouse for as long as possible.

Last week I started onion and celery seed and this week I'm starting borage, nasturtiums, and peppers. The second seeding of thyme and echinacea recently sprouted and the basil, thyme, marjoram, cilantro, oregano and sage (started in December) have been harvested at least 6 times now. Today I repotted the lavender and celery and next I will repot the rest of the herbs to make room for more seed trays. This may require more grow lights : ) So, while spring may not exactly be in "the air" at the moment it's definitely spring-like in my grow room.

Happy growing!

"No winter lasts forever. No spring skips its turn. April is a promise that May is bound to keep. And we know it."...Hal Borland

The Wish List

2011-02-13T20:47:00.000-08:00

The word February is born from the Latin word Februarius meaning to purify. Along those lines, February is also a great time to take inventory and purge the clutter. As you can see from the picture, that is exactly what occurred on Saturday at the Roots CSA (where I will soon work at my dream job) in Dalton Gardens. To learn more about Roots CSA Click Here A few of us garden gals got together to tidy up the sheds and make a list of items that we could really use for the 2011 growing season. Click Here to view the list. A few things to add to that list are a rototiller, small garden tools, folding tables and organic seed potatoes. Keep in mind the tools don't necessarily need to be new they just need to be in good working order. Of course, money donations are also welcome and appreciated.

My dream job.

2011-01-25T17:04:00.000-08:00

Anyone who knows me can imagine my excitement when I heard that our local Community Supported Agriculture was hiring for a Lead Farmer Click here to read about the CSA Yes, I totally freaked!!!....I had to get this job. After all this job description was written for me. Of course, there was that little voice in my head saying "You're crazy....you haven't worked on a CSA before... you'll never get the job." Regardless, I submitted my resume and I interviewed for the position. Then, after waiting for what seemed like forever I finally received the phone call. I almost laughed when I was told that the job was mine if I still wanted it...This is my dream job...Of course I want it!!! : )

I've always said if I could garden for a living I'd do it in a heartbeat. (Or part of a living anyway). Most people think I'm strange but I love digging in the dirt. I love planting seeds, nurturing plants and watching them grow. I especially like sharing the garden bounty with friends, family and the local food bank. And I don't even mind weeding. Need I say more? This job seems like a natural fit for me. And, the fact that the community garden is located in the neighborhood where I grew up makes it even more exciting.

So, you might be wondering what exactly a CSA farmer does. Here are just a few things I will be responsible for at the CSA: crop selection/seed selection, planting, helping with the weekly harvesting, managing the irrigation, equipment and tool maintenance, chicken tending, arranging volunteer labor, and community education. I'm sure there are many more duties that will arise but you get the idea.

I must add that I am both very honored but very nervous to take over where former lead farmer, Caleb Goss left off. Let's just say I have a lot to live up to. There are approximately 30 shareholders that depend on receiving a box of 7-9 different vegetables each week for about 16 weeks. This means timing and succession planting are essential to making sure everyone gets a nice variety of vegetables and herbs....no pressure...lol!

I feel extremely blessed to be given the opportunity to do what I love and I look forward to working with some pretty awesome people.

There can be no other occupation like gardening in which, if you were to creep up behind someone at their work, you would find them smiling. ~Mirabel Osler

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Spring Fever!!!

2011-01-17T11:27:00.000-08:00

I have a bad case of Spring Fever. I know, it's only January, but I'm not the type of gardener that lets the weather keep me from growing. I simply can't sit around and wait for Spring to get here. (62 days, 5 hours, and 48 minutes...not that I'm counting) Besides, I have a new grow room. Yep, I upgraded my growing space from the closet to a spare bedroom. My son, Dustin, recently moved out on his own so I decided to turn his bedroom into my plant starting room. It's working great but I will need to add a couple more grow lights soon.

In December I started "a few" herbs and a couple cucumber plants to see how well they would grow indoors and so far, so good. I started Cucino cukes, sweet basil, red basil, cilantro, marjoram, thyme, oregano, lavender, and sage. I usually grow basil and parsley in my windowsill all year round but I wanted to see how much I could actually harvest for drying. I harvested the basil, cilantro, and marjoram several times now but the oregano and thyme are slower growing. That's probably a good thing....sometimes I go overboard when it comes to seeding and then I have a zillion plants to harvest all at once. : )

I hope to gain a couple weeks of grow time with the new set up. The plan is to successively start my herbs, flowers and fussy vegetable plants in the grow room. Some plants are started in February and some in March. Then, near the end of March, I will fire up the greenhouse and have the cold frames ready. By this time, many of the cole crops will be ready for the cold frames or the garden. The peppers, tomatoes, eggplant and herbs most likely will stay in the greenhouse until the end of May. We will see if the weather cooperates though : )

Happy Growing!!!

Keith's Bent Stick Lager will be ready for New Years Eve

2010-12-28T08:53:00.000-08:00

As you know by the earlier post, we have been playing with the carboys again and we whipped out a nice batch of hefeweizen a couple of weeks ago, which was spectacular (my reserve was gone on Christmas Eve). But, we also brewed a European Lager that is intended to be as close to Stella Artois as possible.

Stella was originally brewed in the 1300s as a holiday beer, so it only seemed fitting to bring some to life in Keith's garage this holiday season... plus Keith has one of those beverage coolers that we used to cold ferment the beer, which is the true way to brew an authentic Lager. It was my first time using this method, and so far I am pleased with the results -- with one minor exception.

Look at my last post with the picture of the carboys sitting in the beverage cooler... can you see anything wrong with that picture? Of course, I can see my mistake now, but I missed it completely at the beginning of the fermentation process.

Anyone who understands brewing and proper storage of beer should be able to spot the mistake too. Thankfully, it did not damage the brew too much and there are some people who actually like the added effect that was created.

Anyway, I can't wait to try the finished product, which should be close to done by News Years Eve... we bottled a few in Grolch style bottles to help speed the carbonation... I'll post the pictures of the finished product once it's complete...

Oh, and the name? It is derived from our pseudonyms on the Spokesman Review's Huckleberries Online Blog: Keithincda, Bent, and Stickman...

Here are some pictures on our bottling party yesterday. In the picture above, Stickman is doing the honors of filling the bottles this time.

Let the siphoning begin...

Capping the 22-ouncers after Stickman filled them up...

Those growler bottles sure hold the beer nicely...

Beering up the Garden a bit...

2010-11-25T11:37:00.000-08:00

Sunny tells me its time to balance the blog with a little beer talk now that we are in a dormant season in the garden, so Keith (in Cd'A), Stickman and I got busy with a 20-gallon batch last weekend. We went with a 10-gallon batch of European Lager that we are bottom fermenting in a fridge in Keith's garage for a true Lager. This beer will take longer because it ferments in the 55-58 degree range, where most beers ferment at 65-70 degree range. I think this will be our closest attempt yet a faux Stella Artois...

The other 10-gallon batch is a German Hefeweizen. This beer should be bottled next weekend, and we should be ready for tasting in Stickman's driveway on Sunday, Dec. 12th. The Lager wont be bottled until at least Christmas weekend. If it is ready by then, we should be able to crack open a few bottles of that beer on New Year's Eve! We'll keep our fingers crossed on that one...

(I'll put up some better pictures once Daisy Girl sends them to me)

And the winners are.....

2010-11-16T19:18:00.000-08:00

Here are the results of the great pumpkin weigh-in:

In the family category, we have son-in-law Dan as our 1st place winner. His guess was 162 lbs. Dan, you win $25.00!

Our 2nd place winner (and our youngest winner) is my great nephew Bradyn. His guess was 172 lbs. Bradyn, you win $10.00!

In our friend's category we have our 1st place winner as the lovely Kerri Thoreson. Her guess was 152 lbs. Kerri, you win the satisfaction of being the closest guess in our friend category : )

Our 2nd place friend winner was Keith Allen. His guess was 167 lbs. Keith, you win the satisfaction of being the 2nd closest guess in our friend's category : )

And the real weight is............. 158 lbs!

Not as big as we had hoped but we doubled in size from last year's pumpkin. I'd say that's not too shabby for our 2nd year of growing them. Next year we will shoot for 200 plus.

Thanks to everyone for participating!!!!

The Weigh In

2010-11-08T16:44:00.000-08:00

It has become a fun family tradition to grow giant pumpkins. At the end of the season we have this little contest called "guess the pumpkin weight". The person closest to the actual weight wins a monetary prize. This year the prize is $25.00 for the closest guess or $30.00 if you are spot on the weight. Last year's largest pumpkin weighed in at 76 lbs which we thought was a decent weight considering we are new at giant pumpkin growing. http://bentsbeergarden.blogspot.com/2009/10/jack-2-before-after.html

I guess we learned some stuff about growing them because this year the pumpkin looks to be at least double the size from last year. For the sake of fairness though, my dad is keeping the pumpkin weight a secret. In order to accurately weigh it he had to drive it through the local landfill scales. This year he placed a "floor" of 150 lbs on the pumpkin because so many guesses were way under the actual weight.

Yes, this is a family game but I consider my blogging friends to be family too....(you just don't get the prize money lol! ) so what's your guess??? Results to be posted on November 12th.

Mushrooms, Remodels, and a little R & R.

2010-10-17T19:28:00.000-07:00

The past several months have been entirely crazy but fun filled. What have we been up to? Well, besides canning our garden vegetables, gardening, working at the farmer's market, participating in barbecue competitions, and catering parties we have also been learning how to grow mushrooms, remodeling our home, and we recently got to go camping too. I hope to get back to the blog world now that things are settling down. Here are a few shots of our recent happenings.

Sonoma Brown Oyster mushroom log.

Ready to harvest!

Son Dustin and my dad installing the new windows!

Our camping destination overlooking beautiful Pend Oreille Lake.

Update on a successful BBQ season

2010-09-28T15:41:00.000-07:00

Overall our BBQ team had a great season considering that we only planned to compete once this year. Starting in May, we began winning right out of the gate. Our team split into teams of two to cook at a judging school, in which the cooks engaged in an amateur competition to supply the meat to train the judges. My team took Grand Champion and my Dad's team took 3rd out 11 teams that participated.

The next competition we cooked was a rib cook off at Tim's Meats also in May. Our team actually split up to compete against each other. I took fourth overall out of 17 teams and Steve and Jana on our team won first place in Spare Ribs.

Then it is was off to McKinley Springs Winery BBQ Showdown in Prosser Washington in June... AGAIN, our team split up with my brother Bobby and I cooking on our own team to make the event a national qualifier. We scored 4th on ribs out of 25 teams and 9th overall.

Later in June, our team finally cooked together -- in the only competition we planned to cook in -- at the Coeur d'Alene Fairgrounds on Father's Day! We scored 5th in chicken and 13th overall out of 29 teams.

Then we had an opportunity to cook with "BBQ Rock star" Harry Soo in Boise, so we packed up and went to Boise in July to cook with some real pros... We wound up taking 6th in Ribs and 13th overall out 27 teams... There were at least 10 of the nations top performing pitmasters at this event. We were jazzed...

We did a couple of amateur events and fun cooks where we always won something, and then finally wrapped up the season cooking at the Tree Top Apple Festival in Yakima earlier this month. We placed 10th in ribs and tied for 10th in chicken out of 70 teams... it was a massive event. We place 24th out of 70 overall. Here are some pictures of the food we turned in at that event:

Smoked Apple Fritters (done on my Weber):

Smoked Pork Tenderloin and Apple Skewers:

Smoked Chicken:

Spare Ribs:

BBQ Pork:

Smoked Brisket (partial box):

No applesauce this year.

2010-09-22T15:13:00.000-07:00

A couple days ago I headed to the family garden in great anticipation. I had been patiently waiting to harvest the McIntosh apples from our 100 year old apple tree for quite some time. Just a few days prior to this, I checked on their ripeness and was thrilled to see they were nearly ready to pick.

When I arrived at the family garden, my dad waved me over and told me he had some bad news. He was getting ready to mow the pasture that morning and made his routine stop at the apple tree to make sure all of the fallen apples were picked up....only there weren't any on the ground. Finding that pretty unusual, he looked up in the tree only to find it empty...literally, there were no apples left. Yep, we were robbed.

At first I was angry...who would do this? I calmed down after a bit and realized (with the help of my family's positive outlook) that perhaps someone else needed those apples more than we did. There will be no homemade applesauce this year but I have much more to be thankful for.... my family.... and all the memories that we have. You see, the apple tree has stood the test of time just as our family's love for one another. And the tree keeps on giving just as our family does for one another. So all is well and I'm at peace with the fact that someone took our apples. After all, there is always next year : )

On a side note: I blogged about our apple tree a while back and talked about its significance to our family : http://bentsbeergarden.blogspot.com/2010/02/family-tree.html. In the story, I mentioned that my mom used to make applesauce each season. Actually, I failed to mention that my dad also helped my mom with this task. In fact, they would spend countless hours in the kitchen making enough applesauce to last our family all winter long. I loved the cooked apple aroma emanating from our home on a crisp fall day. But I especially loved watching my parents work together....they always had a way to make work seem like fun.

Patience...

2010-09-14T16:16:00.000-07:00

An heirloom tomato gone crazy

Cherokee Purples

Cherry Tomatoes

I know, I sound like a broken record but....I'm still blaming the cool weather we had in June for this year's substandard garden performance. The cool weather crops such as broccoli, lettuce, spinach and onions were a huge success. But, for the most part, the warm weather crops like the tomatoes, melons, and eggplant are just now starting to show signs of ripening. This is a good month behind what we normally experience. Granted, we have plucked many cherry tomatoes thus far, but it's really the large Beefsteaks and the Cherokee Purples we want the most and they are taking their sweet time. Optimist and patient person that I am, (ha, ha) I am keeping the faith that even the big guys will ripen before the first frost.

The Rossa Bianca eggplant is slowly but surely growing. This is my first year growing eggplant so it will be a miracle if they actually make it. lol...Regardless, they are quite pretty.

The Tango celery is a success again this year. In fact, this is the second year we won a blue ribbon at the fair with it. It's amazing how much more flavorful it is compared to store bought celery. I froze some yesterday so that we will have plenty for making soup this winter.

Although, the purple bells are smaller than normal this year at least they are ripening. And...

the purple tomatillos aren't quite purple yet.

The good news is that the temperatures should stay in the 70's range for a few days and that should help things along....Who said patience is a virtue? I say hurry up and ripen tomatoes...I want to preserve some tomato sauce.

Fall is in the air.

2010-08-29T09:29:00.000-07:00

We still have a fair amount of summer left but you know Fall is approaching in North Idaho when the pumpkins are maturing and the corn crop is ready to harvest.

This is a pic of one of our Atlantic Giant pumpkins. According to giant pumpkin grower, Howard Dill, the trick to getting a big pumpkin is to only allow 1 or 2 blossoms to mature into fruit and to make sure the fruit is "set" by early July. This means you have to decide early on which pumpkins look the healthiest and most promising as far as size and shape goes. Then, you will have to continually cut any new blossoms off. Another thing to consider when growing the giant pumpkins is fertilizer. Early in the season, it's best to provide the plants with a water soluble fertilizer that stresses phosphorus such as a 15-30-15 mix. Once the fruit sets you should switch to a balanced blend such as 20-20-20. Then in late July switch to a fertilizer that is heavy in potassium like a 15-11-29. Some competitive growers fertilize at a rate of 1 to 2 lbs per week from the time the fruit sets to the end of the growing season. We didn't go that crazy with the fertilizer this year but perhaps next year we will be a little more aggressive with it. Trimming vines is also a crucial to growing these giants. You should start pruning early in the season. Essentially, what you want to prune are the main vines once they reach 10 to 12 feet beyond the set fruit. The side shoots off the main vines should not be longer that 8 feet and apparently burying the cut ends of the vines helps to prevent water loss.

Last year we had a couple decent size pumpkins but we hope to surpass that this year....we still have a month to go, so it looks promising.

On another pumpkin note, we grew about 10 sugar pie pumpkin plants this year. They are just starting to turn orange and I can't wait to try cooking with them. Last year we adapted our own pumpkin pie recipe from this site's recipe and it was fabulous:

http://www.pickyourown.org/pumpkinpie.php

I want to try new pumpkin recipes so I would love to hear from anyone that has a great recipe to share.

The market: what's hot and what's not.

2010-08-17T16:26:00.000-07:00

Here's a few pictures of some of our veggies we sold last week at the market. This year has been a learning experience. I have learned that some items just don't sell as well as others. For instance, it seems that the market is saturated with carrots and zucchini...go figure on the zucchini : )

However, other items seem to be in great demand right now...If I had enough ripe tomatoes to sell I'm sure I would sell out each weekend. The tomatoes are a slow go this year as June's weather took its toll on the heat loving plants.

Another hot item at the market are the Walla Walla Sweet Onions. We have sold out of them nearly every weekend. As such, next year I will definitely have to increase our onion crop.

It seems that many market shoppers like a wide variety of produce that you just can't find in the grocery store. Take baby corn, for instance. I wasn't sure how it would sell but it did quite well. I often use it in stir fry dishes and suggested that to my customers. I know they will be pleasantly surprised by the flavor.

The purple tomatillos are starting to fill out their husks. They should be ready for market by next week or the week after. I can't wait to try them in salsa.

Our purple podded pole beans aren't doing as well as hoped... I'm going to give them some organic fertilizer and hope they start producing more beans soon. The bush beans are producing a ton so I don't know why the pole beans are being so slow this year.
The Hill County Red Okra have the most beautiful flowers on them. I only know a handful of people who even like okra so hopefully it will sell. If not, then I will get busy pickling it. (Goes well with a Bloody Mary.)

The mammoth dill plants are at least 5 ft tall now and covered in ladybugs....a good sign. : ) I won't sell much of it at the market since we usually make lots of pickles for ourselves.

The celery is not doing as well as last year's crop. This year we grew it in rows rather than raised beds which made it more susceptible to the cool weather and bugs. Oh well, you live and learn. : )

Cucumbers have been a good seller ....I grow mostly Straight Eights but also grew a few pickling cukes, Izniks, Cucinos and Lemon Cukes.
People around here love the Lemon Cukes so next year we will grow lots more.

I am glad that I had the opportunity to participate in the market this year. It's been loads of fun and I can't wait to do it next year too....I have learned a ton on what sells and what doesn't. I have learned that presentation (thank you Daisy Girl for your artful displays) and great customer service will draw people in and bring them back. I have learned that gardening is definitely my passion and my calling in life. I want nothing more than to provide the community with healthful, tasty food that contains no chemicals. And doing it for a living would be a pretty sweet gig. Peace : )

Gardens and barbecues

2010-08-03T14:45:00.000-07:00

I can't believe it's August already. It has been a whirlwind of activities at our house this summer; the farmer's market, barbecue competitions, a new grand baby, and of course all the normal summertime activities. It appears that things won't be slowing down anytime soon either. I'm not complaining but I do wish there were more hours in a day. Lol!

The garden is really starting to produce some veggies just in time for round two of the farmer's market.The first batch of bush beans have been harvested twice now and the second crop of beans are about ready to pick.

We have harvested lots of zucchini and several peppers and tomatoes. I am hoping the Red Okra and the Rosa Bianca eggplant start producing soon. The flowers on the Red Okra are sure pretty.

I'm pleased with the growth of the Walla Walla Sweet Onions. I harvested some to sell at the market and they were a huge hit. The cukes are the next vegetables to explode in production...they are already taking over the garden.

In other news...Bent and team attended the 2010 Idaho Barbecue Championship at the Boise Music Festival in July. They placed 5th on ribs and 13th over all. Bent let famous pitmaster Harry Soo, borrow some of his equipment for this competition. In return, Harry gave the team grilling tips and he engraved the two Weber Bullets they lent him. Needless to say, the team was thrilled to be cooking side by side such a famous competitor. I'm told that lending your barbecue to Harry is like letting Eddy Van Halen borrow your guitar to play at a concert. Lol!

Hopefully the last picture doesn't offend anyone....this was a whole pig roast that Bent and host cooked for practice. (Of course the boys had to put green olives in the place of the poor piggies eyes).....The practice cook was a huge hit and everyone ate a ton....It was soooo good!

The weedy and the wonderful

2010-07-19T16:47:00.000-07:00

Weeds don't need planting in well-drained soil; they don't ask for
fertilizer or bits of rag to scare away the birds. They come without
invitation; and they don't take the hint when you want them to go.
Weeds are nobody's guests: More like squatters.
- Norman Nicholson.

Anyone who has a garden knows all too well that plucking weeds from it are a never ending chore....Thus, the saying "growing like a weed" : ) Many people think I'm crazy, but for the most part I really don't mind weeding. I use this time to meditate, de-stress and even exercise. No, I'm not out in the corn patch doing sit ups or jumping jacks. Rather, I am hacking down weeds with my trusty hoe or digging them out with my pitchfork...Now to most non gardeners, gardening may not seem like much of a workout but you really use a lot of muscles you never knew you had... Just think of all the crouching down and constant bending you have to do....I call them garden crunches Lol! I think a certain someone ( Our Engineered Garden ) should create a hoe that calculates calories burned while working in the garden. : )

The corn rows desperately needed weeding so I took a couple hours on Sunday and worked on it. It's always a good feeling when the garden is nice and weed-free. It's like the feeling you get right after you cut the lawn ....or maybe that's just me...... : )

I hadn't looked at the garden up close for several days so I was surprised when I discovered baby zucchini and cukes finally coming on.

We have harvested several Totem Patio tomatoes this season but I'm rather disappointed in the flavor. They are far less sweet than other varieties we grow. We only have two plants so it's not a big deal.

The final surprise has nothing to do with the garden : ) Grandson Silas was born on July 17th at 10:53 pm....we think he is absolutely wonderful! And personally, I think he will make a great gardening buddy some day. : )

Harvest time!

2010-07-15T11:41:00.000-07:00

Last weekend we finished harvesting the rest of the broccoli. I'm happy to say we had a very successful crop this year...I didn't find one worm in the entire crop and very few aphids which is unusual (I don't use pesticides) and the size of the heads were larger than usual. Needless to say, it was in huge demand at the farmer's market. We happily sold out each day after just a couple of hours. After the harvest was done, we got busy planting our fall crop. We didn't do this last year but I really want to start to experiment more with growing all year round. These particular raised beds are equipped with hoop covers just in case we get an early fall freeze. I decided to wait on harvesting the Romanesco....it doesn't appear to be ready and some of it sort of bolted. This is my first time growing it so I could be wrong...anyone out there know about this?

The tomatoes are also starting to ripen. Our cold and wet June weather kind of slowed things down for many crops but we have harvested 4 tomatoes so far and several are turning orange.

So far, the only peppers showing real progress are the Karma variety....I guess they bring good Karma to the garden lol! I have some bell peppers that may catch up to them if the weather stays nice and warm.

The mammoth dill is growing like crazy. I lost a bunch of dill plants last year due to an insect problem but so far so good this year. In fact, I have so many volunteer dill plants I am struggling to find space for all of them. We make a lot of pickles so it's a good problem to have I guess : )

The strawberries are also enjoying the sunny weather....we have both Everbearing and June bearing varieties growing in the raised bed. We have recently had some problems with sugar ants getting in to them and I would welcome any natural solutions to getting rid of them.

All in all, I can't complain....we have had a pretty good July harvest and we still have a couple months of summer to go : ) I can't wait for the corn harvest!

Anticipation!

2010-07-08T16:45:00.000-07:00

The anticipation of waiting for the garden to get growing is killing me....I admit that I have not been a patient gardener this season...the cool temps and the constant rain has surely slowed down production....but a few plants are making a marked improvement since last week....especially the cauliflower.

We planted two different varieties of cauliflower this year. One is called Amazing and I have had great luck with it in the past. The other is called Buttercream. Although a slow start, they now both appear to be doing quite well and starting to form heads. Last year we blanched and froze a bunch of it and it was soooo nice to have in stir fry, soups and stews during the cold winter months.

The broccoli heads were all harvested from the family garden last week (luckily before they set flowers)....now we have some flowerets shooting up and after those are done then we will start planting a fall crop of broccoli. I have had wonderful results with a variety called Pac Man although this year we added the DeCicco variety as well. The Pac Man definitely won out on the nice compact heads but both are great in flavor.
The zucchini are now beginning to flower and the cabbage should be ready soon. We planted both green and red cabbage called Salad Delight...I'm looking forward to making coleslaw!

The Walla Walla Sweet Onions are tempting me to pluck one....they look so good : ) In my home garden I also have Texas Candy Sweet reds and yellows growing. Last year they grew the size of saucers....and they were most excellent in flavor.

In other gardening news, many of my flowers are in full bloom...one of my favorites is Clematis....I have several varieties....but probably couldn't tell you what they are Lol! I am much more of a vegetable grower than a flower gardener....nevertheless, I love the bright colors. I'm just so excited that summer is finally here in North Idaho....today we reached 95F...The plants are loving it....and I am too! YAY for summer!

Knee highs and other garden news

2010-07-02T16:09:00.000-07:00

Many gardeners that live in our region know this old saying all too well: "knee high by the 4th of July." For those that don't know however, this is the height that your corn plants should be at in order to mature by the end of our short growing season... I think we made it thanks to sis-in-law, Melanie who doused our plants with fish fertilizer a couple weeks ago. I have said it before but I blame June's cool temps for slowing down our plant growth in the garden....The weather forecast says it's supposed to be like summer now... yay!

The strawberries are slowly starting to ripen....the trick is keeping the sugar ants and the crows away from them....If anyone has some tips on keeping the sugar ants away (no pesticides), I would love to hear from you. Last year they got into some of our potatoes too... : (

The Hill Country Red Okra and the Tango celery are looking to be a success...

Potatoes are going wild and the tomatoes are starting to take off now too....we are installing 7 foot posts with heavy gauge electric fence wire to hold them up this year....last year it was quite a jungle in the tomato patch....which makes harvesting a bit difficult.

The zucchini are coming right along as well...the cold didn't seem to slow them down too much.....

Happy gardening and happy 4th of July everyone!!!

Garden happenings

2010-06-28T20:12:00.000-07:00

In order to live off a garden, you practically have to live in it. ~ Frank Mckinney Hubbard......

This quote is very true and I'm sure it is true of all things we are very passionate about. With gardening you can't just start some seed and forget about it....you must attend to it daily....and such is the reason I haven't had much time to blog lately... I have been living "in it" for sure....In addition, I started a new job and we are working Saturdays at the farmer's market.....then there's all those summer time chores....I finally found a few minutes to share some pictures of what's going on in the garden so far...here goes...

The Nasturtiums are needing to get in the ground...after all they ARE already blooming...sheesh...where does my time go? This gardening season has been a rough one with all the rain and cool temps so hopefully everything catches up soon.

With the help of Bent I was able to get about 80 pepper plants in the ground on Sunday...good thing because as you can see they were putting on peppers in the greenhouse. We have several varieties: Ancho, Jalapeno, Serrano, King of the North, Orange Sun, Orange and Purple Bells, Tollis Sweet Italian, Red Habanero, Red Cayenne and Bulgarian Carrot Peppers.

I am very pleased with the Hill Country Red Okra (from Seed Savers Exchange)...it is doing quite well and putting on little baby okras : ) Okra is rather difficult to grow in our region because of the short season...but it appears to be right on track.

This is my first try on growing Broccoli Romanesco...it looks interesting but it is quite a bit behind the regular varieties. If anyone has tried the Romanesco, I would love to hear if it tastes like regular broccoli.

The purple tomatillos are starting to produce little babies as well. These are also new to my garden. I grew one regular tomatillo plant 2 years ago and we had them coming out our ears. This year I have some great tomatillo salsa recipes to try them in : )

The Totem Patio Tomatoes are doing well. I started these under grow lights in late February...they just need to ripen now....(yummy)

Last but not least....the spuds...(we are from Idaho ya know?) Let's hear for the potatoes!!! ....they are doing very well despite the nasty freeze they endured...we have Red Norland, Russett, Yukon Gold and Red Lasoda.

Vitamin D please!!!

2010-06-21T18:22:00.001-07:00

I have not had time to post lately as I just started a new job and I'm still doing the farmer's market as well. Quite frankly, I'm just too tired to write....so today is a mostly picture blog kind of day...plus the rainy weather has me a bit down in the dumps...I'm a summer kind of person and today is SUPPOSED to be the first day of summer. These shots were taken about a week ago. We have had pretty much nonstop rain and cooler temps for way too long...As a result, things are moving slow in the garden and some of the veggies are kind of yellowing and waterlogged....I held off transplanting my peppers and other sensitive plants and I'm glad I did!

This quote may ring true once in a while : "Rain in the spring is as precious as oil."...Chinese Proverb. Ummm....but I say we all pray for sun... I need some Vitamin D please!

The little things

2010-06-16T09:22:00.000-07:00

In honor of Father's Day 2010, I want to let my dad know just how much he means to me. I usually buy the typical Father's Day card and write a little something in it but I have come to realize with the recent passing of my mother that sometimes you never get around to truly telling your loved ones how important they are in your life until the opportunity is gone.

So Dad, here's to all the little things....the little things you have taught me and shared with me on this path called life...they are really the big things...the things that mean so much to me:

Thank you for the family hikes, the family bike rides, and the family picnics at Farragut State Park...and thank you for taking time from your busy schedule to take us kids fishing at Hayden Lake (even though it was me you were usually fishing out of the lake).

Thanks for teaching me how to mow the lawn, how to pick potato bugs, wash the car and clean the pasture. Thanks for teaching me that girls can do anything boys can do. Thanks for teaching me that it's okay to dig in the dirt. Thanks for teaching me how to be tough...physically and emotionally. Thanks for helping me build the kite for my 6th grade kite building competition....we made it from one of the large black plastic garbage bags...It flew like no other kite...I won that competition.

Thanks for our road trips to Canada. Thanks for driving all the way back to Kelowna's Flintstones theme park because Wendy, my best friend, left her coin purse...you knew it had sentimental value.... .and thanks for listening to the same 8 track recording of the band Queen the entire way there and back. Thanks for putting up the Boy Scout tents in the back yard and letting my friends and I sleep out during the summer.

Thanks for not getting angry at me when I dented the Buick...(it was really Jeff that did that by the way) Thank you for letting me date Jeff even though he had long hair and his car burned oil...ha ha.....Thank you for walking me down the aisle, for loving my children, and spending quality time with them. Thank you for always setting the example and thank you for not judging others for making mistakes...Thanks for being there for me when life was rough. Thanks for helping us kids out with major home improvement projects both physically and financially.

Thank you for loving my mother...for loving my brothers, and for teaching us to be honest, respectful and hardworking. Thank you for the wonderful home you provided us...thanks for all the cats you let me adopt......thanks for the incredible amount of patience you taught me.

Thanks for letting me build stuff out of your wood scraps when I was little...and years later doing the same for my kids. Thanks for being a hero in my eyes: I was pretty young but I remember when you climbed that fire escape to alert an elderly couple that their apartment was on fire. I thought that was courageous.

Thank you for being a wonderful son, husband, father and grandfather, and thank you for keeping our family traditions alive. Thank you for making the family garden a reality....for buying us a greenhouse and building raised beds...thank you for protecting the garden when Jack Frost threatened to destroy it. Thank you for monitoring the propane in the greenhouse.

Thank you for the way you would joke around with mom and the kids and make them laugh so hard that tears would pour down their cheeks...Thanks for being amused when the kids would play with the toy sunflower that sang the tune "You are my Sunshine" for the umpteenth time. Thank you for cooking breakfast for mom and doing the dishes after you retired...she really liked that. Thanks for staying with me at the hospital when I was sick.

Thanks for being supportive of your family...Thanks for teaching me that life is so much more than fancy cars, exotic travels and expensive homes. Thanks for teaching me to do what's right.... and most of all... thanks for teaching me "Family First"...no matter what. I love you with all my heart for all these "little things".... Happy Father's Day dad...You are the best.

Temptations....

2010-06-11T10:34:00.000-07:00

Please don't hate me family....I couldn't resist the temptation....Yep, you guessed it....I ate the first ripe strawberry of the season...I feel so guilty... I must say it was very tasty....but not as tasty as the first snap pea was Lol! I will try to keep my hands off the broccoli....Short post today as I'm off to prepare for tomorrow's market : ) The weather is supposed to be mostly sunny and 80F so I hope to see you all at Mostly Sunny's booth # 29 !

Slowly but surely....

2010-06-07T20:25:00.000-07:00

The past couple of weeks have been a whirlwind of activities.....Between the farmer's market and Bent's barbecue competitions things have been kind of crazy. I feel like I'm way behind schedule with getting my plants in the ground....Last week my sister-in-law, Melanie, and I started to transfer the tomatoes from the greenhouse to the garden and I fully intended to have the rest of them in the ground by now....but that didn't happen...that was in part due to the huge amount of rain we have been getting....the ground has been way too soggy. Yesterday the sun finally made an appearance and I was determined to get at least half of the 128 tomato plants to their new home....it was close but no cigar.....too many other things to accomplish...now I know why farmer's wake up at sunrise lol! If the good weather holds then I should be able to finish today. Some tomato varieties we planted are Nyagous, Cherokee Purple, Chocolate Cherry, Razzleberry, Totem, Yellow Peacevine, Tangerine Red, Costoluto, Carmelita, Super Beefsteak, Persimmon, Amish Paste, Polish Linguisa, Super Sweet 100 and Komohana Grape.
I'm excited to try the Cherokee Purple and Komohana Grape...Thomas (A Growing Tradition) was nice enough to send me the seed. http://www.agrowingtradition.com/.

I am very happy with how our lettuce box is filling out. In the pic is a really pretty variety called Forellenschluss...my dad kept telling me he thought there was something wrong with it because it had spots....lol! Other favorites pictured below are Yugoslavian Red lettuce and Buttercrunch.

The broccoli and cabbage raised beds are exploding....most of them are producing heads now. This year we grew both the Pac Man and De Cicco varieties. I thought I went overboard on broccoli starts but we nearly sold out of them.

The potatoes got hit with some frost a couple weeks ago but you could never tell now....thank goodness : ) We planted Red Norlands, Russets, Lasoda, and Yukon Gold.

The Totem patio tomatoes are the first to set fruit. Now they just need larger containers. I will get right on that.....yeah sure... : )

The carrots are starting to come up as well...This year I tried the carrot seed toilet paper method and it seems to be working well....less thinning is always a good thing! Our carrot varieties include Ya Ya, Atomic Red, Red Dragon and Sugar Snacks.

Now I'm off to the garden to finish what I started....slowly but surely it will get done : )

A fun-filled gardening weekend with a touch of redneck.

2010-06-01T09:11:00.000-07:00

Our family spent Memorial Day weekend playing in the garden. Even the grandkids got in on some of the action...the pic is our grandson Liam. I initially gave him the job of watering vegetables in the hoop house... that is until I realized they were literally drowning....Lol! I quickly gave him the new job of watering the shrubs...hopefully you can't over water shrubs.....We accomplished quite a bit on Sunday before the torrential rains set in for the rest of the long weekend. We transplanted some of our 120 tomato plants and all of the cauliflower from the greenhouse to the garden. I'm still too nervous to put all the tomatoes out as we had frost a little over a week ago. The weather forecast looks like the lows will stay in the 40s so I'm probably being over cautious but one more week of waiting is probably worth it. In addition to planting, we weeded out one of the new beds and prepared it for the big planting day. To end our garden filled day we had a fine home cooked meal prepared by Bent. (Of course this was a bbq meal)....On the menu was grilled Copper River Salmon, potato salad and grilled sweet peppers stuffed with cream cheese and wrapped with bacon. On a bit of a redneck note....Bent does not typically cook on a gas grill....unfortunately that is all my dad owns so we would have to bring our own grill. Our dilemma was that all the family trucks were unavailable so we had no way to haul it. The pic is Bent's solution to that little problem...needless to say I wore dark sunglasses and ducked down below the dashboard so no one could identify me. (sorry the pic is from a camera phone so I couldn't get it to size up properly.)

I'm excited to see the garden take shape....the peas are starting to form, the lettuce is almost ready to harvest and the broccoli and cabbage are forming heads. We also found our first red strawberry this weekend....and in the bottom pic the purple podded pole beans have really started to take off...

Bean there, done that.

2010-05-24T11:27:00.001-07:00

I spent some time at the family garden yesterday and I noticed that the purple podded pole beans are finally making an appearance. This is the first year I have tried growing them so I'm excited to see what they look and taste like.

We had a freeze warning in effect for our area last week and I was pretty worried about both the beans and the 500 baby corn plants that recently sprouted. I kept waking up in the night checking the temperature...(I know....lots of good worrying does) and we did have a hard freeze but luckily my dad got the sprinklers turned on the crops right away and all of our plants survived! Sheesh...with all that work I would have been so very sad to start over....but such is the life of a gardener....especially in North Idaho where it actually snowed on the 4th of July once..... I have made the mistake of planting too early before and as a result we lost several plants...I remember it was one year in early June and we got a freak freeze....we lost all of our cucumbers...that was not a good day....luckily I always go overboard on growing plants because we had enough left in the greenhouse to make up for our losses.
I won't plant the more vulnerable crops until the first or second week in June even though they are fairly hardened up. The tomatoes, cukes, squash, and peppers are all safe and sound in the greenhouse for a couple more weeks...although it is getting to be a bit of a jungle in there. Lol!

I will leave you with a few pictures on how the garden and the plants are shaping up:

Growing's on.

2010-05-19T16:05:00.000-07:00

It has been a while since I showed the garden's progress... so today I decided to snap some pics.....I was pleasantly surprised when I checked on the broccoli plants today...some are beginning to form heads. Granted, we only have a few plants that are mature but still it's exciting to see the garden begin to shape up. This year we grew two varieties of broccoli; Broccoli De Cicco and Pac Man. Last year we grew our broccoli in raised beds at the family garden and it did very well. However, in my home garden it did not do as well...we had lots of aphids on the heads and it wasn't pretty....(note that to remove aphids from your broccoli and cauliflower heads you can soak them in cold salt water overnight and then rinse well.) Despite our aphid issue, I'm trying to grow them in rows again this year but I will inter plant marigolds in between them to see if that helps at all.

The Walla Walla Sweet onions don't look like much now but wait for a couple months and they will be as big as saucers....last year we only grew Texas Sweet Onions and they were a huge success...I planted several varieties of them at my home garden.

The tomatoes are growing like mad...I may have to transplant them again to larger pots if they don't sell soon. I have several varieties. To name a few...I have Cherokee Purple, Matina, Amish Paste, Costoluto, Nyaguos, Komohana Grape, Yellow Peacevine, Persimmon, Beefsteak, Sweet 100, Black Cherry, Razzleberry and many more. I love tomatoes!

The Salad Delight Cabbage is also doing very well....I can't wait to make homemade coleslaw....especially accompanied with Bent's pulled pork sandwiches...yum!

The cauliflower is looking good as well...this year we grew two varieties: Amazing and Butter cream. We had great success with cauliflower last year so hopefully the same holds true this year.

Don't go through life, grow through life.
- Eric Butterworth

Farmer's market - fun in the sun!

2010-05-17T10:58:00.001-07:00

Our second Saturday at the Kootenai County Farmer's Market was a success....and the sun was actually shining this time. As you can see, I had lots of help...pictured at Mostly Sunny's booth # 29 (from left to right) is my oldest daughter Brittany, my granddaughter Abby, and of course daughter Meghan...aka Daisy Girl. I was very lucky to have all the help... we got so busy that daughter Brittany had to make a trip back to the greenhouse for more plants. Seems like everyone was looking for basil and while I had lots of it at the start of the market we sold out in less than an hour (note to self for next year; grow hundreds of basil plants). Other popular items were celery, Cherokee Purple tomatoes, (thanks Thomas!) broccoli, peppers, cucumbers, cabbage, and cauliflower. Lots of customers commented on the fact that our plants were very healthy and they liked our environmentally friendly pots.

Daughter Brittany is in the process of making me a sign for our Mostly Sunny business. The pic to the left is what it looks like so far....soon she will add the sun's rays and other finishing touches. I can't wait to see the finished product....she is very artistically blessed!

I have been so busy with the market that I haven't posted anything on what's growing in the garden...I hope to do that later this week...but until then...Happy gardening!

Growing celery is a cinch

2010-05-13T11:51:00.000-07:00

One item we will have at the Kootenai County Farmer's Market this Saturday is Tango Celery. Many people shy away from trying to grow celery because it takes a long time to mature and it's a rather heat and cold sensitive plant. My experience however, is that it's really not that difficult to grow. First of all, celery likes a soil that retains moisture so I mix some rich compost in with the dirt. This is probably where most gardeners fail in growing celery... If the soil does not stay evenly moist, (not soggy) it will negatively affect the taste of the celery. Another factor in growing celery successfully is sunlight. Celery needs about 6 hours of sun but some shade is preferable during the hottest part of the day. In the same token, you will not want to put your celery plants out until temperatures are consistently above 50F. You will also want to fertilize your celery during the growing period....I use an organic fish emulsion. One final note on celery is that you can blanch your celery plants. The idea behind blanching them is it's supposed to make the celery more tender. The down side to blanching is you lose some vitamins from the plant...after blanching the plant turns from its dark green color to a whitish tone. I have never tried this method yet but here is what you do: You can slowly build a mound around the base of your celery plant...every few days add a little more dirt and at harvest time the plant will be fully blanched. Another method is to cover the bottom half of the celery with dark brown paper or cardboard a few weeks before harvest. So there you have it....growing your own celery is pretty easy and the flavor is spectacular.

Now our team is cooking up more than food...

2010-05-11T20:26:00.000-07:00

I am taking a break from cooking tonight, so I thought I would sit down and catch up with "Mostly Sunny's" blog here, and share some observations. I also want to explain why I have been absent - except for a few comments here and there.

Those who know me personally, and some of you who have followed The Beer Garden from the beginning know why this blog was started. You know that we did this partly as a healing tool for our family. The gardening brought Sunny's side of the family together in tough times, and you folks got to witness that as it played out on this blog. Over the course of a little more than year we have over 108 posts focused on all sorts of family activities, but as Sunny picked up the pace with her posts, I have slacked off. I have been busy with house projects and another hobby I decided to jump into with my brother Bobby.

Bobby has been following this blog from its beginning as well and he said it inspired him to start blogging about his new hobby: BBQ. He started his blog, The Smoker Pit, in January. As some of you know, I used to post a few BBQ pictures from time to time, so he asked me to join him in getting his blog going. I did that and that's when our adventure began!

If you made the jump to Bobby's blog, you can see that we made a pretty good attempt to get that blog moving and then all of sudden it trailed off and just sort of died in February -- with one post in April. That is not because we lost interest, it is because our interests intensified. We decided to enter a professional Pitmasters BBQ competition that will be held in Coeur d'Alene on Father's Day. It is the first one ever held in our area, so we decided to make it happen, and since it was Father's Day, we invited our dad to join us -- plus we know our dad is a killer cook and he does nothing in half measures. We figured at the worst, we all might just learn something... and we certainly have done a lot of learning.

At the time, we knew we had committed to something big, but we didn't realize how big. We have been researching and testing recipes. Reading countless books, and seeking out online resources to help us learn what we need to know. We have practiced cooking until our family and co-workers are sick of BBQ (if you can imagine that). We've invested countless hours of of time and large amounts of money into forming this team ... and somewhere along the way we became competitive.

Sunny wrote about our first success in the post below, so I won't bore you with that. But, I will tell you that when my dad, Bobby and I marched up to collect all our ribbons and trophies, I saw something changing in us as we glanced back and forth at each other in amazement... I could literally feel space in our lives opening up for each other, and I could see priorities begin shifting. I realized just then that we are onto something bigger than BBQ here, my side of the family is sort of healing now ... instead of growing distant, we are starting to grow together again and I like that.

I am convinced none of this would have happened without this blog and the effort our family and friends put into making it successful... So I felt it was time to thank you folks for stopping by to read and support us in our endeavours, and I am now committed to posting a little more frequently again. Well at least until you get sick of BBQ and beer... (like that is going to happen :-)

Market Day and Barbecue Madness

2010-05-10T17:45:00.000-07:00

It was a very busy but incredibly fun weekend.... Saturday was the opening day of the Kootenai County Farmer's Market and it was also the Pacific Northwest Barbecue Association's cook school. As many of you know, Bent is an avid barbecuer and has decided to take his skills to the next level of competition grilling. The cook school is a precursor to the "Smokin the Coeur d' Alenes" Pitmasters competition on Father's Day weekend in which Bent, his father, brother and a few friends are all competing. Bent and his gang spent 12 hours learning various cook methods and then cooking 4 meat categories on Saturday. Bent was paired up with an admitted novice griller named Mike and Bent's dad and his brother formed a team. (From left to right in the photo is Bent's dad Dave, Bent and Bent's brother Bob.) Overall, there were 13 teams that competed...Bent and his partner were very successful as was his father and brother...Bent won grand champion and his father's team won 3rd place. They also scored 2nd place in chicken, 2nd in brisket and 4th in the rib category. As if cooking all day and attending school wasn't enough for one day, the team packed up all their equipment and headed to Q' Emlin Park where they began an all night practice cook similar to a real pitmaster competition. They battled high winds, rain and chilly conditions but they pulled it off and served a fabulous dinner to over 50 friends and family members on Mother's Day. Next weekend there is yet another competition they will compete in...this time the meat category will consist of ribs only....I understand the prize is a Weber grill....(as if Bent needs another grill)

I spent my Saturday selling plants at the local farmer's market. Luckily, I had my daughters Britt and Tylah helping me out. The weather was very cold and windy but there were still lots of people out shopping. Considering the conditions, I sold quite a few vegetable starts and most all of my herbs. If the weatherman is right...next weekend should be near 70F and that should get people in the mood to buy plants and get their gardens growing.

Introducing Mostly Sunny

2010-05-07T08:12:00.000-07:00

Tomorrow is opening day at the Kootenai County Farmer's Market. I chose the name of our farmer's market business to be "Mostly Sunny". We went with this rather than our blog name of The Beer Garden because we obviously can't sell beer at the market. The Beer Garden blog got it's start on The Spokesman Review's blogroll on Huckleberries Online and many of our local friends know me as Sunny and they know Jeff as Bent. These names were simply monikers that originated from the Spokesman's blog world. Hopefully, this clears up any confusion...

I am very excited to be a part of the market this year and I must admit....I'm a little nervous as well. I have no idea what to expect and I know that many folks who participate have much larger growing operations than we do. So I guess my only real fear is we won't have as much to sell...at least not in the front end. I heard from a fellow market vendor that some vendors simply don't show up until they have produce to sell. Nevertheless, we want to be there on opening day just to get a feel for how the market operates...if I run out of plants to sell then rest assured we will be back to the market when harvest time comes around.

Here is a preview of some of the plants that we will be selling tomorrow:

Straight Eight cukes
Cabbage - Amazing
Various Herbs
Various Peppers
Various Tomatoes

The great pumpkin takeover

2010-05-03T11:06:00.000-07:00

Okay, so maybe I was a little premature in starting our Dill's Atlantic Giant pumpkin seeds....but who would have thought they would get so incredibly big so fast.....My dad decided it was time for the giants to move out of the greenhouse and into the ground so he built another cold frame and into the dirt they went. (Thanks to my husband and my brother for getting the plastic attached.) Our night time temps are going to be close to 30 F for the next week and we have had very windy conditions lately so I hope the hoops hold up....

We decided we might as well utilize the space around the pumpkins with the broccoli that was in the greenhouse. It needs to be hardened off anyway and we need more space in the greenhouse for more plants....and if you know me...there's always more plants... : )

The blossoms are beautiful!

Miss Stella snuck away when no one was looking and found a place to dig (as evidenced by the dirt on her nose)....she is so busted...naughty girl : )

Potatoes and ponderings

2010-04-27T09:22:00.000-07:00

My dad and I spent most of yesterday planting potato seed in the family garden. We utilized the potato planting tools that were passed down from both of my grandpas. They still work like a charm.....the only problem was that the newly tilled soil still has a lot of sod pieces in it. This made it a little tough to get to the 5 inch depth we were shooting for. I think that all in all we did a pretty good job though : )
Preparing for the farmer's market has unfortunately put me a bit behind my planting schedule so I happily accepted when dad offered to help with the potatoes.

As we spent the day working together I reflected on our past as father and daughter. Like any relationship, there were good times and difficult times....As a little girl, I remember dad throwing me up on his shoulders when my small feet were too tired to take another step....I remember him setting up the boy scout tent in our backyard so my brothers and I could sleep outside during the summer... I also remember the fishing trips to Hayden Lake, the long family bike rides at Farragut State Park, and the vacations to Penticton BC. Those moments I will never forget. I would however, like to forget my "trying" teenage years full of rebellion and chaos....but I thank both my parents for their patience and love and for always leading through example. My mom, of course, is no longer here on earth... but she's here in spirit and still guiding us all. I am grateful to both of them and all of life's lessons they have taught me.....And for the record....I was looking.... : )

This poem in "A 4th Course of Chicken Soup for the Soul" by Mary Rita Schilke Korzan says it all for me:

When You Thought I Wasn't Looking

When you thought I wasn't looking you hung my first painting on the refrigerator

And I wanted to paint another.

When you thought I wasn't looking you fed a stray cat and I thought it was good to be kind to animals

When you thought I wasn't looking you baked a birthday cake just for me

And I knew that little things were special things

When you thought I wasn't looking you said a prayer

And I believed there was a God that I could always talk to.

When you thought I wasn't looking you kissed me good-night

And I felt loved.

When you thought I wasn't looking I saw tears come from your eyes

And I learned that sometimes things hurt but that it's alright to cry.

When you thought I wasn't looking you smiled

And it made me want to look that pretty too.

When you thought I wasn't looking you cared

And I wanted to be everything I could be.

When you thought I wasn't looking I looked...

And wanted to say thanks for all those things you did

When you thought I wasn't looking.

Market work day

2010-04-26T10:11:00.000-07:00

Saturday was the official Kootenai County Farmer's Market work day. Basically, working members of the market volunteer their time to set up booths, paint them and clean up the surrounding area. It was a very chilly and blustery day but everyone seemed determined to move forward and get the tasks done. Since this is my first year at the market, I didn't really know anyone but I quickly made friends with several very nice people. Daisy Girl and I spent most of our time helping move the booths and painting. There were lots of people involved and I was actually a bit surprised that things went so seamlessly.... they have quite a organized system.

I found out that our booth will be #9 which is located in the northeast corner of the market near Prairie Ave. The market opens on May 8th which is Mother's Day weekend. We will have vegetable starts for sale during early May and then produce once our crops start to mature. We will have lots of cauliflower, broccoli, cukes and tomatoes. I'm excited and nervous about opening day...nervous because I think I should have more plants growing but my greenhouse is maxed out...I guess this year will be the test run and by next year I will have a better idea of what to expect...(maybe I will need another greenhouse.) If nothing else, it should prove to be a fun experience. : )

See you at the market!

The welcome and the uninvited.

2010-04-22T11:27:00.000-07:00

This is a pic of one of the tomatoes that I started in the closet back in early February. It has been in the greenhouse now for nearly a month and although it looks a little rough, I think it's going to pull through. The temps in the greenhouse can go as low as 50 degrees until the heat kicks on.... so all the fluctuation has probably stressed it a bit. I have been waiting ever so patiently for the buds to flower and I got my wish yesterday....the first bloom!!! I hope this means early tomatoes but we shall see!

We had about a week of really nice temperatures and the peppers were really diggin that...they are really starting to get stocky now. I was going to give them a shot of organic fertilizer yesterday but it turns out the fertilizer I had just purchased was full of nasty moths....I have never seen anything like it...and yes they were alive...(See pic below)...I know it's a poor picture but I think you can get the idea....I guess I won't be buying that brand anymore...jeez what if they hadn't hatched out until I fertilized in the greenhouse.......I would not be happy about that!

Below the nasty moths is a pic of the broccoli and the Tango celery....they are really starting to get big now too...hopefully they will be good and strong by May 9th...the first day of the farmer's market.

Happy Earth Day!

Corn rows and onion overload.

2010-04-20T09:06:00.000-07:00

I put in 6 rows of corn seed yesterday which will equate to approximately 500 plants. (in the garden on the left) Once they start popping up I will thin them to about 10 inches apart...I failed at proper thinning last year and we had a lower than usual yield...yes, I have learned my thinning lesson : )

Today I will go and help my dad rake out the new gardens... we still have to remove some sod clumps and then they should be ready to go!

Thanks to my husband and brother we also got the Walla Walla Sweet onions in the ground over the weekend. Now I just have to find room for the 150 Texas Sweet onions that came via UPS yesterday....oops forgot about that order...lol! Did I mention that if you have a spare garden I would gladly utilize it... : )

I have lots of work to do... so I'm off to dig it up!

Peas, pumpkins and a neurotic dog.

2010-04-15T19:41:00.000-07:00

A week or so ago we had 50 mph wind gusts which caused a lot of damage to the cold frames. I decided to take the plastic off the peas since the temps are near 70 today anyway and the forecast is calling for more of the same nice weather. I'm afraid they will fry under the plastic.... The chives are growing like crazy and separating them will be my next task..........I also started sowing my lettuce seed today. From Seed Savers, I planted Forellenschuss and Rossa di Trento. From last year's seed inventory, I planted some Yugoslavian Red lettuce and baby romaine. Tomorrow I hope to finish putting in the greens and perhaps some more beets.
The Atlantic Giant pumpkins are looking pretty....hopefully they won't take over the greenhouse before they can go in the ground. Bent suggested we go ahead and put them in the ground with a cold frame over them...I'm not quite ready to chance that yet, but maybe in the next couple of weeks. They are my babies afterall...

On a side note...Buddy (one of our Viszla pups) has developed a neurosis of sorts...I have no idea why...but he has developed a fear of being near the garden....He will act all scared, go in the greenhouse and not come out....(wait that's me that does that)....I thought perhaps he got a jolt from the electric fence but the fence is set to come on at 6pm and we are always at the garden much earlier than that....He is even freaking out on bugs...like flies especially... and then I thought maybe he got stung by a bee...(he used to eat bees last year). It's a doggy mystery for sure....perhaps I should call a dog shrink...lol...All I know is that Buddy's sister just wants him to go out and play.

And you thought I was kidding...

2010-04-12T21:18:00.000-07:00

I have no idea how we managed last year with just two and a half shelves in the greenhouse. Even with the addition of 2 upper shelves and 2 lower shelves it appears I am running out of room....oh what to do? I was half way kidding a while back when I mentioned using the space below the bottom shelves for more plants....but guess what? I have no choice but to move the mature herbs and broccoli down below to make room for our larger transplants....namely, the four Atlantic Giant pumpkins that are taking up lots of space...it's unbelievable how fast they are growing and they have already set some fruit....It's like someone snuck in and pumped them full of steroids or something... lol! In addition, the peppers were repotted into larger pots so space is really getting limited. Last year we were able to plant most everything into the ground by late May and early June. Hopefully the current weather trend holds and we can plant most of the garden a couple of weeks ahead of schedule. If not, Dan's (at Urban Veggie Blog) idea of utilizing the greenhouse walkway may still come to pass. : )

An important message to pet owners

2010-04-12T09:15:00.000-07:00

A good friend of ours sent me an email this morning regarding the possible dangers of cocoa mulch. Apparently, the mulch which is sold in many retail stores contains a potentially fatal chemical that could kill your pets. Click here for the story

Almost there!

2010-04-08T11:43:00.000-07:00

It appears that the greenhouse is nearly full of plants now...unless I were to utilize the floor beneath the shelves...which I am seriously considering.... I moved over 100 baby broccoli plants into their new home yesterday and now I am repotting my celery and cabbage. Last year I didn't need to repot many plants before putting them in the garden but I started them several weeks later than this season. Many gardeners in our area are skittish on starting plants too soon for fear of frost....not me! I say go forth and garden boldly! I am lucky to have the greenhouse because it does buy more time...I also gain growing time and save on propane by utilizing the closet space with grow lights before moving things out to the greenhouse...(sorry family).

Below is a picture of some Totem Patio tomatoes...they were started under LED lights. I wish now I would have planted more as they appear to be doing quite well. Below the Totem's are some Cherokee Purple tomatoes (Thank you Thomas!!!) and they are coming along nicely as well. The next pic was my experimental broccoli...I wanted to see how it would do in the greenhouse.... I wish I grew more of those also...The very last pic is our Dill's Atlantic Giant pumpkins for which I may need more room real soon!

Cukes gone crazy!

2010-04-07T08:46:00.000-07:00

Just a quick greenhouse update: We started nearly 100 more cukes just a few weeks ago and they are growing like crazy...so much that we had to already repot them from their original peet starter pots. The main variety we grow are the Straight 8's because they make great slicers. In addition, we are growing Organic Lemon cukes, Eurekas, A & C Pickling, Cucinos and Iznik. The Cucinos are more of a greenhouse cuke (they did great in my windowsill during the winter months) but I'm going to try growing them on a trellis in the garden. We also started an additional 80 broccoli, 80 cabbage and over 100 celery plants...all of which need repotting and thus the short blog post today! Happy spring planting! Oh and for you local folks following on Facebook be sure to check out the discussion tab on The Beer Garden fan page...I am posting several great recipes and updates on what will be available at market time!

Mr. Miyagi style

2010-04-05T09:20:00.000-07:00

Ever since my brothers and I were little, my parents always found unique ways to teach us valuable life lessons....Mr. Miyaga style. Much like in the movie, The Karate Kid, many of these lessons came with a task such as washing the car, mowing the lawn, cleaning the pasture, or weeding the garden....I can hear Mr. Miyaga now..."wax on, wax off".

It was a family rite of passage when you became old enough to mow the lawn...(and we're not talking riding lawn mower here) ....and this was of course only after your several year term of car washing and cow poop duty. Lawn duty was a big deal because you got $20 a week....(this was a 2-3 hour job). Regardless of the task at hand, dad always taught us to do a good job and if we didn't....he would firmly but gently make us do it over....In fact, his phrase, "if you're going to do something, do it right the first time" is forever etched in my mind. In addition to teaching us kids to work hard he always taught us to be kind, play fair and to do your part. I don't think I realized it at the time, (like Daniel in the movie) but those menial chores actually taught me things like patience, kindness, honesty and team work. This past weekend was no exception. Our family got together over the Easter weekend and my dad, having recently purchased a new rototiller, decided we should have a lesson on how to operate it. As you can see from the picture, there is some definite team work going on here....by the time dad was done "teaching" the boys how to operate the rototiller, the garden tilling was nearly done. Way to go dad!

Check out the pic below for a close up version of the new rototiller!

Parsley and the pitmaster

2010-03-31T11:52:00.000-07:00

Here is a pic of the very first herbs that we started from seed back in early February. As you can see, they include parsley and basil. Today my focus is on parsley and I will explain why.....My husband, better known as Bent for blogging purposes, recently delved into the world of pitmaster barbecuing. You see, we always eat barbecue....like seriously at least 300 days a year. I'm not sure what the inside of my oven even looks like anymore....Well, Bent's love of barbecue prompted him to sign up for a few friendly barbecue competitions which in turn prompted several of his friends and family members to jump on the bandwagon. As a result, their group is signed up for several summer competitions. (I will post about them later)

I know you must be wondering...how does parsley fit into all of this? Well, parsley happens to be one of the only garnishes allowed for presentation purposes in many barbecue competitions. So guess who has to grow enough parsley to make it through the grilling season? If you have grown parsley, you know it takes a long time to mature so I started early in hopes that I will not run out before the season is over.

The pic above is what our yard typically looks like on any given day...it's smokey but hey it always smells great... And yes...as you can see...Bent wasn't satisfied with just one grill....he needs many and he hopes to win yet another one at an upcoming competition. With so many charcoal grills going at once we of course had to have a stoker in order to control several grill temps at one time...(basically the stoker is a computer controlled device that will turn on blowers to increase the charcoal temps)

I give Bent a bad time about his barbecue obsession but it's all in fun.....I mean what more could I ask for?? I get dinner cooked for me nearly every night : )
But for heaven's sake where do I draw the line? Eggs on the grill??? Even the pups look on in disbelief : )

Cauliflower: before and after

2010-03-29T16:28:00.000-07:00

The baby cauliflowers or "cabbage flower" are beginning to poke their heads out of the soil. They were started in the greenhouse about 3 weeks ago and appear to have grown accustomed to the varying temperatures....The greenhouse heater is set to come on if temps get to 50F and the fans come on if the temps approach 70F. Surprisingly, when its been in the 40s outside the greenhouse averages about 70F so thankfully we haven't had to use a lot of heat so far. In fact, we often have to open the door as well. Normally I start most of the seeds in my hot water tank storage area where it is nice and warm but I'm running out of space....go figure....anyway... I just wanted to share an after picture of what the cauliflower will soon look like....the pic below is what we harvested last year...only problem was we didn't grow enough of it....not a problem this year though...I have roughly 250 plants started!

This variety is called Amazing and it was purchased from Park Seed...and well... it had a truly amazing taste so I went with it again this year.

Where's the vegetable trivia/history you say? Okay...if I must...cauliflower originates from Asia Minor and the Mediterranean area. It is a member of the Cruciferae family which includes broccoli, cabbage, horseradish, collards, radish and turnips.....oh and Mark Twain once said that cauliflower is "nothing but a cabbage with a college education." : )

Peas out

2010-03-25T11:03:00.000-07:00

I visited the coldframes yesterday to check the progress of the peas. As you can see in the picture, they are starting to take off now. This variety is the snap pea....I love these in salads and stir fry.

Peas have apparently been around for a long time....during archeaological digs they have been discovered in Egyptian tombs. No one knows for certain where the pea originated, but according to Chinese mythology, peas were discovered by emperor Shu Nung in 3000 BC. Shu Nung would scour the countryside in search of new plants in which to use for food or medicine. Shu Nung was considered the father of agriculture. Upon discovering a new plant, he would feed it to a dog first and then a servant. If they both lived then the emperor would eat it as well. (Sounds like russian roulette garden style.)

Did you know the garden pea has been used in genetic testing? I seem to remember studying about a certain fellow named Gregory Mendel in science class. Mendel is often referred to as the "Father of Genetics" for discovering the outcome of cross breeding different types of pea plants.

As for human genetics...you guessed it...the hippy chick photo is my darling granddaughter (Abby) She loves to peas out in the garden with her grandma :)

Thank you Mr. Jefferson!

2010-03-22T16:59:00.001-07:00

The eggplant has been known throughout history to have some very strange effects on people: some thought that eating it could cause insanity, epilepsy and fever. Yet others claimed it to be an aphrodisiac. (That's quite a range of symptoms I'd say) The notion that it would cause insanity is due to the fact that eggplant is from the nightshade family which contains many poisonous plants such as angel's trumpet and belladonna. I know I wouldn't want to be the guinea pig...I can hear it now.....oh come on give it a try...what's the worst that can happen but a few epileptic seizures and a deadly fever....umm no thanks....but if you think about it someone had to be the first....
I'm guessing the first guinea pigs were from India since that is where eggplant originated. Shortly after, it made its appearance in Asia, China and the Middle East around 500B.C. eventually making its way to Italy around the 14th century. Europeans considered the plant mala insana~ the mad apple or bad egg until about the 1600's when Louis XIV introduced it to the country and still it was not well received. It wasn't until the 1800's that our third president, Mr. Thomas Jefferson introduced the eggplant to the United States. Apparently, Jefferson was an avid gardener and was always trying to bring new vegetables and flowers to his huge gardens. Even with Jefferson's approval, the eggplant was slow to gain popularity in the states for years to come.

All I have to say is thank you Mr. Jefferson from all your fellow gardeners for giving eggplant a try. If it weren't for him we Americans may have never given it a try for fear of going insane or epileptic.... (Although I wonder who he convinced to eat it first) ..... Today there are many eggplant varieties available....below is the Rosa Bianca which I currently have growing under lights. (not my picture) The other variety we are growing is Black Beauty (my picture above). I am keeping them inside as long as possible as they are fussy plants and need lots of warm weather. Being a gardener and all I'm a little embarrassed to say this... but it wasn't too long ago that I first tried eggplant myself....not for fear of insanity but just because I never thought it would taste good...I was sure wrong.....it is most excellent on the grill. I would like to expand my horizons and learn what others have to say about about their eggplant experiences by posing the following question:

What is your favorite eggplant variety to grow and to eat and how do you like to cook it?

Daisy Girl presents the new garden addition.

2010-03-20T17:57:00.000-07:00

Not much occurred today at the family garden but as I mentioned earlier this week the new garden addition has been plowed (by my sweet but stubborn dad) and now needs raking and the grass clumps removed. Today would have been a great day to do that but the soil is still a bit too wet to work in. Instead, daughter Daisy Girl and I planted some more seeds in the greenhouse. We put in some daisy seeds (obviously) and about 50 more tomatoes as well as some more broccoli seeds. Tomorrow's goal: I hope to have every shelf in the greenhouse filled!

Fill' er up!

2010-03-19T19:37:00.000-07:00

Today I took inventory of the greenhouse seedlings. I still have about 2 out of 6 shelves to fill....but I'm certain I can fill it up....So far, in the greenhouse we have 195 tomato plants with 15 varieties, 55 cukes with 4 varieties, 150 peppers with 11 varieties, 72 butter cream cauliflower, 20 red okra, 20 purple tomatillo, 25 tango celery, and 120 different herbs. I still have quite a lot of plants under lights in my closet at home (yes my closet :) that I will move to the greenhouse soon. The hoop houses are filled with broccoli, cabbage and peas and all are doing great....Tomorrow I will start more seedlings for my home garden and yet a few more...(i mean a lot more) for the family garden.

My dad rototilled the grass area for the new garden addition this week and put the electric fence around it...(lots of deer would love to munch on our hard work) he was supposed to call me and I was going to come over and help but noooo....he did it all himself...only took him 4 hours he said......grrrrr...I love my dad but he should listen to me and let me help........ :) The new area is around 24' x 90. Now we just need to rake it out and remove the grass clumps and it will be ready to plant! With that said...I know I have my day cut out for me... .. I'm off to chill out :)

Eat your broccoli!!!

2010-03-16T14:13:00.000-07:00

I planted a few broccoli plants over a month ago just to see how they would do...I didn't want to start them all too early because I wasn't sure they would survive. Apparently if the temperature fluctuates too much broccoli will button which means you get smaller heads. Last year we had great success with the Pac Man variety so we are using it again this year. We are also growing Belstar and some Romanesco which we planted in our raised beds about 9 days ago. Today I noticed they are starting to sprout and it's no doubt because the covered beds are very warm and toasty inside.

The biggest challenge I have encountered in growing broccoli is keeping the aphids off. The first year we grew it the heads were covered with them. Who wants to eat that??....yuck...Last year we tried something new: we grew broccoli exclusively in the raised beds with marigolds surrounding them and had very little problems with bugs. I don't know if it was the marigolds or the raised beds that did the trick but I guess I'll go with the old saying "if it ain't broke don't fix it".

I'll leave you with a bit of broccoli facts: the name broccoli comes from the Latin word brachium which means arm or branch and broccoli was first commercially grown in New York. Did you know that on March 18, 1990 broccoli was banned from Air Force One by U.S. President George H.W. Bush....wow he set a great example for our kids....no wonder he didn't get reelected :)

Cuke Harvest!

2010-03-15T08:35:00.000-07:00

This little lunchbox cuke might not seem like much of a harvest but it was to me...after all I have nurtured my two windowsill cukes for several months now. Everyone has been after me to pluck it from the vine but I have been waiting for just the right moment. Since we had a family gathering for some of Bent's spectacular barbecue ribs on Sunday, I figured there was no better time to give it a try. Everyone was amazed at the flavor....I have to admit I was worried they wouldn't taste like garden fresh cukes but boy was I was wrong. There are many more cukes on the vines but they aren't quite ready yet. I have been feeding them twice a week with an organic fertilizer so they should be pumped up real soon. Heck, now that I know you can grow cukes in the winter in North Idaho, I may have to expand my windowsill operation!

Cukes, Crocus and Karma

2010-03-12T13:54:00.001-08:00

Just a quick update on how some of the plants are doing. A couple of our windowsill Cucino cukes are ready to eat....I can't wait to try them....I have been giving them some organic fertilizer and pinching off the new blossoms so I think most of them will mature soon. My family doubted me on whether they would produce any fruit and I proved them wrong :)

On another note...during my afternoon puppy walk, I came across some blooming Crocus....they are everywhere at Black Bay but just starting to bloom. Soon it will look like a carpet of purple...I can't wait!

In the last pic are my Karma (love the name) peppers. They are just starting to peak out from under the soil....and the other 200 or so should be shortly behind them. By staggering the planting dates I hope they come on in a nice succession....time will tell though...Now it's off to the greenhouse for me... :)

Heavyweights

2010-03-10T12:20:00.000-08:00

Last year we grew some Giant Max pumpkins just to see how big we could get them. We came close to the 80 pound mark but this year we want at least a 500 pounder!! In the pic is a Dill's Atlantic Giant pumpkin I started a couple of weeks ago. These guys are the heavyweights of all pumpkins and they are often used in the large pumpkin growing competitions....In fact, you may remember recently reading about Christy Harp of Ohio...she has the world record pumpkin weight so far....1725 lbs!!! That's all good Christy...but watch out ....you've got competition now :)

According to many pumpkin growing experts there are 5 key issues that determine the success of growing these giants: They are variety, space, water, food, selection, and even shade. There are several large pumpkin varieties on the market but Dill's Atlantic Giant consistently wins many competitions. Pumpkins need lots of space to spread out....most experts suggest 25 feet in all directions. Pumpkins need lots of water....at least 1 inch of water per week. When you water is just as critical. It's never a good idea to water in the evening and this is true for all vegetables....you invite the possibility of mildew and bugs. Instead, early morning watering is the best time. Regular doses of fertilizer are also needed to get these guys pumped up...the experts often use a compost tea made of cow manure. They should be fed weekly as pumpkins are very heavy feeders. This part is hard for me: you must choose to keep only 1 or 2 pumpkins on the vine and the rest must go...decisions, decisions.....You will also have to keep plucking new blossoms as they will take away energy from the main pumpkin. One thing I did not realize is that the actual pumpkin should be shaded from direct sunlight to prevent premature hardening of the outer skin. We can't have a blemished pumpkin after all....I guess the bigger dilemma will be how to actually move the pumpkin once it gets to be 500 lbs....

2 shelves down and 4 to go!

2010-03-08T10:53:00.000-08:00

We had another productive day at the family garden yesterday. My sis-in-law and I made more newspaper pots and sowed seeds. My dad, Bent and my brother rototilled and raked the older garden beds. We had hoped to rent a large rototiller to start on the new beds but the rental store was closed. The pots on the shelf to the right are what was sown yesterday. All in all, we sowed approximately 140 tomato seeds, 15 okra, 15 purple tomatillos, 5 Lemon cukes, 5 Cucino cukes, a dozen or so Rudbeckia and about 20 Guardian Marigolds. The marigolds are to aid in keeping the aphids out of our broccoli and cauliflower. We nearly filled a 2nd greenhouse shelf and now have 4 to go....which won't be difficult....trust me :)

The second pic is some of what was transfered to the greenhouse from my home last week. I was a bit worried that the temps in the greenhouse would shock my plants as they have been used to a constant 70F for quite some time. So far, they have been doing very well and the temps are staying between 56F and 68F for the most part. The next step will be to complete my pepper and herb planting and then move on to the cukes and squash. Oh...I forgot to mention....dad approved another growing bed for berries and a couple fruit trees! Soon we will have taken over the entire property...Lol...just kidding dad.

On the home front, I have also been preparing my home garden for more compost. I spent about 3 days hand digging it and getting all the weeds out. I have some garden debris to burn and then it's compost time! I feel like I am actually ahead of the game this year and it feels good...hopefully that trend holds. :)

A pot party with the Spokesman Review newspaper!

2010-03-06T17:17:00.000-08:00

No...I'm not talking about anything illegal here.....we have been making our own homemade planting pots ever since my daughter Daisy Girl "Stumbled Upon" (a very cool site you should check out if you haven't ) them online a couple years back. They are very easy to make and save us some money in the process...plus we are recycling which is always a good thing....all you need is a tall glass, some masking tape and some newspaper....In our case we used the Spokesman Review newspaper as it has the best quality paper and really holds up better than other local newspaper competition....plus you can read any news you may have missed during the week.... (cheap plug for our local newspaper that also hosts several regional blogs in their online format.) :)
To make the pots, you take a sheet of the newspaper....actually I'm not going to try and explain this ...Instead, here is a link to an instructional video we made last year: Click Here

In the first pic is lovely sis-in-law Melanie and daughter Daisy Girl (notice which newspaper they are holding up.) The second pic shows all the fruits of our labor today....nearly 200 pots were made...all of which will be planted with seed tomorrow. We will start approximately 100 tomato plants of different varieties and purple tomatillos.

Other garden accomplishments...Bent and my bro finished putting up the plastic on the 3rd raised bed. Sis-in law and myself decided to plant broccoli and cabbage in the hoops....temps are supposed to go down to the 40's next week but I think they will be fine with the covers.....(calling on my gardening angels of course)

Lastly, is sis-in-law and myself making our pots on the makeshift table my dad made just so we could be in the beautiful sun....and yes that's Daisy Girl to the left lounging in the chair....she made a few pots but eventually bailed on us. Okay she made more than a few...we wore her out obviously :)

All in all....what a wonderful, productive day....we came, we potted, we conquered and we will be back at it tomorrow!

Greenhouse or bust!

2010-03-04T19:10:00.000-08:00

Today's gonna be a good, good day....I got a feeling....that is because today is the official opening day for the greenhouse!!! It's greenhouse or bust baby! I'm loading up the blazer with all my babies and off we go....

When I got to my dad's house he had just completed adding the 4 extra shelves in the greenhouse and wow.....I have lots of plant space now! I told dad I brought over a "few" seedlings to get started but I actually filled almost an entire shelf and I have a closet full of starts at my house that will soon be transported to the greenhouse as well.

Here are the plants that found a happy home today: 30 basils of varying types, 15 parsley, 5 marjoram, 12 oregano, 6 English Thyme, 6 tarragon, 6 cumin, 6 fennel, 12 habaneros, 25 varying types of eggplant, 10 cayenne peppers, 6 serranos, 5 jalapenos, 25 Tango celery, 15 Tolli's Sweet Italian peppers, 15 Karma peppers, and 20 Bulgarian Carrot peppers. Tomorrow I plan on starting the rest of my peppers: those are Orange Bells, King of the North, Purple Beauty, and Ancho Pablano. After the peppers, I will start more herbs to sell at the farmer's market.

After that, many more plants will be started...nearly 1,800 I calculated....I can't wait! Happy gardening all!

Welcome to our jungle!

2010-03-02T09:27:00.000-08:00

As you can see from the pictures, we (I actually take full responsibility) crammed a lot of veggies into our garden space last year. This year (actually every year) I vow to be better about it. I have promised my family each growing season that they will be able to walk down the corn and tomato rows with ease...but every year I overdo it and we have to squeeze between the rows on our hands and knees and harvest the best we can....it is very jungle-like.....

Each January I draw a preliminary sketch of the garden layout and then when I am done purchasing all my seed (if ever....ha ha ha) I finalize the layout according to companion planting and crop rotation. I haven't been exactly precise with it...but I try my best. This gets a little tricky when you have a relatively small garden and lots of crops. And this is especially difficult if you want to grow several types of the same veggie as some will cross pollinate. I have not had problems with this in the past but I typically only save a small percentage of seed for the next season anyway.

To understand crop rotation you first need to understand vegetable plant families....from all my gardening books, classes, magazines and Internet research over the years, I have learned that there are basically 9 main vegetable family groups. They are: Nightshade, Mustard, Legume, Squash, Onion, Parsley, Spinach, Lettuce, Mint, and then there's a misc group. Some veggies from the Nightshade family are tomatoes, potatoes, bell peppers, and eggplant. Some from the Mustard family are broccoli, boc choy, cabbage, cauliflower, radish, and turnip. The legume family includes beans and peas as well as clover and alfalfa. Cucumber, melons, and gourds come from the squash family. Garlic, leeks and chives come from the onion family and carrot, celery, dill and cilantro from the parsley family. The spinach family includes swiss chard and beets and the lettuce family includes...um...lettuce and believe it or not...sunflowers. Lastly, the mint family includes thyme, oregano, basil, sage, rosemary, lavender and marjoram. The misc category is pretty much everything else.
The idea behind crop rotation is to relocate plant families from one season to the next and thus minimize pests and disease common to each family. Also, rotation helps minimize micronutrient deficiencies in the soil as some plants are heavy feeders and deplete the soil of nutrients. Of course, if you amend the soil with compost every season you probably don't need to worry about it as much. I add compost to the garden every year so it's not a problem for me. My main concern in crop rotation is pest management which really goes hand in hand with companion planting. Companion planting is based on the idea that certain plants benefit from being planted next to one another. The benefits can include pest control, nutrient intake or pollination. For instance, in my garden I grow marigolds between my tomatoes as they deter the bad nematodes. (In other words... yes they smell bad!)....Mint deters flies, cabbage moth, ants and rodents. Be careful with mint however as it will spread like crazy. (I usually plant my mint in containers to keep it from spreading.) There are many resources available on both crop rotation and companion planting..... these are just a few of which we have had success with so far.

Playing in the dirt.

2010-02-26T18:17:00.000-08:00

My dad and I spent a couple hours filling up the third raised bed today. We put in a few inches of soil and filled the rest with a rich compost called Coeur d' Green. Yes... I hate to admit it....I paid money for compost when I should be making my own....I will get there someday though...(EG is my inspiration lol) The first two beds are situated so that the dump truck could easily fill them but the third bed is not ...so we had to dig and wheelbarrow it to the bed...We definitely got a workout...but fun it was!

With the third bed filled, we can now focus on getting the rest of the plastic hoop covers on. Hopefully, we will get that done by Sunday. I posted earlier that my dad was adding upper shelves in the greenhouse and that is coming along quite nice. I can't wait for them to be done so I can fire up the heat and get the gazillion seedlings that are all over my house out of here! (the family is tolerant but it is getting to be a bit much :)....A quick note on the covered hoop house: The temperature inside is holding pretty steady around 62 degrees on a 45 degree day. That should get us a good start on the broccoli and the strawberries. Happy digging!

He'll eat anything.

2010-02-24T08:28:00.000-08:00

This post is dedicated to gardeners that have pets. Our pups, Buddy to the left and Stella to the right, often spend a lot of time with us while we garden. The pups are not allowed in the garden for more than one reason. First, they tend to chase after each other going about 30 mph and they can leave quite a trail of destruction behind them. Secondly, I need to make sure they don't ingest plants or vegetables that are harmful to them. We all know the typical plants and vegetables that are harmful to many pets such as onions, chives, shallots, rhubarb, garlic, certain mushrooms, Hyacinth, Daffodils, Narcissus, Hollyhock, Lily of the Valley, Iris and the list goes on and on. But most recently my husband and I were considering growing our own hops for our homebrews. Turns out hops are extremely poisonous to dogs. Once ingested, they cause a sort of reverse hypothermia which results in death. My instincts and experience told me to do a bit of research before buying the plants and I'm glad I did. You see...we have had several costly lessons on puppyhood.... By the time our dear little Buddy was 1 1/2 years old, he had ingested a digital camera, a $100 pair of leather shoes, a cell phone, pieces of an electric blanket, and rocks, among other things. In one instance he got a piece of metal from the electric blanket and a bone fragment (from who knows where) lodged in his intestines. They had to be surgically removed and we all know vet bills are never cheap.....$1,200 dollars later he was fine. In another instance we have no idea what he ate but he became very ill and had convulsions. We suspect he ate some mushrooms from the yard but we never knew for sure. Buddy has gotten better about eating everything in sight...but I still watch him closely. Stella is rather picky about what she eats... her only downfall appears to be that she is constantly stealing Buddy's pillow :)

There are of course many plants that are also poisonous to cats. But luckily for us our cats (to the left is Spud and to the right is a neighbor cat) are finicky...they turn their noses up to most anything except cat food and love apparently. (Photo by Daisy Girl)

W-Hoopin it up!

2010-02-22T09:35:00.001-08:00

Yesterday we really whooped it up in the family garden! Well, so to speak anyway....We started putting up the plastic covers on the raised beds hoops. Hopefully, this will allow us an early start on the cold crops. So far, we have the strawberry bed covered, with the exception of placing some ties on it to hold the plastic up once the weather starts to gets a bit warmer. I also spent some time moving the strawberry suckers around in the bed so they have more room to grow. Last year they were so crowded that they hung over the boxes onto the ground.... which isn't a bad thing...it just makes it difficult to mow around. My dad is very particular about his lawn so I don't dare make him mad :)

We harvested some spinach and green onions from one of the beds yesterday. It's amazing that they went uncovered all winter and still taste so good.

Today is a busy day.... so my post is short....I'm off to make newspaper pots, clean the greenhouse, and hopefully get some more of my pepper seeds started.

The final order....I promise.

2010-02-19T10:46:00.000-08:00

I placed my final seed order from Seed Savers Exchange last week and it arrived yesterday. I must say that I am very happy with their service and the quality of their products. So here is what I ordered: the peppers are Purple Beauty Bells, Orange Bells, King of the North, Bulgarian Carrot, and Tolli's Sweet Italians. I also ordered two types of lettuce: Forellenschuss, and Rossa De Trento. In addition, I ordered Dragon carrots, Rosa Bianca eggplant, Nyagous tomatoes, Hill Country Red okra, Purple tomatillos, Purple Podded Pole beans, and A & C Pickling cukes.
Yesterday I ordered my onions from Dixondale Farms. I ordered Candy Apples, Candy, and a variety pack that contains Copra, Red Zeppelin and Sterling. Now, I believe all that is left to order are the potato starts and I will probably get to that those weekend.

Now it is time to get busy and fire up that greenhouse...woot!

Spring has sprung!!!

2010-02-17T14:43:00.000-08:00

This is my second post today but I couldn't wait to spread the news!!! While walking the pups at Black Bay a little yellow something caught my eye so I went to investigate.....I brushed back the pine needles and lo and behold...a buttercup along with some crocus sprouts! Around here that is definitely a good sign that spring will make an early appearance.

Bent reminded me that he blogged about the first buttercup of 2009 and that was actually our very first blog post.....the date was March 21, 2009. That puts us an entire month ahead of time....Wow....I gotta get busy!

Suuuuuwheet!

2010-02-17T08:45:00.000-08:00

Today I will place an order for my favorite Texas Sweet Onion bulbs from Dixondale Farms. As you can see, they did quite well in the garden last year. I also grew the Candy Apple version of the Texas Sweets and they were a gorgeous dark burgundy color. These onions were introduced to me by a friend who claimed his onions were as big as a plate. He actually brought me one and they were huge (larger than a saucer but not quite a plate.) My friend proceeded to bet me that I couldn't grow them bigger than his....I'm always up for a challenge...especially that of the gardening nature. (I ordered 50 Texas Sweets and 50 Candy Apples) I believe I came pretty darn close to beating his "plate-sized" onions. Looking back on the blog, it appears that we got them in the ground on April 18th along with the potatoes. If the weather holds I suspect we can plant them even earlier this year.

Since bulb onions mature in response to changing amounts of daylight there are varieties that work best depending on what part of the county you live. Short-day varieties grow best in the South. Intermediate-day varieties are grown best in the northern Arizona to Washington D.C. area, and Long-day varieties are best suited for the North. However, there are exceptions to the rules: The Intermediate-day varieties can be grown as early onions in the North....which is what we did.

The best soil for these guys is slightly acidic and well-drained. When the tops start to lay over (by themselves) as in the 2nd photo, then you know they are ready to harvest. Then to cure the onions you just place them in a warm, dry place and away from direct sunlight. Short-day varieties cure for a few days before you clip off the tops and roots. Intermediate-day and Long-day varieties cure for up to three weeks. Most properly cured onions should store up to 8 months in a cool basement or root cellar. Using a mesh bag or other "breathable" material to store them is advisable. Be warned that sweet onions do have a shorter storage life than most.

A bit of trivia to leave you with: Did you know the sweet onion became the Texas state vegetable in 1997?

A sucker for seeds plus plant updates

2010-02-15T11:56:00.000-08:00

So this past weekend I'm innocently shopping for a few items and realize that I need to go pick up some mesquite wood chips for my husband. So I start my trek on over to the outdoor section (where the chips and charcoal are) and guess what I run into? You guessed it....the all addicting seed rack....I try to walk by it and tell myself no.....but the magnetic force sucks me in once again. I have really purchased enough seed this year with the exception of my seed potatoes but like an addict I rationalize my purchase anyway. I figure with the new garden addition this year I sure would hate to run out of seed. We can't have that now can we? And really whose fault is this??? If my husband didn't need those wood chips I wouldn't have come anywhere near the garden section....lol...just kidding dear.... The seeds I purchased are Habanero pepper, Fennel Florence, Cumin, Tarragon, Dills Atlantic Giant Pumpkins, Early Sweet Sugar Pie Pumpkins and Cucumber Lemon. Now, I'm really, really done buying seeds.

A quick update on the tomato plants I started in December. This is one of the Sweet 100 varieties. I had to stake it today as it is getting rather top heavy. I lost some of my Roma plants to some type of bug...I'm not sure if the seed was bad or it may have been a fungal thing. I tossed all of them just in case it spread to the other plants. Sad.... but a necessity when you risk losing others to the same thing. I have slowly started increasing the time the tomato plants are exposed to darkness in hopes that the plants will start to flower soon. My attitude on this is if it works great, if not it was just an experiment.

The cuke plants are doing great but the cucumber fruits are pretty small. They may need more light than they are getting there in the window but regardless they are cute :)

Little sprouts and greenhouse upgrades

2010-02-11T20:51:00.000-08:00

Short post today as the sun is finally out and if I don't take the pups (Buddy and Stella) on a walk they will go crazy. They are already borderline neurotic.

To the left is a picture of some of the herbs I started from seed a few weeks back. They are all doing great so far. I have about 70 pots total of parsley, thyme, several different basils, and oregano. Yesterday, I started my eggplant, celery, cayenne peppers, jalapenos and serrano peppers. In all, I seeded about 65 pots. I'm still impatiently waiting for the rest of my pepper seeds to arrive....seems the seed company is holding them captive because one variety is on back order. I also started a few broccoli seeds as an experiment. I want to see if it will transition well to the greenhouse when we fire up the heat here in a few weeks.

Here is a picture of the greenhouse progress...Dad finished putting in the lower shelves before he fell ill last week. (He scared us as he ended up in the hospital but he is now thankfully on the mend) Eventually he is going to add upper shelves along both sides as well....but for now he has to take it easy.

I'm really excited at all the extra space we are going to have this year and if the weather holds, I don't think buying the propane will put us in the poor house :)

Now the pups are barking anxiously at me....so off we go to enjoy the sun!

The Family Tree

2010-02-08T15:55:00.000-08:00

This McIntosh apple tree has been in our family for nearly 100 years. It's a tree that holds many special memories. My brothers and I used to climb the tree and pluck the apples that my mom and dad would use to make applesauce. The tree was also a calm place where I would go to often just sit and chill out..... and perhaps most importantly, it served as a refuge from our ornery calf that would often chase us after we taunted the poor thing. (well that was mostly my brothers:) You know who you are :)

My grandfather planted this tree after homesteading in the Dalton Gardens area and amazingly enough the tree continues to produce record size fruit. The home to the left, where the apple tree resides, is that of my grandparents who have long since passed away. The story on how my grandparents met is very cool and grandma loved to tell the story. I loved to listen and would sit with her on her sunny porch sipping tea and eating cookies as she told it. Her thick french accent made it all the more enticing to listen to. The story goes something like this: My grandfather was an MP in WWI and stationed in Mimizan, France. His job included securing various buildings in the village. One of those buildings happened to be a hotel owned by my grandmother's parents. Here, they met and courted for the duration of my grandfather's military term. The two could not go anywhere alone during their courtship as my grandmother's parents made her have a chaperon at all times. Although, according to grandma they were able to ditch them every once in a while. (The need for the chaperon was in part because she was very young -14 years younger than my grandpa.) When my grandfather's military term was over, he left France and headed back to the states. He left with only a promise to return and marry my grandmother. From what I can remember of the story my grandfather then homesteaded a property in Glacier, Montana. He stayed his required number of years according to the Homestead Act and once he had title to the property he sold it. With the proceeds, he was able to make his way back to Mimizan, France and it was there that he asked my grandmother's parents the permission to marry their daughter. They were married soon after.... and get this....the wedding party, which took place at the family owned hotel, went on for an entire week. (Do the French know how to party or what?)

The newlywed couple resided in Mimizan for (I don't know the exact timeline) quite some time and later boarded a ship and headed for the U.S. (The boat ride took nearly two weeks.) My grandfather and grandmother eventually homesteaded in the rural outskirts of Coeur d'Alene, Idaho what is now called Dalton Gardens. It was many years later that my grandparents had enough money saved to bring my grandmother's parents to the U.S. as well. My grandpa spent his free time adding on to his home so they would have enough space for their growing family. Later, upon arriving here, my grandma's parents lived with them up until they passed away some years later.

I was lucky to be able to grow up in an area surrounded by family and equally lucky to have the wonderful stories to share with my children. By the way...my childhood home is the one on the right and this is where the family garden is. This same property was all vegetable garden at one point as my grandpa was also an avid gardener. Hmmmm...not a bad idea :)

That must be where I get it :)

The Seasons of Life

2010-02-04T09:04:00.000-08:00

This August will be the two year anniversary of our mother's passing. Not a day goes by that I don't think about her and today I especially can't seem to shake the the heaviness in my heart. Perhaps, it is because February of last year is around the time we learned that mom had brain cancer. I suppose the sadness surrounding this time of year will forever remain etched in my heart. It was a time of chaos but we also had hope. Our entire family and our spouses set out to Seattle's Harborview Hospital to consult with the best of the best doctors. Of course, we were expecting some inkling of hope that maybe, just maybe there would be some sort of treatment for her. Unfortunately, there was no magical cure. Mom endured chemo and radiation for over a year until she just couldn't do it anymore.... mentally or physically. The family respected her wishes and she stopped all treatment. Mom kept a cheerful and positive attitude even up until she passed away early in August of 2008. She and my dad would have been married for nearly 58 years. Not too many people can say that now days.

Today I happened to be going through garden photos and found this one. Mom's favorite summer flowers were petunias. She would buy the Wave Petunias and fill an entire garden. We planted those (above) from seed last year and they were beautiful. (I think she had something to do with it :) For some reason the petunias reminded me of a passage from the book "Motherless Daughters" by Hope Edelman. It relates to how our mothers continue to influence our lives long after they are gone. Working together in the garden is but a small part of how my parents influenced me but it was the most memorable. Here is the passage:

"The Redwoods"
By Hope Edelman

"In the redwood ecosystem, buds for future trees are contained in pods called burls, tough brown knobs that cling to the bark of the mother tree. When the mother tree is logged, blown over, or destroyed by fire-when, in other words, she dies-the trauma stimulates the burls' growth hormones. The seeds release, and trees sprout around her, creating the circle of daughters. The daughter trees grow by absorbing the sunlight their mothers cedes them when she dies. The receive the moisture and nutrients they need from their mother's root system, which remains intact underground even after her leaves die. Although the daughters exist independently of their mother above ground, they continue to draw sustenance from her underneath.
For years, I searched for my mother in the air or the cosmos around me. I kept forgetting to look under my feet. The foundation she gave me in my first seventeen years was a solid one. If it hadn't been, I don't think I could have managed on my own after she died....I am fooling myself when I say that my mother exists now only in the photograph on my bulletin board or in the outline of my hand or in the armful of memories I still hold tight. She lives on beneath everything I do. Her presence influenced who I was, and her absence influences who I am. Our lives are shaped as much by those who leave us as they are by those who stay."

The family garden keeps on giving.

2010-02-02T10:42:00.000-08:00

There is nothing like a warm bowl of tomato soup on a cold blustery day especially when you can say you grew and preserved the ingredients. It is also very satisfying to know that pesticides and preservatives (all too typical of the grocery store brands) were not part of the process. This is a pic of our tomato basil soup. We got some recipes we liked from various friends and canning books and then modified some of the spices to suit our taste. My family tends to like their food a little on the spicy side so we included some serrannos and jalapenos to the mix. And yes...the basil garnish is also straight from the garden. Btw...when I say we "modified" some of the recipes I mean generally the spices only. You want to make sure to follow canning recipes very closely as any variations could result in...well...botulism or some other form of toxic soup! Also, I can't stress enough on following proper sanitation procedures when cooking and canning. You can get a lot of helpful information from the National Center for Home Preservation. http://www.uga.edu/nchfp/

It's hard to believe that we are still reaping the benefits of the garden and it is almost time to start all over again. This is really only our second season of serious canning so we are gaining a better perspective on how much food we need to get us through the winter. I think we overdid it on the pickles and the pickled peppers (the nursery rhyme how many peppers did Peter Piper pick has new meaning to me) but we were able to give away a lot of those to family and friends. Sharing the bounty is really half the fun for me anyway. Below is a pic of pickles mixed with various garden peppers. We made some into relish and it turned out really good.

Below the pickle picture is our mammoth dill plants. We go through lots of it during the pickling process. The dill plants really did great at my dad's garden. In fact, some reached nearly 5 feet tall. I think they did so well because they were planted behind the pole bean trellis which allowed for some partial shade in the late afternoon. Unfortunately, we had poor results with the dill at my home garden last year. The plants got some sort of bug and never recovered. (that's is why I have the philosophy that you can never have too many plants :) Needless to say, I have already ordered several packets!

Happy garden thoughts to all!

Herbal madness!

2010-01-28T15:04:00.000-08:00

Today I looked at the calendar and was amazed how fast January flew by. I think it seemed that way because January was so sunny and snowless. I'm hoping February is the same....I usually wait until late February to start most of my seeds but this year I have decided I'm going for it... at least with the herbs. So far, I have approximately 65 herb pots started. They include Boxwood Basil, Basil Pistchou, Sweet Large Leaf Basil, English Thyme, Greek Oregano, Curly Leaf Parsley, Basil Red Rubin, Sweet Marjoram and Lavender. I will also be starting Sage, Tarragon and lots of Mammoth Dill but I usually start those straight in the garden. I do this partly because my experience is they tend to do better seeded rather than transplanted and I really don't use them as much until later in the season. In our outdoor herbal garden we have plenty of Chocolate Mint, Spearmint, Peppermint, Lemon Thyme, Oregano, Herb Burnett, Lavender and German Chamomile. These come back every year when the winter is mild. The only herb I usually buy as a plant is Rosemary. It usually won't survive the winters here and it takes a bit more time to grow. I am looking to add new herbs this season so if anyone has suggestions I would love to hear them.

Additions and upgrades to the family garden.

2010-01-24T12:24:00.000-08:00

My dad finished constructing the third raised bed for the family garden and we got it set in place yesterday. Did I mention that I love my dad??? The new box will likely be used for the broccoli and cauliflower as we had great success growing them in the beds last season. The bugs always got to them when I planted them in the regular garden. Since they are especially prone to aphids we planted marigolds in with them and I think it really helped. I don't use pesticides. I think all of those chemicals are just poisoning us and causing all kinds of health problems....but that's just my opinion.....I have strawberries in the box on the right that need to be separated and replanted as they have many sucker shoots on them. The box on the left still has spinach in it which was just an experiment to see how long it would last in the elements. It actually did better than I thought it would. Notice the electric fence surrounding the garden...tons of deer roam through dad's property so we have to keep it protected. So far ...so good. Knock on wood.

In preparation for spring planting we are also making some improvements inside the greenhouse. We are adding shelves on both sides so there will be more room for starts. I will probably have to rotate the seedlings since they may not get enough light but I don't mind. (gardening is not a chore to me) I can hardly wait to fire up the propane in the greenhouse. If this wonderful weather holds and the price of propane doesn't go up we might be able to start earlier than normal. Only 55 days until spring!!!

Cucumber Quandary : Stickman saves the day!

2010-01-22T10:25:00.000-08:00

My indoor cukes are growing like crazy...so much that I found myself in a pickle so to speak...(I know but I couldn't resist). I wasn't sure how I was going to support the growing vine. Initially, I thought I would makeshift some sort of trellis to allow it to climb or move it to an upstairs location where I have more room. (I just realized that I have this thing where I just start growing things without considering how much space I have.) Well, as luck would have it, I was taking a lunch break when I noticed my beautiful handcrafted walking stick leaning against the wall by the front door. This walking stick was a gift from a good friend of my husbands.
A little background on the crafter of these fine walking sticks : He is known as Stickman because he hand carves these beautiful pieces of art from various types of tree branches and even decorates some of them with various gems. You see, Stickman lives near a gorgeous wooded area in Coeur d' Alene, Idaho called Tubbs Hill. The area is a hiker's haven and everyone that walks by Stickman's house can get a free walking stick. Some of the area schools have even taken their kids on field trips to his garage. And yes...every child gets to leave with a handcrafted walking stick personalized by Stickman himself.
So back to my cucumber quandary....I wondered if perhaps the stick would fit perfectly inside the windowsill (in a horizontal manner) so as to allow my cukes to climb and have support. I figured my family has seen me do crazier things so I went for it....and lo and behold it fit perfectly!.... And the family thought it looked cool. As you can see in the pictures below, the cukes are happily wrapping their little tendrils around the stick.....What will I do when they outgrow this stick? Well, I have an idea....it may involve visiting the Stickman for a custom size stick or two.... :)

Thanks Stickman for saving the day!

But you can never have too many seeds!!!

2010-01-20T10:02:00.000-08:00

I have to admit that I have this tendency to start ordering more seed when I haven't even taken a proper inventory of leftovers from last year. And, I'm not just talking about ordering a few packets... Just ask my family...they were beginning to wonder if I had a thing going with the UPS driver ...kidding ...lol... Oh well my philosophy is you can never have too many seeds! This time, upon receiving my order, I made myself sit down and take note of what I have already. There are some seeds I don't plan on using this year and it's not that they didn't do well...I just like to keep trying new things so if anyone out there would like any of the following seeds or wants to trade seeds please send me a note and I will be glad to mail them to you.

I have Heart of Gold Cantaloupe, Sugar Baby Watermelon, Crimson Sweet Watermelon, Golden Sunshine and Emperor Runner Pole Beans (very pretty flowers on them), Serrano Tampiqueno, Detroit Dark Red Beets, and a very interesting spinach called Spinach Malabar Red Stern. The spinach is actually a vining spinach and it is very heat tolerant. I also have some Baby Bonus Corn seeds left. These are the baby corns you see in traditional Chinese cuisine. They turned out very sweet. I am growing lots more of this corn this year but I don't mind sharing some of the leftover seeds. We actually blanched and froze a lot of it and it still retained the great flavor. See below pic of the so called "baby" corn along with some of our gardening partners (my brother Rick and lovely wife Melanie.) Also see the actual corn husked pic below....they are cute little things. I will probably find more seed to share as I continue my inventory process so I will likely post more soon....just remember..... You can never have too many seeds!

How to cut your own top sirloin steaks - cheap

2010-01-18T08:39:00.000-08:00

I have been promising for awhile now to post a how-to video on cutting cheap Top Sirloin steaks. I did these for $2.35 a pound, which is Costco's standard price. If you think about it, that is nearly as cheap as hamburger.

Anyway, with a little help from Daisy Girl, I finally got a video done. In this nine-minute tutotial, I'll take you through the whole process of cutting the steaks. Unfortunately, I ran out of batteries in the cam corder before I could do another video on tenderizing and grilling the steaks, but I was able to write a blog post on how to tenderize and grill these steaks on my brother Bobby's Blog "The Smoker Pit." You can read that article: here.

BTW, I have posted this video permanently at the bottom of this blog for quick reference. In fact, I am toying with the idea of doing a series of how-to videos to post down there in the future. Let me know what you think...

Harvest time!

2010-01-13T12:22:00.000-08:00

Our Yugoslavian Red lettuce and other misc baby greens are finally ready to eat after spending a little over a month in the closet...under the grow light that is. Actually, I alternated the grow light with the natural light from a sunny window. I am still patiently waiting to see if the cucumbers and tomatoes will actually produce fruit. I have been reading up on force blooming and pollination so hopefully something comes of it. Below are the cucumbers which are called Cucino hybrids I purchased from Park Seed. They are supposed to be great for growing in the greenhouse so I am going to give that a try when we fire up the heat in early March. I also started a couple heirloom tomatoes and a couple cherry tomato varieties. Pictured below the cukes are the heirlooms. They may need a stronger grow light to actually get stocky...I have been pinching them back to try to ensure this but so far they still look a bit "leggy" to me....oh well ...this is just an experiment. I will just have to buy more lights if necessary.

Last week I started some Basil Red Reuben, Boxwood Basil, English Thyme, oregano, Supersweet Tomatoes, spinach and more lettuce varieties. At least I know the spinach and lettuce will do well.

Every year I have a large herb garden but this year I am thinking on expanding it as I am really getting into cooking with them. Like fresh veggies, the fresh herbs are so much better than you buy from the grocery store...and minus the chemicals!
I have been reading up on various studies that report just how many chemicals are used on your average supermarket vegetables..Sure you wash them but really how much of those chemicals are absorbed into the plant ? It is scary to think about. No thanks....no chemicals for me. I will continue to harvest my own even if it means going back into the closet to do it. lol!

Grandpa's garden tools just keep on tickin.

2010-01-12T13:58:00.001-08:00

This ancient gardening tool is a push along weed tiller....This was originally my grandfather's tiller but as he got older and could no longer garden he handed it down to my dad. We figure it is around 70 to 80 years old...(of course my dad made a few upgrades to it along the way.) Over the years the tiller was eventually shoved to the back of the old shed and forgotten. After all, there were new and improved tillers (especially the kind that had a motor) that could do a much more efficient job. Last spring the family starting reminiscing about old-time farming and about how our society has become so dependent on motorized equipment that we tend to take a lot for granted. Needless to say, that prompted my dad to pull out the old tiller from the back of the shed to show us kids that it still did a fine job of tilling! We actually used it a lot this past summer... and yes dad....it does a wonderful job even after all these years. Dad found another old time hand-me-down tool in the shed that we also used during spring planting...the corn planter (below). I'm not so sure it isn't more efficient to just use a shovel but it's still kind of cool to utilize the old timers that my grandparents used back in the day....not to mention I have had brand new tools break within a year's use but these old tools they just keep on tickin....

What winter?

2010-01-06T13:41:00.000-08:00

It's sunny and 21F here in beautiful Post Falls, Idaho. What better way to start the day than a walk with the pups at the park. To the left is Buddy and to the right is his sister Stella. As you can see from the picture, there is no snow!!! Yep, it's all in the high mountains... for now anyway. With the last two winters bringing us record snowfall I am relieved to have a mellow one ....finally...knock on wood. When I got back from my walk I had a nice surprise waiting for me in the mailbox....more seed catalogs and the tomato seeds that I ordered in January finally came. I am trying 6 new tomato varieties this spring; For cherries I will plant Marcellino, Golden Gem, Peacevine and my tried and true favorites Sweet Million and Sugar Snack. For paste tomatoes I will plant San Marzano, Amish and Gilbertie. And for slicing tomatoes, I have ordered Costoluto Genovese, Brandywine and I'm still debating on a couple more.... Any reader suggestions would be welcome as I am selling at the farmer's market this year and want a good variety.

The cure for spring fever!

2010-01-04T15:20:00.000-08:00

I'm not much of a winter person but I try to get through it and one thing that really helps is to start planning the garden for next spring. I have been receiving what seems like a seed catalog a week since mid November so I have lots of seed purchase decisions to make. (I don't know what it is but opening the mailbox and finding a seed catalog just really makes my day....)

Not only are there seed purchases to decide upon but the garden layout changes every year as well. This spring we are adding a raised bed and three potato boxes to the "family garden" at my dad's house. We determined which crops thrived best in the raised beds; namely the cabbage, broccoli and the cauliflower and decided not to change that up. In fact, the new bed is for more of the same. My theory is you can never have too many vegetables.....Below is a picture of the raised bed that my awesome dad built for me.

Last summer in one raised box we grew all of our herbs; basil, thyme, oregano, tarragon, lavender, and sage to name a few. We also threw in a few marigolds and some petunia seeds (my mom's favorite) and the petunias nearly took over the entire box. I think that was mom's way of telling us she is still with us in spirit. This year we will have one box for strawberries and two for the broccoli, cabbage and cauliflower. I am going to find a new location for my herbs since they really don't get bothered by many pests anyway. Below is a picture of the herb box from last spring. My daughter "daisy girl" found the angel you see hanging at a thrift store and since my mom was a collector of angels we thought it was a perfect addition to the garden.

In addition to the "family garden" at my dad's house my husband and I have our own backyard vegetable and herb garden to tend to. It is approximately 1000 sq feet and while much smaller than the family garden it is still time consuming. Not that I mind...it's just hard to keep up the canning when everything comes on at once. This year we decided that our backyard garden is going to be the experimental garden...that is we will grow only new crops that we have never tried before. The regulars will still be grown and perhaps "weeded out" of the mix at the family garden should I find a better suited plant along the way. (I am open to plant suggestions)
Well.... according to my spring countdown clock there are only 75 days to go....I guess I will continue garden planning and seed purchasing and before we know it we will all be digging in the dirt once again!

Smoke 'em if you got 'em

2009-12-29T13:41:00.001-08:00

Smoking up the neighborhood today. I am smoking up two turkeys and a ham for my second-oldest daughter's wedding on New Year's Eve. I am very excited for her, but I don't remeber my wedding being this stressful. Cripes there certainly are pleny of thing to do (and buy) in order to pull one of these things off...

The long shadows of Black Bay

2009-12-26T16:30:00.000-08:00

I cannot recall the last time we have had such great weather over the holidays... I am sure it is not that rare, but after two years of record-breaking winters, this past few days of warm sunshine (realitively speaking) have been wonderful.

I took the dogs running for a couple of hours today at Black Bay Park. The sun and wildlife were stunning. A young deer has made its home there at the park for the present, but you'll have to look closely to find it. And literally hundreds and hundreds of mallards and geese speckle the Spokane River... when the massive flocks fly over head, you can hear their wings shattering the crisp air with a faint but disernable whistle ...

I found a sunny spot and sat for awhile. I cracked an ice cold beer and watched the sun sink very quickly into the afternoon while it stretched long shadows across the landscape... The pups and I were among those long shadows for awhile... It was quite a beautiful day.

Carrying on the pumpkin bread tradition.

2009-12-22T14:27:00.000-08:00

I remember growing up in a family that not only gardened and preserved food but also did quite a lot of baking....especially during the holidays. After my two brothers and I had grown up and moved out of the house my mother began a tradition of baking us a loaf or two of pumpkin bread every Christmas. It is a wonderful recipe and I believe she made it her own over the years by tweaking a few ingredients here and there.

Being young and of course broke, us kids welcomed the baked goods. In fact, I know that is why she did it. She always taught us that you should save money any way you could and she was always teaching us lessons through her own actions....always setting the example. Looking back I appreciate the long hours she worked in the kitchen to make us that bread. It was definitely made with love.

Last year mom passed away and the holidays have been an especially difficult time for my family. I spent the last couple of days feeling pretty down and yesterday I happened to be cleaning out some kitchen drawers and saw her pumpkin bread recipe. I realized in that moment that she would not want me to be sad for her. Instead she would want me to have a wonderful holiday with friends and family and she would expect that I carry out her pumpkin bread tradition. With that, I got busy and so far 8 loaves down and only 4 to go....only one change to the recipe and that is I used our pumpkin that was grown in the family garden.... The tradition carries on ....love you mom. (Actually posted by Sunny under Bent's account again... still tweaking the blog ;-)

It might be too cold for growing in the greenhouse.... but who cares?

2009-12-15T13:16:00.000-08:00

This picture was taken before we got several inches of new snow. Still it's a gloomy picture and we still have several months of this... so rather than be depressed about it...I try to focus my attention on next year's garden plans and buying seeds. I would love to be growing in the greenhouse right now but it's just too expensive to heat during the long winter months. We usually fire up the propane heat around mid March or so and run it until early May depending on the outdoor temperature.

Since I'm not one to let obstacles stand in my way when I really want something....I decided to try growing a few plants indoors. There is no extra cost to heat and light is all you need...what I found though was that grow lights (like the metal halide variety) can be pretty expensive to operate not to mention the cost of the bulbs.... sounds like just another obstacle trying to keep me from my gardening passion....Well, I did my research and found that many people grow veggies indoors all year round with LED lights. They are way cheaper to run as they use 45 watts yet put out as much light as many of the metal halides.

The light that I purchased was about $135 but the bulb life is over 50,000 hours.... I would say that's pretty impressive. My light covers 5 square feet which isn't a lot but if it works then that's fine by me.... I will just buy another one for added coverage... but shhhhh...don't tell hubby.

So far, as you can see (on the sidebar to the right) my tomatoes are doing quite well. In fact, I will need to transplant them soon as they are about 3 inches high. As the plants mature I will keep them pruned by pinching off the new stems that pop up between the branches (called "suckers"). This will make sure they stay compact and put most of their energy into fruit production. The difficulty in growing indoors is to not overwater. If you get too much moisture in the soil you can get mold or something called damping off disease. To avoid this I provide a lot of water at one time rather than watering in small frequent quantities.
Also, I will provide a small amount of diluted organic fertilizer when I transplant to give the plants an extra boost. The tomato plants need approximately 14 to 18 hours of sunlight or they will never produce fruit. Lettuce is less picky....I have grown it in a sunny windowsill during the winter months and it has done fine.

Currently, I have two types of tomatoes, two types of lettuce and one type of cucumber growing in the container. I will also start some herbs in the next couple of days....many herbs will do fine in a sunny windowsill so I won't need to keep them under the light full time. Regardless of how this experiment goes, I will keep posting pictures as the weeks go by..... and hopefully we will be eating homegrown closet tomatoes by February. If not, well then I will call it a nice distraction from the winter months.....happy growing!

This is actually posted by Sunny (I was on Bent's account for maintence purposes).

Creative Gardening

2009-12-04T11:40:00.001-08:00

I came across this video on Keyhole gardening....I had never heard of it before so I went and checked it out. I have some regular raised beds but I am definitely going to try this next spring.

Click here for another cool gardening idea that I found online: the potato box. The idea is to save space in the garden by planting the potatoes in boxes and you keep covering the foilage with dirt as they grow and this gives the roots more depth which will allow for more potato production. I am having my son help me make two of these for the family garden. This last summer our potatoes did quite well just planted in the ground but doing it that way takes up space. And the more space we save ...the more veggies we can grow......We won several ribbons at the fair for our potatoes including the Super One award so we have the basics of potato growing down...but there is always room for improvement!

Who says you can't garden all year long?

2009-12-01T09:07:00.000-08:00

This may look like something illegal is going on...but it's really not....I purchased this LED light online a couple weeks ago. It was a bit pricey at about $135.00... but I wanted to see if I could continue growing veggies inside during the winter.

I have done a lot of research on what grows best indoors and how to pollinate plants as there are no bees around to complete that task. I decided to start with some basic plants to see if this will be worth my time in the first place....so I planted tomatoes and lettuce. So far, both have germinated and appear to be doing well.

Lighting is one of the most important aspects of growing indoors....without proper light your tomatoes will be weak and lanky and probably never flower...My LED light is supposed to cover 5 square feet and I'm probably not utilizing all that space but this is just an experiment. The light should be a few inches above the seedlings to make them grow strong and compact. If the light is too far away the plants will literally reach toward the light and become very lanky. The nice thing about this type of light is that it does not produce heat so you don't need to worry about "frying" the seedlings. I will transplant the tomato plants into larger containers once they get their first set of true leaves. The lettuce will need to be thinned and I will probably move it to another container as well.

To start the seedlings I used a plastic storage bin and poked holes in the bottom for drainage. I purchased a regular bag of potting soil for a few dollars...you don't want to use garden soil for growing indoors as it is usually to dense and will compact which won't allow for proper drainage. Also, you risk the chance of bringing microscopic bugs indoors which could compromise the health of your plants.
The temperature indoors should be around 70 degrees or more for the ideal germination environment. Later, as the plants mature, you may need to adjust the temperature depending on what you are growing. Some plants like it hot.... and some like it cold. I will keep updating the blog as I venture further into the world of indoor vegetable growing...it should be interesting... if I am successful I may need to devote an entire room to plants.. :) My family loves me...good thing... as I tend to have gardening paraphernalia all over the house all year long....

Speaking of all the garden paraphernalia, I am always looking for ways to keep my gardening supplies in some kind of order...and I happened upon this web site called http://wintersown.org/that had these templates for making your own seed packets. You simply print them out and cut and tape or glue them closed. Then you can label them and store your favorite seeds. I am thinking about using them for Christmas labels. That way I can personalize them and share my favorite seed with friends and family.

Jack 2: Before & After

2009-10-28T21:19:00.000-07:00

This is the biggest pumpkin we grew this year. Actually it is the biggest pumpkin Sunny and I have ever grown. It was 73 pounds using store-bought Giant pumpkin seed. This is also the first time Sunny and I have tried to grow pumpkins and it inspired us. We got an early 36-pounder and a 68-pounder to boot (See: Meet Jack below).

By the way, Dustin designed the face on this Jack-O-Lantern. Meghan and her friend Millie carved most of it, and Brittany added some detail. I shot some pictures and processed him into pumpkin pie filling the very next day! To heck with Halloween, that is too much pumpkin pie to waste!

Anyway, Sunny and I have decided to go both big and small next year. I am researching Atlantic Giants and the little pie pumpkins to grow next year. Sunny is going to hit the Farmer's Market next year, so we should have some dandies for sale next fall.

I am lobbying for the space to grow at least one Atlantic Giant next year. Christy Harp set the new world's record with this 1725-pound Atlantic Giant in Canfield Ohio on Oct. 3. All she used was compost on it. While some believe there may be one bigger still out there this year, that is still incredibly impressive.

If I grow Atlantics next season, they will be just for carving, and I will grow a bunch of pie pumpkins for cooking. I have never made pumpkin pie from scratch before, but I gave it try this year with the 36-pounder and Jack 2, pictured at the top of this post. He alone will make a total of twelve 9-inch deep dish pies!

I really need to practice making pie without burning the edge of the crust, otherwise, I have to say pumpkin pie from scratch has to be the best I have ever eaten, and it's really easy to make. I have adapated my own recipe from this base recipe here .

Time to get busy....

2009-10-21T13:11:00.000-07:00

When this family decides to do something we don't go small scale....not in the garden and not in the kitchen....We purchased this bad boy canner over the internet from a company back east. It cost nearly $400 but it holds 19 quarts and saves us a lot of time. So far we have pressure canned pumpkin, spaghetti sauce, salsa, carrots, tomato soup, meat, barbeque sauce...not to mention everything we water-bath canned.
This pressure canner is extremely heavy when you get it all loaded and you can't use it on a regular stove top...lucky for us we have a gas range with metal grates... and it takes up two burners!

This was a practice run season for gardening and canning as next year we are ramping it up with the addition of another 24 by 80 feet of garden space and 2 additional raised beds. We got a good idea of when our various crops will need to be harvested and also how to plant in succession so we also get fall crops. I wanted to see how much I could produce so that next season I can sell at the farmer's market. I would also like to grow various crops for people who enjoy fresh veggies but hate to garden...(Hard to imagine that people hate to garden :) I already have a few takers on this idea so I am very excited....I am also considering taking orders for vegetable baskets in which the customer would get a basket of vegetables and or flowers on a predetermined schedule and delivered straight to their front door. I am also interested in growing some vegetables to provide to the local food bank. This year we had an abundance of tomatos and cucumbers (I grew over 100 plants each) so I gave quite a lot to the Post Falls food bank...It feels good to give especially when it is fresh garden veggies that you grew yourself....

I have already began the garden plans for next year and I am also investigating hydroponic gardening so I could grow some veggies year round. We are going to build a few potato boxes and a composter for next year... I saw some pictures of potato boxes online and they seem pretty cool. You can expect 50 to 150 pounds of potatos from each box so we will give it a try.....When it comes to gardening we are always thinking of ways to improve next year's yield.

For now though...it's back to the kitchen as we still have 4 rows of carrots to clean and can. :)

Meet Jack

2009-10-12T08:41:00.000-07:00

This pumpkin is the smaller of the two giants we grew in the garden. We decided to carve this one up....Mike (Melanies son) was the talented carver. ....and we are keeping the big guy for pie ingredients. We actually had one more pumpkin in the garden that was mistakenly planted in the cucumber patch this year....oops....by the time we figured it out we decided to just leave it. Jeff made pumpkin pie from that one...and it was the best pie I think I have ever tasted. Supposedly, the larger pumpkins aren't supposed to be as good for pie making but everyone loved it. I suspect we won't need to buy a store made pie during the holidays this year...

2010 Family Garden Expansion!!!

2009-10-08T10:50:00.001-07:00

We spent the last few weekends slowly taking down the garden and harvesting everything. It is sad to see summer go but then again it allows us time to start planning for the next gardening season. And we will definitely need more planning time since we are expanding the garden next year!!!! I couldn't believe my ears when my dad said "so how much bigger do you want the garden?" A bigger garden means taking up more of his beautiful lush green pasture that he keeps so perfectly groomed. He said it would just mean less for him to mow!!! I didn't argue.

The expansion is going to be about a 24 wide by 100 or so feet long. It will extend to the right of the above photo and it will leave room in the back for another raised bed or two. We will have to put up another electric fence around the expansion in order to keep the pesky deer out. The deer could easily jump this fence but so far the electricity has kept them from coming too close.

My lovely sister-in-law grew these petunias and the super sized marigolds (all from seed) in the raised beds behind her. These were no ordinary flowers let me tell ya...The petunias were supposed to be just your typical petunia but they literally took over the entire raised bed and were flowing over the sides. Dad had to tie them up so he could mow around them. Petunias were one of my moms favorite flowers so she may have had a hand in this :)

We hated having to tear them out. As you can see they were still in full bloom...but they shared the raised bed with the strawberries.... and the strawberries created so many new shoots that we figured we should get busy transplanting them. Slowly we have removed most everything from the garden except the perennial herbs , strawberries and the giant pumpkins.

The pumpkins were just an experiment this year but they really turned out great... In fact, my dad started a family contest to see who could guess the weight and the winner receives $20. We got some frost this week so I'm guessing we will pluck them from the vine this weekend and do the weigh in. Next year we are going to try and beat the new world record and grow some Atlantic Giants... :) Just kiddin dad. We are also going to add some pie pumpkins to the mix next year as Jeff recently learned to make pumpkin pie from scratch and it turned out quite delicious.

A Thriving Individual

2009-10-02T22:50:00.000-07:00

My-oh-my! She finally flourished! I transplanted this beauteous creature into the ground about a month or two into Summer, and she finally decided to be brave and introduce herself to the world! Before I captured this memorable moment, I really studied her. I learned so much. And as funky as this sounds, my puny daisy has an enormous personality. When I first glanced at her, over the ledge of the front porch, she seemed a bit shy towards the other pretty flowers surrounding her. So, I knelt down beside her and admired her radiant pedals; then I greeted her with a bundle of joy and excitement, it was almost as if she was mocking me. She smiled right back at me! It was like she had been waiting to meet me. What a brilliant day it was, and I am glad to share it with everybody! Have a nice day! "Just can't live that negative way...make way for a positive day." -Bob Marley

Giant pumpkins!

2009-10-02T11:59:00.000-07:00

Here is one of our giant pumpkins started in March in the greenhouse. Jeff made pumpkin pie from scratch with one of the smaller ones and it turned out very good....nothing store bought even compares to the taste of home grown pumpkins.
Grandpa started a contest for all the
grandkids...they have to guess the weight of the largest pumpkin and whoever guesses correctly wins $20....I anticipate the weigh-in to be in mid October and keep in mind these were gaining 2 or more pounds per day in August.
Next year we are going to try growing Atlantic Giants and see how big we can get them. Apparently, they can grow over a thousand pounds...wow... me might have to expand the garden even more!! We also want to grow a few pie pumpkins ( the smaller variety are supposedly better tasting for pie purposes). I think I will also look into other pumpkin recipes so if anyone has ideas please let me know.

Soup's on baby...

2009-09-20T09:45:00.000-07:00

Okay, I have been threatening to blog about canning lately so I shot up some pictures last night while we made tomato soup! We are so loaded down with tomatoes right now, we have to start canning like mad. (BTW, if you want tomatoes just say the word... seriously).

Anyway, I have been studying tomato soup recipes to get feel for what I want to make and I incorporated bits and pieces from several recipes. This recipe is my first-ever crack at tomato soup, and it turned out pretty darn good. I encourage you to try it, but add a twist or two to make it your own ... It's much more fun that way ;-)

When I am studying recipes I am looking to steal tricks, ingredients and techniques to make my own recipes. I'm an eyeball cooker -- I usually wing it -- but that doesn't mean I'm lazy. To the contrary, I become immersed in cooking. Actually, when I started writing tonight, I realized there is sort of a method to my madness. All I had to do was stop and think about it. This blogging stuff ha sits benefits. Any how, here is how my mind works when I jump into a cooking challenge

To the 'net for recipes and flavor and then to the books for safe cooking and preservation.

First, I'm look for commonalities among all the recipes I read. I am looking for a base. For instance, pretty much every recipe I found for tomato soup had, of course, tomatoes, but also carrots, onions, celery and chicken stock.

Next, I look at proportions. Most recipes are written for a meal, but with 40 pounds of cherry tomatoes on the kitchen table I need an industrial size recipe, so I start eyeballing recipes for proportions. In this case, I noticed that a lot of the recipes called for carrots at a ratio of 2:1... meaning that for every two cups of tomatoes, most recipes call for one cup of chopped carrots, and so on... so that is how I developed my soup recipes, which I'll post below in proportional terms.

Then I look for unique ingredients. I found a few really cool recipes. One had bacon in it, another used potatoes in the base, and a couple of them started with oven-roasted tomatoes. I didn't use potatoes this time, but I might next time. I did, however, incorporate bacon and I decided to fire-roast and smoke my tomatoes. (note: if you make this recipe and decide to can it, you will have to pressure can it because of the bacon. Or you could leave the bacon out and hot bath your jars).

So here is how I did it. I started out with 45 cups of cherry tomatoes and laid them out on cookie sheets. I liberally salted them and peppered them with fresh ground black pepper. I put mine on the BBQ with hickory chips and smoked them for about 30 minutes. You could also put them in a 400 degree oven for about the same amount of time. What this does is increase the bioavailability, or the body's ability to absorb the lycopene in the tomatoes. (I know, I even impressed myself with that one). Why is that important? Lycopene is an antioxidant and is widely believe to help prevent certain cancers, particularly prostate cancer. The roasting also makes your tomatoes taste much more rich and intense...

I decided to go 1:4 with my carrots. I used about 11 cups for this recipe. So for every four cups of raw tomatoes, you would use 1 cup of raw chopped carrots. Then I went 1:8 for the celery and onions. for every eight cups of tomatoes, I used one cup of chopped celery and one cup of chopped onions. In this recipe I used roughly six cups of each. BTW, don't bother chopping too small because your going to blend it all in the end

In a large sauce pan saute the onions until they are opaque. Then toss in the carrots and celery. Add enough chicken stock to barely cover the vegetables in the pot. I used a full 49.5-ounce can of stock for this recipe. Bring this to a boil and simmer until the vegetables are tender.

I added a quarter cup of fresh chopped basil into two separate stock pots (I think they are 3-gallon pots), and I split up all of the ingredients equally into each pot. I did this to make things more manageable, plus I wanted to do two types of soup ... one spicy, and one mild for Sunny's dad. Anyway, now you have your soup base.

I decided to flavor this soup with bacon and a variety of peppers. Since I had the grill fired up, I went ahead and smoked them too. I probably smoked a dozen Serrano peppers and a half dozen jalapenos ... I also smoked yellow and green bells for the mild soup.

I left the seeds in, except for the bell peppers. I decided to add the peppers to taste, which is touchy because you won't get the full heat effect until this soup hits the blender... so go easy. We used everything except four of the Serranos, and the spicy soup is pretty spicy. I would use about four to six bell peppers in the mild batch depending on taste. The bacon was split evenly between the two pots (I grilled the bacon with all of the peppers on top of them, which added a very mild tingle to the tongue).

Once you have all the ingredients in, cover and bring the pots to a boil. Make sure to stir frequently to prevent scorching. Remove lid, reduce heat and simmer with lid off to reduce mixture to about 2/3 of its original volume. That will take about 45 minutes, but don't start timing until you reach a full boil. Frequent stirring is essential here to prevent scorching. I also used a potato masher periodically at this stage to help break down the soup.

When the watery liquid on top of the soup is pretty much gone, you are ready to blend. (The picture to the left is just about ready). I puree the mixture in batches and pour into a large bowl. Then I pressed the puree back into the stock pots through a small- to medium-sized sieve that caught most of the seeds and skin fragments.

Slowly bring that mixture back up to an easy boil --stirring constantly -- and add 1/2 cup of brown sugar until dissolved. Salt, pepper and season to taste at this stage. Keep in mind that if you plan to can this, you will have to acidify the soup with with one tablespoon of lemon juice per pint (or some other form of citric acid or even vinegar), which will be added at the jarring stage. Make sure the sweetness is high enough to off set the lemon juice. I was out of Worcestershire sauce, and I would have used it here as well. (But I'll have to add some when I'm ready to serve).

When the flavors are right, most recipes called for cooling the soup. I put it the the refrigerator overnight. To can it, I added one tablespoon of lemon juice per pint and filled my jars leaving at least one half inch of head space. Secure lids fingertip tight and pressure cook for 90 minutes at 15 pounds pressure above 2000 feet. I go 90 minutes for quarts, and 75 minutes for pints to make sure the bacon is preserved, plus with this kind of soup I think longer processing is better for the flavor. (BTW, you need to adjust times or weights accordingly at other altitudes).

If you leave the bacon out, you can hot bath process the soup for 30 minutes (I just like to be safe with tomatoes). You could also pressure can for 20 minutes at 15 pounds.

To serve warm up the soup in a sauce pan and add Worcestershire sauce and other seasonings to taste. Dollup with sour cream and guacamole or straight avacado, sprinkle with parmesan cheese and garnish with basil .

Serve with grilled ham and cheese sandwhiches...it helps if you smoke your own ham!

Let me know if you try this and I would be happy to help you adjust the recipe to your tastes. Heck, I'll be adjusting it myself. Just leave a comment and I'll respond...

Tomatoes are coming on strong!!!

2009-09-06T15:58:00.000-07:00

Man, I just trekked back to the beginning of this blog and it dawned on me just how useful this will be in timing out our garden next year. As we head into full harvest mode, and the corn stalks come down, we can always drift back in time on this blog. I am glad I started it...

So, I guess I'll have to start blogging about our canning now. We have already put up some pickles and zucchini. I have also been experimenting with canned meats! I usually cut my own steaks, so I have a bunch of scraps that I save up and I usually just grind a bunch of hamburger with it. But I decided to try canning some, and it turned out great. The meat ends up fork tender.

I dumped a pint in a sauce pan, a couple of days ago, along with the canning liquid and thickened it with a little corn starch. I put it over toast and it was awesome. I just did a little chicken and beef last night, so I'll be trying that out soon, as well. It is a little tricky canning the fattier meats. You have to keep the right head space in the jars to prevent the fat from affecting the seal.

Once I get it down, I am going to buy some inexpensive meat and start canning the crap out of it. It would be great to come home from work and heat up some canned meat for stroganoff or a quick soup... Oh, the possibilities are endless.

Now, I better find a couple of canning recipes for all those tomatoes you see in the picture above. I'll likely do spaghetti sauce, pizza sauce, and salsa...