Starting seeds

Having lived in North Carolina for several years and being an impatient gardener, I always try to start seeds as early as possible (plus this way, if something goes wrong, I'll have time to try again*).

So far I've started leeks, onions, broccoli, cabbage and cauliflower on my very rustic basement plant stand (basically four 1x boards - two making the sides and two making the shelves. The sides have about three - 1" nails right in the center about 6", 8" and 10" above each shelf so I can hang and adjust the height of my two - four foot double bulb shop lights (one over each shelf). I don't think it's sturdy enough to stand on, but it fits four standard starting trays (the long way on the shelves) very easily.

Anyway, I needed more space and wanted something for the living room because my basement is really too cold to start tomatoes, peppers, and eggplants. So I built another stand that's nearly as rustic from 1x8" pine boards and 1 x 2s. It's similar to this one from finegardening.com but less fancy (and so far I have only two shelves because I had to start the first shelf over the giant 15 inch high speaker I bought used from my sister in about 1977!)

Because my living room is small and the stand is designed to hold the trays perpendicular to the shelf length, I didn't make it four feet long. Rather, the shelves are about 33 inches long and it just fits into one corner of the living room. With these dimensions, I can have six (three and three) standard starting trays going at once. (Originally I thought of this in November when I was wondering if I could grow some lettuce and spinach for winter salads. That I am just getting around to it in April gives you some idea of my personal get-to-it-ness!)

Lighting was going to be a problem though. Fluorescent fixtures are generally only sold in two, sometimes three and four foot lengths. Odd sized fixtures and bulbs are often more expensive. Hmmm.

Along comes YouTube and this fantastic idea for making plant stand lights using heat duct and compact fluorescent lightbulbs. Perfect. I bought an 8" five foot long piece of duct, cut it in half for two 30" sections, and installed the rods and light fixture (so far only one since I haven't been able to find a second fixture yet!) and voilà! Now we are really cooking.

But, I keep my house pretty cool since I'm going quite a bit, so maybe it would still be too cool for starting these warm weather plants. Hmmm.

Internet to the rescue again. Rope lights. Rope lights instead of expensive plant heating mats. I HAVE a string of rope lights (I'm trying to move to cf lights but had a string of regular ones I got on sale a few years ago). So temporarily, I've tied the string of rope lights to the the slats forming one of the shelves and have them on for a while each day to heat the trays.

By this coming winter, I hope to have both shelves strung with rope lights and thin dry wall or cement board on each shelf so I can heat trays if needed using a time for the rope lights and one for the overhead lights.

*My tomatoes and eggplant seeds have sprung up and are really doing well, but the peppers ... the peppers didn't come up at all - NONE of them! I used jiffy pots which I never use but had some from a sale (I try to get almost everything on sale). So, maybe that was the problem. Today I'm starting them all again - now it's late, but better late than never.

I'll report on the outcome of the shelf project as the seed starting progresses.

It's watercress time!

Yesterday was beautiful and it wasn't snowing, raining, sleeting or otherwise dripping cold wet stuff from the sky. So of course we had to go down to the spring fed branch of the creek for the first watercress of the year.

It's not always easy getting to this little emerald patch of nutrition. Fortunately, the main branch of the creek was not too high and we found a couple of very large rocks to make a little stepping stone bridge though the shallowest part (which I always need my balance, er walking stick to negotiate!)

George volunteered to get the icy foot while I snapped a photo of the beautiful springy expanse of green.

We will sell a limited quantity of watercress. Email me or call and leave a message at 608 788-4039. Please give me a few days to fill your order. If it's raining, hailing, sleeting or otherwise nasty weather, I will probably need to wait to harvest more.

Sprouts

In the dead of winter, when nothing's growing outside but the giant icicles hanging from the edge of the roof, how can you get some fresh food into your menu? SPROUTS!

From fall through spring, I try to keep a constant supply of yummy sprouts going in my kitchen. I don't have fancy equipment - no sprout trays, auto waterers or multi-layered sprout habitats!

All you really need is a jar (it helps if it is rather large and has a wide opening), some sprouting seeds (see below) and some kind of straining device. For the latter, I've used everything from my hand to a lid with holes punched in it to a screen. Recently, I bought a wire sink strainer for about $1.50 and it works great.

Here's how I do it:

1. Put about 1/4 c. of seeds in a jar and fill about 1/2 full of warm water.
2. Let it sit for a day
3. Using you hand or a screen, drain the water (but not the seeds) from the jar (apparently this is great water for houseplants)
4. Fill the jar about 1/2 full of clean warm water
5. The next day, drain again - don't lose the seeds!
6. The next day, rinse the seeds with clean water. Don't keep any water in the jar, just the moist sprouts. As they start to sprout, place the jar on its side in a window.
7. Rinse the sprouts with clean water one or two times per day. Shake and rotate the jar so all the seeds get sun exposure.
8. When sprouts are long and start turning green, put in a plastic bag in refrigerator.
9. If necessary, rinse them every once in a while, but I use mine up pretty fast so I usually don't need to rinse them - just grow more sprouts!

Seeds - I order mine from our food buying club (cheaper than anywhere else I've found). We get unadulterated, non-radiated organic seeds from Frontier Herbs which has a variety of sprouting seeds and mixes. You can also get them from some co-ops and health food stores and online. Make sure you get seeds designated for sprouting - many garden seeds are treated with stuff you don't want to eat!

You do need to be careful - sprouts in a moist environment can also breed bad things (Salmonella and e coli). I've never had trouble with my home-grown sprouts that are cared for and rinsed daily, handled with clean hands and refrigerated promptly. But, there's nothing guaranteeing your home grown sprouts won't sprout e coli and apparently there's not much you can do if they do! If you want to read more about the downside of sprouts, here and here.

I LOVE sprouts and, if you're not afraid, I urge you to try them for fresh veggies in the middle of winter!

Happy Holidays!

Well, here we are in the depths of winter (literally!) The chickens are bundled all snug in their coop, the processed chickens and summer vegetables are resting in the freezers and visions of next year's garden are dancing in our heads. (And our new snow dog, Anna, is happy, too!)

We will be raising prices for 2011, unable to continue absorbing increasing feed and fuel costs. Prices include delivery to your home or work (in the La Crosse/Onalaska area).

Lots of interesting things have been happening related to food, locally, nationally and globally. Here are a few interesting links:

* Info about the new food safety bill

* The Cornucopia Institute is doing great work - check out their reports

* It's cheaper being green

* You are what your father ate, too

* Though we're not part of the Cameron Park Market, here's a reminder that many vendors participate in the winter market at Three Rivers School, 901 Caledonia Street (Saturdays, January 15 and February 12)

* 10,000 steps (if you're looking for a New Year's resolution ...)

Those darned chickens

Really, everyone ought to have a few chickens. Books have been written and films made about what amazing and interesting creatures they are.

Our latest chicken surprise came yesterday when we discovered that one of the "escapees" hatched 10 chicks. We keep the chickens in a large fenced yard to decrease the chance that a predator will get them or they will get to my vegetables (last year, they ate every last bit of my beautiful collard crop.)

Anyway, the rooster can escape and when he does, he always tries to lure a few hens out. We don't really need a rooster, but he's very beautiful and doesn't attack (unlike his father) and is actually a good protector of the flock* so we tolerate him.

So, the rooster had a few hens following him around - mostly the "wild" grandchildren of Mini, our black turken (pictured here). And apparently, one of the hens has been sitting on a nest right in front of our noses for three weeks and yesterday was the big day. Ten little black chicks have now joined our motley crew.

I hope to post a few pictures soon. For now, we need to be sure that the chicken-raised kittens we found last summer do not get to the chicks.

* Last year, George came home one night to a great commotion coming from the hen house. Apparently, the door had been left open and a great horned owl had taken it for a buffet. We lost one of our roosters as he tried to defend the roosting sleeping hens from this fiend. I know it's all in their "animal nature," but you can't help but admire the fight in these guys when their hens are at risk. (Of course, when they are strutting about the yard mounting every hen in sight, they don't seem so noble.)

Corn ho!

It's still wet and weedy, but good ol' corn comes through again. I believe what is now ripening is Spring Treat. The Fedco catalog (by the way, if you want the greatest seed catalog on earth with lots of good info, variety and good prices, you MUST get the Fedco catalog!) says, "The choice of early corn cornoisseurs, Spring Treat continues to be our most popular sweet corn by a wide margin. We’ve tasted a lot of new earlies in recent years, but none have zinged our taste buds like this yellow sugary enhanced hybrid. Spring Treat ripens around the time of Sugar Buns, with longer ears that are easier to pick and with a rich corny taste that we hadn’t enjoyed since Intrepid. Not as sweet as Sugar Buns, but better eating quality, ear length and appearance than any other early corn."

So, $3/dozen. Grown without chemicals. Act soon! Corn comes and goes in the blink of an eye (increasingly, my whole life seems to be going that way! Except the icky parts, unfortunately.)

We also have an abundance of Eight Ball zucchini (round like a baseball - great for stuffing) and coming soon, nice pretty delicate yellow squash.

Beans are taking a break for a while but should be back in the next couple of weeks. I have turned to the Three Bean Salad diet and I'm not sick of it yet. Yum!

More soon.

Field of Beans

Rip Van Maren, here. It seems like just yesterday it was May 1 and now it's July 18! Yikes! This is what happens when you try to live a double life in a single lifetime. My work in summer is like being shot out of a cannon. Add in the garden and chickens and suddenly two months have passed before I've had a chance to update this page!

First - beans. If you plant them, they will come! I usually plant lots of beans - mostly because I love to eat them. But also because you never know if the woodchuck will show up or if they will get rust or some other disease. Better to have too many than too few. Well, I had too many, so I pulled some up. But this also means I have enough to sell. Let me know. In addition to the green beans, I have dragon tongue wax beans (an heirloom breed from the Netherlands). Together they make a super fantastic three (or four or five) bean salad:

Cook a quarter of green beans and a quart of wax beans until just cooked (still a bit crisp), then plunge into cold water. Drain and put in a big bowl. Thinly slice a red (or white or yellow) onion into the bowl. Empty a can of black beans or garbanzos or red beans, drained, into the bowl. In a small bowl, whisk 3/4 c. cider vinegar, 1/3 c. olive oil and 1/2 c. sugar (or as much as you want) until well blended. Pour over salad and mix well. Refrigerate at least overnight. Gets better the longer you can wait.

Chickens - we've started processing chickens. So far we have 2.5# up to almost 5#. By the end of next week, we'll have some up to 6#. They've done very well this year and enjoy afternoons lounging in the long grass or among the corn.

Eggs - They are still laying! What more can I say.

The woodchuck ate most of the broccoli and cauliflower. I may try a fall planting if I can improve the fencing. Strawberries came and went in the wink of an eye. I am still waiting for our blueberry bushes to bear fruit. And waiting. And waiting!

More soon.