Peachy

Posted on August 26, 2010 by Sandy
Peaches

Peaches

 Miracle of gardening miracles! I successfully grew peaches in the greater Seattle area. This is no small feat even during years with ideal weather (which is rare), but it is pretty amazing this year considering the cold spring and summer we’ve had.  Peaches need heat and we haven’t had much this year.  In the best of years, I am lucky to get a peach or two off of the two peach trees in the orchard (I’m not counting the mini dwarf peach in the greenhouse). This year I had considerably more. In fact, I harvested about 15 lbs of peaches from this tree.  It’s not a huge amount, but it was definitely enough for both fresh eating and jam making. The only difference between this year and years past is that I hand pollinated the tree this year. I’ve been paying close attention to bee activity in the orchard this year and have stepped in when I needed pollination and didn’t see bees out there doing the job. One challenge with peaches is that the trees bloom when the weather is still pretty cool here, so the bees aren’t out and about yet. Hand pollinating is easy to do and doesn’t take much time, so I thought I’d give it a try. It’s the only reason I can see for better peach fruit production this year.

Frost peaches

Frost peaches

 Aren’t they pretty? The variety is Frost. It is supposed to be a semi freestone peach, but I found the pit to be more attached than free, which makes them better for jams than for sliced peach canning. For those of you who don’t know what a freestone peach is, it simply means that the pit isn’t tightly attached to the peach flesh. Freestone peaches are nice for canning because it is easy to get the pit out and neatly slice the peaches. When the pit is attached, you have to cut the peach flesh away from the stone, which is more work and makes the peach slices not quite as pretty. This doesn’t matter, however, if you are making jam because the peaches will get all mashed up anyway.

Happy gardening!

Sandy

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What to do with 200 pounds of plums?

Posted on August 8, 2010 by Sandy
Shiro plums

Shiro plums

The kids and I picked a medium-sized basket of plums yesterday. Out of curiosity, I weighed the basket. We had 18.5 pounds of plums and you could hardly tell the tree had been picked at all.

Shiro plum tree

Shiro plum tree

Based on a quick visual estimate of the volume of plums on the tree, I think we have somewhere around 200 pounds of plums.  That’s a lot of plums.

Spiced golden plum jam

Spiced golden plum jam

So I made some spiced golden plum jam, a favorite from my jam-making exploits from last summer.  That took care of about 3.5 pounds of plums.  I think I’ll make another batch or two of jam and maybe some plum salsa. The kids love the plums fresh and have been nibbling away on them. To share the bounty, my daughter and I walked the neighborhood yesterday giving plums away to neighbors. To find homes for others, I think I’ll take plums to the office this week.  I’m also thinking about picking a bunch for the local food bank.

Any other ideas for what I should do with my 200 pounds of plums?

Sandy

PS: I highly recommend using no or low sugar required pectin. This type of pectin allows you to adjust the sugar to your sweetness preference. In my case, that means I can add just enough sugar so that the jam is a yummy mix of just slightly sweet and tart. Plus, less sugar is obviously healthier.

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First cukes & beans

Posted on August 1, 2010 by Sandy
Cukes, ready for harvest

Cukes, ready for harvest

I originally started vegetable gardening a number of years ago because I wanted to grow my own cucumbers, lemon cucumber to be specific. For a long time, cucumbers were the only food crop I grew. I expanded my gardening horizons a few years ago, but cucumbers still hold a special place in my heart and I eagerly look forward to the first cucumber harvest of the season.  Cucumber season is now in full force.

Powder mildew on lemon cucumber plants

Powder mildew on lemon cucumber plants

Back to those lemon cucumbers. I find them so lovely and, increasingly, such a pain to grow. Sadly, I might have to cross them off my list of plants to grow each season. Lemon cucumbers can have trouble with powder mildew. My lemon cucumbers seem to always have trouble with powder mildew. I’m really careful not to water them from above. I diligently cut off leaves that are showing signs of mildew. It makes no difference. The garden was neglected for two days while we did a weekend trip and just in that time the mildew has spread like crazy.

Maxibel green bean

Maxibel green bean

In those same few days, the beans have started producing. These Maxibel beans went from little pipsqueek beans to “harvest ASAP” seemingly overnight. Guess it’s time to gear up for bean season.

Happy gardening.

Sandy

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A new beastie and more pleasant things

Posted on July 28, 2010 by Sandy
Pea moth larva

Pea moth larva

Last week I found a terrible beastie in a pea pod. It’s a horrible looking little beast that makes opening each pea pod a bit of a risky venture. I did a little research and found out that this hideous creature is the pea moth. Looks like I’ve got some pea moth management research in my future. The good news is that not every pea has a moth. I’d say about one in ten pods is infected, so I do still have a good number of peas that can be eaten.

Lovely peas without larva

Lovely peas without larva

Peas without larva taste (and look) so much better in a fresh home-grown salad.

Grapes growing on the patio pergola

Grapes growing on the patio pergola

In the vastly more pleasant category, we’re going to have a good grape crop again this year. I see many bunches of grapes forming on the pergola. They should be ready by the end of the summer. Sorry for the wacky photo angle!

Fresh blueberries

Fresh blueberries

Also in the pleasant news category, the blueberries are in full production mode now. We’re finally to the point where the kids can’t keep up with them and I can pick bowls of berries to bring inside. Yum!

Shiro plum in late July

Shiro plum in late July

I’ll leave you with our crazy-productive plum tree.  This tree produces a huge crop of plums every year. Luckily, the plums are great for jam. We especially like golden spiced plum jam, which I’ll make again this year. The plums should be ready in the next week or two.

Happy gardening.

Sandy

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Summer

Posted on July 18, 2010 by Sandy

As much as I try to do three-season gardening, summer is the star of the gardening year. Summer produces the good stuff. The straight from the plant into the mouth stuff.  The save it in a jar stuff. In Seattle, summer can be your best friend or worst enemy. This year it has been a bit of both. We’ve seesawed from temperatures in the 60s to temperatures in the 90s and then back again. Pretty much everything is a few weeks behind where the plants were this time last year, but in all honesty the weather we are having this year is more typical for the area. In spite of our mercurial weather, I’m taking full advantage of what the garden is offering now and looking forward to what it will offer in the weeks and months ahead.

A few things I’ve done in the garden lately:

  • Harvested over forty bulbs of garlic, which are now curing for storage.
  • Finished harvesting and pulled out the Oregon Giant pea plants.
  • Planted a fall crop of carrots in the cleared out and prepped garlic bed.
  • Planted lettuce, chard, and mache in the cleared out and prepped pea plant bed.
  • Pruned tomato plants.
  • Weeded as needed (but it hasn’t really been too much).

It hasn’t been all work, however. We’ve been spending plenty of time outside, just hanging out. Nibbling berries. Wandering around the yard seeing what’s new. Yesterday was especially fun because my sister, her husband Jeff (who built our new chicken coop), and my nephew came over and Jeff helped the kids build a fountain. They’ve been wanting a fountain forever and this fountain is extra special because the wash tub used for the basin has been in our family for years.  In fact, it belonged to my grandmother and my mother used to bath in it when she was a little girl. My brother, sister, and I used to use it as a wading pool. Now it will be enjoyed by another generation.

Fountain on the patio

Fountain on the patio

Below are a few additional pictures of things in the garden this month.

Inchelium red garlic

Inchelium red garlic

Blueberries in early July

Blueberries in early July

Giant raspberry plants

Giant raspberry plants

Shiro plums, nearly ripe

Shiro plums, nearly ripe

Our favorite apple tree, cropping nicely

Our favorite apple tree, cropping nicely

Tomatillos

Tomatillos

The view from my chair in the greenhouse

The view from my chair in the greenhouse

I hope you are having a wonderful summer.

Sandy 

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Berry anticipation and a peek around the garden

Posted on July 5, 2010 by Sandy
Raised beds in the lower garden

Raised beds in the lower garden

We’ve been harvesting strawberries for a few weeks now, but the raspberries and blueberries have not really started to ripen yet. The raspberries should begin ripening any day now, especially since we finally have some warm, even downright hot, weather in our forecast. You can see the raspberry beds in the very back of the picture above. The raspberry canes are huge – some are over seven feet tall!

Below are some random pictures of how the garden is progressing so far this season.  Most things are still a little behind schedule (no cucumbers in June this year), but I am hopeful the upcoming warm weather will give them just the boost they need.

Trellised cucumbers in the greenhouse

Trellised cucumbers in the greenhouse

Tomato plants in the greenhouse

Tomato plants in the greenhouse

Italian sweet peppers in hanging planters

Italian sweet peppers in hanging planters

Pineapple sage jelly - yummy!

Pineapple sage jelly - yummy!

Happy summer gardening!

Sandy 

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Jam season and the ladies’ new home

Posted on June 20, 2010 by Sandy
Freshly picked strawberries

Freshly picked strawberries

Although the weather remains more clouds than sun, the temperature has been inching up week after week and the garden is progressing. Yesterday, I picked 3 pounds of strawberries from the strawberry patch. This was from the old patch that badly needs to be rebuilt.  I’d love to have three times the growing space for strawberries. I have the room, but it will require us to make progress on a garden expansion south of the orchard.

Nine jars of strawberry jam

Nine jars of strawberry jam

I hadn’t realized that I had so many strawberries ready to pick when I went to the farmers’ market earlier in the day. I assumed I wouldn’t have enough for jam, so I bought a flat of strawberries. It actually worked out well because I made a pretty large batch of jam and still had strawberries left over for fresh eating. To make the jam, I used the Ball “no sugar needed fruit pectin.” I like this kind because it allows me to use as little sugar as possible, both to keep the jam healthier but also to avoid making the jam cloyingly sweet. I like jam to retain as much of the natural fruit flavor as possible and even have a bit of tartness to it. This tastes much better to me than an overly sugared jam.

The new coop and run

The new coop and run

A few weeks ago, I posted about the new chicken coop my brother-in-law Jeff built for us.  After the coop was finished, I decided that it would be a good idea to build a run off the side of the coop. It took us a few more weeks to get the run finished but the ladies were able to move into their new home yesterday. The coop is in the goat pasture and the goats have been curious about their new neighbors. We have a little more work to do dog-proofing the large pasture fence with barbed wire, but that should be done today and then we’ll let the ladies out for some time in the pasture.

Sandy

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Drizzle gardening and my new toy

Posted on June 6, 2010 by Sandy

If you can’t handle a gardening in rain once in a while, you won’t get a lot of gardening done in the Puget Sound during a particularly soggy spring. After a lovely day on Saturday, during which I mostly played and did very little gardening, I had a few gardening tasks to do today to get caught up so I headed outside anyway, to do some drizzle gardening. Mostly, it was some basic weeding and planting that could easily be done during light rain. The other task I wanted to accomplish, weed-whacking around the raised beds, will have to wait for dryer weather. I was pretty soggy by the time I came in, but I feel good about what I was able to get done.  While outside, I took a few pics of some of the progress taking place in the garden, in spite of the wet, cool spring we are having, plus a pic of my new garden helper, which is awesome. I highly recommend having a two-wheeled wheelbarrow.  Much easier to use than a single-wheeled barrow.

Strawberry blushing, beginning to turn red

Strawberry blushing, beginning to turn red

White alpine strawberry, almost ready to pick

White alpine strawberry, almost ready to pick

Little Marvel peas

Little Marvel peas

Oregon Giant peas

Oregon Giant peas

Pole beans and shelling beans

Pole beans and shelling beans

Wheelbarrow from Gardener's Supply

Wheelbarrow from Gardener's Supply

 Sandy

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New coop and a visit from a long lost friend

Posted on May 31, 2010 by Sandy
New chicken coop in the pasture

New chicken coop in the pasture

We recently decided to add a second coop, this one in the goat pasture. We plan to use the new coop as the primary one and the existing coop as the home for chicks/pullets or any sick hens we might have. Derek and my brother-in-law Jeff Paquette built the coop this weekend. Jeff is a professional builder who does all sorts of building projects.  Although he primarily does home remodels, he does do the occasional small project such as our coop or a custom closet installation.  His email is hammerhandllc@comcast.net if you are local to the Seattle area and need a good builder.  This is one heck of a sturdy coop.  We expect it will last many years.

A nice sun break on Memorial Day

A nice sun break on Memorial Day

And here is my long-lost friend.  I hope she stays awhile.

Sandy

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Weather shmeather, gardening goes on

Posted on May 30, 2010 by Sandy

I’m not going to whine about the weather. And I’m not going to think about the 10-day forecast I just read. Now, on to happier topics.

Cucumber trellis, cukes, pepper, and lettuce

Cucumber trellis, cukes, pepper, and lettuce

Most of my recent gardening efforts have been inside the greenhouse. This weekend, I finished planting my warm weather crops. I set up the cucumber trellises and planted planted Marketmore, Lemon, Alibi, and Bush cucumber plants.  As you can see, I’m continuing to grow lettuce under the cucumber trellis.  I did this last year and it worked out well.

Greenhouse tomatoes at the end of May

Greenhouse tomatoes at the end of May

Flowering Roma tomato

Flowering Roma tomato

The tomatoes are putting on more growth and I’m seeing more and more flowers.

Outside of the greenhouse, my bean plants have emerged from the ground.  I’m starting to see the first pea plant flowers and the blueberries are transitioning from flowering to showing early fruit growth. Speaking of fruit, in the next few weeks I’ll do a pollination report and provide a fuller view of how I expect the orchard to do this year.

Pepper seedling with some extra growth

Pepper seedling with some extra growth

I’m still not going to whine about the weather, but take a look at this little guy. I don’t think I’ve ever seen this level of mildew or mold or whatever it is in a seedling pot before.  And this one has been inside the greenhouse!

In spite of it all, I hope you are happily gardening.

Sandy

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