Flowers!

It's been dreary, cold, and rainy for a while but today it's sunny and somewhat warm. Since the tomatoes and cucumbers need to be hardened off so they can go out permanently soon I decided to put them out today despite the slight chill. When I went to take them down, I  noticed this:

I really hope it warms up and stays warm soon, now that there are flowers on my cucumbers they really need to stay outside. I'll probably start training them up a trellis soon. Here are a few more pics:

Note the tiny pea pod down at the bottom there.

 I'm going to need new stakes for the tomatoes. I'll probably pick some up when I get more dirt to transplant them.

 I wish this spinach would hurry up and grow already because I want to eat it. It's probably a bit crowded in here, next time I plant it I'll probably do it in rows.

In other news, I baked an awesome loaf of bread today. It's a shame I'm not off work so I could enjoy the rest of this quite beautiful day. Trevor is going to a Bucks game tonight and Thursday after work we're going to Illinois to visit friends and go to a Porcupine Tree concert. My parents might also be visiting soon. Oh! And I ordered my wedding dress. There's still so much to do for the wedding and it's creeping up on us. August really isn't too far away, and then I'll be a married woman. :) Until next time.

Progress!

Well I was going to update this last week but something was up with the site and I was unable to post. I took some pictures:

Those are the cucumbers, spinach, older peas, new peas, and compost bucket. Those were like a week or so ago. Here's what's cool (Apologies for blurry images, cell phone cam wasn't focusing well):

Those were taken just now. The peas are budding, the spinach sprouts have their first true leaves, the cucumbers appear to be budding (!) and the new peas and tomato plants are growing pretty darn well. Can't wait until those pea flowers bloom. I should have my first produce of the year in a few weeks if all goes well. Once it's warm enough I'll be planting more pole beans out there too. It's a shame that tree blocks all the sunlight; there are leaves already on it and as soon as they're big I won't be getting nearly this much sun. If those cucumbers are actually starting to get flower buds on them I don't even know what to think. They might just be side-shoots though, in which case I'm going to have to get my prune on pretty soon.

Oh yes, how about some recommended reading while I'm at it? Do you like pork? Bacon? Ham? I bet you do. Do you buy the cheap commercial pork at the grocery store instead of off a small family farm? I bet you do (so did I until now). Read Righteous Porkchop and I bet you won't any longer, unless you like the idea of Smithfield confining mother pigs in a cage they can't even turn around in with metal bars separating them from their own piglets or manure lagoons which are kept from spilling over (sometimes) by using what basically amounts to a shit-cannon to rocket untreated, liquefied pig manure into local waterways. Yeah, it really is that bad. I'm not done with the book yet but it's such a fantastic read and will open your eyes the same way Food, Inc. did (you did see Food, Inc. right?) So please, find this book and read it:

Transplanting Time

Alright, the news on the seedlings is: Tomatoes are great, cucumbers are great, peas are already permanently outdoors save for hard frost nights, spinach has croaked. Apparently starting spinach seedlings indoors just doesn't work. I scattered some into my rubbermaid bin outside today so they should be sprouting within the week.

Today I'm considering finally transplanting the tomatoes and cucumbers; a task that I've been putting off due to lack of space. I picked out five tomato plants which each have to go into their own container and I'm not sure how I'll fit them all on top of the fridge. The cucumbers I'm going to put into two large containers I think. Again, I have no idea how to get them all under the lights. Looks like I might have jumped the gun on the summer veggies. Probably should have waited until this week to start them. Oh well. Maybe I'll try to see if I can't put the tomatoes into smaller pots first before putting them into their huge outdoor pots when it's warm enough. Oh yeah, I'm also going to start pole beans once the last frost date is past. That's sometime around the end of April I think.

The weather certainly has been beautiful lately, save for a few foggy/rainy days. Right now the door to the balcony is wide open, the birds are singing their little heads off, and a nice breeze is blowing in. I have bread proofing on the counter for tonight's dinner (Vegetable soup) and Trev brought home The Princess and the Frog on Blu-Ray for us to watch tonight. I'm going to try to talk him into a walk when he gets home. Wedding planning is going alright, we still have a lot to do and have to go to Theresa in order to do it but we'll get it done.

That's pretty much it for now. Pretty soon I'll start getting pictures of the seedlings and I'll probably round up some of the recipes I've been perfecting to post. I'm also planning on making a carrot cake soon, we'll see how that turns out. Until next time.

Aaaaaaaaaand we already have a problem.

I am really not very good at growing things from seeds. I just haven't had enough experience, I suppose, which will change with practice, but that doesn't help me much now.

My pea and cucumber seeds have sprouted. The others have not. Not only that, but the cucumber seedlings are already a couple of inches tall (!) and I need to start raising the lights. That's going to make the tiny little peas (not to mention the other species once they emerge) really leggy; which is a problem that has plagued pretty much every seed I ever planted.

So what I'm probably going to have to do is get a separate light setup going for the little cucumbers so I can keep the light fixture right on top of the other seedlings so they don't stretch out. It'll take a bit of figuring out but I can do it. It's really too bad I didn't throw myself into gardening with as much gusto as I did cooking when I moved out, perhaps if I had I'd be really good at this by now. But that's alright. We won't have a place with a yard for a while now so I have plenty of time to get this right. And if my seedlings all turn out leggy again this year, I can always just order some healthy ones from the internet and transplant them. I'm not going to buy them from Lowe's this year, not just due to funneling money to Monsanto either. Last year my strawberries from there succumbed to soil disease and my peppers came with a hoard of aphids which proceeded to spread to all my other plants and resist my every effort to kill them off. These are problems you are not supposed to have to deal with when container gardening. I'll get quality seedlings from an organic non-Monsanto owned grower, thank you very much.

With tomorrow being the first day of March, Spring is closer and closer. Here's hoping my little garden gets off to a good start. :)

Interview: Joel Salatin | Life and style | The Observer

Interview: Joel Salatin | Life and style | The Observer

This is a wonderful article about Joel Salatin, the owner of Polyface Farms in Virginia. Great guy, great farm. I'd love to visit some day.

It's about time I started this little blog back up again, since it's getting to be planting time here in Wisconsin. I ordered San Marzano Tomatoes and Smart Pickle cucumbers from Seedsofchange.org and they came in the mail today. A quick trip to Lowe's and 20 minutes cleaning off the top of the fridge and replacing the bulb in the grow light setup my mom gave to me and they're sitting pretty waiting to sprout. Should see some action by next week. I planted the tomatoes and cucumbers plus peas and spinach. I'll do pole beans later I think. I was going to wait on the tomatoes and cukes too but I figured since I've never grown them from seed before I'd better get started now so if I encounter any surprises I can easily start over and change my tactics. Since I have even lighting this year, I should have no problems with legginess.

Might as well mention my diet changes too: After watching Food, Inc. and getting started on several books (including Real Food by Nina Planck and The Omnivore's Dilemma by Michael Pollan) I've simply stopped eating a ton of stuff I thought I'd never do without. No more boxes of mac and cheese or cans of Chef Boyardee. No more McDonalds, Burger King, or Taco Bell. Store bought cookies, donuts, and other snacks are out too. I don't even consider this stuff food at all any more, no more than a clod of dirt is food. And after learning about industrial beef filler being treated with ammonia to cut down on E. coli I feel nothing but revulsion at the very idea of eating another McDonald's burger. I've even stopped drinking factory-farmed milk! I've been buying organic unhomogenized whole milk at Sendik's and basically only drinking milk at work save for what goes on my cereal and into my coffee (still the cheap stuff since Trev still drinks it and I don't bring my organic stuff home). And I used to drink a lot of milk, almost a gallon every other day or so. So it's more cooking, more water and tea, and better choices at the store for me! I'll take my grass-fed beef and fresh veggies, thank you very much. And if I can get my hands on some raw milk at some point so much the better. Should be another interesting year ahead.

Edit to add: Oh yeah, I did get the closet cleaned out. But it's so much easier to have my stuff on top of the fridge so if I can keep the cats off of there that's where it'll stay until I move them outside in April.

The Long Winter Ahead

Welp. It's the 26th of December, Christmas is over, and now it's time to settle in for Winter. I don't know where the time has gone and neither does anyone else it seems. Lately I've had many people comment on how they "can't believe it's Christmas already!" It's true, the time has just flown. Seems like it was just yesterday that I was watering tomatoes and picking pole beans. Now there's snow on the ground and my frost-hardy kale has finally kicked it and flopped over.

This next week we will be chilling out and recovering from the hectic holiday season and on New Year's Eve my fiancee and I will be enjoying some Tallgrass steaks. Yes, fiancee. He proposed on the 4th of December. We're planning on having our wedding August 22nd 2010 if all goes according to plan, so I'll likely be posting wedding updates here as well for a while. :)

January will be a month of preparation and planning. I've got to get that bedroom closet cleaned out first of all and make room for a grow-light setup. I then have to get some light housing and wire it since apparently hardware stores don't sell housing for 2 foot bulbs that actually have plugs on them. Also on the agenda is a timetable for when to start my seeds and get them outside. My seed catalogs should be arriving shortly. I plan on doing spinach, lettuce, and maybe some peas during the cold spring months, and then Roma tomatoes (for sauce!) and pickling cucumbers (for pickles!) during the hot part of the year. Since I love fresh pole beans so much I'll likely grow those too. I was considering doing 2 varieties of pickling cucumbers so I can decide which I like the best but I might not have room on the porch for that due to limited sunlight. Strawberries are out, they take up too much room for too little produce. I intend to make jam but I'll buy the berries at the farmer's market or go to a U-pick orchard. There's gonna be a lot of canning going on next summer. :)

Hopefully I'll have enough to keep myself occupied and the Winter blues won't affect me too much this year. I always have such a hard time during Winter. Perhaps this year will be different. I have some bread proofing right now so I'd better go attend to it. I'll likely be whining about that horrible closet in my next update. :)

Glorious Weather!

The weather has been fantastic recently; it's like those first glorious days of good Spring weather where you throw open all the windows, air out the house, and try to squeeze in both work and play before it inevitably turns back into freezing cold Spring weather. The leaves are all off the trees here in Wisconsin by now, but despite everything being gray the sun still cheers me up immensely.

I refilled all the birdfeeders and need to work on keeping them full. The birds need all they can get so they can prepare for the lean winter months. They're going to be my entertainment this winter so I need to keep them around. The plastic is up on the bedroom window (of course since it's been 70 degrees it's way too hot in there now) and the balcony has been cleared of all garden remains save for the empty pots and my winter greens and swept clean. It's hard to think that by the end of the month we'll probably have snow, but it's a near certainty. Time to start preparing for the holidays!

I'm making Jambalaya this week; here's the recipe I'm using (from Allrecipes):

Ingredients

• 1 pound skinless, boneless chicken breast halves - cut into 1 inch cubes
• 1 pound andouille sausage, sliced
• 1 (28 ounce) can diced tomatoes with juice
• 1 large onion, chopped
• 1 large green bell pepper, chopped
• 1 cup chopped celery
• 1 cup chicken broth
• 2 teaspoons dried oregano
• 2 teaspoons dried parsley
• 2 teaspoons Cajun seasoning
• 1 teaspoon cayenne pepper
• 1/2 teaspoon dried thyme
• 1 pound frozen cooked shrimp without tails

Directions

1. In a slow cooker, mix the chicken, sausage, tomatoes with juice, onion, green bell pepper, celery, and broth. Season with oregano, parsley, Cajun seasoning, cayenne pepper, and thyme.
2. Cover, and cook 7 to 8 hours on Low, or 3 to 4 hours on High. Stir in the shrimp during the last 30 minutes of cook time.

We'll see how it turns out. If it's good, it'll go into regular rotation. I have to get ready to leave for work now, so I'm gonna cut this short. Farewell!