Sunday, September 19, 2010
Tuesday, September 14, 2010
First Frost
O dear; I guess that this is the end of summer. We had our first light frost last night. We covered much of the garden and pulled in most of our basil and (still immature, sadly) dry beans. I bought a big plastic sheet (a painters' dropcloth) this year and I really recommend it--so much easier, for $1.80, than using our least-nice sheet set. But it looks like I will have to gather in all of our green tomatoes within the week--it's supposed to repeatedly get down to about 26. Poop. My sunflowers and cosmos just started blooming.
When I grow up I do want to live somewhere where I am a bit sick of gardening and ready to give it up by the time Mother Nature forces me to take my winter break. On the other hand, I must confess that the ten-or-so tomatoes I have harvested thus far, even if a little mealy because they mature so slowly in our cool summers, have been extra satisfying. Sooo much better than produce that has traveled thousands of miles north in a truck. And it is rather easier to make a profit at gardening here--produce is very expensive in the stores because it is nearly all imported.
The Mr. and I will be getting down to non-gardening activities soon, too. He has generously agreed to learn a little old-fashioned partner dancing with me. And I can get back down to my fiber stuff, maybe do a little bookbinding, etc. So long as we keep getting clear, crisp days... I'm cool.
When I grow up I do want to live somewhere where I am a bit sick of gardening and ready to give it up by the time Mother Nature forces me to take my winter break. On the other hand, I must confess that the ten-or-so tomatoes I have harvested thus far, even if a little mealy because they mature so slowly in our cool summers, have been extra satisfying. Sooo much better than produce that has traveled thousands of miles north in a truck. And it is rather easier to make a profit at gardening here--produce is very expensive in the stores because it is nearly all imported.
The Mr. and I will be getting down to non-gardening activities soon, too. He has generously agreed to learn a little old-fashioned partner dancing with me. And I can get back down to my fiber stuff, maybe do a little bookbinding, etc. So long as we keep getting clear, crisp days... I'm cool.
Monday, June 28, 2010
Our community garden plot:
Yup, the potatoes are blooming:
Here's one view of the other plots; it gives you a sense of what the layout is like:
The fishing shack that moved in our yard so that we could do some digging:
And here's our home plot--not as carefully tended as the public plot, so I didn't get too close. Clearly, we expanded beyond the fishing shack's footprint:
Yup, the potatoes are blooming:
Here's one view of the other plots; it gives you a sense of what the layout is like:
The fishing shack that moved in our yard so that we could do some digging:
And here's our home plot--not as carefully tended as the public plot, so I didn't get too close. Clearly, we expanded beyond the fishing shack's footprint:
Wednesday, June 16, 2010
Spring Delinquency
Hellooo,
Well, I have been about delinquent and a half with this blog. After a slow, wet start and frost even last week, our gardens are in--that's my excuse. That, and moving. We've moved to a new apartment on the "bad" (downtown) side of the river, in a sweet little neighborhood where everyone is just as friendly as can be. Plus, there's a brand new Korean grocery store only two blocks away. Awesome!
We got a little (6' x 8', maybe) plot over at the community garden and our new landlord moved a fishing shack out back, so we've dug the footprint of that over. I am trying hard to adopt a relaxed attitude to cat and dog and squirrel damage, here (there was clearly a chase through the carrots last night), and to bike tracks and footprints over at the community garden. Here's a list of what we've tried to squeeze in (obviously, we erred more on the side of variety than of a reasonable harvest of any one thing).
Blue Lake Green Beans
Vermont Appaloosa Dry Beans
Black Turtle Dry Beans
Caribe Potatoes
Assorted Tomatoes (which took a heck of a beating as seedlings, since we moved on a snowy day aaand had potting soil problems)
Cyklon Hot Peppers
Sugar Ann Peas
Little Marvel Peas
Assorted radishes (Asian, Asian leaf radish types, and Easter Egg)
Assorted lettuce
Assorted carrots (one of those multi-color packets)
Mustard Greens
Seedling yellow globe onions
Florence fennel (like, six seeds, as Mr. Kimelow doesn't care for them)
Thai eggplant (not a hope in heck of getting these, really)
Assorted sunflowers
Cucumbers
Bok Choi
Komatsuna
I realize that it is silly that we have planted no squash. We love it, and eat a fair bit of it. However, given that we have only about 170 square feet in total, and given that our compost pile got made over to the cukes, and given that we will probably get it given to us at the height of the season, zucchini plants will just have to wait for another year. I also didn't bother with the cabbages, really, since I can't see devoting myself to floating row covers this summer.
Because we thought we would be working with a larger space this summer, I augmented an already ridiculous seed collection with the catalogues this year. That means that flower seeds (flax, poppies, larkspur, cosmos, borage, sweet peas, snaps, bachelors' buttons) got slung in around the edges of our lawn, too. They may have come up, or those might be weeds--I can't really tell. Reports on that after some true leaves come in. Photos, too, once I get my act together. For now, I'm off to sprinkle some more carrot seed into some footprints.
Well, I have been about delinquent and a half with this blog. After a slow, wet start and frost even last week, our gardens are in--that's my excuse. That, and moving. We've moved to a new apartment on the "bad" (downtown) side of the river, in a sweet little neighborhood where everyone is just as friendly as can be. Plus, there's a brand new Korean grocery store only two blocks away. Awesome!
We got a little (6' x 8', maybe) plot over at the community garden and our new landlord moved a fishing shack out back, so we've dug the footprint of that over. I am trying hard to adopt a relaxed attitude to cat and dog and squirrel damage, here (there was clearly a chase through the carrots last night), and to bike tracks and footprints over at the community garden. Here's a list of what we've tried to squeeze in (obviously, we erred more on the side of variety than of a reasonable harvest of any one thing).
Blue Lake Green Beans
Vermont Appaloosa Dry Beans
Black Turtle Dry Beans
Caribe Potatoes
Assorted Tomatoes (which took a heck of a beating as seedlings, since we moved on a snowy day aaand had potting soil problems)
Cyklon Hot Peppers
Sugar Ann Peas
Little Marvel Peas
Assorted radishes (Asian, Asian leaf radish types, and Easter Egg)
Assorted lettuce
Assorted carrots (one of those multi-color packets)
Mustard Greens
Seedling yellow globe onions
Florence fennel (like, six seeds, as Mr. Kimelow doesn't care for them)
Thai eggplant (not a hope in heck of getting these, really)
Assorted sunflowers
Cucumbers
Bok Choi
Komatsuna
I realize that it is silly that we have planted no squash. We love it, and eat a fair bit of it. However, given that we have only about 170 square feet in total, and given that our compost pile got made over to the cukes, and given that we will probably get it given to us at the height of the season, zucchini plants will just have to wait for another year. I also didn't bother with the cabbages, really, since I can't see devoting myself to floating row covers this summer.
Because we thought we would be working with a larger space this summer, I augmented an already ridiculous seed collection with the catalogues this year. That means that flower seeds (flax, poppies, larkspur, cosmos, borage, sweet peas, snaps, bachelors' buttons) got slung in around the edges of our lawn, too. They may have come up, or those might be weeds--I can't really tell. Reports on that after some true leaves come in. Photos, too, once I get my act together. For now, I'm off to sprinkle some more carrot seed into some footprints.
Monday, April 5, 2010
Sunday, April 4, 2010
hey, New Yorkers!
I wish I'd found this site while still living in NY. All y'all should check it out: http://www.nofany.org/opportunities.html
Sunday, January 24, 2010
Aargh, weather!
It just keeps snowing--the highways are closed. We gave church a miss this morning. May hike out to the grocery store later on--we are out of several staples, since I got all obsessed with making sure we got some perishables so that we wouldn't get scurvy.
In other news, I bought that wheel. And made some mittens.
And ordered some seeds for spring from some interesting Canadian suppliers. (Hi, Xak! Thanks, but you can keep those seed catalogs for your own entertainment, hee! ) If you are like me, and the winter weather drives you to fantasizing about heirloom muskmelons, here are a few sites to drool over, even if they don't all ship to your part of the world
cottagegardener.com
prairie garden seeds
heritageharvestseed.com
It just keeps snowing--the highways are closed. We gave church a miss this morning. May hike out to the grocery store later on--we are out of several staples, since I got all obsessed with making sure we got some perishables so that we wouldn't get scurvy.
In other news, I bought that wheel. And made some mittens.
And ordered some seeds for spring from some interesting Canadian suppliers. (Hi, Xak! Thanks, but you can keep those seed catalogs for your own entertainment, hee! ) If you are like me, and the winter weather drives you to fantasizing about heirloom muskmelons, here are a few sites to drool over, even if they don't all ship to your part of the world
cottagegardener.com
prairie garden seeds
heritageharvestseed.com
Wednesday, January 6, 2010
Photos from Japan and Korea are up!
They are on Flikr in two sets; you can click here. I am sorta working on getting them labeled, but feel free to email me if you can't figure out what's going on and you reaaallly want to know.
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