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Organic and Decadent

December 22, 2011

Bishop Decadent, Dessert, Organic , , 9 Comments

Interesting title….. I want to run a little test to better understand what words cause a reader to read on. Lets take a vote. All of you who read the post primarily because of the word “Organic” please raise your hand….keep them up so I can get a count. Good, thank you. Now those of you that tuned into the word “Decadent” please raise your hands for a count, not both of them – just one hand will do…… good thank you.

Hmmmmmm. I am not sure if I have a statistically significant sample to accurately determine the results….. Some of you may have voted twice or got the word “Organic” mixed up with another word after you saw the word “Decadent” influencing your voting! All this tells me is that my original plan for the title, ” A Natural Lemon Curd” may not have attracted many readers. Really, Lemon Curd? In Texas you might hear the refrain, ” What the Hell is Laaaman Crud or whatever you called that stuff?”

Honestly, I have to admit that I had no clue what lemon curd was until two years ago….yes I know I am not much of a sophisticated foodie, but I am learning! A neighbor friend and fellow gardener gave me a jar of her homemade lemon curd two years ago this Christmas. She has Meyer Lemon trees in her yard and enjoys sharing the bounty. I loved the lemon curd so much that I planted a dwarf Meyer Lemon tree in a wine barrel in my back yard. For a little guy he was prolific. I harvested about 25 lemons this year. So I decided to try my hand at making the fabulous lemon curd. I am sure my friend over at Promenade Plantings could give me some lessons and advice on how to best use my Decadently Rich lemon curd.

Here is where the “Organic” and “Decadent” came about….. I grow everything without chemicals so the lemons are “organic” by my definition. I used certified organic unsalted butter in the recipe, a lot of it! The sugar, well it was not labeled organic but it is essentially pure glucose and nothing else. I used a lot of sugar too! When I looked at how much butter and sugar went into this recipe – it made only 6 half pint jars, I realized how decadently rich this stuff is…. oh my! When you think of a food as being organic you first thought is something healthy. But, here we have an organic product that is so decadently rich and….”unhealthy”? –

Here is how I can justify the dilemma in my little “ole” pea brain….. “organic” = good, “decadent” in moderation = pretty darned good. That being said, I will eat my lemon curd, probably share some with others and feel good about my choices…… unless I can’t moderate my decadent desires and it flames out on the pleasure side of the equation…..its not like I have never gone overboard with “pleasures”….how many times?????? I could probably sit down with a spoon and eat the entire jar! Please don’t dredge up any stories to share with my wife…… she has probably heard most of them but my kids may not have…. after all those years playing Rugby there are a few stories floating around – most have been embellished over time! I didn’t know I was that entertaining!!!! How did a hard partying rugger find his way into gardening? That is a great question. May wind up being a future topic.

Photos are my lemons Au natural and photo-shopped a little. Kind of fun to see what the computer can do.

The winter garden is doing well. My son’s dog Sierra is back but I now have a garden gate to protect my little lettuces! The sugar snap peas, although not plentiful, are outstanding. My shredded leaf efforts are up to about 64 cubic feet and growing. If the weather cooperates this weekend I should be able to more than satisfy my expected needs.

More work coming up, more strawberry tower experimenting, install the new 4X4 bed for John…parts are in and assembled – just need to place it and fill it. Spinach and chard transplants are almost ready and the turnips are kicking butt. Looks like no winter for Houston this year! Oh, I also need to harvest the worm castings….. I keep putting it off. Lets see, what else, work part-time, make beer, turn a few pieces on the lathe, ride the bike, spend some time at the coffee shop and most importantly spend some quality time with my wife…..I need more hours in the day.

I am also planning a series of 3 backyard farming features….. John with his 32 sq. feet, me with my 350+/- sq. feet  and hopefully a piece on my friends, Jane and her John – they are utilizing the entire back yard and have converted most of the front yard to edible landscaping. Maybe a couple thousand sq. feet of plantings. Should be a fun project

TTFN

Bishop

 

“Strawberry Towers Forever”

December 12, 2011

Bishop berrries, Composting, Fall, Gardening, mulching , , 1 Comment

Did I get the Beatles song wrong….. Strawberry Fields Forever? It just sounded like a good title and “towers” has such a nice ring to it.

I have been wanting to provide “all y’all” with an update on my strawberry towers experiment. It seems to be working pretty well…… even though I still think the 3 inch pipe is too small. The plants weathered the first freeze with no apparent injury. They are looking very healthy and I can’t wait until early spring when they begin to blossom.  The strawberry shown above was picked on February 14th, Valentines Day in 2010. It wasn’t until later, in fact someone sent me a note about the nearly perfect heart shape of the berry, that I noticed the shape. Too bad that I didn’t notice it when I took the picture because I could have said that I had planned it all along. I think it does pay to tell the truth…… that way you don’t have to remember what the lie was!!!!! Click photos fo a bigger image.

The towers seem to be supporting the growth of the transplants pretty well.  The receptacles at the top seem to work well for watering. Gravity takes over and down it flows. I had my good friend John swing by this past weekend and I showed him the experiment. I think he agrees with the idea of testing the 6″ set-up. I will use 6″ PVC drain pipe for phase two of the experiment. Over the Christmas break I will gather up the materials and put it into action. Photos to come.

John has a 4X4 bed that I put in his backyard 2 years ago that needs some attention. I told him that I would be over this next week and clean up the 2011 season remnants and install another 4×4 adjacent to the original. I know he wants one because he installed the irrigation piping to accommodate the expansion…..isn’t that right John? Seems like a good “how to” posting for a future blog. We have one significant challenge. John has his Golden Retriever “Pismo” hooked on vegetables, so much that she harvests ripe tomatoes for him. The next step in her training is to bring them up to the patio and leave them for the family. Unfortunately she loves homegrown tomatoes a bit too much!

My wife is out in California helping to manage some family issues. She saw the post on the turnips and wanted to know if I really ate them….Absolutely! I placed a nice pork loin in the crock pot with turnips, onion, garlic, potatoes and cabbage….wish my carrots were ready….that would have topped it off nicely……. So, yes hun, I ate them and they were excellent!

Plans for this week –

The fall leaves are falling….go figure! – I have to thank my mother for her help with my leaves and the leaves around the neighborhood. She “surprised” me with a nice machine to suck up and shred the leaves as well as chip branches up to about 1.5 inches in diameter.  Wow, mom I have to tell you, it works great. I have been able to deeply mulch one bed with shredded leaves and I have designs on several more. Any excess will find their way into my compost bins.

I fed the worms yesterday and I see  it is time to harvest their rich castings….now some people might refer to it as worm poop – castings sounds so much cleaner and more proper. I am continually amazed how well they do their work even when I don’t give them to attention that I should. Diligent critters they are!!!!

Seeds need to be planted……..More lettuce to replace what my son’s dog zeroed in on…..just doing what dogs do but she could have dug her holes somewhere else. More beets, more carrots, some spinach & chard, sugar snap peas, maybe some bok choy, turnips and a another row of radishes.

Six inch strawberry towers and find a source of winter strawberry plants to finish up the project.

Non-gardening……with my wife gone I have laundry, dishes to do, floors to mop, Christmas decorations to organize …… I am not sure how she finds time to do all that stuff. It kind of gets in the way of my gardening, wood-turning, fishing, bicycling, beer brewing/drinking and  coffee with my buddies down at Starbucks…….. in fact she contacted me at Starbucks this morning and cut my visit short……but hun, I am not complaining, wink,wink!

A note to Jane…..I loved the lemon curd you gave me a year ago and I have a bunch of Meyer Lemons ready to provide their juice for my curd making this week. I will see if I can work that in between some of my lingering tasks. Maybe I will wait until after the curd is done before mopping! John….I still think I can handle the expansion …….. what else can I defer???????

TTFN

Bishop

 

A Bit of Fall – Finally

December 10, 2011

Bishop Fall, Gardening, Vegetables , Leave a comment

Fall Colors – Too Bad it is not Kingwood

 Ahhhhhh, the beautiful colors of Fall! Unfortunately, in my adopted hometown of Kingwood it seems to never arrive. Today is December 9th and we are beginning to have a hint of fall here in the Houston area. Now, I have not been totally shut out of the fall color changes. The problem is that Kathy and I had to wander off to Knoxville, Tennessee to find it. November 18th, while walking through downtown Knoxville we were treated to a taste of Fall. This was a beautiful park in downtown Knoxville.

Back home in Kingwood we live in the middle a dense forest. We have a great mix of both evergreens and deciduous trees. We should have a very nice fall color change but Mother Nature has been displaying her nasty side. She allowed a strong La Nina to become a fixture in the eastern Pacific ocean…. water temperatures have become cooler than normal. The cool waters in that part of the ocean translate into hot and dry conditions across the southwest and south-central portions of the US. In the case of Texas…. we are now in the midst of the worst drought in over 100 years and the warm loooooong summer has stalled the coming of Fall – well not really, the calendar says it is Fall but Mother Nature didn’t cooperate. Fall should have heralded the coming of cool weather. Our friend, Jack Frost should have shown his silver locks by the second week of November….nope! Not this year!
I have to admit that many trees in Kingwood actually began a color change toward the end of August – literally thousands of trees in our woods have turned BROWN………….Pines, Elms, Oaks, Sycamores and many more. Wherever you look, our once lush and green woods are mottled with the brown specter of dying or in many cases,  dead trees. On December 3rd, while driving to the airport I began to notice a hint of Fall color creeping into the Kingwood forest palette. The hint of color is helping to ease the blight of the dead and dying brown trees that have been so horribly dominant during this never-ending summer of 2011.
From the perspective of the backyard vegetable patch this drought has been a mixed blessing. The warm weather vegetables have produced deep into the Fall calendar months. This week Jack Frost finally brought his icy caress to my backyard. His cold fingers finally put down my cucumbers,  pole beans, peppers, the sole remaining tomato plant….thank you! Now I can clear those beds and prep them for the next guests. Hallelujah …. it looks like the touch of frost is beginning to turn the asparagus ferns brown – it is about time! The root crowns have surely stored enough energy to overwhelm me with tender and tasty spears next spring.
The root crops are beginning to bless my table. The picture below was taken with my iPhone…. it seems to be an odd pairing, turnips and cucumbers…. Come on Mother Nature….this is just a little too far out of whack! Sometimes I do worry that this may become the new norm. The new challenge for all of us backyard growers may be to learn some new tricks and to change our practices….. change is or can be a good thing – be patient and receptive Bishop, it will be good!
TTFN
Bishop

Yes Virginia, Turnips and Cucumbers can Co-exist!

A Garden Jelly to Delight the Senses

November 25, 2011

Bishop Composting, jam and jelly, mulching, Recipe , 3 Comments

Jars, Jelly and Beer

My Serrano Pepper plant was not nearly as prolific as last year’s specimen. Usually one of these hot pepper plants is more than enough for a family! Last year’s plant must have had the perfect accommodations. A nice view of the sunrise, warm enough throughout the day and into the shade as late afternoon crept in. I think the dining in this location must have suited the plant well. The corner occupied by this plant was in my oldest raised bed, six years in the making.  It had been nurtured with aged compost every year and the worms turning the soil are abundant. The food must have been as good as any ***** establishment….. based on the size and productivity. This year the location was missing the morning sun…and the bed is just 2 years old.

So now – back to the title of the post. From last year’s plant I made several batches of Serrano Pepper Jelly. Each batch was made with a different recipe but they all came out well, each with its own merits. The first was a back to basics batch, I made it with pectin I made from apples. It jelled very well but was not hot enough. The next batch was made using commercial pectin, more Serrano peppers, but didn’t set well. This poorly set “jelly” turned out to be perfect for pouring over soft cream cheese used as a party dip. I tried to replicate the “pourable” jelly and came close. It was all good…just some better than others. Where have I heard that phrase before?????

Now the batch I made two days ago seems to be setting up nicely….. may not pour as well over the cream cheese but I can still blend it in. The remedy for the” jelled-jelly “- just blend it into the cream cheese – it seems to work very well. Recipe number 4 may turn out to be a keeper. I actually wrote it down – not really wrote it down – I typed it into a word document and saved it into my recipe file on the hard drive. I am not sure that many of us really “write” any more. My mother is good about sending hand written letters and notes. It is such a pleasure to see her beautiful cursive script. My grandson recently sent me a hand written thank you note after receiving his birthday card….. made me feel warm inside. I think we need to slow down sometimes and reflect on some simpler pleasures and times.

Where was I going? – oh the new recipe. What I like about it is the abundance of Serrano peppers it calls for. The flavor is nicely warm without causing beads of sweat to break out on your forehead.  I was concerned about having pepper pieces in the jelly so I used a sieve and removed some before canning. In hindsight I should have left it alone. Those that remained give the jelly a pleasant look and a bit of something to chew on. All of the peppers came from my garden ……. I know how they were grown and fed. The recipe basics –  A cup each of finely chopped red and green Bell Peppers(2 total), about 20 deseeded Seranno peppers, I added a half dozen yellow peppers just because they would have been lonely in the fridge, one cup of apple cider vinegar used to puree the Serrano peppers, a box of Sure-Jell pectin and 5 cups of sugar. Yum! Standard directions – heat pepper mix to boiling, add sugar, heat to rolling boil – hold for a full minute (does that make sense, isn’t a minute always a minute?) then place in hot clean jars.

It was a busy day in the kitchen. My wife had left on a trip to California to be with her brother and family as he recovers from a serious surgery. With her gone I could spread out a little more and let the resulting mess linger a little longer…..without her comments – I have learned that she really cares for me and that is why she continues to invest time in coaching me. I had also been delaying the process of getting my beer out of the secondary fermenter and into the bottles. So I combined efforts in the kitchen and completed two culinary actions…..I think I can lump beer into that culinary category can’t I? As you can see from the picture above I was busy in the kitchen. I have to wait a couple of weeks for the beer but the jelly is ready to go. Link to my beer blogging is shown below.

http://pappadeckerbrewing.wordpress.com/

My lettuce growing efforts had a bit of a setback – my son came home from school for the Thanksgiving Holiday and brought his lovely Labrador mix pooch, Sierra, home from school. She apparently still has a bit of puppy in her and loves to dig in good, moist and rich soil. So, where do you suppose my young lettuce plants were…….emphasis on were. You guessed it, like a laser guided missile she made a precision strike on the three rows of young lettuce plants. There is that old philosophical question about a tree falling in a forest. If no one is around to hear it, does it make any sound? Hmmmmm. When young and tender lettuce plants are brutally shredded and no one is there, do their screams of agony not make any noise? Take a deep breath Bishop and remember that the new lettuce seed packets have many hundreds more waiting to be planted.

My to-do list for today will include lettuce planting, green bean picking, turning the compost pile and raking leaves. I wonder what he neighbors were thinking on Wednesday when I cruised the street with my portable leaf vacuum and shredder….. I was able to gather a barrel full of shredded leaves from the neighbor’s yard. Shredded leaves make great mulch and adds carbon to my composting efforts. The leaves are dropping all over the neighborhood so the crazy guy in the big green truck will be gathering leaves today and tomorrow. My wife is still gone so I will not be embarrassing her directly. ;-D

Strawberry rantings coming soon.

TTFN

Bishop

Learning Lessons and other Musings

November 20, 2011

Bishop Beans, berrries, Gardening, Vegetables , , , Leave a comment

Planted 3 Inch Strawberry Towers

Sugar Snap Peas climbing skyward

 The lesson from the experiment are many and a bit painful.

Lesson number one – 3 inch drain pipe is too small – I debated and again the cheap side of me went with the lower cost….guess what. Sometimes more is better …. (I chose the politically correct phrase). The 4 inch pipe is probably a good choice but the more I look at it and work with the 3 inch pipe the 6 inch may be the best choice.
Lesson number two – fill with the planting media as you plant.  I filled the 3 inch pipes to the top before the plants arrived and it becomes a challenge to get the plants well seated.
Lesson three – space the holes out in a less dense pattern.  I chose a 90  degree orientation with the back side blank. I read an article a couple of months ago where a young lad experimented with spacing solar cells based on plant world configurations – something like Fibonacci numbers –   and the results were amazing. So I may play around with real plant world arrangements like – 135° (or 3/8) : eight leaves in three gyres. The Fibonacci sequence would predict 137.5 degrees as an optimum spacing. That would be 8 holes in three rows and then repeat.
Lesson 4 – the holes are probably the right size/diameter but the  forstner bit leaves a sharp edge in the hole. Have you heard the joke where the patient says to the doc, “It hurts when I put my finger into the holes in the pipe!” The doc  tells him, “The cure is to stop putting your finger in there!” I should have listened to the doc. I shredded the index finger on both hands – so the pain is evenly distributed. I think that helps?
I think I will experiment with the 6 inch pipe this coming spring – I will be”frugal” and rather than build the towers using PVC Tees and Ells, I will use a post hole digger to set the pipe upright. I figure 12-15 inches deep should be sufficient.
The warm weather is helping and hindering. The help – I am still picking green beans and cucumbers… as well as bell peppers, yellow banana peppers, serrano peppers and radishes. I picked all of my green tomatoesover a week ago thinking that November would bring some cool weather – well I should have waited.  Is it Global Warming or too “dadgum” politicians spewing hot air????? 82 degrees F today, 28 C for the rest of the world.
Now the bad. I am waiting for my asparagus ferns to respond to the cold, ha ha, and turn brown so I can cut them back. They are still green, still growing and sending up new shoots. So, …… ????????
I love puttering around in the garden an snacking on the fresh crunchy stuff. Fresh green beans today and a couple of sugar snap pea pods… not worth bringing into the house – just right for crunchy chewing in the garden.
TTFN
Bishop

I Thought I Was Being Frugal

November 14, 2011

Bishop Beans, Gardening, jam and jelly, Vegetables , , , , , , 2 Comments

Lettuce not be Cheap

I have been a little disappointed in that most of my lettuce seeds have failed to germinate. I know that the weather has been a little too warm so I have reseeded several times and have seen very few show up in the rows. I am a frugal gardener so I spread the seeds so that I don’t have to do a lot of thinning. Because of that I rarely plant all of the seeds in the packets. Over the course of the past few years I have many packets of leftovers and try to use them ……

I just found this bit of advice while searching the internet today.  “Lettuce also fails to germinate if the seed is old, so use fresh seed each season.” Should I take this advice???? I think I should!

I looked at some of my leftovers and the dates on the packets go as far back as 2008! Looks like I am not frugal but the word cheap might be a better descriptor.
I broke down today and spent $ 6.00 or so for some new, current season lettuce seeds. Weather is still on the cusp of being too warm…we will see 80 degrees this week again. I planted lettuce today for the fourth time this “fall” – Hope I haven’t wasted my money….what if it is more likely the warm weather and not old seed? I guess I won’t ever know.
Peas are coming up

I seem to use up almost all of the pea seeds every year and bought 2011/12 season sugar snap peas for this fall. I love this sequential depiction of peas sprouting. Most of my peas are further along than the right hand image. I noticed today that I have some up into the 15 – 18″ tall range and some flowers are beginning to develop. I am looking forward to the sweetness of fresh picked sugar snaps. The pole beans have just about stopped flowering so it looks like I will have a gap in the harvest. I didn’t have many beans today so most found their way into my mouth before they made the kitchen. They are actually pretty sweet but not like the peas.

Still gathering cucumbers from my volunteer plants. These cukes are so good. Sometimes the Houston heat causes them to grow so fast they become huge and they can be a little bitter. The weather is perfect right now, the size of the cukes just perfect and they taste great.. I grilled some of the fresh red bell peppers from the garden tonight. I have a bunch of Serrano peppers to pick this week and will probably make some more Serrano Pepper jelly. So good over cream cheese as a dip. I also found some red onion sets at the store where I picked up the lettuce seeds and added them to the white onions I planted a few weeks ago. The white onions and the garlic are up and stretching toward the sky. Looking forward to late spring 2012 for the onions to be ready.
I will be in the garden getting my hands dirty again tomorrow…..
TTFN
Bishop

Strawberry Towers Phase One

November 2, 2011

Bishop berrries, Composting, Gardening , , , , Leave a comment

I have decided to try going vertical with my soon to arrive strawberries.  I have seen a number of different approaches to going vertical and decided to build a two tower set-up as my first test. I chose 3″ PVC drain pipe – it is light weight, cheaper than the heavy wall PVC and easy to work with. The picture below shows the two tower set-up after they were put together and filled. The base of the structure is filled with pea gravel for stability. I drilled 24 –  1 1/4″ holes in each tower, none on the back side. I inserted a butcher paper tube inside prior to filling with potting soil. The blue masking tape is used to keep the tubes in place as I filled the pipe and to help keep the soil in place. When planting a small hole will be made through the paper and the bare root plant will be placed into the hole. I have subsequently added a 3X4 swage on top as an added reservoir for water and liquid nutients.

The Twin Strawberry Towers

I also drilled a weep hole a few inches above the “Tee” at the base of the tower. Wetting the soil by pouring water from the top was going very slowly. So when I returned from my inner injection appointment this afternoon I swung by Lowes and picked up a couple of 3X4 swages and placed them on top to increase the volume of water I can pour. Seems to be working much better. Have not yet filled the towers with enough water to  reach the weep holes. It may take a lot of water as the pore space in the base could be considerable.

During the construction of the  test towers it dawned on me that this could develop into a viable hydroponic set-up. The PVC piping used for the base could be used to provide the return run of the nutient run-off. Rather than using potting soil, a hydroponic perlite type of material could be used. While doing a little research into the hydroponic stuff I seem to run across lots of sites that are linked to growing that funny seven leafed plant that is in the news quite often. Wow – 55 gallon drums of nutient chemical will set you back about 3 grand….Must be good money in growing that other stuff……

The week of November 7th is the promised date for my strawberry plants to arrive. I have to work all week so planting will be deferred a bit. The plants should hold well in the produce drawer until the weekend.

Shown next is the close-up of the 1/8″ weep hole and another angle of the base and towers set up next to my compost bins and in front of my blackberry bed.  If the experiment works it could lead to a small commercial patch. I think you could increase plantings by a factor of 5 or 6 in the same square footage of space and really simplify the harvest. I have seen the strawberry harvest in California and it is back breaking, stoop labor. This could be a win all around. Intitial investment might be a little higher but in the long term could be much cheaper.

FYI – The towers are not glued in place to aid in dumping and replacing the growing medium. In the future I may consider 4″ or even 6″ PVC drain pipe.

Towers next to compost bins

1/8 " Weep hole

TTFN Folks

Bishop

Halloween Garden Gnome

October 31, 2011

Bishop Gardening , , , 1 Comment

Halloween Garden Gnome

My fall garden is guaranteed to be a success! I found this young garden Gnome in my front yard and I think I have him convinced to stay for the winter – at least! I promised to feed him, send him to school, since he is still so young – 400 years old in Gnome years which is like – 16 in people years, and provide transportation as needed. I know he likes the environment….he ate all of the green beans I picked this morning – just plain and raw.

He seems to have a lot of energy but that may be a good thing. I will see if he can patrol the garden at night or at least up to his curfew! Last night the garden was raided by either the racoon or the possum! I’m pretty sure it was the racoon as one of the newly planted broccoli transplants was neatly dug out and just plain GONE!

I will update all y’all in the near future on how well my Gnome is working out! I hope we get to arrest the broccoli thief soon.

TTFN
Bishop

Returning Home From Midland

October 30, 2011

Bishop Beans, berrries, Gardening, Vegetables , , , , , , , , , 1 Comment

The Right Side is the Sunnier Side
Left side gets winter shade.

I returned Friday morning from a week in Midland Texas. Kathy kept the thirsty guys and gals in the beds well watered. We finally got some rain Thursday – not nearly enough to put a dent into the drought but it was a good soaking rain. I used my iPhone to shoot the two pictures shown. Not bad for an early generation iPhone…. I havent upgraded yet.

At the entrance on the left side my “volunteer” cucumber plants have been rewarding me nicely. I picked two very nice cukes for my salads and another 6 or so are maturing nicely. The green beans are doing well and I gathered about 3 handfuls. As you can see on the front right… the sugar snap peas are just reaching up to grab the twine. The bush cucumbers, back right, are beginning to produce little cukes but the weather may not let them become full-sized. Also in the right side beds are some radishes – I picked a few yesterday to go with the salads.
The butter crunch lettuce doesn’t seem to want to germinate so I reseeded two rows Friday AM…. hopefully the cool temperatures will help out. The kale has really taken off and the white onion sets put out a week ago are reaching skyward. I need to share a few  sets with my buddy John this week along with some of the extra garlic.  I also transplanted some broccoli today. The plants looked really healthy and they should do well.
I should be getting my strawberry plants week after next. I have 150 coming. 48 of them will be used to fill my vertical PVC towers, 24 per tower.  I am anxious to see how well they do in the towers. I will feature the strawberry plantings in a future rambling.
I am still waiting to see if the tomatoes will break color before the temperatures put a halt to their ripening.  It will be sunny and slightly warmer for the next 7 days and beyond!!!! So, fingers crossed, I will get some home-grown fall tomatoes.
TTFN
Bishop

A Hint of Fall in the Air

October 18, 2011

Bishop Beans, berrries, Gardening, Vegetables , , , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment

It is so nice to be back in the garden again. My daughters and wife do a very nice job in maintaining the garden in my absence. I like to get some dirt under the nails, pull some weeds – a never-ending task here , stagger plant a few more so everything doesn’t ripen all at once and thin out some of the new seedlings. I always tell myself that I will thin the rows so they are spaced appropriately but I seem to fall down on that task with great regularity.

As I worked through the  beds today I did my thinning, pulled my weeds, pinched off the terminal ends of a few blackberry vines and snacked on some very fresh veggies. The asparagus ferns are huge, heavy and falling forward. The lean exposed some new shoots that begged to be picked and sampled. Asparagus snapped off and enjoyed in its ultimate fresh state is incredible. It is sweet and very tender. I found some blossoms ready to pick on my squash….not my favorite to snack on but not enough to add to a salad. I picked a few handfuls of the pole beans and enjoyed a few alfresco as well. I will steam some to go with the BBQ chicken tonight. (Kathy already had asparagus planned – not as fresh as mine but still good)

The Carmelo tomato plant looks like it will ripen up a dozen or so tomatoes before it gets too cold. In the past week the grape tomato has sent forth many dozen blossoms but I am afraid time is running short for them to mature. They may behave like me, flirt with maturity and stay in the vicinity for appearance sake. I may have to age but I can choose whether to behave or misbehave – it is my choice. PS – The right answer is always – “Yes Dear!”

The Meyer Lemons are turning yellow… I will have to quiz my urban farming friends, Jane and John, on how to determine the time to pick them. I saw them down at Starbucks this morning. We chatted about all things growing except for the lemon talk….

The Kale has really taken off and so many articles I’ve read say that it is so good to eat and a healthy choice. I sampled some way back in the days when I worked the docks for Anglen Produce in Bakersfield. My memory says that the flavor was quite unremarkable. But then again that was commercially grown kale and not the homegrown, naturally raised plants – mine must be better……. we’ll see. Did I ever tell you the story about packing up bags of Serrano and Jalepeno peppersat  the produce warehouse and absent mindedly going off to the men’s room – Kathy says I can’t tell that story….sorry.

Pulled some radishes for tonight’s salad and added another two dozen seeds to the row. Staggered in two more rows of beets for spring harvest. The volunteer cucumbers look to be doing well and I should have some to pick soon. I am also feeling like a neglectful farmer…. I have not checked in on my worms nor fed them for nearly two weeks…. Not good! They have consumed everything in the bin and needed some attention. I prepped the new bin and placed it over the well worked mass of worm poop. They should now start the upward migration into the new clean home…..Sorry little guys!

Less gardening on my list for this Tuesday – On my list to do is boiling the wort for a new batch of beer. I am trying a clone recipe for a Northwest US brew called Dick’s Danger Ale. http://www.dicksbeer.com/brews/brew_1.php?key=1 Dark but not nearly a heavy as a Porter of a Stout. Should be yummy – is yummy a robust enough word for a beer? Hmmmm. Maybe- “hearty and satisfying!” – yes that sounds better.

TTFN

Bishop

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