Strawberries!

My strawberries this year are much smaller than last year. I believe fertilizing at the proper time will fix that for next harvest, but until then, the small berries are delicious to eat, if not a little more labor intensive.
When I posted about them on my Facebook page, I noticed that there was interest in growing them, even from people who didn't normally seem inclined towards food gardening before. With that in mind, I am going to share what I have learned about growing strawberries and hook you all up with a couple of places on the internet that I used for sources on growing them. My Sweet Charlie, that I got three years ago was the first time I tried strawberries. I have noticed, as I have gotten older, waiting a year for a good harvest isn't such a big deal. I have heard of people getting a harvest on first year plants, but my first year the blossoms were spare, so I nipped off the buds to redirect that energy towards establishing themselves. Boy, was I rewarded last year!
Other things that are in the works is a video series dealing with cooking from scratch. The point will be to really teach the basics, hopefully in the style of Julia Child. I think that a lot of the issues with people not cooking is that it seems so time consuming and complicated. It can be time consuming if you want to be very complex, but most real cooking was invented by women who did not have the time to spare either as they worked the farm and cared for children and, though many may not believe this, work for money too. Women have worked from the beginning of time, it wasn't until the mid 20th century that there was an expectation of women staying home with the kids.
So, the series will help people learn things like cutting up a chicken, how to make the "mother sauces" only five very simple sauces from which you can make any sauce simply with things you have on hand. There will be lessons on braising (the best way to use cheap, meat cuts if meat is your thing), how to cook vegetables and some down and dirty lessons on fast cooking from what is on hand in your home.
I have other things floating around as ideas for this blog, but they are not formed enough to discuss, but there are things in the works. Remember how I said that thing about patience? I am trying to learn to have some with myself too, as it takes me much longer to create here than I would like. Be patient with me please,

Strawberries 101

First and most importantly, choose your strawberries well. The strawberries you get at the grocery are often hard, and tasteless. This will also be true of your strawberries if you pick the same variety, which is grown for size and toughness. The one thing you really don't want your berries to be are "tough", they are delicate and that is why this time of year is eagerly awaited by my family as this is when the "real" berries come out, reminding us why, despite the heat, summer is one of the very best times of year.
Strawberries have two major types. One is "June bearing" which is exactly what it sounds like. The other consists of varieties that are "everbearing", which means that they do not give one large crop, but continuously bloom and produce as long as the weather is good. June bearers do flower out of their season, and it is up to you to allow it or not. I prefer to take off the blooms after the June crops have finished to help focus the plants attention on renewing itself (themselves) for the next year. This year I also planted a bunch of everbearers, but they are in their first year, so I am not expecting anything.
You also want a berry that is good for the climate you are in. The Sweet Charlie is good from zones 5-8, for those not understanding the zones, 8 is pretty much the coldest the US gets (outside of Alaska, poor Alaska, we never count you lol). I am in Zone 6a. "A" represents a "microclimate" large enough to be named within the zone. That means that while I have a cold night, often, just up the road, there is actual frost on the ground. This is important to know when protecting plants. I learned about the microclimates when researching why my rosemary always dies when left outside, even when sheltered. Zone 6 is the most cold a rosemary plant can handle, and then, only certain varieties living in certain microclimates survive our winters. This is information you want regarding your strawberries. Sweet Charlie has a lot of disease and pest resistance, and it one of the more popular varieties for the colder areas of the United States. If you are interested in the specifics, please refer to StrawberryPlants.org, and they have everything you would want to know about strawberries. What I put here is what I have learned so far, which isn't nearly as much as is on the site, but should be good as a "quick start" for someone wanting to give strawberries a try.

If you want a nice cold weather perennial garden, there are ways to grow strawberries in the same beds as Asparagus for a great Spring crop.

First Things First

Choose a place for your beds. There are many ways to grow strawberries, and I chose the easiest at the time for me, but not necessarily the best. I learned the hard way that I need to make use of the internet about everything I plant, because even though I grew up with gardens, there is still a lot I do not know.
You want one of the sunniest, most well drained spots in your yard. For me that meant growing in a mound. I planted six plants in two rows of three, well spaced apart. As they establish themselves, they throw out "runners" which have daughter plants (clones), which will take over if you do not keep an eye on them. This will matter in the finally configuration of your bed.
You want to dig down about six inches if you are making a traditional bed. Into that mix good amounts of compost that has been well rotted, or well rotted manure, or both. Strawberries like a nice rich soil, and compost is the best (and cheapest) way to achieve that. The plants can be spaced pretty far apart (up to two feet) and will fill in very quickly. If you want neat rows like you see at pick it yourself places, you will need to keep an eye on the runners and carefully lift and set into soil where you want them. If you have had spider plants, you should recognize this type of reproduction in plants.
Strawberries also needs lots of water. I mostly hand water, but as soon as my gutters are fixed, I will be putting in a barrel and hooking up a system of drip irrigation with that. Until then, I hand water. The first year they will not need any fertilizer if you prepared your beds, or rows, well.

Since they have shallow root systems, mulch is a must. Mulch will help keep water from evaporating into the air and drying out the bed, and will also help supress weeds as the strawberries establish themselves. I prefer to use straw or saltwater hay for this. Both will contribute to the soil as they rot away. Straw is probably best, but the bales are large and I would be using it for my other garden plants as well. If you do not have guaranteed snow cover in the winter, it is advisable to heap straw over them in the Fall to protect them from the frigid temperatures when there is no benefit of snow cover in the offerings.

Now What?

Now that you have chosen your site and configuration of the bed, dug in some compost and made sure the bed would be well drained, it is time to plant. I planted my bare root stock, which is how strawberries are usually sold, 2 feet apart in a rectangle configuration. If you look at this post again, you will see that they filled out amazingly, so if you are going for neat rows, make sure that the root stock are planted at least three feet from each other, leaving a nice 2 foot path in between to make upkeep a bit easier to do. I am kind of lucky in that my mound is separating naturally, so I don't feel so badly about stepping in the middle to pick the berries. This is how they looked the very first year after planting them in the fall after raking away the salt water hay I used to cover them for the winter.

Here is a photo of the second year:

And here we are this year

They yellowing and upturned leaves show that when this picture was taken the soil was dried out, and I believe they needed a little magnesium. It is probably best to test the soil for this, but I went ahead and gave them a nice Epsom Salts drink around this time. They were not covered the year before due to not having money to buy the straw or hay, and we did not mow them over in the fall as we did the year before. Both of these things will be remedied this year.

So, you can see that they spread very fast. Make sure you keep this in mind when picking out a spot. This year we included some every bearers into the mix. They are growing on the borders of my vegetable patch.

The defined border was created just by piling rocks around the area prepared for the strawberries. These will have to be watched carefully to keep them from taking over the rest of the garden. At least if they do run roughshod, I get some juicy jewels out of the deal. That is a take over I can get behind.

Another thing to strongly consider is how to protect your berries as they ripen. The red will attract fruit and seed eating birds, so I would suggest picking up some cheap netting to protect your beautiful fruits.

To Sum Up

1. Research and purchase the best strawberries for your climate and needs.
2. Choose a sunny, well drain site for your strawberry rootstock.

3.. Dig in compost or well aged manure into the beds, water well.

4. Plant strawberries at least 2 feet apart, water in well.

5. In the fall of the first year, cover high with straw until Spring.

6. In the first year, it is better to go without the berries and pick off the blossoms so that they become well established.

7. In the second year, mow well and cover with straw in the Fall before the first frost is best.
8. Don't forget to start thinking about how to protect them as they ripen.

My second year I picked over 20 pounds of strawberries from six plants (I planted seven, but one was dug up by the squirrels.

I hope that this helps people looking to grow strawberries. I advise really researching anything you want to grow before purchasing seeds or plants. This is a suggestion based on my own experiences, I wish I had been more thorough the first year with my plantings, fortunately there were not huge losses, but lessons were learned.

Another site that I use to get information on specific plants is: Garden.Org which has planting guides and helpful articles regarding a number of plants and is an excellent jumping off point to begin your research. I also use this Garden Planner which you can try free the first year. If you choose to continue, you will be able to use your old plans in the next year to help plan around a rotation. The plans will flash red in places that a specific plant should not be grown that year. Totally worth the subscription, especially if you make use of the videos they made. 

So Much Dirt!

Oh Spring how I love thee!

So far this season I have had some health issues (big surprise) and  a lot of pain, but the garden will happen again this year. The garlic I planted in the Fall is sprouting, thought not as vigorous as I would have liked. 

I wasn't taking a picture of the garlic specifically, so this is a fuzzy picture. Still, there is that green! I covered the bed with landscape fabric to keep the soil warm during our frequent cold snaps.

I also planted a bed with spinach and other early direct sow crops, and there is some sprouting happening, though the local wildlife likes to dig in my root crop beds (turnips, carrots, beets). My experiment in growing potatoes in a tall laundry basket is also testing my patience.

What started as six little strawberry plants last year has expanded greatly. My husband and I are working on a vertical planting system for them using PVC. 

This is what they looked like last year at planting. 

That entire patch of the darker green? All strawberry plants that overwintered.

Only one of the rhubarb plants made it through the winter, but I have many seedlings living the good life in my kitchen, so maybe there will be more later My neighbor has tried growing them in containers, but that isn't working out for her.

Now yesterday was Easter, and the weather was lovely. We had the family together for a few hours and I served deviled eggs, fruit salad and a lovely bread pudding using croissants and buttermilk.

The trick is to make the filling creamy enough to be tasty, but dry enough to hold its shape. I am working on it. :)

While everyone was eating, I tackled the old compost pile that I started 17 years ago as well as creating a raised bed for the asparagus I have coming in today. Sadly, I can't find a picture of it for a "before", but this is what I have the clearing down to:

17 years of composting leaves, scraps and rabbit poo, all finally getting used.

Where did I put all that compost? Why in a new garden bed of course!

Half done!

I am using building materials that had been left with the house.

When we moved in there were a lot of building materials laying around. The bricks were used as a walkway in the main garden bed and the concrete blocks surrounded the daylilies. I will be planting marigolds and such in the concrete blocks because asparagus doesn't play nice with other plants, but marigolds are helpful partners in the garden attracting pests away from the other plants as well as attracting pollinators for all.

I won't lie, it is hard doing all this will a busted up back and the other health issues, but even with the ouchies, I feel much more centered when I am out in the fresh air helping nature along. 

And, one more note on Spring gardening, my raspberries are growing beautifully!

Fall Wrap Up

There are many, many things left to do before we are ready for the winter, at least in the garden. Still, most of the important things are finished and have learned a lot about growing vegetables and fruits and the weird things my city wild life will wreck without eating.

The pallet lettuce garden I attempted was an abject failure. There are many reasons for it, but part of it was the design. The design I originally hijacked was not lined with garden paper at all. Instead, it was loaded with the soil and seeded and then it just laid there for a month while the roots grew strong enough to keep the soil in. My goal was not a well established patch of cutting greens though, at least not this year, so I tried creating "boxes" to plant in. There are flaws, such as the sun getting to the bottom ones and too much drainage sapping the nutrients from the topmost seedlings. Next year is a do over, because I am stubborn that way.

Next year I am going to try heirlooms so that I can harvest good seed for the next season. This year I planted Red Lightning, Super Sauce and Tie Dye as well as a variety of cocktail tomatoes. The cocktail tomatoes did poorly in their hanging containers. The Super Sauce seem to need a lot more nutrients to avoid blossom end rot than other tomatoes. Once the soil was appropriate for them I was rewarded with humongous plum tomatoes.

On the left is a regular plum tomato from the farm stand and on the left is one of the Super Sauce. I have harvested a few that were even bigger.

There were not enough to provide for our winters canned tomato needs though, so next year I go heirloom and try growing them up on a single vine like they do at the big farms. Seems to work for them. The Red Lightnings were lovely, but I am the only one in my family that likes raw, off the vine, tomatoes, so next year I will plant just two regular tomatoes with the plums. I am bound and determined to find a good spot for the cocktail tomatoes though, I will prevail!
I have harvested four good pumpkins, one very deformed, but perfectly good for food. Another of them was breached before I got to it and had grown into my lovely neighbors yard. I was going to give it to her, but I saw it rotting and got it back to keep the critters out of her yard. I have several small spaghetti (Tivoli) squash, but the vine borers stopped production too early. The heriloom Lakotas didn't do well at all. Of the six vines I got one very small squash and another that never ripened fully. Next year there will be butternut, they handle the vine borers like champs. In the curbit family, my zucchini did terribly. Out of the 8 plants and I don't know how many seeds, I got exactly one teeny zucchini. I am not entirely sure why, but I think it may be that they didn't like sharing space with the cabbages (which did quite well btw). My cucumbers actually did well after a couple of false starts. Unfortunately my fermented dill pickles were not very good. Note: pickle crisp, or better yet, organic grape leaves). 

As mentioned, the cabbage did well. I made sauerkraut which was really good, but the brine stayed way too salty and after a couple of months I rinsed it to see if I could save it, but without the brine it rapidly went south in the fridge. I am on the right track though, and there are a couple of baby heads out there right now that may give me another opportunity. In the same bed, the broccoli was a wash. There were three plants, but they matured at greatly different rates. While waiting for enough broccoli for a meal, the first heads to erupt bolted. Next year I will play in a container with them and not waste precious raised bed space.

Savoy cabbage from the garden

The corn was lovely! Next year I need fish meal and there is an enzyme that you soak beans seeds in before planting a field with them the first time, I am going to do that and use the few beans that made it from the Cherokee Trail of Tears black beans. Must plant many more beans next year to haul in a good crop to use more than as seeds for the spring.
The Swiss Chard is doing excellently in the container I planted the seeds in before I went in for the surgery. There are also some beets and carrots going, so maybe something will come of that before the weather turns too much.

As many who read here know, I have been pretty sick. Pain is constant, so I have to ration where my energy goes. This is why my blog hasn't been updated as much as I would like. It is either blog it or do it, but I can't often do both. What I do have is a lot of pictures ready for some instructionals, and a plan. Soon there will be a basic canning guide here. I plan to explain the science (at least the science that I know, things change all the time) and basic techniques and places to go for more information or support. 

Now, to convince my husband that moving the beds is the best idea ever, because I am not supposed to lift heavy things. Way more irritating than relaxing, let me tell you.

All of the Tomatoes!

Hello everyone! I had my surgery last Friday and have been spending my time trying to keep up with the work around the house without setting back my recovery. Super fun, as I strongly dislike sitting around with things to do that I am not allowed to.

Before I went to surgery though, everyone's tomatoes came in! This may be coming a bit late for some, but just before I went in, I canned some tomatoes and salsa, and the one thing that you always have to do for those items is peel. There are some who don't peel for salsa, and that does no harm, but I tried it once and found too many sharp strips of peel in the condiment for my taste.

You may notice that I am not mentioning sauce with the peeling. There is a reason. If you are canning tomato sauce, there is no need to peel each tomato. That goes for ketchup or anything that you will be turning to a soupy sauce. In those cases, I just wash the tomatoes, core, chop them a bit and cook them down. Once they are nice and soft you can put it through a strainer or a mill and that will remove the skins and seeds. Some people find cooking the seeds in the sauce makes it bitter. If that is you, just scoop the seeds out of the slices before putting them in the pan.
Now, on to peeling tomatoes for other recipes. The pictures below should help lead you through any unclear bits.

1. Wash tomatoes thoroughly. Even organic vegetables are exposed to bacteria, and if you are canning it is best to be as clean as possible to avoid contamination in the finished product.

2. Lightly score an "X" at the blossom end of the tomato.

3. Plunge tomatoes into boiling water in batches. As soon as the skins seem to be slipping a bit, drop them in cold water to shock them.

4. The skins should peel easily from the cuts. Although I have always cored after peeling, it makes sense that coring before blanching would make the skins even easier to remove. Doh!

5. To "core", use a melon baller and scoop the stem end out. I hate that they call it "coring", to me that implies removing the center entirely.

6. Use as directed in recipe.

Coming up: Adventures in making pantry staples!

Canning Peppers

Cowboy Candy and Marinated Peppers

Canning season is well underway, and this year I have started with water-bath canning. Water-bath canning is when you submerge jars of food in boiling water and let the heat seal the jars. It is not safe to water-bath can everything! Non pickled vegetables and meats must be done in a pressure canner, which I also do. Soon I will be posting about canning my corn chowdah base for my family so they can have some while I am laid up after the operation.

The Cowboy Candy is very new to me. Upon researching this recipe to make certain that it is safe to can, I found that the heat is supposed to mellow considerably as it ages, so I kept in all of the seeds and membranes. That made preparing the peppers very simple.

Cowboy Candy

3 lbs jalapenos
2 cups cider vinegar
6 cups sugar
2 tablespoons mustard seed
1/2 teaspoon tumeric
1/2 teaspoon celery seed, I only had celery seed powder, so I used half the amount
2 large cloves garlic, peeled and each cut in half
1 teaspoon cayenne pepper
Slice jalapenos. IMPORTANT: use gloves if at all possible. Even then it is still very possible to get the capsaicin in your eyes or other areas (think, using the bathroom.. enough of a visual?) If you do get some on you, milk will help to alleviate the burn.
Mix cider vinegar, sugar, turmeric, celery and mustard seed, garlic, and cayenne to boil.
Reduce for 5 minutes to a simmer.
Add jalapenos at the simmer for 5 minutes more.
Load sterilized jars with jalapenos first and add liquid filling the jars leaving a 1/4 head-space.

Process in a water bath for 15 minutes.

Marinated Peppers

4 lbs red bell or red sweet peppers

1 cup lemon juice

2 cups white vinegar (5% acidity)

1 tablespoon fresh oregano leaves (or dried, to taste)

1 cup olive oil 

1/2 cup onions, chopped

2 cloves garlic (optional)

First, roast the peppers. I put them under the broiler until they were black all over. Then I put them in a stainless steel bowl and covered with foil and let them sit until they were cool enough to handle. The skin should remove easily, and if you are careful, you can get the clump of seeds out in one motion. If not, the seeds tend to get everywhere, but do not rinse under water. This will flush much of the flavor away, and we want the flavor.  This to me is the easiest and tastiest way to peel peppers.

Mix lemon juice, vinegar, oregano and onions in a pan and bring to a boil.

Pack strips of peppers into sterilized half pint canning jars. Spoon the mixed liquid over it to 1/2 in head-space. Run a plastic knife or bamboo skewer around the edges and in the middle to remove air bubbles, then add more liquid if needed to maintain 1/2 in head-space.  Make sure you keep stirring the liquid as you go, or the ration will be off too much to water bath these. 

Clean the edges of the jar with a cloth soaked in a bit of vinegar, cap and seal in a water-bath for 15 minutes

Important: 

I live at close to sea level, so the times may differ for you. I suggest the Ball Complete Book of Home Preservation to have tables to refer to.

I would like very much to do a tutorial on canning for people. I know that there are a number of sites out there, but judging from some of the questions I have been asked, I think that there may be confusion. I think that people make canning out to be more complicated than it is. It is like baking, once you know the rules, there is wiggle room for creating your own recipes safely, you just need to know the rules.

How Does Your Garden Grow?

There has been a whole lot of things going on at the inbetween homestead. I have been doing a lot of little projects in preserving and making my own condiments and such. With all of this going on as well as the garden really needing to be tended, I am also having a spinal fusion operation pretty soon, so I feel as though I have so many things to do before I can no longer do them for a while. 

So, I will be trying to post some of the things I have been doing this summer while I recuperate, and give updates on the vegetable garden. First, here is a couple pictures of my Three Sisters garden, which is looking lovely:

I am quite happy for the most part. There are things that I should have done and did not. The first thing I am doing next time is to add something to lighten the soil. There was plenty of compost and such, but the soil still hardened up quite a bit after watering. I also need to rethink the edges. Maybe if I plant the squash before everything else? At the very least, I am starting the squash inside next year, so that the plant will keep the soil on the edges from eroding. I lost an entire squash type and I have only two of one of the squashes (I don't know which kind), but the spaghetti squash (Tivoli) is producing like a pro! 

The beans are also doing well, but I don't know which ones. Let this be a lesson, label everything when you plant them! Still, they are vining great, but since I planted so many, I have placed some straight limbs from the brush pile for them to grow on. They do vine up the corn, and the corn seems to be okay with this, I just had a lot of bean plants and am afraid of strangling the corn.

Here is a shot of my lovely spaghetti squash:

Isn't she beautiful?

And this is how my garden grows right now. The season has been fickle to say the least. Our last frost was into May this year, which stunted the plants I put out early. Also, we started the season with great weather conditions rain wise, but then we had a very hard dry spell followed by extremely wet conditions. That is making it a bit difficult for my tomatoes, but I have dried a batch of the Red Lightnings already.

Here is a peek a boo shot of my pickling cucumbers

Bowl of Red Lightning Tomatoes

Next up will be a couple of canning sessions which includes Victorian BBQ and Fig Preserves as well as some dehydration projects that I am doing to limit the food waste that tends to happen in the glut of summer produce.

Also, there will be an update on my pallet garden. Things did not turn out as expected, although I did get a few greens out of it. What happened is I learned some stuff, and hopefully will be able to put that to use in making the pallet garden work much better next time.

Container Planting Root Crops

We have been very lucky this Spring despite the bipolar weather. For the last several days we have had overnight rain but the days have been nice enough to work outside. 
The soil in my yard may have lead contamination. My neighbor had her yard tested, and it abuts my property, so she was kind enough to share the information. The levels are perfectly fine for fruits and such, but not for leafy greens or root crops, so those require lined, raised beds or containers. 
This brings me to this week's project, making containers for beets and carrots that are deep enough, but not so heavy that I need a truck lift to move them. Adding a ton of vermiculite would be easier, but way more expensive and I haven't found a lot on how much crops like such light soil. Even then, the containers would be quite heavy. I learned this trick from a home gardening program years ago. Now, if you are super concerned about BPAs, you will want to use this to create your own type of drainage. Personally, I have done the research and do not see a problem with this method, but there are many studies out there and it depends on the ones you trust, don't judge me. *smile*

The first step, after finding a suitable container is to drill holes at the bottom to prevent water from pooling and causing root rot. Believe me, there isn't much worse than getting your plants going only to find a month or so later that they are not viable and there is no time to plant more. 

Drill holes in container

I chose to make smallish holes close together. I have seen folks make large holes, and they work too. I prefer it this way. Plus, the holes aren't as obvious. I just used an electric drill. This takes just a minute or two.

Fill the bottom

I gathered some plastic containers from the recycling bin for reuse. You crush them down well and then layer them on the bottom. It is that easy. Just make sure you don't put too much there because your plants need plenty of space to grow.

Cover those puppies

Ideally you would use a gardening cloth, but I was being incredibly lazy and thought that I was also being clever and reused some plain paper packing material from something I had shipped in. It is just newspaper paper without the print. You do this to avoid losing so much soil in between the plastic containers. The paper is going to disintegrate  hence me "thinking" I was being clever. It is going to work, I just don't know if it will for next year. Go with the cloth if you have it on hand, but do not use plastic unless it is very perforated as otherwise it will not drain, resulting in the aforementioned horror of root rot.

A nice, gentle watering

Ideally, one would research which soil is the best for the crop being grown, but who has time for that? Also, I am on a budget and these projects are already costing way too much. I am just using a garden mix made for vegetables and fruits. After filling the container a little higher than you want the soil to me, I planted beet seeds and very gently, dusted some of the soil over them. I want them close to the surface, but covered to maintain moisture and to keep it from getting too much sun while still staying fairly warm for sprouting. Then I gently drenched the top with water. I will have to keep this watered because I didn't moisten the soil before putting it in the pot. This time it wasn't laziness, just poor planning as I didn't have a container big enough to mix the soil and water together in first. 

I did make that baking mix, but forgot to photograph the process because things have been pretty crazy here. I would like to make some biscuits or something anyway before giving it the seal of approval. I am also going to try a brownie mix because it has to be better than the boxed type.

Also, if the pain subsides, I will be going out and planting the bok choy I started inside. Again, I hear that this is not recommended generally, but given the climate here, it seemed like a good idea to attempt anyway. With the bak choy I will plant my green onions (which take forever to grow it seems) and radishes. I also want to start some radicchio. 

Once the pallets that my soils and manure have been sitting on are cleared off, I will be attempting a horizontal lettuce and greens garden. Stay tuned!