Broccoli in the winter garden
12.8 years ago Uncategorized
Not exactly time to harvest but nice to see a little life in my garden after our snow has melted away…
Stealing natures free blackberries
13.2 years ago Uncategorized
Normally blackberries are in their prime in early August, but with our cold winter they are just starting to come around now. After a little bit of hunting my partners and I found a few good stretches of bushes and had out one gallon bucket of blackberries filled in no time.
In the past I have created the following with these seemingly never-ending supply of free produce:
| Blackberry Pie |  |
| Blackberry Jam |  |
This year I went with something with much less sugar and made a great low-carb blackberry ice cream recipe. At just 188 calories per serving, 7 grams of carbohydrates, and 4 grams of sugar…this is a good alterative to other desserts in our freezer and much more tasty.
using used tea bags to cover pot drainage holes
13.3 years ago Uncategorized
I saw this interesting suggestion I thought I should share. Instead of putting your tea bags in your garbage (or compost) place them in the bottom of your pots before planting. This helps keep the soil from draining out when you water and allows some nutrient to seep into your soil.
Via LifeHacker
How to cure garlic
13.3 years ago Uncategorized
Last year it was raining when I pulled my garlic and it almost seems like it hasn’t stopped running up to a couple of weeks ago. So unfortunately I was unable to properly let my garlic lay out in the sun for a few days to completely dry out. I did the best I could and braided the garlic and hung it up in my garage to keep the vampires away and to provide some awesome flavor to my cooking. Given my garage has some moisture and varying heat many of the cloves still were moist enough to start sprouting though I did have a good supply most of the winter.
Fortunately this year with out mild summer the garlic grew great and was able to pull them out a week ago and strangely enough there even was some sunshine to get them dry this year. I have taken a spare length of wire shelving and use it to move them in the garage at night and out to bask in the sunshine during the day.
Now they have a good tan off to braid them up and find a drier place to store them and should have garlic to eat for at least 6 months.
As for the sprouting garlic…will put that in the ground now for next year.
At least something is growing in my garden
13.4 years ago Uncategorized
After many weeks of overcast and low evening temperatures, hoping to see some real summer weather soon…not sure if the peppers will even make it out of the garage this summer.
Garden walkthrough
13.4 years ago Uncategorized
This bed holds all of my cold season crops, I also chose varieties that do not really need to be watered too often given it is a pain to drag a hose out to this location so it normally gets neglected. Here I have onions (bunching and bulbs), leeks, carrots (still small), cilantro (coriander at this point), garlic, romaine lettuce, and surrounded by strawberry plants in the holes of the cinder blocks. I was also smart this year to save some open space to plant some fall crops (I always seem to be ambitious and forget to do that.
The slug deterrent strategies have been successful and have not had much problems with them this year…though I was not as diligent on a second bed…
My raspberries that snuck in from my neighbors fence are also coming in nicely, I don’t think any of these have made it indoors eaten by myself of my oldest daughter.
Still a couple more weeks for blueberries but should have enough to actually make something more than a smoothie this year.
It has been a rough year for the tomatoes but they are still surviving with even a few tomatoes going from yellow to red.
I got lazy with the pea trellis this year and simply leaned an old chain linked gate against my fence and called it good. Actually worked pretty well and considering using the same for my cucumbers whenever summer stays around long enough.
Finally the peppers are doing great in the grow box. Considering if I should even bother bringing them outside. Been giving them a few hours of sunshine when we get some so hopefully when the good weather hits they will not get shocked too bad when I bring them outside.
Already got a couple of red cayenne peppers harvested with a nice banana pepper below not too far off:
