Junque Yard - oh happy day!

Yesterday I got to go to my favorite local garden center, Milaeger's. I almost wish it was a national chain so that you all could experience the goodness that comes from them, but at the same time, I haz a happy that it's mine. ALL. MINE! Muahahahaha...

It's a small family owned nursery with 2 locations both close to me. In the spring and early summer when they put out their plants, I get all giddy and stuff.

I went yesterday afternoon, because I couldn't make it to the local farmer's market in the morning. It was pouring, and my back was hurting too badly to make that trip. At least at Milaeger's I can lean on a cart.

Anyway, my budget was $20-30, and I was looking for some of the less common food plants that I like to grow, that I don't have seed for. For $29, this is what I picked up:

a Stevia plant. If you've ever chewed a leaf, you'd be surprised how sweet it is.  Stevia is the herb from which Truvia comes from. It's an herb found in South America that has been used to sweeten things with no extra calories. I bought 2 last year, but due to having hand surgery last fall, I wasn't able to pick and dehydrate the leaves like I wanted to.  I fully intend on doing that this year.

a chocolate mint plant. Why by mint when it's it's so invasive you ask? Well, chocolate mint smells wonderful. And I grow it in containers so that it doesn't invade the rest of my gardens. I honestly don't do much with it, except sniff it. It makes me happy.

a Pineapple Sage plant. It really does smell like pineapples.  I bought one last year, and put it in a pot, but it didn't last very long. I'm determined to keep one this year. It said it's a perennial, but hardy only in zones 8-10, so I can't keep it out in the herb garden, but I'm hoping to keep it alive and bring it into the house come fall.

A yellow bell pepper and a purple bell pepper plant.  My bell seedlings are taking forever to show some growth. And most of them didn't even sprout this year. I think seeds are too old. Besides, most of my bell peppers are green to red...and I luuurve the purple (or chocolate) bells. They have a unique taste. They yellows just taste great, and since red, orange and yellow peppers are so blinking expensive in the stores, I'm hoping to get a good crop of them so that I can freeze and dehydrate some.

Another patchouli plant. I bought one for my mom last year, and amazingly, it's still alive (we really abuse our indoor plants by forgetting to water them regularly). But it's sparse, and I wanted to add another one and help it bush out. I think it will benefit from a summer outside.  If you like the smell of patchouli, get one of these plants, they actually smell great, and are not overpowering like patchouli oil is.

One banana pepper plant, because the 'nana seeds I started didn't propegate well. I'll have to pick up some more so that I can do my usual pickling of banana peppers. They are so good, we put them on almost everything. Especially pizza. I've even got my mother liking them. HA!  :)

And lastly, I got a sugar snap pea, because I didn't start any earlier. I'm hoping it's not too warm, and I get a few snap peas. I love them long time.

We also got a 5lb bag of Yukon Gold seed potatoes. I can't wait to get those in the ground to start them a-growing. Yum!  We did red potatoes last year, and still have some left over. They've sprouted, so we will probably plant some of those too.

I just don't know where we are gonna put all this stuff!  Such a problem to have, right?

The Junque Yard - seedlings!

Well, these little guys are not out in the yard yet. But they have been sitting in my computer room window with a light hanging over them for a good 12 hours a day.  We have 2 types of tomatoes (Rutgers and Romas), and 2 types of peppers.  Of the two, the Rutgers, are outgrowing the Romas by quite a bit, and there’s one pepper plant that didn’t take off at all. But I’m just jazzed that I was able to get seedlings started early this year, for once.  I never do, and then end up buying starts from the Farmer’s Market.  But I have all these seeds, and gosh darn it, there is no reason for me not to. 

These guys are about 6 weeks old.  They will soon go out into the raised beds and covered in Wall o Waters.

Oh? You’ve never heard of Wall o Waters???  They are the COOLEST way to get warm weather plants outside and into the garden early. 

I heard about Wall-o-Waters from my favorite magazine Backwoods Home Magazine . I know I've mentioned them before, but they have great articles for people who are looking to go the old time ways, like the Hubster and I am.

I was trying to find an accurate link for them to show you guys, but there are 2 sites with similar URLs and I can't tell which one is the original Wall-o-Water people.  We ourselves bought ours from a local home center store, but II know Amazon sells them (if you buy them from clicking this link, you'll give me a little boost, and I would greatly appreciate it. 

 

WALL O WATER 3 PACK 

Musings from the Junque Pile

So, my steam mop bit the dust a little while ago, and man that bummed me out.  I had gotten so used to whipping it out to clean up after the herd.  It was a Shark model, before the pocket one came out, and I just didn't feel right about spending $125 for another one if it was going to break in less than 2 years.

The Shark mops have a problem with flimsy handles - you have to pump the handle as your mop in order to get the steam to come out, and as the handle is plastic, it tends to break easily. Shark even sells replacement handles for their product - they *know* it's a problem.

Unfortunately, the mechanism that releases the steam into the mop is what broke on mine, and there was no way to fix it.  :(

So after an exhaustive internet search, including extensive reading of consumer reviews, DaHubster and I finally decided on the

Eureka Enviro Hard-Surface Floor Steamer,313A. 

It has some great reviews, and a decent price - one that I can live with if it doesn't last the 2 years my old Shark steam mop did.


We also finally FINALLY bought the Tattler Reusable Regular Canning Lids and Rubber Rings - 12 Pack. I've been hearing about them for awhile now, and have heard some people that I trust (ie: Jackie Clay, from Backwoods Home Magazine), that yes, they do work. Year after year. We got both regular and wide mouth lids.

I cannot wait to start using these new re-usable lids this year. And we will have plenty off opportunity to, as we are finally adding the raised bed along the back fence, and at least one other raised bed in the "back 40." There will lots of great veggies growing in this years garden!

I love it when things finally come together.

Junque Yard - Spring has Sprung Early!

It is amazing to me how early spring is this year.  We had a very mild winter (they say it happens every 10-11 years or so, and we were due). The weather man said on the news yesterday morning (friday) "3 weeks ago today we got 4-8 inches of snow.  I remember that, and the day after started a warm trend that has carried us through till now. Today will be the first day it doesn't quite reach 60 degrees. And we are only a few days into true spring!  It makes me feel humbled and grateful, even though it's weather, and really, who controls that? Who exactly am I being grateful to?

Anyway, before I got off on a theological rant, the end result of 3 weeks of BEAUTIFULLY warm and sunny weather is that the trees and flowers have fairly BURST into fruition. On my commute to and from work I see all manner of trees that look like they have split a gut flowering. It really does look like they violently pushed forth their leaves and blossoms. Particularly the younger trees. The older, larger trees seem to be holding back, as if they know not to rush these things.

Even in my own pitiful bulb garden, I have hyacinth that are so flower-laden they are falling over. I have one sprightly daffodil, and several tulips that bloomed before reaching their normal height. The result is shorter, yet cheerful tulips that warm my heart every time I pull into my driveway.

Last weekend, we started planting seeds. We started our tomatoes and peppers in old blister packs that we've saved from years prior. We also planted our lettuce, spinach, swiss chard, and kale in long planter boxes that are close to the kitchen door - which allows for quick access when making dinner.  The spinach and chard both have sprouted, and we should be able to eat those in about a month or so.

The only other thing I've done this early in the season is to remove about 50 strawberry plants from their bed. I did this so that daHubster could line the bed with timbers, and we dumped several bazillion gallons of compost, in effect raising up the strawberry patch a few inches, giving me a place to plant my butt while I tend the strawberries, and giving the strawberries themselves some good fertilizer.  I replanted them the same afternoon, so no strawberry plants were lost in the making of this project.  I predict that I will have tons of yumminess come June's picking time.

Yesterday it rained hard, though still pretty darn warm. It's foggy outside - I can hear the foghorn's going crazy on the lake. But it will soon burn off, and be another great spring day.

Musings from the Junque Yard

Happy Labor Day Weekend!

I plan on laboring away. I am behind in processing my pickled nana peppers. I seriously need to put up a few quarts of those before I lose them.


Our potatoes have finally died back, and we need to pull up the wire cage surrounding them and see what they did. I'm not holding our breath it was our first time doing them, I have no idea what they will bring. But I'm excited to see!

Our carrots are also ready to pick. Had I been on the ball, I would have already planted more for another harvest before (or shortly after) frost. I've read that carrots can take a little frost, it makes them sweeter. I plan on canning a few pints into sliced hot carrots - the kind you find mixed in with commercially canned jalapenos. I bet they will be tasty. I've set aside some recipes to try.

The tomatoes are coming along splendidly! We are past the halfway mark for picking. Since neither daHubster nor I like raw tomatoes, only cooked, we always process them. Not sure if I mentioned this, but instead of canning them in the dead heat of summer, we've been freezing them whole and will can them in the dead of winter. It's a stroke of brilliance....can when I *WANT* to heat the house up, right???  *grin*

I have 5 (count them 5!) pumpkins growing in their little mini patch. They are cooking 'kins, so they won't get huge, and they set so late in the season that I fear they won't get big enough before frost. Oh well, we shall see. I was hoping to be able to make pumpkin pie with my very own 'kins. Whatta hoot that'd be!

My loofa planting is ginormous. But it never flowered. I'm a tad bummed, but will try again next year.

I waited to long to pick my basil, and the plants are fading. I wonder if there's enough oils in the leaves to dry anyway. I may try it. I might also sneak in a quick planting to see if I get some viable newbie plants before the weather turns too cold.

I've let my weeding go in the past month. My poor strawberry patch looks like a jungle. I need to thin it out before frost, other wise next years crop will be pitiful.

So much to do, and I wont get to it all. But that's OK. This season was a great learning experience.

Junque Yard

I know it's finally summer when I spend more time picking fruits and veggies than I do weeds. Such a great feeling to fill up a couple of bowls of NOMmies, and take it into the kitchen and prepare it for where ever it's going to go.

Yesterday I picked a bowl of cucumbers. I'm trying to pick them when they are relatively small, because last year I found that the smaller they were, the tastier and crunchier they were when I made them into pickles. The larger cukes became soggier pickles. So my plan of attack is to make smaller ones into baby dills, and any larger ones into relish. I have had a small bowl of whole baby cukes soaking in salted water in the fridge overnight.

I also picked a good size bowl of banana peppers. I think I only planted hot nanas this year. Last year, the hot nanas I got from the farmer's market were so tastey that I mixed them in with my own mild nana peppers when I pickled those. We've been eating canned nanas on EVERYTHING. hot dogs and brats, pizza, you name it. It's been awesome. I had promised to share some of that bounty with some of my internet friends, but I didn't, because the recipe I used made them pretty salty. I don't want to be responsible for anyone retaining water or getting high blood pressure from my salty nanas, so if you are still out there, and haven't defriended me for going back on my promise, I swear, You will get some this year!

I also picked some young carrots yesterday. They were 3-4 inches long, and oh so very sweet. We planted lots, and plan on planting more before frost because I can't bear to eat commercially grown carrots anymore. There is such a taste difference. I have a friend (I'm looking at your, JayBee), who loves the pickled carrots that come in canned jalapenos. I plan on canning up some of that this year, too - just reversed - more carrots than jalapenos (which I am also growing).

Then there's the beans and raspberries. The only produce that seems to be hit each year by Japanese beetles. Those creepy beetles are pretty to look at, with their iridescent brown backs and a stripe of black with white spots on either side. But they are like little zombies hanging on the leaves of my plants. Clacking at you with their little mandible. Flying at you when you brush up against them. *shudder* All they do is munch on leaves, and do what appears to be the horizontal mamba with each other out in plain sight. HAVE THEY NO SHAME? I've been making DaHubster go out ahead of me, and he swoops them into a jar of soapy water to kill them. UGH! they creep me out.

Anyway, Hubby picked a small bowl of yellow beans, and I blanched them for eating with Sunday's meal. First beans of the season, YAY!

The raspberries are winding down. They ripen so fast that it's hard to keep up with them. They seem to ripen, then go to mush within a day. I've been out there almost every day picking and picking and dodging those creepy beetles. Then I freeze them for jamming later. And no, there will be NO beetles in the jam. I prommise.

Our romas are continuing to put out plump juicy looking tomatoes, but they are still very green. I learned this week that if you freeze whole tomatoes, the peels will fall off when defrosted as if you had blanched and shocked them in cold water. This will knock off about 1/3 of the time it takes to can those puppies. So that is what I plan to do, if they ever freakin' ripen.

My bell peppers are coming along. Not much exciting there. They say you should take off the first large peppers while still green, then you can let the next set of peppers ripen to whatever color they become. So I will be picking the first bunch in a few days.

My pumpkins are a disappointment. They are flowering like mad, and I see the bees are loving them, but they are not setting fruit. The flowers are all male. I had this happen with zucchini a couple of years ago. I don't know if there is anything I can do differently to make them set female flowers or what. I need to research this. In the meantime, the pumpkin patch is doing what it normally does, sprawl all over the place with vines and giant leaves - it's starting to choke out other plants. My original plan was to see which pumpkin plants set fruit, and pull out the excess plants so that the sprawl was semi-sort of contained, but that is not going to happen. Ahh well...such is the life of an urbanite farmer here at the micro mini-ranch.  :)

Junque Yard - things growing in odd places

Earlier this week it was mentioned by an on-line friend that while she has great success with her outside garden, it's nearly impossible for her to keep a houseplant alive. I had to concur with her. I have extreme difficulty with houseplants myself. I take full credit for forgetting to water them, partial credit for owning a house that lets in very little sunlight (what the heck was I thinking?), and only survivor's guilt credit for the way my cats like to nibble on them. All of which creates a hostile environment inside for any houseplant.

My one exception to keeping an inside plant alive is a peace lily that refuses to succumb. I joke that every winter it starts its own unheard mantra: "Just 3 more months till she puts me outside for the summer." "Just 2 more months until she puts me outside for the summer.." the poor thing.

I brought it home from work about 3 years ago, maybe 4 now. It was located in the lobby, where it was over-watered religiously by another employee. It started to get root rot. It also had an infestation of little white bugs. I have no idea how this could be, as it was the only live plant in the area, and no where for those bugs to come from or go to. Anyway, it was on it's way toward dying, so I took it home to try and save it. I re-potted the poor thing, exchanging all it's soil for fresh, drying the roots and bulb by giving them an hour in the sun first.  Then I left it outside until the weather turned too cool. Peace lilies prefer low light, so I figured it would do fine in the house, seeing as that's all I had anyway. It's spot of choice is in my living room picture window, however, that is also the spot of choice for my favorite plant muncher, Celeste. She's a long haired white siamese mix with angelic looks, but is really the devil in disguise. She nibbles the leaves, she digs in its dirt. The lily is her playground. And this poor, long suffering lily puts up with that, as well as my infrequent waterings until the time comes to give it a break from it's normal dose of kitty-loving and take it outside for the summer, where it rests up, gets indirect sunlight from under the roof of my back patio area, and more frequent waterings from the hose as I water everything outside, like a caring human should.

The reason why I bring this up today is because a couple of weeks ago, I noticed that another plant had somehow moved into the peace lily's pot. Now, I've had the occasional weed or clover pop in there, which is easy enough to pluck out, but this plant didn't look...weed-like. My brain tried to tell me what it was, but I refused to believe it, and decided to let it grow and see if it was true. Well, it's grown, and it is true. My brain was correct. I have a tomato plant growing under the canopy of the peace lily.  How a seed got in there, I haven't a clue. I threw a couple of inches of potting soil in the pot when I brought it outside, but it was commercial potting soil, not a mix of soil and home grown compost. I didn't start any tomatoes from seed this year, as my aforementioned lack of natural light in the house precludes me from raising healthy seedlings (I have plans to install  a grow light system in the basement in the future, but right now I lack fundage. But I digress...). I have absolutely no clue as to how a tomato plant is growing in my peace lily.

But it is.

And it is doing quite well, too.

I also have a stalk of wild corn growing the in a seam of concrete that runs between my patio and my driveway, but that's a story for another time. :)

Pictures from the Junque Yard

Raspberries, almost ripe for picking.

In the background are bush cucumbers, in the middle are hot banana & jalapeno peppers, and in the foreground are carrots.

A bumper crop of tomatoes are well on their way.  Carrots are in from of the tomatoes. The book was right, tomatoes do love carrots.  :)

Close up of the banana peppers, they grow up so fast. *wipes tear*

Potatoes in a can.  LOL. Not really, but that's what it looks like.

Bush Beans just at the blossom stage. Pretty little purple flowers become delicious wax beans (yeah, I don't normally like wax beans either, but they taste way different out of the garden)

PUMPKINS!

  

Junque Yard & Junque Food

Hot and muggy. Wow what a change from the cold, rainy spring. I'm giving all kinds of props to DaHubster, who fixed our AC this past week. The man is a mechanical genius.  I can sweat it outside for a bit while I write this on my laptop (any spelling errors are due to the fact that I can't see the monitor outside), and then go inside and cool off. Then sweat some more as I start cleaning.

The veggies are finally starting to grow. The poor tomatoes have finally started to leaf out and I spy a few blossoms! The pepper plants all have blossoms or teeny tiny little baby peppers on them. It always cracks me up, the first little peppers on a plant that never looks big I  enough to support any weight. But the more you pick, and the hotter it gets, the more it grows. I love growing peppers.

The pumpkin "patch," a laughable term, as the pumpkins are squeezed into the corner of one raised bed. They are supposed to take up a huge amount of room, but I don't have the space, but I wanted my own sugar pumpkins for baking this year. I put them next to a fence, and will encourage them to grow up by adding a trellis. You can net the fruit so that it will grow supported and not drag down the vine. Keep your fingers crossed that that little experiment succeeds. These little guys have grown about 4 inches in the last week.

The potatoes have also grown. DaMan lobbed several inches of straw on top of them last weekend, and we feared that we over did it, and the straw would smother them. NOPE! They are growing up fine through the straw.

The strawberries are in the middle of their productive period. I've picked two bowls of these wonderful berries, and we've been eating them straight out of the garden. I've never enough to make my own jams. Instead I buy quarts from the farmer's garden to make jams. Occasionally, I get enough to make a strawberry shortcake, though I mainly just like them for picking and eating. Honestly, if there's nothing more perfect than an exactly ripe strawberry, I don't know what it is.

The raspberries continue on their journey. Staking them up was the idea I'd had in ages. it's going to be so much easier to pick them this year than last.

The loofa experiment is progressing slowly. The seeds have sprouted, and there are close to a dozen or so seedlings popping up in their container. I need to trellis them as I will the pumpkins. Scrubbies here we come!

The sugar snap peas are nearing their end. I'll plant another round in August for a fall crop. Love me some sugar snaps! BTW, I made 2 pints of that pickled sugar snap pea recipe that I talked about last week. AND THE ARE FABULOUS!!! I added a touch more red pepper flakes than the recipe called for, and they are wicked spicy, tangy with with the vinegar and other spices. So very good. You should try them.

I noticed that we do have peaches this year. Last year we had a bumper crop, and made peach preserves until we were sick of it. I'm told that peaches don't produce heavy quantities every year. I guess they are a lazy tree.  This is also an older tree, how old, I have no idea, it came with the house. But we've lived here for four years, and have only had 2 big years. I counted 6 peaches other night. They are slightly larger than olives at this point. We'll see how many others are hiding in there.

OK, its getting too hot out here, I'm going back inside...  :)

Junque Yard

I've been remiss in posting photos lately. It's not pure laziness...there just hasn't been much to show. Once the spring bulbs blew their wad (metaphorically speaking, of course), there's a lull in which the loverly Siberian Irises usually do their thing. I had a large cluster of them, that I split up into several smaller clusters and dispersed around my garden bed, but they did a poor showing this year. Just a couple of scraggly blossoms. I don't know if it was crappy weather we had, or if they are still recovering from the replanting, but there's plenty of green growth on them. They will come back next year.

Anyway, with the warmer temps the Asiatic Lilies have started strutting their stuff. I have some that have been in that bed for 2-3 years, and I planted 6 more early this spring.  The nursery I bought them from unduly forced them, and some attempted to bloom early, hardly waiting until they'd poked their heads out of the ground. Ah well, next year those guys will be phenom.  However, the rest are making their showing now, and what I show they are!

Sometimes, my camera phone does good!

Don't mind my toes peeking in at the bottom.

An awesome looking white and peach colored one that's being blocked by some black-eyed Susan's who won't appear until later this summer.

Seriously, does it get any better than this???

You know, I have no idea what this is. My uncle gave me a hunk of it, and said it was easy to grow. He was right! It's pretty too, but the flowers are at their peak in the mornings. I'll snap another of them when they are really looking pretty.

And in the herb garden, the Sage is blooming like nobody's business!

Flowerz. I haz happeh.  :)

Junque Yard

Good evening...and Happy Belated Solstice!

I am finally starting to see some growth here at the micro-mini ranch, despite the lack of sun and the warmth that generally accompanies it. I have a pot of basil that is doing well. I should have enough to pluck and dry a large batch of leaves on my dehydrator this weekend. Last year I grew basil in a pot and it did really well, that is, until someone (probably a rabbit) chewed the main stalk off at the base one night. I noticed it the next morning, and was just sick about it. I've had trouble growing basil in the past, but finally had felt I'd gotten the knack.

Basil, unlike most herbs, is a little more persnickety in their water requirements. Most herbs you have ignore a bit, make them feel just a wee bit neglected. Then they turn up their oil production and you get all the wonderful scents and flavor you crave. They are woo'ing you, as it were.  Not so the snobbish basil. If basil feels the least bit neglected, it will up and die on me. It wants its soil to be moist almost all the time. It prefers potting soil rather than the clay-packed soil in my yard.

So anyway, I was out one weekend morning last summer, surveying my little green kingdom, and I see that my prize basil has fallen over like I tree in the woods that I wasn't around to hear. Did it make a sound? If it did, I didn't hear it. I will admit that I got a little misty seeing my plant all keeled over, the leaves already looking limp. No pesto. No tossing a few leaves in a soup or a salad. Then I thought, maybe I can dry the leaves and save it that way?  And I did!

I plucked every last beloved leaf off the stalk and gently washed them. Then I laid them in a single layer on several trays of my dehydrator and turned it on.  Within about an hour and half, they were done. I gently crushed the dried leaves into glass container with an airtight lid, and sniffed dramatically one last time.

Over the next few months, I realized what I boon I had made for myself.  Home dried basil is so much more aromatic and flavorful than store bought dried basil. It really needs to be capitalized: its Basil. My spaghetti and pizza sauce become more masterful. Garlic bread became godlike with a sprinkling of my Basil. Pasta salads and even roasted veggies which are NOM to be begin with became MOAR NOM (if you pardon my LOLspeak) with the Basil. In short, I will never buy dried basil again when I can make Basil at home so easily.

And so can you. You don't even need a dehydrator. Go out and buy yourself a basil plant from a farmer's market or local nursery. They should still have some in stock. if not, pick up a packet of basil seeds, and plant in a pot. Keep the soil moist, and in a warm, sunny spot. When the plant starts to get tall and a little bushy, pinch off the first layers of leaves, that causes the plant to become bushier, and less likely to flower. When it starts getting cold, or when you want to harvest and dry your leaves, pluck them off, wash them gently in cool water. Pat dry. Then layer then on some parchment paper set over a cookie sheet in a single layer, if you don't live in a warm humid climate, put them on top of your fridge for a week. They will dry naturally. If you want to speed up the process, put the cookie sheet in your oven set to the lowest temp on the dial. Leave the door open a crack to let most of the heat escape. You don't want to cook your leaves, just speed up the drying process. Check on your leaves every 20 mins or so. Some ovens get too hot for this process, so it's important to check often. You might want to turn off the oven at intervals. The leaves are done when they are dry and crumble easily. Let them cool, and put them in an airtight container.

Now you know what I know about Basil. And it's all thanks to some waskily wabbit.

Junque Yard

Here are pictures of some of the plants growing here at the micro-mini ranch.

These are strawberry blossoms. Last weekend I finally got a chance to week the strawberry patch. it's located up against our garage, and only gets 3/4 sun. But it's enough to keep the strawberries happy. I mostly have the June-bearing variety, with a few ever-bearing. The difference is that the June-bearers produce heavily for about a month (usually June - hence the name), and then spend the rest of the summer producing baby strawberry plants in the form of runners.  The plants have 3 years of production, so the runners, or their offspring of the main plants are great to keep the "family" going.  June-bearers are reputed to have better tasting fruit, and the fact that they produce quantities at more or less all one time make them great for canning jams with.

Ever bearing strawberries produce smaller quantities of fruit, but they do it all summer long. Supposedly, their fruit isn't supposed to be as great tasting as June bearers, but I haven't found that to be the case. Once you try a home grown strawberry, the overpriced pints you can buy at the store just can't compare. Strawberries can also be frozen. We've also tried dehydrating them, with mixed results. My goal has always been to grow enough strawberries in one season to make at least one session of jam purely from my own garden. I can never seem to get enough strawberries at one time to be able to do it. So I supplement what I need from the farmer's market. Someday...

These are the raspberry bushes. They are in their 3rd year, and going strong. Raspberry is a great plant to try if you are new to gardening. You can't kill them! They can be pretty invasive, though, so you need to make sure that where you put them, you want them to stay. Unfortunately, I am not listening to my own advice, and plan to move them after their production cycle this summer. DaMan is constructing a better spot for them to grow, and we will move the bushes into a lesser trafficked area in the yard. And then I will be spending the next few years cursing myself as I pull up unwanted raspberry sproutlings from the old spot.

I took this picture on a windy day. I couldn't get these charming little flowers to stop moving!  These are the blossoms of a horseradish plant. I was gifted with a root cutting from my uncle, who promised me that horseradish would also grow anywhere. As I got it late in the fall last year, I didn't have a spot picked out for it, so I stuck it in a pot, and did not get a chance to give it a permanent home before winter came. I figured it would not survive, as this past winter was very cold, with lots of snow. But it did. it was one of the first plants in the yard to out out leaves. And these adorable little flowers smell really good too! A very light, floral scent with none of the eye-watering you might expect if you knew the power of the root from which it came. I cannot wait to dig out a piece and grind it up to serve with a giant hunk o' beef. I love horseradish!!

This is a mystery flower. It's not something I planted, but it's growing in between my front porch and and ornamental hedge under my living room window. I have no idea what it is. It's probably some weed, but as I also have some lily of the valley growing in that same spot (which came over from the neighbor's yard), I can't say for sure. It's pretty though. There's a quote that says, "the definition of a weed is a plant that's growing in a spot you don't want it to." Makes you think, doesn't it?

This is by no means all tha is growing here at the micro-mini,  but it's a good time to stop and get ready for our weekly trip to the farmer's market. Let's see what kind of damage we can do this week, shall we???

Junque Pile

The holiday weekend has been nice, with a few bumps in the road, but that's to be expected, right?  Saturday started out with a trip to the local farmer's market, where we bought some of the tomato and pepper plants. We have a favorite vendor there, a life-long multi-generation farmer woman who always takes the time to talk to us, and give up hints and tips on growing. She also sells lots of heirloom variety plants, and we have had great luck with her plants. She's friendly, knowledgeable, and a hoot to chat with.  I believe she's got a secret crush on the Hubster, and it's reciprocated, even though he won't admit it.

It's not normally too early in the season to plant the warm weather veggies, but the spring has been so cloudy and cold, most of the tomatoes and peppers aren't as robust looking as they normally are. But we make do, right?

picture borrowed from www.plantertomato.com

We like to buy farm eggs at the market when we can, but the ultra-premium price they go for here is not conducive to our family budget. At least some of the time. This past Saturday we decided to splurge when we say another vendor was selling duck eggs. Never having had them, we chatted the seller up on the difference between duck and chicken eggs. They are larger, richer, with a bigger and more vibrant yolk. If you've had farm fresh eggs vs. store bought commercially laid chicken eggs, you know the yolks are more vibrant in and of themselves. Duck eggs go way beyond!  We brought them home, lovingly cradled in my arms, and I set to work frying up a couple for us. Delicious! The whole meal was.  I felt all down home. Bacon, a fried duck egg, and toast made of home made bread. It was almost a religious experience. If the city I live in won't give in and let the residents keep chickens (a cause I've helped lobby in the past), I'm going to smuggle a couple of ducks in here, I swear it.  :)

The weather precluded us from planting a lot, though the Hubster did construct a cage for growing potatoes. We were originally going to grow them in a set of leftover tires from our car, but after researching on the net, he decided that a cage of landscaper's cloth filled with straw would be more to his liking. He planted a good 4 lbs worth of potato eyes, while I attempted to weed the herb garden and the poor pitiful strawberry garden.

The soil has been to wet to mess with the strawberries, and as a result, the grass has started to take over the patch. But when I saw that they were struggling to put out their pretty little blossoms, I knew I had to do something. So Sunday, I was delicately weeding in and amongst the strawberry crowns, trying not to disturb them, while ripping out the grass. Thankfully, Hubster was smart and got a couple of extra bales of straw, as we hear it makes for great mulch, and weed suppressor.

When it was storming too much, or the fog was too thick, we'd come inside and do the normal weekend things every body does, cook, clean, etc. I attempted to make some home made hamburger and hot dog buns, with a 50% success rate. I made the buns too small, anticapating that they would grow larger after the last rise.  Not so much, unfortunately. Next time I will try not to be so frugal and squeeze more buns out of the batch. Either that or we will have to have teeny tiny burgers.  LOL.  Check out the recipe I used here: Belle's Hamburger Bun recipe on Allrecipes.com.

On a sad note, my microwave died on Sunday.  It was a quick and most likely a painless death for the poor overworked thing. It was a gift from one of Hubster's cousins, and we'd had it for most of the time we've been co-habbing (about 8 years). I was heating something up, and it just shut down. I thought that the circuit breaker blew, as it occasionally does. The fridge and the microwave are on the same circuit, and they occasionally fight each other for current (it's an older house).  But no, the circuit didnt need to be reset, and the fridge was still running. I guess the fridge won that little battle.

I breifly contemplated running and experiment where we see how long we can go without a microwave before Mr and Mrs Junque kill each other, then I slapped myself upside the said and told myself to get real. I may be all for "Living the Simple Life," but there's simple, and then there's simple.  Right?

Today, the weather god's have promised sunshine and warm temps. I'm holding them to their promise, and we will get those tomatoes and peppers planted.  We will also get the cukes, zuke, and loofa seeds in their appointed spots and make the appropriate genuflections to the above named gods that the weather becomes summer like, and the seeds germinate.  I draw the line at ritual killings, but do you think they would take an offering of some misshapen hamburger buns??

Junque Yard

It's Memorial Day weekend, and in my neck of the urban woods, that means it's planting weekend. Our frost free days start around this time of year, though you wouldn't know it from the temperature this Spring. I've complained enough about the lack of warmth, and the excess of rain, and I shan't do it again here (yes, I said shan't).

My house has very little natural sunlight peeping into the windows, and my years' past attempts from starting my garden from seed indoors have been failures. Yes, I've tried grow lights, fluorescent, etc. and all I get are thin, leggy stalks that struggle to survive. If one of my herd of cats doesn't dig into the soil and kill the burgeoning seedlings, they are too weak to make it outside. So unless I seed directly outside, I buy starters from the local Farmer's Market. I am lucky enough to live in an area where farms do good work. Tomatoes and peppers are must haves in my garden. DaMan and I have found that we enjoy Roma tomatoes for canning. We just put them up plain to turn them into sauces at a later date. I have a fondness for banana peppers, which I pickle and can vast quantities of, but love to slice them fresh and put into salads, or just dress with vinegar and a little oil, maybe a wee bit of onion for a quickie side dish.

Bell peppers are a staple in this house hold - all colors of the rainbow. The price of bells in the grocery store have doubled and sometimes tripled over the winter. I can't swallow paying $3.99 for a red/orange/yellow pepper. I plan on doubling my production of those this year, and freezing them for cooking with later on.

Cucumbers are another thing that I enjoy growing. I don't buy starts of those, as they are a warm weather plant, and I can seed those direct. I'm going to be trying out a bush variety that is supposedly more compact than the vine variety. The plan is to pick them small to make pickles, but there's always a few that hide under the foliage, and grow GI-NORMOUS.  Those will go towards making pickle relish. I made both sweet and dill relish last summer, and ran out of the sweet sometime after Christmas.  They made handy gifts, and were well received.

DaMan has a fondness for green beans. Unfortunately, we get lazy, and let the bean grow too large. Then they get tough and stringy, and not very palatable. Lesson learned. Pick your green beans early and often!

This year we are going to be trying potatoes. DaMan will be growing them in a set of tires. Yes, tires.  Potatoes grow in an interesting way.  You get starter spuds from the nursery, and cut them up so they have at least one eye each. Place the tire where you want to grow (where they will get at least 6 hours of sunlight a day), and throw some compost, or well amended soil, or heck, even rotted straw in the bottom. Lay the potato pieces eye side up, and cover with more soil or straw. Water well. The eyes become the stalks of the plants. When the stalks are about 6 inches high and leafy, throw more soil around them, mounding them up. Continue to do the same, and when the stalks and leaves wither and brown, yank them out of the soil, and count how many new potatoes you have!  The tires (or you could use a clean dark colored garbage can) act as a warmer for the soil (black draws in the heat from the sun). But it also serves the purpose of growing something else that isn't taking up space in your garden. And here at the urban micro-mini ranch, space is at a premium.

I haven't even touched on our fruit bushes, the lettuce "patch", or the herb garden...yet. :)

Junque Yard

It's a slow news day on the neo-faux-ghetto homestead...

Spring has been a cold and wet loser-fest. I hate to sound like a Negative Nelly, but I heard one newscaster say something to the effect of there only have been 4 clear days since the end of February. And it's probably been longer, because I remember January and February both being cloudy all the freakin' time.

The point is, there hasn't been any dang sun.

This makes for slow growing here on the urban micro-mini-ranch. I've got herbs going crazy, but that's about it. The sugar snap peas that I planted at the end of March are only 2 inches high. My spinach and lettuce aren't even worth mentioning - and that's usually my first bumper crop of the season!

The strawberries are struggling, as the ground has been too wet to weed and replant the runners that popped up at the end of fall last year. Yeah, they don't tell you that, do they? You may only get about a month's worth of strawberries (these being the June-bearing variety), but they make baby plants all summer long. I swear strawberries are like the bunny-rabbits of plants.

I have one herb that I have no idea what it is. It's driving me crazy. It smells a little bit like oregano, but it looks nothing like the oregano I've got, and I only planted one kind. It's the mystery herb, and it's about to get the axe, unless I can identify it.

I have onions coming up that I planted last spring. They disappeared mid-summer and I figured I must have planted them in a place that was too wet for them to tolerate, they got soggy and croaked. Nope..these are apparently ghost onions, and have decided to come back and haunt my herb garden again this spring. Will they disappear again mid-summer?  I'll keep you informed....

And lastly, I spent 2 hours tying up the raspberry canes tonight. I'd been kind of ignoring them, because they were supposed to be dug up and put into a new bed that we've been trying to build since there was still snow on the ground. However the weather hasn't allowed us to get back there and finish. Well, that and the fact that we ran out of wood, and haven't found any other useable scavenged wood lately. So, those darn raspberries, being contrary by nature, decided to grow like nothing else in my edible beds, which means like Popeye's forearms after a can of spinach. I decided that the raspberries will be moved after they have been harvested (I didn't want them not to produce if I moved them too late in the season - I know raspberries are hardy, but still...if you've ever had fresh off the vine, you know why I'm being cautious), so we've got a couple of months yet to finish the berry boxes at the back of the yard.

I'm going to the Farmer's Market for the first time this year on Saturday. I've been waiting to see if it's open yet, and finally got word that it is, so look out farmers. I'm-ma comin'!  I can't wait to get my hands on some plants and some early veggies, and some more plants...and maybe some eggs, and them more plants! woo hoo!

Junque-yard

...and a small plug! Mike the Gardener

A few weeks ago I signed up with a seed of the month club. I found the company through FaceBook, as a group that I'd "liked." 50% off the normal membership fee of $24.00 for a year. Plus if you tell them your birthday date, you'll receive some extras as a gift around that date. I figured what the heck.

I got my first envelope in the mail this weekend. WooHoo! Mike the Gardener outdid himself right out of the box! Here's a list of what I received. One seed packet of:

Sunflower (Mammoth Grey)
Peas (Lincoln)
Beets (Cylindra)
Thyme
Parsley (Italian Flat Leaf)
Cabbage (Golden Acre)
Zucchini (Black Beauty)
Carrot (Chanteny Red Core)

Very Not Bad! I can't imagine that Mike the Gardner is going to be that generous every month, but wow! (actually, reading the site...it's 8 packets the first month, and 4 packets every month afterward, for a total of 52 packets a year. That's a bargain @ $12.00 for a year's membership)

Now, I know that I will be getting things that I won't plant, because I don't care for the item, or know it won't grow every well, but I've been talking with co-workers and people online about swapping seeds. I can only imagine that after my year's membership is done, I will have bunches of things to trade with.

I also figured that I'd be getting things that I would want to try, things that would take me out of my comfort zone. For example, I tried cabbage a few years ago, but it didn't go anywhere. I brought a sprout-ling with a already-set head on it, planted it, and watched it do absolutely nothing all summer long.  But as you can see of the list above, I now have a packet of seed, and I'm going to try again in a different part of the yard.

And same goes for Zucchini. I am probably the only person in the world that has had trouble growing zukes. The one time I tried it, the plants I had produced only male flowers, and therefore, wouldn't set fruit. What's up with that?

I cannot to try this different variety of carrot, too. I've been growing Danvers Half Long carrots for 2 years now, and I've been really pleased with them. Trying a new kind and seeing the differences just makes me all tingly!


Just a little bit longer, and I can start planting veggies into the garden...I can't wait!