Fermented Pickles

A little more detail about those pickles in Monday's post...

I prefer fermented pickles to vinegar pickles any day of the week. This summer I have a really great batch going. It's pretty simple to do. I learned from Sandor Katz, both in person and from his book Wild Fermentation (I really recommend it). I make my pickles in a half gallon mason jar with a jam jar inserted in the top to hold down the vegetables. You can also buy various kinds of ceramic pickle weights but for my set up the mason jars work great. 

I start with a salt water brine (use filtered water if you can), freshly picked cucumbers (blossom ends trimmed off) and green beans from the garden, garlic from the store, and a few grape leaves from the wild vines out back (helps keep things crisp). I clean all that, put it in the crock with the brine, cover it and let it sit on the kitchen counter for a few days. It usually takes about 4 days to get going at which point I put it in the fridge to slow down fermentation. Now that my brine is filled with microorganisms a fresh batch of cucumbers only takes a day and a half to 2 days (my kitchen is at about 80 degrees) to ferment before I put it away. Soooo good. I make sauerkraut, kimchi, and pickled carrots in the fall the same way.

Read Sandor's book and give fermentation a try. I bet you'll be addicted too.

Garden Update and What to Make When Your Garden Produces Odds and Ends

Snails are all over the place, including our windows

In the garden:

So. Much. Rain.

This summer's garden is not great and I can't even spend much time working in it because the soil has been waterlogged for months (and this is in large part why the garden isn't great). People around here often use raised beds, but then of course there are the yearly droughts and that's when raised beds have trouble. They dry out much, much faster than the surrounding soil. So, while we have some, it's important to remember they have their own quirks which will require more attention at some point in the year.

Nevertheless, the summer squashes are actually doing rather well! Usually the vine borers get them and, while they are there in the vines right now, I think the super wet soil is allowing the squashes to do a fantastic job of re-rooting along their length. Usually things are so dry that rooting on top of the soil (or just below the soil if you bury them to help them along) like that is very difficult them. Even with all the mulch we use on our beds it is very hard to keep the top half inch of soil at all moist when the rain doesn't fall and the sun shines brightly for weeks. 

Dribs and drabs

The green beans, which I planted 4 times, are finally doing ok. They'll crap out in another month, maybe more, and thus (if the soil ever dries enough) I need to do a second planting. The Violet's Multi Colored Butter Beans, which I had to plant 3 times (something was chomping all the beans this spring!) are doing amazing (except that I just noticed today something is nibbling the pods open)! They take a long time to ripen but those vines are huge and covered in pods. The purple podded pole beans are not as happy but they're ok. I think they are a little too shady on the north side of the trellis, in a shadier part of the garden, half under an Almond Verbena that is much, much larger than advertised.

an unusually large harvest, still small

Peppers and tomatoes are mostly a loss. The stink bugs are out of control this year, again, on the toms and the peppers (all those lovely peppers I grew! sniff!) have mostly rotted in the ground. Because things are so wet this year, I'm going to start another flat of Solanacae next week. Worse case scenario the weather gets super hot and dry and I've wasted a little seed and soil. Best case scenario it stays rainy all summer (like it was last summer) and those plants won't be too stressed even in August. I usually start a fall round of Solanaceae in early August in any case for planting out mid September. These will be too early for that unless I do some serious potting up and nursing along but you never know.

Eggplants, as so often happens, are just kind of hanging out. For the past few years they sit there all summer, growing super slow and throwing off the occasional fruit and then come fall, BOOM! Eggplant explosion.

Tomatillos are stressed by the wet soil. They are in our  raised beds but even so you have issues when it rains like this because it washes the nutrients downward and they get pretty hungry. Honestly, the whole garden needs a foliar feed but I can't get out there to do it for all the rain and the swarms of mosquitoes (like, 20 per cubic foot of air) are off putting.

Okra was slow to grow but now it's getting going and I get a few pods a day.

I did manage to make one jam jar of pesto plus use basil regularly in cooking. The plants aren't awesome but I have enough of them out there to add up. My papalo (only one plant came up from seed) is growing well and I am so in love with it! Everyone who lives where it's too hot for cilantro in the summer, grow this herb!

So the garden is producing odds and ends but not much of any one thing. What do you cook when this happens? These are my go to meals:

Tacos - chop and roast the odds and ends and use in tacos with beans, cheese, and whatever else you usually like.
Pizza - chopped and roasted odds and ends can add up to a nice veggie pizza
Soup - the classic way to use up the odds and ends.
Fermented Pickles - I don't just put cucumbers in my fermenting jars, I also add green beans, okra*, and peppers. Everything can be fermented. These are just my favorites to ferment in this way.
Snacks in the garden - self explanatory.


Here are some pictures of my pickles in progress: 

Pickles and grape leaves

For the second jar I remembered to add the green beans and garlic

I use a jam jar to weigh down the veg. Usually I drape a napkin over this and rubber band it under the lip of the larger jar.

 
*I think I now know why I usually (always?) see okra pickled whole. I sliced them this time and the slime infected my entire jar. I mean, EVERYTHING is covered in mucus. I'll dump the brine, rinse the pickles, and rebrine them. Hopefully that helps because I hate to waste the jar but I can not deal with the goo.

Spring Gardening

We are so behind in the garden! There was all that rain. Then we had to take down a giant pecan tree that was rotting in the base (and standing next to the house). Then there was more rain. And more rain. And more rain. I'm slowly finishing the planting while also trying to tame this jungle of a property. Lots of fun stuff to do! Also, I can't find my camera so pictures today are brought to you by my terrible cellphone camera.

In the past few weeks I have planted:

tomatoes - Matt's wild cherry, Illini star, Illini gold, San Marzano, Blue Berry (which I wasn't crazy about last year flavor wise but it did grow spectacularly so it's getting another shot) and Cherokee Purple. I might find a spot or 2 for a few extras once everything else is planted.

Links and Things

Links and things. 

• A few weeks ago I was talking about how I didn't want to use quilting cotton anymore because it's not the best for garments. It is definitely not the best for the types of blouses I'm making at the moment but I've used it successfully for garments where the stiffness and lack of drape usually found in a quilting cotton works to the advantage of the pattern (as long as it is good quality quilting cotton... a lot of the super cheap stuff I used to buy was horrible but I've found lovely fabrics in that genre as well). Tilly and the Buttons has a nice post on when and how to successfully use quilting cotton for garment sewing. 

• Conventional mobile bee operations and Stalinist apartment blocks are an apt comparison. (on Root Simple)  

• We have a brisket from Yonder Way Farms so we're going to corn it. (on Rhulman.com)

• I think I'm finally going to get around to making some mustard. Maybe I'll start with this Brown Maple Mustard. (on Putting Up With Erin)

• Strawberry Swirl Brownies. Good lord. (on Dessert for Two)

• This Chile con Carne Verde was spectacular (as all Homesick Texan's recipes are!).

More Sewing Things and the Weather

I went to Joann's yesterday hoping to find some inexpensive cotton voile (or any voile actually) to make muslins out of and I thought maybe I'd pick up some voile, lawn, and chambray to use in my final garments. I've been swatching gorgeous, fine cloth from various online sources but a few less expensive basics would not come amiss. 

Yall, the amount of polyester in that store is out of control. 

If you are a lover of polyester clothing then I envy you. If I felt comfortable in polyester my wardrobe would be easier and cheaper. Alas that is not the case. Anyhow, I really couldn't find any fabrics, synthetic or otherwise, that I thought would mock up with the drape similar to the fabrics I'm planning to order for my final garments (I am in love with this one, this one, and this one for starters and this one is going to be used for a small yardage project because extra pricy!). So I ended up buying the finest muslin I could find and calling it a plan. I also found these:

A light smooth tealish green gingham in the sale section with just shy of 2 yards on it. I don't know what I'll do with this yet. 

Also this linen/rayon blend (45/55 or was it 55/45?) which I'm going to make into a skirt. Hopefully it works out. My experience with rayon is that it shrinks a ton (I'll pre wash it of course) and stretches like crazy. And of course linen has a growing nature as well so we'll see. I decided to risk it because I love the print! Let's just deal with those colors for a moment. I could wear any color shirt with a skirt made from this. 

The moss shot cloth for the Ashland tunic

I also had a 50% off all regularly priced notions coupon which was very helpful. Not only did I find the perfect match for the green shot cloth in those expensive tiny Gutterman spools but I then got them half off. Also stocked up on needles because now that I'm doing this sewing thing for real I plan to approach it professionally which means changing the needles after each project. There were lots of other notions in the basket including a tube turner (because after trying the safety pin method on the narrow loops for the Gathering
Apron I was annoyed) and more glass headed pins, but not the extra fine ones I already had. Those were way too thin for the wool I just worked with and they were kind of a pain! Since there is more wool in the sewing stack, I needed a more substantial pin.

In other sewing news, I've been reading everything The Curvy Sewing Collective has written in addition to some of the contributor's personal blogs. The Collective rocks. Their pattern reviews are incredibly helpful since they give their measurements, describe their shape, and then talk about how a pattern worked for them fit wise and what they had to change. I narrowed down my pattern options a lot after reading all that. They also have great tutorials like how to do a full bust adjustment in general and how to do them in special circumstances, fitting sleeves when you have big upper arms, and more advanced techniques (or at least advanced for me!) like making a pocket stay. Also, while I love all the contributors, Mary is my favorite. I think her writing is hysterical!

In gardening news, the grass (and "weeds" which we love) are growing, the air smells sweet, the high today is 82 degrees... and the low tomorrow is 32 degrees. Texas be crazy. 

If all the flowers don't freeze off (and there are a lot of flowers in bloom) I'm going to take a bunch of pictures and show you what early March is like here. I've been trying to teach Small the names of the spring "weeds". So far we've done vetch, chickweed and henbit. He knows all the vegetable plants we grow so the weeds should be no problem. Pop quiz when he gets home today after MDO!

Another Q&A: Drip System Blues

And another question to the garden agony aunt from the "I Love My Farmer (Local Farmer Fan Club)" FB page of days gone by :-)



"Drip System Blues"

Dear Local Farmer,
The joints at the main line and the drip lines WILL NOT stop leaking (it's a pretty bad leak). I just replaced the main line and carefully reattached the drip lines. No luck. Same shit. The drip lines are fully connected to the connector piece. Help! This drought it killing us! 

Sincerely,
Water waster

my response:

Dear Water Waster,

I assume we're talking about T-tape and not aquapore. My T-tape system always leaks at the intersection of mainline and tape. It is definitely a design flaw and it drives me crazy as well. My only suggestion is to try and make the holes you punch in the mainline as small as possible (while of course still big enough to put in the barbed tape-attachment piece...which is often a frustrating operation in and of itself).If you need to re-punch the holes, dripworks.com sells "goof plugs" which are supposed to patch the old holes (i need to order some myself)

And if all else fails you can think to yourself "At least we're not wasting as much water as if we were using sprinklers" and put a water loving plant in the ground right under the leak.

-the local farmer

Oliver + S School Days Coat Pattern and Cabbages

OF course I didn't follow my original order-of-garment-sewing plan. I made a muslin of a Butterick kimono top, a wearable muslin of the Lane Raglan by Hey June, and the Gathering Apron by Sew Liberated. Then I made Small the School Days Coat by Oliver + S. I have never sewn a coat or anything with this kind of lining and since I want to sew a coat for me this year I decided that starting with a kiddo version was much lower stakes and great practice. 

This coat is a FABULOUSLY written pattern. Having just sewn an apron with poorly written instructions this was delightful. Everything was clearly illustrated and explained in great detail. Love it! I'll definitely be sewing Oliver + S patterns again!

The exterior fabric is a poly wool coating in red, yellow, and blue plaid that I got on sale from fabric.com. It was a little thinner and floppier than expected but it worked well. It's a pretty loose weave though, so there was much fraying if I wasn't careful. The body is lined in a dark green cotton who's origin is lost to the mists of time. The hood is lined with a cool pinwheel print quilting cotton from my grandmother's stash. The sleeves and patch pockets are lined in a mustard yellow broad cloth I bought from a fabric warehouse in TN 12 years ago. I made the toggle cording from some bright yellow bias tape I've had in my stash for years. I didn't have toggles and didn't want to go to the store so I used some vintage buttons from Stitch Lab and made my own. Other than the fact that I made the closures too short (not paying attention!) I think it turned out great! I sewed up a size 5 which is a little large for Small so the shortness of the closures is ok for the moment. I'll fix it later when he grows fully into it. It took about 14 hours to make and I do not, by the way, recommend that much sewing in one 24 hour period.

In other sewing news, I'm about to trace and cut out a muslin for the Ashland Dress (I'll make it tunic length though) also by Sew Liberated. We'll see how this pattern turns out. The apron pattern had "basic written instructions and assembly diagrams" and then you can access videos online for further instruction. Um... no. I'm pretty sure I'm not a beginner sewist but these instructions were terrible. Not fully illustrated and not complete basic instructions. I also don't want to have to watch online videos even if I was a beginner. I want to watch Buffy the Vampire Slayer or listen to Savage Love while I'm sewing. Sometimes I want to enjoy some peace and quiet. Patterns should come with instructions. If this one isn't easier to work with than the apron pattern was I think I'm done with Sew Liberated. Anyhow, I'm planning to make the final version out of Kaffe Fasset shot cloth in Moss. I got swatches of moss, viridian and Aegean last summer at Stitch Lab and I've been waiting impatiently to bring these colors into my wardrobe because they're gorgeous. 

In gardening news the cabbages are getting to a harvestable size and I've already made (and consumed!) a half gallon of sauerkraut. There is another half gallon on the counter just starting to get fizzy. The broccoli harvest has also been amazing this year and the greens as always are chugging along nicely. I planted new lettuce a few weeks ago. These were plants I started myself so they shouldn't bolt prematurely like the ones I got from the nursery (really not impressed overall with this organic nursery near me). The onions and celery are also doing well. The yellow snow peas I planted are growing fantastically but they aren't sweet so we're mostly not eating them. Ill harvest a big batch of them soon, as they are now long in the tooth with fully developed seeds, and use them for soup. Our tomatoes, peppers, and tomatillos, as well as spring herbs

and flowers are ready to go in the ground when the weather warms and stabilizes (a few weeks). I didn't grow eggplants because I normally find eggplant varieties I like at the store. I usually buy jalapenos and serranos from nurseries as well.

We also planted 2 Fuyu persimmons, a Golden Dorset apple and a Japanese plum. Added to the 3 figs, 2 mandarins, a loquat and a kumquat, I'd say fruit abounds on this property!

And just because I think his ability to curl his tongue is amazing, I give you Small.

January Projects

The greenhouse in the garage

It is January so I recently started most of our seedlings for spring. The little greenhouse I made last winter in my closet got moved into the garage during our recent major clearing out. Last year I just used the enclosed space of the closet plus the closet curtain to keep it warm since the house was relatively warm anyway but now that it's in the unheated garage I needed to enclose it. A quick search for a roll of plastic that I swear I saw last week lead me instead to the box of drop cloths (old sheets). They seem to be working well. Growing in those flats are all the Solanaceae (except for some pepper seeds I got in the mail late) and the early spring planted greens (more of what was planted in the fall). In a week or so I'll start flowers, herbs, warm(er) weather greens, and a few other things.

tomato seedlings under lights

We've spent some time this winter taking down trees. There are a lot of trees on our acre and we aren't people who usually chop everything down but, after a while, trees die. We prefer to leave them standing because it's fantastic habitat for all sorts of creatures (and insects that creatures eat), particularly birds, but when a dead (or dying) tree is near the house or my son's play area we have to take it down for safety. Fortunately, most of the trees we have had to fell are the exotic invasive tallows. There is one pecan tree with significant rot extremely close to the house that is coming down once we get the bees moved out of the base. All these trees mean lots logs and branches. Our branch pile for the birds is already enormous so we're going to grind everything from this round of urban forestry into mulch. Wood from the pecan is great for cooking with not to mention woodworking so we'll save those but the tallows are not good for much of anything. They break down very very quickly and giant logs, within a few years, get so punky you can step on them and crush them to dust. That's a handy trait when you want to get rid of a bunch of logs! So, in a weird hugelkultur variation, we have created some new beds with the usual cardboard on the bottom, then filled with logs, and then densely packed with mulch in all the crevices. I'll gradually add amendments to this and in a few years it's going to be an amazing place for vegetables. 

Greens from this winter's garden in the sink for cleaning.

Last summer we got some tree guys in the neighborhood to drop us off a double load of wood chips. Gradually the pile has diminished but now it's crunch time... we finally had a few frosts and warming weather is 4 weeks away so I need to heavily mulch (and amend) the entire vegetable garden before spring planting. The mulch pile will soon be gone (sad face!) but hopefully the spring leaf fall (yes, we have a spring leaf fall when all the evergreen oaks replace their leaves) will be a good one and there will be plenty of leaf sacks on the side of the road to replenish our mulch pile for the summer. 

We are hoping to put in a few new fruit trees this year. Over the years we have planted 3 figs, 2 mandarin oranges, 1 loquat, and 1 kumquat. I hoping to get 2 persimmons, a plum or two, a limequat if I can find it, a lime, and a red grapefruit. We'll see what we can get a hold of. 

Q&A "Tomato Sex"

I just rediscovered a series of Q&A my friend and I did on the "I Love My Farmer! (Local Farmer Fan Club)" Facebook group I created years ago when I was operating an organic microfarm. I thought some of you might find them useful:


"Tomato Sex"

Dear Local Farmer,

My tomatoes are blooming big time, but no tomatoes! Same goes for by beans, cucs, and squash. I put out sugar water to attract bees, but no luck. I tried brushing my fingers lightly on the blooms....in an attempt to help them get it on.....any advice????

---Low-libido tomatoes in Austin


my response:

Dear Low-libido tomatoes,

While bees will appreciate your sugar water when they find it, there may just not be any bees near enough to your garden. Bees will only fly a certain distance from their hive to forage for food.

However, beans and tomatoes have "perfect flowers" (the flower contains both a stamen and pistil) and so self pollinate. You should be getting fruit in spite of your lack of pollinators. Good idea to brush the flowers although you don't have to try an transfer pollen between them when you do. Suzanne Ashworth in Seed to Seed says that tomatoes "will set more fruit if the flowers are agitated...this increases the amount of pollen traveling down the anther tube...daily shaking can be used to increase flower set in caged tomatoes." I met a guy who told me his grandmother went out each day and beat the crap out of her tomatoes with her cane claiming she got more fruit that way...maybe there is something to it. Other things could be at issue though.

Lets look closer: How long have the flowers been blooming? Have they had time to begin growing the fruit? Are you seeing dead flowers followed by no fruit or are the flowers still all fresh? What are your night time temperatures? Tomatoes have a hard time setting fruit if the air temperature doesn't fall below 75 deg for a number of nights. It's not impossible, but they will become distinctly less fertile. Tomatoes also need 8-10 hours of direct sunlight. Less can cause poor fruit set, although with all those flowers, they are probably getting enough light. Also, you might try spraying the plants with a solution of epsom salts... 1 tbl salts in 1 gallon of water. I'm not sure if your soils are magnesium deficient (or if the magnesium, while abundant, is inaccessible) but since that nutrient is so important to the formation of fruit, people often find epsom salts instigate fruit set.

As for the beans, how long have they been blooming? I find that fruit set on beans just takes longer than I think it does. It will seem like the plants have been blooming for a month before i see beans. Also, there are often tiny beans growing that I just don't notice for a few weeks until they're bigger so it seems like they're not setting. Look closely. Other than that, are the plants themselves looking healthy? No stunting or chlorosis (yellowing in the leaves)? If all looks well, I would say wait a bit longer and see what happens.

Cucs and squash: These guys do need insect pollinators and so the lack of bees could be an issue. They can be pollinated by hand (although it might be a pain in the case of the cucumbers since they develop so many blooms and the blooms are so small). First you need to identify the male and female flowers. The female flowers are sitting atop the ovary which is (and looks like) tiny immature fruit. The male flowers are sitting on a straight stem. In the morning, after the dew has dried, pick the male flower with the stem attached. Strip the petals and holding the stamen by the stem end rub the pollen on the stigma of the female flower. Apparently pollination is more successful if several male flowers are used to pollinate each female flower. With the cuc flowers, since they are so small, it may be easier to use a very soft bristled tiny paint brush to transfer pollen. I would try gently inserting it into male flowers and then inserting it into female flowers and see what happens.

I hope this helps!

---Local Farmer

and her follow up:

Thank you, Local Farmer!

Ah-ha! I shook them up and now have a plethora of baby tomatoes!

---Low libido tomatoes in Austin

The Late Winter Garden

Horseradish. The roots were tiny!

We just built a bunch of new beds and with the three we have left to build it will about triple the garden size - back to pre-baby square footage. YAY! I'm very excited about this year. Now that my son is older and we've made the section of the yard that contains the garden safe (as safe as anything can be for a toddler who has more ability to lift and climb than he has sense) I think I'll be able to garden regularly. 

Happy sigh.

Gardening makes me feel very much like me. It's who I am. I am a grower of plants. 

I transplanted a bunch of runners from last year's strawberries into a new bed. I think we'll have around 30 plants this year without having to buy more. We'll see how it goes. A few of them are already blooming (silly strawberries) and it's going to freeze tonight. Everything got heavily watered today to help prevent frost damage (except the strawberries. whoops.).

Tiny wheelbarrow

On an adorable note: To my son, all red berries are strawberries but blueberries are "blue strawberries". Also, he started digging holes and "planting" sticks and acorns and leaves. Upon observing this, my

Look What I Found Under A Potato Plant...

... plus a bell pepper.

1.75# of potatoes under this plant

Spring Seed Starting

Once again I'm a little late starting seeds this year. By that I mean I could have started seeds during the past few months for earlier lettuce and greens and bigger tomatoes, peppers, etc. by planting time but it is by no means too late to start seeds!

Here's what I started this weekend:

Sweet Peppers

swiss chard and cilantro seedlings

• Corbaci - 4
• Coban - 2
• Ashe County Pimento - 6
• Tequila Sunrise - 3
• Lipstick - 3

Hot Peppers

• Fish - 3
• Early Jalapeno - 1
• Thai Red Pepper - 6
• Serrano - 6

lettuce and beet seedlings

Tomatoes & Tomatillos

• Rosso Sicilian - 3
• Red Cherry - 4 
• Cherokee Purple - 6
• Green Velvet Tomato - 3
• Arkansa Traveller - 3
• Tess's Landrace - 6
• Illini Star - 3
• Plum Lemon - 6
• Goldman's Italian American - 2
• Verde Tomatillo - 5
• Purple Tomatillo - 7
  

tomato plant

Eggplant

• Thai Long Green - 6
• Purple Pickling - 6
• Ping Tung Long - 6
  

Greens

• Bloomsdale Longstanding Spinach - 26
• Red Russian Kale - 12
• Da Ping Pu - 8
• Tatsoi - 8
• Arugula - 8
• Gailaan - 8

In the Meantime...

Since Poppyseed is still so young (and it's my full time job to take care of him) we're not doing much to write about (after all, this is not a mommy blog). We mostly nurse and change diapers and snuggle and sleep. 

In the meantime I'm doing some blog spring cleaning: sprucing up the look (new masthead), fixing broken links (and making them all open in a separate page), adding some tabs, cleaning up old posts and adding pictures (pretty and also Pin-able), etc. Let me know if you discover any big problems, if your subscription is no longer working, or anything else goes weird. I'll try to check in periodically with links and articles you might like, the occasional picture, or a recipe until things are back to normal.

Here are some shots of the place after nearly a year of neglect!

mushrooms and sunflowers

Ruth Stout is Awesome

Lettuce growing in deep mulch in my garden.

11 years ago I read Ruth Stout's "No-Work Garden Book" and it changed my life (which is only a small exaggeration since gardening was 75% of my life). After reading that book I never tilled again (with two exceptions). I've been wanting to review her book for a while but I think this video might give you the idea. Basically she puts down a huge quantity of mulch which improves the soil, keeps weeds at bay, and prevents evaporation so she never weeds and never waters. I will say that growing in NY as she does is very different from growing in subtropical South Texas. Our weed pressure is tremendous for one thing. However, with some modifications, her method pretty much works for me: I pile up the mulch and sit back to watch things grow.

It never even occurred to me that a video of Ruth Stout existed and I'm so glad Sharon Astyk found one and posted it on one of her fantastic blogs.



Watch the video and check out one of Ruth Stout's books too. While you're at it take a look at Sharon Astyk's blogs Casaubon's Book and The Chatelaine's Keys (which in her words are all about "food, agriculture, energy issues and climate change") or one of her books. I've read and can recommend "Independence Days: A Guide to Sustainable Food Storage & Preservation".

Giant Plants

I don't know if it's just me but plants seem to grow much, much bigger than their supposed size.

Take these for example:

The bushes in the foreground are one of the savories... winter or summer savory, I can't remember which. The tag on these lovely little bushes said "grows 1 1/2 - 2 feet high". Those bushes now stand 5 feet tall and growing.

Antelope Horns

Yesterday I noticed that this guy popped up in our back 40:

I believe this is some variety of Antelope Horns (Asclepias asperula), a Texas wild flower which I've only ever seen at the Ladybird Johnson Wildflower Center. I'm pretty excited that it's here.

In a good (not an insanely dry year) our volunteer wild flowers include Gauras, Black-eyed Susans, Coreopsis, Herbertia, Wild Onions, Rainlily, Passion Flower, White Snake Root, Toadflax, Anemone, Goldenrod, Lantana, Primrose, Aster, Silver Leaf Nightshade, and Blue Eyed Grass. Whew! Now that I list them, that's a lot of biodiversity! That doesn't even include all the trees, shrubs, and grasses that grow here. This year, because it's so dry I've only seen about half of those.

The To Do List

Spring is here in coastal Texas and that means tons to do. Does anyone else have this problem? Don't get me wrong, I loooove all this work and I feel very lucky I get to do it full time but this morning I made a list of all the things that need doing and found it very hard to know where to start.

 

Some big things have already been scratched off the list: the new chicken house got wheels and is now out in pasture (I'll do a post later about building the chicken house), the property got seeded with crimson clover and rye, seeds were started, fallow garden beds got amendments and fresh mulch and a lot of cleaning happened.

However...

To Do List, Spring 2011:

• Fence lines need to be cleared
• New fence to be installed
• Old fences need some repair
• Gates need repair

• Build new beds in garden, planted with tomatoes, tomatillos, eggplant, hot peppers, ground cherry and cardboard mulched (every year the vegetable garden gets expanded)
• Winter crops out of old beds, spring crops or cover crops in
• Other vegetable beds need expanding and amending so I can plant corn, okra, winter squash, summer squash, and sweet peppers.
• Still other old bed needs to be cardboarded and mulched again so I can plant gourds.
• New trellis needs to be built and installed for cucumbers or beans
• Herb transplants go in everywhere
• More seeds need to be started

Rhizobia and Root Nodules

You know how people say that legumes "fix" nitrogen in the soil? Well here is how they do it:

Rhizobia!

Root nodules on vetch from my garden.

Rhizobia are a type of soil bacterium which infect and form a symbiotic relationship with legumes. Together they create little root nodules where they "fix" the nitrogen (N)... that is to say they take atmospheric N (straight out of the air) and turn it into a form usable by the plant. For this service the plant trades carbohydrates.  

Notes From the Kitchen and Garden

What I'm cooking...

• Corned Beef no. 2 = in the pot for the next 5 days.
• Homesick Texan's Sweet Potato Pie
• Vegetable soup
• Ginger cookies
• Scrambled eggs! The babies haven't started laying yet but the retired girls... they're back in business! I think this is a temporary increase in lay (they've rested all winter) but since the days have been longer we've been getting 5-7 eggs most days, even when it doesn't get above freezing.
• Beans

Tomato Seedlings

Seed Storage

For years I have been trying to come up with a method of seed storage that I like. I've tried bags, jars, boxes, seed starting trays stuffed with packets, and more but nothing worked for me. I have a whole lot of seeds so this has been a big pain.

Then a few weeks ago I read a post on seed storage by one of my favorite bloggers, Chiot's Run.

She solved my problem. I'm clearly an idiot for not thinking of this myself :-)