I Did One Thing Right This Summer...

... But I will get to that in the minute.

We had three mornings in a row of me having to scrape my windows, and one was right after a hard frost.  And thus, summer has come to an end.  The Celts called it Samhain (SOW-ayn, roughly, translates to "summer's end") and as many know it's calendered on November 1.  Mother Nature, however, has her own calendar, so Samhain came to my back 40 feet this past weekend.  So Sunday, after yoga, I set about the task of closing the garden for the season.

On Saturday, with foreknowledge of the coming hard frost, I gathered the last of the late tomatoes, green or not, from their vines.  Sunday was cool, in the upper 40s but with a coat, earmuffs and the occasional hot flash I was perfectly fine.  I pulled the broccoli I had allowed to bolt, the leftover vines of the tomatoes and peppers, the Brussel sprouts that got worms so never sprouted, and put those all into the yard waste bin.  I decided at first to leave the weeds and such in the beds over the winter, to at least hold the soil in case of high winds. I turned my attention then to my compost bin.

Now, I had started to turn it at one point but was thwarted by bees... I just noticed I didn't blog about that!  Long story short:

Dry compost leads to bumble bees. They are cute, fuzzy, slow, and not aggressive...they were annoyed and buzzing, but I decided to leave them alone.  Rain was coming, so I left the last layer open in hopes they'd move out.

Rain happened and the bumblebees did indeed move out.  Sadly, they had sublet their space to some yellow jackets I think.  I don't know they were smaller, faster, definitely not as cute, and were way more aggressive.  I only got stung once, but that was quite enough of dealing with compost for the season.  (Other than occasionally putting stuff in it, but it had gotten full so even that had stopped).


Okay, back to this past weekend.  I figured the frost had taken care of any stinging things, so decided to at least move things so the bin was together.  I got to the middle of the larger part and things were starting to look good.  Like dirt, rather than paper, eggshells, miscellaneous vegetables. Slightly encouraged I kept going until I got to the last level and lo and behold there it was.  Brown, crumbly, ...COMPOST!  I had done it!  SOMETHING this summer had gone right.

Immediately, I decided to pull weeds and rake straw out of beds and start spreading.  I got two of the three beds done that way before I ran out, so it wasn't MUCH, but it was there.  I got done with that and put the bin back together, feeling fairly pleased with myself.  My plan now is to put raked leaves over those beds to protect them (the rest into the compost bin) and when I turn compost in the spring, see what I can add, especially to bed number three.

Also, our apple tree continues to give us proper size apples.  We now need to learn how to manage them so they don't get diseased.

Harvest time is a time of reflection, and there's certainly been a lot of that in a lot of areas.  As far as the back 40 goes, "Hands off gardening" has to come to an end.  If I had noticed the parasites on the Brussel sprouts, if I had done a few other things, the yield may have been less frustrating.  So next year, my hope is to be a bit more involved rather than JUST letting nature take its course.

I'm considering renaming the blog, too.  I named it thusly because it was my hope that getting Janet involved would help, but Alzheimer's has it's own idea, and it's own timeline, and there's nothing that one can do to change that.  But we'll see...I will let that incubate over the winter.

Happy Samhain!

Spring Sprang

A while back actually, and I'm woefully behind.

Alzheimer's a terrible, terrible disease.  I know all lingering lengthy diseases are, and most people know that.  Although they'll say "yeah, my mom forgets a lot too."  Or worse, make a joke about how their forgetfulness is early-onset.  Um...no.  No, it's not.  And it isn't funny.  It's more than just forgetfulness.  It's the complete personality transference that takes place from, let's say, a sweet, funny, kind woman to ... well, someone who isn't that.  And who realizes that it's happening, and can't do anything about it.

The latest memory that keeps recirculating is about her father and hummingbird feeders.  She said he would string them along a line from the back of their house out to "that tree."  They have to have multiple feeders because they are "mean little things."  She's not wrong.  They are very territorial.  In February then, I took her to Anderson's and she picked out two more hummingbird feeders.  We put them up this weekend...well, I did.  I showed her a few times where they are and heard the story again and again.  Two are in the flower garden around the deck, and one is hanging in the birch tree.

Planting progresses as we try and time things with the weather.  I bought a grapevine, dill, and parsley from the botany class at school.  We got broccoli and brussel sprouts and onions, and then...well, you know, kinda waited.  Meanwhile life continued.  Then this past weekend "Holy crap, we have to plant that stuff!"

I did try the whole "use water jugs as mini greenhouses" as went around Facebook a while back. While I did get a late start I can now definitively say that it did not work.  Or maybe it did. I'll just keep them together until I don't I guess, just to see if they ever take root.  It could have just been old seeds, I suppose.  I planted broccoli, onions, and tomatoes.  I wrote on the jug, but then rain, snow, and sun have successfully removed the labels so I have no idea what is in what.

We now have the onions in one of the whiskey half-barrels. Dill and parsley are in one pot and going to be transferred to the pollinator garden once we have that earth turned.  Lettuce and spinach seeds are in and hopefully growing under ground because they aren't sprouting yet.  (I planted them a couple of weeks ago).  The strawberries are full of pink blooms and already some little berries are visible.  The apple tree has teeny little apples on it even!  I planted the Brussel sprouts and broccoli yesterday.  This year I got straw (from mom and dad's Thanksgiving yard decorations), and have used that for mulch.  I will add that to the other beds too, and then the rest goes in the compost.

Last Harvest

I always think to myself, "Self, you should blog."  But there's just not much to blog about with the ol' back 40 feet.

(I should really measure that out some day.)

Today, though I did things.  The nights are getting cooler, and we've come perilously close to our first frost, but not quite yet.  Folklore in Ireland and Scotland says that you need to get all the crops in before the first frost; anything left after that belongs to some spirit or another (it seems to vary by region) and good grief you don't want to take it from them!  That way lies bad stuff.

When I got home, then, I got dinner started (turkey meatloaf...yum), and headed outside.  First task was to take down the beans from the poles.  There were some beans that had grown since the last picking, so those all went in a bowl.  Some may be okay for eating...but the rest I think I shall save for seed.  In all likelihood I have more than I need, so if anyone is interested in trading, or just having some bean seeds.  They tasted good and vined with very little assistance.  If you've been following you know of my very "hands off" (read: lazy) approach to gardening, so the fact they were so easy is a definitely plus.  I suppose I should see if I can find what variety they were.  I may still have the seed pouch, but I wouldn't be so confident about that.

Next I hit the sunflowers.  I managed to get three large heads and one medium sized head that are FULL of seeds.  I can't wait to grab those all and roast them for Jim.

Finally, it was time to grab the rest of the brussel sprouts. I pulled all the stalks and cut the leaves off into the compost.  (That's where the bean stalks went too.)  The stalks are sitting on the porch on the table next to the sunflower heads so I can get the sprouts off of them tomorrow, hopefully.  Then the remaining stalks will go into the compost as well.

Now I have a full compost bin, but it is full of greens.  I need Jim to rip up the many cardboard boxes in the garage and put those in there.

I left the tomatoes and bell peppers in.  I want to pull the green tomatoes off and then see what happens.  And, the strawberries have some late berries that will be a nice dessert at some point.  I guess that could have been tonight, but time was up.

To review...my second harvest since this experiment began was...lackluster.  I  did get six pints of zucchini canned, and I have a boatload of strawberries in the freezer to be jam.  But I got nowhere near the tomatoes and bell peppers of last year.  Similarly, while I did well, with rosemary, the remaining herbs were not so great.  I am not entirely sure what I did differently, so I will just chalk it up to the fickleness of Mother Nature.  This does mean the home made Yule baskets may be a bit light in the food department, but I think that's okay.  The point is to give of myself and what I have, and if that's a whole lot of zucchini bread and strawberry jam (not a bad combination, actually), then that's what it is.

I am already thinking ahead to next year, of course.  I certainly want to get with Misty about the grapes, and then talk to Jim about, yes, another bed.  I've learned that with some things you can't wait -- if they bolt or get beyond ripe, then you've wasted that garden space, and gotten no food out of it.

The wheel has turned, and the signs of autumn are everywhere.  I would like to get some straw (I don't know why...I just do) to cover all the beds with a nice blanket (that will also decompose), so they can be ready to go for spring.

Have a great autumn!

Video tour!

Hopefully!  I'm experimenting with this.  I thought, instead of taking a bunch of pictures...why not video?  So let's see if this works:

I did harvest the broccoli.  The stuff that had NOT gone to seed is about worth MAYBE one salad topping's worth of broccoli, but if I'm right (which I am probably not) there will be more coming.

Dandelions are DANDY

I actually have lots to update, but it requires pictures.  Suffice it to say the back 40 yards or so looks like one might actually be able to get a meal out of there.  Or at least side dishes.  Pictures forthcoming.

I need to write this part down before I forget.  I got a recipe off the Interwebs for dandelion jelly.  Now, my yard has a FINE crop of dandelions in it, so I decided to start ripping their little heads off, for to make some jelly.  I sat in the side yard, pulled however many I could reach and didn't look too new or too old. I also tried to get ones that didn't have ants all over them, but that soon proved impossible.  Our entire subdivision is built on an anthill.  Once I cleared all that I could reach, I'd scootch down a bit and clear another space. I made pretty good progress, but I had no idea how much I had.  I needed two cups of petals, which estimated it at four cups of leaves.  Eventually I got bored in the side yard and moved to the front.

Janet came out and saw me and gave me that look she does.  It's the look Jim and I get when we're doing something that she doesn't recognize as sane.  Like when I explained to her why there were bones sunbleaching on the deck, and egg shells in a plastic container waiting to be crushed.  (Doesn't everyone do that?)  So I explained I was going to make dandelion jelly.  That seemed to sort of be okay with her, and she proceeded to tell me about her dad making dandelion wine.  And he'd hide it all over the place because her mom (who called it "idiot juice") didn't like that he drank it.  And she broke every bottle she could find.  And she and her sister found some and drank it and it sat them on their ass, it did.

Then my friend, Misty, came over.  Misty is a cool horticulturalist who I've added to my list of "why won't this work in my garden!" calls.  Anyway, she stopped by and proceeded to pick dandelion heads and so did Janet.

At this point, I envisioned my neighbors looking out the window, at the weirdo hippies on the curb, peering through their curtain.  "NOW what are they doing?"

We discussed harvesting the leaves of that and the two kinds of plantain I have growing in my yard, but I didn't feel like doing that.  Janet, with a new person to talk to, told of her father and his dandelion wine, and her mother and the idiot juice, and that it would sit you on your ass.  It was the first time Misty heard it all.  For me it was the zillionth.  No matter, it gets Janet remembering, and that's the important part.

We went around back and Misty gave me composting advice.  She actually got me REALLY excited about composting.  In fact, we are rearranging our entire kitchen waste disposal system.  The big trash can is going to become recycling.  The little can (it's probably about a half-gallon in size) is going to be composting scraps.  That leaves one of those free grocery bags you get at Giant Eagle for anything not compostable or recyclable, which I believe is not that much in a given week, but would need to be taken out daily.

Anyway, we raked and small talked and composted, the three of us.  It was a perfectly lovely afternoon.  It's not been exactly smooth sailing in Alzheimer's land the past few days, but that day was about perfect.

I've not made the jelly or the wine yet. (Misty said she had a recipe for the wine which I'm still waiting for *hint hint* :) ) We ended up with about six quarters of dandelion heads, all in the freezer awaiting their fate, and I think that's way more than I need.  Hopefully, the freezer doesn't wilt them too much (but will kill any stray ants), but if it does, I have another crop ready to be harvested.