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EARTHPACE It has not been easy this unusually bountiful harvest season to keep up with the earth, or to strive to, as she overwhelms us with fruits and vegetables that we only dream of many years. At least it has been that way in this area, I hope it is so where you are, though I know that not everyone has had such a good year. It is such years as this that faith and hope are confirmed, and rejuvenated. And we find that, yes, we can work hard and long, early to very late, in harvesting and preserving, and be quite happy about it. It's probably easier to glimpse the soul of the earth in harvests such as this year's. And it reminds us to recognize it also in those other, less easily fruitful, years. Not all crops have been perfect of course, and the weather was a challenge. With more than a bit of humor, I suspect, Nature hit us with extremes of cold, dry, heat and wet - all in one season. With the high rainfall in late summer there is blight and rot and mold among the plants in the garden. But there is such a larger overall harvest, that the losses are not as noticeable as in other years. The idea of perfection is an artificial human idea anyway plants are doing just what they are supposed to do, no more, no less. They know that no leaf or fruit is exactly the same as any other leaf or fruit, that diversity is success, that "failures" are necessary now and then for life to continue. Generally I think they just ignore the human misconceptions and fulfill their part of the wholeness in spite of us, integrity intact. They leave us to enjoy the "successes" and bemoan the "losses". But we are reaping a bountiful harvest, and I'm grateful. The potluck dinners have never been so good! I have to admit I cherish the few cool, "regular" U.P. days and nights we've had. But when this hot weather seems almost overwhelming (to one with northern blood) I think of all the tomatoes ripening on the vine, even the experimental marginal ones, and those new squash varieties which we'll get to eat this year (every day it appears, breakfast, lunch and dinner) where in many years they probably wouldn't have made it. And since we ran out of pickles last year the continuing supply of cucumbers hasn't yet reached the irritating stage. The accelerated ripening caused y this hot summer does seem destined to run gardeners ragged trying to keep up. The trick may be to realize that whatever we are doing right now is what we decided to do. If we can fit in one batch of tomato sauce, one basket of blackberry into jam and one tray of apples to dry, well, that is what our day was meant to produce, and so we have succeeded. We don't have to worry about the apples still under the tree, the ripe blackberries falling to the ground, the overripe tomatoes. These are Nature's portion of the harvest, and she knows quite well what to do with them. If you had planned to dig the onions today, but you woke up to rain, then remember that you planned to dig onions IF the weather permitted. That instead, you are doing indoor work, such as writing an overdue newsletter, which you had planned to do on such a rainy day as this. So the weather gods have not defeated you, they have simply allowed you to do what you had planned... depending on the weather. You have not failed. And as always, you are doing the best you can. Maybe some days closer to the best and others not so close, but most important, you are doing. And at the end of the day you can feel good about what you have accomplished. Maybe not great wonders in the media sense, but you have done what you set out to do for the day. After all, isn't that what Nature does each day? If it's good enough for her then it certainly is good enough for me. And I think she is enjoying those tomatoes every bit as much as we are. The difference may be that she remembers to always take time for the Joy, and she does so in every fruit, no matter the shape, size, condition, color or name. But we can learn. And what a great season for the learning this is. I hope your garden is as ripe and delicious and full as ours has been here. And if not, well, the standard gardener's words of wisdom are still there, even no doubt being whispered in the most lush of gardens ... "ah, but just wait until NEXT year's garden"... P.S. Ah, the joys and challenges of the dwellers in areas of strong, independent seasons. One day later the wind shifts, I'm digging out extra sweaters and frantically spending the day harvesting the final herbs, digging the onions, picking the last crop of pickles (even the tiniest ones this time). My mind sorts through my blanket supply as I pick tomatoes - how many can I cover, how long will this cold snap be, do I really want to make any more sauce, or should I let Jack Frost have the rest. A reminder to cut the poles shorter next year so I CAN cover those tall varieties (the tomatoes at the top aren't going to mature anyway so they might as well be pruned shorter). Oh yes, don't forget to bring some Swiss Chard into the greenhouse and harvest the rest of the leaves to dry. The parsley can wait, doesn't feel like a hard freeze, just a frost. To harvest or not to harvest, that is the gardener's fall time, often frustrating, question. It's the squash this time. A light frost won't hurt, but they are mostly all mature anyway. The sun sinks, the wind dies down, it's cold. We harvest the squash. It's fun. Eight new varieties, and a variety they are. What exactly will we do with those humongous white ones, and the large pink orange ones, and the big rough shaped green and orange ones? Get a second wheelbarrow for the easier to imagine eating harvest of green, orange, light with dark green, pink orange, deep green beautiful squashes. But no time now to admire, we remember we have to also get in our native friend's tobacco plants. What outrageously large leaves and plants! They take over the living room floor for the night. The bed feels good, an extra blanket cozy. The day's busy harvest is scattered throughout the house. And I remind myself that 1, of course, had planned to spend the day in that manner, weather permitting, I had just forgotten. Part of me is not at all sorry for the weather dictated end to much of the harvest. It's time to tend to other projects, other parts of the garden. Nature is simply giving me a reminder, sometimes gentle, sometimes not, but always her own way. A DIFFERENT KIND OF PUMPKIN PIE We tried this for supper last night and it's good, though it did take quite a while to bake. VINEGAR There should be enough vinegar critters in the air to take care of the rest (that's why you need to keep your wine well isolated with balloon or water lock). By the end of the preserving season, about when I'm ready to have this fruit-fly-magnet out of the kitchen, it is vinegar. Generally by now there is also a soft, pinkish mass on stuff. This is the mother of vinegar and is good to have. Some years I get a good one, some years not. But when I do I scoop it off and put it in a jar in the root cellar for next year. Added to your next batch this will help guarantee your fruit and water concoction turns into vinegar. If not available, I just depend on the kitchen air. When it seems (tastes, smells, looks) like vinegar I strain, first through a colander then through a cloth, into a clean jug or container. Let settle a few days until clear then siphon into clean jars or bottles. Cap (with a plastic or plastic lined lid or cork or some such, it does bad things to metal lids) and set aside. You can use it right away but aging seems to help the flavor. Add herbs for salad vinegars, straight from the bottle for cleaning (I know this may not fit here, but vinegar beats store bought, usually obnoxious, toilet cleaner). It's at hand for cooking needs, and if you want, despite official warnings against it, put some away to use in your pickles next season. To be safe, and is probably a good idea, you could get some litmus paper to compare your vinegar to the standard store stuff to make sure yours is at least as strong before using for pickles. I never think of the litmus paper until I'm in the kitchen ready to put up a batch of pickles so I use the non-scientific taste test. And my pickles have turned out fine. But this is an area you have to be your own judge of course. This year we have a bumper crop of apples and a friend is lending us his apple chopper/press. So I should be able to make regular apple cider vinegar (I gather the real trick is getting it NOT to be vinegar). And if you grow sugar beets you might want to try this, from "Shaker Recipes and Formulas for Cooks and Homemakers" by William L. Lassiter 1978: "It is said that good vinegar can be made from beets. The juice of one bushel sugar beets, worth twenty-five cents, and which farmers can raise without cost, will make them five or six gallons of vinegar, equal to the best made of cider or wine. Grate the beets, having first washed them, and express the Juice in a cheese-press or in any way which a little ingenuity can suggest, and put the liquor into an empty barrel, in twelve or sixteen days it will be ready for use." From "A Collection of Useful Hints for Farmers and Many Valuable Recipes" by James Holmes. GREENHOUSE HINTS The construction can cost as much, or as little, as you allow it to. It is the care that is put into the planning and building that will have the most impact on the amount of joy and usefulness of the final structure. I'll leave the construction formats and methods to the many good books available, and the ex perienced builders, and simply share with you some of the ideas and experiences that have come out of our place. We built a small, 8' x 13' modified attached pit greenhouse onto the front third of our house. We look into it from the shop area and entrance is through the attached entryway. It is built of a combination of mainly used and leftover materials so the cost was minimal. The location has worked out well. In the white cold of winter it is uplifting to look out onto a bed full of green, a rare color that time of year. It also provides a glare free spot to work in the shop. And it's nice to be able to go into the green house without going outside. Along the front windows is an 8' x 28" slatted wood bench which wraps around the west end. There is plywood directly under neath, slightly tipped to direct water and dirt towards the aisle. Underneath is storage for pots and tools. Along the other, house, side is a 9' x 28" waist high bed built using Mike Oehler's ('The $50 and Up Underground House Book") PSP method (post/shoring/polyethylene). Cedar posts were set in the ground, boards (shoring) laid up against, polyethylene (10 mil is nice, or two layers of the more common 4 mil) then carefully draped over the wood. Fill with dirt from which sticks, sharp stones and such have been removed. We tacked scrap boards around the inside top to protect the plastic from trowels and such, then added a board across the posts for a handy ledge. This bed has turned out to be especially useful in the fall. I can bring in full sized plants from the garden, transplanting them into the bed, and have an instant inside gar den. The east end of the greenhouse is storage for potting soil (compost in garbage cans), flats, screens and the doorway to the house entryway. The floor is screened 1- 2" stone, which is good for drainage but hard on bare feet. Only the front half of the roof of the greenhouse is windows, the back half is sod (which blends into the sod roof of our house). Since we don't need the sun and heat in the summer when the sun is high overhead the solid portion of the roof provides welcome shade, and in the winter insulation. About the time the sun path is moving south in the fall the greenhouse is coming back into use and the sun rays begin to angle in hitting the back bed once more. We angled the roof to take best advantage of the spring and fall suns, the most important time in the greenhouse for me. The greenhouse has its own life and patterns. Winter is fairly quiet as I visit only occassionally to harvest a few green leaves for dinner, and to say Hi. Late winter finds more activity as I begin to rummage for seed pots and sift compost for seed starting soil. Seeds are sorted, the garden plan consulted, the greenhouse notebook dusted off. Tin cans with holes punched in the bottoms make good seed starters. I pull out an old cookie sheet, line up my tin cans, attach new masking tape and pencil labels where needed, drop in a layer of small stone, fill with sifted compost and gently count out the seeds. A little more compost over the top, a gentle watering with warm water, let them drain and cover all with a newspaper. These earliest plantings come into the house by the wood stove to start. Then they move to the kitchen window, rep!acing the cat and a few house plants. Later they move back into the greenhouse Spring is the most crowded and busiest time of the greenhouse year. The bed still has winter plants growing but they are chopped down as they (generally) start going to seed, and more room is needed for flats. More seeds are started, seedlings are transplanted into flats, some small plants are transplanted again into large flats and pots. There is not an inch to spare in the greenhouse; and the garbage cans full of compost are empty. Flats are easily made of scrap wood of whatever type is available (not painted or stained with toxic coatings). My basic flat is 12" x l6" x 3" made of 3/4" pine or poplar with holes drilled in bottom. The pine is lasting better than the poplar, but we had poplar so that is what I used. Drywall screws work nice for fasteners if your wood is apt to warp. Most plants go from this flat into the garden. But I also have some large flats for the second transplanting of tomatoes and peppers. They are 14" x l6" x 7" and 18" x l5" x 5" and I wouldn't want them any larger. Filled with dirt these critters are Heavy. But they take up less space than pots and are quite handy. I've also used them for winter plantings of greens. Spring is also the time of most intense management in the greenhouse. We have openable windows along the front and sides, as well as upper and lower vents opening into the house. These along with the insulated curtain on the front windows help me to, generally, keep the temperature from the too hot or too cold. Guessing what the weather will do while you're gone is a game of frustrating futility. I've learned to opt for assuming sun as overheating does more damage than coolness this time of year. If we're to be gone for long I lower the front curtain and open the vents into the house. An early addition that helped a lot for the health of the plants was fans. You don't need a heavy breeze, just a gentle moving of air. For ours Steve hooked up two large muffin fans (from dead computer power supplies) in opposite corners of the greenhouse. He installed an old thermostat (upside down) so we can have them come on and off automatically as the temperature goes up and down. There is also a manual switch. In the spring the fans are on almost every day. As spring turns to summer the flats spend more and time outdoors, getting acclimated for the coming move into the garden. A lot of trips in and out and out and in. But they do much better in transplanting when they've already gotten used to being outside. Then suddenly it seems the greenhouse is empty and the garden is full. Though there have been cold, rainy summers when some plants spend all season in the greenhouse. But generally summer is a time of rest. When the pots and flats are stacked aside and the area is left to the resident spiders. Early fall once more finds activity in the greenhouse as spiderwebs are swept away and the resting bed is dug up. As frosts become more frequent in the garden I start bringing in plants. Although I've experimented with many things I now plant in only swiss chard and parsley, and celery when I have it. These have been the most successful for me for overwintering as we don't heat the greenhouse in the winter and some years it gets quite cold. I prune off dead and outside leaves and bring in the healthiest, smallish plants. Some years I've dug in full size pepper plants too, full of green fruit. Most of them survive and go on to ripen their peppers giving us fresh peppers into early winter. These generally harbor aphids which tend to multiply unchecked in the greenhouse so the plants are pulled and put in the compost pile as soon as the peppers are gone. The best solution I've found for an infestation of aphids. Some full grown marigold plants are a fun, if temporary, addition also. They do a good job of brighting the greenhouse until it gets too cold. Fall also finds our greenhouse full of drying corn and bean pods, spread out on the front bench or in bags or baskets, whereever room can be found. I've also thought it might work for drying apples if you didn't have a dryer. I've found that to have winter salads the plants, no matter what they are, need to be close to full grown when winter sets in as little growth is made once the days shorten. My greens were planted in mid September and transplanted up into the large flats or into the bed as they grew. I found lettuce in general to be disappointing except for varieties bred, or selected, particularly for gardening under glass, such as Diamante, Salina, Marvel of Four Seasons. I had better luck with other greens such as Kyona, Pac Choy and leaf Chinese cabbage. A fun addition to the late winter garden has been to plant some spring flowering bulbs in the back of the bed in the Fall. It's quite a treat to have bright daffodils popping out here and there while the world outside is still grey and white. And I usually let a few Johnny Jump Ups stick around and flower, too. An addition to the management of the greenhouse in the winter is the use of insulated panels and curtains for the windows. This has done a lot towards keeping the heat inside at night and on cold cloudy days. In addition the curtain on the front windows is used for shading in the warmer months. The panels for the side windows are of simple construction. I made a 2x2 frame with rigid foam inside. Polyethylene film was stapled over both sides (to keep the outgassing from the foam contained), then large cardboard pieces were stapled on. They were then painted with white oil paint to protect the cardboard from moisture. The light color is important for light within the greenhouse and to reflect heat out when the sun hits them to avoid overheating the panel. The curtain is a simple quilt sewn up from white and natural scraps with quilt batting between tied every four inches. The quilt is attached above the windows and wooden strips are stapled and screwed on the bottom. It is raised and lowered with light rope and pulleys in a manner as you would a rolled reed curtain. The insulated panels are held up with various latches, toggles and bungie arrangements to fit the different windows. Another positive addition to the greenhouse was glass and plastic jugs and bottles filled with black liquid. Placed mainly where the sun can hit them along the front and side benches and on shelves filling the area between the posts of the front bed (which was painted black) they do a great job of tempering the extremes of both hot and cold. The liquid was made with black RIT dye, 1/16 tsp dye per quart; 1/4 tsp per gal. One pkg colored 23 gals of water. I also added some old salt I had to help lower the freezing point of the water. In the cold of winter I move the jugs away from the windows; and in an especially cold period I've brought them inside. For seed savers the greenhouse can be especially helpful for difficult plants. It gives you room to start and grow plants needing a particularly long season to set seed. You can also overwinter tender biennials such as swiss chard, celery and some parsley, setting the full grown plants in the bed (or large container) for the winter then transplanting back out in the garden in the spring to grow seed the following summer. The greenhouse is not an essential tool but it sure does help the short season grower. I got by well enough for many years with just a large cold frame but I do appreciate my greenhouse a lot. It's not fancy, but it's friendly. GARDENSHARE I have to agree with Dana on the carrot seed. We've seen a continuing expansion of Queen Anne's Lace (wild carrot) around here also, to the extent that I've also given up growing carrot seed for the time being. Maybe one of these years I'll build cages to grow the seed crop in. Or maybe the wild carrot crop will diminish back to the point where I can pick the flower heads off when my garden carrots are blooming (which has been my method in the past). Meantime, my 1990 seed is still germinating great and giving me a good crop. Speaking of carrots, and carrot root maggot. Last fall I dug all carrots out of the garden, leaving no roots over winter. My first planting this summer wasn't until June 1; I skipped the early plantings. And for the first time in a number of years we're eating damage free roots. Now, it could be it was just an off year for the carrot fly. But if you have a problem with root maggots you might try this approach, it appears to have worked here. I also skipped planting celery, as was suggested, as the carrot fly also lays eggs on celery. If you don't want to skip plantings you might try liberal sprinklings of wood ashes around the carrots. Although I haven't tried this for carrot fly it has worked well for me for years around cole crops against cabbage root maggots. Larisa suggests a new squash variety: "Kabocha (a maxima species from Glenn Drowns). It has the driest, most flavorful flesh of any squash we've grown and it's early. Seems more prolific than Buttercup and the one we haven't eaten yet is keeping OK [Jan.]." Larisa also recommended Vinedale Pepper (in response to my frustration of getting a pepper that would mature here). I didn't have a lot of luck getting peppers again this year for a reason other than maturity. I had great plants but few fruits. But the Vinedale fruit I did have included several that have already turned red, a rare occurrence in my garden. I shall certainly try that one again. I'd enjoy including your hints, comments, experiences. Just drop me a note, it can be short and informal. Share what you know, what you think, questions about what you'd like to know. DRYING APPLES Next day a stage is erected either in our grass plots or anywhere else where cattle can't come. Strong crotches are planted in the ground. Poles are horizontally fixed on these, and boards laid close together ... When the scaffold is thus erected, the apples are thinly spread over it. They are soon covered with all the bees and wasps and sucking flies of the neighborhood . This accelerates the operation of drying. Now and then they are turned. At night they are covered with blankets ... By this means we are enabled to have apple-pies and apple- dumplings almost the year round. ... My wife's and my supper half of the year consists of apple-pie and milk. The dried peaches and plums, as being more delicate, are kept for holidays, frolics, and such other civil festivales as are common among us. With equal care we dry the skins and cores. They are of excellent use in brewing that species of beer with which every family is constantly supplied, not only for the sake of drinking it, but for that of the barm [yeast formed on fermenting liquors] without which our wives could not raise their bread." BOOK REVIEW No matter that the only flowers I grow in my greenhouse are a few volunteer Johnny Jump Ups, I consulted this book more than any other when designing, building and learning to use our greenhouse. And I continue to enjoy it. They give basic, practical, down to earth advise. From design to construction, from soil to temperature management, from pots to plants. And a tremendous amount in between. No matter what type of greenhouse you have or plan, there are ideas in here you can use. AFTERTHOUGHT Updated 3/29/97 Copyright © 1997 by Susan J. Robishaw | ||||||||||||||||
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