Winter Canning

There are different reasons why I pull out my canning tools in the middle of winter.  Some years, I freeze my summer fruits when they are ripe and pull them out in the dead of winter to make jams and jellies when I want the house to warm up with all that cooking time verses in the middle of a heat wave in July.  Last year I was making maple syrup and needed to bring out the jars and lids for putting up the syrup (which is almost gone so maple syrup season should be just around the corner).  This time it was red potatoes that were determined to sprout and shrivel before they could be used.

I had never canned potatoes before, but I have used store bought canned potatoes as a quick camp meal.  I par-cooked the rest of what was in storage for easy peeling.  I left most whole but halved the larger ones to fit through the mouth of the jar.  I heated new water with canning salt for the fluid and pressure canned them according to the recommended pounds and time.  One jar oddly lost all its fluid and had to go right into the refrigerator for use now.  The others sealed well and are now back in the basement on the shelf.

The other item that needed to be processed into a finished product was my spaghetti squash.  I had some rot starting on one, so I pulled the whole bin out of the basement to process.  I cut into quarters and stood them up in my deep stainless steel pan with some water just in the very bottom to help steam them.  A good size sheet of foil capped it all.  It took about two hours to bake all the squash until it was soft, but it was worth it.  I scraped all of it out, drained the excess liquid and froze it in vacuum sealed bag for individual meals.

The last of the Ailsa Craig onions were also starting to sprout.  I cut and sliced them all on a mandolin and froze what I didn't use for immediate cooking needs.  Part of that was pulling out more soup bones (you get lots of soup bones with half a cow) and cooked up a hearty beef broth which I also processed in the pressure canner for later use.  The meat which came off the bones went into the freezer for addition to soup or casseroles at another date.  I used the Tattler lids for this for the first time.  They are reusable canning lids with rubber rings that are BPA free.  Only one did not seal that had to be used instead of stored.  I figure it was beginner error since it was my first time using this set up.  The rest are holding their own.

Rather than compost things that I can't get on the table fast enough, winter canning and freezing provides another option to extending the harvest season.

Successes and Failures

It happens to the best of us and those of us who are usually pretty good at gardening.  I think I have been beat this year and will not enjoy my own garden beans.  I did everything the way I usually do, but I have a few miserable sprouts coming up.  I have them fenced to protect them from the big critters and covered them for the little.  Still there are a few lousy plants and some that look like they were eaten by something.  This is unprecedented in my gardening years.  I will put more in, bush beans that are short season.  I hope to enjoy some fresh beans before the growing season runs out.  My pole beans and the elaborate growing structure appear to be a futile attempt at gardening.

Instead of tender sprouts, I have a bed full of purslane.  Purslane is edible, but they aren't beans.  On the other hand, peas were very successful.  I grew both sugar snap and garden shelling beans.  I enjoyed cooking up three different meals from the last picking of shelling beans alone.

I went out and picked again before work this morning and got almost a full pail of both types.  They are starting to dwindle in number so there is probably just a meal left to grow in on the vines.  I am leaving some on to try and get some for next year's crop.

I am also pretty happy with the onion crop.  The tops are starting to get brown tips so they should be starting to shut down and start hardening up for harvest.  We have enjoyed several pullings of fresh onions that I have cooked or used fresh.  Garlic is also starting to brown at the top. The leeks also look pretty good, but those are still growing.  I put in carrots, but only those shaded by the adjacent plants actually germinated.  I think they got too dry when they needed it most.  We have not been getting timely rains this month.
I also enjoyed the first four blueberries on my bush today.  It is not going to be much of a crop.  I just bought the plants last year.  They were in pots all last year and through the winter.  I have them in a large above ground planter now that is filled with peat and compost.  In our alkaline soils, we can only grow blueberries in an artificial environment like this.
Fencing of some type still needs to go up.  I did get down soaker hoses around the tomatoes and peppers last week.  I am also going to put some around the squash just to cover my bases since I do have a few left.  I haven't peeked at the corn coming up under the floating row cover, but I can see some shoots pushing up the fabric.  Okra is small and in desperate need of weeding.  I do have to get busy in the weeding department as I know they will need it again when we come back from our first vacation.
I try not to linger on the failures and enjoy eating the food that is coming from the garden.  Lettuce is at it's end, so I need to enjoy salads this weekend rather than send it to the compost pile for lack of interest.  It is also time to forage for berries.  Enjoy summer as it is short.

Starting over, my new garden

 The gardening venture begins anew in a different place.  My daughter and her husband will enjoy the fruits of my labor in the raised beds I left behind at the house we have owned for over 20 years.  I now get to garden in a much larger plot, but one that has been neglected.  One previous gardener used Roundup on a paint roller to "weed" the garden.  The second gardener, I have learned from second hand reports, put in plants and and did very little follow up.  I can believe the reports as I spent all of last summer just trying to clean up dead weed stalks only to find all the precious little babies they were sprouting underneath.  I resorted to the first gardeners technique and used herbicide to control the weeds, but did not plant.  It was tilled a couple times as the compaction was horrific and I expanded the bound with the herbicide to bring it up to the size it was when I I kept a small corner plot her over 20 years ago in the after work hours.
I have decided to not till again this spring to keep the covered weed seeds under the soil and deal with the ones that have and will sprout at the surface.  They are numerous!  I brought in some composted manure last fall which covered the smallest of areas.  This is where I will put my beds of seeds like spinach and such.  The other vine crops will get a mound of compost at their planting site with weed cloth or mulch around their growing area to try and suppress the potential weed army rallying forces underground.

I started this year off as I always do with peas.  The garden here tends to stay wet, so I have chosen to use the mounding method to create raised beds.  I loved my foot high, wood sided beds at home, but I am not going to invest in the materials or labor to do this here.  Starting with the area where the manure was spread last fall, I raked and mixed the soil a bit.  After getting it a bit loose, I pulled it up into a pile and then leveled off two rows for putting in my two different types of peas.  I like the sugar pods, but still enjoy the pleasure of shelling out peas as well.  They are starting off about six inches high, but will settle as the season goes on.  I will side dress these rows with carrots or other rooting crops to take over when the peas are done.  Right now the sprouting peas are covered with mesh to keep the squirrels and chipmunks from digging up and eating the peas as seeds.  I always soak my seeds first as the germination is so much better when I do.
I have to fence this garden much more heavily than I did in my urban plot.  The property is fenced off from the roaming deer herds for the nursery crops, but we still have four residential does that still call this home.  I put a hardware cloth and t-post fence around the perimeter of part of the garden that will keep the tastiest crops away from bunnies and wood chucks.  I am certain that I will have to do battle with something even still.

Next to each t-post is a ten foot conduit post pounded in about two feet.  I fashioned a hook for the top of each to hang a five foot wide mesh cloth that meets up to the three foot tall hardware cloth.  All together they form an eight foot tall enclosure which should keep the deer away from my peas, greens and bean crops.  The opening is an over-lap of the mesh with a gate of hardware cloth.  I have to duck to get through the mesh over-lap, but it is a small sacrifice.  Time will tell how effective this will be.  I did not dig the hardware cloth in very deep and this may be my weak spot if I don't monitor the perimeter enough.

Once my perimeter was secure (this was two separate weekends to accomplish) I felt I could continue with the actual gardening.  I used my Weed Dragon to scorch the weeds that were abundantly germinating already.  Next to the pea rows, I formed a square bed for my greens like spinach and lettuce as well as some root crops of parsnips and salsify.  Both root crops are over 100 days to maturity and are best harvested after frost for sweeter quality.  I have not added my kale yet, but need to make that a priority.  I have greenhouse starts of cabbage and bok choy to add as well.  I just hope the enclosure will fit them all!
I put the tender onion plants in as well.  I did two types of bulb onions, Ailsa Craig and Walla Walla.  I also have Lancelot leeks which I plan on mounding to blanch the stems as they grow.  These were also greenhouse starts back in February.  Onions and leeks are very long season crops when started from seed.  I have decided that the radicchio is going to be a fall crop this year to form the best heads closer to frost.  I also put in my radishes, French Breakfast and April Cross, for my early crop.  I have another called Rat-tailed which is grown for its seed heads that will go in later.  I put in short rows of these as one family can only eat so many ripening radishes at once. Straw that was used for winter protection around my potted fruit crops is down on my walking paths for mulch.  This will get turned in next fall to compost in ground for more soil tilth in future years.  I can't wait for the weather to warm if only to shorten the distance I have to run a hose to water.  I don't have a rain barrel area established here yet as I need to put up some gutter on the shed close to the garden.  I have an idea, I just need to execute.  I look forward to some rain water for spot watering the garden here.

I used what little compost I had left last fall to create a rhubarb bed with bounds.  There was a ceramic "planter" already in place in the yard.  After digging down over two feet, I decided it wasn't getting removed.  I vaguely remember this being put in by my former manager and it involved heavy equipment.  One of my rhubarb varieties didn't make it through summer in the pot that I was growing my roots in.  I think a watering lapse or late planting was to blame.  I was scrambling about with my garlic bulbs last fall looking for a place to put them in before winter.  The rhubarb plot was the only area that I did not plan on disturbing the following year.  It was also the only area that I am not battling weeds.  I will get through the weed ordeal... The garlic has sprouted with hopes of another crop to come this year.
I will continue to plan and plant.  It is almost like learning how to garden all over again.  There is so much work to get done, but I can see all of it in my mind.  I can't wait to share it all with you.

Fitting in the spring tasks, a photo tour

My basement greenhouse is full with overflow to the kitchen window and south facing upstairs window.  I have many transplants to fit soon, so I have to come up with a plan for all the large pots occupying space here.

I have been cleaning out the gardens so I start with a clear base to start this spring.  This is my herb garden with several perennial herbs and reseeding herbs.  I added additional cilantro seed in a larger plot than normal for an early spring harvest.

My potted stock from my grafting class is coming along.  It has been super exciting to see that the grafts are taking and sprouting.  I am keeping my fingers crossed for great success.  I do have the small greenhouse set up this year.  It is a low tech design, but with my husband home during the day he can vent the front for me!

Tomatoes, peppers, and many flowers are close to getting true leaves which means I have lots of transplanting ahead.  I have cabbages and baby pak choi rooting for transplant into the garden.  I think I will have to toss them to the wolves in the outdoor greenhouse soon to make space.

Potted fruiting bushes are a direction I have started to move in last spring.  I have honey berries which have overwintered and are sprouting.  I will be able to take these with me if we have to make a move.  I can't say the same for the peach tree, apple, or kiwi.

I got small variety blueberries from Jung's this spring.  I potted them up to straight peat moss yesterday.  It is my plan to keep them as potted stock so they can go wherever I need them.

Two out of three raised beds are planted.  I have carrots germinating under the cloth (it helps to keep the bed moist) as well as lettuce seeds.  I also have several varieties of kale this year, half a bed of storing onions, a row of bunching onions and radishes.  Some radicchio overwintered, my new crop I am growing as a fall crop this year.  The garlic is also up 6 " already.  Peas were also put in last week but no sprouts as of this morning. 

If you don't like the weather, just wait a few minutes

To say we have been experiencing crazy weather in Wisconsin lately would not be overstating the facts.  Today alone it was cold and wind, cold and snow, cold and sun, cold and graupel  (yeah, look that one up), cold and snow...you get the picture.  This is coming on the heels of almost two weeks of off and on rain which has been pretty heavy at times.  The amazing thing is, we are just coming out of designations of drought and extremely dry...after all the rain.

I have been putting my onions out on the open but covered porch to start hardening them off.  I did have them out most of the day, but called my daughter and asked her to bring them in for the remainder of the afternoon.  They had suffered enough.  I don't think this weekend is going to be time to plant after all the rain we got.

Arbor Day is one week away.  We continue to plan our events in the hopes that the weather will give us a reprieve in time for the outdoor activities.  Monday, April 22nd is Earth Day.  Plan a simple activity that provides a meaningful contribution to the earth as well as your community.  Anyone can pick up trash and make the world just a little bit nicer.

What ever it is you plan for your own celebration, remember that if everyone cared just a little, the world can be a better place for all.

Tomato countdown, seeding day

My journal entries have been less than regular of late.  I have a dental procedure and bad weather to thank for my hiatus from gardening.  Milwaukee has seen nothing but rain day after day.  Rivers are over-flowing their banks and gardens are reduced to mud.  We have been soaking up a slow seepage of water in one corner of our home due to the saturated soil around us.  And, it has been cold.  40's are no temperature to garden in.

Today is T-day.  The day that tomatoes need to be seeded in hopes that the weekend following our Memorial Day the soil will be ready to have them take root.  I have some flowers to seed also.  I am doing a second round of hollyhocks this year in the hope that these biennials will provide me with blooms every year from alternate year crops.Asters, Statice, and Thithonia are also on my seeding calendar to be done 6 weeks before last frost.  Some seeds could be direct sown, but I want to have some plants to have a head start this year.

The onion crop is still in a seed tray.  I started hardening them off and then the cold came with the ceaseless rain.  I gave up and will trim them back, again, in hopes that next week will be warm enough to set them out during the day.  Maybe next weekend I will get them in the ground.

That is the thing about gardeners.  We always have hope for the future to be just a little bit better.  We look forward while learning from the past.  Sometimes plants die and plans go awry, but there is always tomorrow to start again.

Early seeds

I am not ready to order all my seeds...yet...but I have been looking at some to mail in soon.  Things you need to start early if you really want to do them yourself:

Onions:  I am convinced that the best onions come from seeds. We grow long day onions in Wisconsin, for growing during our long days of summer. Short day is for warmer zones, think winter there when days are shorter. Check the time to maturity, but I put my little onion seedlings out in April after starting them in February

Lisianthus:  This beautiful flower takes a long time to bloom and January is not too early to start it.  It is a very tiny seed, a very tiny seedling and doesn't seem to grow very fast.

Herbs:  If you want some indoor herbs, start them now for an indoor crop.  They will need supplemental light.

Greens:  At least start thinking about them.  If you have a cold frame set up in your garden, you may be putting some seedlings in there the end of February or March, depending on the temperatures.  I still don't have my cold frame, but I am thinking of how to utilize that nice, sunny spot on the south side this year, possibly some straw bales and a Lexan cover. TBA

Pansies and violas:  These are cool season crops and if you want to grow your own, you have to start early.

Look at the seed packs and the days to harvest.  Count back to when you want to harvest to when you need to start.  If it is over 100 days, you are probably looking at an early start.

A Whole Day of Rain

We got 1.5" of rain in the rain gauge during the last 24 hour period!  It was a nice slow rain that took to the dry ground.  It is (amazingly) still dry out there even with all that moisture.  I loved being woke up by a rain storm outside the window.

We had cloudy skies this morning which brought the sunshine in by mid-morning.  With it came wind.  I stopped at the lake front during lunch and watch the waves crash over the breakwater at South Shore Marina.  The air show is this weekend, so we had a little overhead entertainment as well.  There were a handful of people who chose this little spot to enjoy some water watching as well as enjoy the company of strangers.

I bagged up my onions tonight and hung them in the basement.  I weighed them and found that I have 30 pounds of onions! I thought I was being optimistic saving so many mesh bags, but I filled three large orange bags quite easily.  I will be able to share my bounty this year.  I sliced up one with eggplant and zucchini and fried the whole slices dipped in egg and flour on the griddle with butter.  The results were like having a lower fat, less batter onion disc.

Tomorrow, I will have to pick green beans and soy.  I had a handful of soy which I cooked up and put in a tomato salad for lunch.  Edamame is a nice addition to salads or just eating with a bit of salt.  (August 3, 2011) http://gardeninggwen.blogspot.com/2011/08/soybeans-aka-edamame.html I grew half of my soy beans from new seed and half from seed that I ripened on the plants and harvested dry last fall.  Both plots germinated and grew equally well, so I think that seed saving was successful with this crop.

My neighbor has shared his early tomatoes with me as well as enough to share with the other neighbors.  His garden is quite large even after shortening it 20' or so this past year.  He grew a row of beans the full length of the garden which is well over 40' long.  They have already canned and frozen all they will use.  I passed the word on to others and offered the suggestion to donate to Harvest for the Hungry as they were opting to rip out the plants to stop the harvest.  Several soup kitchens and food pantries are also nearby, so I think they have abandoned the thoughts of pulling the plants.  They also have several cherry type tomato plants which are producing heavily.  I took a bag to work and put them on the basket on the corner of my desk.  My coworkers did a good job of eating them all.

I am thankful for some cool weather as it is time to can some French beans this weekend.  I will eagerly share the results of that job.

Seeding the outdoor garden 4-12-12

After a fairly easy bike ride home, I had the energy to go out and look things over.  We also had our spruce stump ground today and my husband had me out raking away the chips.  With the work energy started, I knew I could get in the seeds before our anticipated rain tomorrow.  Since I had done all the bed prep this weekend, it would go pretty quickly.  
The funny thing about growing older is that you don't get everything done in the same amount of time as you did even a few years before.  I had managed to sift two large wheelbarrows of compost, weed and work the bed, and spread the compost.  

After all was said and done, I only got my garden peas and flowering sweet peas in the ground.  If they hadn't been soaking overnight and HAD to go in the ground that day, it probably wouldn't have happened.  The garden peas and beans fall victim to the chipmunks in my yard so after planting, I place some expanded metal over the top to keep them safe.  Once the plants are up a couple inches, I can easily lift the 1" mesh over and off the beds.  

I used some single ply twine to grid the bed.  I tied a knot in the end, stapled it to the edge, knotted the opposite and and stapled it down.  It really is good for distinguishing beds in the square foot gardening method.  You really get the most use out of the soil space.  
Kale had overwintered in one corner of the bed.  I have started a second variety of kale in the house which I will pop in next to these.  I also put in Swiss chard, parsnips, green bunching onions, radishes, lettuce, and beets.  I still have to transplant my onions, but I digress.  

I have some tools that I really like for seeding.  Plastic tags and a grease pencil are a must.  I do not rely on my memory and sometimes I put in more than one variety. The grease pencil scrubs off and the tags can be reused until they break.  I have a dibble (blue thingy), a seed dispenser (green thingy), and a seed shaker (red thingy).  The seed shaker was a pretty good purchase as I can use it for lots of different size seeds and the clicker vibrates the tray to move the seed out pretty evenly.  The hand cultivator is very useful for making furrows for larger seed or raking in smaller, shallow seeds.

For plants that "bulb" out like beets and radishes, I make furrows at least twice the depth that is recommended.  I add in the recommended amount over the seed and reserve the extra soil to the sides of the furrow.  As the plants grow, I push the soil up around the plants to encourage the plant to round out rather than get long and leggy.  This is not something I read, but something I learned through trial and error.  It may be our heavy, clay soil that makes the plants push up more than down, but I know it works for me and recommend it to others who don't get nice round radishes.
Radishes were not always on my "must plant" list.  I have acquired a taste for them over time.  French breakfast are my favorites, but Jung sent Purple Plum radish seeds as a freebie so I divided my space for trying both.  Early planting is a must.  They don't like heat and get woody fast when the summer temps go up.  The spring radishes are cool and crisp and don't seem to have the bite of late season radishes.  Give them a whirl if you haven't planted them.  They also come fast and are ready to eat in about a month (almost instant gratification in garden terms).

So after all was said and done, I had 10 different things planted in the vegetable beds. The garlic has been composted and the herb garden is giving me some fresh additions to my cooking (what says Spring better than chives?).  I still have to get the storing onions planted.  They have spent four nights outside in their pots and it has been in the low 30's so they are ready for whatever the weather has to throw at them.  I hope to post some pictures of the new seedlings soon.

Onions

I start my onion plants from seed in February under lights.  They are planted in flats or cell packs with multiple seeds per cell. Cut the plants back to 3" whenever they get up to 6" high. I harden them off starting in mid to late March by placing them outdoors for short periods on "warmer" days, slowly lengthening the time out until they are out day and night.You may find onion plants at your local garden center in the early part of the season for planting seed onions without starting them yourself.  I plant them in mid April on 3" centers in a grid pattern.  This makes it easy so when the onions reach this size you can remove every other one to use as green onions.  They are just small seedlings about 1/8" in diameter but extremely hardy.  I got a little snow and hail on my seedlings this year.  I do use a light weight row cover to protect them a little while they are setting root.  You can also use onion sets to start a crop in April.  push them into loosened soil with just the very tip sticking out.  The top is the pointed end of the onion set.  If you want to harvest some as green onions you need to dig them in 3-4" into the soil.  It is important to keep track of which sets are which as the deeper planted ones will not bulb out as well as the shallow ones, and the shallow ones will not have that nice white bulb and blanched stem as the deep ones will for green onions.  The picture above is from mid June when I thinned out the onions to leave them with a 6" spacing for the rest of the summer.  You can see that I pulled every other plant out and staggered the rows.  They are starting to bulb out at this point and not really wonderful for green onions anymore.  I have about 100 bulbs still left in the ground in this picture so you can see it doesn't take a lot of space to grow them.  Keep them weeded and watered. Onions need consistent moisture but do not like to have wet feet for long periods.  The bulbs will rot if in this condition.

 Onion plants in mid August (above) have about 50% of the tops have fallen over on their own.  At this point you should push the rest of the tops over (see below) and let them continue to die back until the tops are all brown.  At this point you will "lift" the onions out of the soil, remove most of the top by cutting it off and most of the roots the same way.  Just do not damage the onion bulb when doing this.

Onions need to cure so they store well.  Set your onions out in a single layer, planting trays work well for this, on sunny days.  Bring them in at night to a sheltered area to keep them from getting wet or dewy.  The idea is to dry them and moisture will set back this process and cause a shortened shelf life.  If done right, you can be eating your own home grown onions well into spring.

The type of onion does matter.  Short day onions are for winter season in southern areas or other parts of the world with mild winters.  Long day onions are for our Midwestern summers.  Red and white onions tend to not store as long as yellow onions (such as Sweet Spanish or Walla Walla) but are nice to use fresh and for some cold storage period into winter.  Do not store onions and apples in the same area unless you like your apples to have an onion flavor.  Yellow onions store quite well in a basement where it is cool and dark to help prevent premature sprouting.  Once they start sprouting, it is best to cut them up and freeze them for use as the middles of the onions are lost if left to sprout.  I just hang mine from a nail in the basement in a mesh bag.

If you like to use green onions in your cooking, you can start bunching onions from seed directly in the garden.  Early spring works for this.  I was a little late getting mine in the soil in June so I will have a later fall crop rather than a summer crop.

The onions pictured here look bigger than they are as they are just about 1/4" now or less.  I will not worry about thinning these but will pull the larger ones as I want to use them.  If I end up with onions more than I can use fresh,  I can wash and slice them into smaller pieces and dehydrate them.  They work great in cooking and retain a nice green color for the dishes I use them in.
Onions are a fairly carefree crop.  Keep them weeded and water during dry periods.  There are some insect and disease problems but they are minimal. Try different varieties and see what your favorites are.