I'm writing as an organic gardener for The Examiner.com. Please wander over and take a peek at what we have going on in the garden.
http://www.examiner.com/organic-gardening-in-vancouver/deanna-tworivers
Oh, by the way...it's raining. Welcome spring! Waiting for a delivery of heirloom tomatoes today, stevia and basil tomorrow and filbert bushes by Thursday! Going to plant watermelons in our greenhouse. Photos by the weekend!
What are you doing in your garden this week?
Thank you for your support! Keep gardening!
Showing posts with label garden cooking planting. Show all posts
Showing posts with label garden cooking planting. Show all posts
Monday, April 4, 2011
Sunday, March 20, 2011
Welcome spring!
Happy Spring Equinox! The days are appreciably longer. The nights a bit warmer. Crocus, forsythia and daffodils are in bloom.
Last week was the beginning of daylight saving time and we "sprang forward". A freak windstorm toppled our small green house prompting the setting out of lettuce starts.
This week scallots, red onions and spinach were planted. The lettuce is so promising. Soon we will have the first baby greens in our salads.
Our urban orchard of mini trees will begin this week when the Carmine Jewel dwarf cherry tree arrives. As we are renters our orchard of mini-dwarf trees will be planted in large pots located toward the north part of the front yard. Soon the cherry will be joined by two mini-dwarf apple trees, a Beni-Shogun Fuji and Greensleeves. We choose them because of compatible bloom time, height and flavor. We also have four blueberry plants, a stand of raspberries and will have a new strawberry bed.
Another passion of ours is Slow Food. We eat seasonally - mostly from our garden and are great fans of our canning jars and two crock pots (different sizes) which are in use at least once a week and of sourdough bread. We began making all our baked goods with spelt flour and sourdough last September. The results have been good with pancakes, waffles, bread, crackers and chocolate cake. This week we began working with a slow process sourdough. Takes patience and a bit of planning allowing the bread to rise over a period of 36 hours or more. This first try we lasted the 36 hours resulting in a dense, tasty, very sour loaf with very good crumb. The next batch I will try to wait 48 hours but it is so tempting! Spread with cheese, sweet butter or our homemade peach jam the small slices are a treat. http://nourishedmagazine.com.au/blog/articles/slow-ferment-sourdough-bread
Today, planting chives, nasturtiums and marigold seeds around the blueberries. These flowering herbs take care of bad bugs and invite pollinators into our garden/orchard. The same plants will go into the pots with the fruit trees.
Happy spring! The world is renewed and so are we.
Last week was the beginning of daylight saving time and we "sprang forward". A freak windstorm toppled our small green house prompting the setting out of lettuce starts.
This week scallots, red onions and spinach were planted. The lettuce is so promising. Soon we will have the first baby greens in our salads.
Our urban orchard of mini trees will begin this week when the Carmine Jewel dwarf cherry tree arrives. As we are renters our orchard of mini-dwarf trees will be planted in large pots located toward the north part of the front yard. Soon the cherry will be joined by two mini-dwarf apple trees, a Beni-Shogun Fuji and Greensleeves. We choose them because of compatible bloom time, height and flavor. We also have four blueberry plants, a stand of raspberries and will have a new strawberry bed.
Another passion of ours is Slow Food. We eat seasonally - mostly from our garden and are great fans of our canning jars and two crock pots (different sizes) which are in use at least once a week and of sourdough bread. We began making all our baked goods with spelt flour and sourdough last September. The results have been good with pancakes, waffles, bread, crackers and chocolate cake. This week we began working with a slow process sourdough. Takes patience and a bit of planning allowing the bread to rise over a period of 36 hours or more. This first try we lasted the 36 hours resulting in a dense, tasty, very sour loaf with very good crumb. The next batch I will try to wait 48 hours but it is so tempting! Spread with cheese, sweet butter or our homemade peach jam the small slices are a treat. http://nourishedmagazine.com.au/blog/articles/slow-ferment-sourdough-bread
Happy spring! The world is renewed and so are we.
Monday, March 14, 2011
Spring weather
We had a "mini" tornado leaping through our neighborhood yesterday.You could see where it touched down- pockets of destruction and where nothing happened. Unfortunately one of the touch downs happened in my garden. Our small green house, weighted down with about 70 lbs of pots, plants and a bag of steer manure was yanked around and dumped on its face. Lost the flat of lettuce seedlings but other plants appear to be salvageable. This has given us a heads up on placement of the bigger green house. It's going to be anchored to the back fence!
Two crockpots on the counter this morning. One with homegrown, home canned spaghetti sauce and one with homemade baked beans. It's going to smell really good in here by evening. Have to mix up some sour dough bread, write and article and get busy. Reflexology clients this morning and music (me) and photography students (Eric) this afternoon.
Two crockpots on the counter this morning. One with homegrown, home canned spaghetti sauce and one with homemade baked beans. It's going to smell really good in here by evening. Have to mix up some sour dough bread, write and article and get busy. Reflexology clients this morning and music (me) and photography students (Eric) this afternoon.
Saturday, May 15, 2010
The Garden...
provided the basis for last night's dinner. Harvested huge amounts of lovely Red Sails lettuce. Made our favorite salad with grape tomatoes (not ours quite yet), raisins, dried cranberries, and teriyaki grilled chicken. Really good!
We carefully harvested the lettuce leave so the plants are still viable and have reseeded around in the bed with a mixture of Black Seeded Simpson, Red Sails, and Butter Crunch lettuces for variety.
Three more beds to prep. Tomatoes, peppers, white and culinary sage, lavender and white swan echinecea to move outside. Potatoes go into the pots today. We will plant more spinach, yellow onions (first planting is up!), cucumbers, carrots in pots (our soil is very rocky-so much so that I'm using the rocks from the beds to make borders and a path!). Oregano and lavender to harvest and dry for winter.
Raspberries, strawberries and blueberries are blooming. First year for all three so may not get more than a snack.
This is a great book! I have the stained and tattered original.
We carefully harvested the lettuce leave so the plants are still viable and have reseeded around in the bed with a mixture of Black Seeded Simpson, Red Sails, and Butter Crunch lettuces for variety.
Three more beds to prep. Tomatoes, peppers, white and culinary sage, lavender and white swan echinecea to move outside. Potatoes go into the pots today. We will plant more spinach, yellow onions (first planting is up!), cucumbers, carrots in pots (our soil is very rocky-so much so that I'm using the rocks from the beds to make borders and a path!). Oregano and lavender to harvest and dry for winter.
Raspberries, strawberries and blueberries are blooming. First year for all three so may not get more than a snack.
This is a great book! I have the stained and tattered original.
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