The Lettuce is Still Going

We have had several night in the mid-20s but the lettuce is still surviving.  

It is not growing anymore so I am cutting entire plants.

Sunday we had our last round with the oak leaves.  The ones in the lawn will blow away by spring but the ones caught up in the garden fence refuse to move along and must be forcibly removed

And we're clean as a whistle again

The Last Nice Morning?

This morning was sunny and warm 56 degrees F and knowing that by this evening it may be snowing, I asked the cat if she would like to go out and check the garden with me.  I had a few winterizing chores left to do.

Of course she did.  All she really does is go and sit for a few minutes facing each direction, to make sure the borders are secure, then she demands a treat from the garden shed and heads back to the house.

My lettuce has been doing well under it's frost cover.  We've had a dozen frosty mornings, but nothing approaching the limit of 26 degrees that the frost cover is rated for.  That is about to change.  The weather is supposed to turn today, rain by noon, snow in the evening, and then be rotten until Tuesday finishing up with a night forecast at 22 degrees which will put an end to gardening.

For those of you not familiar with "Lake Effect" snow, let me show you the "Snowvember" storm which hit Buffalo on Nov 18th, 2014.  Cold arctic air passes over warm Lake Erie, picks up a huge amount of moisture, and then immediately dumps it as snow over the cooler land mass.  You can have several feet of snow on one side of the street, and nothing on the other side.

This monster dumped up to five feet of snow over the course of two days.  Now we are lucky enough to live about 20 miles east of the "snow belt" so we may not get the 12 inches predicted tonight into tomorrow, but then again....

It may be days before it will be pleasant enough to go out to the garden again, and in the mean time, the lettuce will have to try to survive a killing frost.  So I've done my best to prepare it.

I picked a week's worth of lettuce taking the whole plants along the vulnerable edges, removed all the dead or damaged leaves, and watered it well.

Then I tucked it under a second layer of frost covering and wished it luck.  Everything I am over-wintering went into the cold frame along with full watering cans to keep things watered until the soil freezes solid..  There are vinca vine, mums, spearmint and cat nip along with some potted tulip bulbs and a tri-colored sweet potato vine.  The frost will kill the foliage by spring, but the roots will be fine.  All my large spike plants are in my office where my boss believes they are multiplying daily.  They may even be too big by spring!

Within the hour the bright sunrise was being over taken by black rain clouds from the west.  The wind is picking up and I've retreated to the house.  And that may be my last nice, warm gardening morning until spring.

UPDATE:  12:00pm

Adventures in Antiquing

One year ago we had our Chimney Cupboard adventure and we are at it again (and yes we saw our first snowfall - again).  My kitchen collection has grown and I have more than 85 pieces of enamelware.  I've run out of places to display or store them and they are literally accumulating in drifts on shelves and in corners.  Tim has been wanting a double cupboard to go with my Hoosier and two chimney cupboards and he finally found what he was looking for.  

I had been casually watching Ebay for a double cupboard and there was a seller that was selling two double cupboards and a single chimney cupboard on separate listings.  They were in our state but well out of our territory.  Towards the end of the long listing, Tim called the guy up and offered him a bundled price for the whole set.  They had been listed for months and he had a lot of interest, but large items like that are really hard to ship and there was a lot of talk but no action.  Even for us they were a long day's drive on the other end of New York state (and back) but it was worth an antiquing adventure and anything can be done if you put your mind to it.

Things just fell into place too easily.  As luck would have it, the seller had a brother living in Rochester so he was willing to come more than half way and meet us for the exchange.  We have had several adventures like this, meeting sellers in WalMart parking lots (this time it was Lowes) and loading very heavy and cumbersome items into the truck.  Today we traveled up the stunningly beautiful Genesee River Valley leaf peeping and antiquing.  We hit a couple of stores, met up with our seller and had a pleasant lunch talking about collecting junk.

The three cabinets just fit (tightly) into the truck bed and were strapped down where they rode happily with nary a quiver or a flutter.  These cabinets are so light weight that if you can get a hold of one, a single person can easily move it around.

A portion of the enamelware over flow

We knew they were in good condition but the original plan was to paint them to match the other green cabinets.  When we got them home and unwrapped we realized that painting these would not necessarily be a crime against antiques, but certainly a colossal. waste. of. time.

They are not in pristine condition, but the cracks and chips are minor for 80+ year old cupboards and the Ivory color is very complimentary to the collection.  No need to be all matchy matchy.

These cabinets were made by the I-XL Furniture Company in Goshen Indiana sometime in the 1920s and sold by the Montgomery Ward catalog.  The original Montgomery Ward tags with the shipping address is still stuck securely to the back of each cabinet.

Last year's cabinet before and after

And you remember the kind of clean up we are used to dealing with.

Of course there is absolutely no room on the main floor of our tiny house for another stick of furniture.  Until we get the new garage built and my hobby room ready (and the collection out of the dining room, off the porch and up from the basement), these cabinets will have to live down in the basement and make themselves useful.  Now I can store all my collecting overflow neatly inside and free up a whole bunch of shelves for other stuff.  Like canning jars.

Milquetoast Boys

My grandmother told me her mother always warned her "beware those milquetoast boys". My husband makes poached eggs in milk and then serves me the eggs over toast and himself the leftover milk over a stack of toast. It was several years before it dawned on me that I had gone and married myself a "milk toast boy".  

But its a nice warm breakfast for a cool autumn day when the best thing to do is to stay inside and cook something.  I have a spicy scented candle burning and I'm sipping apple cider while I give the house a good deep cleaning right to the walls in preparation for holiday decorating.  Once I mark that off my list I am free to putter along with my creative projects as the mood strikes me knowing I can put them in place without discovering a layer of crud on a shelf.

Autumn is in full swing here.  We are enjoying a few days of steady moderate rain which we have not had in months.  We've had over cast days and the occasional deluge, but no quiet rainy days to rest inside the house.  We have been at peak color with absolutely beautiful clear days but the rain is finally bringing the leaves down in droves.  

Every 5 days or so we do a leaf cleanup which involves blowing leaves with the big gas powered leaf blower, and then mulching them into the lawn with the lawn mower.  We blow them out of corners, and out from under shrubs and out of the ground cover (as best we can) so that in the spring when we mulch all the landscape beds we don't have bushels of sodden, moldy leaves to deal with.   It takes one person four hours, or two people less than two hours.

And the next day it looks like this.

But I have to admit it is a little bit fun.  Except for the garden because you have to blow them out of the gate, and the gate is not on a corner.  Tim has even considered adding a leaf exit door to a corner panel for just this purpose.  Alternatively, you can blow all the leaves in a corner and then change to the leave sucker/chopper and vacuum them all up and make chopped leaf mulch out of them.  If you coordinate your efforts between the blower and the mower, you can move a lot of leaves in a big hurry.

Chopped leaf mulch is a wonderful thing to put onto your beds in the fall. Just remember to follow up with a light layer of compost so your leaves don't blow away.  In the spring, they leaves will be almost completely broken down and you will find scores of plump, happy earthworms in your garden.

Daffodil Day

Today I planted 150 bulbs in about 40 holes.  With fertilizer.

We did 120 of Breck's early to mid-season mix  and 30 of the late mix.  The bulbs were big and beautiful this year and there were a lot of them!  I sorted them out on the kitchen counter and it looked like a big job.  Two hours later when I still had bulbs in my pail, I knew I was right.  It WAS a big job,

Each hole got three to five bulbs and there were a few singles tucked here and there.  You know we have a neighbor who is an engineer - once he was planting a whole bed full of tulip bulbs and he asked me:  "how do you keep track of where you planted the last bulb?"  Well, there are two approaches to that problem.  Either you can set out all your bulbs where you want them and then dig a hole under each one or:  duhn duhn duhhhnnn.... wait to cover them up............  

.......Duh? 

Before I went out I browsed through a couple years of spring photos familiarizing myself with  the location of bulbs already planted, which areas needed a better balance of color, and which areas only had early of late color.

And while I was perusing the photos I kept noticing photos of...

Beautiful fluffy mulch and sharp edges!

Planting beds full of Spring promise.

Color!

Fresh veggies.

Today was a beautiful day but everything is looking like old age.  Mulch is thread bare and dried out.  Dried leaves are strewn everywhere.  What foliage is left uncut is a little brown and frost burnt.  It would be wonderful to be in March with a whole planting season ahead.

I have finished all my fall potting.  My office window is full of huge, hip high spikes from the combination pots.  The cold frame is full of vinca vine.  We have such a bad deer problem here that the only way to enjoy tulips is to pot them in containers and keep them out of harms way.  Last year I planted them in big planters in the vegetable garden but I wasn't ready to commit to that again this year so I potted up a tray full of gallon pots which are in the garden now but will be taken in either to the chicken coop or the cold frame to keep them from freezing too solid,

Ungardening

Summer is over and the time has come.  

Last weekend we pulled and cut and put away and buttoned up.

Now comes a lot of leaf blowing,

There were plenty of green tomatoes

and jalapenos for stuffing and chopping

I still have a batch of bush beans going strong.

Bush beans will keep going until frost takes them out.

This morning I cut a week's worth of lettuce before the rain came.

This summer I bought this lettuce keeper which I really like. 

It's nice to have a dedicated container that has a set place in the fridge so

I don't have to free up the right container or use plastic bags.

And this is what is left to grow on.

The romaine in particular is big and beautiful.

Here are the last of the zucchini.  There is one plant left and it

is no longer putting out male flowers so this is it.

The strawberries rebounded from their severe hair cut.

I am almost half way through unplanting my combination pots saving the spikes and vines for next year.  These are going in the warm south facing window wall at my office and the vinca vines do fine in the cold frame.

We are enjoying the fall mums.  We have a pair of these at the doorway and I like the tri-color so well I'm going to try to winter them over for next year.  They are hardy so they should be OK in the cold frame too. 

And for next weekend's project - a hundred and fifty daffodil bulbs to plant.

THINK SPRING!

Cutting Back

Recently I've read several gardening blogs where the gardener is just gardened out.  It happens to all of us.  It usually happens to me in August but I don't start to complain about it until September.  I always look forward to autumn.  Spring is my favorite season because everything is fresh and growing but by Labor Day I am always wondering - "What was I thinking?"  Then I begin to count the days we have left until I can pull it all out or cut it back.

This year I took the easy route.  I cut back.  My husband doesn't see that I've cut back but I feel it.  In fact I sort of feel lazy not growing all of my stored food when I know that I can.  To make me feel better let's make a list of everything I can grow that I chose not to grow this year.  What I felt most was the spring gardening - peas, carrots, onions etc because skipping them meant my gardening started in May not March.

Garlic - When you grow garlic you start your garden a whole winter before.  That's really dragging it out.  I admit I love to see the green shoots come up first thing in March.  Then there's nothing to do but watch them.  They're very low maintenance.  And when you're done you get to make a neat braid.

Onions - I've grown a lot of onions of all colors over the years but I just don't use that many.  So I end up having to make the effort to store them properly and then end up composting half of them.  I like to buy the Long Day Sampler from Dixondale Farms.  The plants come in little bundles when your planting season arrives and you get to spend an hour on a sunny spring day poking holes in the soil with a pencil which is just the right size for the little guys.

Peas (like onions) get you out early in the spring.  They are also labor intensive with all the picking and shelling.  At first I really enjoy some leisurely pea shelling.  They are one of the best garden snacks to munch on when you're out working.  But then about the middle of your late planting harvest you walk by the pea patch and realize "crap there are more peas that need picking".  I consciously enjoyed not having to do that this year.  Luckily I froze enough to last two years.  Maybe I should buy a pea sheller?  I'll have to put that on my wish list.  Heaven knows I love my apple peeler.  Sometimes gadgets actually work.  I wonder if anyone is working on a garden sized pea picker.

Carrots -  I love pulling baby carrots.  I hate pulling, scrubbing, storing and using big ole ugly carrots that have to be pried out of the ground with a fork and I tire of baby carrots before they all get away from me and turn into big ole ugly carrots.  My favorite carrots are the finger sized new carrots with their stems trimmed to show just a splash of bright green on your plate, steamed and sprinkled with some brown sugar.  My least favorite carrots are the ones hanging out in the hydrator demanding to be chopped up and put into soup.  I hate demanding vegetables.

Radishes - I like them because they remind me of Easter Eggs. I love to grow a selection of colors. But I never ate them.  The only purpose they served was giving me early, colorful, gardening satisfaction.  Plus you can mix them in with your carrot seeds and when you are pulling radishes you are also thinning carrots.  Therefore I suppose that radishes add structure discipline to a spring garden.

Black Beans - Talk about labor intensive.  Plant them, pick them, shell them, dry them, soak them, cook them.  Sure, it's fun to cook up a batch of black bean soup with all your own beans, onions, garlic and peppers, but how often do I actually do that? Twice a year?  I wonder if the pea sheller would work on them too.

Sweet Potatoes on the left Norland Red potatoes on the right.

Sweet Potatoes - I've grown these for awhile with moderate results.  By far the best year I had was when I grew them in containers.  But most of them were quite small and a hassle to cut up. Turns out you can buy better frozen sweet potato fries than I can ever make from scratch anyway.

Silver Queen sweet corn 2007

Sweet Corn - The guy down at the farm stand does an excellent job and I get to choose which days I eat corn instead of the corn choosing for me.  I do miss not having dried corn stalks to decorate with in the fall.  And I miss the super sweet Gotta Have It variety.   I promise you there is no sweeter sweet corn. It can be fussy to grow because it needs really warm soil to germinate so you may or may not get the corn harvest of your dreams.  

Pumpkins -Now pumpkins are fun.  But they take up too much space.  And no matter how much space you have allotted them they will jump the fence.  They cannot be contained.  That must be why they were called Connecticut Field Pumpkins.  And I don't have a field.  I remember the day Tim came in and asked "why have you diapered the pumpkins?" That's not a diaper folks, that's a hammock.  Lazy pumpkins.

Acorn Squash - a pain to store. Butternut Squash - ditto

Artichokes - a lot of work for something I'd rather look at than eat

Broccoli - Worms.  Need I say more?

.

Cabbage - I don't actually remember growing cabbage.
But there it is.  I wonder what I did with it?

Okra - I would grow Okra just for its ornamental value.  However, it only blooms while I'm at work so this year I finally gave up.  Okra is a hot weather, long season crop, but I've had excellent results with Baby Bubba.  This variety is compact enough to grow in containers so you could start it early.

Chard - I ended up just looking at this too

Parsnips - Now that's not a very pretty picture of Parsnips, but that's what I think of when I think Parsnips. Cold - Mud.   By the time these are ready to eat, I'm totally over the whole garden thing.  Ditto Brussels Sprouts

These Scarlet Runner Beans looked like a living Christmas Tree complete with decorations

Pole beans - too tough and stringy - although easier to pick than the bush kind.  One year I planted both purple and yellow pole beans thinking they would be the ultimate in easy picking - shoulder height and visible against the green.  And they were, but they were nowhere near as good eatin' as my favorite bush varieties.  I usually grow the Purple Queen "bush variety" which climbs about 3-4 feet.  Maybe I'll try them on poles.  Short ones.

Of course, this year I still grew too many tomatoes because - well.... that's just what I do.  What I did not do with tomatoes this year:  canning, tomato sauce, Bloody Mary Mix.  Yep, I've been lazy.  Do I feel guilty about buying my black beans in a can?  A little.  How about the fake baby carrots or the worm free broccoli?  Not a bit.  Pumpkins?  I miss growing pumpkins particularly when I'm at the farm stand trying to choose one or two.  It's worse than choosing a Christmas tree.  When you grow your own you love each of them despite their faults.

One thing I kept noticing as I went back through the years of pictures is Bell Peppers.  Peppers everywhere.  Green ones, red ones, golden ones on beautiful compact plants.  What the hell happened?  Where did I go wrong?  This pepper thing is bothering me.  I want nice peppers.

A perfect, pristine garden path in the days before the raised beds.

Another thing that struck me as I was paging through years of garden photos:  I've had some really nice gardens.  I thought 2015 was the perfect spring and that my garden had never looked better, but 2007 and 2010 were looking pretty good too.  I wonder how many pounds of weeds I've pulled over the years?

I'm down to two tomatoes in the house and half a dozen on the vine.  My Pike County yellow tomato plant recently put out a whole second crop of new tomatoes which are just now ripening.  Just for that it has earned itself a place in next year's list.  Everyone else is done.  Even the Sungold.   There are only half a dozen cherry tomatoes each day not quarts.  But that's a relief because for the past month I've been struggling under an avalanche of tomatoes.  And somewhere in the middle of that I realized that I'd honestly be just as happy with a bacon only sandwich for the most part.  See, this is the sort of crazy talk you get when you eat too many tomatoes.

After this little stroll down memory lane I feel a bit more like a productive gardener.  Just think of the pounds of produce I've dealt with over the years,   It was interesting seeing how I had laid things out and remembering varieties I don't grow anymore.  I had sort of forgotten that there were years when odd things like Collards and Fennel kept me busy experimenting.  I am glad I didn't feel I had to can anything (I did 2 quarts of refrigerator pickles).  I have just enough potatoes to get us through the winter.  I don't have storage issues in the cellar or the freezer.  Life is simple.