Garden
Mother’s Day Bottling Party
On May 13, we invited friends over for a bottling party. This is a wine, made from a mix of the 2010 and 2011 harvest. We are learning more about making wine. We used pectic enzyme to eliminate pectic haze. We added tannin to try to get that pucker. It still is a fairly … Continue reading
Growing tomatoes
I should just give up. For years I try to grow tomatoes from seed with varying degrees of success. In recent years, I have had more failures than successes. But this was the year it was all going to turn around. I started my seeds in February, earlier than ever, so they would have plenty … Continue reading
Sleepy Winter Garden
I haven’t posted anything about the garden in a while. We’re having winter weather, and while the kale was able to withstand fairly cold temperatures, it is finally wilted. The cardoon is also wilted, but it is spreading, so I am sure we’ll see cardoon again in the spring.. We finally got back to doing … Continue reading
Uh-Oh!
I thought we were going to have a wonderful grape harvest this year, but I am a bit worried now. During the past week I noticed something happening to the grapes. This was probably going on earlier but I was in a state of denial. I am seeing brown spots appearing on the grapes. These … Continue reading
Freezing beans and a new invention
It is a very hot and humid week, so it seems appropriate to freeze some produce today. This morning, under a hazy sky, before the sun started shining full blast, I went out to the garden to pick beans. I got distracted by weeds. I know that I told you I have a no-weed garden … Continue reading
Diversity, Monoculture, and Greediness
I was looking at some of my past gardening photos and I ran across these pictures from the 2009 garden. You can also tell from the 2009 garden layout that I had planted a lot of different things. The rows were short, but there were many rows. What struck me about these photographs, was the … Continue reading
What is that in your garden?
By far the most awesome looking plant in the garden is the cardoon. Standing tall and full, and dwarfing all the other plants, it makes a pretty impressive sight. It is the plant that catches the most attention and gets the most questions. So what is cardoon? Apparently, cardoon is not grown much in this … Continue reading
Miscellaneous Musings
This was supposed to be Miscellaneous Monday Musings, but, it is now Tuesday, so we just have Miscellaneous Musings. Trumpet vine is beautiful … But it is insidious – sneaking about underground and cropping up everywhere. I’m not sure the edamame beans are going to survive the persistent grazing. I’m pretty sure that the peas … Continue reading
Raspberries!
When I was little, I would get a treat every summer. Once, every summer, my mum would buy me a half-pint of fresh raspberries and I would eat the entire half-pint in one sitting. Back then, raspberries were only available in season, and then, as now, they were very expensive. So I would get just … Continue reading