Amid much sad news recently, I am reminded that there is still light, there is still beauty, there is still hope, there is still love.
Going to Burning Man
On our way to Burning Man, Brigid Truck died and St. Christopher Car came into our lives.
Here is the story of this part of the adventure.
Categories: Miscellaneous
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I wanted a house so that I could have a washer and dryer
When we bought our first house, I used to quip that I wanted a house so that I could have my own washer and dryer.
When we bought our second house, one big selling feature was this …
… a clothes line in the backyard. I was elated. Not only that, there were clothes lines down in the basement as well.
I extended the clothes line – so now I have an extra line running to the house.
Life is good!
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 spots are on all the grapes – all the vines – regardless of variety. They are circular or blotchy and hard. They are on grapes located close to the ground and higher up.
So I’m wondering if this is Black Rot. Pretty sad – I thought this was going to be a great year for grapes.
Links:
http://www.nysipm.cornell.edu/factsheets/grapes/diseases/grape_br.pdf
Categories: Garden
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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 and, truly, there is very little in the way of weeds, but there is the occasional grass that creeps in. I went along the row of beans, picking beans and pulling weeds.
Then I contemplated my potato rows with all those volunteer tomatoes in between and I decided to pull out the tomatoes. I kept a few plants to see what sort of weird variety I was going to get, but all the rest went into the compost pile.
This afternoon, I worked on the beans.
I’ve frozen beans before, so I knew the process: trim ends, and cut into pieces, blanche for 3 minutes, dump into ice water, dry, put into freezer bags. What was new this year was my blanching equipment. Previously, I just dumped the beans into boiling water, boiled for the allocated time, and then scooped up the beans with a strainer, strewing water all over the floor as I carried the strainer from stove to sink. It was almost like a game: how many beans can I scoop up with one sweep of the strainer? Meanwhile, the poor beans left behind got more and more cooked. I’ve heard that there are these things called blanching baskets, but I do not want yet another piece of equipment.
So I devised my own blanching basket. A colander, some jute, a rope, and, voila, a blanching basket!
I’m happy to say that it worked very well. I froze 5 quarts of beans. There are still flowers on the plants – so I’m sure more beans will be arriving soon. Meanwhile, I saved my pieces of jute and my rope and I will be ready for the next batch.
Categories: Garden, Lifestyle, Sustainability
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Triathlon 2011
Today was a glorious day following a cool night. It was a perfect day to do my second annual self designed triathlon. This is not a timed event. I just do it for the fun of it.
Staging Area: Home.
Warm Up: Walk to Millrace Trail (0.8 mile)
Stage 1: The run (more accurately – “the jog”) – 3.25 miles. I ran south from the Douglas Bridge, to Shoup-Parsons woods, around the little trail in Shoup-Parsons woods, and then back to the Douglas Bridge.
Cool Down: Walk back to staging area (0.8 mile). There was a wee little sprint of about a block when I heard the train whistle but the train was closer than expected.
Transition: Bicycle to Shanklin Park (0.8 mile)
Stage 2: The swim – 1500 meters.
Transition Bicycle back to staging area (0.8 mile).
Stage 3: The bicycle ride – 15.5 miles. From the staging area, I rode to the Pumpkinvine trail, along the trail to the end at CR 33, back to the trailhead, then took the little spur to downtown and Linway Plaza Cinema to buy some very important tickets to a very special midnight showing of a final movie in a series, then rode back down the Millrace trail to Madison, and then back to the staging area along city streets.
Celebration: Beer, nachos, and ice-cream (a late lunch) – and a movie tonight.
Monday Musing
Categories: Miscellaneous
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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 diversity of produce that I was harvesting at the time. I had lettuce, chard, carrots, green beans, radishes, turnips: everything I would need to make a nice salad, or an interesting stir fry. I didn’t have lots of any one item, but I had a little bit of a several vegetables.
In 2010, I had longer rows, and less diversity – not quite a monoculture, but certainly less diversity.
I remember when I first planted potatoes, back in 1999 – and how happy I was when I harvested just one big bowl of potatoes. But, as time went on, it was not enough. I wanted more potatoes. I was disappointed a couple of years ago by the number of potatoes I harvested. So that is why, in 2010, I planted three long rows of potatoes. And certainly, having a lot of potatoes did serve us well. We had potatoes well into April. But three rows of potatoes meant less of something else.
Last year I started tomatoes from seed but when I planted them out the weather turned hot and dry for about a week and my poor little seedlings wilted. So off I went to buy some tomato plants and I became rather greedy. I bought a lot of different varieties. I had something like 30 tomato plants. That fall, we canned a lot of tomatoes.
That means I still have tomatoes canned from last year . I like have a full pantry. But I also like a diverse pantry. It doesn’t take many cucumber plants to get overrun by cucumbers and, consequently, by pickles. So I really don’t need to plant a lot of cucumber plants. Perhaps I still need to plant just as many potatoes as I did last year to last through the winter. But I know I could also get by with planting less tomatoes and still have enough to can to last me over the winter. I also know I don’t have to plant as many edamame beans – since I still have 10 quart bags frozen from last year. What I need to do is figure out how much is enough and how much is too much. If I operate from an attitude of abundance and not from an attitude of want, then perhaps I will have an abundant garden, full of many different good things to eat.
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 country, but it is more common in Europe, especially Italy and France. We purchased it as a wee little plant from Prairie Trail Farm. Little did we know that it would come back year after year. This is its third year in the garden. It either survives the winter or reseeds itself.
Cardoon is related to the artichoke and you can see some resemblance in the emerging flower.
The flowers look like some kind of giant thistle.
The recipes that we’ve found for cardoon call for cooking, not the flower, but the stalk. The stalks are tough and covered with spiny things. So they have to be peeled and boiled for a long time otherwise the taste is rather bitter. The texture of the cooked stalks is somewhat like celery and the flavor is a bit like artichoke.
Cardoon likes cool weather and our summers can get pretty hot. So sometime in July it starts looking rather withered. But until then, we enjoy looking at this most impressive plant.
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 are not.
- Whoever likes edamame beans does not like provider green beans…
- nor the three varieties of dry beans (cranberry red, jacob’s cattle, king of the early bean).
- The tomatoes are doing well; both the ones we planted …
- and the volunteers that are snuggling up to the potatoes.
- And speaking of potatoes …
- A sunflower wants to shade the lettuce.
- Finally, our garden showcase piece is about to flower. I give you the glorious cardoon!
