Apple Blossoms at 7:43 am
Tag: gardening
Garbage Can Potatoes
Using vague instructions from The New Self-Sufficient Gardener by John Seymour (see page 134), two old garbage bins [well-scrubbed] and seed potatoes from Westcoast Seeds we attempted to grow our own baked potatoes this year.
We were cautioned, via instructions that came with the seed potatoes, to limit irrigation BEFORE we had growth, and I think that ultimately made us overly cautious with watering at all [to the point that we covered the seed potatoes when it rained]. So while we had lots of greenery and we built the soil up every six inches until the plants were about eight inches over the top of the bins, this was our entire haul out of one garbage bin:
The book had prepared [and excited] us for a potentially “heavy crop”. Now, true enough, we had an odd season here – a cold/wet spring followed suddenly by a hot/dry summer, so perhaps that was the limiting factor. We also weren’t too pleased with the new soil we brought in and will probably be investing in more sea soil next year, but, seeing as potatoes can grow in straw, I believe, ultimately, we didn’t water enough early on and then it was too late to reverse the lack of tuber growth.
Mind you, these potatoes tossed in a little olive oil and sea salt, roasted for 30 minutes in a 425°F oven and served with generous application of butter and sour cream were DELICIOUS!
We will be planting more garbage cans next year!
Sunflowers…
This is my very first time attempting to grow sunflowers. I wanted to collect the seeds so I planted two edible types.
Last week, just as the tallest of the bunch was almost ready to bloom, some critter (who I hazard to guess is black, furry with a long tail and has a propensity for climbing and stealing strawberries) who I cannot firmly identify — as I did not see the actual incident– RIPPED the entire head off the sunflower and shredded it all over the back yard. I was inconsolable… the seeds wouldn’t have even been really formed at that point!
Anyway, the second tallest sunflower actually made it to blooming without being decapitated 2 days ago, Michael climbed a ladder to get great photos, and I have high hopes on harvesting seeds.
– Seeds purchased at WestCoast Seeds and planted (indoors in Jiffy Pellets) early-June 2010. Seedlings were transplanted into the garden about 2 weeks later. This is either a Grey Stripe Confectionary or a Titan. I planted both and now cannot tell them apart.
– Interestingly, I planted the first round of seeds directly in the garden in mid-May and only one grew… which was promptly eaten by whatever is eating ALL my seedlings out there this year.
Sunflower photos by Michael James Horrocks 2010. Used with permission.
Tomatoes and baby bees (?)
What’s that? Could it possibly be that the tomatoes are trying to ripen? Thank goodness… the garden has been such a write off this year that we were beginning to think we wouldn’t get any harvest other than some early spinach, lettuce and, so far, ONE zucchini. FYI – yes, that is red mulch you see at the bottom of the photo. Who knows if it helps, but, on the West Coast, tomatoes need all the help they can get… tomorrow I will be sacrificing some slugs to Mother Nature…
Plant: Siletz Organic Tomato Seeds purchased at: West Coast Seeds (and started indoors in March).
On an unrelated note, these little guys (one seen here doing a nice job of pollinating an everbearing strawberry) look like baby bees. Are they? They also love the cilantro that I have let go to flower. I will have to send this shot to my Dad for identification.
Sifting Realities: Pilot
So… what has been occupying practically ALL my time these days??
SiftingRealities: web site, youtube, twitter & facebook fan page
SiftingRealities is a webseries… my first foray into online distribution and, as soon as it finishes compressing, I will be posting the pilot episode. Please check it out! Reviews, comments and referrals are gratefully (& hopefully) graciously appreciated.
We have 6 more in the post-production pipeline and 7 more to film to complete the first season. I’ll post more extensively on the process of creating, shooting & releasing this series when I am further into the experience.
I am shooting the first of the Baking with the Director segments this week and #1 will go live on Monday, March 22, 2010. In it I will chat about my oatmeal butterscotch chip cookies (featured in SiftingRealities: Pilot). I’ll be sure to post a link here as soon as it is up.
In other news… more seeds planted this week: basil, 3 types of tomatoes & acorn squash (will attempt to get photos through the week). Strawberries and oregano (now 3 weeks old?) still seem to be struggling but, oddly enough, the melons all seem very happy.
Testing a new cookie recipe, currently called cowboy cookies, got some solid reviews during the SiftingRealities cast and crew screening yesterday, so they might be a keeper… oatmeal, coconut, chocolate chunk – yum!
Okay… back to work.
Perogies #FAIL
So… I made an attempt at whole wheat perogies last evening… perogies are something I had been craving but, given my white flour sensitivity (as in I can’t seem to digest it without a lot of pain and suffering), I haven’t had them in years. Ah, cottage cheese and onion perogies… boiled then fried with onions – yum! Perogies were a dinner mainstay during university (introduced to me by Mr. Barefoot I believe). Anyway, craving… yes. So I sourced a bunch of recipes and then pretty much made up my own based on what ingredients I had in the house and what I was craving (i.e. I mashed the potatoes with a ¼ cup of sour cream). Also, I didn’t have any cottage cheese so I went with cheddar. I even took a picture right before I got started (in a false sense of anticipated success?):
So I make the dough, make the filling, roll the dough (perhaps a bit too thickly?), then fill, crimp and boil the perogies. To finish them off, I fry them up with an onion, try them and I am not pleased… they are doughy enough that some bits stick to my teeth. Michael suggests frying them until they are almost burnt (in fact the onions were unsalvageable by the time he finished frying)… I attempt another taste with sour cream… nope, the filling rocks (enough that Michael opted to take the remainder of it, cold, for lunch today), but I am not happy with the dough part.
Too much work, not enough pay off, to attempt again I think… Michael now has lunch for all next week – he thought they were tasty, of course.
Not everything is #failing around here. We are getting ready to launch the trailer for SiftingRealities on Monday and the seeds I planted last Saturday are starting to wake up:
Schizanthus aka Poor Man’s Orchid seem very happy in their jiffy pellets even though I was skeptical about germinating them in “complete darkness”, but thousands-of-year-of-gardeners know better than I! These were supposed to be for the hanging baskets, which I have also decided to fill with strawberries, so something has to give. I suspect (if they germinate… I see no evidence of that this morning) that the strawberries will win and the Poor Man’s Orchid will be relegated to another part of the garden.