Mid Summer Garden Tour

The garden has really taken off in the past few weeks.  We have been having plenty of hot weather so all of my peppers, tomatoes and cucumbers have been super happy.  The weather here has been mostly dry, though monsoon season is in full swing, so there have been the occasional short lived afternoon showers.  I have been trying to keep the garden well watered, but my squash always look wilted in the heat of the day, though they are being plenty productive, so they can't be too stressed.

 This summer squash bed holds my zucchini, yellow and patty pan squash.  These plants seemed slow to get going, but now that the heat of summer is here, they have been blooming nonstop and my kitchen table is slowly being taken over by squash.  I usually dehydrate the extras but I have so much left from last year, that I have decided to give my extras away to whomever wants some and what doesn't go to feed humans will help reduce my chicken's feed bill for the summer.

 This bed holds the glass gem corn.  I have had some trouble making sure they are getting enough water, but I have hopefully resolved that problem.  The ones that hung on through their little drought are starting to make a come back.  I don't think they will get as tall as they should this year, but I hope they still produce plenty of ears for me.

 The cucumber bed is just coming into its own right now and I expect I shall be picking my first round of cucumbers in just a few days.  From the looks of things the next couple of months will be filled with long hours of canning pickles.  I am beginning to worry that I am in over my head with how many cucumbers I will have, but it's too late to back out now.  I have a feeling that my chickens will be eating plenty of fresh over-sized cucumbers this year as well.

 The pepper bed is doing very well so far.  I have only pickled a couple of peppers, but I think they will start coming on about the same time as the tomatoes which will be perfect for making my locally renowned salsa.  What doesn't make it into salsa will wind up in the freezer to be added to my menu all winter long.

 The tomatoes are very happy in this sunny location in the garden.  They got over their transplant stress very quickly and have already gone into production mode.  There are dozens of small green tomatoes hiding among the leaves and yesterday I discovered my first cluster of red tomatoes and tasted the first ripe tomato of summer straight off the vine.  Nothing tastes sweeter that a juicy ripe tomato still warm from the summer sun.

 Behind the tomatoes the potatoes have been humming along nicely.  There are tons of flowers on the vines and they have flopped themselves outside the boundaries of their bed.  I have felt a few good sized tubers beneath the soil, but I want to wait until they die back before harvesting them.  If they look as good underground as they do from above, then I should be getting plenty of potatoes for my winter food supply out of this bed.

This is a tiny stand of my Pungo Creek Butcher corn that I planted from seeds that I have been saving each year for the past 4 years.  I was sad that only this tiny corner of the plot germinated, but I hope to help them pollinate each other so they still produce full ears for me.  They are already taller than I am and show no signs of tasseling yet.  In years past I have grown plants of this variety that were well over 10 feet tall.  This years crop is looking like it will be keeping that tradition.

 The onions are nearly done for the season.  I have been harvesting the ones that have sent up a flowering stalk and waiting for the rest to bulb up.  They had been growing nice and tall in the past few weeks, but then suddenly just a few days ago, they seemed to fall over en masse.  This is usually the signal that it is time to harvest the onion crop so I removed the irrigation lines from the bed and will let it dry out for a little while before I harvest this crop.

This is my embarrassment of a bed of bush beans.  I have had to replant this bed about three times now and I still have large gaps between plants.  I tried a new variety this year, but they don't seem to do very well in this climate.  I'm not sure if it's the soil, or if I am giving them too much water, or maybe I have bugs eating them that I don't see.  In any case I think I will only be getting a handful of green beans this year which is too bad because they are one of my favorite garden veggies.

 This is my salad bed.  The first area I planted was the back row which has now bolted in the summer heat.  I am letting them go to seed so I can collect some for next years garden.  The second row I planted is just in front of the first planting and I am still having fresh salad from this area.  I did plant a third row just a few days ago, and that round is just starting to come up.  It seems as though my succession planting in this bed is working out well for me this year.  I have been eating fresh salads whenever I want for months with minimal input.

 This bed holds the flavoring herbs for my pickles and salsa.  The white flowery bushes in the front are cilantro and the tall yellow/green flowers in the back are dill.  Tucked between them are carrots and parsnips filling in otherwise unused space in this bed.  Once the herb crops die back I will be able to harvest the root crops from the center.

Last but not least is the broccoli bed.  This crop had a very late start for me this year because of how many times I had to replant this bed.  I think it was a third replanting before they actually took.  They seem to be growing fine, though I wonder if they will just bolt when they start to flower or if they will make heads worth harvesting.  This is another crop that I love to keep on hand in the freezer for winter meals, so I hope to be able to get a decent harvest despite the bumpy beginnings.

Making Sweet Cherry Wine

Now that I have so many carboys to fill this year, I thought I might try my hand at a new variety of wine.  This is my first attempt at making cherry wine, so I hope that it turns out as well as I hope.  I used the recipe for sweet cherry wine that I found on Jack Keller's wine making page.  That page is a wealth of wine recipes and I haven't had a bad batch yet from following any of them.   This is the ingredient list from this page: http://winemaking.jackkeller.net/reques61.asp

• 8 lbs sweet eating cherries
• 3-1/2 lbs sugar
• 1-1/2 tsp citric acid
• 1/2 tsp tannin
• 1 tsp pectic enzyme
• 7-1/4 pts water
• 1 tsp yeast nutrient
• Port wine yeast

Each recipe is to make a gallon of wine, so I just scale the ingredients up for however large my carboy is.  In this case I wanted to fill a five gallon carboy, so everything was multiplied by five, except the yeast.  I only use one packet of yeast for the whole batch, since it will reproduce enough to process the wine on it's own.   I also ended up using the wine yeast that I had on hand instead of ordering new yeast for port wine.  It may make a difference in the sweetness of the end product, but I can always add more sugar at the end if I need to.  The additives can be ordered from any wine making supplier and I already had enough on hand for this batch of wine, so the only ingredients I ended up buying were the cherries and sugar.

I emailed a local fruit grower in my area to see if I could get a discount for buying a bulk quantity of cherries since I needed 40 pounds for my recipe.  I was rewarded by getting my cherries for $2.50/lb instead of the market price of $4.00/lb, saving me about $60 for this batch of wine.  I also bought the largest bag of sugar that I could from the local grocer and only spent about $12 on 25 lbs of sugar.

Preparing the cherries was the most time consuming part of the process if only because there were so many of them.  Each bag was 1 lb of cherries and I washed and removed the stems from five pounds at a time.  After each round of cherry washing, I dumped them into the primary fermenting bucket and squished them as best I could, taking care to not break any of the pits in the bucket.  Once I worked my way through all of the cherries, I added the other ingredients following the directions on the recipe.  Forty pounds of cherries is a lot when you get them all in one bucket and I didn't even have enough room to add all the water that the recipe called for.

I stirred in the additives and the sugar and even my long handled spoon wasn't long enough to mix things up completely, so I dove in with both arms to ensure that all the sugar was dissolved into the mix.  Finally I added the activated yeast and covered the primary and let it begin the fermentation process for five days.

The next stage of the process involved straining out the cherries and their pits and transferring the liquid to a glass carboy.  It was at this stage that I added the rest of the water that I was unable to fit into the fermenting bucket in the first step.  I wanted to make sure that I had a full batch of wine for all the effort I was putting into it, so I just topped off the liquid until the carboy was full.  The wine to be was a beautiful deep red color and the aroma of fermented fruit was heavy in the air as I was straining it.

Now the waiting begins.  I will allow this to ferment until I no longer see bubbles rising to the surface in the carboy.  I expect it to take at least a month, but will rack the wine at least once before bottling to be extra sure that the fermentation is finished.  Racking the wine just involves siphoning the wine off the sediment that sinks to the bottom, helping the wine to be as clear as possible.  Each time I rack it I will top it off with more water and add sugar if it seems to need any extra sweetening.  With any luck, I will be drinking my first bottle of cherry wine this fall.

Unexpected Chicken Accident

The young chickens that I hatched at the end of February were finally getting to the age where they could be mixed in with the older chickens.  I had wanted to wait until they started to lay eggs before moving them in with the older hens, but they are going on 19 weeks now and are definitely large enough to hold their own with the older hens.

The plan was to move the four younger hens and the two isolated hens back into the large pen.  The nice rooster and the mean barred rock hens who I suspect have been pecking eggs were going to move into the small secure pen where I had the youngsters.  I wanted the rooster to be separate from the girls for a while to see if they could regrow some feathers after the severe damage that has been done by his overzealous mating habits.  The mean barred rock hens needed to be separated so I could safely return the other lower pecking order hens to the flock.  I had hoped to make the transition as smooth as possible by moving the groups around at night and doing all the changing at once to minimize long term stress.

Everything was going well until the friendly rooster got a little wound up after being moved into the small pen.  We had moved the pen into a new location right after setting the birds in their new home and the rooster decided to start trying to fly around the new enclosure which happened to be quite a bit smaller than the one he had been in.  Unfortunately he flew into the chicken wire fence that makes the sides and top of the pen and broke his neck right in front of me.  At first I thought he was just severely stressed from the new changes, but it quickly became apparent that it was far more serious than that.  He was gone within a few short minutes.  I was shocked by how quickly my plans had changed.

My evening then became an exercise in salvage.  I certainly wasn't going to let my sweet rooster go to waste, so I got to work on the gruesome business of butchering a chicken.  It wasn't quite what I had planned for tonight, but it now needed to happen.  This rooster was just over a year old, so I knew he would be pretty tough.  I decided that I wanted to skin him instead of pluck him, but I had no idea that would take me so long since I had never done it before.  I was being as careful as I could to remove the "pelt" in one piece, though being my first time, I made a few mistakes.  When I was finally finished skinning I was left with a good sized bird and I decided that I would brine it for a few days to help it become more tender.

I was sad to see the handsome rooster go, but at least his death was fast, and his body won't be wasted.  He never gave me trouble when I picked him up, never attacked me and liked to follow me around and let me pet him.  I was hoping to hatch some chicks from him, so I am gathering all of the eggs laid for the next couple of days and will set them to hatch.  Hopefully I will get another 3 or 4 chicks out of the deal.  If I am lucky, they might have his sweet disposition.

Canning Season Has Arrived

Summer is in just hitting it's stride with the growing season and the fruits of summer are starting to come in.  At the farmer's market this week, there was an abundance of apricots at the fruit booths, so I decided on a whim to make some apricot jam and invested $24 into seven pounds of ripe, fresh picked apricots.

Once home, I got busy setting up for a canning session.  I put a large pot of water on to boil and filled it with eight half pint jam jars and their lids.  While that was heating, we worked on getting all of the apricots pitted and chopped and into a large saucepan.  I was making old fashioned apricot jam with no pectin, so the only other things that went into the jam was a good amount of sugar and a few tablespoons of lemon juice.  I started heating it all together and mixing it on the stove.  Once the mixture started to boil I kept an eye on it and let it cook down and thicken.  Once it seem to be thick enough, I tested the jam on a cold spoon from the freezer.  When it reached the thickness where it wouldn't run off the cold spoon I knew it was time to fill the jars.

The recipe called for eight cups of apricots, six cups of sugar and four tablespoons of lemon juice.  The apricots I bought were enough for two batches of 8 half pints each, so the cost to me comes out to a little over $1.50 per jar, though the sugar, lemon juice and jars were things that I already had on hand.  Not too pricey for knowing what went into it and knowing that it was made the freshest way possible.

Next on my canning agenda is to make a batch of strawberry jam, canned peaches in syrup, and plum jelly when those fruits come into season.  I know that this is just the beginning and from the looks of my garden it is going to be a busy year for salsa, pickles and tomato sauce too.  I had better take stock of my jar collection and invest in some new lids and probably some more jars as well.  So far I am off to a good start on my winter food stores.

Great Garlic Harvest

Once the hardneck garlic sent up their scapes I knew it wouldn't be long until the bulbs would be ready to harvest.  The leaves at the base of the plants were drying up and most plants had at least two or three dead leaves.  I cut off all of the remaining scapes and brought those inside for future use.  Whatever I didn't eat fresh was going to be dehydrated and made into green garlic powder.

 A few days before the harvest I pulled the irrigation lines off of the bed.  The dirt was very wet and I didn't want to harvest garlic in sticky clay mud.  The garlic had reached it's peak and was now dying back to prepare for the next stage of it's life cycle.

One by one my friend and I dug the bulbs out of this bed and shook off as much dirt as possible.  The pile that grew next to the bed was impressive.

Next I bundled the plants in groups of five and hung them in the breezy shade of my tiny house project.  It is currently in the gutting phase and provided the prefect atmosphere for curing my fresh garlic.

After a few weeks, they were all nice a dry and I began the task of cleaning and trimming the bulbs for storage.  I generally cut my stems a little longer than the ones that you would buy at the grocery store, but other than that they were beautiful, full heads of garlic.  I think the final count came in at around 95 heads of garlic total.  Once they were all cleaned and bagged they weighed in at around thirteen pounds.

To many people this might seem like a lot of garlic for one person, but if you consider all the pickles and salsa that I am planning to make, then the quantity might be a little more reasonable.  The largest cloves will be saved and planted this fall for next years garden.  Some of the ones that I am saving to plant are larger than the palm of my hand!

Increasing Wine Making Capacity: My New Carboys

I was surprised how quickly the plum wine disappeared after it was bottled in November.  Of course I took it to a few holiday parties and shared bottles with friends and gave some away as gifts, but those 22 bottles were gone in a hurry.  This year I was already planning on making several batches of wine starting with early spring.  In years past I have made a few small batches of dandelion wine, but it had a dry taste that I don't care for.  I may still make some in a smaller jug for friends, but won't keep much of that for myself.

Ideally I should have a carboy for each batch of wine I want to make throughout the year, so I had been thinking that I should get another large carboy anyway.  I was happy I was able to visit to a nearby brew supply shop where I found my second six gallon glass carboy for only $50!  I am still thinking about making multiple batches of wine this year, but now I will be able to make double batches of each variety!  Guess I had better start collecting more bottles from friends!

The second carboy I came across was given to me by a friend that had been watching on the local sale pages for a glass carboy for me.  The got a great deal and got a 5 gallon carboy, a couple of fermenting buckets, a bottle capper, and some suction tubing for racking batches of wine.  All of that for only $20!  And they were nice enough to gift it to me!

I still only have one primary fermenting bucket, but since the fruit only stays in that bucket for a few days, I should be able to use it for multiple batches in the same season.  Now to keep my eyes peeled for fresh fruit at the local farmer's market.

The Lettuce Bed

I have a ten foot bed in my garden devoted to growing my fresh garden salad greens.  Because I only need to grow enough for myself I certainly don't need the whole bed planted in lettuce all at the same time.  Lettuce is a fast growing crop and it doesn't generally like the high heat of the summers here and tends to bolt when the temperatures get too hot.  To spread out my harvests I only plant one row at a time with a variety of different lettuces.  I also planted radishes among the lettuce because they are a fast growing crop that I could add to my salads as they became ready.

Once the first row of lettuce sprouted and became a little established I planted a second row in the same fashion.  The first row is now becoming harvestable just as the second row is germinating.  I expect the first row will be starting to bolt around the same time the second row is getting ready for harvest.  I will plant in the last row in a couple more weeks once the second row becomes more established.  This pattern will continue until all the spaces in the bed are filled with lettuce at various stages of maturity.  I am hoping that this keeps me in fresh salad all summer long, and possibly into winter if I protect this bed with a hoop house.