Archive for the ‘garden’ Tag
The garden is once again fast becoming my top priority. As usual at this time of the season the herbs are out of control. I spent some time this week pruning the oregano and catnip for later drying. I did a general cleanup of the dehydrator in anticipation of a heavy work load this summer.
It holds a great deal of material as you can see. This week I filled it with diced jalapeños, cayenne’s, and two pounds of habaneros. After six hours the peppers were ready for grinding. Unfortunately my reliable old grinder failed to work and I was forced to make a quick trip to Walmart to purchase another. The peppers were ground into a fine powder and stored for future uses.
Hot, Hotter, and Hottest
Then it was back to trimming and photographing some of the newly blooming day lilies. These pictures are of the early bloomers with more colors and variants expected within a few weeks. I love these colors.
It was a garden and yard work day all around. I spent some time paying attention to my compost area. I needed to wet down the piles and add a compost accelerator. I’ll be needing as much of it as I can get to add to the garden this Fall.
The better-half and I also began the process of redesigning the garden for next Spring. We’ve decided to discontinue growing vegetables in one of the large frames and to devote it entirely to growing culinary herbs. It’ll be something of challenge placing the correct herbs near others that are compatible. We’ll also be placing herbs in the vegetable frames to keep out assorted pests and varmints that the herbs do naturally. Hopefully we’ll be able to agree on the final design of the garden before Spring arrives and the purchasing and planting our selection of herbs begins.
IT SHOULD BE GREAT FUN
I breathed a huge sigh of relief this week when we finally began harvesting a few items from the garden. By far the plants that seem to be doing the best are the zucchini’s. They are weeks ahead of the hot peppers of so it seems. Here are the first two we removed and they’ve already been made into a number of loaves of chocolate zucchini bread.
The cake was delicious as usual.
We also have five or six cucumbers ready for the table. This meal consisted of chicken tenders grilled in a tequila & lime sauce and a cucumber, tomato, and onion salad drizzled with oil and vinegar. Add to that vegetarian spring rolls and a cold glass of Chardonnay and your in heaven. It tasted way better than it sounds or looks.
One of the hazards of eating a meal on our deck are the hundreds of birds that consistently visit our feeders. Over the last few years we’ve been adopted by three generations of woodpeckers. Imagine trying to eat your meal as they zoom into the feeder just a foot or two above your head. They seem to have lost all fear of us.
I guess it’s nice to have visitors of a sort when dining but these guys are a pain at times.
WE ARE LOVING SUMMER
I just took a quick stroll around the property this morning to take a few snaps of some of the more colorful bloomers. The recent weeks of rain and warm weather have the garden growing as fast as possible. Just a few short weeks ago most of these flowers were only 6 inches high. Look at them now.
Day lilies are my favorites to photograph.
These are the first of many different colored lilies my better-half has planted in the gardens. They are beautiful, colorful, and make for some interesting screensavers I can enjoy through those long winter months.
I’m not exactly sure what this plant is but I love the look of it.
As you can see the gardens are green and lush. A great place to sit on a bench and relax. There’s nothing more calming than that. These last two photo’s are of flowers in full bloom. The white daisies are my better-half’s favorite flower. Once again I have no idea what the red ones might be but I like them regardless.
? ? ? ?
Today will be more garden work for me. Although I use garden fabric to keep the weeds to a minimum it still requires spending some time on my hands and knees to get those few that always seem to show up in every little crack and crevice.
WE’LL SHOULD BEGIN HARVESTING SOON
With the month of June running out I thought I’d get one last garden update posted. Warmer weather has certainly caused the garden to go crazy. The plants are growing approximately 2 to 3 inches a week or more and it’s still early in the season. Here are a number of pictures from the garden to show the results of our TLC and nightly watering. It’s been a rather dry beginning to the growing season and the watering is the only thing that will keep this garden plush.
‘The herbs are going crazy.’
‘Looking forward to many zucchini’s.’
‘The tomatoes are blooming.’
Yesterday my better-half and I spent her day off relaxing and doing yard work. We harvested some lettuce and garlic chives to add to our evening meal. We decided that since the weather was so nice we’d be eating on the deck. Here is a picture of our table.
I grilled a number of boneless chicken thighs dusted with rosemary and a basting of ghost pepper sauce. Just before serving I brushed on a light coating of diluted yellow mustard. Crispy, flavorful, and hot. My favorite three things. Add a side dish of our homemade Bread and Butter pickles and things improve even more. The ice cold Chardonnay topped off the meal perfectly.
This was the first of many meals of this kind this summer. As the garden begins to produce more items our future meals will be even better.
GARDEN FOOD IS THE BEST
It appears that summer is finally decided to arrive. We having much warmer weather during the day and at night and it shows. The garden has really taken off in the last week and things are looking up except for the ghost peppers which aren’t doing well at all. They seem to need hot days and hot nights with a lot of sun to flourish and they’re certainly not finding that here in Maine. I don’t expect much production from the ghost peppers this year and I’ve pretty much decided to try them one more time next year but in a different way. I intend to plant them either in a cold framework or I’ll build a small greenhouse to try and keep the temperature is high as possible for as long as possible. If that doesn’t work then I’ll give up on ghost peppers entirely and just buy them online. Here are a few shots of the garden taken this morning.
The better-half’s flower gardens are also in bloom almost everywhere on the property. This could possibly be the best year we’ve ever had with a diversity of colors that is amazing.
We also had a special occasion last night. We harvested the first of the lettuces for this year and they were a perfect addition to our evening meal.
That’s all for today. I’m having serious computer issues that need fixing and I hope I’m successful. Microsoft is making my life miserable once again and as usual they’re not much help.
Even though June has barely started I thought an garden update was in order. The warmer weather for the last few weeks has brought everything to life in a big way. Due to the efforts of my better-half we have flowers blooming everywhere.
The gardens in the yard are filled with irises as you can see. we’ve planted them every where and this is the first year we get to see them in all their glory.
Just three years ago this rhododendron was one foot tall and looking poorly. We transplanted it to this spot and here is the results of our efforts.
One of the better-half’s passions is to have as much color in as many places as possible. That of course includes the deck. We get to walk through all of these flowers on our way to the table to have our morning coffee. How great is that?
It’s things like this that help us Mainers wipe away memories of sleet, ice, snow, and our six month’s of winter. It’s worth waiting for. Here’s my recent photo of the vegetable and herb garden as compared with one taken in May. The changes as we move forward will become more and more obvious.
‘May’
‘June’
Now that the garden has been planted I have extra time on my hands for other things. I noticed a few days ago that we seem to be running out of our homemade salsa. We both love salsa so much and eat on average a quart every two weeks or so. My better-half insists on putting it on and in everything she eats so running out is not an option. I’ve had a newly developed recipe that I’ve been waiting to make and this is the week to do it. This recipe is called ‘Six Pepper Bean Salsa’.
It even sounds hot and trust me it really is. I’ve gathered together jalapeños, habaneros, Serrano’s, Thai chili, black pepper, and finally Ghost peppers. Add black beans and chili beans and a host of other ingredients and there you have it. I even managed to harvest some early chives from my garden as well. During the summer months we always try to have at least one item from the garden in every meal. So let’s get started.
‘Slice & Dice with rubber gloves.’
I usually wear very think rubber gloves when messing with hot peppers. I tried the normal latex gloves but they weren’t getting the job done. Thick rubber from then on assures me of no more burning body parts. Then I gather the necessary jars, lids, and pots and boil them thoroughly.
Everything must be boiled to keep things as sanitary as possible. That’ll keep contaminated jars from becoming a problem later on. Next I begin the cooking process and the adding of a little heat.
‘Dried habanero and chili peppers.’
Finally the salsa is ready for canning. I know canning seems complicated but it really isn’t. The process is simple and easily managed. The more often you do it the easier it becomes.
And here’s the finished product. Thirteen quarts of really delicious salsa that is also hot enough to get anyone’s attention.
EASY PEASY
I was beginning to wonder if Spring would ever arrive but as always it has. Finally the fear of frost has passed and we can start getting serious about gardening. Todays posting will be a few miscellaneous items about the garden and other things. Our day today has already been planned and as soon as I leave this computer I’ll be back playing in the dirt once again.
My first item concerns something I mentioned in a recent post about my new favorite drink, the Hot Pepper Margarita. I collected all of the ingredients needed to get things rolling and here it is. This photo was taken after two days of the peppers soaking in tequila.
I can already seen the peppers losing their colors as the tequila bleaches them and it won’t be long before it will be ready for use. One more week and then I’ll strain the tequila and put it back into it’s bottles. Then the fun can begin.
I began planting in earnest this week with zucchinis, cucumbers, onions, kohlrabi’s, and eggplant. Later today I’ll finish up with tomatoes, jalapeno peppers, Serrano peppers, Thai peppers, and Kung Pao peppers. Now that the nights are warming up the peppers should flourish.
I began my night time skunk patrol this week. He made his first stinky visit a few days ago and has been digging up the ground in and around the garden already. The fence will keep him out of the larger frames but if he insists on causing problem in the unprotected frames he’ll be risking his stinky and smelly life. My new rifle has been cleaned and oiled and is ready for action. “Go ahead sucker . . . make my day.”
Here’s an update wide angle photo of the garden as it begins to grow.
THANK GOD IT’S FINALLY SPRING
It’s been a week of good weather except for yesterday. The rain forced me inside to take care of something I’ve been procrastinating about. As I’ve mentioned previously I am in the process of making a batch of Sake. I began the process on March 18 and it’s been fermenting since then. The point was to let the yeast settle to the bottom of the containers once fermentation was complete and then I could siphon off the clear liquid. Unfortunately this batch decided not to clear and remained very cloudy. I decided to resort to an old stand-bye to clear it . . . it’s called Sparkloid.
Sparkloid is a very fine clay that is mixed with water and boiled for thirty minutes. As it boils off you continue to add additional water. After 30 minutes the mixture is added to the wine and thoroughly mixed in. If it works as expected the wine will begin to clear over a period of days. This first photo was taken just after the Sparkloid was added.
As you can see the wine is very cloudy. Normally Sake is as clear as water but due to minerals in our water here in Maine it will eventually be a pale yellow color. This next photo was taken 24 hours after the first.
It has cleared somewhat but will still need more time. If nothing else winemaking has taught me more than I care to know about patience. This next photo was taken 24 hours after the last.
I can only guess that another week will probable finish the clearing. I can then bottle the wine and place it into storage. These jugs will eventually supply me with approximately 17 – 750ml bottles or 34 – 375ml bottles. Believe it or not it actually tastes pretty good already (I just had to sneak a taste.). It can only get even better with age.
The garden preparation continues and more plants have been purchased today. The next posting will be made after my initial planting has been completed. I can’t wait to get started.
BACK TO WORK
Even though the nights remain cool it would appear that Mother Nature is beginning to cooperate. The hard frosts have stopped and the temperatures have been well above freezing at night. It’s time to get busy planting a few items that aren’t effected as much by the cooler temperatures. As you can see here the rhubarb could care less about the weather. It’s up and going strong.
With that in mind I purchased two more small rhubarb plants to fill in the frame a little. You just can’t have enough rhubarb because regardless of what you use it for . . . it’s delicious.
The herb garden is coming along nicely but I lost a few plants over the winter. I’m not sure why but two of them had been around for years and I hated to see them go. Nothing I can do but replace them.
These items were planted next. Three parsley plants, three lavenders, and two spinach.
As you look at the photo’s you can see chives growing damn near everywhere. Regardless of the weather you can’t seem to slow them down much. We’ll have bushels to harvest once again this year.
It just felt so good to be digging around in the dirt for a few minutes. Next week I’ll be heading to our local nursery to pick up some lettuces and any thing else that catches my eye. I try to be guided by what the nurseryman advises when it comes to early plantings. I’ve paid a serious price in years past by not listening to him. The hot peppers and tomatoes will have to wait a few more weeks when the danger of frost is completely gone.
THE FUN HAS BEGUN
everyuselessthing.com 
