osprey94's Blog

What am I to do with all these STRAWBERRIES?
Jun 24, 2007 | 12:01 PM PST
Tag: strawberries

Okay, I made 6 large tubs of strawberry freezer jam today and I'm not sure I ever want to see strawberries again until next spring. I followed the instructions on the pectin package, but I think it's way too sweet. I'm guessing the amount of sugar may have preservative powers, but geez. I like my preserves a little tart. I might give most of these away and try again with a different recipe. Anyone out there have a good one that's not quite so sugary? The one I tried was 2 C mashed strawberries to 4 C sugar, 2 tbls lemon juice and the pectin. 

 Any other ideas for what to do with all these strawberries? Divaq, how 'bout you? Have you found any inventive ways to use them up? I might have to have a roadside stand!

Broccoli and I...not a good pair!
Jun 20, 2007 | 6:26 PM PST
Tags: broccoli , strawberries , teaching

Well, this is the second time I've tried growing broccoli. After the first attempt, I didn't plan on trying it again. I don't love eating the vegetable enough to put up with it, I thought. The first time, some creature ate through the stems and they all flopped over before I could harvest. This time, I found a pack of 6 plants at the ACE hardware store near me and they looked so beautiful I thought I'd try again. And...they bolted before I could harvest them. It hasn't even been very sunny or hot here. What is up? I think I'll pull them out and plant...well, that's the problem...can't decide. Oh! I've been wanting  some onion plants, so that's what I'll do. Hope I don't have a problem finding some starts. It seems like I don't have a lot of luck finding them when I want them.

I need to build my fourth raised bed and fill it soon. It's silly to have it almost built and then not follow through. The logs are lying there in formation. I just need to dig some trenches to set them in and fill it with some soil mix.

Then,  what should I plant? Maybe for now I'll just plant a cover crop until I figure out what to plant.

The strawberries are driving me crazy. There are millions of them ripening all at once, but RIGHT when they are ALMOST ripe, robins (I've caught them in the act so many times that I'm convinced they're the major culprit) get them or they rot and get moldy. I pick bowls full of the almost-ripe-enough ones and they just don't taste great. I've frozen two gallon ziplocks of them. Maybe I'll make strawberry ice cream soon with my ice cream maker. Even almost ripe strawberries would taste good in ice cream! *Sigh* I have GOT to build those row covers for them! I do love to procrastinate!

Those damn robins, by the way, sit atop my topsy turvey tomato planters and crap strawberry seed poo ALL OVER the planters and the tomatoes! As if to say, "I'll eat your strawberries you slaved over and then I will CRAP all over your tomatoes as a an extra bonus!" Wee!

I'd like to pull out a few rows and replace with asparagus. We don't need so many strawberries. I think maybe currants might be nice, too, I don't know. Honestly, until I get a canning element for my stove I don't want to plant too much of anything! It'll all go to waste!

I went to our town's farmer's market today and there were 4 stands! Two were selling birdhouses, one was selling metal sculptures and one was selling some houseplants. No veggies, no seedlings, no fruit, no homemade soaps or sachets or honey or ANYTHING. I wonder if I could make some money there for my excess produce. It'd be EASY to create a much more appealing and useful stand at that market. They need it!

Well, tomorrow is another weekday when I will be NOT working. Oh, it's a rough life. But, don't get the wrong idea, I have 3 multi-day training sessions to go to this summer and am traveling for most of July (not that that's a hardship, but it does make the summer FLY by even faster). I'll be back in that classroom before I can even wonder what happened to my summer! But, I am NOT complaining. Teaching is perfect for gardening obsessed humans.

 

It's June!
Jun 4, 2007 | 5:54 PM PST
Tags: strawberries , pumpkins , sunflowers

I have EIGHT DAYS LEFT until summer break! One of my students today said "I can't wait for school to be over for summer," and I had to restrain myself from shouting "I KNOW! Me EITHER!" with a crazed look in my eyes.

D and I planted pumpkins and sunflowers in the front garden plot. We can't decide what to do with that plot so we just keep planting crops of things that will cover the area up and keep the weeds down until we do figure out WHAT to do.

The soil in this plot has been walked all over and hasn't been amended much, so it's hard packed clay. Instead of tilling (this is a BIG area, here and we're getting a seriously late start), we brought huge cartfulls of a soil/compost mix and formed mounds on top of the existing soil in which to plant pumpkins. I made the piles pretty large b/c I know that pumpkins are heavy feeders. D wanted to plant sunflowers in the mounds, too, even though I told him I didn't want them competing w/ the pumpkins, but he was emphatic. He had to have his sunflowers. They ARE beautiful and the birds go nuts for them, so I'm excited to have them again this summer/fall. We planted Lumina, Cinderella and one other variety of pumpkin whose name I have forgotten. I love the cinderella ones. They are so pretty and the brightest orange color. What am I going to do with all these pumpkins? I think we'll be putting up a "pumpkins for sale" sign in October!

Our strawberries are still being eaten before they get completely ripe. I don't know what's doing it. I'd love to get one of those motion-triggered cameras set up out there and find out what's responsible for this destruction. Can't we have just a FEW strawberries? No?

I lost two cucumber transplants but had two extras on the sidelines, waiting for their turn, and they're doing fine, I think. The two tomato plants I put in the "Topsy Turvies" are flourishing, while the ones I planted in the ground aren't growing much yet. The topsy turvy plants had a good head start, though.

My clematis are doing okay. Okay as in they're not dead or dying. I can't really see any obvious growth on them. No flowers, either, but I didn't expect any yet. I haven't had to water them once since I planted them with the nice layer of mulch I gave each container. I LOVE love love mulch. I'd mulch everything if I could.

I've yet to start the bed by the hammock yet. I think I'll get to it once school lets out. Which, did I mention?...is in EIGHT DAYS!

beds are PLANTED!
May 30, 2007 | 8:54 PM PST
Tags: ants , earwigs , strawberries

This weekend (gosh am I behind on this blog!) I planted... broccoli, dill, marigold, spinach, arugula, lemon and regular cucumbers, 3 heirloom tomatoes, carrots, bush beans, beets, chard, OH and 2 rows of corn. I liked divaqs idea about bay leaves keeping earwigs away from plants. Didn't you talk about that in one of your blogs? (See me assuming you're reading my blog? ) We had such a *shudder* huge earwig problem w/ our corn the first time we tried it that we've passed on growing corn since then. I despise earwigs. Don't know why. Bugs don't usually bother me that much. Actually, fly eggs, lice and tics make my scalp prickle and my skin crawl, but that's it. That and earwigs. Loads and loads of earwigs hiding out in the husks when I shuck those suckers. Falling out and crawling everywhere. Dear lord help me. Ugh. Ummm...what was I saying? Oh yes! Bay leaves! I will try that this year because I LOVE corn on the cob. I got the "Candy Corn" variety. If the bay leaves don't work I'll just make D shuck them.

So, a side effect of trucking logs and chippings from the forest into our veggie garden is that now we have ants ALL OVER the garden! Big huge ones, little tiny ones, they're EVERYWHERE! Ah well, that's what we get!

The first few ripe strawberries were pecked all to hell before we could eat them. We keep telling ourselves we can share a FEW...but I'm a teeny tiny bit selfish with my strawberries. Anyone have any good covering ideas for rows of strawberries? Something cheap and easy that'll keep the birds off, but let us get to the berries relatively easily? If nothing exists, I'll let the birds have free reign and just take what I can get.

The other night a coyote got into our trash. He woke us up (our trash can sits not too far away one floor down from our open bedroom window) at around 2 am. It was a full moon, so we could ID him. He ran away when he heard me whispering to D to get a flashlight. Very exciting! I haven't heard them howling yet this year, but I love that sound!

Ahhh, summer is right around the corner! Yipeeeeeeeeee!