New Year and New Garden.

Now that I have started some seeds: celeriac, ground cherries, peppers, leeks and red onions, and the sun is showing it's strength, it's really starting to feel like spring. The promise of spring and the start of a new gardening season is beyond exciting for me. I've been thinking through all the winter months about how I'll improve my garden for this coming gardening season, what I'll do differently and what I will and won't grow. 

The following is a list of my plans for the new garden season:

1. Build a greenhouse. This is our top priority, I need this so badly for several reasons. I really need the spot for hardening off plants in the spring as taking little pots in and out day after day is just asking for disaster. It works, and it's a lot of work so it will be so much easier when I don't have to worry about wind, breakage from moving or leaving things out where my hens may be able to eat them. 

We also need the greenhouse for growing lots more food! I will still use my cold frames once we have the greenhouse built because I will stuff them with greens for the fall and winter months, as well as early spring. With the greenhouse I'll be able to grow much more greens and other cold tolerant veggies. 

The other reason I can't wait to have a greenhouse is to grow my tomatoes in an environment where I can totally control their irrigation. Often here our tomatoes grow extremely well and form lovely tomatoes that coincide with really heavy rains coming into the fall months. Inconsistent moisture is not a friend of the tomatoes at any time of the growing season and the heavy rains in the fall can be the worst. The heavy rains cause the perfect fruit to swell and split. This did not happen last year, although it did the year before. I often try to cover the plants if we're getting downpours around this time to control the moisture but sometimes even that doesn't work. Inconsistent moisture as they grow can result in a calcium deficiency and contributes to disease. I'll likely use my greenhouse to grow tomatoes as well as melons and someday, as I've decided not to grow them this year, artichokes.   

2. Grow more food right now! I'm running out of food really quickly this year. I have several red onions, random greens in the cold frame (that I'd like to leave be for spring greens), frozen tomatoes and peppers, some carrots in the ground, blueberries, cranberries and that's it! We had similar circumstances last year right around this time. March is the month that we run out of food. I started some lettuce in a shallow pot for growing in my sunniest window and instead of taking herbs indoors in the fall months, when they often fail, I start herbs indoors this time of year. I have basil, thyme and cilantro all growing on my kitchen table. They get plenty of sun these days and you don't have to worry about taking bugs into your home, which seems to happen to me every time I take an outdoor plant in for the winter. 

I started new kale transplants to put in the cold frame ASAP and will be starting broccoli indoors for an early spring crop. 

3. Grow more storage veggies. We ate our last squash in February, along with our last celeriac and last rutabaga. This year I plan on growing more squash, and different varieties, as well as more celeriac, one of our new favorite veggies. The celeriac, which is basically celery root, can be left in the ground, covered with straw and dug up when desired just like carrots. It's delicious, nutritious and can be mashed up just like potatoes. 

As for the squash, we rely really heavily on them as a storage crop. When cured properly undamaged squash will last forever!

4. Adding new perennial crops. I'm getting another black currant bush, another blueberry bush and a gooseberry bush. I'll take any berry bush I can get! I'll be adding these to my collection of three blueberry bushes, one black currant bush, three haskap bushes, three cherry bushes, two cranberry bushes, over one hundred strawberry plants, three grape vines (plus four grape vines I rooted indoors and will be planting out) raspberry canes and many, many asparagus plants. Anything that comes back year after year is fantastic. We're also hoping to plant some apple trees to feed our cider making addiction. 

No major changes this year, with the exception of the greenhouse that will be life changing, just the same optimistic attitude that I'm going to grow as much as I possibly can for the entire year. I would love to not run out of food in March, however until I start gardening on much more land than my one acre offers, I'm really not sure if it's possible. Who knows what the gardening season will bring this year, what challenges we may be up against or what luck we may have. It all depends on a lot of things, mainly all weather related and there's simply no controlling that.    

I haven't been posting too many pictures of my meals lately, which is too bad since we cook something great every night. Last night we had a chicken soup made with our own chicken carcass (leftover from cutting breasts, legs and wings off a chicken), mushrooms, some bok choy I scrounged up from the cold frame and mung bean sprouts we sprouted. I added lots of organic ginger and garlic to the broth as well as a splash of tamari and fish sauce and served it over rice noodles, which could easily be replaced with soba noodles. 

I did a freezer inventory yesterday since I hate wasting food and when your freezer is as full as mine is it's important to take stock of what you have and what needs to be used first. I also make sure anything that's vacuum sealed is still sealed and if not, I take it out to use before it gets freezer burnt. 

I was beyond ecstatic to find one last bag of wild cranberries hidden in behind some other items. 

These precious cranberries are to die for. They're really different than cultivated cranberries. We have limited amounts because we don't like to pick the patch clean as they're obviously food for bears and other wildlife. I say obviously because there's often 'evidence' we'll call it, of bears eating the cranberries where we pick them.  

My Grape Vines

Growing away, especially since the sun is gaining power. 

They all have leaf growth in various stages now. I'm really hoping I don't have troubles hardening them off in the spring/early summer. Since it's not the typical, or maybe even ideal, time to propagate the vines I can't find much information on hardening them off. My plan is to move them to the greenhouse , I'm hoping to have built, in the early spring before planting them out after risk of frost has passed. If they were dormant, I would plant them before risk of frost has passed as one usually does, because of the leaf growth I'll have to wait. 

The little pots with woody cuttings in them are from one of my haskap bushes. The heavy snow we had early on snapped several of the branches off. I took them indoors, made a new cut and dipped the cuttings in rooting hormone before planting in the small pots. Several have rooted already and although they will be slow to grow, eventually we will have several new haskaps bushes to add to our collection. 

Ginger Bug

I finally had enough time and counter space to start a ginger bug, something I've been meaning and wanting to do for a long time now. You simply take equal amount of grated ginger, sugar and water, stir them together well and then continue to 'feed' the starter with equal amounts of ginger and sugar for seven to ten days. After seven days the combination should start to bubble and produce a yeasty, fermented smell. The ginger bug can then be used to make homemade sodas. Mine has been going for seven days now and has not started bubbling yet, although I will give it some more time before starting new as the temperature can affect the fermentation process and my kitchen may not always be consistently toasty. 

Once it is ready you can take 1/4 cup of the liquid from the ginger bug and mix it with your favorite ingredients to make a natural soda. Herbal tea can be the base as can fruit juices. 

I used the recipe from my Nourishing Traditions book to make my ginger bug and here's a link to another recipe from Wellness Mama 

As with anything fermented you will find many different recipes and methods for making a ginger bug and then your ginger sodas and they likely all work. Why? Because fermenting is far from an exact science. You may find some recipes that add commercial yeast to their ginger bug, same as some add yeast to their sourdough, however in my experience and research wild yeasts are extremely active and productive and commercial yeasts are often unnecessary.  

I'm in Love!!

I just received this beautiful wheel hoe from Hoss Tools, equipped with three cultivator teeth and an oscillating hoe for weeding. Since my garden grows every year, weeding is a full time job. We weed the garden every day, as well as mulching to keep weeds down, and even then it's never enough. We also have stopped tilling our soil every year also, favoring manual shallow cultivation instead. This tool will be saving us a lot of work!  I will be using it to cultivate the soil prior to planting and weeding in between the rows. I'm looking into getting the plow attachments also which allow you to form rows and then fill them in. Making planting potatoes child's play. Since I won't be able to get this into the garden anytime soon, with several feet of snow covering the garden,  I haven't fully assembled it. It packs away quite nicely for storage purposes. I will be trying it out ASAP, as soon as the soil is workable usually, and hopefully, around the first of April. When you try and grow as many vegetables for yourself as we do, a tool like this is simply invaluable, even though the wheel hoe is reasonable priced and I imagine I will have it for many, many years to come since there's no doubt it's well built.  

The three tined cultivator. 

Wooden handles, no plastics anywhere on this tool, just how I like it!  

The oscilating hoe used for weeding is the attachment in the middle, looks like it's going to do a great job.  

The three heavy-duty tines. 

Didn't take my kitty Myrtle long to realize there was a box on the floor. She's sitting beside the oscillating hoe here.  

Happy Valentine's Day Veggie Lovers!!

Just put in an order for more seeds. This time from Hope Seeds . Hope Seeds offers some really neat varieties you won't easily find from some larger seed supply companies. Take a peek here -----> Hope Seeds

S is for Cinnamon.

We made a whole pile of venison sausage patties again this year. These devils are amazing to have on hand. It's like having fast, frozen, convenience food that is actually none of those things. We ground up fresh, or uncured, bacon and mixed it with the ground deer burger in several different batches seasoned differently. When we vacuum sealed them for freezing I marked them to try and differentiate between the different seasonings. This one I marked with a S. I took this package out last night and racked my brain, what the heck did the S stand for? I have ones marked Cumin that are seasoned with cumin, sage, mustard powder, garlic and other seasonings. I have one marked as I for Italian with rosemary, thyme, fennel seed, garlic and other seasonings. I have ones marked with a B for breakfast seasoned with onion, apple, cinnamon, ginger and other seasonings. I have no idea what the S stands for. I cooked them anyway and they definitely have cinnamon in them, although not much and maybe curry powder? When I made about 6 different batches all flavored differently, I really should have wrote them down! Oh well, what's dinner without a little excitement anyway?   

It's Time!

I did my seed inventory yesterday and have had my garden plans kicking around for some time now. I ordered some new seeds from Veseys as well as Annapolis Seeds. I saved a lot of my own seeds last year from kale, bok choy, arugula, lettuces, parsnips, marigolds, morning glories and petunias...maybe even some others. I'm excited about these seeds as fresh seeds seem to germinate really well.  

I will be starting celery and celeriac indoors today as well as some ground cherries and peppers. I debated starting some red onions indoors, as is usually recommended, and in the end decided to direct seed them. As long as you get them in nice and early, as soon as the soil can be worked, I have noticed no major difference between onion seeds started indoors as transplants and onions that have been direct seeded. Which is great, mainly because starting onions indoors can be a bit of a pain. They need to be trimmed several times before planting out, fertilized regularly and generally aren't that happy growing in cells. They also can take up a lot of room if you plant as many onions as we do. I will start some leeks indoors though, they seem to be the one allium crop that truly needs that jump.  

The ground cherries I like to start super early, as I find when they are already producing when they go outdoors, you're able to harvest more of their bounty. Almost every year the ground cherry plants are loaded with the little berry like fruits right when we get hit with frost and cooler temperatures. Being a member of the tomato family, they don't like that at all and much of the ground cherries can go to waste, except here where the chickens eat them. Starting them nice and early, much earlier than tomatoes, seems to help increase the amount we eat and decrease the chickens share.  You have to be very, very careful when moving around the ground cherry plants, same as tomatoes, as they get larger. I can't tell you how many ground cherry stems I've snapped and saved by re-rooting in water. 

I will be starting some petunias indoors sooner than later but that's about it for now. You may see lots of encouragement that 'now is the time to start all your seeds' although it's really not if you live where I live. There is such thing as starting your seeds way too early! Remember you need to move these around and provide sufficient light, best not get too eager as I have done many, many years. It truly pays to wait to start tomatoes, they do not need one minute longer than 6-8 weeks before planting out unless you are using a 'wall of water', greenhouse or other tomato season extender. Planting warm weather loving crops out too early can actually harm the plant. 

For those that are growing smaller gardens, are lacking in time or any other reason that makes buying transplants a better option, go for that! I never started my own celery until a couple years ago. I just always bought transplants from the local nursery. When I started growing artichokes, which I'm not growing this year :( , I started my own celery too since the lights were on at that time. 

My trusty seed trunk and my garden plans. 

Sad Days

I used my very last storage onion the other day.  It seems I can never grow enough and some years we just use more onions than others. Next year I'm going to try and grow more and will likely end up with too many, which can never be a bad thing.  

Wordless Wednesday

Snapped these the other day when the sun was oh-so-shiny! 

The hen's winter digs. 

The view of my home from the chicken shed. 

Our shop and woodshed. 

The garden with it's two cold frames and the chicken tractor in the background. 

Rural Delivery

I was published in the November issue of Rural Delivery , a fantastic magazine covering life in Atlantic Canada. Rural Delivery covers farm, garden, food and all kinds of topics important to those living, or wanting to live, the rural life. I have subscribed to the RD for some time now and gladly wrote this article detailing how to use cold frames to extend your season's harvest. 

The Rural Delivery makes a great gift for friends, family or yourself. I love having copies kicking around to peruse during down time. Articles are written by both professional and hobby writer's that are passionate about their rural life. If you pick up a copy you may be surprised if you happen to know one of the many authors, or recognize them as being a member of your community.