Catherine – Page 15 – Cross Road Gardens

Broccoli planting

April 10, 2021April 20, 2021 CatherineLeave a comment

I needed to get the broccoli seedlings out of the tray and into the ground. For one thing, white thready roots were coming out of the bottom of the blocks. For another, I needed the fine mesh tray for my little tomato blocks. Apparently I have only one fine-mesh tray.

So today was devoted to getting these guys planted.

First, Sam dug the bed, removing the biggest rocks and roots. We added some compost, greensand, and azomite and raked it smooth.

I planted about 40 seedlings down each side of the row. They are a little close together but not bad. I watered them in with a splash of Sam’s special alfalfa tea.

Then I had to set up the wires and the row cover. I used wooden stakes laid along the edges on one side, and heavy metal fence posts down the other. Plus some rocks. This is reused row cover, with one big hole which needed a supplemental piece.

I’m expecting this broccoli to do as well as it did last year, but we’ll see. Feeling optimistic!

Spring day

April 7, 2021April 7, 2021 CatherineLeave a comment

An exciting day at Cross Road Gardens. It really felt like spring, for the first time, I think. A burst of gardening energy, although I only really worked for a few hours.

Dug about a pound of leeks from last year, stored under mulch

Planted peas and spinach under a relocated trellis

Seedlings: Brussels sprouts and red cabbage

Broccoli and leek, shallot, cippollini seedlings

Squash Easter

April 4, 2021April 5, 2021 CatherineLeave a comment

If you were starting new food traditions, what should be served on Easter? Lamb and ham are totally out, as vegans. And in a pandemic, not sure an extra trip to the store is warranted. I should be trying to eat what I grow, right? So one of these four beautiful squash is headed for the chopping block. And this should be the same every year.

I chose the largest Red Kuri for our Easter meal. We also had an arugula salad, a sort of dip made from frozen peas and fava beans, and a chocolate freezer pie (with squash as a prime ingredient). Felt very virtuous – and tasty actually. Jeff came over for a small dinner party.

Sam is stuffing the pre-roasted Red Kuri with a mixture of quinoa, shiitake mushrooms, dried cranberries, chopped walnuts, and flavorings.

Home ground

April 2, 2021April 5, 2021 CatherineLeave a comment

This is an adventure that seems to happen regularly around this time. I get tired of looking at a pile or a rope of dried hot red peppers and at the same time we are running low on cayenne pepper. Out comes the spice grinder and the ordeal begins.

It starts innocently enough, cutting off the little heads of the peppers and slicing them in half. Discarding the questionable ones. Removing the seeds to the compost bucket. Putting the little husky skin with dried pulp into the spice grinder. I never have rubber gloves available, so I always just forge ahead, thinking how bad could it be?

But as soon as the grinding starts, weird symptoms appear. Uncontrollable ticklings in the back of the throat. Sneezing fits. Runny noses. Inability to get away from the miasma. No, not the flu, cayenne grinding.

After I’m done grinding, the last thing I want to do it open the lid of the grinder. I can see the evil red powder lurking all around the top of the device waiting to billow out. I set it by the door, thinking I’ll deal with it later. Outside.

Good for Sam, he took care of it. He decanted the powder into the jar (outside!) creating a new red layer over what was left from last year. He also cleaned out the spice grinder so it would be semi-suitable for use grinding something else.

Plenty of home grown and ground cayenne.

Freezer inventory

March 31, 2021April 5, 2021 CatherineLeave a comment

Early spring is a sparse time of year food-wise. The hoophouse greens were mostly eaten by voles last winter, except for the arugula and some kale. We still have garlic and a few squash stored. But no onions, carrots, parsnips or potatoes. Our root-saving capability is just not there. I tossed a fair number of potatoes into the compost because they were shriveled and sprouting. I could have planted them, but I have no desire to dig in the ice-cold soil yet.

On the upside, I found a baby garlic sprout under the mulch the other day. Very exciting!

So, feeling somewhat lacking in fresh food, it’s time to get serious about what is still in the freezer. It’s so easy to forget what’s available right here at home. So here goes.

Freezer compartment above refrigerator:

Old stuff – Small amount of decaf coffee beans, jar of Brazil nuts, partial bag of commercial frozen corn, fist-size congealed clump of frozen banana
Flours/grains – Little bag of whole wheat flour, bag of masa harina, bag of almond meal
Herbs/flavorings – A few knobs of ginger, small bag of dill weed, a few disks of horseradish, packet of basil leaf
Small bag of shredded zucchini (3 cups)
Small bag of sliced okra
Small bag of blueberries for morning cereal
Small bag of diced jalapenos

Chest freezer:

Dyeing – Bag of avocado waste and a gallon of walnut dye
Squash – Bag of squash puree, 4 large bags of bite-sized squash, serving of spiced squash soup, serving of squash chili, 6 small containers of squash soup, two servings of pumpkin curry
Tomatoes – 5 thin bags of pulp, 1 small bag of salsa
Peppers – 1 serving of stuffed peppers, 4 small bags of chopped green pepper
Herbs – 2 flat packets of basil leaf, 3 bags of basil pesto, 1 bag of celery leaf, two disks of horseradish
Peas – 1 fat bag
Shredded zucchini – 6 small bags
Parsnips – 1 large bag
Blueberries – 5 large bags
Fava beans – 3 small bags
Two disks of homemade broth
1 serving of barley bean stuffing

Looks like we’ll be eating a lot of squash. There’s so much frozen squash because of the bountiful harvest and the need to rescue a lot of it during the winter as rotten spots appeared.

Goals:

Eat the prepared food servings for dinner over the next few weeks.
Use up some of the herbs and flavorings and miscellaneous vegetables in my homemade stock.
Eat some blueberries daily on cereal or salads.
Cook zucchini bread with the shredded zucchini after thawing and pressing.
Use the tomato pulp in sauce or for cooking.

Eagle neighbor

March 31, 2021April 4, 2021 CatherineLeave a comment

I saw this eagle while on my walk down to Jellison Cove. It looks like a juvenile because the head was not completely white. He or she was eating a bird judging by the feathers that were raining down from his perch.

Meyer lemon tree

March 30, 2021April 4, 2021 CatherineLeave a comment

The lemon tree made it through the winter indoors, but it is not exactly thriving. We had to remove scale insects. And give it some alfalfa meal tea. Many leaves are yellowing, and eventually dropping off.

But mostly I think it needs more sunshine and some warm rain. Sam has been lugging it outside regularly, sometimes on to the deck and sometimes into the hoophouse.

We are eagerly looking for signs of new growth.