May through December Highlights - Part 1

Since my last post in May, I have been busy, too busy to blog, so here are some highlights worth posting:

1. Expanded the Garden to roughly 200 feet x 35 feet. This allows me to grow more vine plants (cucumber, cantaloupe, watermelon, pumpkin, gourd). The expansion more than doubled the size of the garden. Good thing I have a tractor/tiller otherwise I couldn't do it by hand.

The 2010 garden included the following: corn, beans, peppers, tomatoes, onions, peas, radishes, cucumbers, cantaloupes, watermelons, pumpkins, gourds, squash, zucchini.

We had a particularly dry and harsh summer, so the watering and weeding was intense, and the bugs were fierce but I managed to salvage a fairly decent crop. The Mrs. has many posts on the garden/produce exploits here: http://houseofbrungardt.blogspot.com/

Silence is Broken (or Blog Posting Revival)

Since my last post I have been too busy to blog - or too tired I should say. The usual chaos of end of year work deadlines, Advent activities, travel, Christmas and ensuing chaos, sick kids, pregnant wife...

For posterity sake, here is a highlight of my accomplishments to date (worth noting):

1.Completed the conversion of the Guest Room to the Girl's Room. Even dabbled in Stenciling. It's harder than it looks!
2. Welcomed a new baby...Anthony Joseph. He shares the name of my father with his 2 brothers. God blessed us with a safe delivery and healthy Baby and Mommy. He was baptized 4 days later - now that's Old School.
3. Met the Easter Bunny...only 2 were brave enough to get close to him.


4. Got my tomatoes and peppers planted and potted. All the kids joined in. My "babies" number about 130. Way too many as usual.

5. Added 3 - 4' x 8' raised beds to the Orchard/Garden. They contain rhubarb, asparagus, strawberries, and herbs.6. Tilled the garden and planted snow peas, spinach, radishes, onions. Harvested our first load of radishes on Mommy's birthday - April 23. Pictures will be posted at a later date.

7. Did some flower planting for the Mrs and perty'd up the Grotto with transplanted Irises.

8. Ok I am tired let's end this.

Jalapenos

With the ridiculous amount of jalapenos we have been getting in the garden, I thought it would be wise to Can them lest they go to waste!


Here is my assistant Catherine helping pick the peppers...




Next, they need washed, and stabbed several times with a knife...




Get the pickling juice going. There are an infinite number of recipes you can use.




I picked some carrots and onions to throw in for color. Note the yellow Sweet Banana peppers. The kids love them and they have no heat.




This amount of peppers happen to fill up 7 canning jars. Pack the jars as tight as you can before adding the liquid.



For the canning process, I used the turkey fryer to boil water. It worked great.


Drop the canning jars in for 10 minutes to kill the bacteria, germs, enzymes, etc.

Let them cool down before putting them in the pantry.

Here is the recipe I used:

Pickled Jalapeños

Adapted from Michael Symon's Live to Cook by Michael Symon and Michael Ruhlman

Like Michael says in his book, you can use a brine for everything from roast chicken to green beans to curing your own homemade pastrami. Now that's something that would make my grandmother proud.

1 pound (450g) fresh jalapeno peppers, washed (see Note)

2 1/2 cups (625ml) water

2 1/2 cups (625ml) vinegar (I used white distilled vinegar)

3 tablespoons sugar

3 tablespoons coarse salt, such as kosher

2 bay leaves

2 tablespoons whole coriander seeds

3 cloves garlic, peeled

2 tablespoons black peppercorns

1. Stab each pepper three times with a sharp paring knife and place them in a large glass preserving jar.

2. In a non-reactive saucepan, bring the other ingredients to a boil, then reduce the heat and simmer for five minutes.

3. Remove from heat and let cool for five minutes, then pour the brine over the peppers. Place the lid on the jar and let cool. Once cool, refrigerate for at least a week before using, if possible. (You can use them sooner, but Michael says they're worth the wait.)

Serve whole, with Mexican dishes, or remove the seeds then chop and use to season any recipe that is improved by a little bit of sweet heat.

Storage: I've kept pickles like this for up to six months, under refrigeration, without any problems. If you wish to preserve them longer, you can use these canning instructions and guidelines.

Note: You can use another chile pepper in place of the jalapeños.

This whole process took Janet and I about 2 hours to complete!

Bushels of produce...

With the cool and rainy weather the produce is going crazy. We pick about a 5 gallon bucket 2-3 times a week. Not bad for the first year of gardening.

Corn, Corn, Corn...

We started picking corn on July 27. We picked, shucked, and ate the first of the harvest. I am still picking the Bodacous, and the Peaches and Cream will get picked last. Since I didn't spray it with pesticides about 90% of the corn had worms on the tips. I cut off about an inch or two off the top after shucking. So now Janet has started to blanch, cut, and bag some of it for freezer storage.

My 4 helpers...



Looking good...



Start your shucking...



Lets have a corn party....



Fire up the grill and boil the water...


And dig in. Tastes like candy!



Buckets and buckets more...

Another storm...

On July 20 we had another storm at night and I remember thinking the wind is going to blow down all the corn. I got lucky - it just bent them over. The stalks straightened up eventually though there was a big crook midway up.

Garden Update

The 2009 garden includes:

Corn:

Bodacious Corn, 16 foot rows x 15 rows = 240 feet of corn = 289 stalks
Peaches and Cream Corn, 14 foot rows x 5 rows = 70 feet of corn = 82 stalks
Total Corn = 310 feet and 371 stalks.

Each stalk is supposed to produce 1-2 ears of corn

Beans:

Blue Lake Bush Beans, 14 foot rows x 9 rows = 126 feet of beans

Tomatoes:

10 Roma, 5 Delicious, 5 Sweet Baby Girl.
Fungus got 7 of the Romas so I pulled them. We have been getting alot of the cherries and a few of the Delicous. I think the fungus stunted the remaining 3 Romas and they aren't producing like they should.

Peppers:

I planted 40 pepper plants consisting of Sweet Banana, Sweet Bell, Jalapeno, and Scotchbonnet Orange which are hotter than habeneros. I'll be eating all of them I am sure. The 40 plants are in 2 rows at 27 feet per row.

Cucumbers:

I had to expand the garden at the last minute to find a home for the cucumbers and pumpkins, since they were the last to get planted. I planted 4 hills of Burpless Bush and 4 hills of Straight Eight.

Pumpkins:

Like the cucumbers they are part of the new expanded garden. I planted 8 hills of Howden's Field pumkins. They have really taken off and we should have alot of pumkins at the end of September as they take 115 days to mature.

Squash/Zucchini:

I planted 3 hills of Black Zucchini and 3 hills of Early Prolific Straightneck Squash. They have been producing and are really starting to go crazy.

Onions:

Planted 4 rows of onions at 27 feet per row for a total of 108 feet of onions. Spacing them 2-4 inches apart thats a lot of onions! Varieties include: White Bunching Lisbon, Yellow Sweet Spanish, and Yellow Granex.

Carrots:

Tendersweet Carrot variety planted in 2 rows at 27 feet per row. They were a pain to thin out but they are looking good. No rabbits have eaten them yet!

Radishes:

Easter Egg variety, planted in 2 rows at 27 feet per row. Planted in April and they didn't do to good due to all the rain. The peppers plants took their place in the garden. I think I am going to grow a second crop in Mid-August and see what happens.

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Here is a picture. If you look at the far end you can see where I just tilled up more ground for an expanded garden in 2010. That will nearly double its size. The neighbors probably think I am crazy.

Starting an Orchard

We decided to plant an orchard of 10 fruit trees in the garden pasture. The 3 standard size apple varieties are Golden Delicious, Gala, and Granny Smith. The 2 sour cherry varieties are Montmorency (standard) and North Star (dwarf). We picked 1 semi-dwarf plum variety called Stanley, and 2 standard size pear varieties called Seckel and Ambrosia. Last but no least are 2 standard size peaches: Red Haven and Reliance. I spaced them all 20 feet apart.

I bought them bare root online for about 20 bucks each. The granny smith was broke so they shipped me another one - I planted both so we are up to 11 new fruit trees that are currently 3 feet tall and will take 3-5 years to start producing. We chose these varieties because research shows they are the best for this region. I guess I will be wrestling some deer this year!

Starting a Garden

First I bought a Rear-Tine Rototiller in October, marked off a 71' x 32' area (2,272 sq ft) in what was previously a horse pasture, and started tilling the ground. I tilled again in March and one final time in April right before planting.



The last picture shows the the first 4 rows staked off (2 rows of radishes 2 rows of carrots). I hope they grow!

Tomato Plants

Tomatoes at 2 months old...

Potting Seedlings

After the seedlings start showing their leaves its time to re-pot them. I did this in mid-March which was 1 month after planting the seeds.

Seed Starting

First I bought these handy seed starting trays and some seeds from Henry Fields. I planted them on St. Valentines Day. We had fun watching them germinate in the kitchen....

Planted: a 72 cell flat of Roma, Delicious, and Sweet Baby Girl tomatoes, a 72 cell flat of 4 kinds of peppers, a 72 cell flat of 4 kinds of onions.