A Fifth Post on: Gardens

Some folks learn from observing the mistakes of others, or perhaps goodly advice. Then there are people that others watch to learn how mistakes can be made...and what to avoid doing. I try to fall into the first category, but alas, I often find myself wandering through the latter.

Some mistakes are as the painter Bob Ross used to describe, 'happy accidents'...some mistakes are not. I've made them both--happy and not so happy. And like a person with a large knot on their head, I ask, what did I do wrong, and what SHOULD I have done right?

My 'experiment' with the large box with the large plastic sack has been just that--an experiment. (I should put a picture with this, but it may come 'later'.) One thing I learned was, in an experiment, remember it is an experiment. Do the experiment on a SMALL scale. Mine was much too large... A second thing I learned-- don't take short cuts. I used the peat moss that we had on hand, and yes, that was because that was what I had on hand to use. I thought I had most of the stray pop corn that was in the peat moss sorted out, but I eventually discovered that I had far too much still in there.

So, what happened was-- it is difficult to keep the peat moss damp. It absorbs the water like a sponge, or worse. The pop corn sprouted and came up very well once I watered the growing medium --even if the peat moss wouldn't stay damp. I know how sensitive corn in the field is. If it gets frosted at a certain stage, it's history. I hoped if I just pinched off the leaves, voila! Corn gone...but not so when 'corn gone' is the intended goal. It came back, and back, and back again. Tomatoes may like carrots... but apparently, broccoli, cabbage, and what ever else I had in my experiment didn't care so much for the corn. (Kind of snickering, but not real happy here...) And I don't think the other plants that germinated liked living in the peat moss (only) either.

I may try the box, or something similar, idea again, but I definitely have learned some things NOT to do. I think I have most of the corn pinched out of the peat moss, and am sprinkling some regular planting medium around the poor struggling plants that are still waving/gasping at me.

Rain is a good thing. We have had some nice rain, as well as some heavy rain in the last two weeks, therefore there has been no more planting outside. My husband, Chris, has planted the 100 Whopper strawberry plants we purchased from Gurney's this spring. I will need to get out with the 'photographer' du jour--whoever that may be, and take some pictures at the progress that has transpired. We still have ten blackberry plants to set in the ground. I believe it was the variety, 'Triple Crown'. We ordered them from Indiana Berry & Plant Company. Originally, about six to seven years ago, we purchased three 'thornless and seedless' varieties of blackberry bushes from Gurneys. It runs in my mind they were Apache, and either Arapaho, or Navaho, and the Triple Crown. We planted them down on the road bank in front of the house with the idea of keeping my father-in-law from mowing the lawn too far down the steep bank.

Of course, he promptly mowed down beyond the berries, giving us heart palpitations, and almost 'doing himself in'. He didn't like those, @#$%^ things any way, but most of them survived the occasional mowing off...for the next 2-3 years. Yes, we have an interesting family. Smile

The berries have excellent flavor, and they are HUGE. Which is why we now have more plants sitting on the 'sun porch' --along with the fifty pounds of seed potatoes to be planted when the garden dries out a wee bit more, and some echinacea plants I've almost killed...

ASPARAGUS: ~GOOD FOR YOU~
A natural source of Folic Acid, A natural Detoxifier-- Antioxident-- Help in preventing kidney stones, and A well-maintained planting will produce up to 15 years...

Lately we have been harvesting asparagus. I was aghast a week or so ago to read elsewhere someone's comment that 'asparagus shouldn't be eaten anywhere...' That is one thing that doesn't happen on my side of the genetic pond...there are very few vegetables that we don't enjoy. In the springtime asparagus is one of the first things to poke it's welcome spear through the ground. We have 'wild' asparagus that grows out on our field bank which we have harvested, as well as my in-laws, for a number of years. Marie especially liked it, Marvin not being a vegetable fan.

Every spring however, even though it is on our land, we have to be pretty sharp, because there are marauders that comb the country roads looking for 'free' asparagus. Some of them are from town, and some are folks from who knows where. We don't look kindly on these folks, some are unaware that it isn't 'free' asparagus, and that they are actually trespassing on our land, especially when they climb up the steep road bank and cross our property fence.

In some cases the landowner doesn't use their plants, be it asparagus, or wild herbs and if asked would not care if they were harvested. In some cases such as older people who can't harvest their own --if they were given some of the harvest by the person wanting to harvest it-- that would be fine as well. The point is if possible it is best to ask. We do usually get quite a bit of asparagus...we are pretty sharp, and we keep after it.

Three years ago we also invested in 75 asparagus roots to plant an asparagus bed as well as our 'wild asparagus'. Now, asparagus plants can be male or female plants, and the older varieties such as Martha Washington, and Purple Passion have both male and female plants. The male plants produce a larger spear, and there are no seeds. Two of the new all male hybrids are Jersey Knight and Jersey Supreme.

You cut asparagus with a sharp knife. The directions from the book instruct: 'Cut with sharp knife below the ground. Cutting below the ground is better and will increase your yield in two ways...'

In preparation, I rinse the asparagus with cold water, and of course we only want the tender asparagus. With a sharp knife I start at the base of the plant and when it get tender --somewhat as soft butter, I cut it into chunks about an inch long that we will save for consuming. I have seen lately a 'asparagus' steamer, for steaming asparagus spears instead of cutting them into the inch long lengths. I have never used the steamer, but they look nice...

I throw the tougher ends away of course, and after we have eaten several messes fresh, I will begin to freeze it. To freeze asparagus, after rinsing under cold water, I do the same test for tenderness as well as cutting it up. I then blanch it (this involves bringing water to a boil, preferably in a large kettle/saucepan, putting a portion of the vegetables into the boiling water, timing them for 3 minutes, then the vegetables are drained out of the hot water, plunged into ice cold water for 3 minutes then drained again and packaged.) I have two large pans that I alternate for the boiling water. I place a large colander over the empty pan (in our case it is either 'Walter's pan', or the pasta pan)then pour the hot contents of the one pan into/through the colander. Lift the colander filled with asparagus out shaking to get any remaining hot water out of the vegetable, then pour only the vegetable into the prepared cold water. --I fill my sinks with cold water both of them, for blanching.-- I put the pan with the hot water back onto the stove, restart the burner, and repeat the process with the next batch of asparagus, or what ever other vegetable I may be blanching/freezing. While the next a batch is in the hot water I move the first batch of vegetables to the second cold water sink...

I can usually use the first sink of cold water twice, but after that it needs drained and replaced with cold water. And I use my judgement on the second sink as to whether it should be replaced at the same time or not. I will dip the vegetables out of the second sink either right before or right after the second batch is ready to come out. There is usually just a small window of opportunity between the changing of the vegetables.

The next step is out of the cold water, drain, and(I will put the blanched vegetables into a large bowl until I have the time to bag) bag in freezer bags. I usually bag them in quart size baggies. I save the liquid from the blanching process, or at least enough that I can put just a dab of sugar on the veggies in each bag, and a ladle of the reserved liquid. There is probably 1/2 cup of liquid in the bag, then I zip it shut, expelling as much of the air as possible. It does take some amount of expertise, but after doing this process for many years it isn't as difficult as it sounds.

Because this is dealing with very hot stuff I usually clear the kitchen when I'm working with this stuff. No children allowed (probably no pets either for more than one reason, but we don't have any inside pets). And it is something a person MUST be very careful in using.

My Grandparents never had 'running water'. They chose to carry their drinking water 'up the hill' from a well, or we used 'soft' water from our cistern that we used a hand pump to provide for dishes or bathing in the house. When I was young--under ten years old--my Grandmother was moving a tea kettle full of hot water-- either to use it or just moving it from one burner to another. She accidentally spilled some hot water on the linoleum floor, slipped and scalded herself in the water. My Grandfather spent weeks dressing the burn at least twice daily (he used DEM, or Denver Mud as we called it). I can only half imagine how terribly painful it must have been. Grandmother never would go to a doctor for it. Having used DEM on my own burns I know it was very effective. The best thing, however, is to avoid the burn in the first place...especially since you can not get Denver Mud any longer.

I kept the 'recipe' for Denver Mud (somewhere). I asked a pharmacist quite a few years ago if he could compound it for me. He researched the ingredients that I gave him and told me he could obtain all of the ingredients except the main one--I believe it was 'silicate of aluminum'. That product would take the pain out of the burn almost immediately, and it was wonderful. Sigh

Psalms 90:14 Oh satisfy us in the morning with thy lovingkindness, That we may rejoice and be glad all our days.

Next in Garden

Tomatoes like 'settled' weather. They, in the same manner as the peppers and egg plant, don't like cold weather, or a frost. I have read that tomato plants need to be protected from 40 degrees and under or your fruit (tomatoes) will be misshapen as in 'cat faced' or other deformities. Now, I do not remember if the plants have to be blossoming at the time, or if it is the plant itself with out the blossoms.

We have planted cabbage (several thousand plants when we were 'truck farming') only to wake in the morning to have a couple of inches of snow on them. They will take some cold weather, and the snow did not last long when the sun came up.

Not all plants of course are tender to cold weather, and not all plants need to be started inside. I've read an old timey booklet by Otha B. Warrin in which he stated an old adage: Any one can be a farmer.

As odd as it may seem, my mother used to have an adage: Any one can be a teacher. I have spent a good many years as a teacher, as a 'farmer', and as a 'gardener'. One thing I can attest to is that, yes, anyone can diddle at these things, but only a few are called to be able to put the adjective 'excellent' along with those terms.

Today my husband and I began planting our outside garden. We put in a few rows of onions, carrots/radishes, beets, turnips, and some spinach. There is still much to put in. I would like to put in our peas and set out our first planting of cabbage, cauliflower, and broccoli. We could also set out our tomatoes and peppers, but only with protection of some sort.

The weather this year is far warmer than normal. The local farmers are planting even though a frost would kill the corn, and the potential is definitely there. How ever on the other side of the coin as our neighbor said Sunday, 'I am wondering if we won't have an early fall'.

Gardens, well, the soil needs to be dry enough to till. No mud balls. It is worked up either with (in our case) a tiller, or dug with a spade until it is loose. Somewhere along the line, and I'm thinking it was Benjamin and his Uncle Jeff, made a 'row marker' for me of two electric fence posts with hooks welded on each one to run my twine through. There is approximately fifty foot of twine that connects our two posts. The length of the twine is an individual choice. Not all of our rows are that long either, sometimes we tie the excess twine up for shorter rows. It is important that the twine be pulled tight...Push the one row marker well into the prepared soil, pull the twine tight, push the other row marker into the ground firmly. Run your hoe along the twine digging a trench in a straight line. We dig a trench for onions, drop a plant every couple of inches, then cover them so that only the green top is showing, which means the root end goes down...smile.

Carrots are slow at germinating, and are teeny tiny little green feathers when they do come up. In a garden setting the weeds will definitely over take them and they will be lost. So, what does a gardener do? We plant our carrots and radishes in the same row at the same time using the radishes as a 'row marker'. Radishes are fast growers. They are generally up...and out with in three to four weeks. It takes carrots about 21 days to germinate...just right.

An interesting thing about beets? One seed may produce more than one beet. Turnips are good raw, or cooked (in an earlier post I shared a recipe for creamed turnips). Kohlrabi is an unusual vegetable that not everyone is familiar with. It is along the lines of a turnip, very crisp and sweet when harvested early. Home grown spinach is very tasty either cooked, or throw it into a salad along with the lettuce.

We also planted some cheap sweet corn. Sweet corn seed is very expensive. Just a few years ago farmers were often treated to 'free sweet corn seed' when they ordered their field corn, but not in these days. Sweet corn seed varies from around 16 dollars a pound to as much as almost 30 dollars per pound. No more free sweet corn seed...I don't know exactly where we got the two small packets of sweet corn, but it was probably given to us and may not grow. It is too early for sweet corn by the calendar. About ten days too early, but like all the farmers around us the temptation is there, and...

Well, as I said we planted just two rows of cheap sweet corn..."Where," I ask my husband as we are planting the corn, "is Jeremy when we need him?" He isn't sure what I'm talking about, so I continue.

"Remember the year Jenny sold baked goods at the farmer's market? That was the year we had all of that sweet corn..."

The memory began approximately fifteen years ago on an evening. My boys, Nathan and Jeremy are helping with the garden planting. I am making the rows, Jeremy is dropping the seed corn into the rows, and Nathan comes along covering them up and tamping them in. I have made more rows than I care to remember, and I'm thinking we surely must be getting close to done...finally I say, "Jeremy, are we about done yet?" (My back of course is killing me by now.)

Any one who knows Jeremy knows exactly how precise that boy is...and he has been dropping a kernel of corn just about 6-9 inches apart for the last 20 rows, and we still have about half of the bag left...

"Give me that bag... You make the rows, I'll plant the seed!" It's funny now, and we had the best harvest of sweet corn! We sold sweet corn, we gave it away, not to mention our own 100 quarts we froze...and it is funny now. Did I mention it is funny now?

Job 8:21 He will yet fill thy mouth with laughter, And thy lips with shouting.

Proverbs 17:22 A cheerful heart is a good medicine; But a broken spirit drieth up the bones.

Smile, like someone used to say, "Thanks for the memories..."