Gardening and stuff

[helwen]

Finally got some of the wire rack shelving up in the SW room. One more and I think I can move the rest of the folded SCA clothing out of the bedroom as well as the hallway - yay!

Did I already write here that for the LaRatte fingerling potatoes I planted maybe 6-7 oz. of potatoes (3 individuals) and harvested 9.5 pounds? Better than the Maine whites, which I think I have about 8 lbs. of... although that last pound was by accident today :D

I was pulling up beets and putting them in a bucket of damp sand, which will go down to the shop cellar until the weather gets cold enough that I can store them in the back attic, off our kitchen. Of course we don't have any free buckets so that means going down to the barn, finding one that I think I can figure out better homes for the current contents therein, and _then_ going up to the garden. So, a bit of organizing to go with the gardening...

...and then it occurred to me that while the little beets were hardly worth the trouble for harvest, William will just plow the field and turn everything over at some point, so I took a bunch of the little guys and moved them over to L and my sunny plot, which won't be getting turned over by machine anymore, and re-planted them there for next year. Don't know if they'll come up or not, but might as well give it a try. There's still some more little ones in the original spot, which I may move over or I may decide to harvest for making soup immediately. Mary J said if we wanted a few of her beets we were welcome to them, so I might pick a few nice one out -- I think they may be a slightly different variety.

Anyway, I found the potatoes while I was digging to make a place for the little beets to go. It's only my second year growing potatoes so I guess I need to practice my spading fork technique or something.

***
Tonight, most excellent soup -- combo of some potatoes and carrots harvested today, plus pepper, garlic, a bit of kale, and threw in leftovers from a few days ago (summer squash, ground turkey, onion, rice, soy sauce, kale). Yum!

Comments

[gardengirl6.livejournal.com]

Finding bonus potatoes is SO much fun! I lost the place where my bonus spuds came up this year, so next year I hope it'll be an even bigger bonus. We had stew tonight too - crock pot style - Mondays are busy days for me with three classes ordinarily, though I missed the first two with a sick child. Still, it was nice to roll home at 5:30 and have beef stew ready to eat. Beef in broth with potatoes, carrots, corn, and green beans (added in the last hour) with garlic bread. Yum! And lots left over :)

[helwen.livejournal.com]

:) I'm a big fan of stew too :)

Sorry to hear one of the kids is sick though - hope he and/or she feels better soon!

[gardengirl6.livejournal.com]

Thanks - this is a mystery sort of illness. Tummy ache with lowgrade fever... don't know yet if I'll send her to school tomorrow.

Almost forgot to tell you that the grape jam is in progress - the grapes are cooked, but the juice is in the fridge since I didn't have any cheesecloth. I read that the source of the nasty bitter crystals in my jam is tartrate crystals that will form if the juice isn't strained through cheesecloth. Since having nasty crystals sort of defeats the purpose of homemade jam and all, I went and got cheesecloth today. Jam tomorrow, God willing!

[oakmouse]

Potatoes are escape artists. We dug ours up last year and sifted the soil, but we had three volunteers this year anyway. And ours were a total failure as a crop! *g*

The tiny beets will probably come up next year and proceed to flower. They're actually very much worth harvesting, being tender and delicious. Steam them whole (with greens, if you like beet greens), put a bit of butter on them and enjoy a mouthful of heaven...

[helwen.livejournal.com]

I'll likely end up harvesting the rest of them from the original spot -- what was planned and what happened ended up not matching terribly closely on some fronts, so best to partake of what has been given, yes?

Which reminds me, I need to finish cutting down the sunflowers and gathering all the seeds... that's one of the crops that turned out pretty much as hoped for.

[oakmouse]

Yup; go with whatcha got.

Our sunflowers were huge and healthy but they're now dying thanks to the cool summer and the seeds haven't matured yet. Oh well; they were a fabulous bee magnet.

[helwen.livejournal.com]

Bummer. Too cool hm? I guess in spite of all the rain we had this year we still got enough hot weather as well. Yeah, they're pretty popular with the bees -- as are the borage and echinacea :)

[gardengirl6.livejournal.com]

How do you harvest your seeds? I have several heads drying nicely, but no real idea what to do next. Do I just pry out the seeds? Then what? I've read that you can 'whirl them in the blender' to get them out of the shells. Have you tried that method? I'm looking for clever and creative ideas, and you often have them :)

By the way, the comfrey is recovering from its insult over being transplanted. I used two huge pots, and filled the bottom third with the wood shaving/bunny poo mix from under the rabbit hutches. I'm hoping that this mixture under the soil the plants came in, under potting mix, will mollify them. They did get an excellent drink over the weekend, didn't they?

[helwen.livejournal.com]

You can brush your hand across the tops of them and they loosen up from their places and come out. However I would wear gloves, because the part of the flower head that holds the seeds in place are spikey.

I haven't tried the blender, only shelling by hand. Sorry, no clever ideas this time!

Glad the comfrey is recovering. Comfrey's a pretty tough plant, but sounds like you've given them a warm welcome :)