garden – monadnock mama

I almost titled this post “garden 2015 // the end” but then I realized that it is not, in fact, anywhere near the end. I still have dozens of green tomatoes hanging in heavy clumps, waiting to ripen; two pepper plants that have just experienced an unseasonal growth spurt and might, actually, produce peppers; and one long, fascinating pumpkin vine with one tiny, pale little pumpkin hatch-ling popping out where there was only a flower just last week. So, no, it is not the end. But, I have been a terrible recorder of things this summer. I haven’t really felt the desire to be in this space, in this little virtual home of mine. And, so, there have been no garden posts, and I apologize — not to you — but to myself, because I won’t have those posts to enjoy later on.

Tonight I had to go outside and I had to dig. I uprooted all of the beets and all of the carrots, and then I pulled up all of the weeds that remained with the garden rake. And, it felt wonderful. Changes have happened around here — big changes. I am working outside of the home for the first time in five years! I am really enjoying this new adventure, but I admit to suffering a little bit from the inertia of the transition. Being with my garden, and experiencing the deep soul satisfaction that comes from holding in my hands a rainbow of delicious, healthy goodness, well, suddenly all of the changes seemed to fit. I seemed to fit. I am still me, just a slightly different me. Just as the carrots grow, so I do, too.

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Here is a little garden update for anyone who is interested. Growing everything from seed is an entirely new experience for me. I didn’t realize how long it really takes everything to get going. Last year I bought all started plants, so it seemed like the garden just exploded overnight. Starting from seed requires patience, and faith! Today it rained for the first time in ages , and it is such a relief. I’ve tried to stay on top of keeping the baby plants watered, and they are still growing well and are healthy, but I’m sure they were happy to get a nice big drink from the sky this morning! Not too much to report at this stage, but here’s the latest: the peas are now tall enough to reach the twine lattice — I had to add in some extra rows because my original lattice was too spread out; the kale is doing pretty well, though not big enough to eat yet; the beets all seem to be growing at different rates — the “chioggia” variety seems to be the hardiest so far; the carrots are also finally growing (I’ve thinned everything out since taking these pictures). We also planted some mesclun (mixed baby greens) and Zane planted his radishes, too. I couldn’t believe how quickly the radish seeds germinated — I think we saw sprouts the second or third day! The next step is to decide what to plant in the second raised bed. We’ll definitely do zucchini, but I’d love to hear your suggestions. I think we’re going to do tomatoes in containers this year because of blight and the sheer size of the full-grown plants.

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Oh, man, I am so happy to be writing this post! After an interminably long and brutally cold winter here in the Northeast, Spring has finally sprung. This is our second year having a vegetable garden at our house (you can read about the first year here), and I learned a lot about what works and what doesn’t during the first year. Last year I got kind of a late start so I ended up buying already started plants at a big box store, which really limited my options. This year I wanted to try some new things, and so I decided to plant everything from seed. I printed out this handy planting chart from the UNH Cooperative Extension, which was specifically designed for New Hampshire. I chose some early season vegetables that we really love and bought seeds to plant in one of our beds, with the other bed being reserved for more summertime vegetables. The front bed is now planted with (date planted in parentheses): dwarf blue curled kale (4/15); Calliope blend carrots (4/15); touchstone gold beets (4/18); chioggia beets (4/18); and detroit dark red beets (4/18). Yes, we really like beets. As of today (5/4), everything has sprouted!

We also have the raspberry bushes that we inherited from our neighbor last year. My neighbor said that she usually cuts all of the canes down at the end of the season so that new ones grow up the following year. I was hesitant to do this because at the house we rented when we first moved to Walpole we had raspberry bushes and they were ever-bearers. What that means is that the growing cycle looks something like this: a new cane grows during the summer and produces berries near the end of the growing season; the next year that same cane will look dead at first, but will produce new leaves starting at the beginning of the season and will produce berries in the summer; in addition to the growth on the old cane, the roots will produce new canes, which will produce fruit at the end of the season; the old canes die for good at the end of the second growing season, but the new canes will produce again the following year, when they will be the new “old” canes. That might sound convoluted, but it basically means that if you cut down all of your canes at the end of the season, then you are missing out on an entire harvest. I was rewarded for my caution and patience by seeing lots of new growth on the “old” canes I planted last year so they must, indeed, be ever-bearers. I can’t wait for them to spread out more and produce lots of delicious berries in years to come. [Kind neighbor who gave me the bushes — this paragraph is not meant as a criticism of your method, which is totally fine and works great in areas with early frosts. But, if you want more berries you might be interested in this article.]

Our garden also has a new addition this year: a pea & bean teepee! My father-in-law graciously let me have some of his bamboo poles from last year (yes, he grows bamboo), and I made a pretty darn awesome teepee, if I may so myself. First, I dug a 3/4 circle trench in the ground, about six inches deep, and filled it with garden soil and compost. I left an opening for a “doorway” so that the kids can hang out inside of it when it is covered with vines. Next, Zane helped me trim down the bamboo poles to a standard 7 feet long with a hacksaw (bamboo can shatter if you aren’t careful, so a hacksaw with a fine-tooth blade is the way to go). Then I pushed the poles down into the ground in the trench I dug, about 3 inches or so, and did my best to lash all the poles together at the top. Finally, I wrapped twine all around the poles at about ten inch intervals, all the way up to the top. On April 18th our peas went into the ground, and nothing happened for over two weeks! I was so sad, and pretty sure that the cold weather we had right after planting had killed everything. Thankfully, I was wrong, and little pea shoots finally started popping up about three days ago. Now they’re almost an inch tall and so far they look healthy and strong. I can’t wait to see them fill in the teepee…and I also can’t wait to taste them!

I have lots of plans for this little homestead of mine (no, I do not plan on raising any chickens). There is a crabapple tree growing just over the fence in the backyard which I have been trying to take care of the past few years. It didn’t do much last year, but the year before it had tons of crabapples on it, so I’m hoping for another good year this fall. I also dug up some unsavoury barberry bushes from the side of the garage (ouchy thorns + poisonous berries = no thanks!) and hope to replace them with blueberry & blackberry bushes as soon as I can get my hands on some. I’m also working on some sort of crazy trellis so that I can grow pumpkins vertically. I’ll update all summer long as our garden grows!

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I’m so far behind on my blogging, and especially on my garden update posts. This will be a whirlwind tour of the garden over the past three weeks. We’ve had downy mildew, hail stones, and rodents munching on unripened squashes. But, we’ve also had delicious zucchinis, cucumbers, and even some ripe red tomatoes! In fact, we had enough tomatoes to make some delicious roasted tomato sauce for our pizza last night. We would have had more if the hail hadn’t taken out at least half of them while they were still green. The only thing we haven’t tried yet are the lemon cucumbers that I had completely forgotten about. I kept thinking, what’s wrong with these cucumbers? why aren’t they turning green? I’ve decided just to be cool and enjoy what time I have left with my little plants before autumn arrives. I’m still pruning out the bad leaves but I’m not going to obsess, especially since everything still seems to be producing vegetables just fine.

One thing I have learned from this gardening experience is that we moderns have it good. I know that there are people who homestead and provide all of their own food — good for them! But, even people who are providing all of their own food are doing it by and large by choice, at least here in the United States. If they absolutely had to, they could go to a supermarket somewhere (even if it was a long drive) and get some food. Our forebears didn’t have supermarkets. If blight took all their tomatoes, they had no tomatoes. Despite its many faults, I am very, very thankful for modern agriculture. I never have to worry that there won’t be any food available (of course, paying for it is an entirely separate issue), and that is something I think we all take for granted.

Zucchini Fritters, adapted from Damn Delicious

1 large zucchini, grated, strained, and dried as much as possible
1/4 cup all-purpose flour
1/4 cup grated Parmesan
3 tsp minced garlic (you could use less or more depending on your taste)
1 large egg, beaten
salt & pepper to taste
2 tablespoons olive oil

Grate the zucchini and dry it out as much as possible. I put it in a colander (as the recipe recommended) and patted/smashed it with paper towels until it seemed dry. I probably could have done it more, as my fritters took a really long time to cook through. In a bowl combine zucchini, flour, parmesan cheese, garlic and egg; add seasonings to taste.

Heat olive oil in a large skillet over medium high heat. The original recipe states, “Scoop tablespoons of batter for each fritter, flattening with a spatula, and cook until the underside is nicely golden brown, about 2 minutes. Flip and cook on the other side, about 1-2 minutes longer.” I apparently missed this step and scooped mine by the 1/4 cup! They took a long time to cook, but they were so good.

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I know I haven’t been posting very much lately but I have a legitimate reason: my laptop is broken and is currently being repaired. Zane somehow managed to destroy the power jack, so now the battery won’t charge. I never realized how much I relied on having my own computer, until I didn’t have one. Thankfully, Damian is kind enough to let me use his desktop to edit photos and write posts, though I have to battle the tween for time to do so. These past couple weeks of gardening have been a serious lesson in humility for me. It’s not that I was ever really bragging, but looking back through my first month or so of garden posts one might assume that everything was coming up roses (or tomatoes, so to speak) and that perhaps I was just a naturally talented gardener. But, then things got real. First there was the blossom end rot, now…the blight . Oh, the horrible blight!!! My poor tomato plants are losing many of their lower (and some middle) leaves, and I am so scared that the plants will die before the fruit ripens. Stupid nature! Why must everything be a competition? I just want to grow a very humble garden — can’t you just leave me be? Obviously, the answer is no. Besides that, everything is doing great. We even have little cucumbers — so cute! — and we harvested some summer squash this week, too. Zane is so excited every time we go out there to see what might be ready. Despite the hassles it’s totally worth it because his joy trumps blight any day of the week.