Garlic

I actually DID dig up the garlic last year, but it's obviously the smartass of the plant world:

Let The Gardening Games Begin!

I have planted lettuce, spinach, and kale!

Which is the most excitement kale really ever gets, isn't it?  We've had such warm weather and they're so cold-hardy that I could have put them in a few weeks ago, but it's still early enough that the "old saws" will be lining up to tell me how wrong I am.  Whatever--it works every year, and while we're hearing how I shouldn't do this or that, we're usually harvesting the lettuce that isn't supposed to grow.  Our temperatures are rising drastically every year, and last year our final frost was a full month earlier than average and it's going to be even warmer this year.  I need to get some cleanup done in the greenhouse, and it will be time to get starts going in there--YIKES!  Where does the time go?

Between fungus and scorching temperatures, we're going to cut back on tomatoes this year.  It's just too hot for them unless they get shade, so I'm taking a break from even trying to grow more than one or maybe two.  If I want to can something, I can buy them.  They don't taste as good as a successful tomato harvest, but they taste a lot better than tomatoes that can't fruit because temperatures are over 110 for weeks.  :)

I Have Picked Tomatoes in JUNE

Thanks to global warming,  Idaho's summers have been getting hotter and hotter.  This year we've been averaging a full 20 degrees above average, and everything is running 3 to 4 weeks ahead of schedule.  Even so,

tomatoes in June is pretty amazing.  With rising temperatures, tomatoes can get blasted with heat at exactly the wrong time and not put on fruit.  This year the plants are just really, really stunted.  Some are only a foot tall, though they are so stressed by the heat that they are putting on tomatoes.  We were in Colorado for a family event over the weekend, and one tomato plant was just looking so bad that I thought the extreme heat (107 on Saturday) would finish it off.  Instead, it produced tomatoes.  And toppled over, but hey, there are tomatoes.

And,

there are more cucumbers ready to be pickled.  For normal people, 3 1/2 months of canning pickles might seem like a lot, but I am a pickle FIEND.  A large harvest just means I'm willing to share with Andy.......................:)

The Plants Are Moving Out!!!!

Historically, our last frost date would be May 10, but history fails to account for the drastic increase in temperatures, so I started moving the plants out of the greenhouse and into the garden yesterday.  The cucumbers and pumpkins were most in need of transplantation,

and most likely to die if the weather forecast was wrong, so what better plants to start with? 

This year I tried starting beans in the greenhouse, and aside from them not having anything to climb, 

 they did really well.  I'm going to see if they can shade my lettuce and spinach a bit--I always see great garden designs with beans growing over things, but so much of the time they just don't grow very well for me.  I wasn't sure if they would handle transplanting, but these are the best-looking beans I've ever grown, so at least I'm doing better than I usually do. 

I am trying to be really conscious of my back, so I promised myself no more than 5-6 plants at a time. 

Which means this could take a while......................

Finally

I made the first pickles of the year today.  It's been a couple years since I've had a good cucumber crop, so we had almost run out of pickles.  As a pickle fanatic,  the very idea is frightening.

Thank You, Burpee

You know, one of the great problems with spring planting is how little and harmless plants look, so it's terribly easy to over-plant.  Luckily, Burpee has solved this problem.

Rather than foolishly allowing gardeners to plant an entire row of flowers, Burpee's "Signature Series" seeds keep gardeners in moderation by providing no more than NINE seeds per packet.  Nine.  I counted, just to make sure.  Whew, just overwhelmed by this one......

IT LIVES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

The lilac is alive!  I bought this last year because I adore the scent of lilacs in the spring and have always been able to get my lilac-smelling fix when out walking, but the subdivision we live in now hadn't a single lilac bush anywhere.  Isn't that tragic?  So, I found this one last year at Costco, and the tag had a picture of little purple flowers with white edging, and not only have I not killed it, it is the bush on the label!  As all gardeners know, this doesn't always happen, and I have tried to not get TOO excited about this one until we were sure it was the right one.  And it is!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  Thank heavens I really can't lift things right now--I'm so delighted with this one that I might have been tempted to go to Costco this week and get it some friends......

Gardening Resolutions For 2014

*  Just because I didn't plant the cold weather crops last month, it doesn't really mean I'm behind.  It just means I haven't needed to find creative things to do with an overflow of spinach.

*  There are many gardening techniques out there, and while many of them are perfectly valid, they might not work for us.  After failed potato boxes and 3 years of poor harvests, I am taking it as a sign and moving on.  We live in Idaho, for heaven's sake--we can BUY potatoes.

*  I no longer have any expectations that my phlox seeds will grow--now I just plant them as a sacrifice to the God of Fussy Plants

*  Just because I bought a little bag of onion sets, I'm not necessarily obligated to plant them..especially when we are just now finding onions from the ones I planted last year.

*  I'm much less concerned about trying to keep the yard looking nice for the sake of the neighborhood now that I know how many of my neighbors let their dogs crap in our yard

*  I'm a lot less worried about tomatoes this year since I still have two bags of them in the freezer that haven't been used.....

*  I'm sure I'll regret it in a couple months, but when they're just seeds, it's hard to imagine such a thing as too many snow peas......

Almost Done!!!

Okay, there may be a few POUNDS of tomatoes in the freezer, but at least the garden has finally died and most of the tomatoes are used up.  I'll take another stab at canning tomorrow and we might be able to use the freezers for something besides tomatoes soon..........................

Almost There

18 pints of fresh tomato soup are cooling off in the pressure canner now, which is almost the end of the tomatoes.  And frees up a box:

I think the wink is because now I'm wondering if he also felt the need to be in there when it was full of tomatoes.  I wash them and peel them, of course, but after spending all day making tomato soup, the last thing I want to think about is a cat sitting on them.

I still have a few green tomatoes, and at least 30 pounds of frozen tomatoes, but I could use another 20 pounds to make tomato soup later in the week and be done with canning for the year, or I could just can tomatoes in the pressure canner which could take up slightly more than 20 pounds of tomatoes.  The end is in sight!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

And We Have.....

a SECOND batch of green tomato salsa, to follow up on Monday's canned tomatoes and double batch of chunky basil pasta sauce.  Unfortunately,

there are still lots and lots and lots of tomatoes.  I keep telling myself that the overabundance is really a GOOD thing because between my father's illness and my back issues, I didn't do much canning last year, and our summers are only going to get hotter and hotter, making it harder to grow a garden every year, but I am still getting a bit tired of the tomatoes.  Most of my tomato plants are actually still alive, but we're not discussing that. 

Since I canned yesterday and had a miserable back day on Tuesday, I'm not canning today.  I have physical therapy at noon, and I'm guessing it will be one of those painful working-out-the-kinks sessions.  So maybe the tomatoes and I will spend some time together over the weekend.  Or maybe I have enough room in the freezer for more red ones and can ignore the silly things until Monday...............

You Know You've Gotten Obsessed With the Garden When......

*  You have to take a picture of the perfect red bell pepper you grew before you can eat it:

* You check the weather more for the sake of how warm the garden will be than for how warm the house will be

*  Your spouse understands completely when you explain you can't buy any refrigerated groceries right now because the pepper harvest has taken up all the space............

* Finding a new green tomato salsa recipe is a cause for serious celebration.

* It isn't "fall" or "autumn" at your house but "canning season"

An Early Frost Predicted.....

An unexpected frost warning tonight combined with high winds meant the garden couldn't be covered, so after physical therapy, I harvested what was left.  Even after our friend picking on Tuesday and me picking yesterday, there were still an amazing number of ripe tomatoes, which are just sprawled all over the counters or in the freezer now.

Oh yeah--I'm ready for the garden to die..........

So..........

I have decided that my Spring Self must have it in for my Fall Self.  My Spring Self sees nothing wrong with 8 poblano plants, or planting every single tomato seedling I get to sprout because my Spring Self won't have to deal with the consequences.  That is for Fall Self, who is now picking tomatoes daily and wondering what kind of glue Spring Self was sniffing when she decided to let Mystery Squash live and who thought this year's tomato harvest should both make up for last year AND put one ahead for next year. It's probably best they actually never meet--my Fall Self would punch Spring Self in the nose right about now...........

Fingers Crossed

Canning hit a bit of a snag this week when I was flattened with a cold, but I'm hoping to tackle those tomatoes again tomorrow. 

This

is one of this year's most hopeful experiments:  Roasted Poblano Salsa.  Like most canned salsa, it was quite nasty to taste before it went in the jars, but I'm hoping that those roasted poblano peppers will live up to our expectations after this has time to mellow for a bit.  Poblano peppers are my favorite hot peppers--probably because they are the least hot of the "hot" peppers.  That gives them lots of flavor with less eye-watering.  Dried, they're called "chile ancho,"  though I haven't tried drying any yet.  With 8 poblano plants, this might be the year to try.........

A Holiday Weekend

So, my theory was that if I canned one thing a day, I'd get caught up with the garden.  So Thursday,

I made pickles.  I'm getting enough cucumbers to make small batches, but with the number of plants I put in, I should be overrun with cucumbers.  I think the severe heat stunted them.

Friday,

 I made zucchini barbecue relish.  I did not grow zucchini this year, which makes me incredibly popular with all my friends who did.  I didn't even think I liked relish until I met this one.  And a double batch used up THREE zucchini, which is saying a lot. 


And today's canning is...........................not happening.  It turns out, two days in a row of canning is exhausting.  But maybe tomorrow.............


About the time I really hate the garden,

the terrific food kicks in.  The large peppers are Gypsy peppers, which are almost as sweet yellow as they are when they turn red, but are much faster to grow than the red peppers we see in the stores.  For the TRUE sweet red pepper lover, the tiny red peppers are called Red Popper.  They all come on at once, and they're a bit of a pain if you want to chop them, but Andy put them on kabobs last night, and they are AMAZING.  One of the perks to raising a garden is getting food one simply can't find in stores.  Gypsy peppers have shown up in a local store recently, but grocery chains are never going to go for something like the Red Poppers. Too bad--I'm thinking they'd make great appetizers with a little filling -- maybe feta or goat cheese?  Once we quit gobbling them up raw, of course...............

And Today's Mystery Plant Is......

The world's most phallic pepper:

Even though this is a plant I grew from seeds, I haven't the faintest idea what kind of pepper it is, but judging from the small size, I'm guessing it's a rather hot one.  I do have a few recipes for pickled vegetables where one puts a whole red chile in the jars, so I guess I have something I can do with them, but I'm rather chapped about this plant.  I'm used to squash doing whatever it wants to do and just generally being a pain, but I thought peppers and I had a bit of an understanding--they grow well, they don't need a lot of work, and until this year were pretty predictable.  If the cucumbers turn on me, I think I'm going to need therapy..............

Squash Wars - The 2013 Version

I did not plant squash this year.  However,

we got squash anyway.  I kept up with weeding out the "volunteer" plants pretty well, but these got a head start because they were right where I planted cucumbers and I initially thought they WERE cucumbers, and then when I couldn't get the beans growing, I thought I'd just leave them until the squash bugs hit or we got some squash.  BUT, in the perversity known around here as The Squash Wars, the squash bugs have left these along AND they're some sort of unidentifiable mutants.  We think the top one is a cross between patty-pan and pumpkins or butternut, but the bottom one is a bit of a mystery.  It looks like a watermelon, but we haven't grown watermelon and the only watermelon we've eaten for several years now are the seedless ones, so it has to be some sort of mutant squash.  Zucchini and spaghetti maybe?   

 I may get my ass kicked by squash every year, but thankfully peppers love me:

Gypsy peppers are my new favorite.  They're sweet and are terrific raw, but also stand up to cooking, and are early and prolific.  I even saw them in the grocery store yesterday, so they must be growing in popularity.  They're much less bitter than regular bell peppers, but don't take as long as sweet red peppers.  AND, most importantly, they're the pepper I actually planted.  Always a cause for celebration in my garden..........

We Just Picked Our First Cucumber!

So, the cucumber that survived being transplanted and frosted has now produced

cucumbers!  Or, cucumber singular, I should say.  But for the last several years (or since Theo took up "helping" me with them), I don't think I've even managed to harvest a cucumber in July, much less June.  The harvests have been dismal enough that we are running low on pickles, so I thought this year I would plant ONLY pickling cucumbers.

Often, they're still pretty decent to eat, but this one was RATHER bitter.  The good news is, it's still early enough to plant a few slicing cucumbers as well, which I think might be a good idea.  I love cucumbers, but a summer of bitter cucumbers might be a bit depressing.  There are two more plants not far behind this one, so it's possible I could start making small batches of pickles later this month.  Once nice thing about living in a place with 4 seasons is that one can usually forget about them until they roll around again, so it's not at all surprising that I can mention starting canning season early without fear.  I've had the rest of the year to block it all out...............

Not Quite Dead.....

I didn't think the garden and I really had anything new to go through, but

I was wrong.  Now we have "damaged, but not killed by frost" as a category.  Above is the cucumber that received the most frost damage last week.  I've been removing a few dead leaves a day--just in case the loss of half the plant would kill it from shock--and it's looking good.  I've never had a plant recover before, but maybe the garden has run out of "normal" things to spring on me, and is branching out.  This is the plant that I transplanted twice, so it's obviously a freak anyway.  But, we might still have June cucumbers!

This:

 is the most surprising thing in the garden.  The cinnamon basil plant had the most damage out of any of the plants in the garden,

but now has new growth on it.  Can you believe it?  The only reason the plant is still in the ground is that I just haven't gotten around to ripping it out and replacing it.  It didn't even occur to me that it might survive.  I have a couple more cinnamon basil plants I haven't put in the garden yet, but if this one survives, I'll take the smallest one and try making a houseplant out of it.  If it has THAT sort of determination to live, it's my kind of houseplant!