Independence Days – Weeks 12 and 13

Amie wowed at Times Square Missed last week because of sickness and a trip to the Big Apple – about which soon! Plant. Nothing, except for ongoing sprout experiments. Harvest. Herbs for drying, wheat grass from sprouter, chard and one or two carrots from garden. Preserve. Drying catnip, mint, sage, oregano, thyme. Drying apples. Baked …

Independence Days – Week 11

Independence Days goes on and on and, round and round. Not much to report this week: caught a bug and though it’s not getting worse, it’s not much getting better either, so I’m on a low fire here. Plant. Nothing. The mung bean sprouting didn’t go too well: I must be doing something wrong. Harvest. …

Independence Days – Week 10

Plant. Nothing: our winter beds are full. We did improve the bedding. Harvest. I didn’t plant any Fall vegetables, so I have few plants left in the garden: kale, chard, parsley. The peas and the beans are giving up in the seesaw of warm/cold, but I managed to harvest the last few. Harvested the three …

Independence Days, Week 9

Nothing much of anything happened this week: I’m a bit out of whack with DH gone, and I’ve also started working on the novel again (again!), while it snows. We had our first frost and our first snow, and the garden is in full Winter mode now. Plant. Planted pak choi. That will be it …

Independence Days – Week 8

Amie’s drawings of a flower and Amie in the garden Plant. Did that! First planted the hoop house frame, sewed the row covers together for the quick hoops (3 5×10′ covers make 1 10′ x 15′ cover), and ordered more row cover from Johnny’s. Started sprouting fenugreek as an experiment – that count as planting, …

Independence Days, Week 7

Plant. Due to a miscalculation of the weather on my part – or the weatherman’s part? – I didn’t get to transplant the seedlings and sow more winter veggies today. Tomorrow, I hope. I did get to clean up the garden beds. Moved the pepper plants inside – but I will not call them houseplants, …

Spudtacularly Disappointing

In the balmy 60F weather I dug up the last two potato towers. All in all there were three bins, 4’x4′ each and filled up to about 3′ high. In one I had put 2.5 lbs of Salem, in the other two 2.5 lbs of Bintjes each. I harvested 1 lb and 1.5 oz of …

Apple Peel Jelly and Wood Fire

We lit our wood stove for the first time yesterday. The temperature inside was 62 F, so quite bearable, but we wanted to cure the stove while we could still open the windows, and get the hang of lighting a fire before the cold really kicks in. Going by this evening’s attempts, we’ll have to …

Riot for Austerity, Month 11

Our Riot is almost a year old! It feels great to have come this far, and I can’t wait to tally up the yearly average. But first, month 11. Gasoline. This went down a bit from last month because DH’s shuttle rides again. 9.55 gallons pp = 23% of the US National Average Electricity. Our …

Independence Days, Week 6

The Indian summer came, went, and came again. Last Friday we hit 37 F – cutting it pretty close – but yesterday it was 70F. It’s going to get cold again soon, though. Plant. Moved (replanted) the 2 rhubarb plants, because in the end we chose their first bed as one of the beds to …