Posts Tagged ‘harvest’

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Fedco Seed Order 2012

Monday, January 2nd, 2012

Just finished my order over at Fedco Seeds, Maine’s agricultural co-op seed house specializing in cold hardy varieties for the unforgiving climate of the New England growing season. Fedco has five orders: Seeds, Moose Tubers, Organic Growers Supply, Trees, and Bulbs, and sends out three catalogs. The seed division alone does about $3mm annually.

Completing the seed order is the way I mark my own personal start of the new year. Yes, the canning cupboard is full of glass jars of produce, the Rubbermaid boxes of potatoes and carrots sit ready to eat on the cold cellar floor, the garden is still holding parsnips, kale, and leeks, but all of that is just so 2011. Selecting seed varieties is my first foray into the new year and a snapshot of Garden 2012.  Here’s the list (in no particular order) and some highlights of my favorites from the catalog:

225 – Royal Burgundy Bush Bean OG ( A=2oz) 1 x $1.90 = $1.90
297 – Multicolored Pole Bean Mix ( A=1/2oz) 1 x $1.50 = $1.50
338 – Marfax Bean ( A=2oz) 1 x $1.50 = $1.50
658 – Silver Queen White Sweet Corn ( B=8oz) 1 x $7.50 = $7.50
678 – Dakota Black Popcorn OG ( A=2oz) 1 x $2.60 = $2.60
818 – Oregon Giant Snow Pea ( A=2oz) 1 x $1.50 = $1.50
842 – Mammoth Melting Sugar Snow Pea ( A=2oz) 1 x $1.50 = $1.50
1035 – Halona Muskmelon ( A=1g) 1 x $1.90 = $1.90
1311 – Boothbys Blonde Slicing Cucumber OG ( A=0.5g) 1 x $1.00 = $1.00
1409 – Raven Zucchini ( A=1/8oz) 1 x $1.90 = $1.90
1457 – Costata Romanesca Zucchini OG ( A=1/8oz) 1 x $1.40 = $1.40
1635 – Sunshine Winter Squash ( A=1/8oz) 1 x $2.50 = $2.50
1718 – Winter Luxury Pumpkin OG ( A=1/8oz) 1 x $1.60 = $1.60
2058 – Red Cored Chantenay Carrot ( A=1/8oz) 1 x $0.80 = $0.80
2068 – Atomic Red Carrot OG ( A=1g) 1 x $1.80 = $1.80
2073 – Shin Kuroda 5" Carrot ( A=1/8oz) 1 x $0.80 = $0.80
2099 – Over the Rainbow Carrot Mix ( A=1g) 1 x $2.40 = $2.40
2186 – Bulls Blood Beet ( A=1/8oz) 1 x $1.00 = $1.00
2267 – Green Meat Radish ( A=1/8oz) 1 x $1.50 = $1.50
2306 – Andover Parsnip OG ( A=1/8oz) 1 x $1.60 = $1.60
2376 – Gold Ball Turnip ( B=1/2oz) 1 x $1.50 = $1.50
2425 – Bleu de Solaize Leek ( A=1/16oz) 1 x $1.70 = $1.70
2504 – Bordeaux Spinach ( A=1/4oz) 1 x $1.20 = $1.20
2555 – Giant Winter Spinach ( A=1/4oz) 1 x $1.30 = $1.30
2738 – Antares Lettuce OG ( A=1g) 1 x $1.50 = $1.50
2983 – DeLuxe Lettuce Mix OG ( A=1g) 1 x $1.60 = $1.60
2984 – Freedom Lettuce Mix OG ( A=1g) 1 x $2.20 = $2.20
2992 – Mesclun ( A=1g) 1 x $1.10 = $1.10
2993 – Greens Mix OG ( A=1g) 1 x $1.20 = $1.20
3034 – Perpetual Spinach or Leaf Beet ( A=1/16oz) 1 x $0.90 = $0.90
3075 – Speckled Friz Chickendive OG ( A=1/16oz) 1 x $2.30 = $2.30
3122 – Minutina ( A=1/16oz) 1 x $1.30 = $1.30
3740 – Sweet Pimiento Sweet Pepper ECO ( A=0.2g) 1 x $1.20 = $1.20
5210 – Tanagra Lavatera ( A=1g) 1 x $1.10 = $1.10
5263 – Mignonette ( A=1g) 1 x $1.00 = $1.00
5280 – Alaska Nasturtium Mix ( A=2g) 1 x $1.00 = $1.00
5320 – Ziar Breadseed Poppy OG ( B=0.3g) 1 x $3.00 = $3.00
5331 – Flemish Antique Poppy OG ( A=0.2g) 1 x $1.10 = $1.10
5421 – Selma Suns Mix Sunflower OG ( A=1g) 1 x $1.10 = $1.10
5441 – April in Paris Sweet Pea OG ( A=2g) 1 x $1.20 = $1.20
5455 – Mrs. Collier Sweet Pea ( A=2g) 1 x $1.00 = $1.00
5506 – Hopi Dye Sunflower OG ( A=1g) 1 x $1.10 = $1.10
5960 – Purple Majesty Millet ( A=0.05g) 1 x $2.30 = $2.30
5970 – Duborskian Rice OG ( A=1g) 1 x $1.60 = $1.60
6333 – Beneficials Mix ( B=7g) 1 x $7.50 = $7.50

Subtotal: = $80.20
Maine Sales Tax: + $4.01
Adjusted Total: = $84.21
Shipping: + $0.00
Grand Total: = $84.21

I did not include the prices last year and had to field a lot of budget questions later. My biggest costs in the garden are seeds and trees, and the seed portion averages right around $80.00. Trees/shrubs/perennials go about twice as much (in a good year when I can afford that), and equipment costs are another $50.00. This year I have to replace my 20 year-old shovel for instance, and in 2010 I replaced my sprayer.

Two items that I think will be fascinating additions to Garden 2012:

3075CO Speckled Friz Chickendive OG (70-90 days) Open-pollinated. Chicorium intybus x C. endivia Unique, chic greens from master breeder Frank Morton who crossed Wild Garden chicories with frisée, curly endive and escarole to develop this colorful flock of individuals, more tender than chicory, more cold hardy and ornamental than endive, with a mixture and flavor range that goes well beyond either and the sweet bitterness of a good endive. This gene-pool has variation, some plants open, others semi-headed, others with full heads. Has overwintered and been permutating at the MOFGA garden for the past six years.

2984FO Freedom Lettuce Mix OG An inspiring mix with plenty of surprises, this gene pool was created by Morton in what he called the “Hell’s Half-Acre lettuce trial” identifying those varieties most disease resistant and crossing them with his best-tasting varieties to select and recombine for excellent traits. Contains exceptional material including some experimental forms that would stand on their own as named varieties. Morton invites growers and breeders to work with this mix to create new varieties for their farms or for the general public, while stipulating that nothing derived from it may be patented or protected from others’ use in any way. This strategy, originated by software developers, is now known as copyleft (as opposed to traditional copyright). Morton has adopted it to keep his varieties and their derivatives in the public domain as a protected commons. Seeds as nature’s software! See wwwgnu.org/philosophy/philosophy.html. for more information on copyleft. These days freedom is a rather slippery concept and many things are being done in its name that I don’t approve, but copyleft has the potential to return to free use such shared resources as our plant heritage that rightfully belong to all of us. As Morton proclaims, “Adaptive breeding cannot occur under a system of restrictive ownership.” Open-pollinated.

And finally, today’s garden photo: Fedco Harris Model parsnips still green on January second.

 

2984FO Freedom Lettuce Mix OG An inspiring mix with plenty of surprises, this gene pool was created by Morton in what he called the “Hell’s Half-Acre lettuce trial” identifying those varieties most disease resistant and crossing them with his best-tasting varieties to select and recombine for excellent traits. Contains exceptional material including some experimental forms that would stand on their own as named varieties. Morton invites growers and breeders to work with this mix to create new varieties for their farms or for the general public, while stipulating that nothing derived from it may be patented or protected from others’ use in any way. This strategy, originated by software developers, is now known as copyleft (as opposed to traditional copyright). Morton has adopted it to keep his varieties and their derivatives in the public domain as a protected commons. Seeds as nature’s software! See wwwgnu.org/philosophy/philosophy.html. for more information on copyleft. These days freedom is a rather slippery concept and many things are being done in its name that I don’t approve, but copyleft has the potential to return to free use such shared resources as our plant heritage that rightfully belong to all of us. As Morton proclaims, “Adaptive breeding cannot occur under a system of restrictive ownership.” Open-pollinated.

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Windfall

Wednesday, November 2nd, 2011

Last Friday I picked apples at an abandoned homestead on my commute home from work.

The tree is big by Maine standards, about 40′ tall and 20′ around. Deer have pruned the branches back to 5′ above the ground by eating all the fruit they can reach. I used my walking stick to knock down enough to fill a canvas tote – about 15 lbs. of hard red, conical apples with minimal insect damage and no fungus. I haven’t looked up the variety yet, but the combination of large tree with that shape fruit hanging on a  tree past first frost is fairly uncommon and I should be able to find it in my loaner copy of “Apples of Maine”. Thanks, Agnes!

We don’t eat much jelly and jam, and space is scarce in the chest freezer downstairs. When the grapes came in (and in, and in some more) I made quarts of thick, sweet grape juice concentrate and we used that up very quickly indeed. I’d never made apple juice but honestly, how hard could it be?

You can see where this is going, right? I followed the directions in the Blue Book; cutting the stem and blossom ends off the fruit and then coarsely chopping the rest. I added a pint of water and a little lemon juice and cooked the apples down to “mushy”. Then the recipe says to drain the mush through a jelly bag or several layers of cheesecloth and after an hour I had about half a cup of juice. Very nice juice, but half a cup seemed unrewarding. Compared to the huge amount of apples in the strainer, ti also seemed stingy. I added more water, switched to a colander instead of cheesecloth, and generally made everything in the kitchen sticky sweet with apple residue and got 4 quarts of very thin applesauce for my trouble. Again, very tasty (those are good apples) and a pretty color, but not what I had in mind.

I think the next painting I sell will turn into a steam juicer.

 

 

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Peach nectar night

Monday, September 5th, 2011

This will be a very short post, because there are a lot of peaches waiting on the kitchen counter that aren’t going to can themselves.

Last year I experimented with a few different ways to preserve the bounty from the Red Haven and Red Baron peach trees in the front yard. Of the 15 bushels (yikes) that we didn’t give away or eat fresh I froze some in white grape juice, made plain and brandied canned whole, canned pie filling, jam, and conserve. Summer 2010 also produced a tremendous harvest of Beta grapes and I eventually gave up on making grape jelly and canned them as juice instead. We really enjoyed the juice, and making concentrate was an efficient way to store vast quantities of produce. It also made killer popsicles.

Tonight I decided to make peach nectar and it was so successful that I think I may just turn everything into juice concentrate for the foreseeable future. Home made V8! Pear nectar! Harry Potter pumpkin juice – well, maybe not.

I pitted and then cooked the fruit lightly in a cup of lemonade and 1 C of sugar, just enough to soften it and bring out the juices. Then I put it, skins and all, through the food mill. The mill strainer that I chose made a fairly clear juice, although you can see that the amount of waste is fairly small. Next batch I’ll use a slightly larger hole and see if that produces a thicker “nectar”.

This was a successful experiment. Very tasty, and the entire process took less than two hours and only a cup of sugar. Now – Bellinis all around!

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Peaches vs Irene

Thursday, August 25th, 2011

The Red Haven peach tree is in full production mode, weighted down to the ground with nicely colored, but still ripening fruit. We’re having a huge rain right now and the winds are expected to continue through the night but I can’t really think of any way to protect the branches. Weighted by line and cinder blocks? Tied in bundles to each other? I’ve decided to let nature take its course and see what there is to pick up off the ground tomorrow morning. Best case scenario seems to be that we’ll lose fruit, but not too many branches.  Stayed tuned.

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Solar wax melter, part II

Saturday, July 16th, 2011

Earlier today I posted photos of the solar wax melter in the side yard, hard at work in the hot July sun. Several people asked for more detailed pictures and dimensions.  My first melter was a small, quick version – just a wooden fruit crate with a cookie sheet as a drip surface and an overhanging piece of window glass. It worked, but I immediately wanted something better. And bigger. When I started keeping bees I had no idea just how much wax they were going to contribute.

There are plans online here that look good. I admit, I went out and bought the one I have now as a kit. It’s just the right size – big enough to melt a pile of comb and trimmings and just at the limit of what I can comfortably carry around and store. $60.00 at Dadant and Sons Beekeeping. Whichever way you go, be sure to paint the inside of the box black.

I think that the the wax from this old, very dark comb is a lovely color – imagine how many bee footsteps it took to turn it brown. The sun bleaches it a little bit as it melts, but it’s nothing like the sterile white blocks sold in craft stores. The yellow candles give off a honey scent as they burn, subtle and not at all artificial. I use votive candle molds. They’re easy to fill and use. This is a handy list of molds and burn times from Busy Bee. These molds are silicon rubber – no release agent needed.

And welcome to the Maine mind-set, where every summer day affords another chance to be ready for winter.

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Hot hot hot

Saturday, July 16th, 2011

When I lived in Philadelphia I never thought of Maine as a place that would be too warm – and compared to Philly on a July afternoon that might be true. Absent that perspective though, the island is baking this afternoon. The thermometer on the south side of the house reads 101.7. It’s exaggerating, of course, but I won’t argue because that’s how it feels to me too, out working in the garden.

The weather will cool down tonight and perhaps there will be fog as the ocean air moves in. Meanwhile, it’s perfect weather to put the solar wax melter out in the perennial bed and cook the old black beeswax down to liquid gold for winter candles.

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July garden tour

Thursday, July 14th, 2011

A few days ago, I posted a photo of the garden in the morning when was still dewy and a little misty around the edges. It was a pretty shot, but quite a few people asked if they could “zoom in” and see the individual beds in more detail. Other people asked if they could get a list of what plants are growing in what area. I’ve just begun the work that will eventually build out “guilds” and “poly-cultures” of plant communities, but it’s not a bad idea to have a list of where I started for my records. This is by no means a complete inventory, but here we go:

This bed is in the “upper” garden, hard by the house. In “Gaia’s Garden“, Toby Hemenway talks about siting often-used vegetables close to the house. He suggests going out to snip a few herbs for an omelet and a side-dish of greens in the early morning in your bedroom slippers and robe. If you come in wet around the edges, the herbs are too far from the house. I can definitely snip greens from this bed without getting damp in the morning. Made of three layers of cinderblock, this bed is fairly deep. Even on the south side of the house it stores enough moisture for mustard, lettuces, radishes, and a few sorrel plants. Around the edges, in the cells of the blocks, grow anise hyssop, Thai basil, forget-me-nots (they’re everywhere), and alpine poppies. All the beds in the upper garden are ringed with strawberry plants, so that they benefit from the moisture and shade.

More in the upper garden: three beds of tomatoes surrounded by calendula and interplanted with bulls blood beets and white globe turnips. One of the tomato choices I made this season was Fedco’s Heirloom Tomato Mix.  I’m looking forward to seeing what comes out of that over the course of the season and possibly picking out some new favorites for next year.

Down in the lower garden this bed contains Provider green beans, haricot verts, and started out with a lot of radishes that provided quick shade for the sensitive bean sprouts. I’ve since picked the radishes and the Carpet of Snow alyssum has grown up enough to provide a living mulch. I sow the alyssum at the same time as the radishes in the very early spring. Purple bread poppies grow wherever they like and provide full seedheads for bread and pastry and resowing in the fall.

This is one of the squash beds, set on the hillside for ease of walking around fragile trailing vines. The deer don’t bother the stouter vines, so these pumpkins and Hubbard squash can clamber up the hill and outside the electric fence. They are interplanted with nasturtiums (just for color – I don’t think these hybrids protect against bugs or nematodes) and green beans. These green beans are planted about two weeks after the beans in the bed mentioned above so that the harvest is staggered.

Corn! Two rows of Silver Queen white sweet corn, potentially growing to 9 feet and producing 3 or 4 ears per stalk in a good year. These are not interplanted with anything. I’d love to try the Three-Sisters method of corn stalks in mounds surrounded by pole beans and squash, but I have yet to convince my partner-gardener of that. This year he allowed mulch, so maybe there’s hope. That said, it’s wonderful corn.

Potato boxes with varieties Ratte, German Butterball, Green Mountain, and All Blue. The potatoes are planted in about a foot of dirt at the bottom of the box and boards and hay are added as the plants grow taller. I had a very poor yield in the 2010 boxes due, I think, to droughty weather and too much hay/too little soil to start. The vines are much healthier as we get into the really hot part of summer this year, so I have hopes for a good harvest. This is certainly a space-effective way to grow potatoes. In the late fall I dump the boxes over and use the soil, mulch and old plants to make a new bed.

Lilies and apple trees seem to go together well. The lilies provide a nice living mulch to cool the roots,  retain moisture, and shade out weeds. These are very old Tiger lilies from my grandmother’s garden in Connecticut growing under “Westfield Seek-no-Further”, which is covered in little green apples this year.

I have another whole group of close-ups for a post this weekend. We’ve had some rain so if I can stop picking green beans for a minute  I’ll make another post this weekend!

 

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Spicy greens for dinner

Saturday, June 4th, 2011

This is a year for leafy greens. I planted Maruba Santoh, tatsoi, bok choi, Savoy cabbage, and assorted mustards and they’re all happy and huge in the cool rainy weather. This year I mulched the greens with seaweed to see if it had any impact on flea beetles, and I think it worked. Hard to tell whether the rain or the salty, sandy mulch had more of an effect, but flea beetle damage is minimal this year so far. So, what to do with all those greens?

Spicy Greens with Chicken or Tofu

Serves 4, or two with leftovers. This dish is very good left over.

1/4 C soy sauce, 1/4 C dry Sherry, 1 Tbs brown sugar, 2 Tbs chili sauce or Surachi (or to taste)

1 1/4 pounds skinless boneless chicken breast halves, cut crosswise into 1/3-inch-wide strips, or 1 package tofu
3 tablespoons peanut oil
4 green onions, white parts and green parts chopped separately, 1 Tbs garlic and 1 Tbs ginger
2 teaspoons hot pepper relish or chopped seeded serrano chiles (or more to taste)
a lot of greens:  spinach, mustard greens, kale, maruba santoh or broccoli rabe; about 1 pound, thick stems removed, spinach left whole, other greens cut into 1-inch strips (about 10 cups packed)

Whisk the soy sauce,  Sherry,  and sugar in medium bowl, divide in half. Use half of the mixture to marinate chicken or tofu; marinate 20 to 30 minutes and reserve the rest.

Heat 2 tablespoons peanut oil in large nonstick skillet over high heat. Add white parts of onions, garlic, ginger and relish or chiles; stir 30 seconds. Add chicken; stir-fry just until cooked through, about 3 minutes. Transfer chicken mixture to bowl. If you’re using tofu you can skip this step. Just quickly stirfry the first four ingredients, go right to adding the greens, and drop in the marinated tofu at the end just long enough to heat through.

Add 1 tablespoon peanut oil to same skillet; heat over high heat. Add greens by large handfuls; stir just until beginning to wilt before adding more. You can put a large pot lid over the heap of greens to steam them briefly if you like. Sauté just until tender, 1 to 6 minutes, depending on type of greens. Return chicken to skillet. Add reserved soy sauce mixture; stir until heated through, about 1 minute. Season with salt and pepper. Transfer to serving bowl; sprinkle with green parts of onions. Serve with rice or soba.

 

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Angelica

Thursday, May 26th, 2011

Angelica, known in my grandmother’s garden as “Holy Ghost”, is a tall biennial plant with large lobed leaves, greenish white flowers, and fluted stems.

The stems are traditionally candied and used like citron in breads and holiday cakes. Angelica is a very generous plant, seeding itself all around my garden. I’ve always wanted to take advantage of this abundance and candy some myself. Last fall I took the time to research recipes and found that the stems are harvested in the spring, when they are still bright green and tender.

Last week I picked a plastic grocery bag of stems, or about 2 lbs. I trimmed off the leaves and cut the stems in random lengths as none of the recipes I read seemed to specify size. They didn’t specify much of anything, actually, and differed wildly on how long to cook the raw plant material, how to dry it, and what it should look like when finished. I’ve simplified the process because no way am I boiling anything in sugar syrup for four days, and my adaption seems to have worked just fine.

Make a 2:1 sugar syrup by mixing 2 parts sugar to 1 part water, bring to a boil and stir until dissolved. Dump the stems into the syrup and simmer for 20 minutes. Allow the mixture to cool and set for 24 hours. I let it go from one night to the next.

Remove stems from syrup and allow to drain on a rack. I used a cookie rack with a pan underneath. I dried the stems in a very slow oven (250 degrees) for a few hours. It rained for almost the entire month of April here, and the drying part might work for you without an oven if the weather cooperates.

When the stems were solid and cooled, but still tacky, I put them in a ziplock bag of granulated sugar and left them overnight to soak up as much as possible. Then I stuffed them into canning jars, where they look pretty cool – all bright green and shiny. I have two jars in a canning cupboard and one in the freezer, to see which one preserves the color and texture best.  I’m going to try out a recipe next week, and I’ll let you know how it goes.

 

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Seaweed harvest

Saturday, March 26th, 2011

Today I went to Beach Road Beach to gather seaweed for the garden. BRB is a utility drop in Seawall where the cables stretch across the channel to Little Cranberry and Islesboro. The beach faces into the prevailing wind and parallel to the current so occasionally huge rafts of seaweed pile up during storms, only to be washed away again at the next moon tide. And it’s a beautiful place to spend a Saturday afternoon.

Winter seaweed is friable – naturally freeze-dried by the weather – and therefore easier to pick up and cart off than ripe, wet summer kelp. There are fewer people and their dogs leaving messes on the beach, less trash in the water, and a lot fewer mosquitoes too, so I often go down to Seawall over the course of March and April and load up 6 large garbage bags per trip. You don’t need a pick-up truck – the 20 year old sedan will do fine as long as it’s a Volvo with plenty of ground clearance and studded tires.

It was 35 degrees and blowing a small craft warning this afternoon, but there was plenty of seaweed and I had the place all to myself. I might have to go back tomorrow. . .

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