Rainy Weekend Halts Garden Prep

Most people I know really like rainy days.  While I wish I were one of them, a rainy day just makes feel feel anxious and cooped up.  Sad huh.  Rather than raking our newly plowed garden areas as I had planned today, I sat around the house looking out the window all day long hoping the steady precip would let up.

I did manage to finish reading a book that is due back to the library this week.  I have renewed it once already and thanks to this rainy day I can return it for someone else to read.  It is titled No Plot, No Problem and is a challenge to aspiring writers to stop waiting for the perfect time or inspiration to write a first novel and just do it.  The book invites literary procrastinators everywhere to commit to writing a 50,000 word novel in the time of ONE month.  It does not have to be pretty, it just has to get out of your head, through your finger tips and onto a document.  No real prep, no editing and no excuses.

Hmmm…April starts in a few days.  Book writing or gardening?  Is there a way to juggle both for thirty days in addition to a job and a family?  I had decided to eliminate unneeded stress in my life.  Would this be bad stress that takes a toll or good stress that leads to breakthroughs and adaptations?  Is this just another way to avoid getting that dreaded nine-to-five job that I am oh so good at eluding.  Crystal ball, I need you.

Jumping to another topic, I love swiss chard.  We have some swiss chard seeds started in our greenhouse; however, they seem a little spindly and Martha is worried that they will not grow as they should.  This whole gardening thing being new to me, I think they look great.  But apparently there is concern when seedlings grow too tall before their second set of leaves, their real leaves, appear.  I am hopeful that they will thrive.  Time will tell.

Swiss chard: growing, chopped, sauteed.

Who doesn’t love swiss chard

Let me know you thoughts on saving spindly seedlings, growing swiss chard or cooking swiss chard.

Or if you want to join me should I decide to write my first novel during the month of April.  

Written by Jennifer Laughter Google

Raw Milk Yogurt

We have been drinking raw cow’s milk in my family for several months now. I had wanted to invest in raw milk shares for some time and finally made the commitment with a local farmer.  It is well worth the extra money for my half share of raw cow’s milk. Each week I pick up a half-gallon of unpasteurized, unhomogenized milk from the St. Stephen’s Farmer’s Market near my house where Jennifer Downey, owner of Night Sky Farm in Brookneal, Virginia spends her Saturday mornings. The milk that Jennifer delivers is thick and rich with two inches of cream at the top of each gallon mason jar of milk.

Raw cow’s milk from Night Sky Farm in Brookneal, VA

Yesterday when I picked up my milk share, we still had half of last week’s milk in the refrigerator.  So, I decided to make raw milk yogurt with this leftover milk.  Having made homemade yogurt for my teenage daughters when they were infants, I was familiar with the yogurt making process.  Years ago I had a thermometer and an electric yogurt warmer that held cute little glass containers for the yogurt.  This go around I had no thermometer or yogurt heater. I heated the milk in a pot on the stove to just beyond warm, hoping that I did not overheat and kill the bacteria.   Transferring to a glass quart mason jar, I stirred in a couple of heaping tablespoons of plain full fat yogurt that I had purchased from the store.  The I topped the jar and placed the jar of warm milk into a small cooler.  I then filled the cooler with warm water around the jar, closing the lid of the cooler and wrapping in a couple of towels to insulate.  After about 10 hours I dumped the cooling water and added warm water again and covered for another 12 hours.

Place jar of warmed milk with yogurt cultures in a bath of warm water in seal cooler.

This morning I was thrilled to find that I had creamy, tart yogurt in my mason jar.

I think I may take the full gallon a week share and make yogurt each week.

Written by Jennifer Laughter

Google

Soil Preparation

Trying to expand the garden area this year equals a whole lot of prep work to make the soil more conducive to growing plants.  We have been trying to get a truck load of compost delivered, but apparently people who advertise that they have compost to sell are not super reliable.  After many attempts to have a few different vendors deliver a load of compost, we have moved on to “plan B”.  Plan B involves a small kid’s wagon, shovel and a strong back.

Wagon full of composted leaves

We are fortunate to have a neighbor who every year adds his fall leaves to the same pile.  At the bottom of this pile lives the dark organic matter that will make our garden plot more fertile.  Or so we hope.  So, off I go with our little red wagon to dig from the bottom of this pile and fill the wagon with the composted leaves.  Besides being heavy, the leaves in this pile are being held down by a grid of vines that appear to be honey suckle.  So in order to get to the compost I must clear the vines before I can begin to shovel.

Slow and steady gets the job done.  Today I spent two hours and managed to shovel, haul, dump and rake out 8 wagon loads of compost.  I can see the area of our new garden taking shape.  Hopefully we will have the compost and manure down this week so that the tilling can occur this coming weekend.

Two good things about plan B: heavy lifting is good for the body and using a neighbor’s composted leaves doesn’t cost any money.

Composted leaves on our new garden area

After a seventy degree day on Saturday, we are getting a freezing mix of precipitation tonight that could result in a few inches of snow accumulation.  Fortunately the forecast shows more warm weather by the upcoming weekend.

New garden area is next to a fenced compost garden

Any tips for enriching soil?  What are some economical ways you have found to add nutrients to garden soil?

Manure and lime?  Where to buy and how much to use.

Written by Jennifer Laughter Google

Sing a Happy Song

While gardening two days ago, this bird kept me company and sang to me.

Does anyone know what type of song bird this is?

Written by Jennifer Laughter Google

Greenhouse Raising Day

Today in RVA the temp was a balmy 64 degrees.  After several hours working in the warm sun, I feel certain spring cannot be far off now.

Martha and I broke open the large cardboard box from Amazon that contained our new portable greenhouse.  In the box we found a mound of different sized poles and bags of plastic tees.  We dug through the contents to locate the directions; we found a spartan diagram of the tent and that is it.  I am proud to say that we calmly set about constructing the tent greenhouse from the ground up. After about 90 minutes we had the greenhouse structure complete.

Front of our Portable Greenhouse. Nice shelving for starting lots of seedlings

After much admiration of our work and then greenhouse structure, we disposed of the old, broken greenhouse tent and cleaned up our mess.  Then we headed to the house to inspect our seedlings that we planted exactly one week ago.  Our lettuce, beets, spinach, swiss chard, cabbage, broccoli rabe, carrots and thyme were all going gangbusters.  Our rosemary has yet to sprout.  Tomorrow we will move these tender young plants to our new greenhouse and start some more seeds.

Here are our first seedlings of 2014. Aren’t they grand.

Much work needs to be done to the plots prior to tilling. We hope to have it tilled next weekend, so this week we need to finish adding wagon loads of the rich organic leaf compost from the neighbor’s yard in addition to some natural chicken manure.

So glad that starting tomorrow we will have an extra hour of sunlight in the evening.

Where do you start your seeds?  Where do you purchase your organic seeds?

Written by Jennifer Laughter Google

2014 Garden Kick-Off

Martha’s fenced compost garden will be expanded for 2014

Portable greenhouse needs replacing

I am so excited to be gardening this year.  My friend Martha owns the land next to her home and has had a garden there for a few years.  This year she invited me to partner with her and expand the garden.  She has a nice bit of land to work with.  I am afraid of being overambitious.  Here is the portable greenhouse that she has used for a few seasons to start seeds.  The winter that we had in RVA this year has destroyed this greenhouse tent.  We purchased a new one and hope to put it up this weekend.

Last weekend we were able to to harvest some exceptional composted material from a neighbor’s leaf piles that have been there for many years.  Plenty of black organic material to add to our garden.  What a treasure!  After a couple of hours of shoveling this dense compost into a wagon and hauling it to our garden area, my back, arms and thighs were screaming.  It felt good to spend time outdoors doing hard work.

Wagon full of composted leaves

Saturday is supposed to be mild in RVA.  More composting shoveling and hauling is planned.

Our seeds that we planted last weekend have started to sprout in the house.  We have little cabbage, lettuce and beet sprouts.  We hope to have the garden ready within two weeks so that we can plant our first early plants in our garden.

What are you favorite early season veggies?

Written by Jennifer Laughter Google