A Bountiful Harvest

This is what 36 pounds of vegetables look like:

Guess where I'll be spending some time today?

I picked four pounds(!) of sungold cherry tomatoes - many are split, so I'll cut those in half and dehydrate them. I am awash in cukes and zukes and cannot keep up with them! Work was busy and exhausting this week, and I barely even cooked. We need to get the propane tank refilled, and I'll grill up a big old mess of zukes. So very tasty that way. Freezer pickles will be the way to go for a good many of the cukes. Even though called freezer pickles, it's more reminiscent of a cucumber salad. Delicious in the winter months. Hmm, lots of serrano and jalapeno. I am glad that my hubby has finally discovered how delicious spicy food is. It took me over ten years to wear him down - and he's of Latino descent! The stereotype certainly does not apply here.

I have a friend at work who is (American) Indian (she says to call her Indian , not Native American, so no need to worry about PC here). She told me that she stews up tomatoes, squash, and hot peppers into a dish called javacita (pronounced havasita). I'll see what I can come up with for that.

Last week, thanks to recipes from my friend, Chile, I made six half pints of lemon zucchini relish and a quart size jar of cucumber kimchi. I am addicted to the kimchi, so I'll be sure to make that again. A lot of cukes fit into a quart size jar (very thinly sliced, of course).

The cukes have powdery mildew disease (it attacks the plant, not the fruit, as far as I know), so I don't know how long it will be until they are wiped out. It's a problem moving up the East Coast. Squash bugs are also rampant this year, but I'm glad to be getting squash. Last year, I got very little squash. I planted by green beans late, so I managed to avoid a huge Japanese beetle infestation there. Still waiting for the corn. Some of the plants are over eight feet tall, and the ears are starting to form. Looking forward to silver queen fresh off the cob.

I need to not be lazy after work this week and start prepping a couple of beds for fall planting. Marathon training will be ramping up, and that will take a lot of time on the weekends. So, balance, balance, balance. That, and not squandering huge amounts of time on the internet. My FaceBook, um, habit, needs to slow down.

Happy weekend, all!

Don't Turn Around....

... or you just may miss a zucchini that will grow to gigantic proportions! I picked off all the zukes on July 3. Went out of town with some friends for the holiday weekend. Didn't visit the garden until Wednesday. Holy round zucchini, Batman! I just picked 24.75 pounds of round zucchini (told you it was time for the squash parade). This is more than my previous total for the season so far. Quite a few weigh over three pounds. We'll eat some over the next few days (as we get ready for the onslaught of the next round - really, it's a problem I like having). Additionally, I'll dehydrate "chips" in the dehydrator. Finally, I'll also make some zucchini relish from a promising looking recipe I found in the Anchorage Daily News online.

By the way, all the zukes I picked today came from four plants. Zucchini - plant one seed, eat forever. :)

Life Sure Turns on a Dime

Things have been really shaking up here lately. After observing very erratic/dangerous behavior and activity by my eighty year old mother-in-law, hubby and made an appointment with her doctor to have an evaluation done for dementia. After she refused to go to the appointment, things took a sudden and horrific turn for the worse. She took off in the rain, walking. When we could not find her, we called the police. Luckily, we found her, unharmed (but she has wandered off in the past and came back with unexplained cuts and bruises. She has also accepted rides from strangers). The whole process was/is terrible for all involved. We had to have a magistrate issue an order to take her to the ER. She didn't go willingly, and it made it that much worse. Long story short, an involuntary commitment order was issued by the hospital, and she spent a week in a psychiatric floor. Tests have concluded she is indeed suffering from dementia/early Alzheimer's. Medication should help with memory loss and the paranoid delusions she's suffering. However, she's very angry at my husband for "doing this to her." She's home now, in the care of her husband and son (who lives with them). Our interest is in keeping her safe.

Moral of this story: Have a talk with your parents/children/SO now. Get your affairs in order before decline starts. Hubby and I are getting power of attorney for each other in order to be able to make decisions and get information from healthcare providers should an emergency come up now (while we're young). I have even discussed this with my own parents, who are significantly younger than hubby's folks. Believe me, you will avoid a lot of heartache. This has been a whirlwind period of education for all of us involved. And, we are also seeing it bring out the worst in some family members, but also the best in others.

Moving onto a happier note, I have passed the fifty pound mark in garden harvest! View the right side of the screen for a tally of each veggie. The actual total is higher, as my neighbor has free reign to pick what she wants (she buys many of the plant starts and we share the bounty). I'm not going to ask her to weigh anything, so I'll just count what I pick. Two of my round zucchini plants dropped dead, as in keeled over. I can't figure out why, but I did pull the dead plants and dropped in some more zuke seeds in their place, and they have sprouted already. The corn is taller than me now (over five feet tall), and I'm hoping to see it produce some ears within the next few weeks. There are a good number of green tomatoes on the plants, and these hot summer nights will have them ripening in abundance soon. One of my favorite things to see is my kitchen countertop covered with red tomatoes. Bring it on! Hubby has the camera at work, or I'd post some pics.

As for healthy living, that needs lots of work. With all the family drama over the past weeks, there has not been much meal planning or prep in my kitchen. Too much going out to eat, too much alcohol consumption, NO exercise (except the 12 oz. curl). I have the day off from work today, so I'll be spending a few hours in my favorite room of the house. I'm thinking about making most of the recipes in the June McDougall Newsletter. I'll be sure to take pics of whatever turns out good.

I have sheets and blankets, and three loads of laundry hanging outside; that will keep us in clean clothes for a while! I don't mind the hanging part, as I've mentioned before, but folding and putting everything away is borrrring. Hubby gets to do the stuff that hangs in the closet. He has more patience than I.

Baking When It's 93 Degrees Outside

Baking When It's 93 Degrees Outside - Or, She's Really Nuts

Hubby and I are taking a little roadtrip this weekend. In an effort to avoid spending good money on lousy food and get to our destination more quickly, we'll be eating while we drive. It's never a problem coming up with good vegan food to prepare, but a dessert seemed to be in order today. So, I made a quickbread. Today's choice was a blueberry semolina concoction, which turned out quite nicely, if I do say so myself. The recipe is a McDougall compliant creation. I adapted it from a recipe by Jan Tz, who has posted many of her quickbread recipes on the forum on the McDougall website.

Blueberry Semolina Quickbread

Preheat oven to 375 F. Grease an 8" square or round cake pan.

Combine:
1 and 1/4 cup unsweetened ricemilk (or soymilk or water)
1 Tbsp. plus 1 tsp. white vinegar

Let stand while you mix the dry ingredients:
1 cup semolina flour
1 cup white wheat flour
4 Tbsp. sugar
1 tsp. salt
1 Tbsp. baking powder
3/4 tsp. baking soda

1 to 1 1/2 cups blueberries

When the oven reaches temp., pour the soured soymilk into the dry ingredients. Add blueberries. Mix quickly, and don't overmix (mix just until the dry ingredients are incorporated - this will ensure your quickbread will rise nicely). Pour into the prepared pan. Bake for 25-30 minutes. When done, the top will be golden and a toothpick inserted in center will come out clean. Let stand to cool before trying to cut.

Pickin' and Grinnin'

I'm thrilled to have picked a bunch of good stuff from the garden today. And, it's mostly already prepped and ready to eat. And, I'm really happy to report that I picked my first sungold cherry tomatoes! Got about a quarter pound and ate them right away. Mega yum. I'm looking forward to my first fresh basil of the year as well.

I made a curried potato salad. It tastes great, and it's McDougally delicious. It's adapted to be lowfat and vegan and comes from the San Francisco Chronicle Website. The peas, onions, and hot pepper were all grown in the meadow. Fresh and local!

Curried Potato Salad with Peas

Serves 6
From former Chronicle staff writer Robin Davis, now food editor at the
Columbus Dispatch.

INGREDIENTS:
1 pound unshelled fresh peas
Salt to taste
3 pounds small white creamer potatoes, quartered
1 cup unsweetened soy yogurt (I used Wildwood brand - nice and tangy)
1 teaspoon white wine vinegar
1 teaspoon curry powder
1/8 teaspoon cayenne pepper
3 tablespoons chopped mint leaves
Freshly ground pepper to taste
1 small red onion, chopped

INSTRUCTIONS:
Shell the peas; discard pods. Cook the peas in a small pot
of boiling salted water until tender; it will take from 10 to 30 minutes
depending on the maturity of the peas. Drain. Cool.
Steam the potatoes until just tender, about 15 minutes. Cool.
Whisk together the yogurt, vinegar, curry powder and cayenne. Stir in 2
tablespoons of the mint. Season with salt and pepper.
Combine the peas, potatoes and onion in a large bowl. Add the dressing and
toss to coat. Sprinkle with the remaining 1 tablespoon mint.



I also made wilted cucumber salad and grilled some round zucchini. Luckily, the zucchini finished cooking just as the propane tank ran out of gas. Now I just have to wait for my hubby to finish cutting the grass and we'll be eating some good lunch!

The Squash Parade Begins

The march of the summer squash officially began last evening, when I harvested 3/4 of a pound (inclusive of some squash blossoms, which are also edible and yummy) of round zucchini. The seed packet caught my eye at Big Lots recently, and for a buck, why not try something new? I planted a few seeds in little hills three feet apart, mulched the whole thing heavily, watered, and waited. These bush-type plants are doing wonderfully. I also randomly planted some of these seeds in a flower bed. Of course, those plants are bigger than the plants in their own squash bed. What's up with that?

This photo is from seedfest.co.uk, as I need to charge my camera.

I picked a small bowlful of small, slightly larger than golfball size zukes, along with male blossoms. You can tell the blossoms are male if they are on a long stem. Female blossoms have a tiny baby squash-ette attached. Leave those until they are of harvesting size.

I simply prepared the veggie of the day by trimming off the ends and slicing the small orbs in half. Then, I steamed them until they were nice and tender. At the last minute or so, I added the squash blossoms, stamens removed and discarded, blossoms sliced into thin strips.

Bring on the parade!

Doing the Weave

So far, I have 36 tomato plants in one really long bed. Some of the varieties are:

• Cherokee Purple
• Sungold Cherry
• German Johnson
• Celebrity
• Roma
• Better Boy
  

Thirty-six plants are quite a few tomatoes. Rather than get caught up with staking each one and trying to keep up with tying the plants (and inevitably falling behind quickly in that task each year), or spending too much money on flimsy round wire cages that are useless once the plants grow higher than three feet, or the welds break, I am on the second year of a system used by commercial growers. (I think that is one really long sentence I just typed!)

This system is called the Florida weave. I've also seen mention of the German weave. Maybe so, since Germans are known to be so efficient at things (and I'm of German descent, so occasionally it rubs off). Basically, five to six foot long wooden stakes or metal posts are driven into the ground, spaced so two plants are between each stake. My stakes are five feet long. The stakes at the end of each row should be at an angle, away from the plants. Think of the letter "v" for the direction the end stakes will face. You'll also need a spool of heavy jute twine.

So, to get started, drive the stakes into the ground with a mallet. If using wood stakes, wear heavy gloves, so you don't get splinters. This is strenuous work. Enlist a good helper if you aren't too strong yet. Last year, I had my hubby do this work for me. I was able to do it myself this time around, thanks to all the CrossFit workouts I have been doing since January. Still, it's hard work, but you want the stakes to be firmly anchored into the ground. Your plants should be spaced anywhere from 18 to 36 inches apart, depending on soil quality. I have pretty good soil, thanks to all the manure from my neighbors' horses, so I space my tomato plants 18 inches apart. The rows are about three feet apart. I have found it's best to plant the tomatoes first, and then drive the stakes and weave the twine. Also, mulch heavily while the plants are small, and this will help keep the soil moist and cool as the weather heats up (and heat up it does, here in central NC).

After getting the stakes in, tie a firm knot about six inches from the ground at the end of the row, on the outward angled stake. I also like to wrap the twine around the stake a few times. Then, unravel the twine and run it to the next stake, holding the twine taught,and wrap it around the next stake firmly. Continue to the subsequent stakes in the row, until you get to the end. Then, wrap the twine around the end stake, and come back down the row. When you get back to the starting point, wrap again, and firmly tie off the twine and cut. Repeat up the stakes, about every six inches, until you get to the top of the stakes.

As the plants grow, all you need to do is visit the plants every couple days and tuck the growing tip between the two lines of the twine. It will only take a few minutes. This is a fast, easy, and inexpensive way to support your tomatoes. At the end of the season, remove the stakes from the ground, and store them in a dry place. Then, you can reuse them next year. The twine can go in the compost bin as a source of carbon.

Different varieties of tomato plants in various stages of growth.

Close-up of the method at work.

I'm still here!

I am really still here. Things have been happening at Maggie's Meadow. I have 36 tomato plants in the ground, eggplants, hot and sweet peppers of different varieties, cukes, pole beans, corn, yellow and green summer squash, butternut winter squash, pumpkins (including Dill's Atlantic Giant), potatoes, Swiss chard, and a few herbs. I got all the peas picked and need to get those frozen (still holding in the fridge). There's lots to show and tell. So, once I get my camera situated....

This week, I made strawberry jam and strawberry preserves with some of the last of the local strawberries. Strawberry season is coming to an all too quick close here in central North Carolina. I made six half-pint jars of jam and six half-pints of preserves. There is not much difference: strawberries, sugar, lemon juice. The berries in the jam get crushed, and the the preserve berries do not. However, they are both DELICIOUS! Mine don't gel as firm as some do, but I tend to use superripe berries. Pectin is what causes the gelling action, and very ripe fruits have less naturally occurring pectin than partially ripened fruit. I'd love the delirious scent and flavor of the berries.

Salad Days - Fresh From the Garden

When trying to eat fresh and local foods, it doesn't get much more fresh or local than one's own garden. Maggie's Meadow is starting to produce some delicious deep green spinach. Pretty soon, I'm expecting to see almost more than we can handle. I present to you a gorgeous spinach salad, comprised of all local ingredients.

Everything in it, except for the pecans, came directly from the garden, moments before we ate it. Spinach, radishes, red onion, lovage, pea shoots, teeny-tiny baby carrots (because I just had to see if they are really growing underground - yippee, they are!).

And, this is a vegan, McDougall-friendly salad (but remember, the nuts are used sparingly, not at all if in weight-loss mode). I generally do not use salad dressing, as I love the taste of fresh vegetables.

The pecans came from a local source: there's a park nearby with a huge grove of pecans (an old plantation). The public is permitted to harvest pecans each year. We humans all look like a bunch of squirrels, scurrying around to collect the tasty nutty morsels. Hubby and I picked up about five pounds of nuts back in November. They taste much better than anything I have ever purchased in a store. Stored in the freezer, they last for months and months.

Grilling Tips - For Vegans and Omnivores

From an email I received today:

Grilling Tip

As every Southerner knows, come spring it will be time to get ready for that all-important cooking technique of the South --- outdoor grilling!

I have just found out there are many stores (and not just in the South) where you can get a FREE Bar-B-Q grill! In these tough times free useful items are very welcome. You can get a free BBQ grill from any of the following stores:

A&P Albertsons Aldi Costco Dan's Food Lion Fry's Harris Teeter Home Depot Big Lots Brookshire's Lowes Publix Safeway Sam's Club Tesco Target Vons Trader Joe's Wal-Mart Winn-Dixie

Garden Prepping

We had a gorgeous weekend in central NC. Summer heat without the humidity. We kicked things off with an early morning 5K run in Chapel Hill. I’m a volunteer coach with the Fleet Feel No Boundaries running program. I help women who have never run get from 0 to 5K (3.1 miles) over the course of weeks. My specialty is coaching the back of the pack runner (being one myself!). I love being able to help instill confidence in a person to do what they thought they could not – break the boundaries they have set for themselves.

Then, it was breakfast at a local diner, then back home to work in the garden. We got some veggie beds tilled, weeds pulled, and started work on a new flower garden in an area where we used to have a beautiful oak tree. The tree was well over 100 years old when it had to be cut down. We were heartbroken about it. It had a large vertical split – a result of severe ice storm damage, and a heavy ant infestation didn’t help. The tree was taken down several years ago (and we used the wood to heat our house for two years). The area where the stump was ground down was becoming pretty crappy looking – the residual underground stump and roots have been rotting, causing sinking spots in the yard. Nothing was really growing nicely. Hubby had the gumption to plot out a nice kidney bean shaped area to beautify. He started tilling and raking and moving grass, rocks, etc. I even got in on the action and helped pry up roots and rocks (yay, CrossFit – the workouts are paying off). This was some HOT work. On Sunday, hubby made a beautiful border with rocks that were bordering other beds. Now we will add some well composted horsey poo and top-soil. I’d like to grow sunflowers this year, eventually establishing perennials that don’t require a lot of water. I’m thinking Mediterranean.

Just getting started.

Almost done - taking a break!

Another fun activity was the Farm Tour. North Carolina has an abundance of small to large growers. Organic and biodynamic farmers, CSAs, farmers’ markets, etc., really do well here. The farm tour allows the public to visit working farms and connect with the farmer on a more personal level than even a visit to one of our many area markets allows. Due to our already packed schedule, we only got to visit three farms. My favorite was a farm that intensively plants on ¼ acre. We also had the opportunity to purchase tomato plants at this farm. We picked up 20 plants: Celebrity, Sun Gold (my favorite cherry tomato), German Johnson, and Cherokee Purple. I learned something at each farm we visited.

Harvest: I picked half a pound of red radishes. They have a nice sharp flavor. I used some in a veggie slaw: collards, cabbage, carrot, radish. The dressing was veganaise and ume plum vinegar with some mustard seeds and celery seed. Very delicious.

Peas, Glorious Peas

Pea plants, that is. I planted a bed of peas on February 15 with my Earthway Seeder. The seeder saves a lot of time and backbreaking effort when planting large quantities of seeds. The pea patch is about three feet by 15 or 20 feet long. The plants are growing nicely and are about 18 inches high. Just saw some blossoms starting to form. Fresh peas are delicious. I still have some in the freezer from last year.

The rear-tine roto-tiller we picked up on Craigslist is repaired (belt was dry-rotted and snapped on the first use but the engine runs great). Looking forward to getting some new beds tilled. Yes, the lasagna method of building new beds is great (have used it many time and continue to use it), but I have a very large yard, work 40+ hours a week at my job, so I'm willing to use machines to get the big jobs done. I have the skills and the tools (gotta love that Craigslist) to work by hand should that need ever arise, but I prefer to use my time to the greatest advantage. No apologies on not wanting to make things excessively hard on myself. I'm also not 20 years old. ;)

Letting It All Hang Out

Everyone with a sustainability blog has already posted about hanging the laundry, so what's one more? We all know it saves money, is more "green," lowers carbon footprint, etc. I'm not going to try to educate any of you on the hows and whys. You have likely already figured that out.

There are few household chores that I enjoy, but hanging laundry outside is my favorite. From the time I was assigned to do that chore while growing up, to now, in my own home, I have always found the act of hanging laundry to be meditative. During nice weather, when the sun is shining, a light breeze is blowing, the repetitive act of picking up a piece of clothing and clipping it to the line, go to the next garment, repeating over and over again is an escape. Yes, an escape of the mind from everyday thoughts. Only hours of working in the garden further shut the world out for me. I stand in one place, clipping the clothes to the line, spinning the rotary frame to the next of the four sides, until all the clothes are hanging and swaying in the breeze. Breathe in, breathe out, smelling fresh air, feeling the warmth of the sun, hearing the wind whispering through the trees, birds singing.

When the clothes are dry and off the line, I get to enjoy the fresh scent of the outdoors on clothes, and sheets, if it's a sheet washing day. It is wonderful to slip into bed at then end of a long day and smell the fresh scent of nature as I drift off to sleep(likely an exhausted sleep on a weekend day, having worked outdoors if it's any season other than winter). Breathe in, breathe out, drift to slumber.

Someday I will Plant My Garden

Here in central North Carolina, I will someday have a garden, as I have for years. This year, it's taking so much longer to get things going. Yes, it's only April 8. I do have some peas growing, and some spinach and carrots are finally deciding to grow (after sowing those seeds on February 15). Brocolli and cabbage transplants bought it after several nights of unseasonably late hard freezes. And, I never got around to replanting. Then, the rains came, and it rained down from the heavens for days at a time, leaving the ground beyond saturated. Then we had a snowstorm at the beginning of March - the poor daffodils! Then it rained again for days, saturating the ground once more. I'm itching to plant something!

Source of the free fertilizer for the garden!

Is This Thing On?

I love reading blogs and waste, I mean, spend a lot of time reading and perusing blogs when I'm supposed to be working or doing other things. My goal last summer was to document how my attempt at increased food self-sufficiency was going, plant a fall garden, and then enjoy the harvest well into the winter months. Ahh, such the dreamer that I am. The good news is, that over all, I managed to glean hundreds of pounds of produce from my back yard farm. I dried, froze, and canned some wonderful veggies. I even weighed and wrote down what I grew on various scraps of paper and calendar pages. It would be swell to actually do the math and see what I finally got.

Fall garden? What fall garden? I never even got around to planting garlic last October, so sprouty garlic from last year's harvest is all I have left, then off to the famer's market for me one it runs out.

Speaking of running, I trained for and ran my first full marathon last fall. That life goal sucked up just about all of my free time. Am I glad I did it? Absolutely.

So, welcome to a new year of whatever. New plans, new garden dreams. New running and other goals to accomplish.