We'll see if it's just a one-day-phase...

So, it's that time again when I start saying: When did we _________ last year? I trot off to my handy-dandy garden notebook and for about the months of January & February I can accurately report (some of) the details about when I ordered seeds or started baby plants. Then, I get busy with the work of actually running the yard and I quit documenting. I've vowed to do a better job this year. I guess time will literally tell...For now, (because what else do you do at 6 a.m. on a Sunday when you've been up for hours blowing your nose), this week's "Winter-in-the-House-&-Garden" short list.

1. Five-to-Ten Business Days Ago I ordered the seeds. Being one of my favorite winter chores I do check the mail with excitement everyday like a child anticipating Santa. While the spreadsheet (seeds i want real bad) does list a few locations, the shiny-gold-packets from Park Seed are my favorite. The beauty of the spreadsheet means that we could organize the old-viable seeds with the new ones that need replacing. Since we rated last years seeds (read: "amazing" cauliflower is not so "amazing" after all) we could order more of the good seeds and replace the lack-luster varieties with new ones to try. Now they're all organized neat-and-tidy in the seed box and ready for starting-up.

2. A Few Flowers to Brighten the Gray days of winter? Flowers from seed aren't very highly prized in this house. I'll get excited and start some in an effort to try, but they quickly have to move over in favor of more glorious things like broccoli, baby-lettuce and soon: TOMATOES! But, this year I thought I'd try my hand with flowers before the veg. needed room under the light. I do believe I detect my first sign of green...

3. Using up the stores...Last night while Kylene ran to the store for some nori (because we had gone about our busy day imagining we had everything for sushi, only to find out their was nothing to house the rice), I set about the work of slicing and dicing...While I did some battle with an avocado-not-in-its-prime, I did none with the beautiful carrot she plucked from our backyard. And, I added our favorite home-made-sushi ingredient: Pickled-Zucchini!

Three out of five ingredients from the garden in January.
I'd like to up it to 4 out of 5. Picky?

4. "It's easy to trust someone who grows kohlrabi..." I think that was the quote from Jamie (but, I wasn't actually there) upon hearing Kylene tell the story of feeding kohlrabi from the garden to the Seattle City Light lady who was out to change our meter (but, I wasn't actually there for that either). The point is...I love the quote, even if it's slightly misquoted AND we're eating carrots and kohlrabi and broccoli out of the garden in January. We still have a lot to learn about gardening in the winter. But, I'm thinking winter 2012/13 has not been a bad start.

5. I really think the colony is dead. I haven't seen much activity. There are a lot of dead bees. I know I can't be for sure until it warms up enough and dries up enough to actually check. But, I fear the worst. I need to add to my list of jobs to talk to K.____ about ordering me up a nuc. The bees being one of my favorite features of the yard...I'm going to try until I get it right. 

6. JOY IS...Having Blue Bird Grains via UPS deliver a 50 pound bag of hard-white-wheat-berries and a 20 pound bag of emmer-farro berries to your front door. I have: A five gallon bucket + a gallon ziplock bag + a giant mason jar of white-wheat for my grinding pleasure. I also have a giant mason jar + 2 gallon ziplock bags of emmer. Joy is not when your cracker recipe burns up in the oven (but, I think the mistake there was trying the simpler recipe first instead of going straight to Smitten). We're down to the last cups full of store bought flower. I'm really hoping that the grain will last us the year and that we can entirely give up our dependance on store bought flour in this house. It may just be the first New Year's Resolution I can stand by.

50 Raspberry Jams and the Lone Ranger

I laughed when I saw the date of the last post. It seems everything halts when it's time to get the classroom organized for back to school. I marvel at people who manage to find time to write once your head starts spinning with bulletin board-border, name-tags and pre-printed math assessments. 

We went to the Tilth Harvest Fair yesterday and bought two bunches of beautiful beets for the bargain price of $5.00. Who can complain since our beet crop (while better than last years) left something to be desired. We also picked up some gorgeous heads of garlic for planting (when we have a spare moment). We spent the afternoon putting up what will be near-the-last stores for the winter. I'm still holding out hope for the tomatoes who, encouraged by yesterday's sun, may just ripen up yet.

Raspberries both in our yard & mom's did quite well. Pickling cucumbers, not so much.
I'm calling this guy the Lone-Ranger. He'll be a pickle for a special occasion.

The plum tree also produced quite a crop....We tried dehydrating (not so successful), fruit-roll-ups (pretty good), plum sauce (we'll see) and over 100 jars of plum jelly (a tried-and-true favorite). 

Our Latest Recycling Project

It turns out I have all this family I never really knew existed. We went on a road trip to meet up with my Daddy-O and K.____ in Colville a little over a week ago and to be introduced to said family. My dad's cousin Pam has a beautiful home and she has done a few really masterful home improvements using totally recycled materials. 

I wouldn't say this weekend's project was inspired by Pam. It was actually inspired by an idea Murray had and a day that was making me live too deeply inside my own head...(When we moved the old, ugly, potting bench out of the potting shed to make way for the new one Murray suggested I take it apart and use the lumber to make the rain-barrel-stands she's been asking for. Perhaps it was my lack of enthusiasm for the chore that left the bench sitting in the backyard for several months. But, after a particularly unenjoyable day yesterday I decided the answer to my cranky mood was most decidedly time spent with power tools.) 

Rather I thought A LOT about Pam while doing the project. I thought a lot about how it is probably a lot more fun to do a recycling project with say GIGANTIC (read: three feet in diameter) PVC pipe that you get for free and get to turn into a really cool wall/planter, then it is to do a project that requires reclaiming warped 2 x 8s from a potting bench and pulling rusty nails from crusty 2 x 4s knowing that you could have got new, cheap ones at the Homey-D. Also, it was really hot and I was working in a corner of the yard that seems to smell distinctively like cat feces. I imagined Pam had none of these problems...

When I mentioned all this to Murray (when she came to make sure I wasn't losing a limb in my frustration) she just reminded me that, "It's not always about fun. Sometimes it's about the environment." Though, in her defense, she did take care of the poo-issue.

So...First I broke everything to pieces and ended up with a pile of mismatched scraps. My favorite. Things that don't match.

The table (Dad & Kim) does work great! Thanks!

Then, came up with a design that seemed like it might suit the purpose...

Added some cross supports to make it sturdy...

And, then Murray painted it so the color would match the garage. Surely it was a woman who invented paint. I just love the way paint makes something that would otherwise look ugly look clean and neat and tidy. Hooray!

Also, we made a sister table for the rain barrel in the front. It needs to be leveled and the gutter reworked, but you get the idea. Two rain-barrel tables made entirely of materials we already had. Hooray for recycling!

First Potatoes, Last Potatoes

We were having dinner with our friend Kelli on Friday night and I looked at her lovely garden, growing so stately in her backyard. Kelli (it bears noting) is a master gardener.

Me: Our garden is such a disappointment this year. 
Kelli: You say that every year.
Me: Yeah. Well, I really mean it this year.

But, of course I wasn't really aware that I say it every year and I did feel bad upon returning home to realize that it's not that bad in the garden. It's just so hard when you have to wait a whole year to try again...Such is the life of a farmer. Yet...As I write Murray is in the kitchen washing up the first meal of green-beans that I picked just minutes ago and potatoes that she dug while I was harvesting those. Such is the life of a farmer as well, I suppose...

Maybe it doesn't really matter that somehow the "pole" beans ended up in big "bush-bean" clumps? What matters is that they are a delicious snack at 6:30 in the morning when I'm out doing watering on what promises to be an 80 degree day...

Maybe it doesn't really matter that what you see above is the sum total harvest from the potato crop which probably amounts to about three more potatoes than were originally planted? What matters is that there is something totally satisfying about hunting through soil for heirloom purple potatoes and a Washington native yellow variety and the way it makes you feel like you might just being doing a small part in the war against monoculture...

Maybe what really matters is that Mother Nature seems to abound most with lessons that resound in more areas of life than just filling a belly. How fun is is that after all the effort spend attempting to cultivate potatoes in the garden, the only ones that really grew were the ones that sprung on their own accord from the compost pile?! My curiosity got the better of me after digging in the front, so I just reached down under a leaf and a pile of grass clippings and found: Ta Da! Without even a bit of digging these beauties:

So, I'm marveling a bit at the ways things sometimes just work out, independent of the best laid plans, how humbling satisfaction can spring from a compost pile, and how delicious dinner harvested from your imperfect urban garden really can be...

More about Bees

I love summer. I love summer mornings that start like this: Wake up. Check on the bees. Read a little. Drink some coffee. Check on the bees. Water the Yard. Water some more. Check on the bees.

It is fun to "check the bees" because you can see all their action through this very fun picture window in the back. 

Even busy-little-guests are apt to sit still for a long time watching the action. By the end of the day our favorite two-year-old could easily explain to you that the bees were working hard to build comb, that you should stand to the back of the hive to be out of their way and that they had yellow on their legs from the flowers. She's so smart! And, insects are so fascinating.

The Car is Full...

I always enjoy looking in the back of the car when we come back from the Peninsula. Partially because it's so fun that my grown-ups have such amazing riches in their respective yards and partly because you just never know what you're going to get! The list this time included (but, was not limited to)...

• 3 Five-Gallon, plus 4 Three-Gallon buckets of "Miracle Soil"
• A box of bee-keeping supplies 
• A tub of delicious creamed honey (best batch yet, for sure)
• 3 dozen farm-fresh eggs (two dozen seen here)

• 2 coolers full of fresh-picked raspberries (plus, pre-frozen ones as "ice packs")

• Yellow and Lucifer Crocosmia plants
• This quilt top (note that the 1/2 inch squares have all been sewn by hand)

Thank you Daddy-O, K.____, Mama-Pajama and Neal!

Meet the Newest Members of the Family...

Yesterday we got bees! They're all buzzing around finding new nectar sources. Hooray! Darren came and installed them yesterday with his very nice wife Pam. I got to suit up and everything. D-Man is truly a bee whisperer if ever I saw one. Now my new friends are all buzzing about in the back yard. Also the front yard. And, probably the neighbor's yard, too. Later I'll post a shot through the observation window (which is really the most amazing thing). Okay. Off to watch my bees!