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Liatris: Spring through Fall

October 21st, 2008

Flowers can be beautiful in all seasons. Here’s a Liatris in spring, summer and fall.


Which is your favorite?

The First Frost

October 20th, 2008

Yesterday morning (October 19) we had our first frost of the season here at Chiot’s Run. This is rather late for us, last year it was in late September. It was much heavier down in the valleys than around our house, but since we live on one of the highest hills, we get frost a few weeks later than the lower lying areas.

This means all the petunias will be withering away soon, as will many of my veggies (I have a few tomatoes still in the garden).

The woolly thyme looked particularly interesting this morning covered in frost.

We had some delicious hot cereal (steel cut oats with cinnamon & maple syrup) for breakfast to celebrate the coming winter. Mr Chiot’s and I are super excited about this coming winter. We’re big fans of cold weather and snow. We don’t partake in any snow/winter sports, but we love to run in the winter. So out coming the running shoes and we will start training for the Turkey Trot, St. Patrick’s Day Race and hopefully the Half Marathon next spring in New Philly. So as most runners are retiring to the treadmill, Mr Chiot’s and I are excitedly bundling up for our snowy runs.

Even though I would like to spend a lot of time running, I still have a lot of garden chores to finish up. So I’ll be spending some frigid days out working in the gardens. Everything need a good layer of mulch and a few plants need some winter tidying. We also need to build a cold frame for those carrots, hopefully that will be happening this week.

What are you looking forward to as the seasons change?

Statistics I Like to Hear

October 19th, 2008

Today in America there is soaring demand for local and regional food; farmers’ markets, of which the U.S.D.A. estimates there are now 4,700, have become one of the fastest-growing segments of the food market. Community-supported agriculture is booming as well: there are now nearly 1,500 community-supported farms, to which consumers pay an annual fee in exchange for a weekly box of produce through the season.

I’m doing my part to increase demand for local food. This year Mr Chiots and I started buying 80% of our food locally. We’re hoping to buy even more, some things like grains are difficult to find locally, but we do purchase them from small local bulk food stores so they’re fresher. We buy our chicken, eggs, beef and milk from Robert’s Farm (they also sell potatoes in the fall). We buy all of our produce at the farmer’s market and we try to preserve as much as we can to limit the need for buying from the grocery.

We grow some of our own veggies to further cut down on the traveling miles and environmental impact of our food. In future years we hope to grow even more of our own food as we add more and more edible plants & trees into our landscape.

What are you going to strengthen you local food supply?

A Day in the Garden

October 18th, 2008

Yesterday I spent the day working outside in the gardens. It’s just the kind of day I like for working outside. Cool but sunny, perfect for working hard, you don’t get too hot. My fingers even got a bit frosty while picking all the green tomatoes.

I picked 36 pounds of green tomatoes. So what am I going to be doing with these? Some of them will be put on a shelf in the basement on some newspaper for ripening, the other green ones will be made into a batch of green tomato chutney. For now they’re covering our dining room table. All of the tomato vines went into one of my compost piles.

I also cleaned out the bed that had the potatoes in it to make room for garlic. I didn’t get quite as many potatoes as I had hoped, but I planted them a little late and I don’t think the soil is all that great. So next year they’ll be given a ton more compost. Next year I’m planning on planting some different kinds of potatoes, I’ll buy my big bag of winter potatoes from a local farm (this year I planted Kennebec potatoes)

Early this summer I ordered a garlic sampler from Gourmet Garlic Gardens. I would highly recommend ordering from them (just make sure you order early to get what you want). I ordered a spicy garlic lovers sampler for my zone. They sent the garlic out in mid-september with detailed instructions about planting. Bob even wrote thank you on my invoice, how’s that for customer service.

So how do you plant garlic? Well, first you separate the cloves and soak them overnight in a solution of 1 heaping Tablespoon of baking soda to one gallon of water. I soaked my 4 different kinds in different bowls to keep them separate.

After about 12-16 hours when the cloves are loose in their skins you immerse them in alcohol for 3-5 minutes, then you plant 6 inches apart (and 3 inches deep here in Ohio, 2 inches deep in the south, and 4 inches deep farther north).

I mulched mine with straw to keep them warmer this winter and hopefully next spring/summer I’ll have a bounty of delicious fresh garlic.

So what kinds of garlic did I plant?
German White: A Porcelain Garlic – very rich garlic flavor, rather hot pungency when raw, harvests mid-late season, stores 8-10 months
Killarney Red: A Rocambole Garlic – very rich garlic flavor, very hot pungency when raw, harvests early-mid season, stores 5-6 months
Chesnok Red: A Purple Strip Garlic – very rich garlic flavor, medium warm pungency when raw, harvests mid-season, stores 6-8 months
Georgia Fire: A Porcelain Garlic – very rich garlic flavor, very hot pungency when raw, harvests mid-late season, stores 8-10 months

It looks like I’ll have a great selection for storing & eating. I’m hoping they’ll last me all year. Any of you planting garlic this fall and what’s your favorite kind?

Spotted by the Side of the Road

October 17th, 2008

Anyone notice anything funny about this sign?

Can you really sell the wildlife with the property?

About

This is a daily journal of my efforts to cultivate a more simple life, through local eating, gardening and so many other things. We used to live in a small suburban neighborhood Ohio but moved to 153 acres in Liberty, Maine in 2012.

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