Quote of the Day: Thomas Edison
“Opportunity is missed by most people
because it is dressed in overalls and looks like work.”
~Thomas Edison
One of the things I enjoy about gardening is the work involved. Since my job consists of sitting in front of a computer, gardening provides me with the exercise I need to keep me healthy and strong, not to mention lots of fresh food as well. Hard work never makes me back down, I relish the challenge and the physical exertion that comes from gardening. Especially the tasks like double digging new garden beds as I’m doing in this photo.
What about you, do you enjoy the hard work of gardening or could you do without it?
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Not So Feral Anymore
Miss Mama the resident feral cat that moved her kittens into our garage this summer, has been declassified. She’s no longer feral, she’s become a garage cat, or a “pet”. She spends her days lounging by the pet door in the garage (her front porch as we call it) or lounging on our back deck in the kitty cabana, which is the rack I use for drying seeds & herbs.
I guess she’s realized Chiot’s Run is feline friendly place and has moved in for good. She follows me around the gardens meowing for me to pet her and I’ve even opened up the door several times to find her sitting there waiting for me. She’s definitely no longer the feral cat that used to run if she even saw us looking out the window.
Little Softie is still a bit skittish, she loves to watch what I’m doing though and follows me at a distance. Every now and then she’ll chase me when I’m going by, she’s still cute and playful but she’s starting to get big and look like a cat instead of a kitten. Her and Miss Mama play in the gardens all the time, they’re fun to watch.
It won’t be long until we have to take her in to be fixed as well, another month or two and she should be old enough. Hopefully she’ll do as well as Miss Mama did.
They’re both very sweet cats and we love having them around the gardens. I haven’t seen or heard a chipmunk since Miss Mama moved in, so our strawberries should be safe next year, and perhaps I can actually plant some crocus bulbs this fall that will survive to bloom in the spring.
Have you ever tamed a pet? be it a feral cat, raccoon, skunk, snake, etc?
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Squirreling Away for Winter
I had great plans of writing a post about making zucchini bread including my recipe, but I was up late filling the pantry with all kinds of goodies for winter. I feel like it’s a better use of energy when I can a bunch of things in one evening. Then I only have to fire up the canner every so often. I’m not canning as much this year since I’m trying to focus more on growing throughout the winter and I grew a lot potatoes, sweet potatoes, and squash that don’t need preserved.
I ended up with: 28 pints of crushed tomatoes, 5 quarts of sauerkraut, 5 pints of bread & butter pickles, and 3 pints of fire roasted red peppers. I also started a batch of watermelon rind pickles, we’ll see how those turn out. I think all I have left to can is some tomato soup, ketchup, and perhaps a batch of green tomato pickles.
What’s your favorite home canned item?
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Parched
Everything is parched here. It’s been a dry dry summer and it was especially dry during the month of August, we got less than an inch of rain for the entire month. To make it even worse we have sandy soil which doesn’t hold water at all. Everything is crispy and some thing are badly wilted.
I have rain barrels to collect the rain water, but they’ve been empty for weeks since we haven’t had any rain. They were drained to water all the potted tomatoes, vegetables and the raised beds in the back. I don’t make it a habit of watering much, the plants usually bounce back fairly well when the fall rains come. I do have a few choice plants that get a drink every 10 days or so to make sure they survive the dry spells. Mostly these are the hydrangeas in my collection, I’d hate to have to replace any of them, which would cost far more than the water it takes to make sure they survive the dry spells. When it’s this dry I do water the front foundation gardens as they are filled with a lot of plants that I’d hate to lose. The blueberries especially would suffer with reduced yields next summer.
I enjoy watering by hand most of the time, it’s good exercise and it gives me time to monitor all the plants. Usually I’m carrying around these 3 gallons watering cans and occasionally I’ll use the watering wand if the plants need a lot of water or if I’m watering a larger area.
When it’s been this dry I water the larger garden areas with the sprinkler. It saves a ton of time to set up the sprinkler and let it do it’s job. I bought this fantastic heavy duty Gilmour metal sprinkler many years ago and I love it. I’d highly recommend it if you’re in the market for a good quality sprinkler that will last forever, I especially love that it’s easy to set, no little knobs that get stuck and won’t turn. And it’s all zinc and brass and heavy enough to take some serious water pressure. After going through a few cheap sprinklers, I invested in this and I’ve been happy with it for the last 5 years!
When I’m using the sprinkler, I use a rain gauge to monitor how much water the gardens have received and I set the timer on the stove to remind myself to check every half hour. I make sure I give everything a good inch of water so I only have to do it once or maybe twice during a really dry month like this.
No doubt my water bill will be 2-3 times the normal amount, but it’s cheaper than buying new plants. I know the more I amend and improve the soil here the better the plants will weather these long dry spells. The rain barrel system is a real money saver for us when it comes to watering the garden, but there are other things I also do to save water.
I keep a dishpan in the sink and save the water from rinsing vegetables and washing dishes for the plants. When we run the shower to warm it up we save the water in a bucket. We also have containers that fit in the bathroom sinks that we use to collect hand washing water to use for watering as well. All of these small measures really can add up to a lot of gallons saved. Some day I dream of having a gray water system in my home, until then, it’s buckets and dishpans.
How’s the rain/water situation in your area of the world? What’s your preferred method of watering when rain isn’t coming?
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Fall & Winter Gardening
“Don’t judge each day by the harvest you reap
but by the seeds that you plant.”
~Robert Louis Stevenson
It’s time to start those seeds for you fall/winter garden. Time to seed: turnips, radicchio, kale, overwintering onions, winter radishes, lettuce and spinach. It’s also time to sow some clover under your tomatoes.
Last week I started seeds for: ‘Catalina’ and ‘Bloomsdale Longstanding’ spinach, ‘Big Boston’ lettuce, fall greens mix, ‘Japanese Minowase’ radishes, ‘Round Black Spanish’ radishes. This week I’ll be starting some ‘Evergreen Hardy Bunching’ onions and more spinach and fall lettuce and maybe some turnips and radicchio. Don’t forget to order your garlic if you’re hoping to plant some this fall, if you wait to long you may not be able to find it. I ordered mine from Gourmet Garlic Gardens.
Have you planted anything for fall/winter yet?
