Garage Queen
I must say, the Sweets is loving her new digs here at Chiot’s Run Maine. Back in Ohio she had a tiny two car garage with a large attached workshop. She had to settle for sleeping on an old rug we had in the back room, or up in the rafters. Here in Maine, she has a HUGE garage complete with a large second story.
On that second floor there are two old comfy couches for her to choose from. I often find her sleeping happily on the one right at the top of the stairs. Some feral cat!
She truly has become the queen of the garage, spending her days lounging contentedly. Pretty soon she’ll be demanding I feed her in a crystal bowl. Life is certainly good if you’re a cat here at Chiot’s Run! She must be doing her job, we haven’t spotted a mouse since she moved in.
Do you have any pampered pets at your place?
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Dealing with Pesky Deer Flies
The deer flies have been TERRIBLE around here this year. Last week I worked in the garden one evening, when I came inside I had been bitten 6 times. One of the bites was on my eyelid. When I woke up the next morning my eye was pretty much swollen shut. The funny thing is that I also had a bite on my cheek on the same side, which was also swollen up about the size of a macaroon. That’s when I searched to find something that might work against them. I came across this post explaining how to build a deer fly trap.
I ordered up the supplies I needed: Tanglefoot Tangle-Trap Brush On Sticky Trap Coating and Blue Plastic Cups. Yes the cup needs to be blue!
All you do is brush the sticky coating on the blue cup and you pin them to your hat. Really, it’s that simple. At first I was worried that it would catch other flying insects as well, like bees, thankfully that didn’t happen.
Our first test of our hats was a trip down to the mailbox, which generally ended with us running back up the hill swatting the swarms of deer flies that were chasing us. Mr Chiots arrived at the house with 9 stuck to his cup and I had 5 stuck to mine. We wore them the entire next day and didn’t notice a deer fly all day. That evening the final count was: 13 deer flies on Mr Chiot’s hat and 9 on mine. They work like a charm.
What’s the biggest garden pest for you, the gardener?
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Quote of the Day: Jessica Prentice
Visiting a farmer’s market gives me a sense of the season and a direct connection with the people who spend their days growing food. Eating seasonally reconnects me to the natural pulse of life, the Earth’s annual cycle of cold and heat, wet and dry, long night and then long days as it makes it’s journey around the sun. These annual cycles make me more mindful of the eternal realities of birth growth, death, decay and rebirth. They keep me aware of my humanness and my mortality as well as my kinship and interdependence with all other life on earth.
Jessica Prentice – Full Moon Feast: Food and the Hunger for Connection
I used up my onions from last year’s garden long ago. Even though we’ve been eating scallions and chives, nothing is quite as good as sautéed onions. The smell alone make me happy. Since we moved late in the fall, I didn’t have any leeks planted in the garden to fill the gap between bulb onions and new onions. Thus, we’ve been onionless as I refuse to buy them if I can’t find them locally.
One of the reasons I refuse to buy them is because it makes it all the more exciting when they start to show up at the farmers market and when they can be harvest from the garden. It has been said that absence makes the heart grow fonder, that is certainly true for the humble onion. I was giddy with excitement when I spotted onions at the farmers market on Friday morning. I purchased 4 large white onions and a bunch of beautiful small red torpedo shaped onions. There’s nothing like scarcity to make us fully appreciate abundance!
My onions in the garden are doing quite well, they are finally starting to bulb, it will be interesting to see how many I harvest and how long they last in the cellar. I have a good number of leeks planted already, with more to go in the ground when I have a clear spot. My potato onions and shallots will also be harvest soon as well. I’m also harvesting ‘Mini Purplette’ onions I planted a few months ago.
This fall I’ll be ordering and planting more shallots as well to increase my allium collection. My goal is to be able to have some sort of allium from my garden on my plate every month of the year without having to grow massive quantities of bulbing onions. I want my diet to reflect the seasonal changes, leeks and overwintered bunching onions in spring and early summer, fresh bulb onions in throughout summer, fall and winter. Big fat leeks harvested from the icy soil in early winter and early spring. Learning to eat seasonally not only increases the variety in our diet, it also helps us stay in tune with the natural cycles.
What food do you miss most when it’s not in season?
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Fire Delay
Last night, just as we were getting ready to sit down to record Cultivate Simple, the fire radio went off. You have probably heard that Mr Chiots is a volunteer fireman here in our community. When he wasn’t home by 10:30, I figured I should write this post delaying the podcast until tomorrow.
We would have recorded the podcast in the afternoon, but Mr Chiots was busy checking one of the five things off his list. We went down to a friend’s place and he got his first sailing lesson.
He really enjoyed himself. I stayed on shore getting some much needed rest and relaxation. Looks like I really need to look up a mushroom class or something to check something off my list of 5 Things.
Have you learned anything new recently?
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Quote of the Day: Organic Gardening
“Organic gardening is not a system of rules to abide by or be punished for breaking. It is a way of looking at the world. The garden is a model of how we would like to live. We should all garden organically not because it is currently politically correct but simply because it is the most sensible and best way to make a good garden.”
Monty Don from Fork to Fork
Even though the word “organic” is being watered down by corporate interest, it’s good to see more and more people becoming aware of the dangers of chemicals/pesticides and leaning toward gardening more organically.
How many of the gardeners you know are organic?
