Growing Edibles

“For us, there is a deep, elemental pleasure in growing at least some of our own food.” Joe Eck & Wayne Winterrowd (North Hill Garden).

Check out the photos of their gardens on their website or read one of their books. My favorite is “Living Seasonally.” You can’t go wrong with any of them!

Here’s an article about them in the NYTimes.

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Bunches of Beets

I harvested my beets this past week and I started some seeds for my fall harvest.

So what did I do with these beautiful beets? They were pickled. MMMMM, I love pickled beets.

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Spotted in Orrville

While in Orrville last week watching my nieces at the swimming class, I spotted this HUGE Sum & Substance Hosta. I noticed this hosta last summer and always wanted to take a photo but never had my camera. Now that I have this blog, I am always armed & ready.

This gardener is serious about this hosta. Why do you ask? It is an almost perfect specimen of a Sum & Substance Hosta (about 5 feet in diameter & perfectly greenish yellow). Why is it so perfect? They are providing it with ample shade via a patio umbrella to keep it looking it’s best.

Since hosta’s love shady areas and tend to get a bit crispy if they get too much sun, this one is perfectly protected with this umbrella. Notice the size of the hosta in relation to that umbrella!

Oh yeah, here are my nieces at swimming lessons (look closely and you’ll see little Orin walking around in the background with grandma)

Little Orin (our nephew) was happy running around the pool hanging out with grandma while the girls were swimming.

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Bring on the Salad Bowl

A few weeks ago I ordered some lettuce seeds. I started them on the 23 of July. I put them in the basement where it’s cool (lettuce likes cool weather). A couple days later they germinated and then under the grow lights they went. This is what they looked like on July 27th.
I can’t believe how quickly these seedlings grew. I think the secret this time was the Dr Earth Starter Fertilizer that I added to my seed starting mix. From now I’ll be using this with all my seeds.

Today the seedlings went outside on the back deck to get ready for planting in the garden. They’ll stay there a couple days to get used to the sun & wind.

So what kinds of lettuce do I have for our late summer & fall salad bowl?

Black Seeded Simpson

Green Jericho Romaine Lettuce

Simpson Elite Lettuce

Red Sails Lettuce

I also started some Red Ruby cabbage for the fall.

The spinach seeds I started haven’t germinated much yet. I have one that’s just starting to emerge.

I can’t wait for all these salads.

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Empty Barrels

My rain barrels are empty. We haven’t had any rain here in almost 3 weeks. So how many gallons have I used in the last 3 weeks?

Each one of these hash marks represent 1 fill of my 3 gallon watering can (and there are a few more on there now since I took this photo the other day). There are 117 hash marks x 3 gallons = 351 total gallons of rain water used. I’m sure there were a few times I forgot to notch the board so I could probably add another 20 gallons or so to that number. I’m hoping we get some rain tonight so they fill up again, if not out comes the soaker hoses & the sprinkler.

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