Distraction Crops

A couple of days ago I was talking to Alex over at Spotty Dog Farm about distraction crops (AKA trap crops).  They can be weeds or plants that come up accidently or that are planted on purpose (think companion planting) and will either distract the bad bugs with their scent and their yumminess or will attract other (good) bugs that will eat the bad ones.  

Now, we have an aphid problem.  When they first appeared and killed our over-wintered-going-to-seed kale, we pulled it all and then purchased some ladybugs to eat up any remaining aphids in the bed.  This was in the hope that they wouldn't attack the tomatoes, carrots and peppers that were in the same bed.

It seems to have worked.  However, the question has become, "Did they really all get eaten, or did they leave and simply find another meal?"  Not sure we'll ever know the answer to that one.

However, we have now learned that a distraction crop can be a failed cauliflower plant that grew slowly over last winter, was transplanted into a pot and placed in a random corner of the yard in the hope it might actually produce something.  Well, it hasn't, but it is serving a purpose...

There are aphids literally covering the whole plant!  Insane!

So far they haven't turned up anywhere else in the yard.  Maybe they just really like brassicas!  If that's the case, brassicas just might become my new best friend in the garden!

What do you do to keep your garden pest free?

My Very First Quiche!!!

I attempted my very first (crustless) quiche today and all in all, I am happy to report that it was a success!

I got the original recipe from soulflowerfarm and was so excited to try it that I couldn't wait for our own potatoes to be ready!  So, the potatoes and mushrooms are store bought, the garlic is from our CSA and the spinach and squash are from our garden.

You start by slicing your potatoes thinly and lining the bottom of a pie dish or cast iron pan with them.  Drizzle some olive oil on top, sprinkle on some salt and pepper and put it in a 400 degree oven for about 20 minutes.

While your potatoes are baking, cut up any veggies you want to use and saute them.  I used garlic, mushrooms, spinach and squash this time.

Then beat your eggs and add in your milk.  The original recipe called for 4 eggs and 1 1/2 cups of half and half.  I didn't have any half and half, so I used 1 1/2 cups of milk instead, and since my pan was quite large I used 8 eggs.

Take your potatoes out of the oven, add some cheese (I used fresh mozzarella), put your sauteed veggies on top...

...pour on your milk & egg mixture and (if you really like cheese) add some more grated cheese on top (I used colby jack for the topping...it's what we had and wound up being perfectly fine).

Bake at 425 for 15-20 minutes, then lower the temperature to 325 for another 30-45 minutes.  Your quiche is done when you can insert a knife and it comes out clean.

This made for a fantastic breakfast this morning and there is plenty left over for breakfast during the coming week!

Would I do anything differently?  I think I will continue to play with ingredients for sure.  Green chile and bacon will be the next additions, no doubt.  I think I'll try it with half & half, too at some point.  Oh, and I'll use less salt.  Not sure what happened, but at some point I got a little heavy handed.

What do I particularly love about this recipe?  The potatoes as the crust!  Brilliant!  Thanks for sharing the recipe soulflowerfarm!!!

The Little Things

Sunflowers.  Bees.  Pockets full of pollen.  Joy.

The Little Things is my way of taking a moment to slow down, acknowledge and appreciate...well...the little things!

Garden Happiness(es)

The first pie pumpkin

The first (ever) acorn squash

I love the texture in this bed...Sunflowers, tomatoes and acorn squash

Ashes made her way outside, Bo was not happy about it...

Baby tomatoes...not suffering from butt rot

The first lemon cucumber...the previous few mysteriously disappeared...

The first bush snap pea

The first rain water harvest!!!

Silly puppies AKA Mika & Mr. peeking past the not-so-tall sweet corn

Another Orb Weaver setting up shop near the compost and coop

Bush beans as a cover crop

The first butternut squash

The blue corn is trying to grow some blue corn!!!

The first (ever...and tiniest) honey boat squash

German butterball potatoes

HAPPY GARDENING!!!

Sourdough Starter

Believe it or not, I have never had my very own sourdough starter!  I've wanted one for a couple of years now, but never got off my ass to actually start one.  However, in my quest to try new things (including regularly making our own bread), this seems like a natural step.

Funny thing is, while at the store the other day, I was not the one who picked up the starter packet...it was Tool Lady!  So, we brought it home and started it up!  Silly me, I thought it would all grow to fit in the nice tall glass jar I put it in.  I knew it would grow, but didn't know it would grow to three times it's original size within a 24 hour period!!!

This morning it looked just fine...lots of head space.  This evening, however, was a different story.

I came home to find a monster in my pantry!  Amazing!  One day of feeding and it explodes!

Well, my starter is now in a bowl for the evening.  All wrapped up and ready for bed.  Sitting on a plate on a shelf in the pantry, just in case it decides to try to escape again.

The instructions say to feed it once a day for a week, then it will be ready for using to make actual bread.  I wonder how much more it will grow?!

Regardless of how much space it decides to take up in the end, I can hardly wait for the bread that will be born of this monster!!!  ;-)

Harvest Monday!!!

This was an exciting week!  We harvested our first, second, third, fourth and fifth tomatoes!  That's right, a total of 5 tomatoes in one week!  Looks like all the patience has paid off and I couldn't be happier!  

These are Yellow Taxi Tomatoes and are super yummy.  The skins are a little thick, but that's to be expected here.  We've had them sliced up with a little salt, with scrambled eggs and as part of a salsa for fish tacos.

I also harvested some spinach throughout the week to throw into various meals, as well as a few sugar snap peas and a handful of carrots.  The peas are slow, but still producing and still fantastic.

Here's this weeks breakdown:
Carrots = 4 ounces
Spinach = 5 ounces
Tomatoes = 12 ounces
Snap Peas = 2 ounces

Alright, now it's time for the Garden Mystery of the week...

Something flashy caught my eye while harvesting a few days ago...

Upon closer inspection, I thought I'd hit the jackpot!!!  Silver and gold in the garden?!?!

Just the slightest indentation on the back of the leaf

The question is - Can you grow gold and silver in your garden???  And if you can't, what creature lays gold and silver eggs?!?!


Harvest Monday is hosted by Daphne at daphnesdandelions.  Check out what she's harvesting, as well as what many, many others are harvesting!

HAPPY HARVESTING!!!

Hope you all have a fantastic day!

Planning the Fall & Winter Garden

If you were to be a fly on the wall in my home in the early hours of any given weekend morning, you would probably find my kitchen table looking something like this...

That is because I love, love, love to plan.  I have lists and diagrams and ideas and hopes and failures all written in that little grey binder.  I have plastic containers full of seeds and struggle regularly with where to put them all in the actual dirt on our small plot of land.

This is the first full year we are attempting a 4 season garden.  Last year was an experiment and we did pretty well, all things considered.  Last November we threw some beets, onions and garlic in one of the beds and threw some kale and cauliflower in another bed and then topped them with plastic for the winter.  We checked on them every few weeks and watered them when they got a little dry.  Miraculously, it didn't all die.  As the months dragged on, we added in some spinach and actually harvested several pounds of yumminess over several months.

We learned that winter gardening is a much slower process and requires lots of patience, but that there's nothing quite like picking fresh spinach from your garden when there's snow on the ground!

Alright, fast forward to now.  It's July and hotter than (excuse my language) hell out there.  We have gotten very little rain, the sun feels like it's trying to bake us into the ground and yet I'm thinking about cold weather veggies.  Who knew!?

Well, right now, most of the beds are full to the brim with summer veggies, so most of what I'm doing consists of sitting at my kitchen table with pencil in hand, plan, plan, planning.  However, the bed we used for onions and garlic last year is sitting mostly bare since the harvesting of said veggies.  I have a couple of rows of bush beans up front, but the back was bare until recently when I threw in 2 rows of broccoli and a bunch of Buckwheat as a cover crop until the scorching heat subsides a bit.

Here is my current list of veggies to plant (from seed, direct sowed) mid August - early November, both in raised beds and directly in the ground.  Mind you, these plans are still tentative, I have many weekends ahead of me to tweak location and items, but this is a good start:

Broccoli (DiCiccio)
Radishes (Cherry Belle)
Carrots (Cosmic Purple, Carnival Blend & Parisienne)
Kale (Red Winter and Red Russian)
Beets (Early Wonder...I'm searching for golden beet seeds, but have had zero luck so far)
Turnips (Purple Top White Globe)
Spinach (Lavewa and Bloomsdale)
Snap Peas (Dwarf Grey and Super Sugar Snap)
Swiss Chard (Fordhook Giant)
Garlic (hard neck and soft neck varieties, from heads we've either grown or gotten through our CSA)

Broccoli sprouts!!!

What are you planning for your fall and winter gardens?

Seeds as Gifts

I manage a Summer Camp and it is a very (rewarding) long, hot summer.  Towards the end of each summer, we hold a Staff Appreciation party where we do a Secret Santa type gift exchange, eat yummy food and take the opportunity to spend some time together sans children.

This year, the gift I received was the promise that 6 packets of heirloom seeds were in the mail, on their way to me!  I could not think of a better gift!!!

Apparently, I talk about my love of seeds and gardening at work a lot ;-)

Well, they already came in the mail!  And, as an extra bonus, the company included a packet of Carrot seeds (I think I'll plant these for a fall crop)!!!

I can't wait for next spring and the addition of all these fantastic heirloom seeds to my garden!!!  Thanks, Alexis!!!

The Little Things

Kale, when slowly baked into Kale Chips and held up to the sun, looks like stained glass.  I love it!

The Little Things is my way of taking a moment to slow down, acknowledge and appreciate...well...the little things!

The First Tomato!!!

We harvested our first tomato yesterday evening!!!  A Yellow Taxi weighing in at 2 whole ounces!!!

It may be small, but it sure is beautiful!!!

Garden Happiness(es)

The beginnings of a jalapeno!

This bed is 4 feet wide & the fence behind it is 6 feet tall.  This means, officially, that our tomatoes are out of control.

Buddha hanging out with the blue corn .

How can something so green bring one so much happiness???

Bush snap pea

Another bush snap pea (flower).  They're just so pretty!

The first sunflower!!!!!

Lettuce figuring out how to go to seed

Snap peas, beets. spinach, carrots & beet greens from our garden
Turnips, onions, garlic scrapes & cabbage form our CSA
It all made for a fantastically yummy (and super healthy) stir fry!

HAPPY GARDENING!!!