Little Vermont Family Garden

Catching up in August

August 24, 2010 in Craft, Garden, Homeschool | 4 comments

It has been such a good summer! Fun, and busy. Too busy to write in blogs! I’m excited to share our summer update with you, though, so read on. :D

In the garden:

Today I pulled up the onions, which was probably overdue. I have them drying out on my front porch now, and the smells wafting in here are strong but lovely! The boys and I dug up the potatoes last week. They’re smaller than in the past, and there are fewer of them, but at least we have some. The tomato plants look really awful, and I’m contemplating removing the tomatoes and allowing them to ripen in bags, indoors, maybe. If it will save the tomatoes, that’s what I’ll do. I’m waiting to hear back from my master gardener advisor on this issue. :) The cucumber plants are developing some sort of blight or fungal problem, but so far we’ve had more cukes than we can keep up with, so apparently the problem is not affecting the fruit. By the time it does, we’ll probably have eaten our fill of cukes, so I’m satisfied. We have loads of peppers (hot and sweet), one good result of all that heat! We’ve still got some carrots, but we’ve eaten pretty much all the lettuce. If I can, I’ll get another crop in and hopefully it’ll grow before it’s too cold. I need to get busy with that though, soon.

Homeschool news:

I never did update about our assessment. It went really well. The woman that came here was so enthusiastic about our “style” – it was very reassuring to me. She said “this is how homeschooling should be!” I am now getting ready to write our plan for our second year. It’s due by Labor Day so I hope to finish it up by the end of this week.

Craft news:

I finally broke down and purchased a new sewing machine. I was in the middle of making a duvet cover for the guest room bed, and my machine (which used to belong to my grandmother and is olive green, if that gives you any indication of the age) just was not cooperating. It seemed like every time I tried to use it, it would work briefly and then start falling apart. It’s getting to be the time of year when crafting really picks up for me, so I wanted something that was reliable. So, I went out and bought one on Sunday afternoon, and I’ve finished the duvet cover (fabulous!) and matching curtains for the guest room, and a curtain for my bathroom. My next project is going to be some pj pants for the boys. I ordered two inexpensive but cute flat sheets to complement two that we already have so I can finally make the duvet covers for the boys’ comforters, which, uh, used to be white. Having duvet covers will definitely be an improvement for them! Easier for them to make their beds, also. It’s funny, they’re as excited about these as I am.

In the fall, I’d like to get back to work on the wool blanket I’m making for the family room. We all climb on the couch periodically to watch a movie as a family, and we don’t have a blanket (which we need in these chilly winters!) to cover us, without pulling one off a bed. My neighbor gave me three bags full of old wool clothing (she uses it to make hooked rugs) from thrift shops that she wasn’t going to use, so I’ve been washing/felting it and cutting it up. It will be a simple patchwork wool top with some batting and either a cotton or fleece back. I’m thinking cotton if I can use one of our old sheets for the back. Maybe even flannel.

As you can see, my new machine is being (and will continue to be) put to good use. It makes me happy.

A family update:

One of the highlights of the summer was traveling to CT to see my baby sister get married. It was a joyful occasion, a lovely ceremony full of love and shared with family and many old friends. I really enjoyed seeing everyone, and the boys had a wonderful time playing with their cousins that they only rarely see. The cousins are older and were gracious enough to let the boys follow them around the entire time. My boys still haven’t stopped talking about them.

My boys, all fancy for the wedding...sigh...you can dress them up...

Some of the other highlights of our full but absolutely wonderful summer:

A visit from my closest old college friend – three nights of staying up til the wee hours of the morning and enjoying all that our area has to offer.
A visit from Scott’s father’s family (his wife and two daughters) which included a wonderful day at the lake and a nice (and rare) dinner out.
A night out for just Scott and me for our 13th wedding anniversary. Our second date this year! An improvement over last year, by one night.
Many, many berries :D
Fireworks for me and the boys on the 4th of July
“Backpack Theater” on a rainy day
Tee ball! Or t-ball, whatever way it is spelled. It was a hoot to watch, especially when Jonas was in the field doing yoga instead of fielding the ball. Truly hilarious.
The circus – an amazing event by Circus Smirkus, which the entire family enjoys. I think maybe the adults even appreciate it more than the boys. It’s not to be missed if you live anywhere near where they put on a show – a truly wonderful youth circus.
Concerts in the park – my favorite was the “Marble City Swing Band” but I also enjoyed the city band (which is more like an orchestra). I was surprised by how much Alec liked the swing music, also.
Fishing and hiking and spending time with our friends from St. Louis. Their visit really needs its own post, with pictures. It was definitely one of the best weeks of the summer!

Speaking of pictures (or lack of pictures) – I’m sorry they’re so lacking in this post. I know pictures make blog posts more fun so I’ll try to have more next time!

Too much, not enough

July 11, 2010 in Craft, Garden, Random Thoughts | 2 comments

There is just too much heat, weeding to do, rotten garlic, mess, dirt, dust, laundry, stunted tomato plants, dirty dishes, shredded corn plants.

There is not enough energy, time, cooling off, exercise, help.

I am feeling a bit overwhelmed, can you tell?

I am grateful that we have a home and nice yard, but I honestly want to scale back, down, whatever. I am burned out on gardening and trying to keep up with it and everything else. Today I want to sew a pillowcase skirt and make socks from sweater sleeves. Instead, I did five loads of laundry, made deodorant, and pulled out the rotten garlic and threw it on the compost pile. I also pulled out the peas so I can chop the vines up and dig them back into the soil. I think that my soil is severely lacking. That’s the only explanation I have for plants that just don’t seem to be doing as well as in previous years. My compost bins are poorly located, thanks to my own bad judgement, and are taking years, yes, years longer than they should be to produce a usable finished product. I’ve put in small amounts of compost here and there as I planted, but it’s clear that I just need to do a lot more soil amendment.

In other garden news:

The potatoes look ok. Not great, but ok. They need weeding.
The cabbage looks ok, but probably need another dusting of BT.
The carrots are fine.
The kale is beautiful. Too bad I don’t feel like eating it.
The peas are done.
The chard is looking good. Colorful. Some slug damage, but that’s par for the course.
The beans are flowering.
The peppers mostly look ok. The hot peppers are flowering and the serranos have actually produced a few fruits.
The cilantro is going to seed, but the new crop is coming up pretty well.
The basil looks yellow, mostly.
The cucumbers are growing, looking fine, but behind because I had to replant due to varmint damage.
The onions look small to me, but who knows. I should go look at last year’s photos to compare.
The tomatoes look stunted, and like they are suffering from blight. They are flowering and producing tiny fruits, but I have not much hope for a good crop this year. Sigh. So disappointing.
The garlic is rotten, and is in the compost pile.
The scallions and leeks look fine. Leeks probably need thinning.
The corn is gone. The same unknown critter has done its damage once again. Comes in and shreds the plants, then leaves them laying there. What the heck, creature? Eat the damn plants at least, would you? Don’t just shred them for sport. And could you also please explain why it’s just the corn? What do you have against corn?
The weeds are doing best of all. They are really taking off and don’t seem to mind any of the ridiculous crap Mother Nature is throwing at us this year. I will undoubtedly have a great crop of weeds. Oh, wait. Weeds weren’t on my list. Who planted those?

Right now I’m ignoring the perennials and herbs that need attention. Why focus on those when I have all these pitiful vegetables to cry over?

That’s all for now, thanks for reading my sad tale!

Garden Report

June 27, 2010 in Garden | 1 comment

A boring list format, since I’m not feeling inspired. I just came in from the garden so the status of most things is fresh in my mind.

Pumpkins: failed to germinate. Absolutely zero seeds germinated! Complete failure, but I can live with it.

Red cabbage: growing and looking healthy. A very long way from harvest.

Potatoes: just about all plants have emerged. The bed needs weeding and I may do the newspaper/straw mulch approach when I’m sure all the plants are done coming up. Plants look healthy, no pests (yet).

Tomatoes: have rebounded. The ten plants in the south bed look healthy except for a few select leaves. Several of the plants have flowers.

Garlic: unknown, but the bed has been weeded and the plants scaped. The obviously rotten plants were removed and what’s left looks more or less healthy, as far as I can tell. They should come out in a couple of weeks. I am not sure what I’m planting in that bed when it’s cleared out, but it may be broccoli. I haven’t found any raab seeds anywhere.

Onions: look fine. That bed got weeded today.

Cucumbers: the two original plants have grown quite a bit, and all the new plants are up. They are all surrounded by wire to keep out the unidentified varmint that demolished the first crop. So far it has worked nicely.

Peas: awesome. We eat them daily.

Beans and corn: look decent. Beans look better than they looked last week, when I was beginning to think they were anemic. They’re mostly looking greener today and I’m not going to worry about them. Some of the spinach I just sowed in the bare spots has germinated.

Peppers: small but healthy. I have a couple serranos on one plant – teeny tiny and adorable! None of the bell peppers has flowered yet, but I’m glad. The plants are still too small.

Lettuce: I pulled up 3/4 of the slobolt today. The plants were beginning to look weak and the lettuce probably would have been on the bitter side. I still have enough left for salads. My new red fire lettuce is at the baby lettuce stage, so some of it can get picked for salads. By the end of the week it will probably be full grown! I sowed some new slobolt in where I had pulled out the old plants, so next month that will be ready to eat. I left some room to plant more in about two weeks.

Leeks and scallions: look great. Some of the scallions are ready to eat.

Carrots: are delicious. I can’t keep them in the ground – the boys keep pulling them out and eating them. Fortunately I’ve got more that are growing over with the cabbage, that won’t be ready for quite a while, and still more that I’m planning on planting somewhere. There is plenty of room and time. Lots of carrots this year!

Chard: beautiful, tasty, young plants. I need to sow more seeds somewhere this week, but it looks like we’ll have plenty pretty soon.

Kale: gorgeous and ready to eat. Why do I think of kale as only appetizing in fall? I’m not in the mood to eat it. Oh well.

Black raspberries are ripening and will be ready soon. Blueberries and raspberries aren’t far behind, but I don’t expect the blueberries to be really ripe until the end of July. My new blackberries won’t bear fruit this year, I don’t think, but the plants look beautiful.

Sorry about the lack of photos. Maybe I’ll go snap some later this afternoon. I went to the co-op yesterday for organic popcorn (they sell it in bulk – yum!) and came out with three more packages of seeds – broccoli, turnips, and pac choi. Hoping that it will all go into the garlic bed when that’s ready. I seem to remember that broccoli would go in in July for the fall crop.

That’s all for now! Hope your gardens are all pest free and getting greener every day! :)

ETA: forgot the herbs – the first crop of cilantro has bolted (but still tastes good) but the second planting has been growing well and will be ready in a couple weeks. None of the basil germinated, so I’m going to go out and buy some plants this week, I hope. Also, I went and took a few photos…so here you are. Not a total loss, after all :)

: North beds

: Onions

Flowering tomato

Taters

Pretty cabbage

Black raspberries!

A little nervous

June 26, 2010 in Homeschool | 3 comments

We have our first homeschooling assessment coming up next Friday afternoon. I know we’ve had a great year together, and I know Alec and Jonas (who is not being assessed, by the way, but certainly participates in all we do) have learned a lot, every day.

Still, I haven’t been through one of these things before, and not knowing what to expect has me feeling nervous. I don’t especially love the idea of some person we’ve never met coming into our home and “evaluating” my child. However, a woman I trust recommended this person, and said she was warm and kind and easy to talk with, so we have asked her to come.

She asked me to give her a copy of the paperwork I submitted to the state (which indicated what we would work on during the year) and to plan to show her whatever I had in the way of “proof” of his education. I made a list of books we read (those I could remember, which has to be a very small fraction of what we actually did read) and made notes about what we did during the year, organized according to the state’s areas of interest. Other than photos and a stack of artwork and Alec’s journal and the serial comic he made, there isn’t a lot of “proof”. Hopefully my notes will count for something. I was able to list 286 books, which sounds like a lot until you divide that up into 11 months. Considering we read multiple books a day (unless it’s multiple chapters of a book like 20,000 Leagues under the Sea) I definitely do not have a complete list! Oh well, she should at least get the idea that we read something.

I hope that next week I will be able to post a very positive update about our experience. Those of you that have been through this – any helpful hints for me? Thanks for reading!

Perennials in Progress

June 21, 2010 in Homeschool | No comments

Remember this view from a few posts ago?

That photo was taken at the end of May. I haven’t made a ton of progress, but I have made some. I’ve planted a coreopsis (Moonbeam, my favorite) and a nepeta (Walker’s Low, another favorite), some cosmos, as well as moving some daisies and baptisia in some time ago. I’ve begun to dig grass, lay down many layers of newspaper, and mulch. Right now, it sort of reminds me of a sea of mulch, but I know things will fill in quickly. I’m not sure what else will be in this front garden – perhaps some of the spiderwort from the back garden, and more daisies. I need some plants that do well in partial shade, but I’m not a fan of most shade plants.

Once the general outline is complete, I’ll edge the garden so the grass doesn’t creep in. All in good time. I’m only about one quarter of the way there with the flowers and mulch – no need to rush. :)

This is how it looked after today’s effort. You really can’t see all the plants (the coreopsis in particular is invisible) but you’ll get the idea.

Hopefully it won’t take another month to make that much progress.

Strawberry Season!

June 19, 2010 in Garden, Healthy Living | 1 comment

We decided to go pick strawberries this morning – and for once I had thought ahead and called to make sure they’d be open. We went to a farm that’s about 20 minutes north of us – the closest one that is not only “PYO” but also grows organically. I don’t think they’ve gone through the (expensive!) certification process but they do say they’ve been growing organically for ten years.

We were warned when we got there that the weather had done a number on the crop and the berries were small. They were not kidding! The plants didn’t look great, and the berries were tiny. We started hunting for the biggest ones and chatting with a woman working in the next row who had arrived when we did. They had assigned her her row and warned her to go no further over. Nobody said anything to me about not moving, but they did assign us a specific row. We picked for a while, chatting. Alec kept eating all the berries in his basket and finally just gave it to me and abandoned the idea of taking any home at all. :) Well, the woman next to us grew more and more frustrated and started looking around, and noticed the nice, large, beautiful fruits in the next few rows over, and pointed them out to me, but also said she was concerned about moving over since the people running the stand had told her not to. I pointed out that they were going to want satisfied customers and people who would return, and we all moved over. We weren’t the only ones. It occurred to me later that they probably reserved the “good” rows for picking for their stand, but I felt no remorse. I also didn’t pick tons of them – by the time we moved I probably only had space for half a flat left. I did wish we’d figured it out earlier.

We really enjoyed picking, eating, and chatting with our new-found friend. I’m washing and freezing many berries, and saving some for fresh eating. We took a basket of berries to our favorite neighbor, and she did tell us she tried our trick there and was “yelled at”. Good thing nobody yelled at us!

Alec gave himself a stomachache eating too many, but I am certain he’ll recover quickly.

My solution

June 18, 2010 in Garden | No comments

I am fortunate to have about three master gardeners in my group of friends, although they are widely scattered and not always available! I emailed my favorite one, a friend I’ve had for over 20 years, and one of my favorite and most inspiring women in the world. She told me that although she could not say for sure by looking at the photo, I most likely had some kind of blight, and that I should remove the infected leaves and mulch well to keep soil from bouncing up when it rains and hitting the leaves.

While the boys did this (it’s hot outside!)

I put down a bunch of layers of newspaper, and covered that with a big pile of straw I had bought last fall. It’s been sitting in the yard all year, so it was nice and moist inside. Unbelievably, the ground has dried out in the heat so I was a little worried about not having enough moisture after mulching, but I think it will be just fine with the damp straw. If it worked for Ruth Stout, it should work for me, RIGHT?

Don’t they look happier?

Garden Frustration

June 18, 2010 in Garden | 3 comments

There are some days when I’m just ready to throw in the towel. We’ve had a very rainy start to the “best” part of the growing season here. I have pretty much come to the conclusion that June is just about the most critical month of the year. My June is not going well, garden-wise. It’s either been pouring rain or 90 degrees, but mostly pouring rain.

I have moss growing in most of the raised beds. My master gardener neighbor says that I have excellent drainage, though, so what gives?

I pulled out rotting garlic and scaped the rest, got rid of the moss surrounding the remaining plants, and am hoping for the best. The onion tops are yellow and I just hope that is not going to go the way of the garlic.

My tomatoes did look great, and now they have brown spots.

Spotty

Despite covering the cabbages with Reemay, I found cabbage moth eggs on the leaves this morning. Covering with Reemay also allows me to ignore what’s going on under there, unfortunately, and I have thus ignored a growing slug problem. My leaves are full of holes.

Something ate all but two cucumber plants. I think I mentioned that before. I sowed more seeds the other day and surrounded the two survivors with wire mesh. It’s worked but I don’t know what I’ll do when the next seeds germinate since I don’t have enough wire to surround each plant.

Slugs are hard at work making their way through the bean patch. Only about 3 Nugget beans germinated, leaving a huge gap in that garden. Because I ran out of Nugget seed (having no more to try again) I sowed a very oddly shaped patch of spinach there the other day, hoping that the surrounding beans will shade it well later this summer. I noticed some corn plants have started to grow, but I know from experience they won’t last unless I get something to protect them for the next six weeks or so. I need to work on that, now.

Provider beans

Peppers are growing, but are extremely small.

In positive news, the potatoes that have reached above the ground now look very nice. The carrots I planted back in March look great, as does the kale and lettuce and chard. Leeks and scallions are coming along well. Peas are still producing and delicious.

one bed looks reasonably healthy

Pretty New Red Fire lettuce and Bright Lights chard

Using organic growing methods is important to me, and I enjoy growing so much of our food. It was great that I’ve supplied almost a year’s worth of garlic, onions, dried tomatoes and puree, and potatoes in past years. I am so frustrated, though, that it makes me want to just buy everything from the local farmers.

New blackberries

Nice looking potato plant

Time to stop whining and get to work! Thanks for reading.

One of those days

June 15, 2010 in Garden, Random Thoughts | No comments

What a beautiful day it is today! I had planned to get out in the garden early, to sow more spinach and chard, and cucumbers. The cucumber plants have been eaten by some varmint and I managed to only save two, which are now protected in wire cages, from the beast. So I need to plant more, and am thankful it’s not too late.

However, it’s 1:15 pm and I haven’t done it yet! Why not, you may well ask? I keep scratching my head at the answer – it feels like I have done nothing today, but in reality, I’ve done a fair amount. Just to help myself feel better, I’m going to list what I can remember of the things I’ve done today, and maybe it will look like a lot and I’ll feel redeemed.

Hmmm…let’s see.

I stripped the sheets off our bed and gathered the clothing strewn around the boys’ room and took it all to the basement to wash. I then found a load of clean, wrinkled clothes in the dryer. Apparently Scott did a small load of laundry while I was gone to CT on Sunday. Took that upstairs and put it with the unfolded laundry still sitting in my room from the end of last week.

Inexplicably, I found that this would be a good time to clean off the table in the guest room (which has been holding huge piles of wool scraps for a winter quilt) to photograph the table. I’m thinking of trying to sell it. It’s a beautiful solid maple table I made years ago with a VT woodworker, with breadboard ends and tapered legs, 8 feet long, in case any of you would like to buy it, hahaha). Of course I haven’t yet photographed it, but the piles have moved.

I made our morning oatmeal (different preparation for each of us!) and sat down to eat with the boys. Then I washed a big load of dishes, since I did not do them last night.

I folded the two clean loads of laundry, and washed the sheets and hung them out to dry and started another load! I had to make up a quick batch of laundry soap before starting that second load, but that doesn’t take very long.

I picked up a bunch of toys in the kids’ room, and sat down to read 5 or 6 Magic School Bus books and one Star Wars comics to the boys.

I washed and refilled the hummingbird feeder and bird bath.

I called our neighbor to see if he’d come over with his truck on Saturday and haul a ton of construction debris (from last year, yes!) to the dump on Saturday.

I played with legos with the boys for a few minutes and helped them clean up their marble run pieces.

I cleaned up some cat puke (you’re welcome).

I cut up a dozen or so boxes from the basement to pieces that were a suitable size to fit in our recycling bin, which gets picked up on Thursday. Phew, now I can walk through part of the basement. I also hauled an old, falling apart dresser to the curb in hopes that someone will stop and take it away. This is surprisingly effective most of the time, so I hope it works today.

I picked a bucket full of lettuce and brought it in to put in a sink full of water to make the bugs fall off!

I made a picnic lunch and took it outside to eat with the boys in the sunshine. We had a really nice picnic!

I put away a bunch of containers that had held my vegetable starts, back they go to the basement shelf until next winter!

I tossed a bunch of rotting garlic that I dug up last night onto the compost pile. I emptied and washed our compost bucket from the kitchen and sat it on the lawn in the sun to deodorize it!

I responded to my husband’s email about car woes and his upcoming business trip.

I chatted with my neighbor while Alec brought her her wrapped coins that he had counted and wrapped for her as a “job”. He has been asking her for work to do in his quest to earn money for Legos and other toys. She is so gracious about finding useful things to do that she is willing to pay a small sum for. We have the best neighbors.

And that’s brought us to now. I have a small person standing next to me requesting food again, so I better wrap this up! I’ll have to publish and read to see whether I think I’ve accomplished more than I thought I had. Next I am hoping Scott will come home to work here while I go out for a bike ride. We’ll see.

How’s your day shaping up?

The early garden

June 7, 2010 in Garden | 2 comments

I’ve been so busy out there! All of the vegetables are in, finally, except for some things I’m hoping to plant later in the season. I planted 17 tomatoes (four varieties) instead of the customary ten. More onions than last year, too. Alec and Jonas helped me with the beans and potatoes. I bought ten pounds of potatoes from a local farmer at $1 per pound – more than twice what I asked for, but I’m not complaining. He just filled a few bags and didn’t measure until I was picking them up at the Farmer’s Market. I got a few pounds each of a red, yellow, and white variety. These are all different from the two kinds I usually plant, but I’ll be happy as long as they store well. I think they must, since he sells year round at the market and at the co-op. He wrote the names on the bags, but right now I can’t remember what they are, and I’m too lazy to go down to the basement to look. I was able to pass on a bunch of them to another friend with a garden.

In harvest news, all I have to report is that we’re eating loads of lettuce, we finished off a garden full of spinach (which I pulled as it finally bolted in the August-like weather we had) and we’re enjoying cilantro and peas. We never have a full bowl of peas to bring in because the boys stand out there and eat them off the vines before I can get to them.

Lettuce under a shade cloth

Over the holiday weekend, I planted potatoes, beans, tomatoes, peppers, more basil and cilantro, onions, cucumbers, more carrots, corn (popcorn) and pumpkins. We have a garden full of garlic that will get harvested the first week of July, which has produced scapes that I’ll clip off soon. It feels like I did a lot more planting than that, but really I think that’s it. It probably feels like more work because I had to do all the weeding and bed prep right before planting. I usually do that earlier in the year, but I’ve been working so hard on the perennial beds and shrubs that I put it off till time to plant. So, it has been a very busy and full few weeks.

Kale, lettuce, chard, carrots, cilantro, scallions, leeks

Now I’m preparing a new garden for blackberries, which were an early birthday gift. My neighbor also brought me four pots of herbs for my new herb garden, which is getting close to being ready to plant in! Wes came and dug up all the overgrown perennials and volunteer trees for me, so now I just need to get in there and make sure all the roots are up, clean up a little, and start planting. I also need a few more herbs to go in there. What a relief it is to have that cleaned up a bit!

Now it’s back to the perennial beds which need thinning, weeding, and rearranging, not to mention edging and mulching. I’ll leave you with a few photos I snapped this afternoon. Thanks for reading.