Garden of Eatin'

Wendy, Teresa, Jennifer, and Laura are the winners of a brand new bar of handmade gardener’s soap.

I believe Jennifer is most in need of some good soap:

Jennifer said:

Well this was not an easy feat. Home alone gardening today and actually looked down at my hands and thought, hmm wonder who won that dirty hand contest? Came in to grab a drink and check FB to see if it was still going on before heading back outside to finish up. Grabbed my camera and back to work I went. Trying to figure out with dirty hands how to use the automatic timer on this dang camera and keep my DOG out of the picture was laughable. I’ve never been a big fan of gardening gloves, I like to feel the dirt and plants, plus my bulldog ATE mine last year!!  I got one picture and the battery died! uggghhh Planned on taking some  pics of the plants I replanted and seedlings I just moved, but alas it just wasn’t meant to be. But it does look like I got my dirty knees in the pics too..lol Thankfully I did not get anymore of my self in the pic cuz I look a mess.

Thanks for entering Jennifer! Your new soap will get you cleaned up in no time

Here are some other photos that were sent in:

2010 had a lot of ups and downs here in our little corner of the world. The ups mostly made up for the downs though, and the upcoming 2011 ups will be even better.

I got a jump on my “New Years Resolutions” by quitting smoking (…again…) 4 days ago. My actual resolution will be to not pick it back up.

Another resolution is to actually grow something this year, in containers for now (hopefully 2012 lets me put a garden in the ground!).

I’m thinking herbs for sure, and mushrooms. A couple upside down tomato planters.Maybe some lettuce. I need to think about this one more, and soon!

We recently got a Xbox 360 with Kinect and picked up a workout “game” called YourShape: Fitness Evolved. Love it. Blows the Wii fitness games out of the water. So with that, my resolution is to work out every other day, or more often (never go more than 1 day without working out).

What are you resolutions? Anything good? Think they’ll last more than a couple weeks?

It has come to my attention that it is June. I refuse to believe this. It’s actually February right? And my daughter is not turning 15 in a few days, my garden is thriving and it’s not finals week.

……..

Oh damn. Would you believe I’ve had exactly enough time to plant nothing?? The only thing growing in my garden is weeds. They’re happy weeds, mind you, but we can’t exactly eat them.

This spring and summer I will be visiting farms and the farmer’s market and posting about good finds there instead of gardening.

It’s almost February, 2 months til spring, yay!

Oregon residents, here’s your February garden “to dos” from the OSU Extension service -

First consider cultural, and then physical controls. The conservation of biological control agents (predators, parasitoids) should be favored over the purchase and release of biological controls. Use chemical controls only when necessary, only after identifying a pest problem, and only after thoroughly reading the pesticide label. Least-toxic choices include insecticidal soaps, horticultural oils, botanical insecticides, organic and synthetic pesticides — when used judiciously.

Recommendations in this calendar are not necessarily applicable to all areas of Oregon. For more information, contact your local OSU Extension Service office.

Planning

• Tune up lawn mower and garden equipment before the busy season begins.
• Have soil test performed on garden plot to determine nutrient needs. Contact your local Extension office for a list of testing laboratories or view EM 8677 online.
• Select and store healthy scion wood for grafting fruit and nut trees. Wrap in damp cloth or peat moss and place in plastic bag. Store in cool place.
• Plan an herb bed, for cooking and for interest in the landscape. Among the choices are parsley, sage, chives, and lavender. Choose a sunny spot for the herb bed, and plant seeds or transplants after danger of frost has passed (late April-early May in the Willamette Valley and Central Coast; June-July in Eastern and Central Oregon).
• Plan to add herbaceous perennial flowers to your flowering landscape this spring. Examples include candytuft, peony, penstemon, coneflower.

Maintenance and Clean Up

• Repair winter damage to trees and shrubs.
• Make a cold frame or hotbed to start early vegetables or flowers.
• Fertilize rhubarb with manure or a complete fertilizer.
• Incorporate cover crops or other organic matter into soil.
• Prune and train grapes; make cuttings.
• Prune fruit trees and blueberries.
• Eastern Oregon: Prune and train summer-bearing and fall-bearing raspberries.
• Western Oregon: Prune deciduous summer-blooming shrubs and trees; wait until April in high elevations of eastern and central Oregon.
• Western Oregon: Prune and train trailing blackberries (if not done prior late August); prune black raspberries.
• Western Oregon: Prune fall-bearing raspberries (late in Feb or early March).
• Western Oregon: Prune clematis, Virginia creeper, and other vining ornamentals.

Planting/Propagation

• Plant windowsill container gardens of carrots, lettuce, or parsley.
• Plan to add herbaceous perennial flowers to your flowering landscape this spring: astilbe, candytuft, peony, and anemone.
• Good time to plant fruit trees and deciduous shrubs. Replace varieties of ornamental plants that are susceptible to disease with resistant cultivars.
• Plant asparagus if the ground is warm enough.
• Plant seed flats of cole crops (cabbage, cauliflower, broccoli, and Brussels sprouts), indoors or in greenhouse.
• Western Oregon: Where soil is dry enough and workable, plant garden peas and sweet peas. Suggested varieties of garden peas include: Corvallis, Dark Green Perfection, Green Arrow, Oregon Sugar Pod, Snappy, Knight, Sugar Snap, Oregon Trail, and Oregon Sugar Pod II.
• Western Oregon: Good time to plant new roses.

Pest Monitoring and Management

• Monitor landscape plants for problems. Don’t treat unless a problem is identified.
• Use delayed-dormant sprays of lime sulfur for fruit and deciduous trees and shrubs.
• Remove cankered limbs from fruit and nut trees for control of diseases such as apple anthracnose, bacterial canker of stone fruit and eastern filbert blight. Sterilize tools before each new cut.
• Control moles and gophers with traps.
• Western Oregon: Elm leaf beetles and box-elder bugs are emerging from hibernation and may be seen indoors. They are not harmful, but can be a nuisance. Remove them with a vacuum or broom and dustpan.
• Western Oregon: Monitor for European crane fly and treat lawns if damage has been verified.

Houseplants and Indoor Gardening

• Pasteurize soil for starting seedlings in pots or flats, or use clean, sterile commercial mixes.
• Central Oregon: Gather branches of quince, forsythia, and flowering cherries; bring indoors to force early bloom.

First order of business: Costco is getting ready to start accepting food stamps (now known as SNAP, or Supplimental Nutrition Assistance Program) by Thanksgiving ’09, which I think many of my readers will appreciate thanks to the great economy we’ve got going on. Just be careful and price compare because Costco is more expensive for many things!

Second order of business: Plan your Turkey Day dinner now and get it ready as far in advance as possible to avoid that crazy “oh my god what did I get myself into” thing again this year.

Here’s some recipes you might like to try… I make a lot more than this for the holiday, but these are some of the special recipes that we really like!

Appetizers:

Creamy Garlicky Mussels
Clam Stuffed Mushrooms
Deviled Eggs

Side Dishes:

Slow Cooker Mashed Potatoes

Main Dishes:

Good Eats Roast Turkey
Prime Rib Beef Roast

Desserts:

Caramel Pecan Pie

Third order of business: Become a Fan of Garden of Eatin’ on Facebook (see the box on the right!)

Plan a post for October 15th about climate change!

I loved this spring. We had a week of hot and it’s been so mild otherwise. Think it’ll last into summer?

…or the lack there of…

Once gain, I’m looking through the Territorial Seed Winter 2009 catalog and just wishing because we think we might move come tax-refund-time. The yard is great, but this house is too damn small. We need at least one more bedroom, preferably 2. I also need a full size dishwasher, because this half size one with 6 people is almost useless. I do 2 loads and then hand wash 2 sinkfuls of dishes (because half the stuff won’t even fit in the dishwasher!), every day, and it’s really not fun. I’m too busy with kids and work to spend 2 hours a day on dishes! I have no room for food storage, except in the garage and it’s annoying as all get out to deal with that, plus the garage gets too hot and I can’t keep potatoes and onions in there.

Can’t wait to buy a house! But it’ll be at least 4 years before that happens, so we’re stuck in this sort-of-but-not-really-able-to-make-plans life. Makes gardening a PITA. I can’t even plant flowers and TRY to keep them alive (container flowers always – always - die on me). Can’t I just win the lottery? I keep playing (and really, people criticize me for that, when I spend $4 a month on Powerball tickets, and then they go and buy $5 cups of Starbucks every day..and wonder why I look at them like they’re morons) but the machines never give me the winning tickets. Stupid machines!

I have garden pictures but need to find my card reader to get them onto the computer. It’s growing great, mostly in spite of me – definitely not because of! The snap peas are going crazy. I think the weather has freaked out the onions, a couple have bolted and are flowering. The potatoes, compared to last year especially, are monsters. I’ll have to take some comparison photos.

I’ve been crazy busy. Work is picking up wonderfully. The kids are doing great with their school work.

I did a close-to-authentic mexican dinner today. One of those all day affairs? Yeah, it was :drool good. I started carnitas this morning, along with homemade refried beans.Then before dinner, I made spanish rice and served it all (with cheese, tomatoes, salsa, etc) on tortilla shells. Which I wanted to do homemade, but I think I did enough for one day.

The rest of the week I’ll be working but hopefully I can get a day to do some weeding because there is easily 2-3 times as many weeds in the garden, and they are taller than most of the plants!