Montana Gardening Girl

Oiy! There’s quite a bit afoot.

Things have been crazy busy – when are they not? Having a baby has forced me to take a long hard look at my hobbies and what I spend time on. Sometimes I like what I see… and sometimes I don’t. Once upon a time I had aspirations of being a web designer. To that end, I bought server space, maintained a few websites, designed a few… and then as I got busy with other things, the design world slipped away from me. I’m very out of date at this point. But I also found that I didn’t enjoy maintaining websites very much. So a month ago I made the decision to stop hosting websites, abandon updating them, and to get out of the business altogether. I feel great about it. It’s been a drain on my time and energy. It also means that this blog has to go somewhere else. I’ve hosted it myself for quite a while, and it’s time to let someone else do the dirty work. So I’ve signed up for a wordpress blog (http://creativechimera.wordpress.com/). I won’t be updating this blog in the future. It will all be on the other site. I’ve already moved over all the previous posts.

I’ve also decided to write about all of the other stuff that I do… for instance, I just finished a baby quilt for my older sister, I’m looking forward to biking this summer with my son (I just obtained a burley bike trailer – yay!), I play a little bit of music, and I’m obsessed with my cats – and there’s also this other (rather large) part of my life concerning a little boy. I often think that I would write more if I wasn’t writing solely about gardening. So that particular resolution is also going out the window.

The wider selection of topics is also the source of inspiration for the blog name – I do a lot of different things, and the combination of all those things is who I am and what I do.

I feel really good about all of this. I’ve been forced to focus – pare down my activities to the ones that I really care about. I’m working on just a few things that I really want to get better at or do more often. Gardening is still a big part of that – never fear – but it’s just a small part of what I’m doing these days.

However – about gardening… We finally got the garden planted the weekend before last. I put in beans (measured by feet per row, I have 52 feet of beans – gulp!), broccoli, basil, squash, cabbage, chives, green onions, carrots, kale, cabbage, corn, and melons. The melons occupy the greenhouse this year – I’m hoping it will be warm enough for them there. The corn is an experiment – it’s a variety I got from seed savers called Blue Jade. They advertise it as the only type of corn that can grow in containers. It’s a dwarf – and produces 4-6 ears per stalk. I’m not expecting a lot from it, but every year I try something a little off the wall, and the corn is my pick for this year.

Basically I had lots of seed left over from the past two years, so I threw pretty much everything into the ground. My reasoning is that the germination rate is going downhill, and so I might as well try to grow it.

The other off the wall thing we’re trying is planting the squash in pots. We’ve got zucchini, what I call patty-pan but actually have a lovely french name that I can’t pronounce (ends with scallop), butternut, sweet dumpling, delicata, spaghetti, and goblin eggs for fun. We found last year that the squash didn’t actually have very big root systems. But they are heavy feeders. So we mixed top soil and compost 50/50 and filled our old tomato pots with them. I’ll let you know how it goes.

Alas, my starts did not make it. Again. I need to learn to harden starts off. I suspect a large part of the problem is that I don’t pay attention. Perhaps I should have changed the blog name to “the lazy gardener!” Next weekend we’re going to Farmer’s Market to purchase some tomatoes, and I think I’m going to get pepper plants at Pink Grizzly.

And also… all that spinach that I planted earlier this year is finally big enough to eat! Last night I made fettuccine with wilted spinach, toasted pine nuts, fresh tomatoes and just a sprinkle of Parmesan cheese. Yum! I tried a little trick that I read about in a cooking magazine to wilt the spinach – put it in a colander and pour your pasta water over it when draining the pasta. The hot water wilted the spinach perfectly – it was limp but still had a little bit of body to it.

Last but not least… the peas have doubled in size since I took this picture two weekends ago!

I have been gardening. Sort of.

Mostly my days are taken up with an adorable little munchkin that demands to be held most of the time. I have not yet mastered the art of one handed gardening. I know darn well that I need to get flower seeds in the ground, and there’s plenty of other things to get ready for the growing season… we intend to put in a drip line irrigation system this year, and a strawberry bed. And there’s lots of rock removal that needs to be done. But mostly, when the weather is warm and sunny, we go for walks. The work will be there tomorrow.

And so that is the story of how our seedlings came to be started just last week instead of the three or so weeks ago that they should have been started. Last year we invested in two things that made indoor seed starting easy. One was one of those nifty little greenhouse thingies with the heating mat that goes on the underside. The second was two light fixtures that the Engineer adapted to be plug-in-able (they were the type that wired in) and that we kitted out with growing lights. Because of these two tools most of our seedlings are already up, and they get round the clock “sun-light.”

This year I’ve decided to (mostly) grow things that I buy all the time at Farmers Market. Peas, beans, broccoli… I’m not brave enough to try planting Yukon potatoes yet but maybe that will come next year. Partly this is a decision based in self-sustainability, but it is also economic. Prices have increased over the past couple years, and while I still want to support my local farmers, I’m also having trouble paying $4.00 for a bowl of green beans. I’m sure that some of their costs have increased to produce that bowl of beans, but all I’m seeing is the same bowl that contains (approximately) the same amount of food, and was picked in the same time and hauled the same distance. In the meantime, my wallet hasn’t grown any fatter (it actually lost a lot of weight recently) and I can’t sustain the increase happily.

So… most of the seedlings are up… we’ll see how they do. My big challenge, as always, will be hardening them off. I did a little better last year… perhaps the third time is the charm.

One interesting tidbit… I talked to my old neighbors up in the Rattlesnake who have a wonderful garden, and they said that they had planted on April 8th of last year. This year, of course, things are much warmer. So if you haven’t gotten your seeds in… now’d be the time to do it!

Our rhubarb is growing too… there’s many more of these infant leaves. Yum!

On Sunday (why is all this planting happening on Sundays I wonder?) we planted bulbs around the house and in the mailbox garden. We had actually done the same thing last fall… but those bulbs had sat in our basement for nearly a year because A) they were obtained in November and it was really cold to try and plant anything; and B) because there was really no place to plant them until this past summer. Unfortunately, all of those bulbs were dead… we found several that were consumed by mold. Nothing growing, unfortunately.

Everywhere else in Missoula, bulbs have started poking little leaves above the ground, tentatively checking to see if the weather has really turned warm enough to risk rising out of the dirt. Soon everyone (who have planted bulbs, naturally) will have riots of color in their yards. For the past several years I have just about swooned with envy every time it gets this this stage, and have promised myself that eventually I too will have bright patches of daffodils and tulips in my garden.

I was almost thwarted again this year. The prospect makes me turn a bit green.

Thankfully for my envious little self, the Engineer ordered about 40 bulbs from Holland last year as a birthday present. At the time, I was a little worried about where we’d put them all… the other bulbs had been planted in all the likely spots (although I wasn’t convinced that they’d grow – rightly, it turns out). This spring though, I was thankful to have little iris and anemone and allium bulbs to plant in the beds so I at least have a chance at that patchwork of color.

Because everyone else seems to have a good bit of growth on their bulbs, I deemed it imperative to get ours in the ground so that they had at least a middling chance of blooming this year. So on Sunday we bundled up the Munchkin, toted the (immensely portable) travel swing outside, and planted those wonderful little bulbs. However, when I say WE planted, what I really mean is that the Munchkin demanded a Mom’s arm view of the proceedings, and I stood there obliging him while pointing out to the Engineer exactly where each bulb should go.

I have a very patient husband.

We also raked off all the leaves from the house-side garden bed, which is when we discovered that the peonies are also starting to poke little feelers up, and the ornamental strawberries survived and have green leaves, and the Canterbury bells (I’m not sure that’s really what they are, but I always call them that) have also put on an impressive amount of green growth. From a completely inexperienced standpoint, I have to say it’s pretty cool to see evidence that something worked and that all of our hard work last summer isn’t going to waste.

Nine cubic yards is a LOT of dirt… as a matter of fact, it easily takes up about 96 square feet when said dirt is in piles.

However, that was the amount of dirt (6 of top soil, 3 of soil pep) that was delivered to our house last spring and the Engineer spent most of the rest of the summer moving it into raised beds. We worked out a fairly good system for mixing… he’d put several shovelfuls of dirt into the wheelbarrow, I’d toss in a bucket of soil pep – repeat until the beds are full of dirt and you’re so tired of moving dirt you could scream.

The result was the raised beds you see here… the outside beds are 4 by 12, the inside beds are 2 by 12, but have a 6 wide foot section at the front of the greenhouse. The greenhouse is the same little one I used when we were living in the Rattlesnake – and it is 6 by 8.

Last year we planted tomatoes in the greenhouse and they took over… it was a jungle in there. I could hardly get in to pick tomatoes and when I thinned the plants at the end of the year I found green tomatoes that had been in there for who knows how long. This year I will do better and will trim off the suckers. (I think pretty much every gardening book says to do that… but did I? Well… obviously not. I had a few other things on my mind.)

So because of of all that work last year, I can plant seeds when I’m actually supposed to for the first time ever. At least, I think I did… I may have missed it by complete accident.

March broke the winter gloom here in Missoula with warm, sunny days – thawing the soil, melting what little ice there was, and triggering a gardener’s itch in more than a few folks. I figured I’d try planting some peas and mache in the greenhouse to see how they’d do. So on Sunday the Engineer, Munchkin, and I all went out to do just that – until I discovered that peas (and spinach, lettuce, mache, and radishes) are all supposed to be planted 3-4 weeks before the last frost. Seems to me like that’s a pretty good argument for putting them outside now… so that’s what we did. And we prepped the greenhouse by mixing some Eco compost and blood and bone meals into the soil to help replace some of the nutrients that the tomatoes sucked out last summer. This year we’re planning on putting peppers in there… I rarely buy peppers at market, and the Engineer has missed having roasted peppers.

I’ve still got several things to plant outside, but with the snow today I just didn’t feel like going out, and yesterday the Engineer and I were catching up on sleep after several late nights with the Munchkin. Having a few veggies in the ground makes me feel pretty good though – hopefully we’ll be enjoying fresh garden salads within a couple of months…

Munchkin helped us with all the planting… but then needed a break. Planting is hard work!

Ah yes… I have a blog… anyone still here?

Well, if anyone is still reading this, here’s what happened.

In Oct. 08 we bought a house and got all caught up in moving. Since both the Engineer and I were working full time, that left only the hours after work for furniture moving, interior decorating, organizing, and the like. And it turns out that we like to eat in the evening, so that didn’t leave a whole lot of time after cooking.

Essentially we managed to paint the living room and kitchen (both a shade of yummy yellow that my Mom and Aunt looked at and said “Hmmm, isn’t it funny that all three of us independently picked the exact same shade of yellow for our living rooms?” And it’s true, too.) before the holidays hit. And then once those festivities started, the home improvement tasks were put on hold for a while.

And then… the Engineer and I are ballroom dancers, and we had a competition last March. So after the holidays we started practicing several hours a week most days after work and a good chunk of Sunday. We did well too… we took 4^th place in the Comp overall with an Argentine Tango solo that we choreographed ourselves.

And THEN after we got back from that the weather was so warm and lovely and I was bound and determined to have a garden last summer even though we moved and there was NO place to plant anything, so instead of working on the inside of the house we started on the outside. Sometime in the early part of the year we had 9 cubic yards of topsoil and soil pep delivered to our house to fill in the raised beds that we’d made (which had to be moved), and I decided that I wanted flower beds down two sides of our yard… in addition I’d found some beautiful Lilies that I HAD to have planted next to the house… necessitating a bit more work that should have been put off until this year.

And all of this was complicated by one more teeny little thing… in late June I found out I was pregnant. Not just a little pregnant, mind you, but 10 weeks pregnant. This wouldn’t have interfered so much except for that I have very bad allergies and I couldn’t take anything for them. Consequently, I couldn’t go outside at all without sneezing and hacking and in general being miserable. So I didn’t. And the Engineer had to move all 9 cubic yards of soil by himself. Which he did, with the exception of about half a yard that is waiting to move into a new flowerbed in front of the house.

Somehow, with all the things going on, I never got back around to this poor little blog. But now I’m thinking about this year’s growing season… only this year I’ve got a new little sprout (born in January) to assist me. And I’ll be working on growing him, as well.

We closed on our new house this morning and are starting the moving process. We’re going to be very, very busy for the next couple of weeks, so I’m not planning on trying to update regularly. Once we’re settled in though, I’ll catch up on the clean up work we did with the plants at the end of the season, a few other various and sundry things, and then it will be on into the planning for next year.

Well, we bought a house. At least, we’re in the process of doing so. What this means to me is that I’ll be able to take over the entire yard with garden beds, and there will be no landlord to complain. *happy grin*

Rest assured that after the initial stress of moving (and then the holiday madness which happens after) that I shall be intently studying garden catalogs and books, planning the new beds and what varieties I shall plant. *glee!*

We’ll be closing and moving at the end of this month. Right in time for it to snow! (We got quite a bit this morning, at least for this time of year. I know other parts of the state have already gotten snow but this was our first since June.) In truth though, it’s probably a really good time for it. We’re done with our harvests for this year, we pulled out everything from the existing beds (we’re leaving them because they’re infested with bindweed, and we really don’t want to import that over to the new place), and it’s getting cold, yes, but at least it’s not the heat of summer. (I’m not so sure about that last one being a really good point, but at least it sounds good. The ironic thing is that the Engineer HATES winter moves. Heh. Well, this one was his fault.)

The picture, obviously, has nothing to do with winter. It’s a poppy that showed up in the Engineer’s wildflower garden quite unexpectedly. I took pictures of it, and then a deer came by that night - and - well, the poppy was no more. So I’m glad we have the pictures.

I love Fall. Despite the fact that Spring has growing things, I think Fall might be my very favorite season. I love wearing sweaters, I love the crisp fall air, I love how it’s not terribly soggy (like it is in Spring) but still cool enough to do outdoor things. I love the occasional warm afternoons, I love the colors the trees turn, and I especially love the return of fall cooking… apple pies, warm stews and chilies. The chilly air makes me want to bake pumpkins. Not necessarily for pie, but just for the aroma of baking pumpkin in the house.

Fall makes me think of cinnamon, of warm socks, hot chocolate and indian food. (Yes, I know the last one is a bit weird, but garam masala has to be the best smelling spice combination in the world, and we tend to eat more of that style of food in the colder months.)

There’s trees all over Missoula that have or are in the process of turning color. They’re gorgeous. I don’t think I would normally notice some of them in the course of a summer, but now they stand out like ladies at a ball, shaking their petticoats out before the last dance.

Two weekends ago, the Engineer and I pulled out all the curcubit plants, uprooted the last of the peas, beans, and bolted lettuce. We won’t be using the beds next year, so we pulled out all the plants and dug most of the roots out in hopes of getting them mostly ready for whoever does use them. This weekend I picked the rest of the peppers and most of the tomatoes. And last night was our first real frost - it got down to 25 degrees in the greenhouse, and a layer of frost was coating everything in the morning.

This is the time of year that I get my “nesting” urge. I want to have non-perishable food in the cupboard and cans of beans stashed away. I don’t can yet, I’m planning on doing that next year, but this year I’ve paid more attention to those urges. The result is bison meat in the chest freezer, packages of frozen rhubarb and berries in the main freezer, and plans to grab extra veggies to freeze as the farmers market winds down.

I’m looking forward to planning my spring garden over the winter, leisurely browsing through catalogs, making and breaking plans for new beds, and dreaming of next summer’s bounty. But for right now I’m basking in fall.

(As a side note: I’m not sure how many people are actually reading this, but I wanted to give an explanation for not posting for the last… two weeks. One of my cats was diagnosed with cancer and the last week and a half has been very emotional and busy. He had surgery last Monday and is recovering well, but I’ve been concerned much more with that than with this blog. Things should be more “normal” now.)

We did it. We bought a quarter of a buffalo. It was a very serendipitous thing, actually. We’ve been contemplating taking this step for a long time. We’ve been buying buffalo from Paige the Bison Lady down at the Clark Fork Market on the weekends for a while, and have talked about buying a whole or a half of a lamb or a pig or a cow for a few years. Buffalo though, seemed like a much better choice. Nutritionally, it’s slightly better for the Engineer, environmentally, it’s better because the buffalo are raised here in Montana, are native to the area, and are less hard on the grass lands than a cow would be. Plus, buffalo tastes very, very good, and since the wholesale price is better than buying it a few pieces at time at market or from the Good Food Store, we decided to take our commitment to eating more sustainably to the next level.

We called two Saturday mornings ago, and surprisingly, Mike (one of the folks at the butcher shop) answered. We’d been told that we had probably a 3 to 4 week wait to get our order, but when we asked about a quarter, he said he had just finished a butcher job and had two unsold quarters in the freezer. We’d also been told that we’d need to drive to Plains (where the shop is located) or coordinate with Paige and the market to get our order. Mike was driving Missoula that evening to make a delivery to another gentleman down here, and said he’d bring our order with him. What could be easier? Other than doing some back and forth driving to get to exactly where we needed to be to meet him, the transaction went off without a hitch, and we now have 90 pounds of ground, steak and roast buffalo in our freezer. YUM.

I’ll use the meat for meatloaf, slow cooked recipes and tacos, at the very least, throughout the winter. Perhaps it’s the small part of me that anticipates an apocalypse, especially with the economy behaving the way it is and the anticipation of Peak Oil, but it makes me feel comforted to have a small fortune of edibles tucked away in the freezer.

Google tells me that a “peck” is a British Imperial liquid or dry measurement, equal to two pounds, or a American dry measure equal to 8 quarts or 537.605 cubic inches. I’ve always wanted to know what a “peck” was. Now I know. And I’m really glad we don’t use it commonly. The metric system would be great… measuring things in pecks? Just… boggling. If that wasn’t enough for you, two pecks make a kenning, and four pecks make a bushel. Now that’s a little easier to get my head around, even if I think I’ve never seen a real bushel measurement in my life.

I’m amazed by how well the peppers did this year. I’ve only eaten two of them so far, but despite pots which might be slightly too small, and an aphid infestation, and late start in the year, they’ve produced a rather surprising amount of peppers, and now those peppers are starting to get red, yellow, and purplish.

(Excuse me while I do a little happy dance.

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Ok. Back now.)

I’m looking forward to eating those peppers in a myriad of ways. One of the favorites in my household is to slow roast them in the oven with garlic and olive oil. After that treatment, they’re good on grilled meat, pizza, pasta, or just by themselves. It’s an easy recipe… just wash and cut the peppers into slices long ways down the fruit. I usually make the slices 2 - 3 inches thick, but they can certainly be bigger, even quartered or halved peppers would work. It depends a little on what you want to use them for after baking. Slice or mince 1 medium clove of garlic per pepper. Coat the bottom of a baking pan with olive oil and layer the peppers in the bottom. Sprinkle the garlic over the peppers, and drizzle some more olive oil on top. Bake the peppers in the oven at about 300 degrees for 45 minutes or until the peppers look limp and are soft to the touch. Yummy!

I think next year I need to thin the peppers early on though. There are a few cases where I think there’s just too many for the plant to handle. That might have also been the reason the plants succumbed to the aphids so easily… certainly the plants never regained their early vigor after that. So having seen how the pepper plants produce flowers for a longer period of time over the summer, I think I’ll concentrate on thinning a few of the flowers, and trying to pace the plants so that some peppers are ready sooner, and some later. It will probably take some experimentation to get it right.

I’m already looking forward to next year! I think given everything that will happening in the spring, I’ll probably get starts from the Pink Grizzly nursery again, but who knows.