We Have Peas

The snow peas have arrived.  I was wandering around the garden on Sunday and was surprised to see some past-ready to pick peas already!  I quickly grabbed a bucket and picked as many as I could see.  More on Monday and more today.  I was out playing with the kids and preschooler complained of hunger, so I handed him some peas.  It is really convenient to have snacks available in the yard. 

Tonight, for dinner, we had turkey enchiladas with some garden fresh cilantro and parsley mixed in.  Along with a freshly picked lettuce salad topped with garden fresh snow peas.  My late night snack was freshly picked strawberries (picked after putting all the kids to bed....yes, I love the long days!) mixed with vanilla yogurt.

One of the cucumber plants has a blossom.  I have several tomatoes growing.  Glacier tomatoes are looking very well.  The yellow crookneck squash plants are really waking up and the beans are still growing.   A few raspberries are getting a yellow tinge, which means ripening to red isn't far away.  Everyone is looking forward to the longest day!  

June Gardening

It is mid-June and we have nearly reached my favorite day of the year:  The Longest Day!  With the long days, everything (sometimes I refer to them as "everyone") in the garden is growing quickly.  I have spotted some pods forming on the shelling peas and the red-runner beans have sprouted and are growing at lightening speed.   We've had plenty lettuce for super-fresh salads and I finally pulled out the leeks and extra chives.

Today I went out with some copper soap spray and treated my tomato plants.  I noticed a bunch of black spots on the Northern Delight plant and I'm so worried it might be early blight.  I am really hoping the spray wasn't too late.  The Glacier had a few black specks as well but the other plants look fine.  So now we will be on a once a week regimen of copper spray for the tomatoes.  It is WAY to early in the season to put up with sick plants, so if Northern Delight doesn't appear to recover, I will just run down to Carpenito's and pick up an Early Girl to replace it with.

I also planted two new Basil plants I picked up at Carpenito's yesterday when we went in to buy a whole flat of strawberries.  The kids keep my berries well picked, and I can't complain since they are eating their fruit.  It just doesn't leave me with much to work with.  So I used the flat of berries to put up 8 pints of freezer jam and three freezer bags of whole berries (to use in smoothies).  We still have some extras to make strawberry shortcake tonight.  I will have to update with what I use to make gluten free shortcake, but I have yet to figure that out.

Also today, working quickly as any mother can imagine as nap-time was nearing its end, I spread some compost between a few stepping stones to prep the areas to plant more lettuce and cilantro.  The self-seeded cilantro is starting to "bolt" but I happily harvested much of it for the freezer a week back.   My gardening must be done in small starts and fits but I do find that if I use those few minutes here and there, things do take shape.   For example, yesterday, during baby's nap, the older kids were quietly making a huge mess in the basement and I took the moment to sneak out front and pull out most of the past-bloom bluebells as well as some chrysanthemum weed.  The nice thing about the mess is, it takes them a while to clean it up, so while they cleaned later on, I prepped for making jam.

So, lots going on in the garden and home!  Time for me to look into making that shortcake. 

Shortcake update:  The recipe I used to make shortcake on Friday wasn't good enough that I want to share it with you.  However, in the past, I have used Betty Crocker's Gluten Free Bisquick and followed the biscuit recipe on the box, with a touch of sugar added.  I make them with regular Smart Balance instead of butter.  The GF Bisquick shortcakes are very good!   

Berry Blossoms and Fruit

Cascade Raspberry Blossom

 It's been a little rainy around here, but we've been getting some breaks.  I took advantage of a few dry minutes to get pictures of our berry blossoms. 

Draper Blueberry Blossoms

Seascape Strawberry Ripening

 Not quite June, and we have a red strawberry already!  As soon as I saw this berry showing some color, I dug out the bird net and netted that patch!  (And sprinkled child/pet-safe slug bait).  I know the resident robin family would love to snack on this berry.  I think I'll let the kids split it tomorrow.  There are several more showing some red out there.  Preschooler has been begging for strawberry pie.  Just another week or so and I hope to make one!

Seascape Strawberry Patch by the House

Self-Seeded Cilantro Patch in the Garden

Bucket O Greens

I planted the lettuce seeds on March 31st, and by May 17th, we had our first picking!  I actually picked enough lettuce for two dinners worth of salad for the family.  So, it took a month and a half from planting to harvest.  Not bad.  Eldest child calls it, "Home picked lettuce."

Bucket O Greens

Lettuce row growing between the pea cages

I also found a patch of cilantro which was self-seeded from last summer's plants.  It is interesting that I have found cilantro very hard to grow in the past, but this little area that planted itself looks wonderful.  I guess I have learned to let cilantro pick it's own place and time to grow.  That is the main reason I don't till my garden each year.  I weed the garden mostly by hand in the spring and a bit with the hoe, but I look around to see if anything desirable has started growing first.  If I hadn't been paying attention, I would have dug up all those cilantro seedlings and not have any to eat now.  I added a handful of chopped cilantro, garlic chives and regular chives to our lettuce salad.

The day before our lettuce picking, we harvested the rest of last year's Swiss chard and had enough to make two of our gluten free impossible quiches.  I added some leftover cooked, chopped sausage to the quiche as well as some freshly picked chives and three spears of asparagus.  We had the first quiche on Thursday and have one left for tonight, which we will enjoy with the rest of yesterday's lettuce! 

Our peas, also planted on March 31, are coming up pretty well but they still have a ways to go before there will be anything to eat.  My folks down in Oregon have been eating peas and strawberries from their garden for a couple of weeks now.  They are always ahead of us! 

Peas

I have yet to cut down all the excess chives.  They are so pretty right now I hate to do it. 

Chives with Calendula flowers

Wildflowers: Field Trip to Susan Creek Falls

On May 9th, I was happy to have the opportunity to visit Susan Creek Falls in Oregon with my family.  We were blessed with the presence of wildflowers along the easy trail.   I am not sure what they are, but if you can help me identify them, please do.   Looking at the details of these purple flowers remind me of just how creative our Creator is. 

Mail Order Gardening

In the past, when I had fewer children and wasn't officially homeschooling, I started my entire garden from seeds.  I had flats of tomatoes and peppers, yogurt cups with pansy and snapdragon starts.  I spent hours up-potting the starts and my basement living area with the big picture window looked like a messy greenhouse.  I passed out the extra starts to friends and packed some up to deliver to family in Oregon.  Trips down south saw the cup holders in my vehicle filled with baby tomato and viola plants. 

O.K., I am so over growing everything from scratch.  For the second year in a row, I ordered my tomato and pepper plants from Territorial.  I feel a little bad.  Like I am cheating.  But also relieved.  The plants seemed to have magically appeared.  Handed to me by the friendly Fed-Ex driver. 

But why do I need to order them?  Can't I just get them from a local store or nursery?  It turns out it's not that simple.  The garden stores near me do not sell the varieties that I want to grow.  For some reason, they are still stocking the full size long season beefsteak tomatoes, which I know have little chance of ripening in our chilly summer nights.  They may offer some cherry tomatoes, but only indeterminate varieties, which is fine but too many of those would overtake my small space.  They do offer Oregon Spring, but I'd like a little more variety to choose from. Or they offer the hot peppers, which I do not want to eat, or full size, which would take a lot of care to get to ripen before summer's end.  So I spend some late winter days deciding which varieties from Territorial I want to try for the year.  This year, I ordered one each of the following:

Tomatoes

Glacier Tomato

Northern Delight Tomato

Stupice Tomato

Sweet Million Cherry Tomato

Golden Honey Bunch Grape Tomato

Pepper

Miniature Red Pepper

Once out of the box, the plants are a bit wilted and look sad.

So I place them in the sun, give them water, and wait.

I have since potted these new plants in larger containers with potting soil and a bit of Whitney Farms Tomato & Vegetable fertilizer.  They are downstairs near that big picture window.  It's a neat and tidy greenhouse this year.  I'm sure they will be staying inside through May, though I will put them out on mild days to begin hardening them off for their eventual transplant to the great outdoors. 

Drying Chives

As I have mentioned previously, I have an abundance of chives growing out in the vegetable garden.  I have, apparently, over-planted!  With a surprisingly dry afternoon, a baby napping, and one child at the hardware store with husband, I found an opportunity to begin to harvest the chives.

I began mostly to give the asparagus some breathing room, as the chives have been encroaching on their space.  Once I had a healthy pile of pulled plants, I decided I could not just let them go to waste.  With baby awake from nap, I had to return to duty.  But later this afternoon, husband took a break from his project in the garage to relieve me from baby care.  I snuck off to the kitchen and began rinsing and trimming the chives.  Brought up the food dryer.  At this time, eldest child found me and asked to help.  In a few minutes time, we had the chives clean, trimmed and in the dryer.  All four layers are full!  I trimmed off the tough areas that grow close to the ground and cut just so the stems fit in the dryer.  I plan to chop them up after they dry.  I was afraid that if I chopped them up before drying them, they would begin to just fly around in the dryer.  So now, at 95 degrees F in my Nesco food dehydrater, the chives are drying.  Out on the veranda, to keep the house from smelling like onions.   The drying guide says it should take 20-24 hours to get them dry. 

If the drying works out, I may package some up to pass out around Christmas time.   There are so many more huge bunches of chives out in that garden to deal with!