Tag: organic gardening

Just Enough

~ Crystal Sands ~ Leave a comment

We finally got enough tomatoes to make our sauce. We live on this sauce for meals throughout the year, so we’ve been a little worried about the tomatoes. Thankfully, we had just enough today for our first batch. I think we will get enough for one more batch, and that will do us because we still have some left from last year when we had such a bumper crop of tomatoes.

Last year, we processed 125 pounds of tomatoes, had about 75 pounds for farm shares, and gave away 50 pounds. This year, I think we will be fortunate to get 50 pounds in total. Those horn worms came during a time when our son was at music camp, and we were swamped. Those little caterpillars did big damage. But it’s okay because we have just enough for sauce.

It’s a long day making the sauce because you have to pick all the veggies, wash and peel the tomatoes, make a puree out of the onions garlic and peppers, and then it all has to simmer for six hours. Oh, and you have to stir it every 15 minutes. I have just one round to go, and then it’s time to can. It will be a late night, and this is real slow food. It’s totally worth it though. Slow food always is, I think.

Also, the baby chicks are doing so great. They are just perfect!

Oxheart Carrots or the Fourth Time’s a Charm…I Hope

~ Crystal Sands ~ Leave a comment

After three failed attempts at carrots this year, today, Ron planted carrot seeds. I told him I couldn’t plant them this time because I was cursed. I want those Oxheart carrots too badly. Maybe my desperation is creating negative energy.

But I think, after much investigation, we have figured out what happened to the last two rounds of planting. The first round was washed away by rain. We have some carrots in random places popping up. Those are pretty much the only carrots we have so far this year though. It took some sleuthing, but we now know that either slugs or cut worms ate the next two rounds of carrots.

I kept telling Ron that something was slaughtering the carrot seedlings, but he was skeptical because we have never had a problem like this before. I finally got him to believe me, so we planted again thinking surely the slugs or cut worms would have moved on by the third planting. Yesterday, I was so excited to find that we did have some seedlings popping up from the third planting. To test what was happening, I used tiny rocks from the garden to make circles around four seedlings. If we still had them this morning, we were probably going to be okay without the fourth planting.

Sadly, this morning, only one of the four seedlings remained.

I know I have said this before, but this year just keeps being tough on the garden front. We need sunshine so badly. We can get regular organic carrots from other farmers, but one of the varieties of carrots we plant is a French heirloom Oxheart carrot. I cannot get these anywhere else around here, and I adore them. They are a variety of France that has been around since ever and are great for rocky soils like we have in Maine. They are short and chunky and perfect for chopping up into sticks for stir fries–hence my desperation in planting. And, as organic gardeners, we can’t use pesticides to help in this situation. .

So Ron planted the carrots today in a different part of the garden. Additionally, since we know it’s either slugs or cutworms eating our carrot seedlings, I covered the area in crushed eggshells. This should work in keeping them away from the carrots once they sprout. It’s kind of like using Diatomaceous Earth, only the shells won’t wash away so easily in the rain–and we’re having a lot of rain this year.

Ron and I were talking this weekend about which is worse–this much rain and cold and cloudiness or the drought from last two years. We both agreed the drought is worse. But we are definitely having to use our critical thinking skills and just be tenacious to get things to grow this year.

*photo credit: Pine Tree Garden Seeds

Strawberry Season 2023–or the Waiting Is the Hardest Part

~ Crystal Sands ~ 2 Comments

I took this picture exactly one year ago today. It was the first small batch of strawberries, and I was so excited because there were so many more berries nearly ripe and coming soon.

Strawberries are my favorite food in the world. As a child, all I wanted for my birthday was a strawberry cake. My great grandmother had strawberries in her in-town garden and would make strawberry jam, which I am still convinced, on homemade bread, is the best, most comforting food in the history of the world.

I love the strawberries.

This year, it feels like we are forever away from strawberry season still. It has been cold and gray and rainy, and everything in the garden feels stunted and slow. I have patience for the other things, like the radishes and beets. I am having a hard time waiting on the strawberries.

I just weeded the strawberry beds this morning and studied the state of things. The plants look great, and there are a ton of green berries. But they are all so green! It looks like it will be a couple of weeks before we have strawberries, and I am bummed about this wait. It’s all we can do though, I guess. Just wait and hope for sunshine.

Tom Petty said, “The waiting is the hardest part.” Those are wise words.

Purple Cauliflower

~ Crystal Sands ~ Leave a comment

It’s been a wild year with the weather, which means the garden is off to a bit of a bumpy start. I have had to plant carrots three times now. I had to replant once when heavy rains came and washed away the seeds. We knew rain was coming, but it was way heavier than expected. I had to replant the second time because of flea beetles. Those things are vicious.

The greens are doing great. We eat them every single night now, but other things are stunted by weeks of cold, rainy weather. The radishes, for example, just haven’t had enough sunshine.

Thankfully, we have the greens and the rhubarb, and we have this beautiful purple cauliflower coming. Doesn’t that just look like the most beautiful plant? I am so thankful Ron is growing these. I love the beautiful purple color, and I have never eaten purple cauliflower. Isn’t that going to be a treat?

I would love to hear how your gardens are doing. We had one day last week where the high temp was 94 degrees. In two days, the high was 49 degrees, and we had to light a fire in the wood stove. I just talked to a friend in the south, and she is having to cover her garden thanks to cold temperatures like she has never seen in a southern summer.

It’s a challenge right now for sure. I am thankful for the skills we have though. We learn something every time we have to pivot, adjust, adapt, and figure out how to grow food in the midst of some pretty volatile climate action.

At least we have this beautiful purple cauliflower coming.

His Garden Grows in Perfect Rows

~ Crystal Sands ~ 4 Comments

Day 28 of 365

His garden is so perfect that people think he must use a rototiller. He does not. Everything is done by hand. He disturbs the soil just enough to get the chicken compost from our chickens into the rows where he is planting. And he wastes no space. He’s a master of space usage. I’ve never seen anything like it. I honestly never understood what a fantastic skill it is to have–space usage. I mean, he can load the dishwasher like a magician, but that just annoys me. I feel my way is fine.

But in the garden–in that garden–I have full appreciation for his skill and his perfectionism. I used to help plant more. I still do sometimes, but it’s only after he’s used the string to mark the places for me to plant. One time, I just made my own row, and when the carrots came up with a bit of an s-shape to them, I think it broke his heart a little.

He’s frugal to a fault, if there is such a thing in the garden. He uses every nook and cranny of the garden. He wastes no water. It’s too precious. He waters by hand and aims for deep watering with as little water as possible. Any extra water from the house is saved for the garden. He also plants seeds without the plan to thin them later, so as to not waste the seeds. This seems bold to me, but he just knows the seeds will come up. He talks to them to make sure.

He also plays music for them, classical music. Every day, in the garden, he listens to Bach and Vivaldi and Mozart. So do the plants. I don’t know if it’s the chicken compost, the classical music, or Ron’s magic touch, but every year, whether there is drought or so much rain some of the food starts to rot in the ground, this garden feeds our family.

And this year, we have our first farm shares. It took him years to have the confidence to do it, but I can see that he’s proud to share his work with others. This makes my heart happy. Not only do other families get to share in this delicious, beautiful, organic food, but I can see there is a pride growing in a man beaten down by life early and often.

It’s a kind of miracle to me that this garden, this work of art of a vegetable garden that feeds our family year round, heals. But it does.

And isn’t it lovely?

***

I have to quickly add a Ruby and Kate update. Ruby has become a fierce mama–like a little too fierce, perhaps–but her babies are very well cared for. Kate is now sitting on an egg that may have to be a miracle egg. I have put three other eggs from our flock under her as of yesterday, which means she may have to have wait another 20 days before she finally gets to be mama. It’s all kind of heartbreaking, but I will feed her well and help her get through this. I believe she deserves to be mama after all that drama. Plus, she looks healthy despite having been broody for over two weeks now. Of course, there is still the miracle egg. I won’t write about it until I check it again in a few days. It’s a long story. Hopefully, it’s a good story. We’ll know soon.