North Ridge Farm

Autumn in August & Freezing Kale Pucks

On one of our trips to see family in northern Maine when I was a young girl, I noticed that some of my relatives had their kids’ winter coats and snowsuits hanging on the clothesline. It was August. To my seven year old self, such a sight seemed a little premature (always the domestic type), and I asked my mother why they were preparing snow clothes while we were on summer vacation? She told me winter was right around the corner for them,  and there were many things to do to prepare. Laundering snowsuits was one of them. It’s funny the memories we store from our childhoods. I can still see the clotheslines with snowsuits blowing in the sunny breeze, clear as day.

My mother was right, of course; winter was just around the corner. As we enjoyed our rather autumnal “summer” visit, sweatshirts were donned daily, and because I stubbornly packed mostly shorts for the trip, I kept warm by hoisting long knee socks up to the thighs of my tiny legs. Toasty. The habits of my current neighbors prove similar to those of my Maine relatives. Just last night, Scout and I took a drive to the general store three miles down the road for eggs - a silly habit of mine because the eggs actually come from a neighbor up here on the ridge, and she’s told me over and over to just come to the farm to pick up, but I have this thing about making sure retailers know there is a demand for the goods of small makers and farmers. In addition to sales of chips, cigarettes, and candy bars, it's important that they know Melanie's eggs are wanted, too. Anyway, driving down the road, tasseling corn to my right and Burke Mountain on the horizon, a brightly colored object caught my eye and turned my attention to the left. Carmen and Mo have decided to hang one of those cheerful seasonal flags from their front porch; a cornucopia basket filled with pumpkins, gourds, and harvest wheat. Autumn in August. They get a pass though because Carmen’s thick Quebec accent feels like family to me. I suppose it is in her northern nature, as it is in my family’s nature, to see August as the turning point.

Today it is raining which is good for the carrots and beets, though a little unnecessary for the potatoes and tomatoes. This morning I harvested beans, kale, broccoli, herbs, and cucumbers before the rain set in. Then I planted some blue vervain. This year I have fallen in love with a particular preservation method for kale that includes quickly steaming it and pressing into muffin cups. Next you freeze, and voila, a few hours later you have kale pucks! It’s the handiest thing ever. Last winter we felt pretty deprived in the (semi-fresh) greens department. I learned of the kale puck method from Whole Fed Homestead and will explain below. If freezer space is at a premium for you, this has got to be the best method for putting up fresh greens. Normally we dehydrate most of our winter greens, which has its place, but really does not lend itself to use in quiche, casseroles, stir-fry, etc.

I don't keep careful track of how much kale I harvest, but it would not be a stretch to say that what you

see in the above photo is close to three bushels of kale. Such a space saver!

 

How to Make Frozen Kale Pucks

This method works for any cooking green.

 

1. Gather kale. De-stem, rough chop leaves, and wash (I swish in a big bowl of water).
2. Get a pot going with a steamer basket on medium-high (covered).
3. Have a baking sheet, tongs, timer, and muffin pans ready. Crystal uses silicone muffin pans for easy removal once the pucks are frozen, which I imagine works great but I do not have any. I do have a couple of “muffin top” pans though, which are only about a 1/2” deep. I use those and with the gentle edge of a butter knife they pop right out. I do not think standard muffin tins would work well, but might be wrong about that. 
4. Once you’re all set up and ready to go, add three large handfuls of greens to the steamer pot, place the lid on and set your timer for two minutes. Let steam, giving the greens a toss with your tongs halfway through.
5. After two minutes, use tongs to transfer greens to baking sheet. Quickly get your next three handfuls steaming. When the greens are still very warm but safe to touch, pick them up by the handful and press into your muffin cups. Greens must be warm for this to work correctly. Don’t be afraid to press firmly.
6. Repeat process until your greens are gone.
7. Freeze muffin trays for several hours or overnight. Pop pucks out of the pans and store in freezer bags. As mentioned above, because I do not use silicone pans, I give the edge a gentle nudge with a butter knife to release pucks from the pan. I also used a metal straw to suck the air out of the bags so they are better protected for long term storage.
8. To use, run your knife through frozen or semi-thawed pucks if you’d like them to be a bit more chopped, or just crumble into whatever you’re making. And if it's a pot of soup, just toss a puck in if the kale is chopped to your preferred dice. Enjoy!

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Goodness you all know how to welcome a girl back! Thank you for such warmth, enthusiasm, and encouragement over the last week. I mentioned that I’d share more about the nuts and bolts of this new blog, and I will, but you’ve already done a great job on your own of noticing the archives, the navigation tabs at the top of this site, and the category buttons on the sidebar (still have a few to add). It was an interesting task to manually go through over 1,500 blog posts and decide which category they each fell under. I tried my best to keep categories limited for ease on your end; not sure I succeeded there! You may have noticed the handy catchall called “Heather’s Ramblings” which is my not so subtle way of lumping everything that had no specific theme into one hodgepodge location. I also tried not to assign too many categories to a post in order to prevent redundancy while you browse different sections. Sometimes it was unavoidable, as certain posts truly do belong in more than one place. However, I did not enthusiastically tag posts with six different categories just because so many kind of fit the theme; I tried to be a little more discerning than that. All of this to say, I set out to clean things up around here for your reading ease, and hopefully achieved that. 

In my next post I’ll be sharing some tips on canning peaches, as I’ve been asked a few times about that this week. I’d hoped to have it out Friday, but I’m going to take a day trip to see Emily so it will need to be early next week instead. Probably Tuesday.

Okay, I have to get back to the kitchen. Kale pucks have finished freezing and need transferring to a bag, and I need to address the pile of cucumbers, green beans, and broccoli. Talk to you soon!

The Sky Continues to Open

The weather app on my phone tells me there is cloud cover outside with a 30% chance of rain around 11am, but not until then. It is now 8:30 and has been 100% raining for the past two hours. I guess I should have just looked outside instead of at my phone. The gardens are thirsty, desperate really, and will be glad for every drop the sky is willing to give. We’ve reached the point where it’s hard to recall the last time it's rained with any substance, and with water for bathing and dish washing dependent on collected rain, one pays attention and tightens rationing when reserves dip below 30%. Although, I am not in Vermont at the moment so I have no idea if the barrels are filling under this same rainfall; my weather app tells me they are not, but we already know it cannot be trusted. 

It's good to be home for a few days to take care of the garden, some work-related wifi tasks (have yet to find dependable/speedy wifi up north), and to be with my family. As they drove down the driveway Sunday night and I was left standing there alone with Ozzy, I was overcome with the need to pack up and follow their tracks all the way back to Connecticut. So that is exactly what I did. It’s good to know I can close camp and be on the road in well under an hour. Plus, the drive gave me a chance to listen to the new Avett Brothers album in its entirety, which I did not mind. (Favorites: Ain’t No Man for its boot stompin’ summertime vibes, Divorce Separation Blues because for some reason I picked up on hopefulness which was unexpected, and I Wish I Was because it’s a sweet tune with even sweeter lyrics. One of their best. I’ll never look at a sweater the same way again. Actually, the lyrics on all three of these songs are so well-crafted. Enviable.)

I dove into the garden yesterday morning to find the first round of peas ready for picking and the potatoes flowering. Going to start stealing some newbies any minute now. I’ve been shelling peas, getting them into the freezer, and wondering if they will be done by the time I leave again so I can get the carrots and beets in the ground once the peas are pulled. The timing will be tight, but we'll see. The garden this year feels more utilitarian than usual, no experiments, no new varieties, only a small assortment of tried and true vegetables in large quantities. That's been the plan and so far I'm sticking to it. We'll have plenty of tomatoes, potatoes, carrots, beets, onions, greens, basil for pesto, and of course berries. Peas we'll have a good amount of, but it seems we never have "plenty" of peas. We would have had plenty of peppers but there's nothing like going out to the garden one morning and discovering the deer had a midnight snack that involved your twenty four pepper plants... the very ones that already had fruit set on them. No recovery. Man, that's the kind of discovery that prompts an immediate display of every explicit word you know. Even a few made up ones, too. But then you carry on because that's just the way it goes sometimes.

Over the weekend Emily and I spent a lot of time at the lake and as always when visiting a lake in Vermont, I was struck by the accessibility. Here’s how it works: you park in the free parking lot, gather your towel and even your cooler of beer if you’d like, walk onto the free sandy beach, drop your gear, then run into the cleanest water you could ever hope to swim in, which is also free. It's a miracle. Those of you reading from Connecticut, don’t worry, I’ll be over in just a sec to help pick your jaw up off the floor. I'm sure there are lakes in Vermont that require a special membership to use, but there are plenty - more so than not is my guess - of lakes that are open and available for the public to enjoy. Anyway, it was a great time. Upon returning to our place on both days, the whereabouts of Adam and Scout were not known. Eventually they emerged from the woods, sweaty and covered in black mud, Adam with a saw in one hand and hatchet in the other, Scout looking pleased yet sort of crazed by whatever adventure took place beyond the thick treeline. I inquired about the tools, the mud, even the crazed look, and was given a cryptic reply which only made me wonder more. As intended, I’m sure. I have no idea what takes place in the woods when these two are on their own, and I imagine it’s better that way.

The sky continues to open as we clear and ready the earth for planting next year (at least that’s the plan). It’s not going to be easy, unless easy involves growing food on land that includes more rock and ledge than soil, but in some creative way, we’ll make it happen. At least that’s what Adam keeps reminding me, because apparently that is what I told him and he believes me. What a guy. But he might want to rethink his faith in me because each time I walk the intended area, it seems the rock and ledge have multiplied, and I question every idea I have. To try and feel better, I remind myself of the time I grew tomatoes and cucumbers in an area that received only two hours of direct sunlight per day, so maybe anything is possible. I'm curious to see how this will work out, and am trying to exercise patience along the way. And hey, in the meantime, at least we have plenty of firewood... and rocks. Maybe we'll build a stonewall. Hope springs eternal.

Wild and Unruly

Feeling quiet these days. I knew it was coming, and here it is. The plan is to roll with it.

Several weeks ago we were in the back field planting potatoes when joined by our neighbors, my uncle, and all of our dogs. The three dogs ran free while the rest of us caught up on all things neighborly, such as how we’re managing the invasive Japanese barberry that is taking over our collective woods, the serious amount of ledge that seems to be rising up in my garden, and of course, the weather. You must talk about the weather. I felt contented that our crossing of paths was the result of my uncle making his way through the woods, a good distance from his place to ours, and our neighbors taking a long walk around the perimeter of their acreage, finally landing at our garden. It was a good, brief chat. They always are. Eventually, sensing that Adam and I were resting a little too comfortably into the weight of the broadfork, our neighbor said, as she always does when it’s time to part ways, “Okay, time to get back to work!” We all nodded and dispersed just as easily as we came together. The dogs joined up with their respective humans and we each got on with our day. As he was leaving, my uncle stopped to check out the old tractor that sits on the edge of the field, and Adam joined him. Did you know there is a lot to talk about when staring at old broken down tractors? Once they exhausted the exact points that were covered the last time they stood and stared at the old tractor, my uncle and his dog disappeared into the treeline and walked home through the woods. Adam returned to the garden and we planted the remaining potatoes.

This morning I walked through the garden and noticed row after row of potatoes have broken through, without a single watering from me. That’s my kind of spring. Now if only summer is as accommodating, we'll be in good shape. Summer plants and seeds are in the ground, I'll hill the potatoes later today and mulch the heck out of everything, too. It feels wild and unruly in the garden this year, which, not surprisingly, mirrors my own life at the moment. And it occurs to me, this is not a bad kinship to have.

The Anticipation is Sweet

Laundry, dishes, seeds. That about sums up my plans for the day. I planted a small bed of carrots and beets in May, but the larger beds for winter storage are going in now. Garlic is harvested and drying, peas are done and pulled. So much space has opened up, offering plenty of room for more lettuce and spinach in addition to the beets and carrots.

Later today the first email will go out to everyone who is registered for Harvest. We really don't start until Monday, but I like to open the site a couple days early so people can settle in and say hello. If you'd like to join us, there is still time and we'd love to have you!

Coming up in a few weeks, I'll begin a brief blog/internet/Facebook sabbatical. Probably Instagram too, just for the sake of continuity, but I do love the positivity of Instagram so I am reluctant to let that go. We'll see. I'm thinking at least a month, maybe longer. No particular reason other than I'm just feeling the need for some quiet... and the need to cherish what is before me a little more. To sit in awe of these final months before my daughter turns 18, to soak in the feeling of late summer on the cusp of autumn.

(For the record - this blog's Facebook page is filled with 100% cool and kind people, no issues there. It's just that Facebook is general can be a time suck, and  a lot of input... no harm in a little break now and then.)

There is also a part of me that needs time to ponder how to better balance the usefulness and connection I find on the internet, with the dark side that shows up as a result of so much anonymity. Because when trolling reaches bullying/stalker status, you start to lose the feeling of sympathy for someone who might be having a bad day. And I don't like caring less.

More quiet, less uninvited toxicity.

To be clear, my impending radio silence is not about somebody else "winning." It is about me losing interest in sharing a medium with a force that I work very hard to avoid in my day to day life, so why am I willing to entertain it here? (That's a rhetorical question.) But mostly, I just want to power down and hang out with my daughter and husband. And Scout too, of course. He's a cute one.

A little more blogging into August, then a quiet break. The anticipation feels as sweet as I hope the break will be.

Another Day, Another Mason Jar Cozy

It’s full-on summertime now. The garden has exploded with new offerings each day, my job is to try and keep up. Two thirds of the garlic has been dug, we’re dipping into the potato rows for early sampling, some of the cabbage is about ready, peppers are ripening, and basketfuls of beans are the norm every other day from here on out. The tomatoes are coming along, but nothing ripe just yet. Peas, radish, and the first planting of lettuce are done. Kale and collards are producing nicely, and cucumbers are on the vine. We'll pick the first few any day now. There is quite a bit more to report, but that is a brief run down. I’ve been terrible about posting garden updates this year. The trouble is that I seem to only have time to post here about once a week now, and if each time I sat down to write it wound up being a weekly garden update, that would bore me to tears and I can’t imagine would do much for you either. But I do hope to properly update before the month is out. As is the case with these things, a new gardening season brings with many new lessons that are worth noting.

July in the shade has been a success so far. There is still plenty to do beyond the shade tree, but I am finding my way there often. I’ve been knitting - hats, mason jar cozies... little things. Knitting small in the summer keeps the warm wool off your lap, and an added bonus is that you can knit a new item in one or two days time. So I get up early, do my work around the house, garden, and desk, then I take some time for a whole lot of nothing but listening to the birds and watching the butterflies dance about. If I had a hammock I’d work a nap into the equation.

Our garden porch has evolved and expanded into a well-functioning summer kitchen which has quickly become my favorite room in the house. All 6x8 feet of it. A full tour and discussion of creating such a space (can even be in the garage or basement) will be shared in Harvest, but I’ve been spending so much time here lately it’s showing up in quite a few photos. So, welcome to the summer kitchen! The tiniest corner of our home with the most activity.


I can hear the chickens waking up so it’s time to open their coop for the day. There is laundry to do and I’d like to get an hour or two in the garden before the heat becomes too much. There is a fridge to clean out and the blueberry farm opens at 8am. True to form, everything I’d like to accomplish in a day is best taken care of by 10am. (Considering the heat and when my energy levels are highest.) Too bad I'm not great at multi-tasking. I’ll do my best, and stay on task until late morning, at which point I’ll scrap all unfinished chores and plans, find my way to the shade, and perhaps enjoy one of those summertime naps. At the very least, I’ll knit the afternoon away. You know what they say, another day, another mason jar cozy.

Good Medicine

I'm feeling pretty darn relaxed this morning. Even though at some point this weekend I might have been heard saying, “It must be July, I’m covered in poison ivy, I have dozens of bug bites, and laundry can hang on the line for seven hours and still be wet.” Ahh... summer! I’m keeping my (itchy) chin up though, and we’re having a great time. The garden is going crazy, and we just had an unexpected mini-staycation with Adam turning a three day weekend into a four day weekend, and me arranging my work to join him. Emily was not scheduled at her job either, so we decided to create a little retreat here at home.

With a fresh stack of movies and books from the library, a new knitting project, and plenty of good food on hand, we cast aside the clock and calendar for four ridiculously relaxed days. We moseyed about in the garden, had a few campfires, and even made a 6am supply run for Birdy’s makeover. Because if you no longer have a local lumberyard and have no choice but the big box store for lumber and such, it is best experienced at the crack of dawn when you have the place to yourself.


At one point Adam and I were sitting on the front porch talking about how some veggies and dip would be the perfect compliment to our porch sit. I knew we had sour cream in the fridge, other than that, we decided to take a walk to the garden and see what we could come up with. Green beans, celery, carrots... perfect! Although I was left wondering why on earth I only planted shelling peas and not some sugar snap too. For the dip - dill, chives, and freshly dug garlic. Herbs chopped and added to the sour cream with some sea salt and black pepper, veggies cut up and stacked in a bowl. We let the dip sit for thirty minutes, allowing the flavors to mingle and marry, then we dug in. Oh man, was it good. We even had some non-gmo free range humanely raised potato chips to go with it, but all agreed they were basically a sad interruption in our garden crudite experience. I think I’ve found our new favorite easy summer dinner. Just need to buy the sour cream, everything else can be found in the soil. And once again, I am reminded of how a cow would round this whole thing out for us quite nicely. Maybe in Vermont.


Today we’re easing back into our regular work and life routine, but with the renewed sense of creativity and discipline that comes from true time off. True rest. I’m thinking a four day weekend once per month is something we should strive for, it feels a heck of a lot more restorative than a 1-2 week vacation, once per year. And it would always be right around the corner so you always have it in sight. Even if you are someone that is blessed to love the work that you do, regular time to chill and renew the body and spirit is good medicine. And couldn’t we all use some good medicine?

Before I go, one more picture so you don't think we spent four days drinking beer and eating great food...

See? I had other priorities, too.

Wishing you a great week, and may a little good medicine find its way to you. 

In the Garden :: June 17

This is our fourth year gardening here, and I think we can say we’ve found our groove. Not that it’s all perfect crops and total absence of pests, it’s not. But we do have a rhythm, and we do have enough systems in place to make it all feel like a tad less work on our part, with more time to wander the rows and marvel at this incredibly productive grocery store.

There are several old apple trees on our property. Only one that is in a spot where we could open up around it a little, to let some light in. We do not own this land, so taking a chainsaw to any corner we choose is not an option (but we would totally sacrifice a bunch of choke cherries to resurrect the old apple trees if we could). Anyway, the one apple tree that Adam has been coaxing along since our arrival here is finally starting to come alive. It looks amazing. Our first year here, no apples (and no apples for the many decades prior to our arrival). That was the year we let in some light. Cut down just a few trees around it. Second year, he carefully pruned the tree. Third year, two or three flowers, which resulted in two or three apples that the deer promptly ate. This year, our fourth year here, half of the tree was bursting with flowers this spring and now, heading into summer, it is bursting with fruit. Some of which I believe is too high for the deer to make much of a meal with. So those just might be for us. A small miracle.

And of course, I forgot to take a picture of the apple tree. Next time. Let's go ahead though and take a walk through the garden. All of these pictures were taken this morning, so this is a good snapshot of how things are right now.

We’ve had pretty great weather this June. Plenty of sun, just enough rain, not too hot of temperatures. The brassicas are all covered now, the potato beetles seem under control, and the peas which had a really slow start are finally bursting. I only grew shelling peas this years which was a mistake. Not sure why I opted to leave out snow and sugar snap peas, but I did. Hopefully I won’t make that mistake again.

The garlic has just a few more weeks before harvest. Scapes are being harvested now, pesto making and simple freezing of chopped scapes is underway. Once the garlic and peas are done, I’ll plant our big plantings of carrots, beets, rutabaga, and maybe some turnips. But nobody really likes turnips so I’m not sure why I keep planting them. I’ve already panted some carrots and beets, but just enough for early eating, the storage crops are planted in July.

Raspberries are looking really good this year. We might even get one of those bumper crops people talk about. Wish I could say the same for our strawberries, but they are not having a great year. Well, they were until the deer ate 2/3 of our bed. We usually can't even see the straw! Sigh. Blueberries are slow growing, but reliable. Thankfully.

The manager of our local food co-op has an incredible greenhouse at her home. Alice grows plant starts over the winter and has a plant sale for a few weekends each May. All organic, non-gmo, etc., which is hard to find around here. Even though we start our own tomatoes and peppers from seed, I can help but stock up on some at Alice’s plant sale. Her plants are so big that I always see fruit on them 3-4 weeks before my own start produce. The tomato plants I bought from her are three feet tall already and all of the pepper plants have fruit on them. We’ll be eating peppers in July now, whereas my own plants probably won’t give us any until at least mid-August.

Speaking of peppers, one of the varieties I buy from Alice is called Carmen. If you’ve never grown Carmen peppers do give them a try. The are so deliciously crisp, sweet, juicy, and ripen red. A true Italian frying pepper, about 6-8 inches long. And they freeze great! I just chop and freeze. Some I’ll dice small and those are used in chili and various soups/stews that I put peppers in. Then I’ll chop some much larger, those are saved for dishes like roasted sausage and peppers with potatoes. I freeze all kinds of peppers, but Carmen are just so good I wanted to mention it.

Herbs are coming in and are mostly ready for their first harvest. Feverfew has already been cut and dried, next up this week is lemon balm, sage, lavender, and oregano.

Okay... that’s a general overview of what is happening out there. Sorry if it feels kind of random and fragmented, I write these garden posts mostly as a garden journal to myself, so they don’t always flow very well. I keep track of garden related posts over here, it’s been incredibly useful to look back on them year after year.

Thanks for stopping by!

Simmer Down

I wish you could hear the rain. It started sometime after midnight, and continues still, at 11:30 in the morning. Heavy and steady. With the garden’s first planting of the season well underway, it’s not the kind of rain that leaves you fearful of your seeds washing away, or seedlings being pummeled as it pours down. Everything is well established now and the one to three inches we’ll receive is exactly what the gardener ordered. Now I don’t have to do a rain dance for at least another week, maybe even two.

After several hours spent weeding and mulching this weekend, I took a few moments to sit back and look out over the garden. Do you have a chair in your garden? Having a spot to sit and observe the comings and goings is a great teacher. When I’m busy moving around, creating a ruckus, fewer birds and insects come close. But as soon as I get still, the whole place comes alive. It was here that I watched a robin feast on our strawberries. Unapologetic, totally pleased with himself. I didn’t have the heart to shoo him away, the dude earned those berries fair and square. And so I watched him enjoy the feast for about five minutes. It was a weekend highlight, for sure.

Today I’m catching up on some work, enjoying some time indoors thanks to the rain, and generally trying to get the week started. And if I’m being totally honest, I’m also dealing with the emotional toll of another wave of troll comments. I wonder if people realize I can tell when they leave multiple negative comments under different names/email addresses (computers are fancy). Well, now they know. Going through such trouble to project negativity seems like a lot of effort to me, but I’m not as ambitious as most.

I think I’ll go make some tea and simmer down a bit. A really nice person gave me permission to harvest their field of red clover last week, so I’m thinking a brew of lemon balm, lavender, calendula, and a good mineral-rich heap of red clover will do the trick.

Feeling thankful for rainy days and Mondays, they never let me down. xo

In the Garden :: June 4

{Joining Amanda today.}

It’s been several weeks since I checked in with the garden, so let’s take a walk out there today. Well, actually, all of these photos (except for the one very sunny pic above) were taken on Sunday, so let’s step back in time a few days and take a rainy walk, shall we?

Since Sunday we’ve received about four inches of rain, coming off a six week period of no rain. In this climate, with our soil, plants, and trees, six weeks of no rain puts us into a drought. The garden was feeling stagnant, saved only by my relentless watering which is something I never recall doing so much of in the spring before. I’m mindful about watering seeds in the ground, but once they pop and definitely by the time they reach four leaf stage, I’m letting nature take its course and let the hand watering go. Our gardens really only need about one inch of rain per week to thrive, and generally we receive that in rainfall around here.

Anyway, with all that rain we’re officially watered! And now we have sunny days ahead so lots of growth is happening.

Colorado potato beetle has arrived and I’ve been picking them off by the dozens. We’ve only experienced those once before, and it was just one or two on a single plant. This year is a different story though so I need to stay on top of that.

I went into this gardening season feeling all kinds of practical. I wasn’t going for variety this year, I was going for a strong focus on our storage crops. The plan was to keep it simple down here in Connecticut, so we could freely enjoy the work we have planned up north.  Tons of potatoes, paste tomatoes, peppers, carrots, beets, onions, garlic, greens, peas, and green beans... there would be no corn, melons, summer or winter squash (high potential for pest issues with squash and I didn’t think I’d be here enough to monitor), just a few cucumbers, etc. But then gardening season came on full force and all reasoning went out the window. Those gorgeous garden centers and farm stands are a wicked temptress, indeed.

And so my garden is overflowing with more variety than originally planned (fennel! leeks! broccoli! etc!), but I did stick to my no squash plan. Considering the space they take up and the potential for pests, I’m happy to give the garden real estate to more reliable crops such as carrots, beets, and potatoes. It’s also helpful that other organic farms around here have greater expertise when it comes to controlling squash bugs, so I will pick up those things from them. I’ll plan to take $50 from our September grocery budget, head to a favorite farm stand, and purchase enough squash to last the winter.

We’re off to a good start. June is my favorite time in the garden, everything is looking lush and hopeful (except for the potato beetles that I’m booting out), and the days are not too humid yet so working in the garden is a pleasure. I think this is about it for my update this week, I’ll try to check in weekly this year. We’ll see! My big garden tasks this week are mulching and berry netting, so I best get to it. I’ll sign off with a picture of our first garden salad... because the first garden salad must be documented!

Feel free to check out more from our garden here. Thank you for visiting!

Hostess Gift

The road home.

Each day will become increasingly hot and humid this week so I’m up at 5am doing as much as I can before the heat of the day hits. And let’s be honest, it’s the humidity that’s the problem. Heat feels good! Heat loosens muscles and opens joints; it dries laundry in just a few hours. Heat sweetens berries and calls for dinner on the deck. Heat warms the shoulders and begs for shoes to be tossed aside. But oh man, I’m the biggest baby when extreme humidity piggybacks on the heat of the day. So, after I type out a few words I’ll switch to getting some physical work done this morning, then I may freely sloth about this afternoon.

The first round of garden planting is nearly complete. Now to mulch and begin the never ending cycle of keeping the weeds under control. It’s not too bad if I stay committed to my two rows per day maintenance routine. You’re never really done in the garden, but a habit of tending small amounts each day helps it to feel manageable. We were up north over the weekend and planted a small garden while there. I focused on a few cold tolerant plants, being a week or so early for the main planting time on the north ridge. But a gardener has to get something in the the ground! Kale, cabbage, broccoli, and zucchini (okay, I may have rushed the zucchini, we’ll see). I have no expectations for this garden, it’s more of a watch and learn sort of thing. New climate, new soil, new critters. Like the MOOSE that was standing outside the kitchen window of our Aunt and Uncle’s house when I was making coffee at 5:30 in the morning. Is he going to enjoy my kale, I wonder?

Anyway, zero expectations, I just had to get my hands in the soil. And wouldn’t you know, the very first, totally random, roadside farm stand we stopped at while in search of compost had all organic plant starts. Our first random stop, all organic! That is unheard of down here. I picked up a few perennial herbs in addition to the cold loving veggies (and the hopefully strong and mighty zucchini). I deliberately didn’t plant seeds up north even though I’m anxious to see what carrots and beets do in that cool northern climate. That is some of the darkest, richest soil a girl could ask for. I just won’t be there to water them daily for the first couple of weeks and seeds are pretty unforgiving without that early love.

Really happy this (tiny) vegetable plot is in. We have no road access to our property yet, but there is a garden! Perhaps it will only serve as an offering for the local fauna, but hey, it’s the least we can do for showing up on their turf. Let's call it a hostess gift.