Garden Records

Not a Year for the Garden

2011-11-10T10:15:00.000-08:00

Broken foot, rain, floods, tornadoes, hurricanes earthquakes...what the heck? The tomatoes were tasty, garlic too small, herbs wonderful as always and the weeds predominated with all their hearts.

Better luck next year.

Lovage Doesn't Mind Cold Weather

2011-05-06T08:51:00.000-07:00

Not much else is growing well, but this hardy herb is right on schedule.

Geraniums are Up

2011-03-13T05:15:00.000-07:00

Geranium seedlings

Those plastic cookie trays turned out to be fantastic for seed propagation. (Just what I needed, another excuse to eat cookies.)

The geraniums sprouted in just over a week with sturdy, strong seedlings. Germination rate was excellent with nearly every seed producing a seedling. Now is the tricky time for me, getting them to the next stage when they make true leaves.

Propagating Geraniums

2011-03-01T13:00:00.000-08:00

I do this in two ways...from seed and from soft tissue cuttings. For the latter I use bulb jars, just because they are small and attractive. I pinch soft, green tips with a few leaves off my favorite plants and keep them in the little jars of water until they are well-rooted. Then I plant them in containers of earth. This winter I am using four-inch pots, as space is an issue.

The first one I did last fall is blooming for the second time.

Seeds are started, usually earlier than this, but March is acceptable, in cookie containers. Beck likes the cookies that come in clear plastic, snap lid containers so I have saved several over the winter.

I fill the bottom half with seed starting mix, moisten with warm water, firm the evenly spaced seeds, about six to a box onto the surface of the soil and cover with just a dusting of dry seed starting mix.

Then I snap the boxes shut, write the variety and date on the label and set in a sunny window. When the seedlings are large and robust they can be transplanted to the container of your choice.

Most of the geraniums I have now were started from seeds over the years. In fact last fall I had so many more than I had room for that any that were scraggly and worn out got the frost treatment. I felt bad about it and kept bringing in "{just one more" but I did manage to toast a few of them.

No Longer a Dry Spring

2010-06-15T10:13:00.000-07:00

After just getting started on the hay we were hit with two weeks of rain. Nice today, but lots more unsettled weather in the forecast. Germination is still poor and deer are now stopping by to munch. First lettuce is about done, must plant more. Same with radishes.

From Charles Thurwood's 1874 diary of a farm in Fort Plain NY

"Pleasant and very hot and I worked for Mr. Dunchel made fence all day and father cultivated our potatoes and that is all
33 eggs"

Dry Spring

2010-05-29T12:12:00.000-07:00

It hasn't ticked over into drought territory yet, but it is much drier than the previous two or three springs. Much warmer too. The dryness has yielded an unexpected benefit in that the birds need a place to drink...and I have bird baths.

This guy takes a full bath quite often and the mockingbird comes in for a drink every day. I love watching them, so I added another bird bath to this flower bed today.

Getting very spotty germination this year. I am wondering if it is the dry weather and if rain will bring on more stuff. Getting radishes already anyhow.

And So it is Spring

2010-04-20T07:03:00.001-07:00

Lettuce is up in the barrels, as are a few beets and some other stuff...can't seem to remember exactly what I put in there one cold day..oh well, I will figure it out when it comes up.

The tarda tulips my Canadian friend gave me last year are blooming eagerly. They are simply delightful and I think of her whenever I see them.

Liz's BF did both gardens with a big Troy Built horse rototiller yesterday. The soil is beautiful, smooth and dark and rich. I planted a few radishes and beets this morning just because I could. I used Pinetree garden seeds mixtures as I love surprises...or at least garden surprises...and trying new varieties.

I am scaling back tomatoes this year though. After last year's blight I am gun shy. We planted 52 tomato plants and only ended up with a dozen or so fruits because of the blight. This year I will plant in barrels and just really nurture what I do grow...rather than going for a large volume.

Anyhow, back to planting, and writing this garden blog after a long winter hiatus.

PS

2009-08-07T09:55:00.000-07:00

The tomatoes bought it too.

A Planting We Will Go

2009-05-18T11:02:00.000-07:00

Speedwell

Saturday the guys got somewhere between 14 and 21 acres planted to new seeding. (The planter says one thing, the map another...we suspect the planter is smarter than the map but...) Didn't get it cultipacked though as it rained at least two inches in the 12 hours after they finished. Still wet and terribly cold. Freeze warnings every night. It drives me nuts as I want to get the houseplants and tomatoes out! The cows hate it too and don't want to leave the barnyard to go to pasture. Can't say as I blame them.

Mitten leaves on a mulberry bush

The same day I put in beans and two rows of giant sunflowers. Put scarlet runner beans in with the sunflowers. Lettuce is up outside. Have planted parsnips, peas and two kinds of onions. Lots of volunteer hyssop, which I am going to pot up and let Becky sell at a yard sale if she wants to.

The scarlet campion seeded itself too, for which I am grateful as the original plant wintered over then froze in February. As soon as it warms up and dries up enough to get back to gardening I am going to be busy as heck planting the rest of the garden and moving and potting volunteers....

Allium

April

2009-04-17T06:53:00.000-07:00

Alan and I are proud of these.
Four or five years ago he begged to pollinate my amaryllis. I reluctantly let him and it set seeds. In spring I put the seeds in the big redwood porch container and incredibly they grew. The past couple of years they have set out meagre blooms, but this year they simply went crazy. What a show!! We are going to try crossing the white and pink one, which is just coming into bloom with these red orange ones and see what happens. I also pollinated a red one in the kitchen and it is forming a seed pod right now.

Roughly fifty tomato plants started and twenty kaleidoscope peppers. More than we really need, but that beats too few every time.
Varieties: Rutgers, Cluster Grande, Oregon Spring, Better Boy and one other, the name of which escapes me.

Enjoying the merveille de quatre saisons lettuce I grew from seed that I saved from last year. It has the most incredible flavor!!! It actually tastes good all by itself, rather than serving as a vehicle for salad dressing and other vegetables.

Been potting out the tiny sunrise cacti I grew from seed this winter. It took so very long for them to begin to grow, but they are so incredibly cool. I am not sure what I am going to do with pots and pots and pots of little holiday cacti, but if I need 'em, I will have them. There are half a dozen more fruits on the plants so I could start hundreds, maybe thousands if I found some reason to do so. Room is an issue.

I guess we are in for some more bad weather, but it sure has been a nice week. Wish we had got the heifer fence done, but the good weather brings out salesmen in droves....and milk inspectors...

Happy gardening!!

Christmas in March

2009-03-22T04:32:00.000-07:00

That is what you get when the garden season begins. It is really too early to do much. Can't even walk on the boggy clay of the upper garden.(I did spread manure there this week.) However, raking off the big flower bed was like getting a whole sack full of presents. I tend to plant and forget so there are all kinds of tulips I put in last fall, another thingie, probably a lupin, which I bought somewhere and stuck in, lots of little shoots of daylilies, iris, cranesbill and all manner of things. The blue stuff I coveted for so many years and finally bought at Cobleskill Agway wintered over. If only I could remember what it was. It won't be long now....

This is About It

2009-03-06T13:27:00.001-08:00

For gardening just now. Soon it will be time to plant more stuff but for just now, the chives in the kitchen and the lettuce in the living room are keeping us happy until spring.

The Carrot Project

2009-02-24T12:52:00.000-08:00

An experiment in indoor gardening (or, what to do when cabin fever reaches, well, feverish proportions) Since growing lettuce in flower pots in the living room window has been such a great success, I decided to branch out into carrots. Alan got this big pot out of the snow for me a couple or weeks ago. It took an amazing length of time for it to thaw, even sitting on the kitchen register, but today I added a little sphagnum moss and planted rainbow carrots and one other variety, which escapes my mind at the moment. I have to set up a nice little toothpick minefield to keep the cat off it and then we shall see what we shall see.

Can carrots be grown indoors? Maybe....

Planting Lettuce from Saved Seed

2009-02-22T04:16:00.000-08:00

Planted some merveille de quatre saisons lettuce yesterday from seed I saved this summer. I can't wait to see if it actually grows. It is creeping up on seed starting time and I simply can't wait!

It Is NOT Garden Season in Upstate NY

2009-02-19T07:49:00.000-08:00

Desperate Planters

2009-02-03T09:49:00.000-08:00

=People who live in the far, far north, where the kee kee birds cry, who need a garden fix so badly that they plant weird stuff in January and February just to be growing SOMETHING.

I fall under that definition so I have planted some aloe seeds this week...more sunrise cacti, despite the ridiculously slow rate of growth and today some lemongrass.

The indoor lettuce is thriving, but it will be quite a while before it is time to plant tomatoes and peppers. Gold finches are just beginning to be tinged with just the least little bit of yellow. I await spring with profound impatience.

Italian Seasoning

2009-01-06T11:59:00.001-08:00

There once was a time when we used about two small bottles of the stuff a year. Then as the kids got older and the pots of spaghetti got bigger we graduated to the great big bottles from BJ's. Then Alan introduced us to the delights of cooking meat with a hearty sprinkling.

I have always liked it in my scrambled eggs and omelets in the winter when I can't pick fresh herbs (although we do have chives on the kitchen windowsill). It got to the point where I couldn't keep Italian seasoning in the house.

Therefore, I asked Mom to pick me up a massive amount from the food cooperative she belongs to. Seemed like a solution to the always out of it situation.

No luck.
None came in.

So.....she very generously gave me packages of basil, oregano and marjoram out of her stash. I already had a big bag of dried thyme. I experimented with recipes and came up with one that the kids like so much they empty my little shaker jar in less than a week. No problem. It only takes a minute to make more.

My recipe:
2 parts oregano
2 parts marjoram
1 part basil
1 part thyme (or maybe a little extra thyme because the kids really like it).
Shake it all up together and there you go.

Indoor lettuce and seed catalogs

2008-11-29T10:01:00.000-08:00

Started a third pot of indoor lettuce this morning. Then I got out the Pinetree catalog and made my seed order.
I have a lot of trouble with the tomato page.
I want to buy them ALL!.
Weeded my lustful list down to five varieties, Cluster Grande, which was far and away our best performer this year, Better Boy, which is a trustworthy standby, and Rutgers, Oregon Spring and Country Taste for new ones. Last year I grew Jelly Bean, which although prolific didn't taste good enough to be worth the bother, and Princepe Borghese, a drying tomato, which does indeed dry very well, but isn't very productive. I won't grow Jelly Bean again, but still have seed for PB. I will probably plant a couple just because they do dry so nicely. Grape tomatoes volunteer so well that I don't bother to plant any, but I really like them a lot and if they die out I will get more seed.

Bought the usual lettuce mix, a sweet pepper mix to try, rainbow carrots, which we have really liked the past two years, sweet meat squash because Nita likes it, greyzini because it did well this year and a few other odds and ends including aloe mix. I love aloes and growing them from seed sounds like a fun challenge. It drove me nuts looking at the catalog. I itch to garden like somebody with a three year case of hives and poison ivy. Gonna be a long, long winter I guess.....maybe I can find some geranium seed besides the usual multibloom and have some fun....

Indoor Lettuce Revisited

2008-11-05T03:17:00.000-08:00

I get dozens of hits every day on my main blog, Northview Diary, for growing lettuce indoors. It is absurdly easy to do, just plant lettuce in a container and put it in a sunny window.
Water.
Wait.
Hey presto, clean, tasty, homegrown salad in the middle of the winter. I love it and planted some yesterday. I put it in a pretty blue flowered pot, which will look nice, as well as providing a treat in a few weeks.
I need to bring more pots inside and get more started. Every year I threaten to grow pots of lettuce for Christmas gifts and never get around to it.
This year I am gonna actually do it.
I swear!
(Hey family members, let me know if you want one of these. It might get me moving on this project.)

It is over

2008-10-23T07:42:00.000-07:00

Or mostly anyhow. Here in upstate NY, except for cleanup and planting garlic the garden season ended with a whimper when it got just cold enough to nip all the tomatoes even though they were covered. The whimper was mine. I love puttering in the garden and am already suffering deprivation.

Soon I will start some lettuce seed in flower pots. It won't be too long before it is time to start next year's geraniums. However for now I will just look out at the bare, too wet to work on earth and be grouchy. Bah humbug!

Tomatoes

2008-10-01T10:45:00.000-07:00

Lots of them this summer. I am boiling them up into something that can either be finished as a red sauce or made into soup. They are about as good as I have ever grown.

The best variety this year is cluster grande. They produce five or six perfect tomatoes per stem and taste wonderful. They make up the main ingredient of my sauce as there are so many of them. I just add seasonings and simmer....then strain out the seeds and skins. We made pasta with some last week and loved it. Tastes a lot like Campbells tomato soup without all the salt and sugar.

Poor neglected blog

2008-09-25T06:25:00.000-07:00

You would think from the number of posts here that nothing has been happening in the Northview Dairy farm garden. Nothing could be farther from the truth. This year we have had the best garden in years. It sure has been fun to take care of it.

We have had lots of potatoes with more to dig. A certain amount of potato scab and some hollow ones showed up, but they taste incredibly good. Lots of tomatoes, zucchini (although never enough) the best crop of sweet corn in a decade, carrots, herbs, hot peppers, giant sunflowers, a few beans and peas...man we have been eating like kings.

Liz and I have been putting up all we can. We need to get some paper bags for the rest of the potatoes. We would like to get out and pick some raspberries at the pick your own up the road, but time is an issue (there is the reason for no posts...time). Soon we will get a frost and the fall apples will ripen up. Then we will make some jelly I hope. I add cinnamon to my apple jelly, which makes it much more interesting in flavor. This year I am going to spice some with the seasonings you would normally put in apple pie...hopefully resulting in apple pie jelly......imagine apple pie on toast......yummmmmmm.

This summer I have been dabbling in saving seeds. I have always saved 4-o'clock seeds and a few other flowers, but this year I saved lettuce, giant sunflower, and hyssop seeds and am going to try to get some seeds from the vegetable marrows. It was such a great year for the garden that we even got a nice crop of acorn squash out of the compost bin.
I hate to see the season end!

Home again

2008-07-21T10:38:00.000-07:00

Petunia Dolce Flambe
I have decided that I like it after all

Came home to a garden gone crazy. Weeds were even worse. I hilled potatoes, cleared a lot of amaranth and lambsquarters out of the hot peppers and picked a bunch of over-sized zucchini.

Froze the latter today after I finished paying the bills. Ended up with four nice gallon bags full. Lots of soup this winter I hope. Can't wait for the sweet corn (if it makes it-we planted pretty late).

Rainbow carrots are coming along good too. I really should plant more of them!

High summer

2008-07-10T08:11:00.000-07:00

And everything is weird. It rains almost every day. Always enough to shut down the haying. Never enough to actually get the plants wet. I have had to water all the bucket and pot plants all summer.

The winesap apple set lots of fruit, but most of them are falling off now. They seem to have been pollinated, so maybe it is a characteristic of the type of tree. I don't really know as this tree has never set any amount of fruit before. I am not even sure it is a winesap, as I don't remember which tree was which. Peg had them...the other was a black astracan ( a historic variety to which there doesn't seem to be much reference). I am hoping even a third of apples that are left hang on to the tree. We are not set up to do anything about insect control, but they would make nice applesauce I think.

I am going to pick whatever zucchini is out on the vines today. We will be gone when it matures and I don't want to waste it. If I find enough I will cook it with some of our homemade breakfast sausage, baby rainbow carrots and rice for dinner tonight.

The sunflowers are way over my head now. Geraniums and petunias grown from seed are beginning to flower. It is always so exciting waiting to see what color they will turn out to be as I usually plant mixes.

Cobweb hens and chicks

The jury is still out on the Dolce Flambe petunias. They are an interestingly delicate combination of white, pink and yellow, but are not very eye-catching from a distance. I am waiting to see if they become more showy as they develop more flowers. Meanwhile there are a lot of things blooming now and we and the hummingbirds are much enjoying them.

Jesse's Giant Sunflowers

2008-06-27T10:38:00.000-07:00

Liz and I put the last of the tomatoes into the ground today...not that I don't have more plants, because I do...just no more room. I will try to get at least some of the rest into containers....in fact I need to go out right now and do that.

I also hoed the whole upper garden and hilled up the potatoes up there. Some of the winter squash was eaten right down by something so I just put tomato plants in the empty holes in the mulch. There are baby squash on the greyzini already! Beets are up. Indian corn is knee high, which is amazing as it has been in less than two weeks. Merveille de quatre saisons lettuce is forming heads even though I have it planted in half a fifteen-gallon barrel. This lettuce is great stuff...seems to stay sweet and crunchy forever. I will certainly plant more when we are done with this bunch!

The soup

2008-06-18T02:49:00.000-07:00

Herbs for Soup

2008-06-17T13:08:00.000-07:00

The 17th of June and I am making soup. For the past two weeks it has been miserably hot most of the time. Now it is downright cold and a warm, hearty supper sounds like a good idea. It is too early for much to be ready in the garden this far north, but there are plenty of herbs. I picked chives, walking onions, orange mint, creeping thyme, woolly thyme and lovage (nice since I am out of celery.) One thing nice about fall is making End of Garden soup, with the odds and ends of whatever is left in the garden. However, at this point the garden isn't even all planted.

Lovage, an herb, the leaves of which make a nice substitute for celery in soup

Rhubarb Season

2008-06-09T12:37:00.000-07:00

Rhubarb always reminds me of my Grandpa Lachmayer. He had a big patch behind his house and all the grandkids loved to get a handful of sugar from Grandma and a stalk of rhubarb from him and then crunch away at the tangy treat. The less sugar you used the more macho you were (not that we had ever heard of macho at that point in time.) Later when I became a semi, sorta adult style person I took him pick-up truck loads of well composted horse manure to make it grow better. You would have thought I was bringing him solid gold by his reaction and I had plenty to spare.

Now the house, the patch, and the dear grandparents are all gone. (Although I have a picture of grandpa on my kitchen wall and I know he watches me from it...I can feel it. So I talk to him in my mind all the time.)

The rhubarb lives on, though, in family patches at several homes. All but one plant of my bed came from his stock and I know my mom has some.

Rhubarb Crisp

3 cups diced rhubarb
1 cup granular sugar
3 T flour
1 1/2 t cinnamon

*** combine and spread in lightly greased baking dish

Topping

1 cup brown sugar
1 cup oatmeal
1 1/2 cup flour
1/2 cup butter
1/2 cup shortening
1 1/2 t cinnamon

***combine until crumbly and spread over base

***Bake at 375 degrees for approximately 45 minutes. I have had this recipe for way over twenty years and I take great liberties with it as to amounts of ingredients. (It is very forgiving.) In fact I generally just cut up enough rhubarb to fill my biggest baking dish...certainly more than three cups and then cobble up enough topping to cover it. Cinnamon I just dump in. I like it...how can I go wrong with lots? I froze four cups for winter use too and I think I am going to try making rhubarb jam. I found a recipe that sounds good and we have a pretty good amount left so......

Cats in the Garden Pond two by two

2008-06-05T07:44:00.000-07:00

And in my freshly tilled soil everywhere. These darned little barn cats wrecked my first planting of beans, which I replanted yesterday. They are always knocking over the water garden plants and trying to catch the gold fish and koi. The only one that doesn't drive me nuts is Kashette.

If you think that wheelbarrow is going to keep us out of that nice litter box you just tilled up, think again!

Defense against the dark (cat) arts

We didn't do it...and that's our story and we're stickin' to it

Yesterday after night milking the boss took the skid steer with the stone bucket on it and dug over my old sheep pen garden patch. It is so fertile up there (after years of housing sheep) that a cow parsley plant will have a root as big as my wrist in a few months. The soil was very dry and worked up beautifully to a fine, crumbly texture. Wish I could plant today, but it rained a little last night and our soil is such that if you touch it when wet it compacts to the consistency of hardened cement.

While he dug I weeded my squash and giant sunflowers and put a little Sevin on the squash. Cucumber beetles are practically wiping it out. I have been gardening every minute that I am not milking cows, bookkeeping, cooking or writing...and there has been darned little cooking or bookkeeping going on around here. I do flowers one day and food the next. I couldn't get very forward with the food gardening though until the boss got my ground ready for me. Soon as it dries out, full speed ahead.

Geranium and petunia seedlings, just planted and waiting for some sun.

Walking onions

2008-06-03T08:06:00.000-07:00

Top, or walking onions

Are starting to set tops now. As soon as these harden off you can plant them either in pots or in the ground to propagate as many as you want. They will self sow as well, which is how they earned their nick name.

Peas in bloom

Rhubarb Leaf bird bath

2008-05-22T01:44:00.000-07:00

My favorite aunt and uncle made my brother and me each one of these. I painted mine with tractor paint. I love it both because of who made it for me and for how lovely it is.

May happenings

2008-05-07T09:51:00.000-07:00

Wild violets

Speedwell

Beans are partly planted. Now if only the cats would stop digging them up. More lettuce up. Spinach up. Some squash and a row of big head sunflowers in. Planted some Hosta, var Striptease that Alan bought me for Mother's Day. Also have a new echinacea, but I have to decide where to put that as it is going to be tall. The lawn needs mowing.....

Do Not

2008-04-24T11:02:00.000-07:00

Buff Orpington hen nibbling the last of the indoor lettuce

Dig up the Asiatic lilies you planted last year in the course of making a hole for the gladiolus for this year.

(Dang it!)

Garden stuff happening now:

1) Four gold fish made it through. They seem to be mating. The sun fish will probably eat the fry.
2) Planted: lettuce, spinach, carrots, dahlias, cannas, mixed flowers, peas, beans (Slankette, the best variety I have ever found) Scarlet runner beans, 4 O'clocks, lilies of the valley and gladiolus (in the place where the Asiatic lilies were-duh)
3) Lettuce is up. Spinach too. And peas.
4) Need to buy another seed flat and get a lot more tomatoes going. Set out some squash seed just in case.
5)Started some new water cannas. Hope they grow well.

Sunday

2008-04-06T05:41:00.000-07:00

Took the heater out of the garden pond today. I am sure we will get more freezes, but I can break the ice with the shovel from now on. Fish did not come through the winter well at all, probably because we had to dump the ones from the watering trough in with the garden pond fish because we had trouble with the spring which feeds the former. Put in some pond cure today and set up the filter and fountain. It is way too early temperature-wise to be circulating water and wrecking the temperature zones, but those poor fish need triage. Looks like the sunfish and the minnows came through in fine shape though.

Raked the straw mulch off the herbs. Most of the thymes made it this far, with one varegated lemon thyme, which was rather exposed, looking like a casualty. Looks like the lemon balm kicked it again too, although it is early to be sure. It is so weird. I grew it down in town, just a mile from here, but lower in elevation and right near the river. Down there it wintered over and was an invasive pest, which I ripped out by the bushel. Up here I cannot winter it over no matter where I plant it. You wouldn't think such a little change would make such a big difference. My mystery flower is still alive too. The origninal was given to me years ago by the mother of one of Alan's friends . She didn't know what it was either as it came with her house. I lost mine when we moved up here, however, I had given some to my folks and got some from them last summer. I just love it. It is a fuzzy grey-leaved thing, with the leaves taking the form of a basal whorl. The flowers grow on a fuzzy grey stalk and are brilliant, dark magenta, really startling against the foliage. Wish I had a better name for it. We just call it after the kind lady who gave it to us.

Alan took the Christmas tree down from where it sheltered the bird feeders through the second half of winter. It was getting pretty brown and ugly so it went into the woodstove this morning. There isn't really much to be done outdoors yet, but what a joy to wander around the flower beds, wondering what bulbs and perennials will pop up over the next few weeks and itching to get planting. I sure love spring.

Still not much going on

2008-03-27T09:58:00.000-07:00

The first crocuses are peeking through. Willow trees are glowing yellow and alders are turning a faint green. That is about it

Charles Thurwood, Fort Plain farmer, said on this day in 1874, "Pleasant but little windy and in forenoon I split wood and in the afternoon I went to Ezra Dillenbecks sawing bee. Sawed with Till and in the night it snowed. 32 eggs"

Not much posting

2008-03-12T12:16:00.000-07:00

Nearly the only garden things that are going on now are tiny geraniums popping up, spindly threads of petunia seedlings and a couple of lusty little tomatoes peeping out of cut off a Mountain Dew bottle in the living room windows. As I write it is snowing up a squall and the wind is whistling up December. They can't drown out the gurgling rings of red-winged black bird calls though, or silence the insistent bugling of northbound geese. Still I am having a hard time working up any enthusiasm for gardening, even to the point of starting a few more petunias. It is just too persistently cold and dreary.

However, the one bright spot on the still-winter stage is the indoor lettuce. After I took this portrait, I plucked a few leaves and ate them. Yeah. Good stuff

Seeds are coming up

2008-02-25T02:54:00.000-08:00

Salmon geraniums....ultra sweet tomatoes...it is really too early to start tomatoes here, but the seed is about five years old and I wanted to germination test it. It is fine! The indoor lettuce is big enough to pick for sandwiches and we are. We had company the other night for supper and I had fun saying that I was going to pick lettuce for dinner in the middle of February!

Seed catalogs

2008-02-07T10:41:00.000-08:00

Pinus Strobus toomuchsnowieus

I love seed catalogs. There is no such thing as too many and I read them all...some have photos with colors so intense you feel as if you could warm your hands over them. That can be nice when your world is locked in ice and the sun never seems to shine. Winter is a tough time to be a gardener in a northern state.

However, when it comes time to actually pull out the debit card and start ordering, I usually end up with Pine Tree Garden Seeds' humble missive. Their photos are printed on fuzzy newsprint-style paper and many of the seed varieties are odd to say the least. However, I have had unfailing good luck with their products, especially their mixtures of seeds, such as lettuce mix and hot pepper mix.

Frozen flowering crab on campus

Today, after being interrupted about a dozen times over the past week or so by assorted farm crises, I finally got my order done. As always, I chose the standby vegetables I grow every year, plus some oddities for fun and adventure. I am going to try some tomatoes for sun drying, some Italian summer squash, and Dolce Flambe petunias among others. I can't wait to get started!

It is so very cold and wet and frozen here that it is actually hard to remember that there are growing things under the snow. I am eager to see what flowers volunteer from the mixtures I grew near the garden pond last summer....and if the jelly bean tomatoes self-sow....if the Stuff flower comes back (we don't know what it is, but Mrs. Stuff gave me the first one and we love it.)

Bye Chickadee!

Birds today

2008-01-17T11:59:00.000-08:00

Crows everywhere.
A plethora of dark-eyed juncos. One red poll. Chickadees. Tufted tit mouses (mice?). White breasted nuthatch. White throated sparrows. Rock doves -called blankety-blank pigeons here in the real world. they are on the steeple again *&^!!) Gold finches. Downy woodpeckers. Cat birds

CAT BIRDS!!! This has to stop!

January 7, 1874

2008-01-07T06:53:00.000-08:00

From the Charles Thurwood diary

A very foggy day and in the morning it rained a little and I done nothing but the chores and went hunting and Henry Meyers was here and at night Til and Charley Bouman and Dunckel and Ezra Dillenbeck was all to our house. 4 eggs

Here at Northview we are also experiencing a January thaw, which is much appreciated. Had a little rainy sleet Friday into Saturday, which finally made the paths fit for walking again. Interesting that 134 years have passed between these two farmer diary postings and yet the weather is nearly identical.

Not gardinin'

2008-01-06T03:45:00.000-08:00

Not much to say this season. For some reason my indoor lettuce is doing very poorly. It is spindly and pale and nothing like last year's lush crop. I think I will start a new batch in different soil..this was just what was in a flower pot I dragged in.

These snowy photos were taken about ten days ago. We still have most of that snow, but it is supposed to warm up. Maybe it will melt.

I should be mulching

2007-12-08T07:43:00.001-08:00

Photo by Becky (cocoa by Becky too)

There is a lot of ice and I need to put straw on the perennials and the herb garden. However, I don't have any straw. Dang! It is just going to have to wait until we get some. Hope I don't lose my "Stuff" flower!

December 8th 1874 was a Monday. On that day Charles Thurwood of Fort Plain NY said,
Snowy and stormy and in the forenoon we worked in the woods and in the afternoon we was to home and at night we went up to Dunkel's and Till and I went down to Daniel Dunkel's.

December 8th 1928 was a Saturday and my great grandmother, Hattie Lippencott said, "I baked mince and pumpkin pies. Helen (my grandma) came up on the afternoon bus. Rather cold. Mrs. Armour paid me $15 on board

End of the growing season

2007-11-10T13:41:00.000-08:00

It is over, done, fini. The corn is crispy now, there is only one bit of water lettuce left in the pond and that is all frazzled around the edges. I have tossed the last tomatoes and discovered to my woe, that my favorite apple orchard is closed for the year. (Already!!) Although most of the garden is finished, a few things are still available for culinary enjoyment. Chives thrive. There is still a pile of parsley next to the porch. If you care for carrots, I have two containers yet. Grapes for the grabbing dangle from a lonesome apple tree.

After a summer of cut offs and flip flops (and walking mighty careful around the edge of the lawn) I have the great pleasure of vanquishing nettles with but one stomp of my high rubber boots. Take that you stinging stinker you...and THAT and THAT and THAT!!

We are far from ready for winter, but it is beating on the back porch door, poking at the windows with freezing fingers and swirling down the chimney in a tizzy....(Out, out damned icicle) Oh, well...spring will come in due time (it says here in fine print.)

Meanwhile the cows will pass up pasture and consume corn silage like this instead...and we will waddle around in boots and bundles of heavy clothes and dream of better days.

Killing frost

2007-10-31T12:18:00.001-07:00

.

We finally had a killing frost on October 28. Dahlias and cannas have been dug and are drying before going down into the cellar. The little grape tomatoes that we enjoyed so much are mush now and it is time to clean up the vines. I pulled the green bean plants a couple of days ago. There are still small carrots coming along and amazingly we got two yams! Imagine yams in upstate New York.

Now on Halloween we have a guest like this one visiting in the garden pond. Very strange. (I wonder if this is his costume.) He was so cold sitting there in the half sunshine that he held still for a dozen or so photos before finally diving for the bottom.

What do you do

2007-10-22T07:45:00.000-07:00

With the hot peppers that nobody will eat? (They wanted 'em....I grew 'em)

(Why decorate, of course)

Adventures in gardening

2007-10-17T17:12:00.000-07:00

I went out this morning to take pictures of plants. Instead I had some fun herding this

with this.

She remembers her away to me's and go bye's pretty well for a dog that was trained when she was two (she is almost 12 now).

I did get a couple of plant shots though....a sweet tater in upstate NY

And some parsley

(I love to garden but you can't beat working a good stock dog...or even a mediocre, but lovable stock dog.)

Still no hard frost

2007-10-10T10:03:00.000-07:00

We are still picking tomatoes every day. Late planted carrots are about two inches long and very sweet and succulent. I love the flavor of the rainbow carrot variety.Found enough peas on the tiny late-planted vines to have a handful. I can't believe they actually produced as the plants are only about four inches tall. We also have all the lettuce we could want, although something is eating it...probably sylvilagus floridanus. Or it could be really big, ugly mutant slugs. It is late for a hard frost but not the latest I have ever seen.

I won't say that I am ready for frost, but the air is heavy, humid and unpleasant. A breath of fresh air would be just that.

Amazing grape tomatoes

2007-09-22T13:04:00.000-07:00

It has been a bit dry for gardening this summer, although we have had a decent harvest of this and that. However, the most amazing crop has been grape tomatoes from Pinetree Garden seeds. They just keep producing more and more and they are incredibly tasty. I would rate them among the best tomatoes we have ever grown. I keep a big bowl on the kitchen counter and it slowly empties as if gremlins or perhaps borrowers were helping themselves...but, nope, it is just kids and me too. They are so darned good.

We had company today

2007-09-22T12:58:00.000-07:00

Technically a praying mantis, but wouldn't "preying" make more sense?

Partial Eclipse of the Sun

2007-08-28T11:30:00.000-07:00

(Flower)

2007 Fonda Fair entries from Northview

2007-08-27T12:39:00.000-07:00

(Not including cows)

Slendrette or Slankette Green Beans

Purple Cayenne Peppers

Dish Garden

Three zinnias mixed

Arrangement in cup and Saucer

Yellow fellows

2007-08-19T09:46:00.000-07:00

Fall planting

2007-08-19T05:24:00.000-07:00

Planted rainbow carrots, lettuce mix, fall lettuce mix, mesclun and peas on the 16th

Seed collecting time

2007-08-01T10:34:00.000-07:00

...is just beginning. So far I have a large number of lovage seeds and a few cardinal climber seeds. I am not sure just what I am going to do with the lovage seeds as I have a huge plant and it is perennial, but surely someone can use them. Can't they?

There is just no such thing as enough zucchini, despite urban legend to the contrary. We have perhaps nine plants and we eat the little squash as quickly as they appear. Cooked with a couple of the little bulblets from the top onions, a clove of garlic and some baby carrots they are delicious. When the beans come in the mixture is even better. We also make a dish with squash, rice, sausage and cream of mushroom soup, which appropriately seasoned and topped with extra sharp cheese is a family favorite.

I need to plant more carrots though and soon. It is just so hot that going out and getting dirt for my half barrels is a daunting task. Still......

Recipe for a (cheap) garden pond

2007-07-25T05:12:00.000-07:00

Start with a 300 (or even 150)-gallon Rubbermaid stock tank. Cost c. $150.00
Add a fairly powerful, but not outrageously expensive, filter/fountain from Wally world. Cost c. $50.00

Set the tub in the ground as far as suits your taste. Mine is only buried as deep as the bottom ring to keep dogs from falling in and to make it easy to work on. You could bury it deeper to show less of the sides, but this is not a big issue if you disguise it with plants.

Add water. If you live in town treat the chlorine. Aqua Safe works....cost about $8.00

Add plants.... you can get a box of water lilies for about six dollars. They sit on the bottom. You can get hornwort, curly pond weed and any number of native or imported plants from any wild pond. They are free and they add oxygen and filter impurities just fine. They will root themselves or just float around. Some are invasive so be careful with them. You can also buy water lettuce and fancier stuff pretty cheaply. (Cobleskill Agway has the best water lettuce around here; Lowes has the best cheap stuff for the edges...corkscrew rush, sweet flag, little cat tails... things like that.) You can make a plain old canna corm into a water canna by starting it in a pot and once it has leaves and roots setting it in your pond on blocks or in a hanger, partly submerged, for a delightful and inexpensive water garden plant. You can grow watercress in a pot partly sunken into the pond too. Experiment!Many common potted plants like wet feet.

You can put plants in the little plastic-covered, metal flowerpot hangers the dollar store sells. They will hang on the side of the tub very nicely. Or you can set cinder blocks or bricks in the bottom of your pond and put plants on them.

Next plant whatever already grows in your yard around the base. Set house plants that will take the hot sun on rocks and bricks around the outside for a layered look. Throw in the cheapest gold fish you can find. Or a couple of minnows from the wild pond. Even guppies will summer in the garden pond as long as you bring them in when it gets cold. They will also procreate like mad and take on fabulous colors as the pond offers whatever they need to thrive. You can add other critters as well. Crayfish maybe? Snails from the pond? Frogs will come on their own and offer much entertainment.

Our pond is three years old and we have had a good time with it. I spent well under $500 bucks in the complete set up and it is much bigger than the little pre-formed ones you can find. The key to having what you like, I think, is to be creative in what you plants and the animals you add.

Peas are ripe

2007-07-22T06:34:00.000-07:00

Lots of sugar snaps out on the vines. The scarlet runner beans grew over a foot while we were at camp, the water cannas are in bud, as are the dahlias Becky bought me and the many perennials and annuals that came from seed in the garden bed by the old walking plow that belonged to the kids' grandfather. Baby zucchinis are coming along. I need to start some new lettuce though.

Growing faster than I can write it down

2007-07-08T04:54:00.000-07:00

Everything seems to be....although the dry weather has held things back a bit. Annuals from seed are just budding. Daylilies ditto. Squash, beans, peas and beans growing pretty well.
Wish we had some sweet corn in, but it didn't happen this year. Oh, well.

From the diaries and from home

2007-06-17T04:08:00.000-07:00

From Charles Thurwood diary 1874 Fort Plain, NY Warm and showery and I worked fro Ab Dunckel worked in the hop yeard and in the afternoon we had thunder showers and rained very hard and our colt got sick and Dunckel came down at night 20 eggs

From Hattie Lippencott diary 1928 i went to church but not SS school as Amelia and Addy came to dinner. They went to church also. Mate came over. We went to church in the evening.

Here at Northview in 2007;

I wrote about how much I enjoyed black locust trees in bloom in the Farm Side this week and a friend called to let me dig a couple in his daughter's yard. Liz and I went and got them and Alan planted them for me. ***Update-the darned things died within days. Have to try again this fall.

The lovage is nearly as high as my head and coming into bloom now. Other, smaller herbs are also doing well. Mulching with straw brought all the thymes through the winter and the variegated pineapple mint finally made it through as well. The so-called yellow lilac I have been nurturing for years is finally going to bloom. Doesn't look too spectacular though. The garden pond is fully functional, at least in part because I broke down and used algae killer on it. Makes for much clearer water. There will be a water lily in bloom today, plain white, but pretty just the same.

The boss dug me up some ground with the skid steer so I got more tomatoes, beans, and some squash in. Not nearly as much as I would like and the cats already broke one tomato off, but I am glad to have a few things planted anyhow. It is about as nice a season as New York has to offer

Here in 2007

2007-05-27T03:12:00.000-07:00

All the little wild flowers I planted and the calendulas and forgetmenots, dahlias and such are up and in the two leaf stage. There are lily pads open on the garden pond, irises are ready to bloom soon, and lettuce ready to pick. I really need to get the tomatoes and hot peppers out but haven't yet. The sitting porch is ready for sitting and blessedly cool in the afternoon.

I was wondering why the hummers suddenly vanished but a look down the driveway made it all clear. Acres and acres of wild honeysuckle open now..they don't need my sugar water. As I sat looking out at the porch yesterday two vultures flew by and I actually saw the top of them rather than the bottom because they were in the air channel over the river. They look quite exotic from above.

From Charlie Thurwood's 1874 farm diary

2007-05-27T03:09:00.000-07:00

Fort Plain, NY

A pleasant day but cloudy in the forenoon and we made a new board fence around our barn yard and that is all and in the afternoon it got clear and warm

29 eggs

Good link on planting by the moon

2007-05-15T07:27:00.000-07:00

Makes sense to me.

2007-05-09T09:18:00.000-07:00

2007-05-09T08:42:00.000-07:00

Meme

2007-05-03T03:27:00.000-07:00

From Matthew:

Goals:

Short Term: Get debt paid down after the year from Hell in dairying. Hope higher milk prices will somehow balance out astronomical increases in corn, fuel and taxes before we have to sell the cows and get jobs in town.

Consuming Goal and Dream: Get kids through college, whole and happy, get Becky and Alan their drivers' licenses this summer. Somehow cope with the terror and worry when they drive off into the sunset

Longer Term: Sell and have published a book...any book, and/or sell something to a national magazine. Other than short humorous stuff for American Agriculturist and Country Women, which I have already done.

Long Term: turn over the farm, running and healthy to grown children who are ready to handle it wisely and balance decent lives with the all-consuming work

Really Long Term: Live the later years gracefully and productively. Die fast and easy when the time comes

Today in 1874 and 1928

2007-05-03T03:00:00.000-07:00

From the diary of Charles Thurwood, Farmer, Fort Plain NY 1874

Clear and pleasant but windy and I was at home most all day and in the afternoon I and Rover went a hunting and Henry got shout (shot?) and his brother was here a wile and at night we all went up to Dunckels.
15 eggs and 1 goose egg

From the diary of Hattie Lippincott, my great grandmother 1928

I did some making up work and mending etc. Mabel came over

Planting, not writing

2007-05-02T17:59:00.000-07:00

Too busy with planting to write about planting. Put in some flowers today. Lettuce in barrel is up after only about three days. Just amazing. Spring is far ahead of where it was last year at this time. Despite constant cold wet weather grass is coming up fast, leaves are just beginning to show on the trees and flowers are coming up all over.

I planted banana seeds today. No idea if they will grow, but it seems like a fun idea. At least it was warm enough today to run the filter in the garden pond.

The men put the disks on and disked down the old spreader field.

2007

2007-04-28T07:14:00.000-07:00

*Chives are up and thriving*

April is nearly over and it is still very cold and wet. Far too muddy to plant anything in the ground although I have started half-barrels of lettuce and rainbow carrots. The men started field work, but the rain shut them down. Rain across the midwest has suspended planting there as well, promising high prices for grains this fall if it doesn't change and soon.

April 19, 1928

2007-04-19T11:15:00.000-07:00

From the diary of Hattie Lippincott, NY

Helen came up. She put my bedding out to air and took things out of Myrtle's room. We had a boiled dinner. Esther ate with us.

***Helen was my grandmother, raised by Hattie.

April 19, 1874

2007-04-19T11:10:00.000-07:00

From the diary of Charles Thurwood, farmer, Fort Plain NY

Pleasant and warm and in the forenoon I was hunting little while and I was to Dunckels and Dunckels came along down and Til and George was here and father boilt sap got 8 pales of sap and at night we went to Dunckels. 21 eggs

Bird Bottle

2007-04-19T11:02:00.000-07:00

Finally a beautiful day! I hung the wonderful bird bottle I received for Christmas on the honey locust where I have my herb garden. I tossed in a few sun flower seeds and within ten minutes a tufted titmouse was sitting on the perch.

I am plodding away at spring cleaning, but the outdoors calls. Every time I step outside I lose all track of time, forget what I am doing and succumb to the puttering urge. No one should be indoors on a day like this!

Rain

2007-04-16T07:57:00.000-07:00

After snow and sleet and high winds. There are mud slides in the western part of the county and washed out roads everywhere. The weather is awful and I don't want to discuss it!

April 16, 1928

2007-04-16T07:53:00.000-07:00

From my great grandmother's diary.

I washed and Mabel came and hung up the clothes.

John Lippincott came back from Johnson City and stayed all night

April 16, 1874

2007-04-16T07:44:00.000-07:00

From the diary of Charles Thurwood, farmer, Fort Plain, NY

13eggs 2 geese eggs
Cloudy and windy and cold in the forenoon and I done nothing but sat in the house. We boilt maple sugar, 14 pound and in the afternoon I sharpened hop poles and we got five pales of sap and at night I went to Dunckels and Dunkel came to our house.

April 15, 1874

2007-04-15T04:48:00.000-07:00

From the diary of Charles Thurwood, farmer, Fort Plain, NY

Pleasant and warm and the snow was all gone away and I sharpened hop poles and Barny Borts boy was here for cabbage. Abel and father boilt sap all day and in the afternoon it was showery and it rained and was south wind and I sharpened some hop poles.
12 eggs

This is just wrong

2007-04-12T10:51:00.000-07:00

Saturday April 11, 1874

2007-04-11T13:56:00.000-07:00

From the diary of Charles Thurwood, farmer, Fort Plain, NY

Snowy and stormy, but not very cold. It snowed and stormed from the south and I done nothing but the choures and our old cat got five young kitens and we got 5 pales of sap and 26 eggs and at night it got cold and stormy.

Too cold

2007-04-11T13:49:00.000-07:00

It is too cold for much gardening. The rhubarb is up out in the main garden, but barely. More seedlings are coming up in my flats, but not growing very quickly. Spring is waiting for something, and whatever it is hasn't come yet.

April showers

2007-04-05T07:47:00.000-07:00

Snow that is....spring is really struggling to take a hold here. We are getting a lot of cold rain interspersed with squally snow. Our maple man brought us two gallons of syrup yesterday and said the run this year was poor, maybe half of normal. I am not surprised as the weather has been very unsettled since early on. Cardinal creeper came up in about three days, the amaryllis that Alan and I grew from seed will bloom again soon, not much else exciting on the garden front....just marking time.

Wenesday April 1, 1874

2007-04-01T06:12:00.000-07:00

From the diary of Charles Thurwood, farmer, Fort Plain NY

Pleasant out but a cold east wind and we went to Fort Plain and we took 44 dozen of eggs down and 16 1/2 pounds of butter and we took home 7 bushels of oats and 2 bushels of corn

91 eggs 20 lg (?)

One last nice day

2007-04-01T06:00:00.000-07:00

A fairly warm night last night and nice this morning with a colorful dawn and lots of bird song.

The jelly bean tomatoes came up yesterday already. Amazing! Rain is supposed to come in tonight with a heavy storm and wintry weather to follow. Bah!

Crocus

2007-03-31T09:37:00.000-07:00

Tuesday March 31, 1874

2007-03-31T06:55:00.000-07:00

From the diary of Charles Thurwood, farmer, Fort Plain, NY

1 goose egg
Cloudy and a cold east wind and I sawed wo0d all day and father boilt sap all day long
got 10 pounds of sugar and Nelson Ripple was here and ask me to his bee
28 eggs

Cute little bunny rabbits

2007-03-31T06:28:00.000-07:00

This is an Ida Red apple tree I planted two years ago. The darling little bunnies also completely decapitated three baby Honey Crisp trees nearby. As you can see, I had nice wire cages around the trees to prevent this sort of damage. What you can't see is that the snow was somewhere in the neighborhood of as high as my head (not all that high, but too much for these little trees). This gave sylvilagus floridanus a golden opportunity to eat them. Not sure what to do as far as replanting. How do you protect trees in that kind of snow? Just before the boss's mom passed on mice girdled a tree that was at least thirty feet high and killed it during a winter of excessive snow. You can't really build a cage that high I guess.

There is one lone, but lovely, goldfish left in the garden pond. I saw him last night, by the light of my flashlight, when I came over from the barn. It was so pleasant outside that I just didn't want to go inside, so I stayed out and puttered around in the dark. The surviving fish was a great reward.

Monday, March 30, 1874

2007-03-30T07:30:00.000-07:00

from the diary of Charles Thurwood, farmer, Fort Plain NY

Cloudy and windy and in the forenoon we piled our wood up and in the afternoon I didn't do much of anything...fixt up some fence around the barnyard and fixt our harness and went hunting and it was cold and windy

Got 6 pales of sap and at night I went to Dunckels

27 eggs

(Not so) sudden pond death

2007-03-30T03:16:00.000-07:00

The garden pond took a disastrous beating this winter. With prolonged and extreme cold weather it seems to have frozen solid despite attempts to keep it thawed with a stock tank heater. Dead gold fish are floating up every day and one of the frogs showed up yesterday. I am really thankful that only two frogs chose to hibernate there this winter. At least the fish in the stock tank are thriving so I can restock after it becomes warm enough to start the filter and fountain. Down in the twenties again last night after a fairly warm, but breezy day. More good sugaring weather. We saw an old propane tank turned into a sap container yesterday, with a little gasoline powered pump shifting the sap uphill to a sap house. Neat.

Clear and sharply cold with a wine red sunrise this morning. Lovely but strange.

Sunday, March 29, 1874

2007-03-29T07:22:00.000-07:00

From the pocket diary of Charles Thurwood, farmer, Fort Plain, New York

Pleasant but windy and in the forenoon I went hunting a little and in the afternoon Allen Dillenbeck was to our house and we got one pale of sap and at night I went to Dunckels.
I got 37 eggs today.

More planting

2007-03-29T07:16:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I planted super sweet one hundred tomatoes, cardinal climber, petunias and moss curled parsley.

Hard frost last night, but sunny and pleasant today. Good maple syrup weather I am thinking. Heard a woodcock out in the old horse pasture last night.

Grackles, red winged black birds, killdeers and robins are back in force. Nice.

Birds

2007-03-25T06:20:00.000-07:00

Three days ago there were no killdeers and only occasional robins. Now the air is alive with screams of DEE DEE and musical chirping as they go about the business of looking for something to eat on what bare ground there is to be found.

Indoor lettuce garden

2007-03-23T14:13:00.000-07:00

Getting pretty picked over, but it will come back in a few days.

First planting

2007-03-23T14:00:00.000-07:00

Except the indoor lettuce, of course, which was planted on New Year's day, and from which we are still enjoying salad.

Planted hot pepper mix, strawberry fields gomphrena, lobelia, and grape tomatoes today.
Bought seed for Better Boy tomatoes and curled parsley.