Season's First Potatoes

Tonight, after my yoga class, our dinner will include some potatoes Angel harvested just a few minutes ago.  The spuds are doing very well -- we have multiple beds.  We may just end up with enough potatoes to last us well beyond our growing season!

Note that these beauties are piled on a platter that's significantly bigger than a typical dinner plate.

LQF Update

2nd iteration of proof ordered today.  Just rec'd email from company indicating that proof has shipped, so I'm hoping it'll arrive by next Thursday or Friday (July 1 or 2).  If it's okay -- and I really hope it's okay at this point.  It should take but a few minutes to "throw the switch" and make the book available on Amazon.com.

Fingers crossed.  Not holding my breath, of course.

Pollinating Chili and Tomato Plants

Although chilies and tomatoes have "complete" flowers (both male & female parts), in the outdoors, these plants are helped along by visiting insects.  To the right is a pot containing four jalapeno starts.  They've about tripled in size since I planted them.

The white plastic pipe things are some of my experiments at under-surface watering my potted plants.  The verdict's not in on that, but my idea is that by watering just beneath the surface, I can keep the soil more uniformly moist in a hot greenhouse.

To the left are some pots containing "super chilies" (whatever those are).  They're thriving and beginning to put out blossoms.


I spent quite a bit of time searching around for advice on pollinating these plants.  Do you need to help?  What's a good technique.  After reading several articles and watching some funny and slightly strange videos, I've reached the conclusion that if you're growing these plants in a greenhouse, you should definitely get into the pollination business.

On the right is my poblano plant.  It's easily the largest so far!


The best videos (IMO) were from a couple of guys who, from their accents, I assume to be in the UK. Here's a link to a vid they've posted on YouTube.  The vid talks about chilies, but I think that the technique will work just as well for tomatoes and eggplant.  These guys have a YouTube channel called The Chili Guys, which is worth a visit.

Garden Update

The plants in the greenhouse continue to thrive.  Today I put tomato frames around the three smallest plants (the largest plant already had one).  All four plants look very strong.

Several of the chili plants have blossoms.  I read that chilies growing in a greenhouse need to be hand-pollinated, so that little job is coming up.  All the articles I read claim that it's not a big deal: you use a small, clean paintbrush -- like you'd use on a watercolor painting -- and rub it around on the flowers of each plant.  That should be manageable.  Hopefully, two or three blossoms will open at any given time on each plant so it'll be easy to do the pollination thing.

The three eggplants appear to be recovering from the slug onslaught that got them transplanted from the outside garden to the greenhouse.  Even the most damaged has a new leaf, so I think it'll make it.  The other two, less-ravaged plants are much bigger and have more new growth.

The bell peppers (six or seven plants) seem to be developing more slowly than the chilies.  The plants look vibrant and healthy, so I think it's just a difference in the way these plants develop rather than an indication of a problem.

Outdoors, the potato plants are enormous.  I think we'll have a fantastic crop.  We're getting broccoli from the garden too.  Not a lot, but some, and it's good.  We've had bok choi, parsley, kale, and spinach.

 Oh, and did I mention the salad greens?

Brief Update on LQF

Rec'd notice today that the proof copy has been shipped.  It'll probably be a week and a half 'til it arrives, but I can hope for a faster turnaround.

Dang, this is exciting.

Broccoli and Poulsbo

Last night, as part of our dinner, we enjoyed some fresh broccoli from the garden. It was tasty as only garden-fresh can be and there is plenty more still growing. This little bit you see at the right is just one part of last night's harvest. We ate a lot of the plant's leaves as well.

I usually cook broccoli in the microwave. I cut it up in to bite-sized pieces and sprinkle it with garlic powder and a dash of garlic salt. Then I splash a little bit of olive oil on it and follow the olive oil with a little bit of water. I make sure to run the tap right on top of the splash of olive oil so the oil is scattered and (mostly) ends up in the water at the bottom of the casserole dish.

Then, I put the cover on the dish and microwave the broccoli. This way the water boils and diffuses the olive oil throughout the food. The flavor combination is spectacular!



Today, we drove down to Poulsbo. There's a Home Depot there and I wanted to get some clay pots for the greenhouse. I have a lot of plants going now, and I've used up nearly all of my clay pots and am making do with some reclaimed pots from shrubs we've purchased at the nursery. Hard to tell if these are "food grade" pots or not. The terra cotta pots are good quality and US made, so I'm hoping there's been some appropriate health regulations followed...

In addition to everything else I've got going, I now have three eggplant bushes in the greenhouse.  These were in the garden, but something had been eating them. Also it's also not quite warm enough here for eggplants to flourish. I think these guys will recover. We'll see.

Oh, and my prize poblano chili plant is now over a foot tall!

A Slight Detour

To be perfectly honest, I prefer to write about gardens and greenhouses, irrigation systems and energy conservation programs.  It's also fun to write about interesting books or films or even tasty recipes.  Politics is grim territory, but sometimes I feel compelled to write in that space too.  Politics comprises much of that which makes this Rock feel, well... Wrong.

A couple of teeny-tiny facts from the financial pages:

1. 30,000 Americans -- that's about 1/100 of one percent of the population -- now pull down 6% of all income.  The gap between the richest of the rich and everybody else wasn't that egregious even at the end of the "Roaring 20's."
2. At the Federal Level, there are three times as many lobbyists representing the financial sector alone, as there are elected representatives in Congress.
3. Only Singapore and Hong Kong have a greater gap between rich and poor than the United States.
4. Twenty-one percent of American children are now living in poverty.  That's now.  Today.  That's here, not in some third-world country.

The notion, widely propagated by the Tea Baggers, is that the US has become a socialist state. Strident voices have told my own family members that "our children are being indoctrinated in Stalinist political thought." The data do not support that assertion.  We are becoming, we have become a plutarchy.  We are ruled not by law, but by the desires of the rich and powerful.

Perhaps we are not even a plutarchy.  It may be that we are more of a "lootocracy" -- a state that is ruled by looters.  After all, even plutocrats want to preserve the system that supports them.  Lootocrats merely grab and move on.  The notion of a plague of locusts comes to mind.

But I digress.

I add to these disturbing revelations the recent shenanigans of the Texas school board: a deliberate and concerted attempt to rewrite American history in such a way that young people are exposed to extreme right-wing propaganda, a deliberate and concerted attempt to weaken the barrier between church and state and imply that Christianity is indeed the official religion of these United States.  They even tried to downplay the role of Thomas Jefferson in US history, but they backed off that (for now).

This followed Texas education requirements that demand the teaching of evolution as "theory."  Texas school children will be exposed to creationism as though it were a competing scientific point of view.

We might shrug.  "That's just Texas," we might like to think.  But it's not: Texas is the largest, single textbook market in the country.  Textbook publishers are unlikely to make one version of books for Texas and another for the rest of the US.  The Texas school board is well aware of that.

In my opinion, the deliberate attempt to undermine the education of generations is a crime beyond that of mere greed.  In an ever more complex and competitive world, a deliberate attempt to damage our children's understanding of science and the natural world, of economics, of religion; a deliberate attempt to undermine critical thinking... these are crimes that aid and abet our enemies.

Finally, I offer the opinion that much of the purpose of government is to level the playing field, to keep the rich and powerful from stomping on the needs, let alone the dreams, of everyone else.  I also note that there is an ever-present drone from the corporate media -- and that's entertainment media as well as "news" media: the government is the problem.  Reagan may have popularized the chant, but he hardly invented it.

So we, as a society are being taught to distrust and despise the only part of the system that stands between us and serfdom.

The upshot of all this is that we are thrown back upon ourselves for support.  We must rely on our neighbors, our colleagues, our friends for information.  Regional economies (the drum I so often beat) are the systems that stand a chance of changing the course of events.  Only there can we find accountability.  Only there can we expect the integrity born of local reputation.

That's one reason why you should grow the biggest garden you can.  Share the food you grow with your neighbors.  

Maybe gardening isn't your thing?  That's okay.  Learn to bake bread.  Learn to weave wool into yarn.  Learn to make basic useful furniture.  Share what you know.  Share what you produce.  Share what you learn.

You can do these things.  We can do these things.

Okay.  Back to our regular programming.

The Garden So Far

Angel has been keeping a "Garden Diary" of what we're harvesting.  So far, everything has come out of the main garden area.  Here's a table of the harvest so far.

Date	Harvest
5/22	arugula, spinach
5/24	bok choi
5/25	two, large heads of lettuce
5/25	cilantro, spinach, arugula
5/29	two heads of lettuce, spinach, arugula
5/31	Swiss chard, beet tops, spinach
6/2	arugula, parsley, two heads of lettuce
6/4	collard greens
6/6	parsley, arugula, cilantro, two heads of lettuce
6/9	parsley, arugula, cilantro, three heads of lettuce

This isn't too bad for a garden at the edge of the continent.  It's raining again today.  The greenhouse is comfortable, however.  Hopefully the chilies and tomatoes will hang in there until we get some significant sun.  

The latest forecast is for a sunny weekend.

More Birds... More Bugs... More Vegetables

A long time ago this area was a horse ranch, so there are old fence fragments here and there. We've noticed that the numbers of wild birds and bees and beneficial insects seemed lower than we expected in a semi-rural area. Angel has been on a mission to make the surrounding area more bird and bee-friendly. It's beginning to pay off. The actions she's taken are modest:

1. We had an old sink, very shallow. I mounted it on an old fence post in the open space behind the house.  Instant bird bath.  It's up high, so the birds feel safe from predators. They obviously enjoy it.
2. Planting more flowers on the property. Many species do extremely well here. They require weeding and a little irrigation in the summer months. Some of the flowers produce seeds that the birds find especially tasty.
3. Adding flowers to the vegetable garden. This brings in a wider variety of insects. Some of those insects are predators for others that we consider to be pests.
4. I cleared some of the overgrown areas  that border our property. The city doesn't have resources for this sort of thing, so that's the way we do things at the edge of the continent. Most, perhaps all, of what I cleared are invasive species. The cleared areas provide places for birds to hang out. Deer too (mixed feelings about those, but I can handle it).
5. Occasional scattering of wild bird seed.

Anyway, we're seeing more birds, more bees & wasps, more lady-bugs, etc. It's good. We've draped netting over the main vegetable garden. The small birds zoom through it without problem. They eat bugs and leave. The crows and ravens hate the netting and avoid going beneath it. This is good because they will tear out new shoots and shred larger plants. I've discussed it with the crows, but they just laugh. Hence the netting.

Lots of fun for all concerned.

Worm-zilla!

The last three days have found Angel and me outdoors for much of the time.  The individual tasks were numerous, strenuous and, ultimately, satisfying.  In the course of moving some plants that were doing very well (and thus crowding one another), Angel came across a superb specimen of Lumbricus Terrestris -- the Night Crawler.  The worm appeared to be healthy and active.  Since these critters are able to stretch and contract wriggle, it's hard to say exactly how big it was, but it's easily seven inches long.

After thinking about it and looking at this monster, we decided to take some photos.  That's a big worm!  We were very careful with the worm and don't think we damaged it. I guess that particular flower bed is a paradise for worms.  We've found several large, fat ones, but never before have we encountered any this big.

As evidenced by our garden's output and the number and fatness of the worm population, the soil is getting better.  We've added many, many cubic yards of Roger's Magic Dirt to the sifted, scimpy stuff that passes for topsoil in this region.  I've carted tons (literally, I think) of rocks out of flower beds and garden areas.

As I've mentioned in the past, we have two bins in the main garden area, and they're going continuously.  They've produced several cubic yards of nicely composted kitchen scraps and garden waste.  We have some containers in the greenhouse and some of our neighbors donate their kitchen waste too.  This stuff is slightly gross to work with at first, but eventually it cooks down to some very nice soil amendment... or worm food (depending on your point of view).

Oh, and I've taken to collecting the clippings from our meadow area.  I mow that every other week, roughly, and a single mowing produces more than a cubic yard of vegetation.  That is wet and green and composts very hot, but so far I haven't risked using it in any area where we are trying to grow food.  Still, it is fine to use in the bottoms of new flower beds or to fill in low spots in the meadow.

At the end of the photo-op, we put the worm back where we found him.

Tomatoes Calling

Time to get outside and start some heirlooms in pots.  We can do cherry tomatoes outside, but like chilies, full-sized tomatoes need the extra warmth of the greenhouse.  I've been doing quite a lot of greenhouse planting in the last week, and it is incredibly enjoyable.  Not sure why, but it just makes me happy.

Okay time to get to it.

More Rain!

Well, May sloshed its way into history.  We had a few hours of nice weather this afternoon.  Angel and I dashed out into it and did some yard work.  Then we went to (our opinion) the best place in town for pizza (I can count no fewer than five pizza places here in this tiny village at the Edge of the continent).  Our favorite place is actually a complete Italian restaurant that also offers pizza.  But I digress.

I played some guitar this evening while I listened to the weather worsen back into the latest wave of rain and wind.  Our garden is very wet at this point.  What began as a gift of lots of water for our vegetables is now getting worrisome. At least the warmer weather and gentle breeze dried things out slightly before this latest wave hit.

OTOH, my chile plant in the greenhouse seems to be thriving.  The pot is large, so today I added a "Lipstick Red" bell pepper and an unknown bell pepper from some of last year's seeds.  There are three little chile plants.  I wish I had more hot chilies, but I know that I should focus my attention on making those I already have succeed.

Angel ordered some small fruit trees.  They should show up RSN.  Their new homes are ready.  Tonight at dinner we realized that we are close to turning the corner from "yard looks like a messy disaster" to "that's a pretty nice yard."  Of course there's lots more to go.  Still, it's good to see real progress.

The forecast calls for rain tomorrow, partly cloudy on Thursday, and more rain on Friday.  I hope we get some sun soon!!!