The selection continues

Yup. I had a finished list of seeds, then a new catalog came in. I revised the list and heard about a third catalog that I just had to check out before I made any final decisions. Then I had a re-revised list and started to map out the garden to make sure I had room for all of it. Now I'm in the process of re-re-revising my list (and my garden schematic for that matter.)

It got me thinking though about food production, eating with the seasons and preserving summer goodness for the bleak midwinter. In this year's garden plan, I have designs on plantings starting in February and harvests going until November. That's a good chunk of the year when we'll be growing at least some of what we eat and if I've timed it right, we should have a steady stream of vegetables rather than the inevitable late August glut.

Of course, the best laid plans of mice and gardeners, right?

I hate to admit it, but in the past, I've had so many veggies at once (usually tomatoes, peppers or cucumbers), that a hefty chunk of them have ended up not on my dinner table, but on the compost pile. I lose sleep over this. Back in my grandmother's day, anything that wasn't eaten immediately was canned for the winter months. While canned green beans aren't my favorite, in today's modern world, freezing is a fairly practical option. Frozen green beans are acceptable.

On my (mostly) Handmade Holidays blog, I suggested jams or jellies as a gift idea. The Amazing Ali from Henbogle pointed out that the forums at Garden Web have a wide selection of canning recipes. Looking over the recipes made me hungry and curious as to what you do with those garden extras that you can't possibly eat.

Borrowing a page from the very Clever Carol over at May Dreams, I present a Mr. Linky so that you can write about the deliciousness that takes place in your kitchen when the harvest is in. How do you save your produce when you have too much? Inquiring (and hungry) gardeners want to know.

Sorry about the silence. I blame one of you.

Once again buried under a couple feet of snow, I've turned my nose to the book that was recommended by one of the great garden bloggers out there. I wish I remembered which one of you it was, because Weathering Winter: A Gardener's Daybook by Carl Klaus has me rethinking the season.

Interestingly enough, the entry for January 29 reads:

"...I was momentarily surprised by the light radiating once again from all the ice-covered twigs and branches of the apple, maple, and walnut trees. And the lilac bushes along the lot line. And even the dried chrysanthemums at the edge of the gazebo. Glitter everywhere."

There have been a lot of pictures in the news here about the poor folks that got hit with ice. There were some particularly crystalline pictures of Kentucky that reminded me that there are worse things than a lot of snow to shovel.

Here's hoping those folks without power get it back soon and that while they wait they have a great book to occupy their time.

Winter Veggie Homefries

Yet another dish that gets eaten before I can get a picture of it, Veggie Homefries is one of those dishes that changes throughout the season. Being the dead of winter, this is how I'm going to make it this week.

P.S. If you haven't tried Brussel Sprouts lately, I highly recommend giving them a chance. I was convinced that I'd hate them but when I picked some up to re-create the Inaugural Luncheon (a story for another time), I ended up using them in this. I was shocked at how much I really liked them.

Winter Veggie Homefries

• 2 potatoes, peeled and cut into small cubes
• 6 or 8 good sized mushrooms (I used white button), chopped
• 1/2 onion, chopped
• a couple of handfuls of small Brussel sprouts (no, really!)
• 1 celery stalk, diced
• 1 carrot, diced
• a handful of grated cheese that melts nicely (cheddar, gruyere, swiss, whatever you have)
• eggs
• olive oil
• butter

Put potatoes on to boil until just barely fork tender. When they're done, heat some olive oil and a little butter in a skillet and fry up the potatoes until they start to get golden. Add onion, celery, and carrots & cook until caramelized. Add mushrooms and brussel sprouts & cook until mushrooms are tender. Top with a handful or so of your favorite melting cheese. I like cheddar for this.

While your cheese is melting, cook up some eggs in whatever fashion you like your eggs. For this, I like over easy. Spoon out vegetables & cheese onto your plate, top with your eggs and serve with toast.

Chicken Thigh Pie

Rachael Ray to the rescue for dinner tonight! I heard her talking about Chicken Thigh Pie in the car while bringing Husband to work and thought, I have those ingredients. Well, sort of. I didn't have the amounts called for in the recipe, so I had to change it a bit. Still, it was pretty tasty.

Chicken Cornbread Pie

• 1 big chicken breast, cut into chunks
• 1 sweet potato, cut into 1" cubes
• 1/2 onion chopped
• 1 stalk celery, chopped
• 1 c frozen peas
• 1 c frozen corn
• 1 cup chicken stock
• 2 tbs butter
• 2 tbs flour
• 1/3 c barbecue sauce
• 1 package Jiffy cornbread mix
• 1/3 c milk
• 1 egg

Preheat oven to 400.

Put sweet potatoes into pot with just enough water to cover & cook until fork tender. Saute chicken in olive oil with onions and celery & remove from pan. Melt butter in saute pan & add flour to make a roux. Add chicken stock & barbecue sauce. Put chicken, onions, celery back into pan with sweet potatoes, peas & corn & mix with barbecue gravy. Put into casserole pan.

Mix cornbread mix with milk and egg & pour over the top of the casserole. Bake until cornbread is set - about 20 minutes.

Weird Bug identified!

I was flipping through my Flickr album and noticed that there was a comment on this photo. I checked it out and someone has identified my weird bug!

It is a Isa textula or a crowned slug moth larvae and it's a good thing I didn't poke at it because apparently, this delicate looking thing has stingers. I don't know how serious a crowned slug moth larvae sting is, but I don't plan on finding out.

Thanks to Prensa for giving me a heads up!

The coldest part of winter

The weather guy from Channel 6 made mention the other day that we're entering the coldest part of winter. March seems so far away without the din of the holidays to distract me. Hearing that we will have highs in the single digits is just disheartening.

February by Dar Williams is a great song for this time of year. If you don't know the song, the above video features it. My favorite part of the song:

First we forgot where we'd planted those bulbs last year,
Then we forgot that we'd planted at all,
Then we forgot what plants are altogether,
and I blamed you for my freezing and forgetting and
The nights were long and cold and scary,
Can we live through February?

Andrew Wyeth - 1917 - 2009

Painter Andrew Wyeth died today at age 91. He was a summer resident here in Maine and much of his work showcases the state.

I wouldn't exactly call him a landscape painter, but there are plenty of plants and gardens in his work.

Check out his website to see more of his work.

What's Blooming In The Gorham Garden - Garden Bloom Day 2008

In my dream neighborhood, the house on one side is occupied by Ali from Henbogle and on the other side by Carol at May Dreams. Ali has chickens and a hoop house and Carol is always coming up with interesting things such as the Garden Blogger's Bloom Day.

The idea is that everyone take a picture of what's blooming in their garden. Being January in Maine, there's nothing blooming in my garden (that I can get to easily) and sadly, even less blooming in the house.

While I can grow a good crop of vegetables, I am totally inept at keeping most houseplants alive. I have a bay that has managed to survive for two winters now despite my best efforts to keep it going. I think it just hibernates and pretends that I'm not here until I put it back outside in the spring. The only other plant currently living in the house is this basil. As you can see, it too is waiting for spring and wishing I'd go away.

Foods for the middle of January

With the weather so cold, I don't really care about the calories. Two of this week's dishes for cold winter days:

Neapolitan Ziti Bake from Rachel Ray - I'm changing it a bit and adding browned hamburg, spinach and cheddar cheese to the bechamel sauce.

Potstickers and Chicken Fried Rice - The potsticker recipe comes from Martha Stewart's Hor d'Oeuvres Handbook and the fried rice recipe comes from Nina Simond's A Spoonful of Ginger. I was in the mood for Chinese food the yesterday but it was too cold to go get it. Thank goodness for the wok!

Eat the view wins!

Roger Doiron over in Scarborough just sent word that his Eat The View campaign is the winner of the On Day One initiative.

Won is sort of an understatement. Of 81 entries, the Eat The View campaign smashed the competition with a whopping 3994 votes. The next closest suggestion was the Create a Cabinet Level Department of Peace which received 1562 votes.

Now this doesn't mean that the Obamas have agreed to take on the task of turning the White House lawn into a new Victory Garden, but with the support of gardeners across the US, this is perhaps the first step toward that goal.

According to Roger's press release:

"It requires no new spending, but rather redirects existing natural and human resources towards a more productive and socially-responsible end. The sun and soil are already there, Doiron points out, as is the White House’s 13-person grounds crew who could help plant and maintain this new garden."

What's the next step to help make this dream of fresh veggies a reality? Go to Change.org and vote for Victory Garden 2.0. There's a registration process which takes a few minutes. Yeah, registrations can be a pain, but Victory Garden 2.0 needs about 6000 more votes to be a finalist. Let's do Mrs. Roosevelt proud and get her garden back on the lawn where it belongs!

Snowy day in January

Took this photo of the yard yesterday. Pretty but very cold.

Christmas Leftover Wafers

I had several candy canes leftover from Christmas and in the spirit of Not Wasting Stuff, I hated to just throw them out but I didn't want them on my counter anymore. As fate would have it, I had half a small package of chocolate chips and about 3/4 cup of flour. Normally, I would say that you can't do anything with that many candy canes and that little flour and chocolate, but I stumbled across a recipe for white chocolate patties that almost fit the bill. I swapped out the dark chocolate for the white chocolate and now I don't have Christmas leftovers on the counter anymore.

Christmas Leftover Wafers

• 3/4 cup flour
• 1/2 tsp baking powder
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 4 oz chocolate chips
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 6 tbs butter
• 1 egg
• 2 tsp vanilla
• 4 oz peppermint candy, crushed

Preheat oven to 325. Mix together the flower, baking powder and salt. Melt the chocolate. I prefer to pop in in the microwave and nuke it for 30 second intervals, stirring in between.

Cream the butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Add egg and vanilla and beat until smooth. Add melted chocolate and beat until combined. Add dry ingredients and beat until combined. Stir in crushed peppermints.

Drop by spoonfuls onto a lined cookie sheet. Bake for 8 minutes if you like your cookies slightly chewy, 10 minutes if you prefer them crisp. When they come out of the oven, leave them on the cookie sheet for 20-30 minutes to allow to cool. If you try to take them off sooner, you'll end up with a weird pile of cookie parts. If you wait, they'll come up easily. They're better when they're cool anyhow.

Makes 24 big cookies or 36 small cookies.

Seed test success

It was well worth the time an effort to test my old seeds. Based on my results, there are several vegetables that I won't need new seed for.

These are Lincoln peas that I bought back in 2006 (or maybe 2005), and as you can see, time has been kind to them. Since I tested 10 of each kind of seed, the percentage math was pretty easy to figure out. These peas had a 90% germination rate and that's just as good as fresh seed in my opinion.

The old broccoli, leeks, squashes and peas all had great sprouting powers, so I won't buy any of those this year. Not everything did well though. The soybeans only had a 50% germination rate and some things, like the butternut squash only managed to grow mold.

It is important to note that sometimes patience is required when waiting for seeds to do their thing. Three of the tests, - the Ace pepper, the Early Nelson carrot and the Orion fennel - had poor to no results after only one week. Since they didn't get moldy, I put them back in a baggie for another week and that extra time was all they needed. The fennel went from 30% to 50%, 50% of the carrots had growth and the peppers had a 90% germination rate.

I'll try to toss out any of the seeds that did worse than 60%, so that I don't accidentally plant those seeds instead of the fresh ones. I say try because my thrifty Yankee blood hates to throw out anything that may still be useful. With the money I save from not having to reorder seeds I already have, I'll finally be able to buy that Ironwood Dibble I've had my eye on for a couple of years!

Johnny's catalog is here!

It's here! It's here! Glee! I'm looking forward to spending some time picking out this year's crop. Now, if you'll pardon me, there's a pot of tea and a cozy chair waiting for me to do my research.

Testing.... testing... Are these things on?

I have a glut of unused seeds in my mudroom. Most of the time, even the small packets have more seeds than I have room for. I'm working on making more garden space for this stuff, but in the meantime, it seems kind of wasteful to just order new seeds and throw out the old.

In true Yankee spirit, this year I'm testing my leftover seeds to see if they are still viable. I've done this in the past with pumpkin seeds, but I've never done it with so many other varieties. If the seeds are still good, there's no need to buy new packets for planting.

The testing is pretty easy. Take a lightly damp (squeeze out as much water as you can) paper towel and place 10 or 20 seeds on it. Roll the towel up and seal it in a ziploc baggy to help keep it damp. Be sure to label the baggy so you know what kind of seeds you're testing and when you started the test. I also note how old the seeds are.

Place the seeds out of the way. I choose a spot that is out of direct sunlight and stays fairly warm without getting hot. Let them sit for a week and then carefully open the packages to see if you have anything sprouting. It is worth noting that some seeds may take longer than 7 days to sprout and those seeds should be placed back into the baggies to continue the test. You'll find germination time information on the package the seeds came in.

This should give you an idea of whether the seeds are still worth planting. By planting 10 or 20 seeds, you can easily do the math to figure out the germination percentage. For example, if I plant 10 seeds and 8 of them sprout, I have an 80% germination rate. That's pretty good odds that using these seeds will net me plenty of plants for the garden. The Johnny's packets are labeled with a "fresh" germination rate, so I can compare my results with their original test results and see how the seeds have changed as they've aged.

Being able to use old seeds will save me some cash to put toward new varieties and the mostly dog-proof fence I hope to put up this spring.

New Years Resolutions 2009

They say that when you make resolutions, you have a better chance of keeping them if you can be specific and keep them simple. Rather than saying you're going to work out, resolve to do 10 situps a day. In that spirit, here are my 9 garden resolutions for 2009:

1. I'm going to turn the compost once a month.
2. I'm going to install 6 new raised beds for vegetables.
3. I'm going to plant a new asparagus bed.
4. I'm going to get my seed order in at the start of March.
5. I'm going to get the peppers started by the end of March.
6. I'm going to check the viability of seeds I have before I order new seeds.
7. I'm going to order and plant 6 bulbs of German Extra Hardy garlic and 3 of some new variety.
8. I'm going to make time to weed once a week.
9. I'm going to plant my winter vegetables by September so they get time to grow.