January 24, 2013

bitter cold

The remote thermometer inside my cold frame says 6*F (-14*C). Brrr! I’ve never seen such a low reading. I suppose the greens will not survive. Inside my house it is warmer. I just made pumpkin bread (my pumpkin bread recipe link) using buttercup squash. Such amazing flavor. I am thinking I should compare pumpkin and squash side-by-side in this recipe someday. I think pumpkin is sweeter and milder and squash is very squashy and rich.

January 20, 2013

saving seeds

Today I roasted one of my delicious buttercup squash and I’m saving these seeds from it. Each year I try to save one or two more types of seeds. For a few years now, I’ve saved Chinese pole beans, cayenne and Thai hot peppers. I sprouted my own sweet potatoes and garlic. For this year, I have also saved seeds from red runner beans, buttercup squash, and a mix of nasturtiums. Saving seeds is Free! You to gradually improve the variety so that it becomes adapted to your garden conditions.…

January 12, 2013

dreary field

January 11, 2013

tomato supports in the snow

…. waiting for spring….

January 4, 2013

format changes

I am adding a new bar at the far right of this blog, an “adbar”, that will include garden advertizing. Please bear with me as I work on this. It seems like it is gradually getting there, though I am still trying to adjust the spacing. I will soon also update the header. Seems like I should add a new picture of Skippy!

January 2, 2013

Happy New Year

January 1, 2013

Jacob’s Cattle bean chili

I bought some beautiful dried beans at the Farmer’s Market this past fall. The variety: Jacob’s Cattle bean. They are big red, white and maroon beans that I plan to try growing myself next year. I cooked them up, with some of my canned garden tomatoes, into a rich chili today. Recipe: 1.5 cup dried Jacobs Cattle beans (or any other type of dried bean) 1 onion 5 large cloves garlic 1 shallot 1 sweet red chili pepper, fresh 2 large dried chili peppers, crumbled, with seeds 2 tsp cumin…

January 1, 2013

my garden plot in the snow

On this last day of the year, Skippy, Steve and I walked though our community garden plots and the adjacent fields and woods. We got about 7 inches of snow yesterday – our first real snow of the season. Everything was beautiful. Bright blankets of white, song sparrows and chickadees out and about, and lots of dogs and their people out enjoying it all.

December 31, 2012

tiny little sweet potato sprouts!

About a month ago, I selected a couple sweet potatoes and put them in little bowls of water, hoping to get them to sprout. I put them on the floor by the heater, but since they got in the way there, I moved them to my plant shelf. Today I checked on them – sadly, no sprouts yet. 🙁 Then later, as I was selecting a sweet potato for dinner from my basket in the kitchen, I found that one of these had tiny little sprouts! Yippee!!! I put this…

December 30, 2012

garden christmas gifts – given and received

This year I gave, and received, a number of gifts made from homegrown garden produce or items to use in the garden. Dried herbs: This year I dried lots of my garden thyme, rosemary, sage, hot red chilis, and coriander seeds. I packed these in little jars (from Crate and Barrel) and used ribbon to tie on labels. Hand-decorated dried gourds: My brother-in-law found a fantastic source for the most creative decorated gourds I have seen. I love the tall snowman gourd that is now on my mantle! I’ll add…

weeks and counting until my last spring frost

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