W.U.F. Update 04.04.10

We are working on getting the potatoes planted today.  We also have peas and Chinese greens that need to be planted.  We are taking a break for lunch and I wanted to share that we have a ton of volunteer spinach around the yard.  Our mints are doing well and are about ready for the first harvest.  The bronze fennel is poking up now.  The strawberries are thriving.  We also have volunteer garlic and onions coming up right now.

Sy planted blue pansies around the Circle this  past week.  We have a ton of pansies to get in the ground.  They are self seeding and edible.  The flowers are quite tasty with a salad of spring greens.  I can't describe how they taste as different colors of flowers seem to have different flavors ranging from sweet to slightly nutty.

I will be posting some pics later after we get the potatoes and such planted today.

Spring Is Sprung.

Here are some early spring pictures from W.U.F.  There also pics of the truck we bought with tax return money so that we have an effective and reliable vehicle to haul the things we need for the garden.  Stay tuned as spring continues to unfold, as we will be busier with planting and such, but will be posting more often as well.

The freeze is on!

It is official, the outdoor growing season is over. We had record low temperatures on Saturday. It was down to 15 F. There were major accidents all over the city. I was side ways at one point on my way to work.

It has taken me many years to convince Sy that we can support much of our lifestyle with our small suburban spread. As I reflect on the past growing season I am proud of our accomplishment. Sy was amazed at the amount of food we had this summer from the garden. We ate plenty. We were fortunate enough to share with family and friends, some feeling the effects of the recession. We have canned, dried, and otherwise preserved enough to last us through the winter.

We will spend this winter reviewing our notes, and getting better prepared. We will review our failures such as the potatoes, and do more research. We had great vines this year, but they never flowered, meaning of course no potatoes. We haven't had much luck with carrots, but there are a few carrot sprouts from a fall planting. Carrots will continue to grow in winter here.

Over all we had great success and next year we set the bar a bit higher. In the near future look forward to a short video of our 2009 garden. Take care and have a great day.

This weekend was the Pueblo Chile and Frijole Festival in Pueblo Colorado. We picked up Sy's sister Josie and made the short trip to Pueblo. We spent the better part of the afternoon checking out the vendors products. There was everything from jewelry to Directv. Farmers market to antique market. The smoke of roasting chile's wafts about the air. It was a wonderful day out of the house to hang out. We bought a bushel of Pueblo Chiles with garlic and then had them fire roasted. They are delightful and make wonderful salsa, green chili, or chile cheese bread. Anyway that has been the last couple of days. I called in a personal day so we can finish canning what we have. I also have to get some photographic prints mounted and sent for a company photo contest. Hope all have a great day.

The last day of summer is bringing snow and freezing overnight temps.

I am off work on Sundays and Mondays. I woke up Monday to find out that there was a freeze warning and possible snow coming. We started out for our weekly trip to the farmers market, and it started to rain. We got to the market and there were two vendors sticking it out. We bought some green beans, and peaches from Colorado's western slope. We were also able to get a great price on a case of peaches and cream corn. We have canned this for the winter. We left the market and went to Home Despot to get materials to build a couple of cold frames for the cherry tomatoes, and the bell peppers.

After we got home we worked to get everything we could in. We picked buckets of squash, bell peppers, and cherry tomatoes. After the harvest was in we had to build the cold frames for the cherry tomatoes and bell peppers. We used some 1 x 2 cedar screwed together into a frame. We then covered these with 3.5 mil plastic. Simple and easy to disassemble, store, and reuse for years to come.

The Prickly Pear Melomel is still fermenting nicely. I expect it is going to do so for awhile. But good things come to those who wait. Anyway I hope everyone checks out the pics and has a great day.

Prickly Pear Melomel update

I reported in my last post that we had started a prickly pear melomel. I am experimenting with this fruit mead. It has prickly pear juice, apple juice, wild flower honey, purified water, and yeast. It now has a brisk fermentation going.

W.U.F. Update

It has been awhile since I have done a proper update on the happenings at W.U.F. It has been busy this summer. The garden has been fairly low maintenance. We have had an awesome harvest this year, and we are not even close to having the entire lawn replaced. So far our most prolific crop has been the cherry tomatoes. We have been harvesting 1-2 pounds per day on average. we let it go a few days awhile back. We ended up with five pounds of ripe tomatoes. We added onion from the yard, and jalapenos, roasted hatch chilies, cilantro, and smoked garlic from Sunflower Farmers Market. I put in too much cilantro but it is still good. I have eaten three jars already.

We have also had a good yellow summer squash crop this summer. We have been unable to keep up with it. Our lettuce did well also. We still have some winter squash ripening on the vine and some pumpkins to carve up for Samhain. We have been sharing with family and friends as well as putting some away. We had some corn and will have a ton of red and yellow bell peppers as soon as they ripen. We are hoping to ripen them on the plant, but may have an early frost this year.

I was on vacation last week, and while I was at my moms Sy and I picked 13 1/2 pounds of prickly pears, the fruit of the prickly pear cactus. The juice of said prickly pears is in a fermenter with honey, purified water, organic apple, juice, and wine yeast. The honey is local wildflower honey and is very rich. It should add a nice flavor texture to the prickly pear. This is of course an experimental melomel. A melomel is a honey mead with fruit added in the fermenting process. It is a honey and fruit wine essentially.

Sy and I have also been working on setting up an online shop at Etsy.com. It is an online market place for selling homemade products. Sy will be soon putting up some of her jewelery for sale, and I hope to sell some photographic prints. We are also toying with selling canned goods such as jelly's, dried herbs, and salsa. Every little bit we add brings us a little closer to the lifestyle we want for ourselves.

Prickly Pear Melomel starting the fermentation process.

W.U.F. Update 06.09.09

The garden is doing well. We got quite a bit accomplished with Carols help today. The weeding is nearly caught up. I got the remaining tomato seedlings planted today. We now have 35 tomato plants of two varieties in the ground. I also got the long Island Cheese Squash planted. I also finally got the Atlantic Giant pumpkin seeds in the ground. I have wanted to grow a giant pumpkin for years but have never gotten it done. Maybe this is the year. We now also have four or five potato plants poking up out of their mounds of straw.

The corn is about 10 inches high. The onions and garlic are both doing well. The broccoli is producing new heads. The cherry tomatoes have fruit on them. We have harvested approximately five pounds of spinach already with no signs of letting up. I got the pole peas tied up yesterday. Next year I will have the infrastructure in place so I can grow them taller. They laid on the ground for too long and now they have bent stalks. All of the squash are doing well, and we expect to have more squash than we know what to do with soon.

All four of the mints are doing well. We are going to try and make some orange mint vodka and some pineapple mint vodka. We are experimenting with some horehound mint cough syrup with good results so far. The spicy oregano, and the rosemary are doing well. The bronze fennel can be harvested anytime.

We have had blueberries and strawberries. The raspberries are doing well, and we have harvested the rhubarb a couple of times. The rhubarb is ready to harvest again. I can't wait until it is time to get Colorado Western Slope Peaches and make peach rhubarb cobbler.

We also planted marigolds, dianthus, and lobelia between the stones and the mugo pines around the sacred circle. We mulched it with straw. The next step will be to get the grass out of the circle and replace it with creeping thyme.

I will get pics up in the morning. I wanted to do it tonight but ran out of daylight. More to come soon.--Jeremy

W.U.F. 04-19-2009

It looks like today is going to be a beautiful day to work in the garden.  After 36 hours of rain, snow, and wind it will be great to be outside.  The birds have been singing loudly this morning driving the cats nuts.  They went out the door at 5:00 this morning.  What was supposed to be a huge blizzard turned out to be a weird mix of rain, snow, wind, and thunder.  On Friday at work I was pushing water out of the shop blizzard conditions with thunder.  It was quite surreal.

Carol a friend of ours is coming over to work in the garden with us this afternoon.  I have to weed the radishes and stack the bricks from our hidden brick path.  We have some new beds to plant.  We will be getting ready to transplant tomatoes and cabbage before too long.  We also have some pepper plants to transplant as well.  If I have time I am going to clean the rhubarb bed.  We have lived here four and a half years and we have never harvested the rhubarb.  That changes this year.  Next year we may have to separate it.

Thursday before the storm got here, Sy harvested and dried chives.  That is the second chive harvest this year.  Got to get those potatoes growing soon.

Random Thoughts by Syona 3.29.09

 Aloha!  It's only a few days 'til April, and the Vernal Meteorological Schizophrenia is upon us.  We just had a blizzard roll through here not 4 days ago, and the snow's already almost gone.  Windy and almost-warm, with a side of breeze.  

    Our weeds are sooo grateful for the snow.  Gosh.  While I do enjoy seeing my slice of winter-seared heaven turning green, all the greenery seems to be dandelions and tumbleweeds.  We just may try turning our hand at making some dandelion wine again this year.  The poor Chem-Lawn guy had fits driving past our yard a couple years ago, as our lawn was a lush sea of yellow; nothing but dandelions.  He finally knocks on the door, kindly offering his services, since our lawn was truly run over with these weeds.  Giving him my best "big, innocent b

lue eyes" act, he recieved an earnest, "Well, no, we're cultivating them."  When he (understandably) looked confused, I smiled brightly, "You can't make dandelion wine without the dandelions!"  He literally strangled out an incoherent reply, galloped back to his truck, and never returned again.  There's probably a prayer for me stuck to the side of some Chem-Lawn Gods shrine somewhere.  Poor guy.  

    We've got some creeping thyme seed.  This year, our Circle is finally going to be finished.  This project (our Sacred Circle, complete with altar) has been in progress for nearly five years.  The Quarter and Cross-Quarter stones, when installed, were the first real change we made to our yard, our first "footprint," so to speak.  After such a long gestation, to finally see our first project coming near to fruition is thrilling.  We'll of course post pics along the way to keep ya'll up to date.

    Our peas are coming up.  Yay.  The berries are accused of making leaf, but so far we only have one suspect.  Inquiries are being made.  The chives all got their first haircut of the season, a brutal hack job committed by yours truly.  (Well, what did you expect - I never was good at cutting my own hair.)  Their shaggy manes lopped off the morning of the blizza

rd, Jeremy was concerned they'd be thrown into shock.  I however, was totally dismissive of his concerns.  "They're chives," I sniffed.  Well, it's now 4 days later, and these herbs have grown at least 2 inches.  2 of those 4 days, they were buried under 4 inches of snow.  Yeah, I'm real concerned for their tender lives.  They'll probably outlive the cockroaches.  (Jeremy is reading this as I write it, and grumbled.)

    I planted 3 new strawberries not a week before the blizzard, without hardening them off first.  Oops.  The enthusiasm of the rookie - they were in the ground a full day before I even thought about the hardening of our store-bought plants.  They are, fortunately, doing beautifully.  Jeremy is, as I write, reluctantly uncovering my new rosemary in the front yard.  In his words, "it's quite lovely."  Joy.

    My bathroom is the brightest and warmest room of the house.  So now my countertops are covered with seedling trays.  I can't tell you how giddy I am.  My formerly spa

cious and tidy sanctuary is now more organic than some of the yards in my neighborhood.  A

t least I enjoy the scent of moist, fecund earth.  

   Well, as usual, my conversation has nosedived into potty humor.  I'll let you go for now.  Talk at ya some more later.  

Sy;)