The Modern Victory Garden

The Modern Victory Garden site and blog was quiet all of last week because I was in Washington DC on business.   Upon returning, I found a backlog of urgent items to attend to - both at home and at work.   Consequently I have barely been out to the garden in about a week's time and am desperately looking forward to the coming weekend.   The good news is that it will be a long one for me as I have Monday off from work (Columbus Day) and I do not have any appointments or commitments to keep so the weekend is mine.   I intend to make good use of the time and not only get some garden and home time in, but to also get out and enjoy the fall colors.   Our local trees have turned color virtually overnight this year.                             

One of the tasks I want to get to this weekend is to pick the sugar snap peas (Cascadia) and harvest the saved seed.    A while ago, I cut the plants from their roots but left the vines on the support structure to encourage them to finish the drying down process.   It has been almost two weeks since I did that and the pods and vines appear ready to be removed.                     

I will shell the seed peas and let them dry out of the pod for another week or more before packaging them up for storage.    I have runner beans and bush beans that I am also hoping to save seed from.   Unfortunately, the plants do not seem to want to dry down and the rainy season is fast approaching.   I will assess the progress of these plants this weekend and if they are far enough along, I will do a similar root pruning process to encourage the final dry down process.                   

You may recall that early last spring (mid March) that I added several new fruit and berry plantings to my garden to expand the fruit production.     These additions were only possible because I expanded the total size of the garden, which provided room to add more perennial plantings.   Specifically, I added more rhubarb (2 plants - Valentine), a whole new bed of strawberries (32 plants - Ozark Beauty), a raspberry patch (10 bare root plants - Heritage), bush pie cherries (10 bare root plants - Hansen), and a bed of cranberries (8 plants - Stevens).   Most all of these plantings are doing really well.   The only losses I incurred were that 4 of the 10 raspberry plants never broke dormancy and I will need to replace them.   I may check my local nursery this weekend to see if they carry plants of this variety so I can do a fall planting.   If not, I will order some next spring and do the replacement process.   The raspberries that did make it are producing their first light crop right now.   Not a one is making it into the house to be weighed though - as we just eat them right in the patch.   The bush pie cherries have gotten a good start and are turning into healthy bushes.           

They should produce their first harvest next year.   The cranberries and rhubarb plants have also gotten a really good start and should be providing their first harvest next year as well.   The new strawberry bed is robust and has already provided me with fruit in their first year.                            

All in all, the additions are poised to add quite a bit of fruit production for me in 2010.                                                     

Things I am hoping to get done this weekend include:

• Harvest sugar snap pea seed, shell, and begin drying
• Possibly root prune the bush bean and runner beans - seed saving
• Mix the compost piles
• Water the container plantings
• Fertilize and lime the lawn
• Clean the wood stove chimney/stove pipe
• Clean the gutters out

Are you planning to work in the garden this weekend?

Thursday night was another evening spent canning produce I purchased while traveling back from Spokane this past weekend.   This time it was the box of pears.   They were quite green when purchased (purposely chose green fruit so that I had more time to get to them) and they had ripened up nicely to the point of being perfect on Thursday.               

We reserved out a few for fresh eating, and the rest were peeled, quartered, and the cores/seeds cut out.   These were then heated in light syrup until hot and then packed into quart jars and processed in my water bath canner.   Pears cut into quarters pack pretty tightly into the jars and so I ended up with 7 very full quarts of pears from the box along with a few fruits reserved for fresh eating.      

I expect that this will be the last canning effort for this season.   I have lots more produce that will be preserved by freezing (the last of the corn & pumpkins (puree)), but I am not planning to can anything else at this point.   I had intended to do some regular dill pickles but the pickling cukes, while still producing, are not generating enough at any time to make processing worth my while.   We have been just using them fresh instead along with the slicing cucumbers.   Everything else in the garden is either intended to be used fresh and/or overwintered in the garden or stored by dry cellaring.        

I have a good supply of frozen, dry storage, and canned items that will supplement the garden's fall and winter harvests.   We prefer fresh produce from our four season harvest garden so I do not need huge amounts of preserved items - but we do need enough to fill in during the low periods of produce availability and to add more variety to the menu.              

The fall and winter crops are in and growing well.  Many are already harvest ready.   The freezer is full and so is the pantry.   The firewood is stacked and dry.   We just have a few chores to attend to for winter prep (stove pipe/chimney sweeping and gutter cleaning).   With the summer preserving efforts largely completed, I can now spend more time in the garden itself - which is something I am looking forward to.     

How is your preserving efforts going for this year?

Last Sunday on the way home from my trip to Spokane, I stopped at the big produce barn in Thorp Washington and purchased a box each of peaches and pears.   The pears were quite green and need a few days to ripen.   The peaches were just perfect though, and needed to be preserved within a very short time frame.   Monday was just far too hectic at work to even consider getting away on time to tackle the peaches, so Tuesday evening (today) was the designated day for it.                        

Doing preserving efforts in the evening after a long day at the office requires really good organization skills and a little planning.   The first order of business is to ensure that the evening meal was prepared ahead of time to keep the schedule clear for the canning/freezing work.    I started some barbeque pork chops with diced potatoes in the crock-pot and prepped a large bowl of coleslaw that went into the fridge - before I left for work today.   The second thing that was necessary was to actually leave work on time.   That is harder than it sounds but I managed to accomplish it. 

After a fast meal of the sweet and spicy barbeque pork chops, potatoes, and coleslaw, the box of peaches was attended to.   First I processed some canned peach halves in light syrup.   Then I made a batch of peach jam.   Finally, I sliced up peaches, coated them with sugar, and packaged them in 5-cup amounts in gallon zip lock freezer bags.   I ended up with 7 quarts of the peach halves, 3 pints and 2 half pints of peach jam, and 2 gallon freezer bags with sweetened peach slices.   

The picture does not show the freezer bags of peach slices, as I rushed them into the freezer as soon as I could after packaging them up.   The 5-cup amounts per freezer bag are just the right amount for peach pie or for  peach cobbler.     

If all goes well, I plan to do a similar effort on Thursday to get the pears processed.   For now, I am glad to get the box of peaches done and I think the end results are "Just Peachy"!

Last night after work, I zipped over to HeidiH's place in nearby Silverdale and took her up on an offer of some Shiro plums from her overabundant tree.   I was rushing to pick them up and get home because I had tomatoes waiting for me that I wanted to can that evening.   With Heidi's help, I was able to pick quite a lot of them and get on my way quite quickly.   It made for a short visit with Heidi but I did get the opportunity to do a tour of her planting beds and admire her corn patch.   Take a look at this nice bounty!    

Big thank you to HeidiH for her generosity!   I intend to use some of these tomorrow to make some plum jam.   Have not quite made up my mind what else I want to do with them beyond that.                                 

After I got home from the plum picking, I immediately set to work canning the tomatoes that had been accumulating for the past several days.   The return of  some warmer weather really accelerated the tomato ripening process.   The Stupice, Legend, Siletz, and the one and only Celebrity plant are now producing abundantly.   I also harvested the first ripe Viva Italia (sauce) tomatoes over the past few days as well.   With last night's picking added to the growing pile, I ended up with about 19 pounds to work with.   Thinking this was probably just enough for a full canner of quart jars,  I decided to do these on a week night and get them attended to while still in good shape.   The good news is - that there was not only enough for 7 quart jars, but also enough to do a small batch of salsa (4 pint jars).   The bad news is - that I did not plan on doing two canner loads of processing on a work night and with a late start at that!   It was extremely late by the time I wrapped up and laid my weary head on the pillow.   However, cooling on the kitchen counter while I slept (briefly!) were the rewards for my effort.             

Tonight I purposefully made the evening more leisurely and have chosen to ignore the plums until Saturday morning.   My evening harvest consisted of some Red Cloud potatoes ... 

... some carrots and a couple of pickling cukes that needed to come off the vine before they got too large, and another couple of pounds of ripe tomatoes which I failed to take a picture of.                              

The good news is - that the Stupice, Legend, Siletz, and Celebrity tomatoes are producing well for me.   The really bad news is - that my Viva Italia tomatoes have a clear case of blight and are going down fast.   I picked from these plants just two days ago and again last night and noticed some developing problems at that time.   But tonight it is clear that the disease is advancing rapidly and the plants are deteriorating at an alarming pace. 

(sigh)                                                                       

I should be able to salvage the fruit that has already broken color and is not sporting the watery lesions yet - but it will be a pitifully small amount.   The recent abrupt change in our weather from freakishly warm and dry, to cool and wet (practically overnight) probably has a lot to do with this.   Unfortunately, blight is an ever-present problem in the rainy coastal Pacific Northwest.   While the remaining tomatoes are producing well for me, without the sauce tomatoes there will never be enough to put up a sufficient supply of preserved tomato products.   I think my family will stage a rebellion if we go two years in a row with minimal tomatoes preserved - so I  am going to have to break down and go to the local farmers market to purchase some tomatoes to supplement mine for preserving purposes.  

I have just not had any luck with sauce tomatoes since moving to this side of the Cascades.   They tend to be mid to late maturing varieties and only early cool/tolerant varieties do well in this region.   I may have to just quit trying to grow them and limit myself to the tried and true varieties that have performed for me despite our challenging growing climate.                   

I am feeling sad about this, but everything else in the garden is doing so well that I have to keep this in perspective. It's one variety of one crop (so far).   By not dwelling on the disappointment and staying in the "thinking" gardener mode, I can consider what I might do differently to minimize this potential in the future.   Death and disease in the garden are part of the package.  I just want to keep it as minimal as possible - especially when it comes to my tomatoes!

For those that may not be familiar with Matron's website "Down on the Allotment" - you might want to check it out.    Her writing is fresh and funny and her garden skills and knowledge are quite impressive.   She has been inspired to host a cyber version of the local county fair / agricultural contest.   To enter you must take a photo of six uniform items (same size & color) arranged on a plate or lined up on a bench, and then submit your entry by email to Matron at Ahhmatron@aol.com.   She will be judging these on July 14th and her decision is final.                 

I know Dan from the Urban Veggie Garden Blog has submitted a particularly nice looking plate of garden peas.   Personally, I was holding out to do a plate of Modern Victory Garden strawberries but I have been unsatisfied with the uniformity of what has been ripening together at any one time.   I have been harvesting about a half pound of strawberries a day - but they vary so much in size and shape that I can never get six really uniform specimens in any given day!    So tonight, I decided to go to plan B and chose to exhibit young Mokum carrots instead.                        

You'll notice that I could not decide whether to show them lined up on a bench or displayed on a plate - so I did both!             

It really is a bit of a challenge to get six of anything to mature at the same time, and have them all be "uniform" in appearance.   I think this is a clever and fun event that Matron is hosting and would encourage you to participate with your own garden's produce.

You may recall back in mid March that I posted about planting a bunch of "sticks and twigs" - referring of course to some bare root nursery stock of strawberries, raspberries, bush pie cherries, and potted cranberries.   With the exception of four raspberry plants, all of the various fruit and berry additions for 2009 have long ago broken dormancy and have taken off.   Six of the ten  raspberries are coming along nicely, but unfortunately I did have four of them that did not come out of dormancy and are going to have to be replaced.   I am hoping I will be able to purchase another four "Heritage" replacements from my local nursery this fall to fill in the gaps created by these non-starters.   The bush pie cherries are .... well....bushing out!... and even had a flush of flowers in late May.   Not sure if they will produce a light harvest or not this year (it's possible with these plants) but I am pleased with their vigor and I am looking forward to next year's pie cherry harvest.   The strawberries are flourishing, and the cranberries are putting on lots of new growth.   I have used some earth staples to peg some of the longer arching branches of the cranberries to the soil. This encourages rooting of these "runners" and helps develop a thick ground cover of cranberry plants.   The older bed of "Ozark Beauty" strawberries is producing steadily right now. We are picking about 1-½ cups (approximately ½ pound) about every other day. The "Tri-Star" strawberries (in the front ½ whiskey barrel planters) are loaded with fruit too, but are about two weeks behind the first group.   This works out pretty well because the harvest is more steady, and staggered out over a longer period of time.   Tonight I picked a full bowl of strawberries and some large lettuce leaves to go on our hamburgers for dinner.   The berries were quickly raided by my husband as I walked back into the house with them - so this picture shows about half of what was originally picked!                 

Two other crops that are coming on strong right now are the zucchini and the shelling peas.   We have harvested baby zucchini (both gold and green) twice now in less than one week's time.                        

The shelling pea pods are fattening up and will soon be ready for the main  harvest. The variety I am growing is "Dakota" which produces a heavy pod set pretty much all at one time so you can easily freeze or pressure can them.   I think these are going to be at their optimum size for picking right before the Fourth of July weekend.                                      

The pea patch is loaded with produce and I am really curious to see how many pounds of peas I get from the first big harvest.

Over the course of Thursday (January 1st) through Saturday (January 3rd) - I was able to get out into the garden for a least a couple of hours each day to make progress on site prep work.  While out and about I took a picture of the "January King" cabbage.   I was unsure how it had fared with the deep freeze and heavy snows of December - but it seems to be growing well and forming nice heads!  There is only three of them planted in this section - but they seem to be holding up to the foul weather despite not having been provided any protection at all.  

Friday and Saturday were particularly productive because I spent each of these days working in an area adjacent to the main garden beds - clearing brush, felling small trees, and removing the lower limbs of some of the larger trees.   I probably have another 2 to 3 more hours of work to do in this area to finish limbing up the two biggest trees in that area.   The product of all this work is greater sunlight exposure during the morning hours for the upper portion of the garden.  Hopefully I will be able to finish this work up next weekend.   Once this is completed, I will move back to the garden expansion project area and return to the task of removing the stumps and roots left behind from the clearing work we did late last fall.    If all goes well, I will get the garden site prep work completed by no later than the end of February.  This gives me the month of March to get the beds constructed in the new garden area.   

I got serious this weekend about planning and budgeting for the construction of new beds in the expansion area.   I walked off the general location of beds and found I can comfortably fit three 4'X24' beds plus one 2'X16' (vertical grow bed), plus a 6'X16' flat growing area (not raised bed) for growing sprawling crops like squash and pumpkins and a new raspberry patch area    In addition to creating these new planting areas, I am planning to put a retaining wall/bed around the area I grew the squash in last year.   It's a good growing area but has a steep slope that needs to be contained.     I priced various materials to make the beds with and have concluded it would be most economical (both short term and longer term) to do the new beds in concrete blocks for the edging.   

Today I did not go out into the garden at all other than to pick carrots for tonight's dinner.   I was pretty dang tired and sore after all the physical work I did on Friday and Saturday and decided it would be good to give myself a break.   I did not lose the day today entirely though.   I updated my garden layout schematic (done in Word using the drawing tools) to add the new beds being created.   I then saved it off to a 2009 garden layout file and began filling in what was to be planted and where for the main spring/summer garden.  I am gaining a lot of growing area with the new beds.   However, I am planning to plant perennial crops in some of the existing older bed areas so it is not a complete gain for annual garden crops.    One of the items I am planting in the older beds are 3 bush pie cherry plants.   I am also adding a second full bed of strawberries, a section of rhubarb, and a small bed of cranberries.    

I am hoping January and February are productive months in getting the new areas ready for planting and getting the first seeds started for the 2009 garden.   I am done with my annual seed, nursery stock, and supplies purchasing and ready to get underway with the "doing" part of the process. 

Happy gardening everyone!