Pole Beans, Peas, Potatoes, and Ducks

This weekend we enjoyed more gardening.  We shredded up some newspaper and cardboard for our worm bin and checked on the residents.  They are abundant and happy - well, at least they didn't complain.  We also used the borrowed shredder for shredding more yard trimmings for the compost.  One bin was too wet and the other too dry.  Some compost swapping seems to have that all worked out now.  I FINALLY had the chance to trim some bamboo that we had cut prior into branch-less poles.  My plan is to use them as a trellis for the snap peas, which are sprouted and about 4 inches tall now.  The snow peas, which were ancient seeds, didn't sprout.  Happily, I recently got a seed shipment from Territorial Seed, so I planted Red Noodle Yard Long Pole Beans in their place.  We also replanted some limas from the bulk bin.  Only one sprouted prior and it looked so lonely.  But this is my first time to grow limas, and I'm surprised to tell you that lima bean pods are fuzzy.  Very cute.  I replanted the remainder of the ancient broccoli seeds that didn't sprout prior.  I figure if they are down to a 1% sprout rate, planting the whole envelope might do the trick.  Yes, I realize I could just throw them out, but my optimism takes over. 

I also planted two containers on our "garden table."  The first pot has Garlic Chives, Celeriac Brilliant, and Kohlrabi Kongo Hybrid.  The chives are an attempt at growing garlic flavor that ISN'T garlic so that I don't react to it.  We'll see.  The kohlrabi and celeriac I've never tasted in my life, but I was intrigued by them in the seed catalog.  The latter specifically said not to direct sow outdoors, but I did anyway.  Why?  They were in my hand and I was planting outside, not in.  That's my only defense.  The second pot is really a cardboard Amazon box.  Friend Sara had read that this was a container gardening option when one was too cheap for containers.  So into the cardboard box went the Radishes Cherry Belle and Carrots Napa Hybrid.

We harvested the remainder of our potatoes.  We got out another 2.5 pounds - these were all red ones except for one gold.  The gold one was kinda tucked into the shade of the mandarin orange tree so that plant didn't do as well.  While digging in the raised bed we saw lots of happy worms and one grub, which has now been put into the "pet grub" aquarium.  I feel like whenever we pull anything out of the ground we outta add something back in before replanting.  Since we had no finished compost or fresh worm castings ready, I added worm castings from a bag before planting three squares of Spinach Erste Ernte (that must mean something... but what?), Lettuce Bullet Green Romaine, and Lettuce Green Deer Tongue Loose Leaf.  These three I selected for their relative tolerance for heat stress, as I recall.  Or maybe I threw I dart. 

On the topic of potatoes, one gets dire warnings about only planting seed potatoes and not those from the store.  I got mine from the farmer's market and from organic bags at the grocery, cut them up and planted them.  They did fine.  Perhaps with repeated plantings in the same area, seed-specific potatoes are more important.  I did save some tiny potatoes off the plants in a brown bag for next spring's plantings.  For the effort, potatoes are way cheap, but hey mine are organic and they are so much fun to dig out.  I love the surprise!

Did I tell you what we did with some of the grubs that had inhabited the "pet grub" aquarium?  This week, I took DS and DD to a woman's house (Kim) about 30 minutes away to get duck eggs from her free range ducks.  It took some convincing to get DS to be willing to bring the grubs as a gift for the ducks, but talking to him about needless suffering vs. happy life/quick ending did the trick.  Once he was on board with the grubs going, he seemed happy to pack them up into the jar with the air holes, which he held in his lap (along with this snack - yuck!) all the way there.  We also brought Kim some chard form the garden and extra egg cartons.  Since we arrived with such generous gifts, she gave us the $4/dozen duck eggs for free!  What a deal!  And DS even came back with a jar full of feathers and one acorn.  We learned all sorts of great things about ducks (the girls quack loudly and the boys mumble soft quacks).  DS was so excited about seeing them and her horses, dogs, tortoises, and fish.  As soon as we got home, he drew several pictures of the adventure.  We haven't tried the duck eggs yet.  I'm allergic to chicken eggs but have heard that sometimes people with chicken egg allergies can be ok with duck eggs.  I'll let you know when I get up the nerve to give it a try.

No pictures this week.  It is way too late, and I'm rambling.  Happy gardening!

Fresh Mint Tea - How hard can it be? A dumb blond joke.

So there is this blond who wants a recipe for making ice...  I think the joke went something like that.  Well here's another joke along those lines, but it is for real.  I've got fresh mint growing in a pot (I'm smart enough to use a pot) on the patio.  Every time I try to make sun tea or boiled tea with the fresh mint (combo of peppermint and spearmint) it ends up really bitter.  Adding honey doesn't mask the bitterness.  Honestly, how hard can it be to make fresh mint tea?  What on earth am I doing wrong?  Should I be using leaves only?  I can't believe that it really has to be dried first to taste good, but I haven't tried drying it yet.  Advice?  Trader Joe's mint tea ingredients reads: Peppermint leaves.  Can't be too tough.

Robeez shoes MIA

Several months ago one of my slippers went missing.  I eventually found it stuffed between my 4 yo son's trundle bed and his mattress.  I had also lost a single Robeez shoe of DD's.  I am saddened to report that I STILL haven't found it.  AND just last week, we lost another single Robeez shoe.  The first was lost somewhere between the changing table and the car.  The second was lost somewhere between the baby's room and my bedroom (not very far at all!).  DS denies involvement and a cursory search of his usual hiding spots has turned up nothing.  Good thing I keep buying Robeez for $2-3 a pair at garage sales!  Uuugggh kids!  The chaos!

Navy Bean Pilaf

Source: My brain!  I was trying to recall the taste of Near East Lentil Pilaf and this recipe came to me as a complete thought yesterday.  How weird is that?  I wrote it down and made it today.  Unlike many of my bean dish experiments, this was really good!

1/2 c dried beans - I used Navy.  Soaked overnight - ok, I soaked them nearly 24 hrs by the time I got around to them.  Drained/rinsed.
1/2 c wild rice
2 c water
1/2 t onion powder
1/2 t onion flakes
1/4 t salt
1/8 t black pepper
1 carrot, grated REALLY fine

Cook in a saucepan, simmering until all water is absorbed.
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I love leftovers, so next time I'll make 2-4 times this recipe and try it in the crockpot on low for 8 hours.

November Planting and Harvest

Today we did more gardening.  Happily, we finally got some drip line to more vegetable garden.  I planted the pots and one box that I put on my garden table in a sunny spot.  Today's seeds were: Lettuce Mesclun Gourmet Baby Greens, Chives, Dill (from 2002), Parsley, Broccoli Earth Gems (2002), Turnip Purple Top White Globe, and Beets Detroit Dark Red.  The ones without dates are 2009, so I hope they'll be ok. 

We planted black eyed peas this year from the dry bulk bin.  I mostly used them for green beans in the newer bean phase, sometimes for greens to cook, but some of the beans got away from me.  Today I picked all of the dried bean pods and gave them to DS to shuck.  He did a great job and was quite proud of the haul.  In all, we had about 1/2 cup of dried black eyed peas.  Not a ton, but a fun project and good fine motor skill practice for DS.  I have them soaking now to cook tomorrow.

I finally harvested the much talked about, enormous, mutant butternut squash.  This puppy weighs in at a whopping 7.5 pounds!  That is a lot for a butternut squash.  It is also pictured here with the kids for scale, plus our store-bought squash and pumpkins.  I love gardening!  It is so great to feed the family real food that I know exactly where it came from!

Garden update and Halloween

Of last week's snap peas and snow peas ONE has sprouted so far.  Not an overwhelming yield yet.  Today I managed to plant six cloves of elephant garlic near the peas.  Also I put in the ground a basil plant and a cilantro plant that I bought about a month ago.  They'll probably be happier in the ground.  A couple months ago I acquired a table that a neighbor was sending to the landfill.  Today I moved it into a sunny spot and chose some pots to put on it.  A friend (hi Sara!) had told me about reading that one could container garden in cardboard boxes.  So, what the heck, I selected a Amazon box to try planting in as well.  DD woke up from her nap before I was able to assess our potting soil supply and decide what I wanted to plant.  One thing I've got to put in is some lettuces.  The lettuce I planted in September hasn't come up at all.  I think the spot is too shady in fall/winter.

I cooked a meatloaf in a halved pumpkin for Halloween dinner.  It turned out pretty well, but next time I'll season it differently.  I was pleasantly surprised how nicely the pumpkin cooked up, though.  Tonight we did the trick or treating thing with DS as a pirate and DD as a ladybug.  DS loved talking with the neighbors and got the hang of knocking, saying "trick or treat", choosing candy/toy, "thank you," "happy Halloween," and "have a nice night."  Since he can be reserved when meeting new people, the process of trick or treating is actually a great learning experience for him.  And this year we filled our bowl with a bit of candy and mostly Halloween gizmos (pumpkin erasers, pencils, kazoos, pumpkin straws).  We left the bowl out when we were trick or treating and came back to a well-depleted bowl and no vandalism, so it seems to have gone over pretty well.  I prefer the little toys to candy.  At least it isn't junk food.  But it is mostly made-in-China, destined-for-the-landfill sorts of stuff.  Does anyone else do something better?  Happy Halloween!

Swine Flu

Friends and family keep asking me about my take on the swine flu vaccine.  We've decided not to do the vaccine due to my concerns that it may have unknown side effects that we aren't yet aware of because it has been rushed to market.  My understanding is that the 1976 vaccine for swine flu was rushed to market and was associated with, but never proven to cause Guillain-Barre Syndrome.  Since this rare nerve disorder is understood to be partially autoimmune and we have Celiac Disease (autoimmune) in the family, we aren't going there.  We do the annual flu shots - 'cause having the flu is so crummy and I feel like the shots have decent safety records.  Most of the media reports I hear are that H1N1 has similar mortality rates as regular seasonal flu, but of course, more targeted to younger populations - likely due to some cross protection from a prior strain that circulated.  Today I went surfing on the CDC to find the mortality rate data.  Sadly, I didn't find exactly what I was looking for - # of deaths per 1,000 cases.  If you find that data, I'd like you to send me the link.  I did find this interesting chart regarding the flu deaths.  This season's curve doesn't look so bad yet, until you realize that this is only week 41 and that the other week 41's aren't really even on the upslope of the curve.  We all know that this swine flu continued through the summer (you can see that in pink in the graph above) and is getting going again early this season - but wow - the curves really say a lot.  If you add a normal flu season onto this swine flu curve, it is going to be pretty big.  Yikes!  I hope I'm making the right decision.  I realize that it is highly likely that our family will get the swine flu and feel terrible with it.  I just hope we won't have any serious consequences from it, like the side effects I fear from a rushed vaccine.  All our schools around here have LOTS of H1N1, include DS's preschool as of this week.