Greetings from the Garden! This CSA box has salad mix, spinach, turnip greens, freshly dug parsnips and gobo, carrots, potato onions, potatoes, and fresh herbs Field Notes. Ken is a busy guy: cleaning up, bed prep and planting. The peppers are coming up in the germination chamber and next he plants tomatoes. And there are other spring tasks. I volunteered to clean the stationary chicken coops so Ken can place broody hens and a clutch …
One of the many spring tasks is cleaning out coops. Although we use two portable coops most of the time, the older stationary coops are great spaces for broody hens, tiny chicks, and pesty young cockerels. This year I volunteered to take on the task. Fist Ken got me set us with open windows, doors and tools. As I filled first cart and then wheelbarrow, Ken shuttled them to the compost pile. Then we had …
This time of year Ken starts to wrap up making pottery. The call of the the many tasks awaiting him outdoors sounds more and more loudly. Yes, there is planting, and there is clean up, bed prep, getting out things put away last fall, repairs if necessary. And all the apples, plums, grapes, etc need trimming and pruning! Today Big Red appears to be helping!
Greetings from the Garden! This CSA box has onions, garlic, squash, carrots, parsley, salad mix, and the first spinach from the mobile high tunnel! Field Notes. The days are getting longer and we look toward next season. Ken has planted t onion seed – the first of the full season crops. This starts a succession of seed plantings and shifting from warm germination chamber to sunny window, to outside with protection to transplant. And the …
Greetings from the Garden! This CSA box has squash, onions, garlic, beets, carrots, potatoes, braising and salad greens, spinach. Field Notes. Transition time is here! Ken has planted the first full season crop – onions and celery and celery root. This starts the succession of plantings Meanwhile in the greenhouse we have spinach, some lettuce, turnip greens and chicory. Time to wrap up making pots and head outside! From the Kitchen. Here too, we are …
Each year Ken has early greens from hoopettes or greenhouses. We always celebrate this move from the germination cabinet’s shoots and winter salad mix to the green house. The spinach is usually the first to pop up. Ken picks leaf by leaf for a multiple harvest per plant at first. Later he will pull out the whole plants to thin and then as they fill in the spaces, whole larger plants …
Usually we have some late hatch cockerels that are too small to butcher in fall. So we watch them and the weather and when everything comes together it is “chicken population reduction day.” We also take out some older hens so there are enough birds to make the preparation and process worth it. Just before I left to visit my parents we butchered 20 chickens. Here is a photo of the final step of the …
Each year Ken plants onion seeds in February. When they come up, they are bent. And then like a magical green Rockettes kick line, they unfold. This, our first full season crop planting signals spring is coming. It makes me smile to see those onion shoots boing open each year. I am grateful – for the onion, for Ken, and for the lengthening days.
Each year I freeze some vegetables. In winter it is nice to have a taste of summer in the form of frozen berries or sweet corn or bell peppers, etc. I freeze a couple quart bags of blanched, chopped asparagus. Why? It makes GREAT cream of asparagus soup in February. Asparagus is considered a tonic for kidneys. Saute onion, add soup stock, herbs like thyme and tarragon and thawed asparagus. Run through blender, processor or …
Ken has been making mixing bowls. He started with the smaller bowls and then made some larger ones. Making bowls, like all pottery, includes several steps from mixing and wedging the clay to throwing the pot. Then, after it has dried some to a leather hard consistency, Ken trims the bottom of the pot – in this case large mixing or bread bowls. He shapes the bowl, and trims the …
