Gerlach Garden Journal

Food In Jars

noreply@blogger.com (BILL GERLACH) — Sat, 30 Jan 2010 19:57:00 +0000

Sharing a great blog Sara found this week. There are hundreds (if not thousands) of fantastic food blogs out there, but Food In Jars is all about one thing I hope to do a better job at this season: Canning.

From recipes to how-to's, Food In Jars has definitely got me thinking about spring.

Anyone order seeds yet?

Looking Ahead to 2010

noreply@blogger.com (BILL GERLACH) — Fri, 01 Jan 2010 02:08:00 +0000

I admit, the Gerlach Garden Journal has taken a back seat to other things over the past six months, but so it goes. I wrapped up my MBA, we had our third child, Bodhi, and before you knew it, it was 15-degrees outside and just about New Year's Eve.

What better time to start thinking about the garden, right?

Well, just when thoughts of sifting compost and digging in the dirt seem the farthest away, a few seed catalogs magically appear in your mailbox to kick-start those daydreams again. Today we received Johnny's Selected Seeds (Maine) and Territorial Seed Company (Oregon). I'm sure there will be others, but while we start flipping through the pages, let me lay out a quick 2009 wrap up and 2010 game plan:

2009 can be summed up in one word: Terrible. While we started seeds in February, my schedule between work and school delayed not only the bed prepping, but the transplanting and seed sowing process entirely. Aside from some lettuce, a few cukes, and bush beans, all else was a wash. The highlight of the season was our new strawberry and asparagus beds.

I'm optimistic that 2010 will be more productive. Here's the high-level plan:

Optimize the Raised Beds. With 262 square feet of formal raised bed space, I want to do a better job at maximizing the growing space. To accomplish this, we're going to do two things: Stick to a more "square-foot gardening" approach and focus on crops that can produce a lot in a little space. No more frivolous corn stalks here. We'll leave that and some other things to our local farmers.
Get Serious About the Fruit. First, we'll rip out the existing blueberry bushes. My error in planting them two years ago was putting in four of the same low bush variety. Very little growth has occurred. This year, we'll replace them with a mix of high bush varieties that have staggered fruit production. Beyond blueberries, I hope to get some more raspberry canes in and begin to reap some of the benefits of the strawberry patch we put in last spring. All this is with an eye towards a decent round of canning. I doubt we'll get there in 2010, but we'd like to remove an existing tree or two in the middle of the back yard to eventually make way for some dwarf apple trees.
Extend the Season. Last month, I picked up some used greenhouse panels through our local freecycle program. I want to use these to build some cold frames to enable us to grow greens and maybe a few other things throughout the fall and winter.

That's about it for now. I hope to keep this blog more current throughout the coming months. Until then, Happy New Year! Please feel free to share your plans for the new year too!

[Photo Credit: Our six-year-old son, Will, took this shot of a dragonfly hanging out on the cuke vines over the summer. I just love it.]

Who's Canning Now?

noreply@blogger.com (BILL GERLACH) — Sat, 19 Sep 2009 01:41:00 +0000

It's late summer here in RI. The nights are getting a bit cooler and the garden is starting its slow succumbing to Season's End.

Safe to say, it has been a lack-luster garden season for us: From a slow start in spring due to wrapping up my MBA program and the birth of our third child to the rains to the blight to the lack of free time to tend it with the care necessary to nurture a decent bounty.

We did get around to planting new strawberry and asparagus beds, canning some strawberry jam (fruit from Quonset View Farm in Portsmouth), trying our hand at some new crops -- onions and beets -- with less-than-stellar results, and continuing the dream of doing even more. Again, this thing of trying to grow a bit of our own food is a learning process, one that will go on season after season.

Alas, even if we had a so-so season, it's always great to hear stories of how others are churning out their own fresh food -- and then making it last through the long, cold days of winter. Check out this great interview from an episode of NPR's "The Takeaway" this week on how canning is going mainstream.

I can't tell you how much value I believe comes from the start-to-finish process of growing and savoring your own food: patience, sustenance, awareness of the interbeing of all things, teachable moments... the list goes on.

Here's wishing you a hearty bounty during these last days of summer.

(Photo Credit: Sara Gerlach)

Root Cellaring

noreply@blogger.com (BILL GERLACH) — Thu, 04 Jun 2009 21:00:00 +0000

I've been thinking about how we make what we grow last a bit longer. Last year, we had two random acorn squash plants sprout from seeds that weren't cooked enough in the compost pile. We were able to store away about four or five squash and ate them periodically through the late fall and early winter. In addition, we also canned some homemade pickles that Sara cooked up (a few of those jars are still left).

Since then I have been thinking about root cellars and other ways of storing our veggies. I picked up "Root Cellaring: Natural Cold Storage of Fruits and Vegetables" by Mike and Nancy Bubel at Essex Library and have been giving it a read through. There is material on everything from planning your garden for the right types of crops to root cellar designs to recipes for all those veggies you've stored away. The nice thing is that they offer designs for gardeners of all types who might live in places where the traditional basement abode is not practical.

I don't know how much we'll be able to store away, but I'd like to try my hand at it. This year, I think I'll focus on some winter squash, potatoes, and carrots. Of course, that assumes that the yield will be successful enough... that could be a pipe dream. Nothing ventured, nothing gained, eh?

I'm curious -- do you have a root cellar or know of someone who has? How have you made out?

For me, it's all part of this quiet, yet seemingly unyielding desire to be more self-sufficient even in the midst of suburbia; eat with the seasons more; slow down. Talk about a pipe dream...

Early June Update

noreply@blogger.com (BILL GERLACH) — Wed, 03 Jun 2009 21:11:00 +0000

Well, I finally feel like we're getting somewhere in the garden. Lots of activity over the past few weeks. Here's the run-down:

WHAT'S (TRANS)PLANTED

With three out of the four new beds built and two of those actually loaded up with our homegrown mix of soil, compost, peat moss, and leaf mold, we're getting some stuff in the ground. I still take a somewhat neurotic and structured approach to the planting plan as I continue to learn and experiment with things like succession planting, companion planting, etc. It's a hodge-podge mix of rows, square-foot blocks, and seed casting. Here is what's in:

First round of yellow onions were planted in the wide space in-between our strawberry rows. I plan to drop more in every few weeks.
First rows of silver queen corn. Four rows of 8 in the first quarter of our 8x4 beds. I plan to drop another quarter bed's worth every two weeks until it's full. This might be tight in terms of spacing but I felt I could have planted more last year.
All kinds of lettuce including a few transplants of butterball I forgot I started indoors about a month back. I planted a bunch of spinach in the same bed but that's been slow to sprout. Too late?
Most of the tomatoes are transplanted between our beds and a bunch of pots on the deck. I always do more than I need as I end up giving some away. Beefsteak, yellow, roma and cherries. Should be a good yield, especially since we're trying to freeze (or can?) some sauce away this season.
I've thrown some sugarsnap peas in for kicks. Going to see if it is still cool enough to grow.
Sara's new herb garden. See the pics below. Lots going on here: Basil, flat leaf parsley, mint, rosemary, lemon balm, lemon verbena, thyme, oregano, sage, pineapple sage and tarragon. We just received a few varieties of cilantro courtesy of Sara's mom that still need to get in the ground. (You can also see our concord grape on the side of the steps. This went in last year and has come back fantastically this year. Ultimately, I want to trellis it up somewhere in a more proper fashion. I can't wait to try our hand at jam...)

UP NEXT

Hopefully, this weekend I can build that last bed, fill the empty ones and get some more stuff in the ground. The plan is to:

Transplant some broccoli and eggplant of varying ages that were grown from seed a few weeks apart
Get potatoes in. I'm going to try some of those spuds from Samson's Farm in Westport (that I think we bought at Lee's) that I've let sprout a bit.
Pole beans
First round carrots
Squash and zuchinni
Second round onions
Sunflowers that I hope to sell at the end of the driveway at some point

UPDATE ON ASPARAGUS AND STRAWBERRIES

Giddy up! All of the roots we planted have sprouted as evidenced by the pics below. I've back-filled most of the asparagus rows as the spears grow tall, albeit extremely slender. We'll let the asparagus take its course this season and wait to see if we get a few pickable spears next year. As for the strawberries, we'll de-flower them so they focus on root development. When the time is right, we'll clean up the off-shoots.

That's it for now. Thank goodness there is some green out there! Hope your gardens are getting on well.

Finally Something Planted!

noreply@blogger.com (BILL GERLACH) — Sat, 16 May 2009 21:19:00 +0000

Whew! Finally, we got the asparagus and strawberries in today. Between everything going on, especially our new baby boy, Bodhi, things are a bit behind.

We got our Jersey Supreme F1 asparagus and Jewel strawberries from Johnny's Selected Seeds up in Maine. I thought they arrived a tad early (first week in April), but then again, our schedule is way behind. We've kept everything moist in the meantime. The asparagus went in an existing bed in the northeast corner and we build one of what will be several new beds to hold the strawberries (see pics below).

The beds were dressed up with a heaping dose of leaf mold and freshly screened compost. What a pleasant surprise with the leaf mold. We have tons (and I mean TONS) of leaves and each year, I haul them back and make big huge mounds in the woods. I knew one day I'd use it. The pile I pulled from was from three years ago.

Here are some pictures of the asparagus crowns in the bed. I went down six or seven inches and placed the crowns on small mounds. Covered them up a few inches and voila, their in! Now we wait for shoots and the systematic back-fill of the soil.

With that done, I prepped the rest of the existing beds. Tomorrow I hope to plant a few different lettuces, radishes, and lots of spinach. I also need to get my peas in though without some of the additional new beds built, I might have to get creative. We'll see. In a few more weeks, I'll transplant the first round of tomatoes, get the cukes and first corn in, broccoli, peppers, beans, onions, and whatever else we have laying around.

How are your gardens going? You know what's amazing? I know of three people who are planting gardens for the first time this season. That is awesome and a testament to the growing awareness and dialog about good, local food. For me, it continues to be a learning experience: try, try again, and they try even more.

Here's to the start of the season!

Early Spring Update

noreply@blogger.com (BILL GERLACH) — Wed, 08 Apr 2009 00:40:00 +0000

With school just about finished, thoughts are gravitating towards two things: Our new baby that will be here in a few weeks and the garden. I can't show you pictures of the baby yet, so we'll have to settle for the new Tower of Growing Power.

With plans to expand the garden this year, we're starting more seeds. And with that, we needed a better solution to laying everything out on the kitchen counters. Enter this rack I pulled out of the basement. So far, so good. It gets ample southerly sun, so the spot is bright and warm.

What we have going so far in various two-week intervals: Four types of tomatoes (Beefsteak, Sweet Tangerine Hybrid [yellow], San Marzano [plum], and Sweet Snack Hybrid), Black Beauty eggplant, broccoli, and Buttercrunch lettuce. Can you tell we love the tomatoes? Honestly, the plan is to pump out lots of the San Marzanos to make and freeze lots of sauce. What ever is left will be doled out to friends and family.

At this point, we're waiting for the ground and air to warm up just a bit more. I want to see how early I can get the spinach to take. Until then, it will be preparing the existing beds and building the new ones. Oh, the rhubarb has sprouted too. And we ordered up some asparagus and strawberries which are set to deliver in early May.

I'm still trying to work out the layout and planting plans for the expanded garden. I have some traveling coming up, which will leave plenty of time for sketching on the plane.

Finally, I had one of those amazing compost experiences. Compost Die-Hards will know what I'm talking about. I turned the pile inside our Earth Machine and was knocked over by the heat and steam coming out of it. Awesome! In the next couple of weeks I'll screen the ready compost in the second pile (made of recycled pallets) and get it worked into the beds.

How are your gardens going? Any good stories to share?

Let the Planning Begin!

noreply@blogger.com (BILL GERLACH) — Sat, 03 Jan 2009 11:51:00 +0000

What a great morning! Just when I was starting to wonder if the seed catalogs were ever going to grace our mailbox, Sara surprised me with what was in yesterday's mail (over to the left). I love this catalog. It always gets the juices flowing and thinking in earnest about spring.

In short, this year's plan in to double the number of raised beds we have from five to ten, rotate beds for all of last year's crops, and introduce a bunch of new things. I'm sketching it all out now and will post pictures when complete.

Last year was such a learning experience. So this time around, we're eager to make good on our mistakes and take it from there. At a high-level:

More compost in the soil to improve density and water retention
Try to leverage trellises more to increase available growing space and yield.
More spinach (and planted earlier)
Better crop timing and succession
Trying to use one crop to improve another (e.g., growing lettuce and greens under the cucumber trellis during the warmer summer months)

Anyway, I'm off to start thumbing through the catalog. Here's to this year's garden!

Thinking About Apple Trees

noreply@blogger.com (BILL GERLACH) — Wed, 03 Dec 2008 01:33:00 +0000

Anyone have any experience growing dwarf apple trees in Zone 6 (New England)? We're thinking about putting a few in come Spring. I've checked out a few of the catalogs and the verdict is out. Optimal varieties would be good for storage, pies, and other tasty treats.

We definitely want to avoid the need to apply chemicals. Is this a pipe dream? We have several local orchards around but none are chemical free as far as we know.

Thanks for any advice!

[Image Source: http://www.allotment.org.uk/greenhouse/fruit/apple.php]

Reflections on the Season

noreply@blogger.com (BILL GERLACH) — Sun, 16 Nov 2008 22:51:00 +0000

Well, needless to say the summer got away from us. It's now mid-November and after a very rainy and windy weekend, I think all the leaves are finally on the ground. Thank goodness we borrowed a leaf sweeper attachment for the tractor. We accomplished in a few hours what it has taken months worth of weekend to rake up in the past. I'm seriously considering making a bonnafide compost windrow with the leaves as a base. Put that on the long list of projects to get to...

But for the garden we had a great first year. Good eats with a whole bunch of lessons learned along the way:

Tossing the peat pellet things for seed starting in favor of homegrown compost trays
Getting spinach in the ground (and lots of it) much earlier
Definitely planting bush beans to get an early crop of green beans (the pole beans were prolific!)
More roma tomatoes for sauces (and better tomato trellising all around)
Perhaps building trellises for the summer and fall squashes
More corn!
Looser soil for better carrot development

We'll definitely expand the number of beds -- maybe even double them. We're eager to try potatoes and onions; strawberries; artichokes perhaps; and an expanded herb selection. Also of interest is getting some dwarf apple trees in the ground. The kids just love those apples!

So while it's getting cold outside, we'll be seeing how long those compost piles stay warm and looking forward to the seeing the seed catalogs arrive in the mail. In the meantime, we'll try to keep some posts going as we find things of interest to share. Until then, here are some more photos from the season that Sara took:

Damage Control

noreply@blogger.com (BILL GERLACH) — Sat, 26 Jul 2008 11:39:00 +0000

Well, this morning the sun is steadily rising and the sky is a deep, endless blue. And the local radar confirms it! Couldn't say the same for earlier in the week. Wow, what a set of storms to roll through here. How did your garden make out?

We suffered a lot of wind damage with the corn and tomatoes taking the brunt of it. Today we'll be adjusting stakes and re-mounding.

I don't know if there is anything to do to prevent this. Perhaps a fence around your garden that's planted with something like peas or beans might act like a wind shield. Does anyone have any success with this or some other type of screen?

BTW -- picked up the first native tomato this week from one of the many roadside stands in town. One word: Mmmmm. Can wait for all ours to start ripening on the vine.

[Image: wjar.com]

Bee Well; Beetles Be Gone!

noreply@blogger.com (BILL GERLACH) — Tue, 22 Jul 2008 01:41:00 +0000

What a great weekend in the garden. More squash, zucchini, and cukes. Speaking of cukes, there was such a symphony of buzzing with all the bees doing their due diligence to help pollinate everything. Thankfully, we don't seem to be experiencing the same disappearing act that so many have witnessed with bees. It makes me want to explore bee keeping for the honey and wax (for candles). Anybody have any experience with that?

And what a year for the Japanese beetles! Out of control! They have taken a toll on our pole bean and sunflower leaves. Now they are moving on to the corn and concord grape. In maintaining our organic standards, we will not spray. Rather, it's a great activity for the kids to go around scooping them into a jar of soapy water. They love it!

Oh, by the way -- the Mystery Squashes have been identified. Both are acorn. Beautiful fruit blossoming. What a great surprise, we love them. And there should be plenty to store away for the fall.

When life gives you cucumbers...

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Fri, 18 Jul 2008 00:41:00 +0000

...make pickles? My mom and I spent the morning canning pickles, dill pickles to be exact. We used this recipe, my first attempt at the dill but second time around pickling. Next harvest: bread & butter (my favorite).

oh and mom - they all popped!

Rhubarb is In; Mystery Plants?

noreply@blogger.com (BILL GERLACH) — Thu, 17 Jul 2008 01:08:00 +0000

Over the last two weeks, we've bought a couple of rhubarb plants at the Sakonnet Growers Market. $4 -- you can't beat it. We've wanted rhubarb for years knowing that it will take a few seasons before you can really harvest (you just can't beat strawberry-rhubarb pie and jam from scratch!). We put the plants in a new area of the yard close to the raised beds; cut back some low-hanging branches for even more sun. Tons of compost in the holes. Now we wait.

OK, now for the mystery plants. First up, the Mystery Squash (at least it looks squash-ish). This was one of four plants to pop up out of the compost (didn't get hot enough to kill the seeds). Look at that "tail" coming off of it! Wish I had a trellis! See the fruit? Any idea what it's going to be?

Finally, the bane of my existence: This weed. You see it everywhere around here, especially on the sides of roads. It has crept -- more like assaulted -- this side of our yard. In a simple way, it reminds me of a spreading bamboo; it spreads via rhizomes under the ground. It grows 10+ feet high. No matter how much I pull the shoots or dig out the root 'balls', this thing keeps coming back with vengence. Not to be stymied, I've planted the pumpkin patch here hoping to drown it out. I pull dozens of shoots every day, trying to give the pumpkins a fighting chance.

Does anyone know what this is and how to eradicate it?

Mid-Season Kickoff

noreply@blogger.com (BILL GERLACH) — Wed, 16 Jul 2008 01:45:00 +0000

Welcome. It's the third week in July and the garden is in full swing. So we're a tad late in launching this, but that's OK. No better time than the present. Here's the highlight reel of activities so far this year:

MARCH -- After three summers and the sporadic pots of flowers and vegetables, we make the decision to go for the full-blown vegetable garden. Buy seeds and start tomatoes (roma and beefsteak), eggplant, broccoli, peppers.

APRIL -- Build four 4x8 foot (10-inch high) raise beds in the back yard. Fill with loam and homegrown compost that had been cooking all winter. Plant peas, spinach, and mesclun

MAY -- Plant more spinach and mesclun. Plant first crop of lettuce (baby romaine and buttercrunch); zucchini, summer squash, pattypan squash, pole beans, carrots, and cukes. In a different section of the yard, we plant four Jersey blueberry bushes and four raspberry vines. Lament over not getting any asparagus crowns to plant.

JUNE -- Transplant tomatoes (adding a couple of mounded beds to accommodate the volume), broccoli and a couple of rogue squash-looking plants sprouting from seeds left over in the compost; plant a few rows of silverqueen corn (this is a true experiment). Plant cauliflower, more carrots, and new peppers (the seedlings never took off). Harvest lettuces. In yet another section of yard, start a pumpkin patch with three different varieties. Cross fingers in hopes of enough sun hitting that patch...

JULY -- Keep everything going. Think about what more we could get in the ground for a late summer and fall harvest (beets anyone?). Buy a couple rhubarb plants from the Sakonnet Growers Market.

Whew... that was a lot. But now you're up to speed. Already so many lessons learned (lots of notes in a notebook).

We hope you enjoy some of the pictures...