HFM

The garden continues to be out of control with abundance. Amanda was over last night, & agreed that the pictures on this blog just don't do it justice. Here's another attempt to show how enormous the collards are, by putting my foot in the photo: Does that help? Meanwhile, as usual, Zoey helped me with garden work on Saturday. Here she is, kindly holding a butterfly on her tail: In other news, the sauerkraut is finished! Since it was such a warm, sunny day today, we decided to have some on hot dogs, with macaroni salad: This what Adrienne thought of the sauerkraut: Thanks again, Susie, for teaching me how to make this delicious sauerkraut!

Last June, I wrote about my struggles with cabbage moths/worms & powdery mildew . I picked cabbage worms & eggs off the collards & brussels sprouts as diligently as I could all summer, but I just wasn't able to get out there often enough to stop the little guys from destroying the plants. We didn't eat a single collard last year. Knowing that I won't have a lot of time during the week this year, either, I have turned to industry! There is a kind of bacteria that only attacks cabbage worms that you can spray on the leaves, & let me tell you, it's really working some magic -- we are barely keeping up with the harvest. And best of all, this is considered appropriate for organic gardening because it is only toxic to the cabbage worms -- it won't destroy everything other bug that happens to be around, & it's non-toxic to humans or other animals. As for the peas, this week I saw the first signs of powdery mildew! Again, I am turning to industry. Th...

Today, three important things happened: we ate the first pea pod, Zoey got a new outfit, & I put the rose wine into jugs to start fermenting. First, here is Zoey's fancy new leather collar: On to the wine! When we last left our hero, it had been boiled, stirred, & left to sit for 4 days to gather wild yeast:   Today's first job was to strain out all the rose petals & fruit: Then squeeze as much liquid out as possible: I tasted the liquid -- fragrant sugar water! I also tasted the fruit & it was delicious, but obviously beyond sweet, having steeped in sugar water for four days. After that step, it went straight into the fermenting jugs: The corks & airlocks went on: And off it went to ferment for three months: I put it on top of the fridge, with its sauerkraut brother. It's going to be a long three months.

This weekend, I learned to make sauerkraut from my good friend & fellow fermentation hobbyist Susie. Here we are at her house, chopping & salting the cabbage, & packing it into a big jar: The salt draws out the water in the cabbage, & makes a big delicious briny solution for the fermentation. It gets weighed down beneath the surface of the brine by a bottle that fits into the jar: It needs a little attention each day, but basically that's all there is to it. In one week, we will have a ton of delicious sauerkraut! Susie also lent me a very good fermentation technique book that has a recipe for hard cider, which we may make later in the summer. While looking at the instructions for that, a recipe for flower wine caught my eye. My grandmother had a coworker who used to make dandelion wine; apparently you can make wine with just about any flowers, including roses. The rose bushes in the back are full of blooms past their prime, so I thought, why not? What else am I doi...

After some ridiculously hot weather for the past two weeks (ok, 70's), the garden is very happy. The pumpkin sprouts are beginning to come up: The swiss chard sprouts are up: The plants from first sowing of peas are already 8 feet high -- up to the top of that wooden pole here: And the first pea pods have appeared: I realized that it's probably hard to get an idea of how big the plants are, because I don't ever think to include anything in the photos to give a sense of scale.  Here are the collards, with my Sunday paper in the shot: Radishes, carrots, lettuce, & paper: Spinach, beets, favas, & paper: Long shot of the favas, collards, & paper: The pea plants coming up through the roses looks pretty good, as I had hoped! It's hard to see, but there are white roses behind the peas, along with this snowball plant: The other roses are also in bloom: Including Adrienne's nemesis teacup rose bush: I'm not sure what that rose bush ever did to her, but she su...

Zoey's foster mom suggested I start a blog to chronicle our misadventures with jogging with month. Here it is, if you're interested:  http://joggingwithdog.blogspot.com/ Mama O'Brien has requested video of Zoey running, & it's definitely a cute thing. Video of Zoey running will probably automatically include video of me running, though, & that's more of an awkward, ungainly thing. We'll see what we can do.