June 9, 2009: The Beet Goes On!

The "beet" goes on, the "beet" goes on

Drums keep pounding a rhythm to the brain
La de da de de, la de da de da

The first quart of pickled beets of the year! I basically used the same recipe that I used last year, but increased both the beet cooking liquid and the sugar. In a week or two I'll let you know if I like it any better. I thought last year's recipe was a bit too vinegary.

*Important Note*

This recipe might be fine if you are going to refrigerate them and eat quite soon, but after reading the newer canning guidelines, it doesn't have a high enough vinegar to water ratio to be completely safe for canning.

Pickled Beets
makes 4 pints

24 small beets
2 cups cooking liquid (original recipe calls for 1 cup)
2 cups cider vinegar
2 cups cups sugar (original recipe calls for 1 - 1/2 cups)
2 Tbsp. salt (I used much less, about 1 tsp.)
6 whole cloves
1 (3") stick cinnamon
3 medium onions, sliced

Remove beet tops, leaving root and 1" of the stem. Cover with boiling water; cook until tender. Drain, reserving 2 cups liquid. Remove skins and slice or quarter larger beets (I left the small beets whole).

Combine reserved cooking liquid, vinegar, sugar and salt. Add spices, tied in cheesecloth bag (I just dump 'em in, bagless). Heat to boiling.

Add beets and onions; simmer 5 minutes. Remove spice bag.

I then poured it all into a clean quart jar, and it's sitting on my counter until cool enough to refrigerate. The aroma is delightful! It only made one quart, but there was a lot of pickling liquid left over.

June 9, 2009: Today's Harvest

6/9 7 oz. lettuce, 14 oz. onions, 33 oz. beets, 2 oz. strawberries. Beets & onions are trimmed weight. I also got a kitchen garbage can nearly full of trimmings for the compost pile!

Today's harvest added 3 pounds 8 ounces to the 2009 produce scale. Guess who's making pickled beets today!

Compost material.

June 8, 2009: Harvest to Date

I double checked my harvest total (to date) with my journal entries, and found I was over by just a few (13) ounces. The entry on my blog scale has been corrected. Here is what I have harvested so far, including the greens from the Arizona garden.

January Harvest: 0

February Harvest: 23.5 ounces = 1 pound 7.5 ounces

2/3 2.5 oz. lettuce
2/10 3 oz. (total) lettuce and spinach
2/16 5 oz. (total) lettuce, spinach and green onions
2/17 5 oz. (total) lettuce, spinach
2/25 6 oz. (total) lettuce and spinach and one (2 ounce) cucumber

March Harvest: 0

April Harvest: 8 ounces

4/28 6 ounces lettuce
4/30 2 ounces radishes

May Harvest: 216.5 ounces = 13 pounds 8.5 ounces

5/1 2 ounces garlic.
5/2 1 oz. sweet onion
5/3 3 oz. radishes
5/4 3 oz. radishes
5/5 13 ounces of spinach, 3 ounces lettuce, 2 oz green onions and 2 oz radishes
5/7 3 oz. (total) onions and radishes
5/11 8 oz. spinach, 5 oz. lettuce and 2 oz. onions
5/13 2 oz. garlic
5/15 10 oz. spinach, 6 oz. lettuce and 2 oz. green onions
5/19 5 oz. green onions, 14 oz. spinach, 9 oz. lettuce
5/20 6 oz. yellow onions
5/21 4 oz. green onions
5/23 7.5 oz. lettuce
5/25 2 oz. sweet onions, 26 oz. spinach
5/26 6 oz. (total) shallots, dill & chives
5/28 10 oz. lettuce, 6 oz. yellow onions and 3 oz. (total) basil & carrots
5/29 12 oz. lettuce, 2 oz. sweet green onions & 3 oz. strawberries
5/30 10 oz. mixed greens (lettuce & spinach) & onions
5/31 14 ounces spinach and 10 ounces sweet green onions

June Harvest: 106 ounces = 6 pounds 10 ounces

6/1 10 ounces lettuce, 1 ounce sugar snap peas, 3 ounces yellow onions
6/2 2 ounces strawberries & 9 ounces beets (trimmed weight)
6/3 6 oz. (total) onions & shallots
6/4 10 oz. lettuce, 2 oz. strawberries
6/5 20 ounces lettuce & 10 ounces snap peas
6/6 4 oz. strawberries & 8 oz. onions
6/7 10 oz. snap peas & 7 oz. onions
6/8 4 oz. onions

Now......if I have added and calculated this correctly, I have harvested a total of 22 pounds 2 ounces through today. I could have picked the leaves from the spinach that bolted today, and that would have added to the total. However, we decided to put them all on the compost pile, so I'm not counting their weight.

Those snap peas (6/7) were delicious in a shrimp stir fry! The others (6/5) were given to the boys to take home, along with big bags of lettuce and onions, for their salads.

June 7, 2009: The Garden in June

They say the grass is always greener on the other side of the fence. Well, the same thing applies to veggie gardens, so I stepped over to the neighbor's yard to take a photo of my back yard. I think my garden is prettier from her side of the fence because you can see the entire garden at once. I wish I had the nerve to get up on my roof to photograph it, like Liisa does with hers!

The view from Pat's yard.



Back on my side of the fence.



These carrots are maturing faster than the ones I planted earlier. I wish the nasturtium blossoms were more visible, but as usual they have more leaf than blossom.



The potato patch is still looking great.


The potatoes are blossoming now.


I'm going to have to stake Daphne's dill, it's getting so tall.



Dan's melons are beginning to tumble out of their barrel.



The peas are blooming now, seemingly unaffected by our recent heat wave.



The Purple Beauty peppers never did get large enough to put out into the garden, so they are potted by the patio with the impatiens. I doubt they will give me much, if anything.



My favorite rose in all her glory, with thyme at her feet.



The squash patch. No blossoms here yet, and something is eating my sunflowers. The Blue Wave petunia in the tipsy pot has had all the blossoms chewed up.



Bird netting is keeping the strawberries safe. I had a bowlful for breakfast this morning, topped with vanilla yogurt, and they are really delicious!



The wind blew my sugar snap peas over, but it didn't hurt the crop. I've had one good picking, and it's time for another.



I had to turn the tomato buckets around yesterday. I had the fill tubes in the back, thinking I wouldn't have to access them with the drip tubing in place. However, the largest plant takes more water than the others, so I was getting a lot of overflow before the big one was filled. Now I can reach Mr. Biggie with the hose to keep him satisfied. The marigolds are almost ready to bloom in this bed.



Look at my babies! I found five little ones on this Volvograd tomato plant. This is one of the plants I thought I was going to lose.



The basil has finally begun to grow. I've snipped a couple of sprigs so far, and used them in lasagna.



Look's like we'll be eating broccoli from EG soon!



The first cabbage is almost ready for cole slaw! I didn't think my brassicas had a chance of maturing, but they fooled me. I still don't think I'll get any cauliflower, but all the broccoli and cabbage that survived cutworms are doing well.

The garden shed is coming along, albeit much slower now that John can only spend evenings and weekends on it. He got a lot done yesterday, so I can begin painting once I've finished priming the bare wood, filling nail holes, etc. He's working on the doors today. If you think the windows look a bit off, there is a big (gets very tall) rose bush to the left of the long, narrow window, so we had to place the window accordingly. The other window is a bit low, as I had John put it in according to my height, not that of a 6' man. It's perfect for me to rest my elbows on while gazing at the garden.

June 6, 2009: Mini Post

Between garden shed and graduation, it's been pretty busy around here. I just wanted to bring to your attention the fact that tonight, with 4 ounces of strawberries and 8 ounces of onions, my 2009 harvest just went over 20 pounds!

Bigger blog and photos tomorrow.

June 2, 2009: New Garden Shed (Part 5) and This & That

John insisted on Hardie Board siding, which cost $$$, weighs a ton and will outlive us. It took three grown men to hoist up a single panel of this stuff. There is a window to the left of the half-covered doorway, but it has to be cut out with a diamond bladed saw (as does the doorway). These are 4'x8' vertical panels, which will be accented with horizontal lap siding on the peaks. The tomatoes that are in those 5-gallon buckets will go along the west wall if they don't get too large to move by the time the building is finished and painted!

This little bee has too much thyme on his hands ;-)

The first beets of the season! Oh, my, they did taste good. They added 9 ounces to the harvest total. I trimmed off the leaves before weighing them, as they were inedible because of the leaf miner damage.

I love this rose. It's a lovely coral color, but looks pink in the photos. It's a floribunda, and will be absolutey covered with blossoms soon. I think I planted this about 18 years ago, and it has never failed to perform beautifully.

June 1, 2009: The New Garden Shed (Part 4)

Today John finished the roofing and he and Scott put up some more OSB on the front and side. John read my blog comments, so he knew I wanted the mess cleaned up so I could water the lawn. They did the cleanup and then called it a day.

John waves "Hi" to all of "his followers".

June 1, 2009: Garden Blogger's Death Day

Kate and Crew from Gardening Without Skills has declared this to be....

So, in the name of full disclosure, following are some examples of my gardening imperfection.

You've already met my "sick tomato". It is now a dead tomato.


Well, technically not dead, but I don't think there's a chance it will be bearing any tomatoes!



Most of my carrots are gorgeous. What happened here?



Nobody's going to be eating these beet greens :-(

If I'd known about Death Day, I'd have shown real death. I just pulled out two deceased brassicas. Next time I'll photo the evidence.