Green Amid the Gray

I think I did a post like this last year...it's always this time of year when the gray and the rain all become too much and I go actively searching for green growing things to hold me over until we start to get a few signs of spring outside.

The new year didn't start off quite as I had hoped. Just before I was supposed to be returning to work, I was admitted to the hospital for 24 hours with a very un-fun infection. It's all in hand now, I'm being barraged with antibiotics and was able to go back to work on Tuesday. The extremely good news is that my healthcare provider/company is covering all of my medical costs (surgery plus the later hospitalization) since I am on the lower income end of things. It is a massive, massive relief that I have only my student debt to contend with as the new year begins.

As soon as I returned to work, the rain hit. It's been a remarkably dry couple of months, much to the skiers' chagrin- there's really only a couple feet of snow on the mountain, when there should be many many feet of snow. Now it's raining in town and snowing up high, and I know we need the moisture but it's hard to be grateful for rain when everything is cold and soggy and the low clouds make it get darker half an hour earlier than it would otherwise.

I headed over to my garden on my lunch break yesterday. I haven't been to visit it since the end of October, and only have garlic, leeks and collards growing. I always plant garlic in mid-October, and have never had it sprout earlier than Christmas. This year, I planted it two weeks later than usual, and it was four inches tall three weeks later. What the heck, overenthusiastic garlic? We had a big old cold snap at the beginning of December, but I hadn't yet gotten a chance to run over the garden and see if my silly garlic had survived the hard frosts.

It would seem that it has! The tips of the leaves are definitely a little worse for wear, but it all seems to be alive and growing. The collards bit the dust, and the leeks are also a little yellowed along the edges, but otherwise all seems to be well.

Back at home, my New Year's present to myself was a whole bunch of green growing things to have around inside my apartment. A big row of paper whites on the windowsill has been brightening my days and sending their nice aroma all over the apartment. Since my poor old geraniums gave up the ghost a couple months ago (they were five years old), I got three new house plants to keep plenty of green around.

I also realized it's time to order seeds for this year's garden. I haven't given the garden much thought the last couple months, but now, with the restlessness of midwinter, it is the perfect time to pull out my seed box and figure out what to grow this year. Most of my pepper and tomato seed will be several years old at this point so I'll be starting fresh with most things. Exciting!

Garlic in the Ground

We got the garlic planted on Sunday afternoon. A late fall ritual for us now, and the first time we have ever planted seed garlic that we grew ourselves. We're starting to work out a crop rotation for our garden, and so this time the garlic went into the bed where the peppers grew this summer (above, with a visitor), and a strip up front by the lawn.

It either means we're giant garden nerds, or actually sort-of-farmers, but we're so proud of our soil. We've only lived here a year and a half, but already the dry, thin soil that was originally in the garden beds is now deliciously dark and beautifully textured, having been tilled several times, and amended regularly with our homegrown compost. We are leaving all root matter in the soil now, to help aerate and add more organic matter. In the front yard, the thick, dense clay soil was broken up nicely by the potatoes and tomatoes that grew there this summer, and by the thick mulch of rabbit-straw that covered it last winter, breaking down and blending in to give it natural fertilizer and a softer texture.

Lilac leaves raked up and used to mulch one raised bed. This bed has been constantly in use since we moved in, so it was time to give it a break.

Planting cloves from the most robust bulbs of our Chesnok Red.

We planted 85 cloves. We grew about 80 bulbs this year, and that seems to be about right, since we use about 2-3 bulbs per week.

Mulching with chicken/rabbit straw.

Safely tucked in. See you next summer, garlic!

Our November yard: yellow leaves and green grass, as opposed to the summer arrangement of yellow grass and green leaves. 

It's election day here in the U.S. (You may have noticed. It's been on the news occasionally....).

I have no qualms in sharing that have my fingers crossed (plus a few weeks of hoping and praying stocked up) that we end up with a president who doesn't feel that his life's calling was to make money in private equity, who believes that all Americans should have healthcare whether or not they "earn" it, who doesn't believe that it is the government's job to decide what I get do with my uterus, and who thinks that ALL people should be able to marry the person they love.

Cleaning and Storing the Garlic

I came home from work one day last week to find Matt and Jessa getting the garlic ready for storage. It had finished curing while Matt was in Boston, and I took it down and brought it inside, but hadn't gotten around to doing anything else with it.

Before being stored, cured garlic needs to have its roots trimmed off, and the dirty outside layers of their papery skin peeled off (technically, you could store it as is, but it's nicer and easier to use right away if you clean it first. You can also store it hung from the stems, but that takes up a lot more room).

The pile on the left are the biggest and nicest heads, to be set aside as next year's seed garlic.

Giving the bulbs crew cuts. 

Chesnok Red has these beautiful purple wrappers- this one was particularly bright. 

To test whether garlic has cured completely, you cut through the stem about an inch above the bulb. If no moisture comes out of the end when you squeeze it, it is fully cured. 

Garlic stores best where it is cool and dry, and it needs to have good circulation of air around it- otherwise it is susceptible to rot or mold. We are storing ours in old mesh onion bags, hung in the basement, where the temperature and humidity is much lower than anywhere else in the house.

 The small batch in the red bag on the right are the bulbs that got nicked by the turning fork when they were dug up, and had to have one or two cloves pulled out that were starting to rot as a result. Some of these we kept in the kitchen, and when we've used those we'll move to this red bag. The whole bulbs for use later on are the white bag, and then the seed garlic is up top, clearly labeled "Do not eat!" :) 

Feeling rich doesn't have much to do with money around here; it has more to do with seeing our pantry shelves looking like this, and knowing they'll get fuller before the rain starts to fall.

Oodles of Garlic

Garlic is one of my very favorite things to grow in the garden. That and potatoes. They are both such satisfying things, so simple and hearty, and different from veggies grown from seed. You plant a piece of potato or a clove of garlic, and under the ground they multiply into a dozen potatoes or a whole head of garlic. You plant them, and then you basically leave them alone, and then you dig them up, and magically they have generated the big final product.

We harvested our garlic two afternoons ago, and got a mighty haul. For those new to growing garlic, Hood River Garlic (where I got my seed garlic) has this great garlic calendar to explain all the steps and timing of the process (in Zone 8, anyway).

We planted 82 cloves of Chesnok Red back in October, and harvested 80 heads this week. I had pulled up one a month or so ago to check on its progress, so only one plant remains unaccounted for. What a yield! This is a perfect year's supply for us, allowing for 1-2 heads per week and some kept back as seed garlic.

I taught Matt how to braid garlic, and he put in several nails to hang the braids from, under the shelter of the front porch overhang. One small unbraided bunch contains the heads that got nicked by the turning fork while we were digging them up. We'll use those ones first.

It should take about two weeks for the garlic to cure, given that we are forecast to have perfect garlic-curing weather: sunny and 80s without a drop of rain.

Once it's all cured, we'll clean it a bit more and cut off the roots, then hang it in the basement where it's cool and dry. We'll keep six or eight of the biggest heads for next year's seed. 

The summer harvest keeps rolling in, and we've been running around picking and blanching, and foisting large bags of greens off onto the neighbors. 

I am  crazily proud of this perfect cabbage.

The chickens enjoyed the outer leaves, plus the colony of caterpillars and slugs that were living in there.

The first of the Giant Marconi sweet peppers. 

We haven't been eating enough salads to keep up with our lettuce production. Hence the foisting upon neighbors.

I planted a few of these Rattlesnake pole beans that I got from an old coworker. LOVE them.

We're off for another whirlwind weekend trip to my hometown, this time for my tenth high school reunion! I'm excited to see what will be waiting for us in the garden when we come back. 

Around Here

Around here, I am heading into the final few weeks of the quarter, and summer vacation is so close I can almost taste it. I really love my program, and all of my classes, but it is really hard to focus on schoolwork when so much is happening outside! This is one of my favorite times of year in Portland, when everything is green green green, rhododendrons and iris and roses are blooming everywhere you look, and we wake up to birdsong every morning and the air just smells so flowery and fresh. We've had a two-week stretch of absolutely beautiful warm weather, and this morning it is still warm, but gray and drizzly.

I am taking a little break from the usual pile of homework--right now in addition to my regular weekly heap of readings, I am writing a plan to use community organizing to improve opportunities for physical activity for older adults in East Portland- an area of town that has very poor infrastructure and resources and has generally been neglected by the city. For our Mass Communication & Health class, my friend Laura and I are putting together a media advocacy campaign aiming to get the city to change zoning laws to restrict fast food restaurants near schools, with an accompanying anti-fast food social marketing campaign targeting school-aged kids. This is the kind of stuff I want to do in my career, so it's really exciting, even if it means many hours spent inside rather than outside.

Since the weekends are the only chance I get to spend some time in the garden, I put in a couple hours yesterday, weeding and planting and watering- but really, by now the big rush of spring planting is over and it's mostly just maintenance until we start putting in the fall crops. I am so proud of our garden, it's where I've been putting all my time that isn't focused on school (or Matt, he's a priority :), and while I am missing things like cooking and sewing and knitting SO much, it's nice to see how much my efforts in the garden have paid off. I have done most of the planting, and Matt has been working hard doing most of the maintenance while I'm away at school, and has been taking care of the community garden and the animals too.

(Click on Photos to Enlarge)

This bed contains onions, green onions, a tomato, carrots, spinach, lettuce, and Alderman (Tall Telephone) peas. I love the yarn trellis Matt built- I think it looks like a suspension bridge. I gave this bed a thorough, and much-needed, weeding yesterday- now the wee carrots won't have to duke it out with a million little invaders.

From now on, I am only ever planting out brassicas with floating row covers over them- that month spent under cover means that we're going to be eating our own broccoli by the first of June! (The broccolis out front that weren't covered are small and stunted, and have tiny heads on them but are essentially bolting). 

The garlic is super tall and thriving. We should be seeing scapes sometime soon. The only real issue with this bed is convincing the peas planted along the back that they should use the fence as a trellis, not the garlic!

We have tomatoes! This is the first tomato I planted out, probably earlier than I should have- it's a Green Zebra, I believe, and is putting on fruit and flowering away!

Kale. Glorious, glorious kale. 

We've trained our marionberry all over the fence, and it's going apesh*t. It was a two foot tall cane when we planted it less than a year ago.

We've planted nasturtiums around the trunks of the fruit trees, they are excellent companions to apples and pears- aphids love nasturtiums, so ideally they'll go there instead of to the trees.

Little parsnips working their way up in one of the beds at the side of the house. They were getting really shaded by our overly enthusiastic rhubarb, so yesterday I cut the plants down to half their size, and they're still big!

Like the rest of the garden, the peppers are thriving. This bed also contains basil, cilantro, and a new planting of lettuce (you'll notice I have marigolds dispersed throughout the garden- they are the workhorse of all companion plants, to quote Carla Emery, and do a fantastic job of keeping the soil healthy and attracting the slugs away from the veggies).

By the front steps, two lemon cucumbers in a pot, and a hot pepper. 

I think we're going to have a bumper crop of berries this year. Last year we had tons, but we were just moving in and this whole section of the garden was massively overgrown. With all the pruning and fertilizing we've done, plus our very sunny spring, I think we might just get the mother lode this time around.

I wish I could take a photo that captures the entire front yard garden, but it's too big! This is just one side- potatoes, tomato, pepper, and along the roses at the back is a row of beets. 

The dogwood tree in our front yard is in full bloom right now- I love this peachy color! One of the really fun things about this time of year is that we had no idea what our trees would look like when they bloomed- we moved in in late June, so this is the first time we got to see the lilacs, apples, Asian pear, rhododendrons, and dogwood bloom! We also got surprise tulips and lilies.

 Look closely- Matt and Maggie are in the doorway.

 This is what our rhodies look like- beautiful, no? We had no idea what color they might be.

Another addition to our backyard- Matt built this fireplace out of bricks salvaged from a demolition site nearby! Looking forward to trying it out.

We've been eating a lot of rabbit! Someday I will write a post that is only about our rabbit experiences, but for now I will tell you that the entire second generation has been successfully butchered, both does have been bred again, and homegrown rabbit has proved itself damn tasty! (Tastewise, it is very similar to chicken, but there is a different quality to the meat- richer, maybe?). So far we have tried it braised with sage and rosemary, and also dredged in flour and fried. Both are delicious, but the frying is labor intensive (and not as healthy). Either way, though, it is incredibly satisfying to eat meat we raised from the very beginning.

This week is an anniversary- one year since Matt and I returned home from our Big New Zealand Adventure. It's hard to believe it's been a full year since then- and what a year! Full of tenuous or nonexistent employment, good friends, the stresses and joys of graduate school, our first forays into the world of urban homesteading, lots of eggs, the bunnies, and many ups and downs. We've been poor, but productive, and pretty darn happy overall. And it has been a year spent in this house that is more home to either of us than anywhere we have lived since leaving our childhood homes. We truly love our home here, and everything we have done with it. It is comfortable, just the right size, affordable, and we are lucky enough to have good neighbors, a really excellent landlord who lets us be in charge of everything on the property, and a roommate who we are extremely compatible with, and who came with a cat that keeps us constantly entertained. Back on the road in New Zealand, camping in a different place each night and enjoying the itinerant life, this is what we dreamed of in the back of our minds, and now we have it.

In just a few weeks, I will have time to do more than write one big post every weekend- I can't wait to be able to settle back into domestic tasks, read something that isn't a textbook, and build some new householding habits like soapmaking. Until then, my friends, thanks for reading my big long summaries of the week!