Dividing Hostas

I took terrible photos, but I want to be sure to document that this was the first time I ever divided perennials.  We've got lovely rows of hostas along our front sidewalk, but there's one very large one that doesn't match the rest, and takes up a lot of the sidewalk by mid-summer. 

 

Since the area under the tree in the front yard is in pretty poor shape--weedy, with very sparse ferns and lilly of the valley--I thought it might be good to move the big hosta to that area.

 

 

I found out that it is really tough to dig up a hosta!  So I only took a few chunks, and I'll have to move the rest of it next year.  I'm not sure if it was the hosta roots or the tree roots that made the job so challenging, but it was a bear.

 

Here are the locations of the six babies I moved further back under the tree.  I'm not doing the best job of keeping them watered, but hopefully they'll survive the winter and we'll have a renewed landscape next year!

 

Canning Tomatoes

The next night, I decided to try canning the rest of the full-sized tomatoes.  This is my first attempt at canning tomatoes, and only my third attempt at canning, period.  Previous efforts with pickles and pear butter were somewhat disappointing.

 

I turned to the internet, and found some instructions that seemed reasonable from the National Center for Home Food Preservation.  I reviewed their instructions on Using Boiling Water Canners, along with the instructions at the beginning of my Ball Home Canning Basics book.  Then I followed their instructions for Canning Crushed Tomatoes.

 

The longest part of this whole process is getting the big canner full of water to boil.  Maybe next time I should try putting smaller pots of water on all four burners to boil, then combining them in the canner.  It took what seemed like hours to get that thing going. 

 

In the meantime, I started preparing tomatoes.  I had never blanched tomatoes before.  I thought it was kind of fun.  I used a fine mesh strainer to dip about five tomatoes at a time into boiling water for a minute or two, then into cold water with a few ice cubes for another minute.  Since I was doing them only five at a time, this was pretty time consuming, too.

 

 

Blanching was followed by peeling and quartering.  I wasn't sure if I should seed them, so I mostly left the seeds in, whenever they didn't just fall out.

 

 

At some point I had boiling water in the canner and all my tomatoes cut and ready.  I boiled my jars and lids for 10 minutes, and got the tomatoes started cooking on the stove.  When it was finally time to fill the jars, I took a few liberties.

 

First, I'm not 100% sure I had the exact correct amount of head space.  Here's hoping I got close enough.

 

Second, the folks at Ace Hardware up the street (where I had picked up my jars earlier that night) had assured me that I didn't need to add extra lemon juice or citric acid to get to the required level of acidity.  Since they didn't have these thngs and I didn't want to make an extra trip to a grocery store, I decided to believe them.  They told me the worst thing that could happen is that I'd smell that a jar had gone bad and have to throw it out--I was in no danger of accidentally eating botulism-laced tomatoes.

 

Finally, I processed the jars for 35 minutes according to the recipe.  I gave a few extra minutes for good measure.

 

Here's my final product.  Several hours of work, and what seemed like a massive bounty of tomatoes, cooked down to four and a half jars of crushed tomatoes and one freezer bag of oven-roasted cherry tomatoes.  (For the professionals among my readers, don't worry, that half-jar didn't get processed, it's sitting in my fridge to be used this week).

 

Oven-dried cherry tomatoes

With all this bounty at once, some preserving needed to be done.  I decided to oven-dry the cherries.  I've never had good luck oven-drying full-sized sliced tomatoes. I loosely followed some instructions on a blog called "Our Best Bites."  I didn't bother with any garlic, just sliced the tomatoes in half, tossed with some olive oil and a little salt, and placed them skin-side down in a non-stick foil-lined cookie sheet. 

I roasted them at 325 degrees for somewhere around two hours.  Some of the bigger ones were still pretty moist, but it was after 10pm and I needed to go to bed (also my excuse for no photos)!

I made the mistake of dumping all of the varieties together.  If I had kept them sorted by size and then roasted each size on a different cookie sheet, I could have removed each sheet from the oven at exactly the right level of dry but not charred.

I let them cool on the cookie sheet overnight, then dumped them into a freezer bag and froze them in the morning.

Garden Bounty

This summer was so hot and dry that even with regular watering, most of our garden was pretty pathetic.  Of the 20+ tomato plants we planted, maybe six of them produced.  It was a disappointing year, so we neglected the garden from about mid-July on. 

 

Last weekend, I finally went out to find a harvest that didn't disappoint.  I picked an entire bowl of miscellaneous cherry tomatoes (Indigo Rose and Jelly Bean were probably the most prolific, although neither were the most flavorful).  I also got a whole bowl of one of the roma-looking tomatoes.  It may be Viva Italia.  Then there were a variety of small-ish purples and yellows.  I can't be sure which variety these were.  Everything gets so tangled, whatever markers are left are hard to pair with actual fruits.

 

There were also a few tomatillos, but hardly enough to even make a batch of salsa with.  The red onions were kind of fun this year, but they were pretty small.  A few peppers have come in as well.

 

 

Nostalgic Summer: Putting up sweet corn

Maybe it's because Amanda and I have been to Iowa several times this summer, but I've been feeling very nostalgic lately.  I've been itching to take on a very nostalgic activity ever since Mom gave us two bags of fresh-from-the-farm sweet corn.  So today I took the plunge, and endeavored to put up the corn.  By myself.  (Poor Amanda's been so sick this week!)

I picked up a couple of extra ears of Minnesota-grown corn to supplement the bounty from the farm.  In all, I had 23 small ears from the farm and six bigger ears from the store.

First, shucking the corn.  Good idea to do this outside.  Side note: I had no idea when I decided to compost that it would give me such satisfaction to dump stuff like this in there!

Next I set up my cutting station inside.

After cutting the corn off one ear, I realized I better come up with a better plan for containing the mess.  I pulled all the extra chairs out of the way and threw an old sheet down to catch stray kernels and sprays.  This is such a messy job!

Come to think of it, in all my nostalgia, I remember a very specific occasion when I was pretty young.  My grandma, several aunts, and several cousins came to our house for a day of putting up corn.  I think there was an outside shucking station.  I was sitting at a picnic table in the garage cutting corn of the cob.  Then it would be sent inside, where Grandma Rita took the hot job of cooking it.  Mom was smart to put the cutting outside.  I wonder if she just hosed out the whole garage afterwards.  I kinda want to hose out my kitchen.

I distinctly remember my aunt Lori giving me lots of positive feedback.  "You're really good at that."  She was such a teaser.  She always used to tell me I was really good at chores that she wanted me to do.  Note to future self.  It works like a charm on kids.

Here's all the corn, before cooking.  I started with six large and 23 smaller ears. I got 20 cups of corn.  I wonder if my table will ever be not sticky again.

Corn on the stove.

After it's cooked, you spread the corn out on cookie sheets to cool.

It cools pretty fast.  Now I gotta figure out how to get it in the freezer bags with minimal mess.  I bet Grandma Rita or Mom could have given me a better plan than this.  Probably the best answer is four hands.

In the end, I got five quart-sized freezer bags full, plus I saved a couple of servings for us to eat tonight.  My taste test gives it an 8 out of 10.  It's a little chewy.  Not sure if that's because it was in the refrigerator for a few days before I cooked it? 

All done, and most of the dishes cleaned, too.  I'd love a cocktail, but I'll settle for a Diet Coke.  Still need to head outside for some garden work.  Cocktails later!

Instead of going to the Farmer's Market, we went to the Farmer

Amanda and I have a weekend tradition of going to the farmer's market and loading up on fresh veggies for the week.  This past weekend, we skipped the farmer's market and went straight to a farmer.

The photo above doesn't really do this garden justice.  It's massive.  And prolific.  I remember when this area was all hog lots.  I guess 30+ years of pig poop will leave some really fertile ground!

One highlight was the red potatoes.  My mom gardened when I was a little girl, and I vaguely remember learning about planting potatoes: cutting up a potato, planting the pieces eye-up.  By the time she had four children and a lot of for-money farming to do all day every day, she scrapped gardening for a couple of decades.  I'm glad semi-retirement has brought back the love of gardening!

Reagan and Adrian thought the potatoes were really cool, too.  I'm looking forward to trying to plant some next year.  I think I'm willing to give up zucchini and yellow squash to make room.  I grow them because I know they'll produce, but I get pretty bored of eating them.

Best of all, Mom's garden has no shortage of tomatoes.  They were a joy to behold, since our tomatoes have provided nothing but disappointment this year.  I think the hot hot summer has been hard on the garden overall, but the tomatoes are especially sad.  I've noticed more squirrels eating what few green tomatoes are there.  I'm told the squirrels are eating them for the moisture, since they are thirsty from the lack of rain.  Go figure.

Here's the awesome caprese salad we made tonight with Mom's tomatoes and our basil.  The other half of dinner was a beet salad with beets from last week's farmer's' market.  Delicious!

Garden 2012: Fruit

Our first strawberries and blueberries of 2012 came mid-June!  Strawberries are somewhat new for us, but we've had blueberries every year (thanks Dori, for planting blueberry bushes before you left this home).  I am 99% certain that we've never had blueberries before July.  Like I said before, it's been a really strange year.  Incredibly warm and dry winter, with an early wet spring.

Last fall was the first time I'd ever cut down the raspberries at the end of the season.  We do have canes coming back up, and even some unripe fruit, but I don't think we'll have as big a crop as years prior.  It is nice to have the extra room back there to see and get to the weeds, though!

Garden 2012: Herbs

Most of this year's herbs came from the farmer's market, and we potted them on June 2nd.  This year's herb crop includes basil, opal basil, sage, dill, cilantro, and mint.  And tons more basil.  It's almost time for the first batch of pesto!

Garden 2012: Vegetables

We bought most of this year's vegetables at the Friends School Plant Sale again.  We brought our babies home on May 12, and they sat in their little seedling containers for a little over two weeks.  We finally put them in the ground on Memorial Day, May 28.

I'll post better pictures when I have a chance, but here's the basic layout.  At the far east end of the garden, we have the perennials:  rhubarb, asparagus, and chives.  The rhubarb and chives are doing well.  The asparagus looks weaker this year than it did the last two years.  I'm starting to wonder if we'll ever have spears to harvest.

Next comes cucumbers (3), zucchini and yellow squash. We actually bought these later on at the farmer's market.  We put them in the ground on June 2.  I'm trying tomato cages around the cucumbers this year.  We usually just let them grow along the ground and over the wall.  We had extra cages, so I thought I'd see what would happen.

Up next are the peppers.  We bought four varieties at the Friends Sale:  Poblano, Chocolate Beauty, Golden Summer, and Lady Bell.  We picked up some jalapenos later at the farmer's market.

Moving west, Leeks and red onions are next.

And finally, TOMATOES!  This year we planted:

• Bonny Best
• Cherokee Purple
• Gold Medal
• Hillbilly Potato Leaf
• Isis Candy Cherry
• Jaune Flamee
• Nyagous
• Black Cherry
• Blondkopfchen
• Grandpa's Minnesota
• Viva Italia
• Sungella
• Jelly Bean
• Indigo Rose

2012 Garden: First Up: Lilacs and Irises

The first things to bloom this year were the irises and lilacs.  They bloomed around mid-May.  Everything is way off schedule this year, because we had an incredibly warm winter and early spring.  The rain's been pretty good, too.

Unfortunately, the daffodils I bought for my birthday last fall didn't come up.  Not one of them!  Amanda and I even covered them with chicken wire to keep pests away from them.  What a disappointment.

Beneath the lilac tree is my favorite place to pot plants.  You can see all the marigolds I potted above.  We strategically place these around the vegetable garden in an attempt to keep rabbits away.  It seems like it works!

Perennial Sale!

My favorite greenhouse, Wagner's, is having a sale. All perennials are 40% off. I spent a long time there on Sunday, browsing the selection. What a great way to spend an hour.


My intention was to look for some shade-loving plants for the front yard. There's a big (maple?) tree in the south half of the front yard that shades pretty much that whole side. There's a nice border of hostas along the sidewalk, and the rest of the space filled with a sprinkling of ferns, lilly of the valley, and lots of weeds. I wanted to find (a) a shade loving vine to climb the arbor on the shady south side, and (b) a shade loving plant that would aggressively fill in the space under the tree that the ferns have failed to fill.

"Silver Moon" Clematis

I found one variety of a flowering vine that likes partial shade: the "Silver Moon" clematis. I can't wait to see if it will flower in the spring. I wonder what "pruning type 2" means. And I wonder if I need to add wires or string or something to help it climb.

"Cherry Blossom" Lenten Rose

For the space under the tree, I am giving this "Cherry Blossom" Lenten Rose a try. It was the most expensive of my picks, but I have high hopes for it. The actual plant looks thick and sturdy. The tag says it's "exceptionally vigorous" and is an excellent groundcover for shady areas. Exactly what I need.

So I'd found what I was looking for. But then I kept finding more plants that wanted to go home with me. My front rock garden is still a weedy mess, because even though I've planted lots of low, thick groundcover, there are still areas of bare dirt. So I splurged on three new plants for the rock garden.

"Black Scallop" Ajuga

I love the "Chocolate Chip" Ajuga that I planted the last couple of summers. It's pretty all summer, and it is spreading nicely. This "Black Scallop" version has a bigger leaf, but otherwise looks very similar. I hope it spreads as well. This one supposedly likes partial shade, so I put it on the side of the front rock garden that gets a lot of shade from the maple. It will get dappled light during the day, and some sun in the late afternoons.

Mexican Evening Primrose

Now that I've decided to focus my energies on vegetable gardening, I didn't plant a single annual this year, and I missed the color. When I saw this Mexican Evening Primrose, I was wooed by its pretty flowers combined with its groundcover properties. The tag promises "profuse day-blooming flowers over a long season." This should be a treat!

"Heart Attack" Sweet William

Presumably named for its blood red blooms, I fell in love with the healthy-looking thick foliage and the potential for bright color in the spring. The tag says "Heart Attack" Sweet William is perfect for amassing in beds and borders.