A little medieval farm

You can't see it from the road, but if you follow the grassy laneway through the woods, you'll come across a little medieval farm tucked away in the trees. There's a horse, two dexter cows, a few pigs, and lots of chickens and roosters, as well as a small row garden, a larger permaculture garden, and a little house.

This is entirely Bryce and Misty's creation. They live there with their 1-year-old daughter Sage, and call it Ultima Thule. According to Wikipedia:

The term ultima Thule in medieval geographies denotes any distant place located beyond the "borders of the known world."

 According to me, it translates to Land of What If or Realm of Possibilities.
 
Bryce and Misty bought the land almost 7 years ago and began creating a farm and a home - from scratch. Initially, the house was 200 square feet - a 100-square-foot kitchen and stairs going up to the 100-square-foot bedroom. And because most of the materials were from salvage, the house cost them $600 - including the wood stove in the kitchen which was $150. A couple of solar panels power the pump for water, a few low-wattage lights, and their cell phones. This is no flight of fancy. It's a lifetime commitment to this way of life.

The house from the south side

Michelle, a dear friend and former city dweller, introduced us. I remember the first time Mike and I went there. It was during their Renaissance Faire in the spring. I spent an hour or so wandering around overwhelmed, open-mouthed, speechless - and delighted!

Although it's not clear in the photo, all the wood in the kitchen looks old and rustic. Bryce explained they boiled walnut shells and used the dye to stain the wood. The rafters are hung with drying herbs and more cast iron pots and pans than I've ever seen - and I have quite a collection! And the wood stove not only heats the house but is used for cooking.

The Kitchen

The living room was added on later. It has a dirt floor and a Rumford-esque fire place made of cob. The mosaic around the flue is lovely, as is the wonderful mermaid-fairy statue that Misty sculpted. This is the room where Misty delivered Sage a year or so ago.

The living room

The shower is ingenious!The shower head is attached to a coiled black hose on the roof which is gravity-fed by a rain barrel, also on the roof, and old bottles moulded into the cob let in light.

The shower

And this is a gathering area. The white drum is as a fire pit, and even though it was a chilly day, there's a warmth and welcome about it.

Sitting area

Below are a couple of photos from the Renaissance Faire:

Bryce and Misty

Michelle and Zoe in front of the firepit

 There will be much more to write about this in future posts. I'm looking forward to visiting Ultima Thule in the summer and getting some photos of the chaotic lushness of it all!

The first snowfall

This is what I woke up to this morning.

I still delight in the first snowfall.

Sadly, not everyone shares this sentiment!

The s**t machine

(Don't look at me. I didn't name it!)

That first summer, we filled 2 dumpsters - one large, one small - with garbage out of the top of the barn. I suspect that barn hadn't been used for its intended purpose in a very long time and had been a dumping ground for years.

Then we turned out sights towards the lower part of the barn - lots more garbage and lots of composted cow manure mixed in with rusty nails and a mish-mash of debris. Unusuable - or so we assumed.

Martin was appalled to learn that we intended to dump all that gorgeous manure that our garden so desperately needed. And so he conceived of, designed, built, used, and modified what he referred to matter-of-factly as a shit machine. I call it a soil tumbler or a soil sifter. Call it what you will.

As he worked with it in the barn, he added to it: a handle to turn it more easily, larger chicken wire to sift better, sharp metal pieces inside to break up the clumps, wheels and a rope for mobility.

We still use it for sifting maure, but we also use it to clear out rows in the garden. It gets out rocks and weeds like nobody's business, and leaves beautiful, loose soil behind. Takes 3-4 hours to go through a row, and we're hoping to sift the entire garden with it next year. We'll see how it goes!

Radishes

There's nothing complicated about growing radishes. You just put them in the ground and let them grow. They prefer cooler weather, so they're best planted in the spring and fall. For me, the trick is remembering to plant them at all! Oh, and they're best done in staggered plantings, because unless you plan on pickling or ferementing them, there are only so many radishes you can eat in a week.

I did finally get some into the ground this year around mid-August. I didn't plant many, but they were quite delicious. And I decided to leave two of them in the ground to go to seed. (I'm all about the seeds this year.)

Well, they far exceeded my wildest expectations. Here's what they looked like a couple of weeks ago:

You can't tell from this photo, but each of these two plants has at least a hundred seed pods, and each of those pods has about 5 seeds.

One of them finally died off and is hanging in the basement to finish drying. The other is thriving - vibrant green and still flowering - despite several hard frosts and a sprinkling of snow. I may have enough seeds to last the next 5 years!

Then I found out from Bryce that you can eat the pods when they're young and tender, and they taste just like radishes. Looking forward to that next spring! I'll also try fermenting the young pods. Bet they'd be a lot like capers.

And for scale, here's Mike in the kitchen holding up one plant by the root:

Surprised by joy

It's not about how it begins. It's about how it ends.

In 2012, what with disturbing news from friends and the media - political, social, economic - I decided to leave the city and go where we could be a bit more self-sufficient, a bit more off the grid. There was a sense of urgency in that decision to leave, and it was a relief when we'd finally settled in.

This was not running to. This was running from. And those are very different things. Running from is about avoiding. Running to is about creating.  Running from is about fear. Running to is about love. Running from is contraction. Running to is expansion.

That first year was pretty hectic. Get a wood stove! Buy firewood! Get a new line put in from the well! Get the roof done! Order seeds! Plant a garden! Buy more books! Get a generator - just in case!

My past life disappeared in the mist - not gone, but forgotten, temporarily abandoned: workshops, parent group, writing. Work and adjusting to life here took up all my time.

In late winter, I planted seeds in trays and put them in the sun in my bedroom window. And those tiny seeds sprouted and became little plants - tomatoes and peppers and squash - that went into the garden and grew with varying degrees of success. All from tiny seeds.

Towards the end of March that first year, I went outside when the snow was almost gone and saw snowdrops coming up. One of the loveliest things I've ever seen.

 When we'd moved into the house, Mary, the former owner, had said, "Please don't dig up the flower beds until you see what's in them." And the spring, summer, and fall brought a kaleidoscope of flowers and colours and textures: tulips, lilies of every size and colour, star of bethlehem, honeysuckle, mock orange, morning glories, lupins, roses, hollihocks, clematis, hostas - and others I have yet to identify.

There's a song I remember from my childhood:

How many kinds of sweet flowers grow
In an English country garden?
We'll tell you now of some that we know
Those we miss you'll surely pardon.
Daffodils, heart's ease and flox,
Meadowsweet and lady smocks,
Gentian, lupine and tall hollihocks
Roses, foxgloves, snowdrops,
Blue forget-me-nots
In an English country garden.

And we have almost all of them!

Grass-fed beef, pastured pork, and free-range chicken had been almost impossible to find in the city. Here, they was plentiful. There were three farms a short distance away, and we began buying all our meat from them. Organic produce in the city at a reasonable price was hard to come by. But here, what we don't grow ourselves we buy at the market - as much as we can eat for less than $20 a week. I felt truly blessed.

The weeding was never ending, and there seemed no way to keep up with it. But I began walking through the vegetable garden in the mornings with my coffee, eager to see what else had come up and how everything was coming along. I didn't notice it at the time, but the anxiety was being replaced by ... wonder.

Harvesting was a delight. Not everything grew as well as we'd hoped or produced as much as we'd wanted, but still we were reaping the bounty of our efforts. There was canning to be done - tomatoes, peaches, pears, beans, beets, pickles, and relishes. The kitchen was a perpetual steam bath, and it was all good. The shelves filled up with beautiful jars of summer's bounty, and life was good. I felt very content, and very grateful.

That winter, Kathy got me hooked on Louise Penny's novels, and there were three words that struck a chord with me: Surprised by joy. Yes, that's what had happened. When I wasn't looking, while I was absorbed in learning and exploring and creating a new chapter of my life, curiosity and wonder crept up on me, and I was ... surprised by joy! And that's when I realized I was running to - with arms wide open.

An extraordinary diagnosis

When I went to the bathroom that morning, the water in the toilet was pink. Blood. No doubt about it. I pushed it to the back of my mind, willing it away, and got on with my day.

A while later, when I returned to the bathroom, my stool was red. Blood. No ignoring this now. This could be serious. As distasteful as it was, I put a sample in a Ziploc bag and headed to the hospital.

The hospital here is seldom busy, and this was no exception. I told the nurse at the desk what I was there for, and I was seen a short time later. I don't remember the doctor's name, just that he looked like a cross between a farmer and a lumberjack: a fairly tall and sturdy fellow with a black beard and black curly hair, probably in his 40s.

I told him what I'd observed, and waited for the worst.

"Any pain?"

I shook my head. "No."

"Cramping?"

"No."

"Nausea?"

"No,"

"Difficulty going to the bathroom?"

"No."

"Fever?"

"No."

"General unwellness?"

"No, not at all. In fact, I feel perfectly fine."

Oddly, he seemed amused.

"Well," he said, "I can check the sample you brought in, but I think I know what the problem is."

I waited.

"Beets."

I jolted. "Beets?"

He nodded. "Have you been eating beets?"

I thought about it. "Yes. Quite a lot, actually. Night before last. I roasted them, and they were delicious."

Now he grinned. "Okay. Give me the sample and I'll check it anyway, but I don't think you have anything to worry about."

He was back in less than two minutes. "All good. Beets it is!"

On my way out, I stopped at the nurse's desk and leaned in conspiratorially. "I got a diagnosis," I said quietly. "Beets."

It took her a moment to catch on, but she was still laughing as I sashayed out the front door.

Hot sauce

This year, for the first time, I was able to make hot sauce with peppers from my garden.

Here's how I made it:

• 12 red chili peppers
• 3 red jalapenos (found out they aren't ripe until they're red)
• 2 habaneros
• 1 red bell pepper
• 2 cheese peppers (really! they look like little gouda cheeses)
• 1/2 Hungarian sweet pepper
• 5 cloves garlic, pressed
• salt
• 1/2 c. vinegar
• 1/2 c. water

Because this wasn't intended to be suicide sauce, I removed the seeds and membranes and chopped the peppers. (I like hot sauce to be hot, but not so hot that I can't use enough of it to fully enjoy the flavour.) And if you're more prudent than I was, you'll wear vinyl gloves!

I simmered it all together for about 15 minutes to thoroughly soften the peppers, then blended until smooth. This is what it looks like (it made one more small jar than what you see here):

And it wasn't quite right. I'm rethinking the bell and cheese peppers. But it also seemed to be missing something. So I added:

• 3 small red onions

I minced them and sauteed them in a bit of olive oil until they caramelized. Then I added the hot sauce to the onion, blended again, and poured into jars. I have no hopes of it lasting because I'm putting it on everything - especially scrambled eggs.

Bon appetit!

Garlic

November 10th. Garlic should have been in already, but there it is.

I'd hoped to plant today, but the forecast was for rain all day.

So when I got up, I was pleasantly surprised to see clouds, yes, but rain, no.

Mike brought the garlic up from the basement, this year's harvest - or what was left of it - and we looked sadly at it and at each other. Not as much as we'd hoped for. (We need to research curing and storing.) I'd wanted to plant 300 cloves this year, and we certainly didn't have that much.

Once the heads were separated into cloves and the shrivelled and mouldy ones discarded, we had 175 cloves left. (The damaged ones were pressed and stored in olive oil in the fridge.) It'll have to do. Better than nothing.

Then we remembered the wild garlic. There were a few large heads with good-sized cloves. The rest were small but plentiful, and there was no waste at all. They had kept remarkably well - and we had 185 cloves!

This is what 360 cloves of garlic looks like (regular garlic in the green basket, wild garlic in the bowl):

The regular garlic cloves are now planted 2" down in a bed 18' x 2', and the wild garlic is planted in a bed 10' x 4'. Oh, and I found about 15 more garlic cloves near the bed that had been pulled earlier and left on the ground. They already had roots and most had sprouted. Into the ground you go. I know where I planted them, and I'll be looking for them in the spring!

If they all do well, we'll have more than enough for storing and planting next fall.

The rain started this afternoon. And I don't care. The garlic's in!

Hot Peppers: A cautionary tale - and a remedy

Miraculously, our pepper plants survived a few hard frosts under a sheet of heavy plastic weighted down with rocks. I'd half expected the bell peppers to hang on, but was astonished that the frost hadn't killed off my hot peppers. The leaves are all pretty much gone, but the stems and stalks are still green, so I'm hopeful that the last handful will ripen in this glorious Indian summer weather.

And so this afternoon I made hot sauce with a dozen red chilis, half a dozen jalapenos, and two habaneros. But I didn't just cut up the peppers. I also lovingly and meticulously took out every last seed and separated each one from the membranes to dry on waxed paper for planting next year. (More about that in another post.)

I always use vinyl gloves when I'm working with hot peppers.

Oh, not true! I didn't today. I know they're hot, and I know how hot they are, so I'm careful - very careful. I washed my hands in OCD fashion most of the afternoon - repeatedly and thoroughly - with lots of hot, soapy water, and kept my hands away from my eyes.

Oh, not true! When I came into the kitchen to make supper, after working in front of a computer screen for a few hours, I absent-mindedly rubbed my eyes - hard - and felt an immediate, blinding heat. My eyes closed reflexively, and when I tried to open them, there was searing pain, so I kept them closed and sat on the couch. Four thoughts swirled through my mind:

• How do I get the pain to stop?
• Am I going to go blind?
• Now I know how pepper spray works.
• This is going to be a great story!

Mike went online to research "hot peppers" and "eyes". Not surprisingly, I'm not the first person to ever do this.

"Rinse your eyes with milk," he said.

"Not happening," I said. "I can't open my eyes."

"Rinse your eyes with saline solution," he offered.

"I can't open my eyes," I repeated.

Then I remembered what I'd told him that afternoon when he was surprised by the heat in a jalapeno and reached for a glass of water: "No, no, not water. Water just makes it worse. Bread. Eat bread. It absorbs the heat."

Then I remembered my great-great-aunt's solution for everything: bread poultices. Bingo!

Mike took a small piece of bread and dribbled milk on it to soften it. I held the poultice to each eye, and the pain vanished instantly. In less than 10 seconds, my eyes were open and it was as though the whole thing had never happened. Miraculous!

Lessons learned:

To prevent hot pepper burns to your eyes, wear gloves when handling peppers.

To remedy hot pepper burns to your eyes, use a bread-and-milk poultice!

You know you're in the country when...

The grocery store posts which local farm the produce came from.

A neighbour dumps a truckload of horse manure in your backyard - and you're grateful!

A large bull and a cow stroll across your front lawn.

No one is ever too busy for a cup of tea and a chat.

In the spring and fall, you see more farm equipment on the road in front of your house than you see cars.

There are signs on the road reminding you to watch for horses and buggies.









You know where all your meat comes from. You've met the farmers and visited their farms.

You know the fellow you buy your honey from.

You buy all your organic produce at the farmers' market - for about $20 a week.

Your closest neighbour is a quarter of a mile away.

Your real estate agent from a few years back still calls to let you know about things going on in the area that you might be interested in.

Your vegtable garden is bigger than your entire proper was in the city.

You have to drive for 35 minutes to shop at box stores.

The kids don't just pop in for a visit because it's a 2-hour drive one way.

Your son makes a modest income riding/exercising horses - and walks to work.

It takes a commercial snow blower half an hour to clear your driveway after a snowfall.

You can't get into town without passing a CAFO (confined animal feeding operation).

Everyone uses a clothes line. (I don't think anyone here owns a dryer.)

Your friends come to visit in a horse and buggy.

You have a barn - and a pig.

You heat with wood, not natural gas.

The cost of hydro is outrageous!

Your friends plow your garden with a horse and plow.

You take your (free) apples to an Amish fellow to press into cider at $1.10 a gallon.

The 200 acres that surround you on three sides are cash crops - alternately corn, soybeans, and wheat.

You have a colony of bats in your attic.

You buy fresh, free-range eggs from a friend.

You know where the sun rises and sets depending on the time of year.

On a clear night, you can see the stars - all of them!

A hole in the cedar tree

Mike came in looking angry and confused.

"There's a huge hole in the cedar by the Quonset, and I have no idea how it got there."

I pulled on my boots and and headed out to see. Yup, a BIG hole. Looked like this:

Wood chips lay scattered on the ground, and there was this gaping hole. I'd never seen anything like it, and I was baffled.

Mike and I discussed it at length, but got nowhere. We wondered at first if one of the grandkids had taken an axe to the tree, but it looked wrong. Besides, they hadn't been up to visit lately.

So I went online to try to solve the mystery. Clearly it was an animal - but what animal did this?!

Not deer. Not bears. Not raccoons. Not groundhogs, squirrels, or rats. Not wolves or coyotes. And no photos online matched what we had.

Isaac came over a few days later, and Mike took him out to see if he could identify what had done this.

"Woodpecker." Isaac is very matter of fact about these things.

"Problem is people see them pecking at their trees and they shoot them. But the woodpeckers are just after bugs. They can hear them inside the tree."

"Will it kill the tree?"

Isaac shrugged. "Maybe, maybe not. People think shooting woodpeckers is a good thing. But if they didn't eat the bugs, the bugs would kill the tree and would spread and kill other trees. You'll have to wait and see."

After Isaac left, I did a search on line for woodpeckers and tree damage. Sure enough. All I know is that must have been a big woodpecker. All that damage - and we didn't hear a thing!

It's been eight months, and the tree is thriving. The hole is still there, oozing a bit of sap from time to time. I wonder if that's helping it heal. I give it a hug whenever I walk by, just in case.

Fermenting

Buy this book! And don't take it to bed with you to read before you go to sleep. (I made that mistake a couple of times, and finally had to take melatonin to get to sleep.)

Fermented food is really, really good for you. I won't go into it here, but there's plenty on the web - and in this book. Suffice it to say it provides your body with lots of healthy bacteria.

Below are some of the recipes I've tried.

Dill Pickles

These are the real McCoy, deli dills, the kind Jewish delis give you with your corned beef sandwich. Couldn't be easier. Made with my own pickling cucumbers and garlic, and organic dill from the market. And I used my own grape leaves for tanin to help keep them crunchy.

Some of my kids like them. Most of them don't. I think they're the best pickles I've ever tasted, so I'll make them every year - just not as many! (I ended up with 30 litre jars.)

Sauerkraut

Martha gave me 5 beautiful, large heads of cabbage from her garden this summer, so I tried my hand at sauerkraut. Disastrous. The whole thing moulded. I discovered why at the farmer's market a few weeks ago: summer cabbage doesn't make good sauerkraut. What you need are winter cabbages that have been hit by a good frost a couple of times.

Restarted a batch a couple of weeks ago, and it smells and tastes glorious!

Kimchi

This was a bit trickier. Although one of my daughters loves kimchi, I've never had it, so I have nothing to compare it to and no way to gauge whether it's good or not. Undaunted, I made both the fruit kimchi and the "regular" kimchi from this book, and they seemed to turn out fine. But again, no way to tell.

Then I walked into the convenience store a few days ago and took a good look at the owner.

"Can I ask you a question?"

"Sure."

"Are you Korean?"

"Yes." He looked curious and puzzled.

"Excellent!" I smiled. "Guess what I did this afternoon? I made kimchi!"

"What?! You did?!" He was quite taken aback - and clearly delighted. I explained that, since I'm not sure what I'm doing, I'd appreciate being able to bring some in and get some pointers.

"Of course! Bring it in and I'll have my mother try it. She makes kimchi all the time!"

With a bit of luck, I'll get not only feedback but maybe some tutoring!

Kefir

Kefir is easy. Mix about 1 tablespoon of kefir grains in a cup or so of milk and leave it on the counter for 12-24 hours.

Strain the kefir through a strainer, and use the grains in the strainer to start the next batch.

My favourite breakfast is kefir blended with either fresh peach or pear, a bit of fresh grated ginger, and half a teaspoon of raw honey. Yummy!

If you leave the kefir in the fridge in a sealed container for a day or two after you've strained, you can make kefir cream cheese. Put a coffee filter inside a strainer inside a deep bowl, and pour the kefir in. Cover with plastic wrap and leave in the fridge for 24 hours. Voila! I like it best with Hungarian paprika, finely chopped green onion, and a bit of salt on toast.

The clear liquid on the bottom is whey, and can be used to start other ferments. Just keep refrigerated in a sealed container.

The nice thing about kefir is that the grains multiply. So you can either start making larger batches or give some away to your friends.

Kombucha

Kombucha started off being quite simply, then suddenly got complicated. Michelle gave me my first SCOBY (symbotic colony of bacteria and yeast). This is the "mother" that ferments the tea. I've been using organic teas, but it may work with other teas as well.

First I did a black tea. Delicious! Then I did a Tazo chai. Even better! After a week, I had a refreshing fermented beverage. I know Michelle did a second ferment with hers: she removed the SCOBY and stores it in the fridge with a cup of kombucha, then added candied ginger to her jug of kombucha and left it on the counter. And it was quite delightful!

Then, when Michelle brought me some more SCOBY, I decided to try 3 at once: chai, organic cold-brewed coffee, and blueberry & ginseng herbal tea. I was on a roll!

One night about a week later, I was still awake at midnight, so I decided to go check on the kombucha and pour myself a glass. To my utter dismay, all three were covered in thick, powdery, green mould. I was up until after 1:00 researching what had gone wrong. Here's what I learned:

• Kombucha should be kept out of direct sunlight. Check. I had them in a cupboard.
• Kombucha should have plenty of airflow. Nope. I had them in a cupboard.
• Kombucha should be kept away from sources of humidity. Nope. I had them in the cupboard next to my stove during canning week!
• Different ferments should be kept away from each other to prevent cross-contamination. Nope. They were all nestled together in the same cupboard - albeit on different shelves.
• Kombucha should be kept warm. Hmm. Not sure about that one.

For my next batch, I steeped the tea, added the SCOBY and 1 cup of kombucha, covered it with a tea towel to allow air in and keep light out, and placed it on a heating mat in the pantry. Bad idea. Too warm. When I checked it after a week, it was so acidic that it was undrinkable.

So here's how I do it now: I steep 5 teabags and 1/2 cup of sugar in 6 cups of boiled water for a while. (The longer, the stronger.) When it's cooled, I pour it into a 2-litre wide jug, add 1.5 cups of kombucha and the SCOBY, cover with a tea towel, and put it in the pantry. Lots of ventilation, no cross-contamination, no light, and sufficient temperature. After a week, voila! Perfect kombucha!

(I tried coffee again, but found it too sweet and too strong. Didn't like it much, so I gave it to Michelle, who said it tastes like her mother's iced coffee.)

Ginger beer

I've loved ginger beer since I was a small child, that lovely hot, sweet, cold, bubbly drink! So I was looking forward to making my own.

The first batch was a bust. I started the ginger "bug" (1 cup of water, 1 tablespoon of fresh grated ginger, and 1 tablespoon of sugar). By day 2, nothing had happened, so, as per the instructions, I added grated ginger and sugar. I did this again on day 3. By day 4, there was visible mould growing on top. Yuck.

So I dumped that out and started again with organic ginger. Worked like a charm! I had a nice bubbly ginger bug by day 2, and carried on with the rest of the recipe.

The first batch, I forgot to add the lemon, and thought, No big deal. And it wasn't. It was still good - very good. The second batch, I remembered the lemon, and what a difference! Within 2 weeks, it tasted very similar to how I remember ginger beer tasting.

Honey wine

And now for something completely different! I had several cups of raw honey that my son brought back from Russia. Very unusual taste, and it was already starting to ferment, so I thought this would be perfect for starting honey wine. Not sure what I did wrong, but it, too, went mouldy. I'll let you know if I try it again with any better success.

Preserved lemons

Not technically "fermented", but preserved with salt nonetheless. Cut the (washed) lemons - preferably organic - from top to bottom in an 'X', but not all the way through. Pack a teaspoon of coarse salt in the centre, and pack in a glass jar. You can push them in tight. Then, when you're done, press them down several times, seal, and enjoy them on your counter for two weeks. A bit of lemony sunshine! Very popular in Moroccan dishes.

Foraging

This year we expanded our search beyond our vegetable garden and started to forage. There's an abundance of wild fruits and vegetables if you know what you're looking for.

Apples

A few weeks ago, Mike got together with Martha and Isaac and their sons for a couple of hours of apple picking - all organic, all pretty much wild, and all free. We took the apples to an Amish fellow near here who pressed them into apple cider, and paid $16.50 for 15 gallons. By the time I'd canned it all, we had over 50 litres of apple cider. (If I'd filtered it, it would have been apple juice.) Nothing in the store compares, maybe because we used so many varieties.

Grape leaves

I started making fermented dills, and learned that the tanin in grape leaves helps keep the pickles crunchy. And guess who has wild grape vines growing up the side of the barn? Bingo!

Elderberries

I didn't get around to making elderberry wine or syrup this fall, but there are lots of elderberry bushes just walking distance from here. So that's a project for next fall.

Milkweed

Apparently tender young milkweed pods are wonderful fermented, much like capers, but better. Then I noticed that our lower pasture is full of milkweed, so I'll be trying that next fall, too.

Wild garlic

In the summer of 2014, we dug up some wild garlic from the ditch in front of our neighbour's farm and stuck it in the back garden, not expecting much. When I went out this spring, I was disappointed to see that they hadn't come back - until I noticed that they had, with a vengeance. Some of the bulbs were a good size, and they'll all be divided up this week and replanted.

Maple syrup

 Turns out most of the maples we have are hard maples - which means we can tap them for sap and make our own maple syrup! Martha and Isaac used to work in a sugar bush, and I'm sure they'll give us a hand until we figure out what we're doing. It'll mean a bit of equipment and a small sugaring shack, but once we're set up, we can do it every year.

Walnuts

Mark has a walnut tree - and doesn't like walnuts. So we got them all last year, and they all went mouldy because I didn't know what to do with them. The tree didn't produce anything this year, so I'll try again next year.

Dandelions

Dandelion jelly. Wow! We'd gone to visit Michelle, and she gave us a taste of some dandelion jelly that someone had given her. Sweet and suble and delicious - like honey, but better. I will never again be dismayed by their sunny appearance all over the property!

Wild edibles and herbs

Next spring we're going with Michelle on field trip to learn about wild edible plants and healing herbs. Really looking forward to that!

Adventures in Gardening - 2013 - 2015

2013 - the year of winging it

In the spring of 2013, we started seeds indoors, rototilled and planted. We'd ordered probably $500 worth of seeds, and got as many of them in the ground as we could. We had no idea what/how much we'd like/use and what we wouldn't, so the more, the merrier.

We were pretty clueless. (Remember, we weren't gardeners of any sort, and never had been.) We got 3 rows of potatoes in the ground, and as we were leaving the garden, feeling quite satisfied, I turned to Mike and said, "Uh - how will we know when they're done?!" Clueless.

The potatoes did well, and the tomatoes produced more than we'd expected. Sadly, we had no root cellar for storage, and had no plan in place for harvesting and storing, so there was a lot of waste.

We spent 100-150 hours that winter figuring out what went wrong and what we could do differently the next year.

I made charts and lists of everything, including what we bought to can and how many jars we got, what seed packets we still had left, and what we'd have to order for spring planting.

2014 - the year of doing marginally better

In the spring of 2014, we'd sifted some of the rocks out of soil, but it was in serious need of amending. Again, we planted and watered and weeded and tended and nurtured. The tomatoes were abysmal - except for the cherry tomatoes which seem to thrive in adversity.

We also did marginally better with harvesting, but storage was an issue. Mike had built a root cellar, but it wasn't yet vented. We put the squash in there with the potatoes - and they all moulded. Turns out squash don't like root cellars. They much prefer a drier, warmer home.

We spent 100-150 hours that winter figuring out what went wrong and what we could do differently the next year. But we were starting to get a handle on how much of each we needed to plant. Really not much point planting things neither of us liked - unless we were going to do a market garden, and that wasn't happening any time soon.

2015 - the year of starting to have a clue - and seed saving, foraging, and fermenting

In February of 2015, we moved a large shelving unit in front of our south-facing bedroom window and started loading it up with seed trays on heating mats. (We start everything except potatoes and sweet potatoes from seeds.) Much better! Tons of tomatoes and peppers, onions, celery - you name it, we had it.

I also started herbs. Those went into trays on mats in every south-facing window through the house.

Less success with sweet potato slips. I followed all the instructions for starting your own slips, but the sweet potatoes just didn't root and eventually rotted.

By April, a lot of seedlings had been transplanted to peat pots. I still hadn't figured out which plants are happy to be transplanted and which aren't, so it was still pretty much hit and miss.

Now the garden was starting to look more like a garden. Weeding was still a challenge, despite the landscape fabric that we'd put between the rows the previous year. The sun and weather deteriorated it, and the weeds came right through. But it was still a vast improvement from 2 years ago. In fact, a friend of mine who has glorious flower gardens referred to me as an "illustrious gardener." What?! Clearly she hadn't seen Martha's garden!

Cabbages were a disaster. Out of a couple of dozen red and green cabbages, only 1 of each survived. Bugs ate them all. The nappa cabbage did well, but you couldn't really tell that's what it was. (More research needed.) The bok coy however thrived. And if you don't cut it too far back when you harvest, it keeps growing.

The peas were a big success, but next time I would plant different kinds in different rows. Snap peas and shelling peas look remarkably alike! And they were planted a bit too close together, which made finding and harvesting them a challenge.

The strawberry patch thrived and gave us enough strawberries this year for jam. As of this writing, some of them are still in bloom!

The asparagus astonished me. What had gone is as tiny little plants in the spring of 2014 are now tall, strong, vigorous plants. We'll be able to start enjoying them next spring. I can hardly wait! Fresh asparagus roasted with olive oil, salt, and fresh garlic. Yummy!

Tomatoes and potatoes were a bit of a sad story. Blight. (More on that in another post.)

The corn didn't do so well. It developed late in the season and was dry, mealy, tasteless, and not at all sweet. And many of the cobs never fully developed. (Apparently they weren't properly pollinated. More research required.) I managed to get about 4 dozen cobs which I blanched, cut off the cobs, and dried for making dried corn pudding. We'll see how that turns out.

We also planted climbing green beans amongst the corn - maybe not the best idea because they took over and caused some of the corn stalks to buckle under the weight.

Garlic did well, but we need to find better storage techniques because some of them dried out and some moulded. We should have plenty for planting (100 the first year, 200 the second year, and 300 this year), but we won't have much left for our own use.

The squash grew alarmingly well, and threatened to take over 6 rows in the garden. Yikes! They're getting their own garden next year, well away from everything else.

We planted 32 pickling cucumber plants, complete with trellises. Some of the first planting died off or were eaten, so I just stuck seeds in the ground where I pulled out the dead ones, and they did just fine. We got enough pickling cucumbers for 2 dozen jars of dills.

And I finally have an herb garden, planted between the spokes of old wagon wheels. Very aesthetically pleasing, but not terribly productive. Maybe not enough sun, maybe poor soil, or maybe they just need another year to get properly established. I'd like to start a larger one in a sunnier spot with better soil in the spring.

Luke dropped off a load of horse manure in the summer which will be worked into the garden shortly. And Isaac and his grandson came over this past week and ploughed the garden with a pair of horses. That was something to see! - both the process itself and the finished result.

Our knowledge expanded this year to include seed saving, foraging, fermenting - and vacuum sealing dry goods, which I'd never heard of before. And these were all so exciting that I'll dedicate a post to each of them!

Adventures in gardening - Part 1

Our first spring, we rototilled the garden and planted everything - well, not quite everything. Actually, it seemed like a lot, but I don't think it was. But it was a lot for me.

I'm not a gardener. I've never been a gardener. When I lived in Brampton and my sister would visit from Connecticut, she'd plant flower gardens in front of my house, and friends would come over to weed when the gardens became overgrown from neglect.

I once had a small vegetable garden - repeat, once - 3' x 12'. A friend dug 3 feet down in clay and filled up the bed with all good things: compost, organic fertilizer, peat moss, sand, and bone meal. It was rich and loamy, and my plants loved it. I grew herbs and a few tomato plants and a zucchini that climbed the wall up to the second-storey windows. It was spectacular.

From then on, I grew herbs. Herbs are lovely. Most (except basil) are perennial and are perfect for non-gardeners like me: I like to cook with fresh herbs, and I don't want something growing that I have to fuss over.

So here I am now with a vegetable garden that's larger than my entire property in the city: approximately 3,500 square feet. This is what it looked like this year (add on 1.5' between rows):

Longer days, shorter days

I was almost 60 before I discovered why long days are long and short days are short.

 Here's what I noticed after I moved to the country:

In the summer, the sun rises in the direction of 2:00 and sets in the direction of 10:00.

In the winter, the sun rises in the direction of 4:00 and sets in the direction of 8:00.

It has to travel a whole lot further during the summer to get from sunrise to sunset - hence, the longer days.

Okay, seriously, I never noticed this before? Nope, I never noticed this before - likely because all the buildings got in the way!