Living in Season

Little brownie baker

It's been one of those days, and chocolate was high on my list of must-haves. So, I whipped up a batch of brownies this evening. Sam "helped." Yep, the boy has my sweet tooth, I'm sorry to say!

 

 

Let the seeding begin!

(I'm starting a new blog called "The Backyard Bounty" that will eventually replace Living in Season simply because I can't drop the "Typepad" addition in the web address. There's already a .com out there, and it's nothing like what I do. So, I will double up posts to some degree until I make the final change.)

Tuesday Sam and I seeded a container of celery, two of 'Copra' onions, one 'Goliath' sweet pepper and one 'Goliath Griller' Anaheim type pepper.... oh, and another of buttercrunch lettuce because I killed the ones I started at the beginning of the month. (I put them in the greenhouse during a nice day last week, and the door froze shut by evening. They spent the night in the cold, and didn't pull though.) It's a little earlier than normal, but I'm striving to have plants set out earlier this spring than last year. Lord willing, we won't have sub zero temps at the end of April or a couple of feet of snow. I'm ready for  "normal" spring with a final frost date of May 15 and no more freak storms.

I have a lot of people ask me when to start their seeds in the house, and my best piece of advice is to pull out the calendar and grab your seed packets. Most of them (with a few exceptions) will tell you how many weeks before setting them outside you should start them. For example, tomatoes typically recommend 6 to 8 weeks before the last frost date. However, since I'll set many of mine out in late April or early May, I need to have at least some of them planted in early March.

On the other hand, there are a number of fast growing plants that shouldn't be started too far ahead of the game. Squash are one of them. I have a friend... actually two of them... who started them way to early. By the time comes to set them out, you have gangly plants on your hands. They can survive, but since they can be fussy about transplanting as it is, it's better to have a stocky, sturdy plant.

Below is a sample of Sam and I planting a few peppers yesterday. We're still working on the technical aspect of it, but hope to be able to demonstrate a number of gardening methods throughout the season.

 

 

Questions answered about the whole foods course

Wardeh sent me a link that answers many of the questions people have concerning her 14 week class on whole foods on her GNOWFGLINS blog. There's still time to enroll if you're interested in joining this 5 month long session. She is accepting new students until 5 pm. PST on Monday, Feb. 22.

It's going to be a fascinating course. We're learning techniques that are completely old-school: sprouting grains, fermenting, making sourdough, soaking whole grain flour for baking... there's a good reason she calls it a Fundamentals course. Even though I cook most everything from scratch this is certainly going to kick it up another level!

Taking an eCourse in whole foods from GNOWFLGINS

 

I'm excited to try my first eCourse on learning how to prepare whole foods. Wardeh Harmon, a Whitefish native who now lives in Oregon, is the woman behind the GNOWFLGINS blog (GNOWFLGINS means "God's Natural, Organic, Whole Foods, Grown Locally, In Season") where she talks about getting back food basics, which is the goal of this course.

This is a five week course so it won't be an overwhelming amount of information dumped all at once. I'm looking forward to learning how to use sprouted grains and seeds, plus work on my sourdough technique (which has been a struggle for me lately for some reason - I'm hoping she will help me figure out what I'm doing wrong), and learn how to make kefir! She also has a lesson on how pickling. I'm a fermentation nut so this should be fun. There's always something to learn!

To sign up or take a look at the GNOWFGLINS Fundamentals. If you would like to sign up, the deadline is February 22 because the fun begins on February 23. Hope to see you on the Forums!

Kokanee for dinner

Grant went fishing today to try to increase our pike supply in the freezer, but didn't have much luck. He did come home with a lovely Kokanee salmon, though. This was a nice one. I know we would've been doing backflips if we caught one this big on Bitterroot Lake in the Flathead.

It's a good thing he caught it because I wasn't able to cook the turkey as I planned. I hate to handle poultry when I have a baby hanging on my leg, and John didn't give me the chance to pop it in the oven. (The corned beef was another story. That only took 30 minutes.)

I like to slice onions and place them inside of the fish when baking it, but Grant prefers it without. So tonight I put in a little pat of butter, salt and dill. Then I baked it at 425 for 25 minutes. It was perfect. Very creamy flesh, almost buttery. Excellent meal! Grant's hoping to head back to try to sack up some more before the ice is off at the end of the season, but I suppose we need to be careful not to smoke our fish before they're caught!

Plant a Row for the Hungry in Great Falls

When you're planning your garden for the season it's important to consider what you're going to do with everything. Putting in a veritable Eden seems like a good idea when there's still a blanket of snow on the ground, but it's overwhelming when the zucchini are maturing before your very eyes or you have a bushel of beans to eat. This is the time to develop a backup plan besides dropping it off on your neighbor's porch at night.  

When I sat down with Gayle and Pam at the Great Falls Food Bank yesterday we discussed spreading the word on where gardeners can take their extra produce, as well as encouraging home growers to join the "Plant a Row for the Hungry" campaign, a national program hosted by the Garden Writers Association. Gayle is working on acquiring seeds from different organizations to hand out to gardeners willing to grow for the food bank. At this point in time we're planning on having the Cascade County Extension Office be the central location to pick up seeds (although Wade, our illustrious ag agent, is off basking in the sun somewhere so the decision isn't completely finalized). Anyone in Great Falls can pick up the free seeds, grow the produce, and drop it off at the food bank. The food bank is also more than happy to take the extras from anyone who isn't officially part of the effort.

I'm going to encourage our plot people at the River City Harvest community gardens to join the program, as well. We already plan on having several plots for charitable organizations, but if people designate specific rows I can add those to our harvest list. This way whoever is harvesting will know what they can pick. And Gayle said she can send over her volunteers to pick up the veggies so I'm hoping the process will go much smoother this season.

I told Gayle it would be wonderful if we reached a point where they were saturated with produce, but I think that's going to be a tough goal to meet. If Gayle can't use it, she has plenty of resources such as Meals on Wheels, the Mercy Home, Great Falls Mission and many other food pantries that will. While I'm glad it won't go to waste, it's unsettling that there are so many in need just in our little area. If nothing else, hopefully we can make a small dent.

It's raining seeds

Despite at least 6 inches of snow on the ground and the fact the wretched rodent saw his shadow and predicted 6 more weeks of winter weather, I'm in full blown seed glory.

I enjoyed thirty minutes of peace and quiet the other morning while the boys slept to finish my seed orders. I maintained control with Territorial Seeds and Totally Tomatoes, but got a little click happy with Seeds of Change. Their site is just too gorgeous. I think I have everything I need for various articles I'm planning on writing this year. It's always better to have the photo shoot in the back yard since lighting and other conditions are so variable.

This has also been a productive week as far as setting up connections for the community garden effort. I attended the board meeting at the Salvation Army on Tuesday, the same morning I placed my seed orders. They're considering starting a garden for their family services program since they provide food for so many families in the Great Falls area. It's a fantastic location, and would be a tremendous benefit to local people. I was there to let them know what River City Harvest can do to help, and I think I'm now on the Salvation Army board! Funny how that happens, but I'm happy to do what I can. Hopefully, we'll have a final plan in March so we can move forward as soon as the weather permits. The greatest obstacles are securing water - the city of Great Falls charges $1500 to hook up a meter - and erecting a fence around the lot to discourage vandalism or theft. I'm confident we'll have something growing this year, though.

When I returned home from the board meeting, I was shocked to find a box from Seeds of Change on my porch. My initial thought was "Dang! They're good!" But I quickly realized it was the 100 packages of seeds I requested through their seed donation program for the community garden. Oh, what fun! I've sorted through the seeds to decide which ones need to be started ahead of time, and what we can direct seed. It's a good start to what I believe is going to be a highly productive year.

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PlantersPlace.com | Pest Patrol | Protect your fruit trees with a dormant oil spray.