It's a start...

This is what the kitchen looked like originally.

This is what it looked like Thursday morning.

This is what it looked like Thursday afternoon.

I can't WAIT to see what it will look like in a few weeks!

But before then, decisions, decisions, decisions!

So far:

Cabinets, which will be painted the same white as the trim and ceilings (Benjamin Moore "Oxford White"). The doors will have the double bead detail, but the drawers will just have plain centres:

Countertop: "Oiled Soapstone" laminate:

Knobs and pulls: Brushed satin nickle finish, knobs on doors, pulls on drawers:

Lights: pot lights in the kitchen area, and this over the dining room table:

And possible floor, with possible paint colour. The two paint colours are "Pale Sea Mist" (top) and "Dark Linen" (bottom), both from Benjamin Moore. They are lighter shades of the green in the living room chair, and I'm veering towards the lighter of the two shades. Even though it's called Dark Linen, it's still quite green!

So, the kitchen plans are finalized, the cabinets, counter top and hardware ordered, the floor and paint possibly picked out...

... now we just need everything else. Like walls, and plumbing and wiring.  HELP!

This?

This?

This isn't just a squash.

This isn't just a winter squash.

This isn't just the first (and only) winter squash I've managed to grow.


This?

This is a certified, prize-winning, champion squash.

This is not me. This is Wil Wheaton. Just in case you were wondering.

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Full disclosure: there were only four squashes entered, because crappy summer, but still.

Do you see what I see?

Do you see it?

No?

Do you see it now?

No??

How about now?

Isn't it cool! Yes, that is indeed a tomato hornworm being parasitized by a wasp - the white things are the wasp eggs, and when the larvae hatch, they feed on the hornworm.  Bwahahahahhahahaha!  I love nature in action, especially when it means I don't have to squish that damn thing!

If you ever see a parasitized hornworm in your garden, do NOT kill it. Let it live, so that the wasps can reach adulthood, and go out and kill more hornworms. Natural insect control for the win!

Katydid vs Katydid

I saw these in the garden today:

That is a Katydid.

This is also a Katydid.

But only one of them is a tomato thief.

As the tomato season winds down...

Yes, it's that sad, dismal time of year once again. The time where night time temperatures start to drop into the 60s (and even lower), signalling the beginning of the end.

And for me, it's time to give the tomato plants a hair cut.

While the tomato plants are all still flowering, there is no way those flowers will have time to develop into tomatoes. So, I went in and cut out a lot of dead/dying leaves, growing shoots with flowers, and any tomatoes too small to grow and ripen. Even though our first frost is (hopefully) a ways away, the cooler temperatures mean the small fruits simply won't grow, and I'd rather have the plants spend their remaining energy on ripening the existing, larger fruits.

The pile of trimmings. Lots of dead leaves- Septoria leaf blight was an issue this year.

Trimmed plant. Some almost ripe tomatoes, and a few green ones that will hopefully still grow and ripen.

Oh, and do NOT wear your good clothes when working in the tomato patch. Because, the plants are covered in...

... shiny, happy, glistening little trichomes (microscopic hairs) on the tomato plants that result in...

... this. Green gunk, aka Tomato Tar.

This stuff will NOT come off with just soap and water, and WILL stain your nice white hand towels. Ask me how I know. Rubbing alcohol to the rescue: before you wet your hands, rub some rubbing alcohol on them. Then soap and water can do their trick.

So, how did this season go? Not bad, not bad at all. I tried a couple of cherry tomatoes in pots, and was not happy with the results - I only got a handful of tomatoes off of each plant. Of course, I do have a tomato thief in my midst...

"That wasn't a tomato seed in my beard, honest!"

Yeah. When your dog comes in with tomato seeds all around her mouth, that might just be the reason you aren't getting as many tomatoes as you thing you should.

"I'm the good dog!" Yes, but you are SCRUFFY!

But even with the dastardly thieving, the plants in the pots were no where near as large as their counterparts in the garden. So next year, no tomatoes in pots. Except maybe one...

Prolific monster - Aunt Ruby's German Green cherry tomato

I grew a green tomato this year: Aunt Ruby's German Green cherry tomato. It farking took over the ENTIRE bed! And talk about prolific! The only problem (in addition to being the tomato that ate New York) was that it's, well, green. And thus, it's hard to tell when it's ripe - especially in my typically over-grown tomato bed. But since I REALLY liked the taste of it, I'm thinking that growing it in a pot next year will solve two problems: it wouldn't be quite as monstrous, and it would be easier to keep an eye on the fruits and pick them when ripe.

For other varieties - well, I don't know. I'll have one and a half beds for tomatoes next year (the other half is devoted to sweet peppers), and I give each plant 4 square feet, so that means 18 plants (no, that is NOT too many for one person - and one thieving dog). 10-12 of those will be pastes - and no, I still don't have a favourite paste tomato. The Federle this year had nice fruit, but inconsistent sizes, and it wasn't that productive. I grew Amish paste last year, which was really productive, but it had tiny fruit - a pain in the arse to peel for canning. And I'd like a determinate variety for paste tomatoes - it's easier to have a few big canning days, rather than have dribs and drabs of tomatoes coming in over time, in my opinion.

I still want indeterminate varieties for eating tomatoes, though - and Stupice will be back. I can't argue with a variety that gives me tomatoes that early! Other than that, I don't know.

Sob.

Taste is SO individual. For example, I think I'm the only person who liked the German Green. And while I found the yellow cherry okay (at best), my neighbour RAVED about them. I'm tempted to toss some money at my local tomato genius, and ask her to send me a selection of tomatoes that taste like tomatoes :)

But still, life is good. Even though the tomato season is winding down, I picked over three baskets today (those are 3L baskets, if anyone is wondering - and a bushel is around 35 L). I'll have one more big canning session, and get some crushed tomatoes done, and maybe another batch of sauce. And there are still tomatoes in the garden, soaking up the last of the summer sun. And maybe, just maybe, I'll get two full months of fresh tomato eating this year.

A garden tomato, every day, from July 12 to September 12? Not bad at all!

Sauce, salad, sandwich - the best of the summer, all in one fruit!

Four - Eight of Twelve

I thought I'd better catch up on my Twelve Months of Food posts. As a refresher (because, yeah, it's been a while), instead of Christmas gifts last year, I gave the adults in my family food, in the form of one meal a month.

To date:

January: pulled pork
February: chili
March: breakfast!

And to update:

April: Lasagna - yum!
May: Roast local chicken, plus all the trimmings.
June: Grilled burgers & sausages, plus potato and macaroni salad
July:  Grilled chicken, grilled pepper & onion skewers and potato salad. The onions and potatoes were all from the garden.
August: Grilled steaks, local corn-on-the-cob and garden tomatoes.

Sorry, no pics - I was too busy eating :)

My sister was nice enough to host June and July at her house, since my old grill wasn't large enough to cook large amounts of food. But, I took advantage of end-of-season sales, and bought a new charcoal grill - my old one, in addition to being small, was literally on it's last legs. I don't think it would have held up for one more summer, and a container full of hot coals collapsing suddenly just seems dangerous to me ;) I also bought (my first ever) a patio table and chairs. Makes it easier to have the family over in the summer!

The point of these meals is to make something that, in addition to (hopefully) being delicious, can be made from mostly local, in-season ingredients. Where I can, I use local sources, including my own garden, and plan the meals around what is available. So, no asparagus in September, and no corn-on-the-cob in March. I'm not saying I do buy everything locally (lack of sources, lack of $), but everything I make could be sourced locally. Except, of course, things like spices and oils that are used in small amounts, and not as the basis of the meal.

You will note the lack of desserts. These are meant to be "everyday" meals, not feasts :) But we have had desserts, supplied by other family members, especially if we are also celebrating a birthday at the meal.

Going forward, I plan to post monthly on these meals. Oh, and also take pictures!

How to Make a Hot Pepper Ristra

Or, more accurately, how I made a hot pepper ristra*. Because, of course I can't do it the normal way ;)

I grew 4 cayenne peppers plants this year, and wanted a way to both dry and store them. The traditional way of making a ristra uses a needle to thread the string through the pepper itself. I have issues with that:

• I don't have a needle large enough** for the twine I'm using, and I'm too cheap to buy one.
• Even if I did have a needle that large, I'd have to put it somewhere for 11 months of the year, and then remember, every August, where I put it.
• My peppers are not ready to pick all at the same time. So, if I used the needle method, I'd have to either keep threading it every time I had more peppers to add, or leave it on the string, which just seems like a bad idea to me ;)

So I decided to try my own method, just by tying the peppers onto the string.

Supplies: hot peppers (I only dry cayenne peppers this way - I'd have to use the dehydrator for larger peppers, due to the humidity), heavy string (I used garden twine), and scissors.

1. Tie a loop into the end. This will be what you use to hang up the resulting string.

2. Start a second knot in the string, close to the loop.

3. Snug the knot up as much as you can, while still leaving room for the pepper stem. This helps, since if you leave the knot too big, trying to hold the pepper in the knot while tightening it at the same time is hard. At least for me. You might be more adept ;)

4. Put the stem of the pepper into the knot, and make it as tight as you can. Note to self: leaving the stems longer helps.

5. Start a second knot, close to the first.
 

6. Add the second pepper, and tighten the knot.

7. Lather, rinse, repeat. If anyone is looking closely, you'll see I changed the order of the peppers: I had to try this a couple of times to get the spacing right. Too close, and the peppers radiate out in a circle (also, spacing the peppers a bit further apart increases air flow and helps them dry). Too far apart, and it just looks odd. Keep the extra twine on the string, and add more peppers as they ripen.

8. Hang to dry and store. Then eat throughout the winter, in pasta sauces and chili and pizza and...

No, it's not Martha Stewart good, but it works for me, and no needle required!

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*Fancy pants name for "string of dried peppers".
**I do have a large-eyed darning needle, but it's plastic, and I don't think it would hold up to the peppers. Besides, I don't know where it is...

The Garden in August

In this last week of August, the garden is indefinitely winding down.

The second bed of potatoes is almost ready for harvest. These are (hopefully) my winter potatoes, so I'll leave them in the ground until the foliage is completely dead, then dig them up. I thought that two beds of potatoes might be a bit much, but considering I've eaten my way through at least 3/4 of the first bed already...
 

Potatoes!

The garlic has all been harvested, and it's apparently a Goldilocks year. 

Garlic!

Onions and garlic hanging out in the shed on my fancy-schmancy curing tray.

I planted three varieties (no, I don't remember what they are, because, even after all these years, I'm still under the illusion that I'll actually remember things like variety names). One variety was too small - it produced wee, little, tiny, pain-in-the-ass heads. I've already used the entire harvest, making roasted tomato sauce. The heads were so small, the easiest way to use them was to roast them - trying to separate and peel the minuscule cloves was. not. fun.  Another variety was (almost) too big. As in almost-as-big-as-my-hand big. And each individual clove is enormous. I don't remember it being this big when I planted it...

It's huge!

And one variety was just right :) I'll keep cloves from these two varieties (as long as the taste is okay) for replanting. Oddly enough, I'm second guessing myself, and I'm tempted to try some fall planting again.

Just right - and purple!

I pulled out the Lazy Housewife beans - they aren't really producing, and I don't like them anyway, so off to the compost bin with them! I'm keeping the Rattlesnakes going for a while, even though they've only produced a handful of beans in the last couple of weeks - hopefully with some more rain and cooler temperatures, I'll get another flush of beans. I'm amazed though - last year at this point, the bean trellises were so full, they were in danger of falling over. This year? Ha!

But what about the Scarlet Runner beans? Complete, utter, 100% failure. Oh, they are pretty enough, but not one bean from 32 plants. Not one.

We don't need to be productive because we are pretty!

I'm assuming they aren't getting pollinated? Because they are flowering heavily, but pods simply aren't forming. And there are pollinators around, right Katy?

What's that? Can I eat it?

Carpenter bee - that explains the sawdust in the raised beds!

There are also hummingbirds around, so I'm not quite sure why I'm not getting any beans. I do know, however, that it's doubtful this plant will make a repeat appearance in the vegetable garden. The flower garden, maybe...

Burgundy okra

One crop that will come back is okra.  I'm really liking it, especially in vegetable soup. I had hoped to save seeds this year, but had one of those brain fart moments: Even though I know they are insect pollinated, I didn't think about cross-pollination. And since I grew two varieties...

I still might keep the seeds, since I really have no preference between the two, and see what I get. And to all those people I promised okra seeds - oops! Yes, I should really have known better :(

 I'm cautiously optimistic on the squash front. Even though my grand total for zuchinni zucchini (OMG - it only took two attempts this time!!) this year will be four, and the cucumbers are a complete wash, and the winter squash plants look like complete, wilty, mildewy crap, I might, just might, actually harvest something from them this year. There are still two Chersonskayas - the others, unfortunately, never grew and ended up rotting :(

Look at the stem getting all brown and hard!

Smaller, but still okay. And yes, that is an acorn squash along side.

Ugh.

There are two good Winter Sibleys too, which I hope will make it.

Winter Sibley among the ruins (and weeds) :)

And hopefully 2-3 spaghetti squash. 

Hang in there, little squash!

The acorn squash are still looking good, but I'm kinda disappointed - only 4-5 fruits in total, and they are small. Oh well - they'll be a good size for individual meals. And really, squash is squash - considering the failure from past years, I shouldn't be complaining about any that I'm actually able to grow!

The sweet peppers are all done, and had a respectable harvest this year, even though each pepper was somewhat small - lack of water, I think.

Yummy yellow peppers.

 And of course, the tomatoes are still going strong. I'm still picking at least one 3-liter basket every day - not bad at all!

Have I mentioned that I love summer?