Green and growing!

 We couldn't be happier with our little garden corral! Everything is green and growing and even producing blooms. We worry about the deer finding it, so we did put up a perimeter netting and so far <knock on wood> they're leaving it alone. 

I enjoy going out and watering it every day it doesn't rain. The tomatoes are in grow bags and those can dry out quickly. Next year, the plan is to get the tomatoes into five-gallon buckets. I didn't want to be a hoarder and purchase every food-safe bucket I could find, a notion that may bite me in the ass come next year, but there it is. 

Last year we started with five grow bags and had an encouraging harvest.  This year we've gone a bit bigger and instead of having just a few peppers, I hope to have enough for several batches of Cowboy Candy, pepper jelly, and more. We had enough cucumbers to eat and make a batch or two of refrigerator pickles, but not enough to store in the pantry. I love, love, love bread & butter pickles and hope this year to put my great-grandmother's recipe to good use. 

Then there are tomatoes. We seem to be cursed when it comes to tomatoes, but with over a dozen plants, we have hopes of some scrumptious tomato sandwiches. Considering we're growing old-fashioned Beefsteak tomatoes, it may happen. 

And so we wait and hope our little garden corral will do us proud. And we also hope our energy doesn't fail when it's time to preserve our harvest. 

The Lady of Holly Tree Manor

Pepper dreams

 

We're a big fan of peppers. We love peppers in all sorts of food dishes, stuffed peppers, Cowboy Candy, pepper jelly, and even savory bread. Last year, 2020, amid the COVID-19 crisis, I grew two pepper plants in grow bags and had more success than I'd ever had planting them in the ground. Hmmm. 

I purchased several sets of grow bags, some seed starter trays, good Burpee seed, and as of this morning I have thirty-three pepper plants happily growing in transplant cups in my sunroom office. I can't safely get out the door at the moment, but I don't care. I don't want to risk kicking a delicate transplant over and breaking it. I'll walk through the house to get outside for the next few weeks. Having happy peppers is more important. 

It does occur to me that peppers are hardly a crop to sustain us through a true food crisis. Well, I planted two fifteen-gallon grow bags with potatoes and those plants look hale and healthy. Again, not enough to sustain us for long. Living on the side of a mountain has a few drawbacks and flat land to have a proper garden is one, and the neighborhood deer is number two. That I'm still working is another consideration. My "drop dead" retirement date is May 31, 2022, so next growing season will likely look different. This year, I experiment and learn. 

The recipe I use for Cowboy Candy was pulled from the Living Traditions Homestead YouTube channel. Cowboy Candy isn't candy, but it's good. I drain the peppers, finely chop them, and mix them with a block of cream cheese for a dip to have with raw veggies or crackers. The Living Traditions Homestead channel contains a wealth of information about small to medium homesteads. We like to catch up with them on Saturday mornings while we enjoy our coffee. 

Today I must replant tomatoes. Unlike the peppers, none of the tomato seeds I planted germinated. It's hard to say why, but I purchased the seeds at a home center and not a specialty seller like Burpee's or Baker Creek. It's also possible the soil in the starter trays didn't get warm enough being that the peppers held the best spot. We shall see. 

Now I must get on with my day and stop writing about doing and actually go do. 

Maybe just one more cup of coffee and a few more searches for recipes that highlight peppers first. 

The Lady of Holly Tree Manor

The first seeds of 2021 are planted

 

Yesterday was a busy day here on the manor. Saturdays are frequently filled with bits and pieces, drips and drabs of chores, and other small items that need attention. Most Saturdays it's a shared half-hour over a cup of coffee and we set off in our own directions for a few hours. I had one thing on my "must do" list and that was plant pepper seeds. 

There was a more pressing item, however, and I did see to that as soon as I had on shoes. We had to replace the sump pump this past week and the discharge hose needed to be secured, something I didn't do the other night. Because it was night. Like after ten o'clock. Why do these things always wait until after dark to go bad? We had a replacement pump on hand, but could it not have waited until the weekend to die? Nooooo. Anyway, I securely zip-tied the discharge hose and moved on to playing in the dirt. 

It's been a good many years since I tried to have more than a pot or two of tomatoes. Last year I had some small success with tomatoes, peppers, and a cucumber vine, enough so that I'm expanding this year. I have seeds for peppers, tomatoes, cucumbers, radishes, carrots, pumpkin, and watermelon, as well as a few herbs which I plant every year. Basil is a wonderful plant to have on the patio. 

I found some small seed starter trays that have a dial in the lid to help humidity escape. They seem like a good idea for me since I've had issues with damping-off in previous years. Each planter has twelve sections. I planted bell pepper seeds dried from last year, Ring Leader jalapeno, Biker Billy hot peppers, and Great Stuff sweet peppers. I hope the mix of Ring Leader and Biker Billy will make some awesome cowboy candy. If, of course, the usual curse of being able to grow peppers was truly broken last summer. We shall see.

I also have a new celery re-grow started. In just a day it's sending up a bit of new growth. It will join the other three re-grown stalks in the greenhouse in about two weeks. 

The plan for today is to plant the basil and dill seeds in cherry red pots that I'll keep in the sunroom for the next several weeks. Once the sprouts are of a size to have good leaves, I'll transfer them to the greenhouse for a few more weeks, and then it will be time to set them on the patio to enjoy and harvest.

Also on the agenda is to put together three more racks/trellises to support growing veggie plants this summer. I'd also like to get the snowblower off the John Deere 1023, and my grow bags filled with a soil mix. Things go so much smoother when you stay ahead of what needs done. 

Spring is an exciting time on the manor. We know we won't accomplish everything in one weekend, but sometimes we try. Stay tuned. 

The Lady of Holly Tree Manor