We Finally Have Peas! Great Recipe Included!

We've got peas, delicious peas!

I think we have FINALLY found the perfect spot for growing peas!

Lingering Promises

Summer is winding down and many of our plants are closing up shop. Frost will be right around the corner. We miss our green beans; they stopped producing a couple of weeks ago. Most of our herbs are looking very bad, or are completely wilted away. Some of our plants, however, are thriving, and promise to deliver, soon! They keep the excitement of the warm summer alive for us!

Soon we will be looking for ways to extend our harvest into the colder weather. Stay tuned! ;)

Will we finally have peas, after 2 previous failed attempts?

Tigger Melon gets bigger each day

Of course, we still have some beautiful red tomatoes

Yellow pear tomatoes, which grew entirely on their own this year (love those little surprises!)

Beautiful eggplant!

There's another little one peeking out behind

Our potatoes in a pot; we have no idea if anything has grown 'underground'...stay tuned for the harvest!

Critter on the Loose

I'm not sure who the culprit is, but when Simon and I went out tonight to pick tomatoes, I found this.

There were five tomatoes like this, all near the bottoms of the vines. Otherwise beautiful and perfect, until we turned it over and found half of it eaten. Why do critters only eat half of things??? I remember during our first year of gardening, we were absolutely taunted to insanity by a gang of chipmunks that would take tomatoes from the vines, take a few tiny bites, and then leave the tomato carcasses all over the yard and driveway. I was endlessly frustrated, and may have even yelled out loud one day, "Just eat the whole darn thing!" I don't know if the chipmunks have returned; the neighbors' outdoor cats have been so good about patrolling the area and keeping critters away. Perhaps it's time to meet with the cats and discuss a payraise? Two happy calls of praise instead of one per day?

I threw the 5 half eaten tomatoes into the compost, and felt a renewed appreciation for these particular tomato plants, which have produced like mad all summer long. I didn't feel so terrible about losing a few, when we've been harvesting so, so many. I have been so happy with Baker Creek's Amish Paste tomatoes; I'll be saving seed this year, and I have some left from my original purchase. Plenty to share if you are interested in having some!

Simon and I set to work filling up our bowl, and as you will see in these pics, our tomato plants have become very heavy. Cages leaning, plants sprawled on the ground...I've got to take note that next spring we'll need stronger tomato support. I've got plenty of ideas (some of which I've posted here on the blog), but cages are just so easy. It's not until halfway through the summer, when the tomato plants are ginormous, that I always realize why those flimsy cages just don't cut it.

Alien tomato! A worm or caterpillar had eaten right through to create 'eyes', and a crease on the tomato looked like a creepy smile. Spooky! I'll spare you the grisly details of Simon's decision to kill the alien. Shudder.

A mess! Cages bent over and the plant on the end is completely on its side. I'm letting them go so I don't damage anything. I've been tying them up all summer long; now they can go crazy until summer's end.

Just hang on a little while longer! There are about 6 big green tomatoes on this plant our neighbor gave us (still a mystery on the type. I'll post a pic soon).

Unruly Teenage Tomatoes and the Potato Party

Is this a sign that we planted our precious tomato seedlings a bit too early?

These plants have grown so big, that they began falling over last week. If you look carefully, you'll see we had to rig a twine and tape system to hold them up against the window, along with wooden-skewer stilts tied to some of the stems to help hold them!

In the back of my mind, I often compare seedlings to children. You spend so much time nurturing them in their little nurseries during the late winter, like newborns. You fuss over them, worry about them, rejoice when they grow strong and tall, and lose sleep when they are having difficulties. Eventually the young plants you raised will be transplanted out in the world, where it will be up to them to prove productive and happy.

Well, if the analogy is applied to our tomatoes, they are teenagers--albeit late teens--who have outstayed their welcome home. They should have been out in the world on their own weeks ago. I will not kick them out, because the weather is still bitter at night (waiting for the 'magic' plant date of Mother's Day). But wow. They are entirely too big to still be at home. We thought about getting out to the garden and setting up a cover system with pvc piping and plastic, but money is tight as well as time. We are going to hold out. When it comes time to transplant them, we'll have to dig deep to provide some support to those long, long stems. I know that last year when it came time to transplant outside, our tomatoes were only about a third this tall. Another interesting development that these teenage behemoths are boasting? They are attempting to make tomatoes already! Look at one of the blooms I found.

In other Little Harvest news, we have decided to plant potatoes. This week we had a potato planting party!

There are so many great ideas for planting potatoes in small spaces. The trick is to keep covering them with soil or compost or rotting leaves/straw (whatever organic material you have on hand, basically) as they grow.  The same holds true whether planting in the ground or in a container. In order to keep burying the growing potatoes, you want to plant them at the bottom of something large. I have been on the lookout for the perfect large container for a few months. I wanted a washtub-style container, or whiskey barrel. Some old tires would have been great (stacking and filling with soil as the potatoes grow). But this giant white plastic pot will hopefully do the trick. I found it by chance at the dollar store at a deep discount, since it has a small crack at the top, which I knew would not effect our potato growing plans at all.

We have not purchased seed potatoes. I have already talked to a seasoned gardener in my family who has told me I MUST buy seed potatoes. Well, we had a bag of organic potatoes that were no longer fit for making lunch, and the sprouts coming out of them seemed to be begging to be put somewhere that they could keep growing. I have a stubborn streak, and being told I must do something a certain way only invites my effort to try a different (and cheaper) way!

Before heading outdoors, the kids and I examined the sprouty potatoes. "Gross" and "Weird" and "Scary" were the words I heard most as they touched and looked at the potatoes. I encouraged words like "Awesome" and "Amazing!" How amazing is it that these old potatoes want to grow into new ones?

We cut two of the sprouts off one of the potatoes, leaving some potato flesh with it. We put the rest of the potatoes in the cold garage, thinking we might find more places to plant them later. We then headed out (on a VERY windy day, mind you) and collected some compost. Oh, that rich, wonderful homemade soil! We marveled at the fact that each one of us remembered putting vegetable peelings, straw, and other old stuff, and here it was, transformed at the bottom of our compost ball.

You can see our unruly tomatoes hanging out in the window behind us!

About to blow away in the wind!!!

As I mentioned above, just a small amount of soil in the bottom of the pot will do. Place the potato bits in, sprouts faced up to the sky, and cover the sprouts with a thin layer of soil. As the sprouts grow through, add soil over the growing plant, leaving just a couple of green leaves poking out into the sun. In this way, the potato plant will grow up into the soil and create many roots. Lots of roots will eventually grow lots of potatoes!

We have high hopes for our new venture. If this proves successful, I'll be on the lookout for suitable containers for more potato growing!

Baby Tomatoes and Hope

One of my goals right now is to become more and more separate from industrial food. Growing lots of tomatoes seems to be one of the easiest ways to start. I used to think of tomatoes and wonder how people could eat so many of them. People who grew them in their gardens would give them away by the bags-full. I thought..just how many salads and sandwiches can I eat to use all of these before they get mushy (which happens so very quickly)? I never realized the possibility of preserving them until I tried it and saw for myself how easy it is. (If mom reads this, she may have a thing or two to say to me, namely, "Oh come on, where were you while I canned all those tomatoes every summer?" Answer: Somewhere far away from the kitchen.)

What things do I buy routinely that I could be putting up from my own tomato plants? Tomato sauce, diced tomatoes, whole tomatoes, roasted and pureed tomatoes...ketchup, even! I obtained a food mill last summer and the ease of making sauce increased ten-fold. So far I've done nothing more than freeze the sauce and diced tomatoes in freezer containers, but canning is next on the list of attainable goals. We use a LOT of canned tomatoes in our family, not to mention all the ketchup we go through. If we could provide the majority of our own tomatoes to last the whole year, not just in those glorious pick-them-straight-from-the-vine-and-die-of-happiness summer days, I think that would be an amazing step in the right direction.

Here are some pics of our growing tomato seedlings. They are started from seed that I got from rareseeds.com. A heritage variety called Amish Paste. The claim is that they produce well and that they make excellent sauce, so here's to hoping!

Also! This is our 3rd garden season starting our seeds without a growlight. Countless gardening sites assume that success will only come with growlights, but if I can do without, why not? I have big windowsills to hold the trays, and by rotating the seedlings throughout the day to catch as much sunlight as possible, they seem to do okay. In one of the following pics you'll see that on very cold days, I put a space heater (on lowest setting) under the window to keep the babies from getting frostbite. ;)

Big Orange Kitty watching over the babies

Small boy daydreaming next to the nursery

It's always hard to do...but it must be done. Culling the weakest sprouts so the hardiest one will grow into an amazing plant.

A little extra warmth on those frigid February/March mornings.

They eat up the sun and fill me with hope.

It's Pumpkin Time!

                                           

If you caught my blog post from just about a year ago, you might remember that we had a pumpkin patch. It  grew from the seeds of a jack-o-lantern, and we ended up with only two pumpkins (I cheated and staged some more pumpkins from the grocery store so that every child could take one home--they never knew!).

Well, this year was a wild success in comparison!

First of all, I have to tell you where the pumpkin seeds came from. Early in the spring, I got a beautiful surprise from one of my former daycare kids, Maggie. Maggie was one of the biggest enthusiasts of the Little Hands Garden as it started to take root. She had a garden at home, and was part of the Garden Club at her preschool, so she had all kinds of tips. I enjoyed her curiosity, her excitement, her quiet observation of the tiny miracles that took place with our projects. Here she is, working with our seedlings last year:

I make a lot of special memories with all the kids in my care. However, the nature of my job as a daycare teacher requires that I say goodbye when the early years pass. I often watch a child from babyhood, through toddlerhood, and then preschool age--and those years are absolutely precious to me. I've been lucky that most of my daycare children stay for the 'long haul' through all those years...turnover is low. I treasure the time spent with all my little ones, watching them change and grow. It was time for sweet Maggie to enter Kindergarten, and her days spent here would now be spent at school. I've been through the goodbyes many times before in the 9 years I've been doing this job, and it never gets any easier! Luckily, Maggie's mom has made the transition so wonderful for us all by bringing her for visits when she has days off school. Her daycare friends and I LOVE her visits! After one such visit, Maggie and her mom decided to bring me a gift. I was so completely touched by the surprise. It was a beautiful collection of seeds, handmade seed markers, seed starter mix, a mini-greenhouse, and adorable little planting pots.

Needless to say, I was speechless at the thoughtfulness of this gift. Of the various wonderful seeds Maggie brought for me and our garden, a packet of pumpkin seeds immediately caught my eye. I knew we were going to have a great little pumpkin patch using them.

We planted the seeds the the late spring (only 6 seeds total--2 small hills got 3 seeds), and watched the pumpkins develop from tiny green bulbs to perfect little orange cuties, just like we did last summer. It is an excitement that never gets old.

This year I definitely did not have to cheat and add in a few store bought pumpkins; our tiny humble patch produced THIRTEEN perfect tiny pumpkins!

The best part about the pumpkin patch is that harvest time occurs when the rest of the summer crops in the garden are gone. It brings us back to the now brown-and-scraggly garden so that we can see the results of the summer's pumpkin babies. It keeps the garden in our minds--and for me, it gets me thinking of what fall crops we can put in, because I just don't want the growing to end! 

There is just something magical about kids and pumpkins: they adore them, and get more excited to harvest them than any of our other crops. Here we are on our journey our little pumpkin patch this week. We are officially ready for fall!