The decent rain this morning will help the apples. I’m particularly looking forward to having a Zestar! apple from the tree I planted a couple of years ago. Zestar! is early and a bit tart. I tried one already and there is still too much starchiness. This rain should help them get bigger and sweeten them.
It is different for a retiree when it rains. Outdoors activity slows or stops. We take up indoors tasks that may have been long neglected. Or maybe, I put up the garage door and just watch the rain fall.
There is a lot going on in Iowa right now. Before I deal with that, I just need to breathe a while.
I just returned from my Monday morning trip to donate to the food pantry at the Methodist Church in town. They are open Monday afternoons for clients and accept deliveries beginning at 9 a.m. I donated cucumbers, zucchini and patty pan squash today.
Donating food accomplishes a couple of things. Clients really need the food they get at the food bank. By donating there, I contribute directly to someone’s good. When I want to preserve something — kale, cucumbers, vegetable broth, cabbage — I don’t know the yield, or how much I will need. The food bank enables me to grow plenty of what I need of a specific crop and find a home for the rest. By growing different things — patty pan squash, for example — I provide produce that is a bit different from what other gardeners may be donating. That give clients more diversity in their diet. More than anything, My donations make me useful in society.
I grow a garden for the fresh food. Being able to donate excess makes it feel like nothing is going to waste. That’s a good feeling.
2023 Garlic Harvest. 70 head plus seven green garlic.
It took about two and a half hours to harvest, sort and rack the garlic. 70 good sized head plus seven green garlic where I filled in spots where the clove planted in October didn’t survive winter. There is plenty for cooking in the coming year and 100 cloves to plant in the fall. This is what a home gardener hopes for in a garlic crop.
Lining up the garlic heads on a two-by-four for drying.
The main learning lessons are these:
Use wheat straw to mulch over winter. Grass clippings created a too-dense matte that hindered spring growth.
If there are empty spots in the spring, do plant new cloves in them. They don’t grow to maturity with the rest of the garlic, yet if you harvest the entire plot at once, they make green garlic to use in the kitchen while waiting for the main crop to cure.
Inspect each head to make sure it is disease-free. As long as the heads are disease-free, they can be used to start the following year’s crop.
Set aside the largest heads to use as seeds. Don’t equivocate on this step.
Racked garlic crop of 2023.
Garlic is such a basic ingredient that if one gardens at all, some part of the garden must be devoted to it. In the years I have been growing my own, I never found garlic at the grocer that is anywhere near as good in quality as my own. Producing a good garlic crop is one of the reasons we garden.
Wild Bergamot on the state park trail on July 2, 2023.
Rain was forecast all day Saturday and it did sprinkle some in each hour. In between sprinkling I made my way to the garden and found the first head of cauliflower was ready to pick. I grabbed it and headed back indoors.
It was a punk day while rotating between my writing desk, the living room, the kitchen, and taking naps. We both continue to suffer from contact dermatitis, my spouse worse than me. There was tending to treatments to alleviate pain and itchiness. At the end of the day I was tired, yet I can’t put a finger on exactly what exhausted me.
First cauliflower on July 1, 2023.
I’m in a pickle over the vegetable harvest. The refrigerator and freezer are close to capacity and I’m only just beginning. Pickling cucumbers and other veggies is not a path to exit, since I have too many pickles canned in jars from previous years. I messaged a friend who works at the local food bank and if they are working the day before Independence Day, I will transfer much of what I have to them for distribution. I like the excess produce as we can take the best and give the rest away to people who need or want it.
It is a lazy, early summer day. It’s not hot like it can get in August, yet spring is over. It’s an in between time of organizing for the next big project, yet not starting it. It’s time for taking naps in the middle of the day. How long it took us to get to this place in our lives.
For the first time since I began gardening in Big Grove, deer jumped the fences and began nibbling on my plants. Thus far, they got into two plots, eating peas, green beans and cucumber plants. I put up supplemental fencing where I thought they jumped over, yet I’m not sure that will do any good. I don’t have enough fencing to elevate the height to eight feet all around every plot.
What is going on? I haven’t changed anything. My instinct is the exceedingly dry weather hindered growth of their natural food supply and my tasty plants were better than starving. The damage of one eating session is substantial, and will impact yield. I need to do something.
I mastered the art of keeping rabbits out of the garden. By securing the bottom of the fence to the ground, and letting the clover grow in the yard, they have plenty of food without intruding on my vegetable patch. It is a success story. I’ve long realized deer can easily jump my four and five foot fencing, yet because of the how I planted, they haven’t… until now.
I’ll rig up some additional fencing after the sun rises and I view last night’s damage. What I believe would resolve the problem is getting a good, long rainfall.
Vegetable broth simmering. Made with many kinds of garden greens.
A hummingbird dipped water from the leaves of cabbage plants throughout the garden. It has been a dry season, yet the bird found enough to drink condensed from the night and pooled in drops on the leaves. The garden is full of such life. By taking time to stand, listen, and look, we share in the experience. We become part of the garden, which is not nature, yet as close as we can get.
A deer was eating pea blossoms over the fence. I let it go on for two nights then installed additional fencing to make it eight feet tall and restrict access on that corner of the garden plot. It worked, but the deer jumped the fence on the other side and tried to access the peas from inside the fence. It ate one or two, leaving hoof marks in the fresh-dug soil where I planted spinach seeds. I wonder what happened that it only took one bite.
Predictably, I found the first little green worm on a kohlrabi plant yesterday. The egg-laying white butterflies have been thick in recent days. It was only a matter of time. The challenge now is to seek them out and pick them off in the mornings. Hopefully the organic insecticide I applied will suppress them. They arrive just as the heads of broccoli are beginning to form. Half the battle is knowing their behavior. It is a battle that can be won by diligent humans.
My daily morning walk through the garden is rewarding. Everything is growing and besides early greens, I harvested the first zucchini and patty pan squash. This is my first year growing patty pan or scallop squash. This first one will go into stir fry later this week.
Tomatoes and tomatillos are beginning to blossom. Onions are forming bulbs. Green cabbages are about three inches in diameter. Soon I will turn over the first tub of potatoes for small ones. Apples and pears are growing. There is a lot going on.
We are lucky to be able to age in place. I don’t think of the outside world when I’m in the garden. I listen, observe and experience the ecosystem I made while wondering how I fit in. It’s the wondering that’s the best part.
Cart of five varieties of kale picked June 17, 2023.
The best kale is harvested before the characteristic little green worms have a chance to establish themselves. I deter them from getting too far by a couple of applications of Dipel, an insecticide containing toxins from Bacillus thuringiensis kurstaki (Btk), a naturally-occurring bacterium found in soil and plants. Btk is not harmful to humans, to birds, or to most beneficial insects and pollinators. It is widely used by farmers who use organic practices. The truth is one has to do something about the little green worms to have a good crop. This year, because of these applications, the cruciferous vegetable patch of kale, collards, broccoli, cabbage, chard, and cauliflower looks quite good.
The spring greens harvest has two major purposes outside eating fresh kale and collards. I stem the leaves and put as many packages as will fit in the freezer. Less attractive leaves, as well as the stems go into canned vegetable broth. I have been following this practice since we got a small freezer during a power outage. Since then, we upgraded to an upright freezer. This enables us to eat greens all year, until next year’s crop. It is something that goes well in our garden. Something upon which we rely in our everyday cooking.
Based on the number of white butterflies spotted in the cruciferous vegetables yesterday, it will be hard to keep up with them soon.
We like kale, especially in stir fry, soups, and tacos. Many people do not care for it. I learned to grow it from my friend Susan back in 2013. I would stop eating it if I didn’t grow it myself and control all the inputs. Part of aging successfully will be figuring out how to continue the annual kale crop.
They say if you bring something good to a potluck you’ll have to bring the same dish to every potluck from now on. I don’t make the rules.
When I attend a potluck, with or without my spouse, I take something we can both eat. Sometimes it is popular, yet mostly it is not. I overestimated the degree to which other people’s like for kale would match mine. I no longer take kale dishes. Whatever is not eaten goes into our rotation of leftovers. Live and let live. Life is good.
When the garden comes in, I make something for potluck with fresh ingredients, maybe potato salad. It is important to keep anything with eggs in it chilled. During apple harvest, some sort of baked apple dish is the norm, something like apple crisp. Thus far, my dishes haven’t been described as good very often, so I’m free to experiment. And I will.
In mid-June we have a good idea if there will be an apple crop and how big it may be. This year’s apples look to be plentiful. Typically, earliest apples go to sauce for fresh eating, and apple cider vinegar. Depending upon how they taste, I may make some apple butter with early apples. Mostly I wait until the September-October harvested ones for the main batches of canned sauce and butter. I also fill up the cider vinegar jars in the pantry. Each year I learn a bit more about processing the abundance when there is one.
The two newest apple trees are unpredictable. One has a couple of fruits forming, and the other has a lot. I can’t remember which is Zestar! and which is Crimson Crisp. Either would be welcome this year.
I toured the garden this morning and besides weeding, things look alright. There was not much caterpillar damage on the cruciferous vegetables. In the front yard, I saw a Monarch caterpillar and a milkweed bug having breakfast together. Late spring is a great time of year.
There have been two points of catharsis this year: finishing winter writing and sending the draft of my autobiography to a few friends, and finishing initial garden planting last week. Heading toward summer, new things are on the horizon.
More than at any time during the year summer is an opportunity to take on long-standing projects. I expect there will be plenty to do, including cleaning and organizing the garage, landscaping the yard, and tending neglected home maintenance tasks. We spent a lot on home appliances in the last month, so there is no extra money to take a vacation. We haven’t taken a vacation since our child was in high school 20 years ago. There is no pressing need either.
Summer was the time for political activities such as walking in parades, barbecues and picnics, and listening to speeches. Our political activities have become separated from most of society and these old-time activities have become irrelevant to winning elections or much else. If I had a business, I’d enter a float in our local parade. Otherwise, I’ll avoid town the day of parades. There are no planned trips to the many parades, festivals and activities planned in our part of the state.
Each summer I debate reading The Great Gatsby, my favorite summer novel. Most years I re-read it, although that decision is not made for 2023. Since I set a daily goal of reading 25 pages, the question now is which book will go into the rotation next. I’m so familiar with Gatsby it is a one or two day read. If I missed this summer it would be no loss. There are plenty of other good books to read in my library.
The garden has been producing for about a month so cooking has changed with fresh vegetables. Greens are on the table almost every meal, and when tomatoes, peppers and cabbage come in, I’ll consult my personal recipe list and prepare some seasonal dishes.
Summer is about freezing, drying, and canning food from the garden. I need a dozen more quarts of vegetable broth and this will be the year to replenish the pantry with all things apple. Tomatoes are the other main canning item. I process them whole and in the form of sauce. It was a struggle to get tomatoes to take in the garden, yet they are growing now and there should be a good harvest. Canning alone will fill any voids in the schedule.
Before we realize it, summer will lead to autumn and harvest. It’s time to enjoy life while we can. Happy summer!
Red Delicious and Earliblaze apple trees in bloom, May 3, 2023.
Four days into the main apple tree bloom it looks to be a banner year. No hint of frost since blossoms opened and plenty of native pollinators work the flowers. Yesterday flower petals began to fall to the ground, indicating successful pollination.
I planted these trees on Earth Day in 1995. It was a roll of the dice because a gardener never knows how they will fare in Iowa. The Red Delicious was a cultivar taken from the original one discovered in Iowa. For $18.75 each in 1995, the trees have returned many times the purchase price. They already exceeded their life expectancy of around 25 years for a semi-dwarf tree, so anything else is a bonus.
The goal this year is to put up at least 24 quarts of apple sauce, a dozen pints of apple butter, Refill the half-gallon jars of apple cider vinegar, make a couple of gallons of sweet cider, and fill the refrigerator drawer with the best of the crop for storage.
A lot can happen between now and harvest, with wind storms representing the biggest threat. The Red Delicious tree lost several major limbs, including the northern half of the tree during the Aug. 10, 2020 derecho. It is blooming today like there is no tomorrow. One never knows if that is a reaction to imminent death, or just another year. In any case, the new Zestar! and Crimson Crisp trees planted in 2020 are coming along. I might get a real crop from them this year.
Yesterday I planted the row of herbs and vegetables with row cover. From time to time, I looked up at the blooming apples trees and what they represent: another year’s spring promise.
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