Tag: Kitchen Garden

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Living in Society

Trip for Garden Supplies

A garden fence in the neighborhood.

After spading the next garden plot on Sunday, I went to the home, farm, and auto supply store to get fence posts. It was a madhouse around 12:30 p.m. with families out and stocking up on all kinds of home items. The person ahead of me at the cashier tallied up more than $500 worth of merchandise. Outside in the parking lot, the garden center was set up and like me, people were buying things to use in the garden. I was home alone, so didn’t mind being with people, even if I didn’t know anyone by name.

On the way down, I drove past Walmart and Lowe’s, which both likely carry the fence posts I needed. I would rather shop where I knew one of the principals while I worked there. I held a “retirement job” to earn enough money to fill budget gaps until reaching full retirement age. The job ended during the coronavirus pandemic when I decided the risk was not worth the reward. One of the owners stopped to see me every time he was in town, and sent birthday and holiday cards with a personal note. Big box stores don’t offer that sort of amenity.

It was Mothers’ Day. As I looked for the fence posts I saw several mother-daughter couples filling carts. The reason I felt they were mother-daughters is because of their similar faces combined with an appropriate age difference. Thoughts turned to my own mother.

My last memory of her was walking her casket from the hearse to the grave site next to Father. The ground was uneven and my grip was unsure. I almost tripped and the casket lowered unevenly with the other pall bearers, shifting Mother inside. She was never big on celebrating Mothers’ Day, although I miss being able to pick up the phone and call her.

They didn’t have the size fence posts I needed at the home, farm, and auto supply store. I bought five three-foot ones for tomato cages, but will have to get the four- and five-foot ones elsewhere.

As I headed home across the lakes I felt the garden workday was at an end. Tomorrow looked like another beautiful spring day for progress. Earlier in the day, I wished my spouse a Happy Mothers’ Day and she replied our child sent her a nice note. This trip was about more than garden supplies.

Categories
Kitchen Garden

Week 5—Life on the Cusp of Summer

Covered row installed May 5, 2025.

By my calculations, we passed the last frost and the rest of the garden can go in. If cold temperatures return, I have a banker’s box full of old flat sheets to cover and protect young plants.

Three plots had been planted, leaving four and part of the garlic patch with which to do something. I know one will be exclusively tomatoes, two will be a mix of vegetables, a small plot will be fennel, celery and celeriac, and the last will be some kind of winter squash. A lot of work is finished, and a lot remains before initial planting can be called done.

I planted spinach in the covered row simply to get the tray out of the overcrowded greenhouse. I learned how to use covered rows from my friend Susan while working on her farm. The best parts of a covered row are protection from pests and a controlled environment that enhances normal growth. I bought the hoops from the farm where I worked and the cover from a commercial supplier a number of years ago. If cared for, the cover will last.

Friday, I bought thyme, sage, and chive plants from local farmers I know. These will go under the cover with parsley, cilantro and basil. Once the plants get too tall, I will strip the cover back and let them grow in open air. This process can produce a large herb crop for drying. If there is enough, I will make fresh pesto and freeze some.

At the farm, each herb pot was four dollars. To put that in perspective, I have more than 700 blocks with plants started, or according to this retail value, about $2,800 worth of them. I don’t mind paying full price at the farm because I can leverage their work to get a few things I want but don’t have space in the greenhouse to grow.

I spent a couple of hours weeding garlic. I had hoped to have it mulched with grass clippings by now but there weren’t enough, therefore weeding. Collecting grass clippings was high on my weekend to-do list, yet there really isn’t enough grass to mow yet.

There were some empty spots in the cruciferous vegetable plot so I filled them in from the greenhouse. At this point, I want every spot filled with something. The crop looks healthy thus far.

Saturday was a solid shift in which I planted lettuce and tatsoi in the covered row, cleared off the celery and celeriac plot, and cleared last year’s tomato plot. I salvaged most of the plastic ground cover to reuse and made burn pile #3 for the season.

Burn pile #3.

Sunday morning was spent spading the big plot I cleared. It was a lot of work, yet part of the process of conditioning the soil.

Fourth plot turned over on May 10, 2026.

I wasn’t planning on running so many errands this week. The main one was Monday’s round trip to Des Moines. I had poll worker training at the county seat on Thursday, and a Friday get-together with a friend who just moved back to Iowa. Running errands takes away from gardening, yet is essential to a modern life. Much as I wish for something different from automobile culture, it is what we have in our decision to life in rural Iowa.

It was a good week of preparations. I am looking forward to getting the whole garden in during the next few weeks as we are on the cusp of summer.

In between stints of spading, I took a break in the garage. The addition of the table to the left is making a big difference.
Categories
Kitchen Garden

First Harvest 2026

Mizuna, two kinds of bok choy.

Bok choy and mizuna were outgrowing the germination tray so I harvested instead of planting them. Along with containers of arugula growing in the kitchen, I have three cups of four kinds of fresh greens: the first harvest of the season. I enlisted artificial intelligence to suggest a dish featuring them.

The goal is to make a warm, one-bowl meal.

Of the options presented by the chat-bot, I picked a rice-based dish. One cup uncooked white rice to allow the flavor of the greens to show. My standard rice preparation is to use homemade vegetable broth to cook the rice.

For protein I used MorningStar Farms® Chik’n Strips, which were browned in a small amount of oil, then set aside.

Next, the process goes quickly:

  • Saute garlic, onion in extra virgin olive oil until translucent.
  • Add the greens and toss for about 30-60 seconds until slightly wilted.
  • Make a rice dressing in a large bowl: 1-2 tbs miso; 1 tbs extra virgin olive oil; 2 tsp apple cider vinegar; dash of maple syrup; tbs chili crisp; Teaspoon of hot pepper powder; dash of sesame oil. Mix well.
  • Add cooked rice to the bowl and mix thoroughly so grains of rice are coated.
  • Add the cooked greens mixture and the protein. Mix thoroughly.

Makes 3-4 servings.

Finished dish. The sauce was particularly good.
Categories
Kitchen Garden

Week 4—Still Cooler Weather

Brush fire #2 of 2026.

A couple of nights dipped into the 30s this week, so I am holding off planting temperature-sensitive crops. The portable greenhouse is at capacity. I continue to used a space heater overnight. Other work besides planting remains to be done.

Plot preparation continued. The first round of weeding radishes and turnips was followed by hilling potatoes. I pruned the dying Red Delicious apple tree. The Zestar! and Crimson Crisp trees had a full bloom uninterrupted by frost. Cruciferous vegetables look good. The main question is how will I get everything done by Memorial Day? I probably won’t.

Crimson Crisp apple tree in bloom.

The brush pile got to six-feet tall so I burned it on a windless, cool Friday. Mostly, it was brush from that particular plot, combined with cuttings from the dying apple tree. It was quickly reduced to a pile of glowing embers that continued to smolder until nightfall.

With the burn pile now ashes, it will soon be time to prep the soil for tomatoes. I deconstructed last year’s tomato cages and stacked them closer to the plot. My main interest is to move the hardware as little as possible, but to remove it from where tomatoes were. That will be the first plot for seasonal, warm-temperature vegetables.

Tomato cage storage.

I mowed last week with the deck set to three inches. The idea was to let the clippings dry on the lawn before using them to mulch garlic. There are not enough clippings with this mow. The garlic is wanting weeding, or weed suppression. Mulching is a high priority, yet unaccomplished last week.

Embers of brush pile #2.

It was a good week in the garden. I started thinking about what would be first to harvest,  maybe radishes. Turned out it was mixed greens still in the germination tray.

Mixed greens from the garden.
Categories
Kitchen Garden

Week 3—Moving to the Greenhouse

Greenhouse shelves all full on April 24, 2026.

This week’s highlight was finishing with the LED lights and heat pad, and moving most production outdoors to the portable greenhouse. The shelves are full with some 700 seedlings, waiting for trays to be planted in the ground before the pepper plants can find space to move from the dining room. It’s all good.

Mixed into this week’s schedule was making the garage space more usable. I ordered a heavy duty shelving unit—capacity 3,500 pounds— and put it up next to the long handled implement rack. This allowed me to clear surface space on the work bench, the work table, the radial arm saw and the long, narrow table I made that will serve as a garlic rack when the crop gets harvested in July. A political candidate stopped by with some campaign materials and we strategized over a calendar laid out on the trash bins. Every inch of garage space has better functionality now.

Most mornings I started by taking a cup of coffee to the garage and simply taking in fresh air, morning light, and considering the day’s potential. One thing leads to another, and soon I get productive with tasks to fill the day.

Work presents itself without much planning. Experience developed since I began lawn and garden work here in 1993 leads me without it. For example, to clear greenhouse space before the last frost date of May 10, the covered row goes in next. After that, clearing the tomato cages from last year’s spot and turning it over for spring planting. Garden tasks naturally queue and will continue until the whole garden is planted, hopefully by Memorial Day.

This week, I got cruciferous vegetables planted and broke down the tomato starts from channel trays into individual soil blocks. Over the weekend I tilled the covered row plot, making it ready for herbs, Asian greens, spinach and other perennial favorites. Along with this was the first lawn mowing, although this pass it was mostly to even it out. I did not collect clippings for mulch but will need more than the yard can produce.

Week three was valuable in all these ways. A gardener needs that as we move through this new season of hope.

Plot for the covered row.
Categories
Kitchen Garden

Week 2—Recovering From Rain

Potatoes on April 17, 2026.

According to weather sources, In April 2026 we had 5.69 inches of rain through the 17th. That is between 65% to 95% higher than average. We felt it on our homestead as precipitation kept me from most gardening until Friday when I attempted to put in a plot of cruciferous vegetables—curses, foiled again. A weird combination of changing air pressure, lightning, thunder, hail, rain, and wind persisted from 1:30 p.m. until dusk.

I did get the bed tilled and weed barrier applied. Saturday we had high winds, so I didn’t plant and pulled up fencing instead. On Sunday, I finished laying ground cover and put in the fence posts. Based on the weather forecast, I will plant cruciferous vegetables later today.

Cruciferous vegetable plot on April 17, 2026.

Big trees are leafing out. Both of these have cracks in the main trunk from the 2020 derecho, and eventually will be goners.

Pin Oak Tree on April 17, 2026
Autumn Blaze Maple tree on April 17, 2026.

Radishes and turnips broke ground. Here are the radishes.

Radishes on April 17, 2026.

Temps dropped into the 30s over the weekend, so I put a space heater in the portable greenhouse Saturday night. The cold spell lasted through Monday.

I started what I believe will be the last indoors plants this week: cucumbers, squash, collards, and some more cauliflower and Asian greens. From here on, almost everything goes into the ground.

Finally, I cleared the burned plastic off this year’s tomato patch. The weed burn was a problem, as I couldn’t control which plot it burned and fire took out four of them, some with plastic weed barrier. Luckily, the scorched garlic plants have already recovered. Second week in and I’m making progress.

Garlic is up!
Categories
Kitchen Garden

Giving Up on Creole Cuisine

Cookbook by Suzanne Ormond, Mary Irvine and Denyse Cantin.

I want to like Creole cuisine as I had when visiting New Orleans. I even bought Suzanne Ormond, Mary Irvine, and Denyse Cantin’s book Favorite New Orleans Recipes as a souvenir to make it myself in Iowa. The trouble is I became vegetarian since then, and none of the 119 recipes is a fit. Every once in a while I make my version of red beans and rice–using the holy trinity–but the available vegetarian sausages are not the same and by the time I finish, it isn’t really Creole.

Before sending the cookbook to the public library used book sale I reviewed the recipes again. The only thing remotely doable was some version of egg salad. I set the recipe aside and took pen to paper and made my own Creole-inspired egg salad starting with three hard-cooked eggs.

Trinity Egg Salad

I prepared the eggs as per usual: placing them in cold water in a saucepan, bringing it to a boil, turning it off, letting them sit in the hot water for 12-15 minutes, then dunking them in an ice water bath for 5-10 minutes.

Egg salad is sauce and diced ingredients mixed together. For the sauce, I put the egg yolks in a bowl, and added about three tablespoons Duke’s Mayonnaise, one teaspoon stone ground mustard, two tablespoons finely diced homemade sweet pickles, one teaspoon of pickle juice, one half teaspoon garlic puree, a teaspoon of home made apple cider vinegar, and a few dashes of my hot pepper powder. I mixed until incorporated.

Next I added the dice: 1 tbs red onion, 1 tbs red bell pepper, and 1-2 tbs celery, along with the whites of the eggs. Fold everything together with salt and black pepper to taste. Refrigerate until ready to use, at least 15 minutes.

Except for the holy trinity, there is not much to make this a Creole recipe.

I do know the flavor was take off your hat and sit down good. I hope you will try it.

Categories
Kitchen Garden

Week 1 — Outdoor Gardening

Third year of using this portable greenhouse.

When the heat pads, LED light positions, and folding table in the dining room are full of trays of seedlings, it is time to move the garden outdoors. That means setting up the portable greenhouse. A round of indoor planting has been completed. All that is left is breaking down peppers and tomatoes from channel trays into individual soil blocks, and starting squash and cucumbers indoors when the seeds arrive. From here on, the focus is on planting garden soil.

It took me about 90 minutes to reassemble the greenhouse. I let it sit overnight, then began moving plants from indoors. The forecast is for no freezing overnight temperatures the rest of the week, so it was as good a time to get it up. The forecast Monday and Tuesday is highs in the 80s. Yikes! It’s April 13!

I finished the plot where I started potatoes. Next moving southward are leeks, onions, turnips and radishes. I fenced these in, although I don’t have mulch so I will return soon with the hoop hoe to weed and fertilize.

The roots of the locust tree that blew over in the derecho were finally deteriorated enough to dig them up. Last year I set two brush fires over the stump in an attempt to burn it out. Now the large pieces of root are stacked next to the composter, awaiting disposition. They are rotted enough, and most likely I will take the four-pound sledge to them and work them into the compost. Planting the trees there and leaving them was a mistake that years later has been rectified.

While I was turning soil in the plot for cruciferous vegetables and digging up tree roots, a neighbor walked down the hill toward me from their home on an adjacent lot. She carried a package with pieces of focaccia and sourdough as a gift. We chatted about spring—and the moles in our yards. Moles and voles have spread throughout the neighborhood. It makes no sense to eliminate them in a single yard without eliminating them everywhere. In our country setting, it’s not certain any approach would rid us of them permanently, so live and let live, I say. It’s another part of the habitat.

While moving seedlings to the greenhouse I had a good look at them all. The February plantings are getting big, and this week is time for them to go into the ground. I planted five collard seeds and only four survived, so I planted six more on Sunday. Everything else can use more time in the greenhouse.

I took measurements and decided on a 90″ x 246″ space for the first cruciferous vegetables. That makes four rows spaced 22.5 inches apart with 13 plants per row. Next steps here are to fertilize and till the soil, lay down plastic ground cover and get the seedlings in the ground. There are not enough kale and collard plants to fill all the spots, so I may make two rows of either broccoli or cauliflower or both. I need to count seedlings. However this turns out, the area will get fenced in before nightfall on planting day.

During the first week of gardening, the work simply presents itself. There is no written plan. The seasons of gardening I’ve conditioned into myself over 43 years of growing things on our property guide me, almost unawares.

Categories
Kitchen Garden Writing

Spring 2026

Trail walking before sunrise on April 9, 2026.
Spring flowers.
Spring garlic.
Zestar! apple buds.
Bluebell buds.
Leeks, onions, turnips, and radishes planted on April 9, 2026.
Categories
Living in Society

Woven Shirts and Such

Sunrise on the state park trail on April 6, 2026.

This is a utility post designed to prime the writing pump for posts coming later this week. It is a bit quotidian, so forewarned.

I decided to get some button-down, woven shirts for my new job as a poll worker. I expect to be called for at least one early voting shift, and then to work the long one that is the primary election day. I haven’t bought a woven shirt in a very long time, maybe since I retired from the big job in 2009. My basic top is a t-shirt in spring and summer, with an added sweatshirt in fall and winter. It serves. I am getting the new shirts mail order, because I have no interest in going to a clothing store.

Monday I fueled the car for $3.529 per gallon. That is high, yet what is the comparison? In Mainz, Germany, where I lived for three years, today it is between $8.00 and $8.70 per gallon (Deutschmarks per liter converted to dollars per gallon). German travelers get a better bargain with the built-in high taxation rate of 55-65 percent. If you ever traveled on the German Autobahn, you know what I’m talking about. I wouldn’t mind paying this amount for gasoline if only it were accomplishing something better than making rich oil companies richer.

I burned the weeds on the plot where the cruciferous vegetables will go. Kale, cabbage and the like are furthest along in indoor planting trays and can tolerate some cold. They will be in the ground soon. The blaze was intense and quickly finished, in about 20 minutes. I worked hard to keep it from spreading too quickly to other plots. I was only partly successful and a couple garlic plants got wilted. It appears they will recover… we’ll see.

It looks to be a good week in the garden. Next up is the long mentioned onions and leeks. The goal is in the ground by Wednesday.

Plot for cruciferous vegetables.