Homemade Tomato Trellis and Tomato Hornworms

This year we have somewhere in the vicinity of 70 tomato plants.  Some were planted from seeds, some were given to us, and others were volunteers.  Well, what a jungle the tomato patch has turned into!  We have a few trellises that we made a few years ago with electrical conduit and trellis netting (costs about $15 to make); but to minimize resources, save money, and keep things local, we made some with logs from the woods, some extra fence posts, and miscellaneous pieces of balling twine and rope.  Jon and I are still trying to find the best rope or trellis netting to use in the garden.  Some materials fall apart whereas others are coated with plastic.  What is your preferred trellis material?

This is one of the tomato patches and it's a jungle even with trellises!  Instead of planting them in a patch, we will plant rows next year.  Peas will be planted the same way next year to minimize vine entanglement.

Another opportunity to use the post hole digger...

Here's the second tomato patch.  This area was a last minute decision because of the donated plants we received from a friend.  We plan to remove the sod this fall and expand the garden to include this area for next year.  I know it's hard to see the tomato plants because we're a bit behind on the weeding.  Due to an appendectomy in the middle of May followed by a 2 week vacation, family visits, and hurting my back, Jon has been taking care of most things himself.  There's a lot to do around here (especially things like weeding which requires bending over) but Jon has been a good sport about it while managing a full time job away from home.

Some branches already have a crotch to set the top log in, but if they don't, you can...

make a tenon and mortise with a drill.

and for small logs you don't need the tenon.  You can use this same idea for a fence stake where you just put a hole in the log big enough for the stake.

These hornworms are the trickiest little buggers to find in a tomato patch because they are extremely camouflaged. 

 If you don't have these, you are lucky because they strip all the leaves off the plant in a night or two. 

Thanks to parasitic wasps, these hornworms die from the eggs the wasps implant on the hornworm's body.  I was hoping the chickens would eat them, but they don't.  They are a bit intimidating with that big horn on their tail, and to top it off they bite!

Beet Burgers

As mentioned in a previous post, we had really good success with the beets grown in cow manure.  The beets that happened to grow outside the cow manure pile grew slower and did not have nearly the sweet delicious taste that the other beets had.  A good way to use the bland-tasting beets is to make them into beet burgers!  This recipe may sound strange but these burgers are really good and full of flavor.  Here's the recipe accompanied with some pictures:

~1 cup cooked rice

~1 cup black beans (water removed)

~1.5 cups cooked beets with skins and roots removed, chopped fine

1 tsp. thyme

2 T parsley

1 tsp. coriander

2 T lemon juice
salt & pepper
~4 T flour

1/2 onion. chopped

4 cloves garlic, minced
cheese (optional)

Combine the first 9 ingredients in a medium bowl.  Sautee the onion and garlic in olive oil and the add them to the remaining ingredients.  Form mixture into patties, adding flour if needed to hold everything together.  If the patties fall apart in the skillet, use the flipper to mold the patty; press down on the patty before flipping. Wait several minutes before flipping the burger and only flip it ONCE.  If you flip it multiple times, it will probably fall apart.  Add cheese for melting if you want.

(If you're ambitious, you can make homemade buns!)

(Mmm Mmm Good...the works...zucchini relish, tomatoes, ketchup, and mustard)

The Garden is Swimming

What a wet couple of weeks we've had!  Since June 26th we've received ~9 inches of rain. It really spread itself out, 9 out of the last 16 days we had a quarter of an inch or more.  With all of this rain, some plants (e.g. potatoes) have struggled whereas others (e.g. corn) have been thriving.

In low spots water is sitting in pools.

When we dug out a potato plant the hole instantly filled with water. 

The potatoes turned to mush in the ground...no potatoes this year. 

The garlic stalks were just beginning to turn brown but we decided to pull them early.  Some of the bulbs were already beginning to rot.

With the humid environment outside and more rain in the forecast, we decided to dry the garlic in the basement rather than on the porch or in the garage.  The basement has a dehumidifier which will help dry them.

All of the carrots rotted from too much rain.  We will plant a second crop this week and hope they survive.

When a carrot is pulled, the stem detaches from the root which is completely rotten.  We planted 5 rows of carrots and I spent 4 hours one day weeding and thinning them in early June.

The corn is growing well and so are the sunflowers and squash in the background. 

Foraging for Wild Chanterelle Mushrooms!

Last week my post referenced the Chanterelle Mushrooms we have been finding in the woods.  Come to find out after another scouting in the woods, Jon and Paul found an entire patch of them!  With the use of a t-shirt, Jon managed to bring home 2 pounds of them and another 5 pounds later in the week!  We found an excellent website that has recipes and mushroom preservation information.  I would like to can the mushrooms but sources online state that it's not safe to can wild mushrooms.  In the meantime, we decided to sautee them in olive oil and freeze them because drying isn't preferred for chanterelles.

These are chanterelle mushroom puffs.  Very tasty, but heavy on the butter. 

• 1 cup chicken broth
• 1/2 pound chanterelles, minced
• 1/2 cup (1 stick ) butter
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1 cup unbleached all-purpose flour
• 3 eggs

Heat the chicken broth in a heavy medium saucepan. Add the chanterelles, butter, and salt and allow to come to a boil. Stir in the flour, mixing constantly until the mixture is smooth and almost leaves the sides of the pan. Remove from the heat. Beat one egg at a time into the mixture.

Drop tablespoons of the dough onto a buttered cookie sheet, spacing the spoonfuls about 2 inches apart. Bake in a preheated 450º oven for 15 minutes or until firm and golden. Cool the puffs on a rack.

Homemade Seed Packets

Jon and I began seed saving last year and want to share with you how we make our own packets for storage.  Some gardeners I have talked to save their own seeds and others think it's not worth the time because seeds are relatively cheap; after all, some crops such as carrots, beets, and leeks take 2 growing seasons to produce seeds.  One perk to letting some plants go to seed is that more color and beauty is added to the garden attracting beneficial insects and pollinators such as honeybees.  One plant going to seed in our garden right now is leeks.  They are absolutely beautiful!  They produce colorful globes that are about 5 feet tall and sway in the wind (picture below) - they look just like globe allium except you get the benefit of them being edible.  Saving seeds also gives a gardener food security and lets the gardener pick and choose seeds from the most prolific plants or from plants that have enhanced genetics that make them resistant to certain bugs, or fruit earlier, or have sweeter fruits, or blossom later to avoid spring frosts.  It's all in the seed.  Saving them from your garden will ensure you have the best genetics targeted for your exact garden and climate.

What do think about saving seeds?  What is your main reason for saving seeds or not to save them?
Please leave a comment below.

The honeybees really enjoy the leeks!

For storing seeds, I make our own packets by reusing manila envelopes.  

To simplify the process I cut out four packets using the already sealed seems on the existing envelope.

I add a little glue to seal the remaining sides...

and write the company name, seed name, and year collected on the packet. 

Seed packets are stored in this box in our basement.

I had to add these last two pictures of the mushroom hunt today in our woods.  There are mushrooms everywhere and most we haven't been able to identify.  The ones we did keep and feel confident eating are the chanterelles shown below.  

Updates at the Wolfe House

It's been awhile since I gave a general update of what's been going on around here so I've been taking pictures the past 2 weeks so you can see what we're up to.

I think the bees are looking great this year!  This is our newest hive that arrived as a package April 8th.  It was give 19 frames of bare foundation and one frame with drawn comb.  This is what they looked like after cracking the lid---good overall spread of bees covering the frames in the top brood box. 

This is the top honey super in the Warrior Hive that survived the winter.  They were given an empty brood box and so far they have filled 5 frames.  The honey supers are about half full and the full frames are just bursting with capped honey!  They are working hard drawing comb on about 25 empty frames this summer and they are almost all filled!

Sorry no pictures of actual frames this time.  I typically don't pull frames out of my hives because my bees tend to glue their frames together and breaking the comb is a sure way to upset them.  This is what happens when the honey supers get separated.  I could scrape off this burr comb but there's a lot of honey and nectar so I'll leave it for the bees. 

As for the garden, a couple that we met through the homesteader's group offered us some of their goat manure.  How can we say no to that offer?  

The tomatoes have been thriving this spring with the chicken mulch and now we added the goat manure.  This year we ended up with 65 tomato plants!  Many were given to us by friends and several were volunteers that we decided to let grow just to see what happens.  We didn't receive a large tomato crop last year so the cellar is pretty sparse with tomato preserves.  We're making up for it this year so I can stock up on plenty of salsa, stewed tomatoes, and tomato paste to last us at least a year.

The garden has been our biggest project this spring because we expanded it and then went on a 2 week vacation towards the end of May which delayed planting.  For whatever reason, the weeds didn't get the memo to also take a vacation.  Weeding takes about 90% of our time in the garden.  For 3 weeks straight we have been weeding at least 1 hour each day to catch up from the 2 week vacation. Weeding is part of gardening that I have learned to live with because they will never go away.  It kind of becomes a meditative time for me because it's pretty monotonous...just me sitting on a bucket with a small hoe.  The first crops to get weeded were the itty bitty's such as carrots, beets, salsify, onions, and other small plants.  The final crop to get attention is the potatoes.  In the picture above you can see one of the potato patches.  This year they are looking really good!  Fortunately we caught the potato bugs early in the season before they did too much damage.  They are quite disgusting when they pop. 

And of course...cabbage worms.  What's more to say other than grrrrrr!!!  These pesky critters take way too much of our garden time.  They hide everywhere and their population levels never seem to dwindle.  Each year we plant brassicas and question whether they are worth the time.  We've been told that row covers help keep the moths off the plants so we plan to try them next year. 

Here is another type of cabbage worm hiding in the broccoli floret. 

To keep a steady egg supply we purchased 3 more chicks this year.  We purchased these from our mail deliverer after we returned from vacation.  They are the barred rock variety and adjusting to their new home just fine.  This chicken tractor has really paid off because it keeps the young chickens safe from predators and allows the older chickens to get acquainted with them without any personal contact.

Fall & Winter 2012 Woodworking Projects

Stools made out of logs from the woods.

Catapult for Paul made out of chair legs, plywood, eye hook, and rubberband.  This thing really launches Duplo Legos!

A shadow box for a friend who is graduating from medical school. 

Jon constructs all of the honeybee hive components except for the brood boxes and frames.  For awhile he was using the router to make the brood boxes but that wasn't very safe.  Someday we hope to find a good deal on a table saw so he can make the brood boxes.  

Jon's mom makes quilts and does long arm sewing for clients so we made her a quilt rack out of logs gathered from our woods as her Christmas gift. 

My nephew is really into baseball so for Christmas I made him this to hang on the wall.  It holds a bat, ball, and glove.

We couldn't wait for this to be finished...a little more organization at the front door!

Finally something more durable for storing seeds!  We had a mouse last year get into the plastic containers that were hard to seal.  The lid for this new container is made entirely with recycled pallets.

   

Jon made a wine rack completely out of pallets!

A loveseat made with aspen logs from Wyoming and some walnut logs from our property in West Virginia.

A potato crate made completely out of pallets.