Oh Celery
I’ve been growing celery for years as it’s a main ingredient in my home canned tomato soup. Each year it gets better and better and this year was the best year yet. Most often, my celery is OK for cooking, not so great to eat raw. Celery can be a picky crop, it’s greedy to be sure. Lots of water and lots of food is what makes it thrive. If it’s not provided with the perfect conditions, it’s hollow, tough, and only fit for stock. This variety is ‘Tango’ which was sourced from Johnny’s Seeds.
I’ve been harvesting stalks from my plants for a few months now, we like them sliced on top of salads. When the weather decided to dip down below freezing every night, I decided it was time to harvest all these lovely plants (10 in total). They will be paired with a few roosters from the coop to make a wonderfully rich chicken stock for the freezer. It’s quite exciting to finally master growing something and to find your homegrown product is leaps and bounds over what you can buy.
What crop have you struggled to grow in the past?
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Fall Crops
Our temperatures are finally getting down in to the twenties, this Friday night it’s supposed to be in the teens. With the persephone period at hand, crops aren’t growing any more, just sustaining. That means it’s time to harvest various crops that can be affected by the cold weathers. The day before yesterday I harvested lots of things: cauliflower, broccoli, lettuce, and fennel. The lemongrass will be harvested today, along with a few other greens.
I’m amazed at how well my fall crops produced this year. If I had planted them a month before I did, they would have done much better, but overall I’m quite pleased. The cauliflower is the size of a small cantaloupe, the broccoli has headed up nicely. The fennel is small, but tender. The butterhead lettuces produced nice small heads, the spinach is perfect for harvest. Overall, I’m very happy with my fall harvest. Each year I get better and better with gardening throughout the seasons. Succession planting is becoming easier and easier.
What are you harvesting this week from the garden?
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Harvesting Seeds
This year I’ve been harvesting more seeds than I ever have. There are paper bags, bowls, plates, and various trays filled with seeds in my office and in the dining room. Most recently, I harvested ‘Scarlett Runner’ beans.
These were one of my mom’s all-time favorite garden plants. Each year she planted them just for the hummingbirds. When she died, my dad gave my sister and I each a packet to grow in our gardens.
They grew and bloomed beautifully, and the hummingbirds loved them all summer long. I’m saving seed to grow them again next year, a few packets will be available for sale here on the blog later this winter. Seed packets have been ordered, stamps are coming soon, and websites are being worked on.
Do you save seed? Any favorite family varieties you’ve been saving for years?
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Back Up and Running
We had a wicked storm move through Maine Sunday night and into Monday. The winds came it at around 60mph, our bed was vibrating while we were trying to sleep, which we didn’t get much of as the winds raged outside. It was quite a wind storm, most of our part of Maine is still in tatters: roads closed, power lines down, electricity off. Our power went out early Monday morning and luckily, it came back on last night. Much of Maine is still without.
We lost one big tree in the front yard, it was dead anyways and needed to come down. Our shingles also took a beating, I found them laying all over the yard.
When I went out to the farm to get milk yesterday, there were still three trees down across the power lines on the short trip. They are saying it’s going to take a while for everything to get cleaned up and for power to be restored. We are lucky to live on a main road and main electric thoroughfare. It seems our power is restored fairly quickly. Being without power for two days isn’t too bad, especially when you have a generator to keep the freezer and the fridge going. For us, it seems that fall/winter are the times when we get bad storms.
What’s your season for bad weather?
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Drying Hydrangea Blooms
Many years ago I used to dry hydrangea blooms to have in the house throughout the winter. When we moved, I no longer had the masses of hydrangeas in the garden. After adding a few, they’re finally getting to the point where they bloom enough to provide blooms for drying. The key to getting your blooms to maintain their color, is to pick them at the right time. Just as they are starting to dry, but before they start turning brown.
I didn’t get to the ‘Annabelle’ blooms before they started to turn brown, luckily I now have four or five other varieties that bloom a bit later. One of my favorites is a very large flowering variety. It only produced one giant bloom this year, but it aged beautifully in the garden and it dried very nicely. I’m looking forward to having more and more to dry each year from here on out.
I’ve been thinking more and more about flowering for drying as I plan/plant in the garden. Cutting gardens can provide fresh flowers for summer enjoyment and dried flowers to brighten the house during the winter. This winter I plan on researching flowers that are good for drying.
Do you dry any flowers for winter enjoyment? Do you have any good recommendations?
