Taking a Break Today
I’ve been so busy this week, today I’m taking a break from blogging. No need to worry though, I wouldn’t leave you without a cute picture of Dexter keeping me company while I’m working in the office.
I find myself to always be too busy this time of year, there’s so much to do in the office, we’re still filming a lot for our business, and there’s still tons of work to get done in the garden. I can’t wait for the slower pace of winter! Hopefully I’ll have time to go through my photos and write a post about visiting Eliot Coleman’s farm for you tomorrow.
Do you have a specific time of the year when you’re busier than others?
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The 2011 Chiot’s Run Calendar is now Available
I spent a few hours putting the final touches on my calendar yesterday. It was very hard to choice the photos from the thousands that I have taken this past year. Next year I may make a few different calendars, one with quotes, one with just edible harvests, etc. I’m also considering making one with zone 5 planting dates this year, for both spring and fall planting, let me know if you’re interested in this and I’ll try to invest the time in setting it up.
I want to thank all of you who purchase this calendar, I get a small amount from each sale and this helps me keep this blog ad-free and it helps me pay the bills associated with this blog.
A note from Mr. Chiots: Mrs. Chiots will not brag on herself so I will do it for her. She enjoys producing this blog for all of you almost as much as she enjoys gardening and cooking. She pours hours into taking and editing the photos, writing the posts, and approving and replying to comments. The results show it. Monthly ChiotsRun.com gets over 12,500 unique visitors, with over 33,000 page views using up about 100GB of bandwidth. Recently we surpassed 11,000 comments. That is a lot of work. Show your appreciation by purchasing this awesome calendar. In fact buy two, it will make a great Christmas gift. Thanks!
If you’re interested in buying a calendar Lulu sent me a coupon that you can use to get 40% off.
This is what you do:
Enter code CALENDARVIP305 at checkout (you have to enter paying info before coupon)
This will save you 40% off your calendar, up to $10
Offer ends 2/28/11
This coupon makes the large (13.5″ x 19″) calendar $22.48 with shipping and the small (11″ x 17″) calendar $15.98 with shipping. Here’s a look inside the calendar.
I don’t know if I have a favorite month, I love the June strawberries, the July chamomile and the August tomatoes.
What’s your favorite month? Would you be interested in a zone 5 planting calendar?
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Bread for Every Occasion
Most of the bread the comes out of my oven is sourdough, baked into boules and eaten by the slice. I occasionally make traditional yeasted loaves in pans, but not very often. I’m really partial to the crusty artisan type bread, it’s my preferred type of bread for almost every instance.
There are occasions however when you want a soft roll, for holiday meals, for hamburgers and hotdogs and for the occasional egg sandwich. On these occasions I make a soft dough enhanced with buttermilk, butter, eggs and a little sugar then I shape it according to it’s final purpose. I always get rave reviews with this dough whatever I make with it.
This is a very versatile recipe, you can use milk or buttermilk (I always use buttermilk since I have lots from making butter) you can add whole wheat flour to make wheat rolls and you can shape them any way you like. I use it for hamburger buns, hot dog buns, mini burgers, as rolls for holidays, for cinnamon rolls and other sweet breads. You can even use this dough to make pigs in a blanket.
BASIC ROLL DOUGH
1 cup milk or buttermilk
1/3 cup butter
1/4 cup sugar
3/4 teaspoon salt
2 beaten eggs
4 1/4 -4 43/4 cups of flour
1 packet of yeast
In a large bowl, mix 2 cups of flour and yeast. In medium saucepan, heat buttermilk, sugar, butter and salt just till butter starts to melt (120-130 degrees). Add milk mixture to dry mixture along with eggs. Mix until flour is incorporated, then beat on high speed for 3 minutes.
Mix in as much remaining flour as possible, but you want the dough to be a fairly soft. Knead for 4-5 minutes until dough is smooth and elastic. Shape the dough into a ball and place in oiled bowl. Let raise in warm place till double, about 1 hour.
Turn dough out onto counter and divide into the size of dough balls needed for whatever final bread you’re making. Shape dough into desired rolls and place on baking sheets or pans. Cover and let rise in warm place till nearly double in size, about 45 minutes to one hour.
Bake in 375 degree oven until golden on top, will be about 12-15 minutes for rolls, 15-20 minutes for cinnamon rolls, 15-17 minutes for hamburger buns, etc.
I’ll be making a lot of this dough during this holiday season. Mr Chiots can hardly wait for holiday bread stuffed with cranberries and apples.
Do you have a special roll recipe that you use for a variety of breads?
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Four Season Gardening at Chiot’s Run
In late September I planted 2 raised beds with a mix of different kinds of winter crops. I covered them with greenhouse plastic to protect them from the weather when it started to turn cold, about 2 weeks ago. This seems to be working very nicely, we’ve had night time temperatures in the high 20’s and the day time temperatures range from the 40’s to the 60’s.
Since this past week was so warm (in the 60’s during the afternoons), I decided to pull the covers back and give all the greens a good watering with some Neptune’s Harvest. This should get them through the winter, I don’t know if I’ll have to worry about watering again after this.
It looks like these mini greenhouses are providing the right climate for my spinach, it’s growing quite prolifically. I can’t wait to have spinach salads all winter long from this bed. I’m also experimenting with a variety of cold hardy lettuces, celery, arugula, leeks, carrots, kohlrabi, bunching onions, and some other cold-tolerant greens.
At the moment I have 2 raised beds with greenhouse tunnels, one with floating row cover, and one with a cold frame. The one with the cold frame is going to be seeded this week with a variety of winter greens for experimentation to see which ones sprout and do best when started late in the season. From here on out it looks like our highs are only going to be in the 40’s, so it looks like winter is creeping up on us here at Chiot’s Run.
I’m hoping that after a few years I’ll have a good list of which varieties of greens overwinter well in my climate. Eventually, I’m hoping to be able to grow a lot more of my vegetables year round instead of relying on someone else’s produce during the winter. (If you want to learn more about four season gardening I’d highly recommend Eliot Coleman’s book The Winter Harvest Handbook: Year Round Vegetable Production Using Deep Organic Techniques and Unheated Greenhouses)
How’s your winter gardening going?
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Quote of the Day: John Muir
“When one tugs at a single thing in nature,
he finds it attached to the rest of the world.”
The more I read about insects, soil, plants, and microorganisms, I realize we know little about the complex web that they all form. We’re often so quick to categorize something as a pest or a disease without thinking about the reason that it’s happening and how this problem is related to not only, our small gardens, but also nature as a whole.
The longer I garden, the less I step in and try to “fix” things, I try to let nature run it’s course. I started by simply doing away with any chemicals in my garden, then I moved on to not using any organic options either for pests or diseases. I now focus on feeding the soil, along with encouraging insects and birds. I do this by growing a wide variety of plants, many native and trying to grow the soil slowly and naturally without adding a lot extra amendments. This has made a HUGE impact my little garden, I have found that the less I step in, the more vibrant my garden becomes, the wider variety of native plants, insects and birds I see and the fewer problems I encounter. Tugging at or nurturing one part of nature really does affect everything else.
In what ways have you noticed the complex system of the natural world in your garden?
