Final Field Harvest

Today I finished harvesting the rest of the vegetables from the field.  All that was left was carrots and potatoes.  I ended up with a full 5 gallon bucket of potatoes and about a half bucket of carrots.  They were all small to medium sized; there were a few large carrots and potatoes.   

I didn’t track how well the varieties grew because of the growing conditions.  The heavy clay soil and the occasional flooding of the field weren’t beneficial to the root vegetables.

I finished mulching the asparagus with the rest of the leaves.  I am really hoping that it is not too wet because if all of that asparagus dies I'm going to be pretty disappointed.  It is planted on slightly raised ground but I'm just not sure, when that field gets wet all of it gets wet.

The 15 bulbs of music that were bought before I found all of the other varieties were finally planted.  I used my ridging hoe to combine 2 former rows of potatoes into one big row to plant the garlic.  I wanted to make sure that the garlic doesn’t sit in water all winter.  Before I planted the garlic I soaked it for 24 hours in water and baking soda to kill off any parasites it might have.  When I planted because the ground was just a wet muddy mess I just pushed the cloves in and packed a little mud on top.  The garlic was also given a 2” layer of leaves.  Hopefully everything at the field works out.

Planting Fall Asparagus

Yesterday I planted all of the asparagus crowns I started from seed this spring.  My garden already has a ton of asparagus so these seeds were planned for my grandma’s and the field garden.   They are the Viking variety which i currently grow in my garden.

The seeds were all planted in containers with 11-15 seeds per container.  The germination rate was terrific; I think I only had 3 seeds not germinate.  These are the pots before I separated the crowns. 

The crowns were intermingled so when I separated them I broke them apart from the bottom and then shook the entire bunch to shake off the dirt and loosen them all up.  I didn’t separate the crowns until I was ready to put them in the ground. 

At my grandparents I planted a 5’x7’ plot.  This is a picture of the area after I dug it up and then dug these 4 trenches. 

At the bottom of each trench I spread a 5 gallon bucket of well composted horse manure.

The crowns were all spaced out and slightly covered up before I fully covered them up.   The plants were placed approximately 12”x18” apart.  For regular spacing this is much too close together but I didn’t want to have to dig up a bunch of their yard.  This also means there will be enough even if I lose a couple to the winter.

After they were all planted and the soil leveled I put a couple more buckets of manure on top of everything and then mulched with a couple inches of leaves.

The asparagus that was planted at the field didn’t get the same quality treatment.  Because the field is such heavy clay and we have had rain for the last 2 weeks it’s a nice heavy muddy soil.  That asparagus was planted in the former potato rows that I dug up yesterday as well.  This will be elaborated on later.  The rows were planted 18”x 28” apart.  I used my hoe to dig a very shallow trench down the middle of each row.  I planted the crowns and packed them with some nice sticky mud.  I then covered each row with a couple inches of leaves.  There is still one row that I have to finish today.  Over all I have about 100’ of asparagus planted at the field.

Garden Clean Up and Final Garlic Planting

Today has been the first nice sunny day in 2 weeks.  I took full advantage and continued on with the garden clean up.  I pulled out all of the tomatoes and the beans. The pole beans were fully intertwined in the trellising mesh I used and I was unable to separate the vines from it.  I have decided to throw the entire thing out unfortunately.  It is possible to separate them but it would take a few hours for a 10”x10” piece.

The remaining carrots from the bottom bed were dug up as well as one parsnip.  The carrots had some animal damage but there weren’t very many left.  The parsnip I dug was approximately 2lbs and huge.  This was my first time growing them and I would say even though I have only dug up one, success.

I also managed to finish planting my garlic!  I planted 2 rows of music and one row of McEwen's red.  The music I bought from the Hewitt’s maple syrup at the market and also used the 3 heads of music I grew myself this year.  The McEwen's red are from the bulbils I planted in the spring.  Some manage to form head with 6 cloves others just ended up forming one big clove.  The polish white was thinned out today to rows 4’ apart and plants 6’ apart.

Using some of the leaves I brought home yesterday I mulched the rhubarb and the polish white.  I used the full leaves for this and am saving the mulched leaves to mulch the newly planted garlic.  I am going to wait a bit before I mulch the rest of the garlic at least until the ground starts to freeze up a bit.  Just In case some mice or other creatures decide they want to make a home in it.

Potato Harvest

Today I harvested all of the potatoes at home.  These were all the potatoes that I grew in straw.  In the bottom bed I had 12 plants of River john blue to uncover.  They were planted in a trench and covered with approximately 6 inches of straw. 

While the plants were growing they were not supported properly and the stalked all fell over.   The straw was very easy to take off and most of the potatoes were just sitting there waiting to be picked up.  

There were a number of potatoes that were mostly buried in the ground so after I picked all of the ones that I could see, I took the fork and dug where they had been planted.  Of all the potatoes from the row approximately 10% of them I found with the fork afterward.  There was a good mix of sizes with most being medium to large.

The black Macintosh was planted in these 2 boxes.  Between them I had 10 plants (6 and 4).  One box was planted with the potatoes in the soil with a little bit of straw and the other was planted on the soil with approximately 8 inches of straw.  The 2 boxes even though they had a different number of plants both produced about the same.  The potatoes were small to medium sized, nothing very big. 

The banana fingerling potatoes that were harvested today were also planted in a box.  They were covered with approximately 4 inches of straw.  I was actually pleasantly surprised at how well they did.  After removing the straw I was able to pick up 60% of the potatoes without doing any digging.  And the remainder I just dug up with my hands because they were in the box in an uncompact soil.  Because these are fingerlings they are naturally small, and I had a wide variety of sizes with an overall decent quantity.

Overall I am very happy with the straw and box experiments.  The straw led to cleaner and easy to dig potatoes.  I would defiantly use straw again.  I might use boxes again.  The only drawback to the boxes is the size of your potatoes.  All of the potatoes I planted in boxes I also planted in the bottom garden bed in the traditional method.  Consistently across all 3 varieties the potatoes planted in the garden were larger than those in boxes.  The potatoes in the boxes were cleaner and do not appear to have any scab on them.

This morning I also spent 3 hours helping to rake leaves at the cottage.   I am planning on using these leaves for mulching purposes this fall and in the garden next year.  I brought home a full truck load (approx. 600lb) and there are probably 3-4 times as many more still there.  I will most likely get a few more this fall and then get the rest next summer.

Planting Garlic

Yesterday I planted the first of my garlic for next year!  I planted the brown Saxon, Georgian fire, northern Quebec and red Russian. I actually ended up having 23 cloves of each variety.  I planted them each in a single row with the rows 8” apart and the cloves 6” apart.  The rows have all been marked and I also have a plan on paper should the row labels get destroyed (they are laminated and hockey taped on so I feel pretty safe).   I have taken pictures of each of the varieties in the bulb and clove form to document them for future reference.

This garlic was just broken apart into clove form and planted, there wasn’t anything done to it.  I still have the music and McEwen’s red to plant, I wasn’t properly prepared yesterday and ran out of time.  And today it is raining so on the next decent day I will plant the final few rows.  With the music garlic for half of them I am going to peel the cloves and soak them in a mixture of water and baking soda to help destroy any diseases. 

The polish white I am going to leave where it is and just thin out the plants.  They are currently only and inch apart so will probably thin 4 out of every 5.

I recently received “the complete book of garlic” for my birthday and will be reading that in-depth to learn everything I can.

Peppers and Leeks

Yesterday I picked all of the peppers out of the garden and pulled out all of the plants.  We have started getting frost and it was time for the peppers to come out.  It also happens to be the location of next year’s garlic which I am going to be planting next week.  Below is a picture of the plants before I pulled them all out.

This is the basket of peppers I got and the plants after I tore them out.

I also harvested my first leeks!!  They are a good size and for the first time growing them I am pretty happy with the way they turned out.  I also tried them out and they were pretty tasty.  They might have been planted a little close together and could have used more hilling, but not bad overall.

Apple Jelly

I didn't realize how long it has been since my last post. There should be more in the coming weeks as the garden is closed down for the winter.

So I posted earlier that I had decided to try and make some apple jelly.  Well since that post I have made a number of batches and am very pleased with my results. I ended up making apple, apple cinnamon and apple cranberry.

First off you need apples.  I used a number of different varieties all that grow wild along the road I live on.  I used a couple varieties that were fully ripe and red so that the bright skin would impart its color to the jelly, and then a couple varieties that were partially ripe.  From what I have read the partially ripened apples contain more pectin than fully ripe apples.  Because I was worried that there still wouldn’t be enough pectin I threw in a handful of green crab apples as well just in case.  Crabapples contain more pectin than regular sweet apples.

I filled the sink with water and dumped the apples into it so that they would be clean.  They were then rough cut into 4-8 pieces so that they were all roughly uniform in size, in the process i cut the blossom end off on the apples and took the stem off as well.  This was to make sure there weren’t any little black things in the jelly.

The cut apples were placed into a saucepan until they were within 2 inches of the top.  I then filled the pot with water till it was approximately an inch below the apples.  If your apples are floating then you have added too much water.  It is also important not to fill the pot too full, because when it boils over it is a pain to clean off of the stove. (If you want it to be apple cinnamon jelly add a couple cinnamon sticks to get the flavor as it boils, and if you want apple cranberry add cranberries as a 1:3 ratio to apples)

Boil the apples for approximately 30 minutes.  I boiled on high for 10 minutes and then turned it down to medium low for another 20 minutes.  Also at the 10 minute mark take a potatoes masher and crush the softened apples.  You can also do this again at the 20 minute mark.  Crushing the apples allows all of the juices to blend together and get the most out of the apples as possible.  You will end up with a pot full of mushed apples, skins and seeds that smells good but doesn’t look appetizing at all.  This is exactly what you want.

You are now going to strain the jelly.  Line a large bowl with a triple layer of cheesecloth.  Make sure there is enough cloth that it hangs over the sides, because after the jelly goes into it you are going to need to tie the 4 corners together.  After the cloth is in place you can pour the cooked apples and all the liquid in the bowl.   Tie the four corners up so that the cheesecloth can be picked up with all the contents staying inside it.  My batches of jelly ended up being quite large so I ended up using a cereal box on either side of the bowl, with a wooden stick sitting on top of them for the cloth to hang from.

As the cheese cloth hangs all of the juice will drip out of it and into the bowl.  It should be left for approximately 4-5 hours or you can leave it overnight.

When you have that nice big bowl of delicious juice you are ready to make jelly.  If you don’t have time right them you can leave the juice in the fridge for a day or two and then make the jelly.

I ended up making 3 kinds of jelly and 1 kind of syrup.  For the jelly use ¾ cup sugar for every cup of juice.  For the syrup use ½ cup of sugar for every cup of juice.  One of my syrup batches actually became jelly so if you want to use less sugar you can.

In a large pot mix the juice with the sugar and whisk it all together.  Turn the burner on high and let the liquid start to boil.  Don’t stir the juice and keep it as hot as possible.  It should take approximately 25 minutes until it is ready.  Using a thermometer check the temperature, you want it to be at 218-220C.  You can also check it by dipping a spoon in to the liquid jelly and when you let it fall off the spoon it should sheet off the spoon instead of drip.  And the third way is to put a few drops on a frozen plate and let it sit for about 15 seconds.  When you push your finger through it, it should wrinkle up; and that lets you know the jelly is done.

When you start to boil the jelly, you also need to put a large stock pot full of water on to boil as well.  This will be used to make sure the jelly seals properly.

You can use any size jar that you want but I recommend 125ml and 250ml jars.  Your jars need to have been washed and sterilized, wash them in warm soapy water to make sure there is nothing in them.  Remember when canning you need to always use new lids so that they seal properly, but the sealing rings and jars can be reused.

I then filled my jars using a glass mug to scoop and pour the jelly.  Fill the jars so that there is only ¼ head space between the jelly and the top of the jar.  Wipe off any jelly that's on the outside of the jar and then add the lid and sealing ring.  Make sure you tighten the ring up and then set the jar aside.  When all of your jars have been filled and sealed place then in the stock pot of boiling water for 5-10 minutes.  This ensures that the jar seals properly and makes your jelly safe to eat in the coming months.

After removing the jelly from the water set it on the counter to cool down.  As it cools you should hear popping as the lids all pop down.  If the lid pops down that's great it means you are safe to store it until you are ready to eat it.  If it doesn’t pop that means it didn’t seal properly and can’t be stored.  It would end up most likely growing mold and you risk botulism.  You can re boil the jelly and then reseal it or I recommend just eating that jar first.   I didn’t encounter this problem with any of my jars and if you do everything properly it usually isn’t a problem.

All that's left is to label your jars and put them somewhere safe until you are ready to enjoy them.