Garden 2013: Spring Fever

 I have a serious case of spring fever and the fact that my seedlings are beginning to overfill our shelf isn't helping. My self imposed deadline to get the garden ready for planting is fast approaching, so this weekend, weather permitting, will be a busy one. Fence building, tilling, soil amending.

Here's how my seedlings look now. They are growing fast! First up is the Ragged Jack Kale. They are growing the fastest and hopefully can make it another week in their little pots. Growing Kale, when you have a son named Cale, is the source of constant jokes. And apparently the thought of eating your brother for dinner is hilarious!

Ragged Jack Kale

We started about 18 tomato plants to get an early start. They are looking really good and will have to be trasplanted to larger pots before too long since they still have a few months before they can be planted out.

Heirloom Tomatoes

 I was so excited about this one. Of all the things I want to grow, lavender is at the top of the list. I have tried time and time again to sprout it from seed with no luck. But I have 5 little sprouts now! They still have a ways to go, and I have been known to kill a large plant as well. But I am determined to have my lavender field one of these years.

Lavender

The eggplants are off to a slow start. Our seed shelf is on our bedroom, which stays around 64 degrees most days and colder through the night. The eggplant seeds are not happy with this arrangement. Rylan's yellow egg and my black egg and Turkish Orange didn't sprout at all. I planted a few more today and put them in the living room near where the woodstove is and hopefully they will germinate better.

Apple, Ping Tung and Purple Long Eggplant

The cabbage- both green and purple are also looking really good. I am starting to collect as many vegetarian cabbage recipes as I can, so if you have any to share I'd love to see them!

Cabbage

You know how when you plant seeds it is recommended that you plant 2 seeds to ensure germination? I usually ignore that when it comes to things like peppers, tomatoes, and eggplant because I am stingy with my seeds. But with the Brassicas we went ahead and doubled up, since the seeds were plentiful. So a few weeks after planting, things start to get crowded and you are supposed to pull out the weaker of the 2 sprouts. Yeah. I can't do that. I am incapable to throwing any plant out. Ever. So below you see a flat of the "weaker sprouts." I pulled them up and stuck them in the soil filled flat and hoped for the best. They all made it. So now we have double the amount of what we planted. I do the same thing with suckers. Tomato suckers I will pinch off and plant and do the same with raspberry suckers....

Here is our shelf from top to bottom. All 3 shelves are pretty much full. The Kale is about as tall as the lights will go. If I could find a chicken safe place outside I would put them out there, but I am still working on finding that chicken-safe place.

Happy growing!


This post has been linked to The Homestead Barn Hop,

Garden 2013: Indoor Seed Starting

 

It's late January and nothing is growing outside. It's winter and it's cold (sort of) but we've been in garden planning mode for a few weeks now. And today we started some of our earliest crops inside. The Brassicas- cauliflower, cabbage, kale and broccoli. Some eggplant, to get them good and strong before transplanting outside in a few months. A few herbs and some really early tomatoes- in hopes that we can get them pretty big by transplanting time and get tomatoes earlier and longer this season.

I have always started my own seeds. It's not as hard as you may think. In terms of simplicity you can buy peat pellets (pictured at the top) and stick your seeds in and make sure they get light (sun or artificial) and keep them watered. That is usually all it takes. If you don't want to make the extra purchase you can make pots out of newspaper or soil blocks and plant your seeds directly in to them. This year I am using what I had left of my peat pellets from last year and some seedling trays reused and refilled with a mixture of potting soil and peat moss.

The main difference this year is that we don't have a good sunny window to place seed trays in anymore. Last year's starts ended up pretty long and straggly. So a few weeks ago Paul and I built a seed-starting shelf. It was made simply out of boards we had laying around. Today we added 3 4-ft shop lights to grow the seeds under and got to planting!

My kids are always part of our garden each year. They take part in most aspects from planting to weeding to harvesting to eating. But this year, Rylan's interest has really spiked. I am not sure if I have mentioned this, but the #1 item on his Christmas list this year was seeds. A gift certificate from Baker Creek to be exact. Today he planted his Purple of Sicily Cauliflower,  Romanesco Italia Broccoli,Thai Yellow Egg Eggplant, and a couple of his tomatoes- White Tomesol and Golden King of Siberia.

 Here's what went in today:

20 Purple of Sicily Cauliflower
20 Snowball Cauliflower
15 Early Purple Sprouting Broccoli
17 Waltham 29 Broccoli
16 Romanesco Italia Broccoli
12 Russian Red Kale
10 Mammoth Red Rock Cabbage
10 Copenhagen Market Cabbage
3 each of these Eggplants: Turkish Orange, Thai Yellow Egg, Black Egg, Crystal Apple, Ping Tang and Long Purple
9 Lavender
4 Purple Basil
4 Genovese Basil
3 each of these tomatoes: Golden King of Siberia, Dr. Wyche's, Amish Paste, Super Sioux, Chadwick's Cherry, White Tomesol
2 trays of onions seeds: Wehtersfield Red and Red Torpedo

Now they are happily sitting under their lights, ready to sprout! Have you started this planning/planting this year's garden? What's on your list this year?

linked to the Homestead Barn Hop

The Mountain State Fair Round-Up

 The kids look forward to entering the fair every year. Last year when we finalized our plans to relocate that was one of the things they asked about- is there a fair? So we searched online and found it- the Mountain State Fair. Close by, tons of categories and pretty similar to the TN Valley Fair they had entered in the previous 2 years. When it came time to submit entries, they went big- Rylan entered close to 20 categories. Cale and Cohen entered around 13. And Lakin qualified to entered the participation group so he entered 3 things.

Drop off day was last Tuesday and Wednesday, so they had been working hard on their entries everyday. Here is what they entered:

Cohen:
      Art: Colored pencil, oil pastel, water color and tempera paint
      Crafts: Christmas Decoration, recycled craft, any other craft, pottery
      Baking: Decorated cupcakes, drop cookies, pie, yeast bread

Cale:
     Art: Colored pencil, tempera paint, crayon
     Crafts: Christmas decoration, sculpture, recycled, metal craft, pottery and any other
     Baking: Decorated cupcakes, rolled cookies, old fashion fudge, any other baked item

Rylan:
    Art: Crayon, oil pastel
    Photography: Color animal. color plants/flower, B&W plant/flower, B&W animal
    Agriculture: Banana peppers (he did sign up for more, but our garden didn't cooperate this year)
    Crafts: Christmas ornaments, paper craft
    Baking: Decorated cupcakes, yeast rolls, cupcakes, muffins, pie and any other baked item

Lakin had 6 categories to choose from and he entered art, jewelry and crafts.

 I must say that the baking portion is the most stressful. With 14 items and one kitchen it got a little hectic. But because of the location, later drop off times and the items the kids chose to make we were able to stretch the baking from Monday afternoon-Wednesday morning and still make the deadline. But there were 3 batches of cupcakes, Rylan's cheesecake and garlic bread sticks, a pumpkin pie, a peanut butter pie, pumpkin muffins, spice cookies, chocolate chip cookies, honey oatmeal bread, 1 batch of botched fudge and another that set, and soft pretzels! And that is a lot. Plus bagging, tagging and printing recipes for each one. And next year Lakin gets to join in on the baking fun!

We did take a trip on Friday to check out the fair- so they did get to see if their entries won. But we didn't see all of them so I will wait to unveil the winning entries until next Monday when we go to pick up their stuff!

Exploring Hendersonville: Part 2

 Once we left the antique car show on Saturday, we stopped by the Apple Valley Model Railroad Club in the old train station since they were holding an open house as well.

We started by exploring the old caboose before heading inside. The boys got instructed on how to operate a model train by one of the junior engineers.

Then we went into see all the models. I always forget how much my kids love exhibits like these. They spent a really long time in these 2 rooms. Watching the trains and the city replicas. They had a little Thomas the Train model set up in back that the kids could operate. Annika loved that part.

 After I pried them away from the trains we headed to our last stop. The WNC Air Museum. Again it was pretty empty, which means we got a really great tour and history of all the of the planes in the building.

There was a gyroplane that they could sit on. And the kids got instructed on how to get into the planes without breaking the wings and were allowed to sit in this WWI aircraft.

There were lots of models and experimental planes. A few unfinished and never flown planes that the museum is working to restore/complete.

 All day we had been seeing the biplane flying overhead, so we stopped to watch it land and take off before we left.

And that concludes our tour of Hendersonville. Big cities have a lot to offer, but sometimes small towns hold little known treasures that can make for a wonderful day.

Don't forget to come back tomorrow for Field Trip Friday to link up your best field trips, and to read about how others have spent their time outside of the home!

This post is linked to Field Trip Friday

Exploring Hendersonville: Part 1

This past weekend was the North Carolina Apple Festival in Hendersonville. On Saturday we decided head down and spend the day exploring the town and all it has to offer since many places were holding open houses or special exhibits. We parked at the street fair first. To be honest, I am not a street fair kind of girl. Way too many people. Too much junk being sold. And very little of the old time festival festivities left. But we wanted to see the downtown and the Mineral and Lapidary Museum was on Main Street where the street fair was being held.

We stopped and ate our picnic lunch on the steps of a building and walked the length of Main Street before heading back to the museum. It was small and very crowded, but it had a lot on display. The first thing the kids saw was the T-Rex head. And Lakin was very interested in the Smilodon Skull and other saber toothed cat replicas (he's always had a thing for saber toothed cats).

They had geodes you could purchase and have cracked open using this machine. It was fun to watch and the geodes were beautiful. The boys all wanted one, but at $15 for a small and $40 for a large, we had to pass.

They also had a case dedicated to rocks and minerals found in North Carolina. We'll have to check out and see if we can find some local places to go dig for some!

And if you ask Cale, the highlight of the day was Kilwin's. He found a listing for Kilwin's in Asheville and has been asking to go ever since. So when we passed by the store he really wanted to go in. 

Once we had been walking in the heat for awhile we stopped in for ice cream. 5 cones, a caramel apple and some fudge samples later we were back on the side walk to enjoy our treats

Once we were done at the street fair we headed down the road a bit to check out a small antique car show.  It was really small- we got there a bit late. But sometimes small and not crowded can be a good thing. 

One couple let the kids sit in their 1923 car and showed them how the top went up and down. Told them about the engine, where the gas tank was, how the pedals worked.

They tried out the horns of a few of the cars and explored the different engines. There were only about 6 or 7 cars, but still interesting and fun for the us to see.

Annika loved sitting up in the car and didn't want to leave when it was time to move on.  It was getting late and we had a couple more stops before heading home....