To(o Much to) Do List

Excuses? I got em! According to my planting plan I should have had just about everything planted by now, however, Mother Nature and my work schedule had other ideas.

So, in order to try to get things under control, I'm going to try to focus my activities into a managable to do list for the week so I can feel like I'm making progress.

Monday:
*plant tomatoes DONE
*plant dahlias & leftover bulbs DONE (thanks to Bill)

Tuesday:
*mow garden (if I can find a mower to borrow since ours is broken) DONE (Thanks Jennifer & Dan!)
*unload compost from truck DONE
*build remaining rows in Quad 3
*plant okra & squash

Wednesday:
*fill potatoes trenches
*top-dress rows between potato trenches
*plant beans & corn in Quad 2

Thursday:
*spread compost over Quad 4
*till Quad 4
*build rows in Quad 4

Friday:
*plant summer squash & soybeans in Quad 4

Weekend:
*plant winter squash & beans in Quad 4
*weed
*fertilize throughout

This is probably a very overly ambitious list, especially considering that I'm working extra hours this week AND I have several evening errands to run in town. Keep your fingers crossed for me, and I'll keep you updated.

Hedging My Bets

I'm thinking of changing the name of this blog to "Overdoing It" and it's only FEBRUARY, people.

We've had 2 days of sun in a row and third promised in tomorrow's forecast, which of course has me climbing the walls and finding every excuse to go outside. I pulled back the plastic tarps on the rows of peas we planted before the ice storm, and there's not much going on over there. A few sprouts here and there, but also some duds. It's still a mud pit, too.

So I decided to go on a wintersowing spree. Well, not so much decided as just couldn't stop. I planted another jug of Red Malabar spinach and then started a jug each of Little Gem, Flame, and Gotte Jeaune D'Or lettuces. Since my cauliflower seedlings have been doing so well, I decided to pot up 4 more soda bottle greenhouses to add to the windowsills. Then Joe and I went outside to play around in the sunshine and the next thing I know, I'm planting a flat each of dwarf phlox and snapdragons. There's something wrong with me. My kitchen table is nearly completely covered with a variety of flats and plastic containers and I don't own grow lights, people! For now the sun and 2 CFL lamps are doing the job, but I think as the temps continue to rise, some of the bottle greenhouses will be kicked outside.

You thought I was done? You thought wrong. By the time evening rolled around, things were looking a little drier in the veggie garden, so I pulled up the plastic sheeting altogether. Then I got the itch.

I blame the Farmer's Almanac online gardening calendar for my itch. Today's entry says: "16th-17th. Plant Peppers, Sweet Corn, Tomatoes, And Other Above Ground Crops In Southern Florida,

California, And Texas. Extra Good For Cucumbers, Peas, Cantaloupes, And Other Vine Crops. Set Strawberry Plants."

That word--peas--called out to me. How could I let this extra good day go by without getting some more in the ground, especially knowing that the ice storm killed who knows how many, and that my dogs probably took care of a good number themselves. Besides, this time around I was armed with my newly-ordered legume inoculant to mix into the soil. So, I went ahead and planted another row of early peas and a half row of Oregon Sugar Pods II. Then I emptied what was left in the packet of early peas on the rows that I'd already planted, and lightly mixed in some inoculant, just for good measure. Am I overseeding the peas? Probably. Will I thin them out later? Probably not. The prospect of a huge stash of frozen peas is much too tempting.

Taters & Onions

Even though the ground outside right now is practically impossible to even walk on because of the mud, I'm still plowing forward (get it...) with gardening plans. Today I "wintersowed" two spinach varieties and planted a flat of 3 kinds of herbs--lavender, cinnamon basil, and oregano--to join the other stuff growing in my makeshift sunroom, aka the kitchen table.

This past weekend we took a trip to our local farm supply store to check out the seed potatoes and onion sets. This is a dangerous time of year for me because it's hard to be around seeds and plants and not want to bring them home, regardless of the price or current weather conditions.

In all, we ended up with almost 16lbs of seed potatoes. The varieties I chose were Yukon Gold, Red LaSoda, Kennebec White, All Blue, and a few Norland Reds.

 

I'm keeping them in an old apple crate in the garage. There is another layer of potatoes under this one--at this point in the planting game I have no idea how much is too much or too little. I know what we've planned on paper, but it's hard to tell if we are vastly overcompensating for our ridiculously small yields last year (due to not planting enough). I do know that in this family, some roasted potatoes, onions, summer squash, and a little bit of meat go a long way in the summer dinner department. Which is why I may have gone overboard in the onion department, too:

I've never planted onions of any variety before, and although my research tells me that we should be planting intermediate-to-short day varieties in our area, I couldn't determine what varieties were being sold at the farm store. So, I just purchased and hoped for the best. 220 bulbs ought to do it, right? Plus 12 experimental shallot bulbs...the chef wannabe in me couldn't resist grabbing these. Now if only the ground would dry out a bit so I can get cracking!

Pics to Come

There's a lot going on the Wat Ranch this week to get ready for spring. So much that I don't have time to upload photos I've been taking of the goings-on. I will, I promise, but for now I'm too busy doing to talk about doing.

Suffice it to say that now that all of my seed orders have arrived (and I've attacked the seed displays in local stores), the Excel spreadsheet plots are being drawn up and I'm marking off sections in the garden. It's not as easy as I thought it would be because I have a posse of 3 dogs trailing along behind me as I mark. Pics to come.

Other than that, I'm attempting to start seeds for the first time ever, without grow lights or fancy heating contraptions. Pics to come.

I'm also taking advantage of the warm weather by moving some dormant (hopefully, though they might be dead) plants around in the front ornamental beds. Pics to come.

Oh right, and I have a little dude running around (literally) who has a first birthday coming up in a few weeks. I guess I should get on planning that, huh? Plus I'm working out more. As in every single day, for the last 3 weeks straight. I'll just assume you're giving me a virtual high five. In the meantime, back to work--paying work--for now. I've gotta finance all of this somehow.

Gingerbread

One of the first Watkins family Christmas traditions ever (actually, probably one of the first traditions period) is baking gingerbread. I started the first year that Bill and I lived together, and have kept it going for the past 4 Christmases. I think I made about 70 loaves that first year. I don't know what got into me, but we brought in loaves for everyone in both of our offices, mailed them to friends and family members, and ate about 20 loaves on our own. This was before I had my stand mixer, so I stirred every batch by hand. My right arm was approximately 3 times bigger than my left by Christmas. They have been mailed to several states and both Iraq and Afghanistan with fairly positive feedback across the board. I've recently tried experimenting with lower-fat and gluten-free versions, but I still have a long way to go in those departments.

As the years go by, the numbers of loaves being mailed out have dwindled due to astronomical postage prices from Oklahoma to everywhere else in the world, so I have decided to reproduce my recipe here in case readers want to make their own. A word of warning: if you are a bah-humbug type of Christmas avoider, do NOT make this bread. It will make your house smell like ginger and spice and everything nice and you'll have visions of sugarplums dancing in your head as you sing carols uncontrollably at the top of your lungs. Consider yourself warned.

Watkins Family Gingerbread
The original recipe that I print out and tape to my kitchen cabinets every year can be found here, and I only slightly modify it as I go. I've made so many batches of this stuff that I don't really need the recipe, but it doesn't feel like Christmas until it's taped up. One of these days I'll actually take the time to print it out on nice Christmas-y paper and frame it so it actually looks decorative instead of like I'm cramming for finals.

I start by creaming a cup of butter with a cup of brown sugar until light and fluffy:


Add 2 eggs and beat well. Then combine a cup of molasses (unsulfured) with a teaspoon of baking soda and a cup of boiling water. It will smell, sound, and look like science class:

The original recipe says to dump this in with the creamed butter mixture, but I like to add it alternatively in thirds with the flour for a better consistency. Thank you, Alton Brown, for teaching me that one. Add a total of 2 and 3/4 cups of flour alternatively with the molasses mixture to the creamed butter, with the mixer on low to avoid hot splashes of molasses. Voice of experience here.

Add 2 teaspoons of baking powder, and get excited. It's spice time. The original recipe calls for 4 tsp ginger, 2 tsp cinnamon, and 1 tsp each of allspice and cloves, but I dump at least a tbsp and a half of ginger in there, a full tbsp of cinnamon and heaping tsp of allspice and cloves, plus a pinch extra if I feel like it. I go through a LOT of spice. That's why when I stumbled upon a spice sale at my grocery store, I freaked out. A tiny jar of ground cloves is normally $8, but I got mine on sale for $.99! A Christmas miracle? I think so. I also have started zesting some orange into the mix to add brightness to the flavor.

Anyway, when you're all mixed up, you'll look like this:


Here's where I'll break and let you know that I used to make the lemon glaze as directed in the original recipe. It was good, but very very messy and sticky. This year I experimented with sugaring the pan and making a cinnamon-sugar topping, like I did in the Amish Friendship Bread earlier this fall, and had AMAZING results. I can't explain the tasty, I can only testify that it is mighty.

Once your pans are sugared and your oven is 350 degrees, fill 'em up. Sprinkle a generous helping of the cinnamon sugar mix on top of the loaves and toss them in the oven. It takes around an hour, give or take, but I never set the timer. At this point I can tell by smell, and I check with a cake tester. The finished product will look like this:


Well hello, you. Pull them out and let them cool on a wire rack for 30 minutes, then remove from the pans and allow to cool completely. If you can. These wrap up and freeze VERY nicely, obviously mail really well, and generally taste better the second day. Now, before you start thinking that I'm some Christmas fairy or something, I have to be brutally honest and admit that my kitchen looks thusly when I'm finished:


It's worth it. Trust me. Remember, you're going to be so busy singing carols loud enough for the neighbors to hear that you won't care about cleaning up.

Christmas Crash

Christmas is kicking my butt this year, friends. Actually, this time of year usually causes me to irrationally bake, overbuy gifts, obsess over cleanliness, and unnecessarily lose sleep for no good reason. It's a little more worth it this year since all of this effort is actually for the benefit of my son, which is what Christmas is all about, really.

However, I am tired. This is one of the lame "I promise to post soon" posts that I hate writing. But I will! Promise! I have pictures! And enthusiasm! Just no energy. Sorry.

Ho ho zzzzzzzzzz.

The Midnight Society of Applesauce

Who lurks in the shadows of the kitchen late at night, hunched over a bubbling cauldron? What is that intoxicating spicy sweet smell in the air? Why are all of the doorknobs sticky?

Ah, welcome to the the Midnight Society of Applesauce! You can find us peeling and chopping cheaply-wrought apples deep into the night, long after attention-demanding babies have retired to their cribs. Why do we toil into the wee hours, night after night, concocting these addictive brews?

Well when else do we have time? Applesauce making is a new hobby of mine, which is super convenient since applesauce eating is a favorite hobby of Joe's. Unfortunately, it takes several hours from peeling to canning, and it kind of has to be done without stopping; i.e., without baby. It's all worth it, though, because this tastes SO MUCH BETTER than the yellow goop you buy from the store.

We go through so much of it, so I don't make small batches here and there--I've been learning how to can my wares the old-fashioned way. I love PickYourOwn.org for canning instructions and all of the great advice (and gifted tools) from across the street at the One Acre Homestead.

So far this year I have made around 7 or 8 gallons of applesauce (I've lost track because we've been eating it along the way and using it for baking), canned in quart-sized jars and freezer containers. I don't have any dedicated canning tools yet, other than the gifted funnel and jar tongs from my sweet neighbor, but they are definitely on my wish list for Santa this year. For those of you who haven't canned before, it involves packing hot sauce into a hot jar and then submerging the jars in boiling water for a certain length of time.


I like to throw some cinnamon in when the sauce is cooking. You wouldn't believe how great this makes the house smell.



Needless to say, after an evening in the kitchen with all this steam, my skin looks fantastic. Once removed, the cool air outside the jar does some suction magic and the jars seal. They make an awesome "PING" sound when they're sealed up.

A magic potion? A mystical elixir? Freakin' delicious? You too can strive to join our secret society...or you can be really nice and I might share a jar.

God Gets a Lesson on Lawns

This is blatant blog theft. Hey, I'm on vacation. I stole this hilarious post from A Suburban Farmer, one of my new favorite gardening blogs. Having been raised in the 'burbs and being an unwilling laborer in my dad's quest for the perfect lawn, this made me laugh extra hard.

GOD:

Frank, you know all about gardens and nature. What in the world is going on down there on the planet? What happened to the dandelions, violets, thistle and stuff I started eons ago?

I had a perfect no-maintenance garden plan. Those plants grow in any type of soil, withstand drought and multiply with abandon. The nectar from the long-lasting blossoms attracts butterflies, honeybees and flocks of songbirds. I expected to see a vast garden of colors by now. But, all I see are these green rectangles.

ST. FRANCIS:

It’s the tribes that settled there, Lord. The Suburbanites. They started calling your flowers ‘weeds’ and went to great lengths to kill them and replace them with grass.

GOD:

Grass? But, it’s so boring. It’s not colorful. It doesn’t attract butterflies, birds and bees; only grubs and sod worms. It’s sensitive to temperatures. Do these Suburbanites really want all that grass growing there?

ST. FRANCIS:

Apparently so, Lord. They go to great pains to grow it and keep it green. They begin each spring by fertilizing grass and poisoning any other plant that crops up in the lawn.

GOD:

The spring rains and warm weather probably make grass grow really fast. That must make the Suburbanites happy.

ST. FRANCIS:

Apparently not, Lord. As soon as it grows a little, they cut it – sometimes twice a week.

GOD:

They cut it? Do they then bale it like hay?

ST. FRANCIS:

Not exactly, Lord. Most of them rake it up and put it in bags.

GOD:

They bag it? Why? Is it a cash crop? Do they sell it?

ST. FRANCIS:

No, Sir, just the opposite. They pay to throw it away.

GOD:

Now, let me get this straight. They fertilize grass so it will grow. And, when it does grow, they cut it off and pay to throw it away?

ST. FRANCIS:

Yes, Sir.

GOD:

These Suburbanites must be relieved in the summer when we cut back on the rain and turn up the heat. That surely slows the growth and saves them a lot of work.

ST. FRANCIS:

You aren’t going to believe this, Lord. When the grass stops growing so fast, they drag out hoses and pay more money to water it so they can continue to mow it and pay to get rid of it.

GOD:

What nonsense. At least they kept some of the trees. That was a sheer stroke of genius, if I do say so myself. The trees grow leaves in the spring to provide beauty and shade in the summer. In the autumn, they fall to the ground and form a natural blanket to keep moisture in the soil and protect the trees and bushes. It’s a natural cycle of life.

ST. FRANCIS:

You better sit down, Lord. The Suburbanites have drawn a new circle. As soon as the leaves fall, they rake them into great piles and pay to have them hauled away.

GOD:

No. What do they do to protect the shrub and tree roots in the winter to keep the soil moist and loose?

ST. FRANCIS:

After throwing away the leaves, they go out and buy something which they call mulch. They haul it home and spread it around in place of the leaves.

GOD:

And where do they get this mulch?

ST FRANCIS:

They cut down trees and grind them up to make the mulch.

GOD:

Enough! I don’t want to think about this anymore. St. Catherine, you’re in charge of the arts. What movie have you scheduled for us tonight?

ST. CATHERINE:

‘Dumb and Dumber’, Lord. It’s a story about….

GOD:

Never mind, I think I just heard the whole story from St Francis.

Amish Friendship Bread & Challenge

First of all, have you ever had this stuff? Um, wow. Pretty much anything that is COMPLETELY ENCRUSTED IN CINNAMON AND SUGAR is just about my idea of heaven.

Last weekend I was visiting friends and family in Maryland & Virginia, and my college roommate Jessica brought me a loaf and a starter of Amish Friendship Bread, which I had never heard of. The bread was so tasty that it was pretty much devoured within 24 hours. The bread starter, though, looked like a ziploc-bag filled with glue.

Jessica gave me a printout with instructions to "mush the bag" every day for 10 days, and on the 5th day to add flour, sugar, and water. (Click here for recipe and instructions.) On Day 10, you add another round of flour, sugar, and water and then divide the starter into 4ths--one to keep and bake (makes 2 loaves) and 3 to give away.
Willing to do anything to have more of this amazing stuff, I actually packed the ziploc bag into my suitcase and flew it back to Oklahoma, where I faithfully "mushed the bag" and watched as it started to blow up like a balloon due to the fermenting yeast mixture:
I let the air out and watched it fill up again over the next day. Definitely a fun recipe to make with kids, or really juvenile adults like me. On the 10th day, I was pretty much salivating to get the batter mixed and into the oven. True to the recipe's promise, one cup of the starter mixture made 2 loaves of bread, or in our case, 2 servings. Seriously, there is no such thing as portion control with this stuff.
You could find a recipe for the starter online (which I did and made--see below) but the neat thing about this recipe is that it is theoretically started in one person's kitchen and then shared amongst several layers of friends and family. For example, as I was baking my bread, I knew that on the same day my best friends Jessica and Diane were baking theirs because we each had a portion of the same starter.

WatSourced Challenge

Now, in the spirit of Thanksgiving and slightly caught up in the pay-it-forwardness of this recipe, I decided to quadruple the starter recipe I found online so I could bring it back east with me over the holiday to share with friends and family. Mistake. English majors should not try to do big math, especially with sacred Amish secrets. I ended up with not 4, but TEN starter bags (and actually should have been 12, but 2 of the bags are fuller than the others). YIKES!
I have some lovely folks in mind that I am planning to pass some of these to, but now there will be no way for me to know how these all turned out down the road when the starter starts really getting passed around.

So. My plan is to hand out the recipe with this blog address. I'm hoping that whoever ends up with one of my original starters (made with love in my own kitchen!), they will come back to this post and leave a comment letting me know where their kitchen is in the world, how the bread turned out, and if they had any modifications or suggestions. It will be like our own little virtual Amish village. This leads me to add 2 addendums:
1. Just for fun, if you've made this recipe before, even if you don't receive one of MY starters, let us know how it went for you.
2. If you don't feel like searching the internet and want to know how I made my starter (I did make a few tweaks) just post a comment with your email address.
Happy baking!

Patience is a Myth

I am pretty much the least patient person I know. The result? I plan future events TO DEATH because it gives me something to concentrate on while waiting for the event to happen. I think most of the world is organized into people like me, and people who are supremely irritated by people like me.

We are now officially in the non-planting period of the year, when the temps are cooler and it's often foggy or rainy. I say "often" but I really just mean a few times last week and today. Up until yesterday, really, it was still pretty warm and bright here, which isn't necessarily a good thing since most of our plants need to go through a dormant phase brought on by cold weather.

That said, we've been trying to get a jump on the New & Improved Wat Ranch Vegetable Garden 2010, since we undertook this year's garden completely unprepared. About a month ago, I borrowed a lovely gas-powered tiller from my friends over at the One Acre Homestead, and tilled up the plot where our new garden will go. Recall from this post that our previous gardening space was about 6'x20' total, so approximately 120 square feet.
Behold, the New & Improved Wat Ranch Vegetable Garden 2010 Plot:
This takes up a 40'x50' section in the southwest corner of our yard. Yes, math folks, that is 2,000 square feet. In addition to being impatient, I also tend to overdo things on occasion. :) That little black box in the corner is our composter which may or may not need to be moved when we start planting.

The goal for this plot is to have raised rows that are about 3' across, which we will sow with companion plants to improve flavor and pest control. We're also hoping the companion situation will help shade heat-intolerant plants, which can be a major issue in our unforgiving summer heat. Maybe one of these days I'll get ambitious and scan in our hand-drawn plans for the garden.

Something I'm interested in trying is "green manure." Cow manure and packaged compost can get super expensive when trying to amend over 2,000 square feet, so I followed the Farmer's Almanac suggestions for planting clover and winter wheat as a cover crop. Not only will this crop help with erosion control during winter rains, but it will also fix nitrogen in the soil and when it is mowed and tilled under, will act as a fertilizer (and it won't stink or inspire ill-timed poop jokes).

Like my homemade seed spreader? It's a Parmesan cheese shaker. I experimented with this Dutch White clover, then once it germinated I realized I needed A LOT more. Bill found a local seed wholesaler, Warner Brothers Seed Company, that I bought a winter wheat mixture and red clover seed from. It's great finding local resources, and so far the product has been excellent. See?
This is about 2 weeks post-sowing and there's green stuff popping up all over. In fact, it's so green over in that corner of the world that it's making the rest of the yard look downright brown:

Almost the inverse of the first picture, isn't it? And yes, the grass has been mowed since this was taken. We got a major case of the October Lazies and hadn't mowed in several weeks. I mean, it's not supposed to be warm this late into the fall, so who wants to mow when there is football and indoor activities to be enjoyed? And if the green appears in patches, it's because I had 2 lovely assistants (aged 5 and 7) help me spread seeds until they "figured out how to do it faster" by just dumping out their spreaders in one spot. Smart girls.

One last piece of business is garlic. I received 4 lovely bulbs of garlic in the mail (and forgot to snap pictures, so use your imagination), but unfortunately one of them was totally rotted through. I grabbed another questionable bunch from Lowe's, and planted everything that looked decent. So we'll see. I'm not feeling completely confident about this crop because I couldn't pin down a good planting time from my research, and the weather is so wonky....Anyways, this will be the garlic home for the next few seasons until it is ready for harvest mid-summer:
Godspeed little vampire killers!

Fall: Best time for planting shrubs

Are you sensing a pattern by now?

After attempting to plant blueberry bushes this spring that consisted of a single twig in a bag of dirt, I was pretty discouraged. Continuing my trend of not researching plant needs or soil conditions, I literally just dug a hole and stuck the twig in the ground. Is anyone surprised when these little guys shriveled up and died on the first hot day in July?

When I saw that Lowes was selling berry bushes this fall, I jumped on it and bought up 9 blueberries immediately. The goal was to plant them along the front section of fence on the east side of the house. But a few weeks later, my friends over at the One Acre Homestead stumbled across the same bushes on sale for 75% off--which came to around $2 per shrub. Considering I spend about twice that much per pint of imported blueberries at the store, I jumped again.

These little beauties, known as "misty blue" now line the entire front east length, half of the west front length and then down the first few sections of the east side of our fence. I also picked up 4 "powder blue" bushes (also on sale for $2 from Atwoods) and planted them interspersed among the Mistys for cross pollination purposes. I actually did a little research and planted these with pine mulch at the root base and soaked the ground with a green acidifier, which these plants love.

Misty blue, which are already showing new growth and have started turning a lovely sunset color:

The powder blues, which were a bit worse for wear when I rescued them from the clearance section, but are thriving now that they're in the ground:

All told, there are TWENTY-TWO blueberry bushes that will one day grow into a hedge along the front of our fence. I can't wait to see what these do in the spring. Just for fun, we picked up 3 blackberries, too. Neither my husband nor I are big fans of blackberry, but they're so good for you, so we'll give them a try.


Another big sale item were crape myrtles. We found a purple one to match two that we already have in the front flower beds to balance out the colors. I'm all about balance.


Then we planted three "christmas tree" crapes (which should have white blossoms) and 2 "miami" crapes in front of our new, under-construction garden shed. I staggered the planting of these because they are so tiny, but they will one day be huge (hopefully).

Yes, that is construction debris all around the crape, but ignore that for now.

We've also added 5 new boxwoods around the side of the house and around the shed. The impulse buy was 5 gardenia bushes (seriously, who can pass up $1.75 per shrub?). I have no clue how these will do, but the picture of the blossom on the card was soooo pretty, and the greenery is super cute:

See? I told you the shrub post would be epic. If you're keeping track, you'll note that we planted 40 bushes around the property in the last 2-3 weeks. In related news, I'm adding "Digs a wicked hole" to my resume.