Harvest Monday

The garden is still providing, despite temps sinking in the mid 20s last week, brrr!  This week we harvested some gorgeous lettuce.  Fall lettuce is divine, so tender yet toothsome, and nice and sweet.  Yum.

I also harvested some yummy Red Russian kale for a delicious batch Kale and Sausage Soup on Saturday, which I served with an apple pie made from apples procured from a local orchard.  YUM!

I know the pie is not technically countable for Daphne’s Harvest Monday, but hey, if you made a pie that looked that pretty, chance are you’d want to show off a little, too, right?

Snow, what snow?

Friday

Sunday

Sunday dawned warm and sunny, no sign of snow left on the ground.  The high was 64°F!  We spent the majority of the day outside continuing to put the veggie garden to bed, renovating one flower bed with the rototiller, getting the bird feeders out, and gathering pruned branches to take to the town transfer station.

We also painted my new garden ornament.  It looks so good!  Amazing what a little spray paint can do, isn’t it?  I created the finial out of a wooden finial I purchased at some yard sale.  I always buy them when I see them as they are perfect for such projects as this one.  We have a lovely new garden tuteur for the cost of 2 cans of spray paint and a 50¢ tag sale treasure, AND we kept some metal out of the scrap pile.  I love a win-win scenario. The first coat

The finial

A nice shade of purple, eh?  This photo best shows the color as really appears.

In a good viewing spot for the winter.  Note the salvaged trellis in the background –maybe that should be purpleized, too?

Another hen gone

Dan and I think we must have another raccoon stalking our poor hens.  On Saturday, we lost another chicken, Eartha, one of the Black Stars.  We were busy preparing for dinner guests in the house after lunch.  I went out to the garden at 3 o’clock to cut some kale, and all was well, I gave the girls some kale and apple cores and went back to the house.  At 4:45, Dan went out to close them into the coop for the night, and saw signs of the struggle.  He checked the coop, and Eartha was gone. It was too dark to see much, but he looked to no avail.

In the morning, we both went out and saw tracks we think are coon tracks.  We’ll be trying to catch this one with our old standby, cheap canned cat food.

I feel so badly for poor Eartha and Lola.  We have a fence around the yard and still cannot seem to protect our girls.  I love having hens, and want to give them a happy and safe life, but I don’t seem to be meeting that goal lately.  Sigh.  Should we give up?  The only strategy I can think of is to get a llama or another dog.  I don’t think a llama will meet the zoning in our neighborhood, and I can’t see getting another dog when the dog is home alone for at least 8 hours a day –dogs need company to be happy.  What to do….

 

Second snow

We awoke to more snow overnight.

Hang on ’till Thanksgiving Day, little sprout!

The girls were NOT happy.  As Dan said, this was NOT in the cruise brochure!

I’m going back in!

Me too!

Wait for me!

I’m not going back out there!

Sorry for the blurry photos, it was a bit dark this morning.

First snow

I am so not ready for snow yet.  I don’t think Dan is, either.

Harvest Monday

Today, we harvested some of the best Brussles sprouts I have ever tasted, they were amazing.  We also picked some Piricicaba broccoli, parsley, and a few of the Falstaff purple Brussels sprouts.  Much as I love my purple vegetables, the Falstaff just did not produce big sprouts, so say by-bye to Falstaff for next year  (you can compare them in the photo on the left — the tinly purple blobs are the Falstaff sprouts).  Fortunatley, the Oliver sprouts had a great crop.  The parsley is amazing, tender and sweet after the frosts, YUM!

We are saving the rest of the sprouts for Thanksgiving dinner, but I foresee some Kale and white bean soup and a nice salad in the near future.

This post is part of Daphne’s Harvest Monday series.  Visit Daphne’s Dandelions to see what she and other gardeners are still harvesting in November!

Hoop House update

Today, we closed in the open north end of the hoophouse with some aluminum-frame storm windows which became available when we replaced some of the aging windows in our house. 

Wow, I LOVE the visibility we have with the glass, and the frames added some rigidity to the structure as well.  Where the windows didn’t cover, we recovered with inexpensive plastic sheeting from the hardware store which we also use with good results for small  raised bed hoophouses in the garden.

To install, we simply added framing made from a 2′x4′ ripped in half to make a 1′x3′.  We then used galvanized self-tapping screws to attach the window frames to the hoophouse framing.  The final step was adding the plastic to the uncovered area, and tacking down the plastic with lathe salvaged from a house project. This makes me wish I had a few more windows to replace!  I may have to start perusing Uncle Henry’s for some used aluminum windows.  It makes the hoophouse a lot brighter, I hope the plants like it as much as I do.We still have not buried the plastic on the sides of the hoophouse.  We left it unburied thinking we might want to roll up the sides for venting this summer, but it never really got hot enough to need it.  For now, we have covered the plastic with scraps of plywood scrounged from the town’s waster transfer station, where it was destined to be ground up into incinerator chow.  I think this is a much better use.

What’s growing?

Things are still growing great in the hoophouse — we’ve got lovely lettuce, Swiss Chard, kale, parsley, and leeks, and yes, tiny little green spinach sprouts from the spinach seeds I planted a couple of weeks ago.  I really hope this overwinters and comes back to early life next spring.  I’d like to try sprouting broccoli again, too.  Has anyone ever had success with that?  I tried it last year but the plants did not survive.

Just…gone

We’ve lost one of our lovely Ameracauna hens.  Dan arrived home from school and went to collect eggs, and Lola had vanished.  No feathers, no signs of a raccoon or other airborne predator, she was just gone.  Dan looked until dark, and I looked in the morning, to no avail. The other girls were all fine.

Times like this is when henkeeping loses its glamour.  I hope where ever, what ever happened to poor Lola, she did not suffer.

Who do you love?

After this disappointing garden year, I’m raising my spirits by thinking about next year.  What vegetable varieties from my list will I grow again next year?  What were disappointments (blight not included), surprise loves, rainy day champions?

On the definites list:
BROCCOLI — Piracicaba ** Fedco
This broccoli was delicious, kept coming all summer, and was relatively slug proof once it lived through seedling stage

BRUSSELS SPROUTS — Oliver  **  Johnny’s  Oliver produced.
We haven’t eaten any yet, but they look great.  Purple Falstaff, not so much :-(

CABBAGE — Gonzales  **  Pine Tree
Easy peasy and perfect for 2

CAULIFLOWER — Limelight, Cheddar  and Graffitti  **  Pine Tree
Yummy and amusing, what more can you ask of a vegetable?

CHARD — Bright Lights  **  Pine Tree
Tasty, long producing, beautiful

KALE — Starbor, Nero di Toscana  **  Pine Tree

LEEKS — King Sieg  **  Fedco
cold hardy, thrived on neglect, yummy

SQUASH — Flying Saucers, Yellow Crookneck  **  Pine Tree
Costata Romanesca  **  Fedco

TOMATOES
Sungold  **  Pine Tree
Matt’s Wild Cherry  **  Johnny’s
I’ve got to grow this blight proof producer

LETTUCE & SALAD GREENS
Tom Thumb  **  Pine Tree
Black Seeded Simpson, Red Sails  **  Fedco

While the summer’s harvest is fresh in your mind, what’s on your must have list?

A poultry tidal wave– chickens in Brunswick

First Portland, then Bangor, Waterville, Camden, and now Brunswick.  Maine cities are seeing the light and passing ordinances allowing city residents to keep chickens!  Spread the chicken love.

We are trend setters here at Henbogle, beginning our hen adventure way back in 2006.  Perhaps we need to set up a consulting business, teaching people henkeeping skills?