Short Post (Am I Capable of That?)

Yes, we had a frost last night.  White coating on the roofs, vehicles, yard and ice on the chickens' water.  Fortunately it dissipated rather quickly and as far as I can tell, nothing in the garden was damaged.  (Bless cold frames and hot caps.)

The haskap bushes look the same as they did late yesterday afternoon.  Some blossoms still hanging on, a few berry buds showing.  The leaves are looking lush and just fine.

Along with a few other accomplishments, we got all 50 asparagus roots planted yesterday.  We ordered them from Nourse Farms in Massachusetts and they looked very, very healthy and vigorous.

Waiting for a Rhubarb Crunch to come out of the oven and then on to planting potatoes.  I want to have the whole garden in by the end of this coming week.  That's the plan anyway.

Haskap, Honeyberry or Zhimolost?

Our haskap berry bushes we planted three years ago this spring look as though they're going to present us with a (small) bushel of berries this year.

What is a haskap berry?  It resembles a blueberry, a fruit with which we are all much more familiar.  The plant has been grown in Russia and Japan for centuries and is just recently gaining some popularity in the United States.  Some folks know it by the name of "honeyberry."  My bit of research tells me it is known in Japan as the "haskap," in Russia as "zhimolost," and more frequently the "honeyberry" here in our country.  We started calling ours haskap bushes and that name seems to have stuck for us.

The shape of the dark blue berry is more oval than a blueberry, measuring somewhere around 1" to 1-1/2" in length.  They are touted as being delicious and very good for you.

What's the flavor of the berry?  It's been described as . . . well, it's been described as hard to describe.  Some say it's a zingy combination of blueberry and raspberry with a hint of elderberry.  Others say it reminds them of blackberries, cherries or even grapes.  (How can you miss with those flavors exploding in your mouth?)

Supposedly, the burst of the juicy flavor you experience when eating a haskap berry has been compared to the taste of a fine wine.  (I'll drink to that.)  Matter of fact, the berries are highly recommended for wine making because of their deep, intense color and high level of natural tannins.  (Get that wine making equipment out and ready.)

The high levels of Vitamin C and potassium, plus nearly three times the number of antioxidants of an antioxidant-loaded (wild) blueberry, add to the remarkable health properties of the fruit.  (They're sounding better all the time, aren't they?)

Haskap bushes seem to be happiest planted in Zones 2-4 (is this perfect for us up here near the tundra or what?), but it's possible to grow certain varieties in Zones 5-9.

They do require cross-pollination because the male and female reproductive parts develop at different times so it's recommended planting two to five different varieties together.  We've started with three bushes, two are the Borealis variety and one is a Berry Smart Blue.

The bushes fruit approximately two weeks before strawberries (and quite a bit before blueberries) when all grown in the same climate.  They produce for a two to three week period depending on the variety.

Most varieties grow to be an average of four to eight feet tall, so this is no little shrub we're talking about.  (I'm definitely going to have to use a ladder for harvesting.)  The bushes reach maturity at five to seven years and can produce berries for 30 years or more.  (Now that's my kinda plant.)  They can bear heavily producing five to nine pounds of delicious fruit per mature plant.

Because they seem to prefer a cooler region in which to grow, they can flower at 25 degrees Fahrenheit and are cold hardy to -55 degrees Fahrenheit. (Looking better and better for our little frozen-nine-months-of-the-year [not quite] homestead all the time.)

Weed control is essential and the shallow roots like to be mulched during the summer to prevent drying out.  Bumble bees are better pollinators than honey bees.  Fortunately, we do seem to have an ample amount of those big ol' bumble bees, but I'm sure our honey bees will be glad to help out in any way they can.

Haskap bushes need three to four years in the ground before producing any significant amount of fruit.  And it's true that this year, the third for our bushes, is the first year ours have had more than one or two blossoms showing.

Although this photo doesn't show the blossoms very well, many have developed on all three of our plants this year.

To illustrate how far ahead the haskaps are compared to the blueberries, above is a picture of one of our blueberry bushes which isn't even leafed out nearly as much as the haskaps.

We obtained our haskap starts via an order from Honeyberry USA based in Bagley, Minnesota.  If you can't find haskap bushes at a local nursery, doing a quick Internet search will pop up many plant businesses listing them.

To say the least, we're pretty excited to see our haskap bushes looking so healthy and prolific this year.  Does this all make us eager to taste-test our own haskap berries?  You bet!

Garden Planting Waylaid on Account of Mud

We had many hours of steady rain yesterday which was good for the seeds already planted in the garden, the new strawberry plants, the raspberries and blueberries.  (I think the lawn may have grown 6" also.)

I thought perhaps today would be dry enough that I could get back out into the garden by this afternoon, but 'twas not to be.  A gray, damp day made that impossible.  Tomorrow?  Hope so.

This past Friday, Saturday and Sunday much was accomplished outside which was a good thing.

All the strawberry plants are in the ground . . . including the ones we ended up giving our good neighbor because they didn't fit in the space allotted for them at our place.  Funny, everything looked so good when I plotted it out on the graph paper.  (I have that problem a lot it seems.)

Got notification today that our asparagus roots were shipped so I'm assuming we'll be putting those in later this week.

Sunday night before the rains started, I harvested the first of our rhubarb.  As Papa Pea and I are still trying to stay away from sweets (sob), I cut it up and made it into two pie fillings which I stashed in the freezer.  Way down in the freezer.  With lots of other stuff on top of them.  Hard to get at, ya know.

The blueberry bushes are looking good after I went a little crazy (I feared) pruning them a few weeks ago.  There were a few weeds starting to take hold in the patch and now with the rain I see they've called in all their relatives to come join them.  I need to get them under control pronto.

Our three haskap (honey berry) bushes that we planted three years ago this spring finally have decided to put forth blossoms this year.  Glory be, we may actually get to taste a haskap berry.

I really don't have a lot planted in the garden yet.  It's not that I haven't been putting in the hours out there.  It just all takes so darn long, don't cha know.  Got the shell peas in along with the snap peas.  Two-thirds of the onions are planted and Brussels sprout transplants are in the ground.  Have a bed of Swiss chard (we do love that stuff) and a bed of salad fixings including spinach, kale and radishes.

Last year I planted two 4 x 8' beds of garlic and it was way too much.  So last fall I filled just one bed with garlic, half hardneck and half softneck.  Gave the whole bed a deep, deep covering of straw for the winter and uncovered it earlier this spring.  I've had 100% germination on the hardneck variety but only 13-14 sprouts are up on the softneck side.  What the heck happened there?  I'm stumped.

There's a forty percent chance of rain for us tomorrow, but I sure am hoping the other sixty percent (chance of no rain) will enable me to get out and get some more planting done.  Maybe we can even work a bit on the lawn that is so high even our granddog, Tucker the corgi, is hesitant to venture out into it.

Sunshine and Sore Muscles

We've been blessed with sunshine the last couple of days.  The temperature during the day is still staying only in the high 40s or low 50s, but the wonderful sunshine makes all the difference in the world.

Today we prepared the Upper Garden for some of the new strawberry plants.  The Upper Garden was formerly known as the Pumpkin Patch, but had to be renamed as it is now going to be permanently planted in asparagus and strawberries.  I wanted to call it the Asparaberry Patch or maybe the Strawagus Patch, but my better half decided it would be the Upper Garden.  (Sometimes he's just no fun at all.)

For a long time now, I've been studiously trying to avoid a rather large rock in the Upper Garden which lurks not far under the soil.  Today Papa Pea decided it had to go, and he was going to dig it out.

It turned out to be too big to dig out (unless we rented a good-sized backhoe), so he broke it up with a sledge and special chisel-type tool for . . . well, busting up big rocks.  As of this afternoon, that rock will haunt us no more.  (Methinks the man just searches for hard jobs.)

Got 50 of the strawberry plants settled in their new home, roots tucked in, a good drink of water applied and given instructions to (pretty please) grow into healthy, lush plants.  Now only 150 more to go.  (Would this be a good time for me to go on a trip?  Away from home?  Maybe until the strawberry plants have magically planted themselves?)  If my back and knees recover, we'll return to the planting tomorrow.  The rest of them will go in three long rows within the Field Garden.

Sunshine is forecast through this coming Sunday so I'll be spending as much time in the garden as I can.

A great way to celebrate Memorial Day Weekend as far as I'm concerned.  Hope your holiday is great however you choose to spend it!

Happy Mother's Day to Me!

Yep, that's the way things have been going around here for about the past week or so.  The hurrier I go, the behinder I get.

Belated that I may be, I wanted to post a picture of my daughter's Mother's Day gift to me.

Can you see what it is?  Nope, nothing to do with the two bags hanging on the inside of my quilt room door.

She made me a switch plate cover especially designed for my quilt room!  Pretty cool, huh?  I sure think so.

* * * * * * * *

I know I've been a bad bloggy friend lately.  Just too much going on.  I've not been able to keep up with even reading my most favorite blogs let alone staying on top of the comments on my blog or making comments on your blogs.  This doesn't happen to me very often, but this has been one of those periods where I'm not finding enough time to spend at the computer.

Most of you are crazy busy getting your gardens in, but I can't use that as my excuse.  Our weather is still too wet and downright cold for that.  We had frost last night with a light covering of snow on the deck.  More of the same is forecast for tonight.  One of these days, we will have warmth and decent weather . . . it's just very slow in coming this year.

Do You or Don't You?

Just wonderin'.  

Do any of you exercise on a regular basis?

Maybe I should rephrase that.  

Do any of you have a set routine of exercising?  You know, something you do exclusively to keep your body toned, flexible and in good shape . . . a schedule of working out at the gym regularly?  Or swimming, karate classes, biking, running/jogging, weight training, walking, yoga, calisthenics at home with an old Jane Fonda workout video, attendance at a zumba class, etc.?

In other words, do you have some kind of structured exercise built into your daily routine?

I must say (hanging my shamey-shamey head a bit), I do not.  Although I feel I live a fairly active lifestyle which affords me a certain amount of exercise on a daily basis, I know my body and probably my mental state of being would improve if I did do more to insure my total body got a workout regularly.

So why don't I?  I could easily use the (fairly lame) excuse that my days are jam-packed already, and I don't have time to fit in a regular exercise program.  But we all know that's a bit of a cop-out, right?  After all, what do I spend my time doing that is more important than insuring my physical body stays in good shape so I can continue living the lifestyle I want to live?

It's a conundrum, and I'm interested in hearing your thoughts on the subject. 

Do I Need A Handwork Intervention?

At a time of year when I should be concentrating my efforts on nothing but outside work, I looked around my quilt room this morning and counted no less than seven projects in progress.

These aren't the dreaded UFOs (unfinished objects) we all have stashed away to be forgotten completed "someday," but rather things I am actively working on whenever I can sneak into my padlocked sanctuary quilt room without anyone noticing I've temporarily disappeared.

You say I couldn't actually have seven projects in process at once?  Ha!  Let me show you.  Spread out in various places in my quilt room are:

1)  Summer Potholders.  I just gave away my last set of potholders that were summer themed.  Gotta get a few more made up.

2)  Miniature Sweater Ornaments.  A friend gave me one of these for our Christmas tree years ago, and I finally found a pattern I liked so am making some for small gifts for this coming holiday season.

3)  Hangers for Miniature Sweater Ornaments.  The friend who gave me the ornament loaned me her jig for making the teeny-tiny wire hangers.  Unfortunately, her hanger pattern was a smidge too small for my sweaters so I had Papa Pea make me a jig that is slightly larger.

4)  A "Welcome" Hanging for Entry Porch.  I have to figure out how to make a panel that will go on the bottom of this Attic Windows piece that will say "Welcome."

5)  Summer Tablecloth.  This tablecloth has been up on my design wall for some time waiting for inspiration to strike me as how to quilt it . . . without spending 40 hours doing so.

6)  New Full-Sized Quilt.  I have nearly all the blocks made for another quilt . . . king-sized so it will fit on our bed if I decide to keep it.

7)  Knitted Socks.  And lastly, the first sock of a pair just about done.  I think I'm dragging my heels on finishing this one because the second sock will be BOR-ing.  I know, I'm the one who chose this blue-gray yarn because it will go with everything, so I need to hush up and get on with it.

That's all.  Those are the only projects currently cluttering gracing the surfaces of my quilt room.

How about you?  Do you have several projects in the works waiting to be completed?  Or are you one of those irritating people who always finish one project before starting another?

It's A Mess But Ya Gotta Start Somewhere

I took a bunch of pictures to chronicle our deck demolition as we go.

Here's the deck from the south side.  We've had flower beds on the front and both east and west ends.

I fondly remembered Bridal Wreath hedges from my childhood and was told the Nine-Bark bushes would be much the same.  Not so much.  We planted a row of Nine-Bark along all three edges of the deck.  Grow thick they did higher than the deck railing, but needed nearly constant pruning to keep them looking nice.  I didn't like the pruning I had to do three times each growing season.  Last fall, I cut them all down to practically the nubbity-nubs knowing we were going to move them this spring.  (I cut them down once before and they grew back stronger than ever.)

This is the west end of the deck with a Sugar Maple growing next to it.

I love the maple tree, but over the years the blasted birds have practically killed it by pecking at the bark.  Hubby thinks they go after the sweet sap.  We've tried painting the bark with organic coatings as deterrents, but the birds pay no attention and have not been deterred.  So, (sob) the tree is scheduled to come out.

One of the reasons the maple tree has to go is that we have grown to despise dislike the steps coming off the deck on this corner angle.  So we are moving my clothesline poles (which enable me to hang clothes out on the deck) over to the middle of that side of the deck and in the new design the stairs will come off right between the uprights.  Hence, maple tree must go.

Another sad tree story.  This was a Nanny Berry tree off the southeast corner of the deck.  The main part of the tree died (possibly committed suicide one winter), but shoots came up from the roots.  We now have  a Nanny Berry bush.  Since then, the tree bush has never gotten any of the attractive berries.

A third (is there no end?) sad tree story.  In the flower bed at the east end of the deck is an ornamental flowering crab apple tree that has never, ever flowered.  Either it was mislabeled when we purchased it, or it needs another of its kind for cross-pollenation.  Again, this tree has to go because we are putting another set of stairs off the deck (moving the other set of clothesline poles) and this tree is smack-dab in the way of that set of stairs.

The pots of plants you see helter-skelter on the deck are plants I wanted to save from the flower beds.

All the flower beds were delineated by 6" x 6" timbers which are pretty well on their way to compost after being up close and personal with the soil for nearly 20 years.  The beds on both the east and west ends of the deck are being eliminated, and a larger (in an effort to eat up lawn that has to be mowed) bed will be constructed on the south in front of the deck.

Got all that?  It's a start and something we can work on until this crazy, cold weather of ours (we had a heavy frost this morning) decides to turn appropriate for planting in the garden.  

Perfect Weather for Sleeping - Not Good in May!

We can safely say the forest fire danger of the past several weeks is gone.  We've been having successive days of gray, gloomy skies and plenty of rain.  Large puddles are standing everywhere outside.  This morning the temperature was 37 degrees . . . with snowflakes falling.  Good gardening weather does not come early to the north woods.

Checking the forecast for the rest of this week, we see nothing but storm clouds with rain and low temps day and night, but then next week (please, please, pretty please), it should warm up.

This spring weather (ha!) is very reminiscent of the cooler climate (even well into summer) we experienced when we first moved up here forty years ago.  (It's a wonder we toughed it out and survived.)  Weather does go in cycles and I'm beginning to wonder if this is the start of another cycle of cooler summers.  Certainly good if you don't like hot, humid weather, but more of a challenge if you depend on gardening to supply a good amount of your food for the year.

Speaking of delicious food, I got notification my 200 new strawberry plants were shipped yesterday.  Funny, back in March when I ordered them, mid-May didn't sound like it would be too early for planting.  Now I fear they may have to cool their heels roots in the bottom of the refrigerator for a week or so before going out into the garden.  Not only is it cold out there now, but also very muddy.

But don't you worry about us wandering around aimlessly with nothing to do.  Seems we're never at a loss for keeping ourselves occupied.

We've started demolition on our deck which we need to replace this year.  (Yes, it truly does need replacement.)  I've taken lots of pictures which I'll get up in a post soon.

Well, anyway, this weather is good for something.  Sleeping!  It's so exceptionally hard to pull oneself out of bed on these gray, cold mornings.  If we were wise (Yeah, yeah, IF!) we'd find a way to stock up on the rejuvenating hours of shut-eye because we'll need them if when summer does arrive.

Having The Mumps

I don't know what in the world made me think of it today, but when I was in eighth grade I had the mumps.  It spread like wildfire through my class that year so I wasn't the only one to suffer.  But, oh my, suffer I did.

Mumps is a viral disease and is extremely contagious.  The virus is easily spread via respiratory secretions (saliva).  Coughing or sneezing, touching one's nose or mouth, eating or drinking from the same receptacles or kissing can spread the virus.  In my eighth grade class of teeny-boppers, of course there was a lot of kidding, teasing, and giggling going on about the "kissing."

It's no wonder so many of us were out of school with the mumps.  A person who contracts the virus is contagious for six days before symptoms start to show and nine days after they start.

What are the symptoms?  Swelling of the salivary glands on one or both sides of the face giving a "hamster-like" look to anyone unlucky enough to contract the disease.  

I got them on both sides of my face.  I can still remember how miserable I was.  My face was swollen to a gargantuan size, and I was nearly unrecognizable.  The swelling was accompanied by pain which increased when I tried to eat or drink.  Lying on my back caused the swelling to feel as if my ears were being ripped off.  Sitting or standing caused gravity to make my "pouches" feel as if they had ten pound weights in them.  I couldn't lie on either side because anything touching the glands was painful.

The physical pain added to the severe angst of missing out on two whole weeks of school (my social life!) made me one very unhappy camper.

My mom and dad both worked during the day so my grandma was in charge of my care.  I spent days slumped on the couch feeling so weak all I could do was moan and groan.  I can remember watching a lot of Grandma's daily TV programs through my bleary eyes.  (I may never be able to forget "Queen for a Day" where the woman with the biggest, sorriest sob story had a wish granted.)  Grandma made me gargle with warm salt water three times a day which did not feel good and take aspirin for the pain which always got stuck in my throat because it was hard for me to swallow.

She did her best to minimize the pain of the weight of my swollen glands by putting a folded white tea towel under my chin, up along each side of my face and tied on top of my head.  I then looked like a hamster with rabbit ears.  I vaguely recall seeing a picture someone took of me in that sorry state.  It would be a great addition to this post to have it to share, but I have no idea what happened to it.

Does anyone get the mumps anymore?  It certainly is rare that you hear of it these days.

Good golly, isn't it weird when such an old but vivid memory like this one pops into your head?  I'm sure there are thousands of memories from my growing up years that are gone forever, but some remain in the deep, dark recesses of my mind to surface at odd times like this one did today.

Calgon, Take Me Away!

Any of you old enough to remember that commercial?  No matter.  It was pretty silly anyway.  The gist of it was, "I need a rest and time to myself."

Both Papa Pea and I have been working really hard physically all week and our wagons are draggin'.  So we're taking a self-imposed day off tomorrow to do only things that we want to do.  Not to say we haven't wanted to do the things we've been accomplishing this week, but tomorrow is to be more of a relaxing, fun time, do only what is classified as fluffing off, pure entertainment, indulging in time doing whatever re-energizes and re-fuels our personal beings.  (You know, those things that responsible [ha!] adults put off until we "have the time.")

Truth to tell, for me, it's also going to be a time for my body to recuperate.  What hurts?  My right wrist, my left heel, my lower back, a hitch in the get-a-long of my left hip, both shoulders, my right elbow and a shooting pain in the transitional arch of my right foot.  (Other than that I'm feeling pretty good.)

I wonder if the fact that I'm staying away from sugar is the cause of my body falling apart?  I bet that's it.  Yeah, that must be it!  Pie.  I need two slices of Banana Cream Pie.  And Cinnamon Rolls for breakfast.  And a big bowl of Salty Caramel ice cream.  I'm certain I'd feel better then.

How Much Wood Would A Woodchuck Chuck . . .

My hard-working husband sharpened up a chainsaw and a spare, put on his protective gear and finally started working on our wood supply today.

It's not that we don't take seriously having a good quantity of dry, seasoned wood under cover, ready and waiting to be used.  We've talked about getting going on the wood for a couple of months now, but there have been plenty of other tasks that seemed more important.

Although we heat with wood, we also use L.P. gas in the house, too.  It fuels our water heater and kitchen stove and we have a gas wall heater in the main part of the house as a back-up.  Plus, this past winter Papa Pea spent many hours in the basement installing a medium-sized gas furnace there that we could use if we were to be gone from home for any length of time.

I'm sure another reason prepping firewood hasn't been at the top of our list is because we have a good amount left that we put up last summer.  Matter of fact, hubby has guesstimated we might have enough for two years of heating completely dried and ready to use.  (We may have gotten a little carried away in the wood working department last year.)

Believe me, it's not a usual happenstance to have so much wood remaining at the end of a heating season.  So why do we this year, you ask?  (Didn't I hear somebody ask?)

Well, this past winter we experimented.  We decided to try keeping the temperature inside the house lower than we had before.  I can't truly remember whose idea it was or why we made the decision to do this, but boy howdy, did it ever make a difference in the amount of wood we went through.

But, aha!  Were we uncomfortable?  Suffer from chilblains?  Have to wear our outside clothing inside?  Nope, not in the least.

The temperature was kept in the range of 64 to 68 degrees and unless we were spending a couple of hours in a sedentary state (which doesn't seem to happen often around here), we were always quite comfortable.  Actually, the few times when we stoked the wood stove a little too vigorously and the temperature rose to 70 degrees or so, both of us were too warm, complained and a window got popped open.  In previous winters we kept the house heated to about 70-72 degrees so there certainly wasn't a huge divergence in the lower temperature this winter.  We've talked several times about how much less wood we burned this past heating season and are pleased as punch it turned out to be so much less.

Needless to say, we can't see any reason not to continue following the same plan next year.  But that doesn't mean we won't continue to put up enough firewood so that we have no worries . . . no matter what comes our way.

Let the Gardening Begin!

I caved.  I gave in.  I succumbed.  I planted in the garden today.

And the weather is predicted to be so nice for the next week that I didn't even put a cold frame over the bed I planted.

As usual the first seeds that go in are ones that will give us some fresh greens to make into big bowls of salad with such nutritional value you just can't get anywhere but out of your own garden.

Now is that gorgeous or what?  (Okay, not so much right now, but I'm imagining what it will look like in thirty days.)

I planted this one whole raised bed in four foot long rows.  One row each of Scarlet Frill (a mustard I can't get enough of), spinach, kale, arugula and mizuna mustard.  Two rows of radishes and six rows of lettuce.  If that won't make a yummy salad, I don't know what will.

You may recall I really pushed Mother Nature this year (in northern Minnesota anyway) and planted my Sweet Pea flower seeds on April 15 when it was still really cold.  Sweet Pea seeds supposedly should sprout in 14 to 21 days.  This is day seventeen and you can bet I've been giving the soil beneath the trellis the oogle-y eye nearly every day lately.  This morning?  Sigh.  Still no sign of my little Sweet Peas poking through.  Barren ground and trellis shown above.

But then tonight as I was putting away my gardening gear . . . wha . . . wha . . . what's that?  Lookee, lookee!  Two little shoots that made the supreme effort to push on up through the dirt today.  Now with the rain forecast for tomorrow, I may see a bunch more of the little green guys by tomorrow night.  Looks like the Sweet Peas may be a go after all.

Papa Pea was busy in the garden today, too.  He finished spreading compost and did quite a bit of cultivating.  The Pumpkin Patch is shown above.  Said Pumpkin Patch is going to be, I'm pretty sure, turned into the Strawberry Patch this year.  I won't be able to fit all of the 200 plants I have coming in that one area, but it will hold a good bunch of them.  The rest will go (somewhere) in the Field Garden.

This is the Field Garden which along with the Pumpkin Strawberry Patch is now ready for planting.  Soon, soon, won't be long now!  ("Soon" being defined as in about a month when the new strawberry plants arrive and it will be safe to plant a good portion of my other crops.)  The lighter patch you see in the picture above is my remaining "old" strawberries which we hope will (not be too old to) give us enough berries for fresh eating this year.

These are the three containers, about one cup each, of fresh frozen chives I have left from my winter's supply.  They still look pretty good, don't they?  They freeze so well and add so much color to lots of different dishes all winter long.

As you can see I made it with plenty to spare because I certainly could be cutting fresh chives right now if I didn't still have these frozen ones.

There was a while a couple of weeks ago when I had serious doubts that we would ever get spring weather, but it has finally arrived.  Time to truly switch gears and get outside to play in the dirt.  Yippee!