Peppers, Broccoli, Eggplant, Artichoke, and more cabbage planted!

I just put in seeds for 3 varieties of  bell pepper [total of 27 bell pepper].  I put in 9 pots of jalapenos and 9 of the Anaheim (those little red hot ones), and 9 of Hungarian Hot Wax (or something like that), just for variety. I also put in 36 pots of eggplant, 18 broccoli, 18 artichoke and 18 late cabbages (I think).

Whew.

Tomato seeds planted and pumpkin bread!

I got a late start tonight, but I managed to get 144 tomato pots planted!

I did 18 pots of each variety.  The cabbages, Brussels sprouts and cauliflower are doing well:

as are the onions:

While I was messing with the planting, Katherine was making delicious pumpkin bread with our home grown pumpkins:

MMMMmmmm MMMM!  I love this stuff!  I eat it as a dessert, a snack, and sometimes for breakfast (toasted with some peanut butter or just butter).

March to-do list

I always lose this link so I am placing it here!:

Organic Gardening's March to-do for zone 6

I need to get my tomato seeds in!   Too snowy here to put the cabbage and such out to a cold frame.  OMG - I need to plant my broccoli! I forgot it!

No-Knead Bread Recipe

I keep losing this recipe in all my files so when I finally found it I decided to post it here in my blog!


No Knead Bread

7 1/2 C.Whole Wheat Flour
6 tsp. Dry Yeast or 2 Pkts.
1 Cup Warm Water
1 T. Honey
2 tsp. salt
4T. Molasses
Warm water as needed

Preheat oven to 400 degrees.

Place flour in large bowl to warm about 20 min. in warm oven.

Dissolve the salt, honey and yeast in 1 cup of warm water.

Combine yeast, honey and salt mixture to warmed flour and enough water to make a sticky dough.

Place in greased pans. 2 large or 3 small. Let rise 1 hour or until double in size.


Bake 30 to 40 min.

Let cool in pan for 10 min.


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I have used this recipe for years.   Here are some pictures of my process:

My Nutrimill flour mill.  I love this thing!  Fast and quiet (comparatively speaking - its about the same as a vacuum cleaner).  I use it for wheat and corn.

I keep my wheat in Mylar bags with oxygen scrubbers.  The bags are inside of a 5 gallon bucket.  These are great for long term storage.  You can buy wheat this way from survival "prep" stores, or put them together yourself.   I have done it both ways and the wheat can be stored for at least 2 years this way.  Probably more.

Wheat with a small amount of flax seed on top.  I grind a small amount of flax with my wheat because the flour mill can't handle milling flax by itself.

Everything in there except for the water.

Mixed with water.  Ready to put in the loaf pans.

Put the mixed dough into the pans and then let it rise for about an hour (or until doubled).  I usually put mine in a warm oven (I set the oven on its lowest setting for about 15 mins while I'm mixing the stuff, then turn the oven off and put the loaf pans in to rise).

After rising.  Ready to bake!

Fresh out of the oven!

Seedlings are doing well!

Just a quick snapshot of the cabbages, brussel sprouts, cauliflower and onions!

2 rows Cauliflower on left,  2 rows brussel sprouts next to them, then all the rest is cabbage.  All doing nicely!

Onions have stepped up!  I am thinking that I still got a late start on these.  I intend to plant these and some onion sets this year, just to be sure that I get a good crop of onions!

Replacing an old basement door

I finally got back up to the farm this weekend!  Spent about 2 hours digging out the driveway with my frontloader.  Frontloaders really aren't great at moving snow.  Here is the result:

Once I got in, I got right to work on the door issue.   Here is the old door to a room under my front porch:

Kind of rough shape!  Since I want to use that room for a root cellar, I need to take care of this door!  So I bought some pre-hung exterior doors to replace the various doors in this house (and one for the old garage).  The problem is that the pre-hung doors assume that you have a certain size rough in size opening!  So I removed the 2x6's that were framing the rough opening in the concrete wall and replaced them with 1x6's.  BUT, even then, I found that the pre-hung unit just barely fit - but with no room for shims!  The impact, of course, is that I would not be able to adjust for fit if there were any issues with squareness or plumb.  

I got super lucky though and was able to fit the door in place without the need for the shims - it fit fairly well and the door opens and closes just fine! Whew!

Here is the end result:

I made a couple of movies too, however I had no tripod so the quality is not great.  Enjoy!

Before: 

After:  

Snow Day!

Looks like I'm stuck here in the "city" (suburbs really) again this weekend!  Arg!!!

Big snowstorm - a nor'easter evidently, moved through and dumped almost 20" of snow on us.  Here are some pictures of my backyard here in Silver Spring, MD:

The snow has melted down a lot since yesterday, thank goodness!  You can see the little paths I dug out for my dog Smokey so he can go about his business without getting stuck in the snow!

I just checked my seedlings this morning and found more progress in the cabbage, brussel sprouts and cauliflower tray.  Nothing yet in the onion tray.  Here are some pics:

Here is the tray containing the cabbages, brusselsprouts, and cauliflower.  I started turning on the light above the tray yesterday, once I thought enough of the seeds had put up their first leaves.  I turn the light on in the morning and turn it off at night.  I have been leaving the plastic tray cover on to keep the moisture level high so that the remaining seeds will germinate.

After all of the seeds have germinated, I will begin to leave the plastic tray cover off so that the plants won't rot!

Some of the plants look moldy!  I am not sure if that white fluff is actually mold though.  I am talking about the fibrous looking stuff, not the white "balls", which is simply Perlite.  I suspect the little white fibers might be the seed sending out feelers to start putting down roots!  In any case, those white fibers seem to go away in a day or so. 

I really should get an earlier start on the onions - maybe next year (well this year really) I will start seeds in the late fall....  In any case, I am definitely trying onion sets this year.  Onions are so critical to cooking!

Also, I welcome my new followers.   Well, my first and only followers, since I just recently  figured out how to allow followers!  

Today, I read a blog article: Canning Chicken, (from one of my new followers blogs, actually!) that has motivated me to finally try it!  

New start! Seed starting shelf

Well, its that time of year to get the garden going again.

Last year I started all my seeds indoors in trays that i placed either in my bay window or on my dining room table (until it got warm enough to use my portable greenhouse).  This year my bay window is full and the dining room table is off limits.  So I needed a solution.  I was browsing my email/facebook/blog feeds and found a plan that looked simple and cheap (especially cheap if you have all the materials already - which i mostly did!).

Here's how they turned out:

Below is a shot of some of what's left of our canned goods from last season:

And finally, after putting in the lights and planting my cabbages and onions:

I won't keep the lights on the seed flats until after they come up.  I am somewhat worried that the flats aren't going to be warm enough to sprout.  I normally put these on the top of the upright freezer until they sprout.  The heat from the freezer compressor is just about perfect to create a nice warm environment in a covered flat!  We will see if these seeds sprout or rot...