The Wednesday Weigh-In : Week #26

       

We're at 231.7 Pounds!

    

     Being week #26 we're at the half way point for this years Urban Ton Project. While we clearly are not half way to the ton we are feeling pretty good about our progress.  We eat almost entirely from our yard, and the food is as fresh and nutritious as possible, being picked only moments before eating.  We've also produced enough to put a little up for the coming winter.  Now that we're entering July the "heavy" crops like tomatoes, peppers, eggplant and summer squash will come into full swing and we expect the poundage to start climbing very quickly.  Stay tuned!

     

     To recap this week we produced 30.2 lbs of food.  Our chickens laid 24 eggs weighing in at 2.9 lbs.  The remaining 27.3 lbs came from produce with the top three being:

     

     5.7 lbs of beets & beet greens

     4.7 lbs of napa cabbage

     3.7 lbs of lettuce            

                                                                

Dwarf Blueberry Plantings

  

     We recently posted about the large blueberry plantings we did on the hillside in the front of our house.  While we are on the theme of front yard landscaping and blueberries we put in 10 dwarf blueberries on either side of the walk, in the front, just before the two annual beds.  These dwarf Northsky blueberry only grow to about 1.5 feet tall and spread to about two feet.  They are hardy down to zone 3 making them an excellent choice here in Minnesota.

     The bushes are planted a little less than two feet apart so that when they mature they will form a short blueberry hedge on either side of the sidewalk.  

     After planting we covered the entire area where we removed the grass with a 1/2 inch layer of peat moss to acidify the soil.  Peat-moss will get the soil down to the right pH to make the blueberries happy and takes a long time to break down completely.  But on the topic of peat moss it is not being sustainably harvested so it should be used in limited amounts.  We use it very sparingly in our custom seed starting mix and when establishing blueberry plantings.  

     To keep the peat moss in place, and aid in water retention we covered the peat moss with a 3 inch layer of cedar mulch.  This will also help prevent weeds and since the cedar is slightly acidic as it breaks down over the years it too will keep the soil in the right pH range.

     These dwarf blueberry bushes will yield between 1 and 2 pounds of blueberries each when mature.  That equates to 10-20 lbs for the urban ton in future years!  Not bad for a plant that also has beautiful spring flowers and stunning red fall foliage!  (Can you tell we really like blueberry plants?)

     

The Sunday Supper

    

     For this week's installment of The Sunday Supper we are featuring pizzas with fresh garden veggies.  We made two pizzas, the top one being roasted beets with garlic scapes and the bottom one chicken with rainbow chard.

     For these we only pulled the veggies from the garden, but the fresh flavors make the pizza a really great meal.  Here's the recipe:

     Crust (makes 2 pizzas):

     7 oz Whole Wheat Bread Flower

     7 oz Whole Wheat Baking Flower

     7 oz Corn Meal

     3 tsp Salt

     2 tsp Instant yeast

     10 oz water

     In a mixer combine all ingredients and knead for 5 minutes.  Place dough in a bowl, lightly coat with oil and cover.  Let sit at room temperature for one hour.  The crust can be used to make pizza at this point but to improve the flavor of the crust do this in the morning then refrigerate the dough all day.  Then remove from the fridge and let come up to room temperature for at least 30 minutes before cooking.

     Pizza 1:

     7 oz mozzarella

     4 beets

     12 garlic scapes

     crushed red pepper

     Roast the beets in the oven for 1 hr at 350 deg until a toothpick slides into them easily.  Use half the dough and form pizza crust, top with cheese, sliced roasted beets, garlic scapes and crushed red pepper to taste.  Bake for 8 minutes at 500 deg on a baking stone.

     Pizza 2:

     7 oz mozzarella

     1 chicken breast

     6 oz swiss chard

     1 tsp olive oil

     Cut chicken into bite sized pieces and saute for 5-7 minutes on medium until cooked through.  Use remaining half of dough to form pizza crust, spread olive oil on to of crust and top with 3/4 of the cheese.  Arrange chard and chicken on the pizza then sprinkle remaining 1/4 of cheese atop the chard and chicken.  Bake for 8 minutes at 500 deg on a baking stone.

  

    

Blueberry Hillside

  
     One of the goals with our front yard landscaping is to eventually replace all the grass on the hillside with  plants that do not require mowing.  We're going to do this in phases and the first phase was removing a large section of grass on the left side of the hill, under a pine tree, and planting blueberries.  Being under the pine tree the soil will naturally be acidic keeping the blueberry plants happy.  The shade from the pine and the large catalpa will reduce yields slightly, but we'll more than make up for that with the quantity of blueberry bushes we're putting in.

     For the blueberry hillside we're planting 24 plants with 4 different variates.  Planting on a steep hillside was a bit more complicated than on level ground because the slope makes soil erosion and watering an issue.  

     We laid out the spacing between plants, dug the holes, and planted each of the bushes.  The next step was eliminating the grass between the bushes.  Rather than ripping it up tilling it under with the hillside we decided to lay down newspaper to smother the grass.

     On top of the newspaper we laid a two inch thick later of cedar mulch then laid down a plastic mesh.  We used lawn stakes to hold the mesh in place and act as a retainer for the cedar mulch.  The plastic mesh was then covered with a second two inch layer of mulch.  The mulch and plastic netting will help to keep soil erosion to a minimum.  The mulch will also absorb water, slow its movement, and keep the soil most.  

     The final product looks great and will only get better as the blueberry bushes fill-out and the cedar grays with sun exposure giving it a more natural look.  The six rows of blueberries (besides having beautiful flowers in the spring, and wonderful fruit harvests in the summer) will create a spectacular display in the fall. The two outer rows on each side are variates that have foliage that turns bright red in the fall.  Between these variates is one, known as Goldcrop, who's foliage turns a brilliant shade of yellow.  We're really looking forward to this foliage display in the fall and will be sure to share it with you as well!

     

The First Tomatoes of 2010

 

     Yesterday we pulled our first tomatoes of 2010 off the vine.  A single medium sized Stupice and 10 Blondkopfchen Cherry tomatoes.  We haven't eaten any fresh tomatoes since last season so this was a really exciting day!  Despite our the high expiations for these tomatoes their taste blew us away.

     For early season non-cherry sized tomatoes nothing beats Stupice.  This old time heirloom is known for setting fruit early and ripening quick.  We consider this a must have for kicking of the tomato season early.  Now we're starting to salivate for a Brandywine BLT!

     Among cherry tomatoes Blondkopfchen ranks high in our books.  It's not known for being an especially early tomato but it reliably produces huge fruit sets that are so sweet and tasty they often don't make it out of the garden.  Their only drawback is they often crack when picking so they don't store well.

     This evening when we did our daily walkabout through the gardens two other variates had tomatoes that were starting to ripen:  Isis Candy Cherry and Sara Pink Cherry.  We're so excited tomato season has started!

The Wednesday Weigh-In : Week #25

 

We're at 201.5 Pounds!

     Our harvests from the garden this week were bountiful.  While our chickens laid 27 eggs weighing in at 3.3 lbs that paled in comparison to the 30.3 lbs of vegetables we harvested from the garden!  This week we produced enough to put up several pounds of food for winter.  We blanched and froze almost 7 lbs of collard greens, 2 lbs of rainbow chard and 2 lbs of mustard greens.  We also made horseradish chips from almost 6 lbs of horseradish leaves!  On top of that we harvested 2.5 lbs of garlic scapes.  The scapes are so good an versatile we've been using them in almost every meal but   soon well use most of them to make garlic scape pesto.

Having crossed the 200 lb mark we are over 10% of the way to meeting the Urban Ton Goal!

Only 1798.5 Pounds To Go!

    

Edible Shade Loving Mint

      
     Continuing with our work in the front yard we have a large area under a huge catalpa tree that is shaded most of the day.  We plan on putting a front patio in under the tree but there is still a good sized area that receives mostly shade.  In this area we decided to plant a couple mint gardens.  As a shade loving perennial it's leaves can be used in many applications like tea, salad dressings, and mojitos!

     In all we're planting 13 variates including a strain we call "Vic's Mint" that has been in our family for 40 years:

     1.    Peppermint

     2.    Spearmint

     3.    Sweet Pear Mint

     4.    Lime Mint

     5.    Orange Mint

     6.    Chocolate Mint

     7.    Grapefruit Mint

     8.    Hillary's Lemon Mint

     9.    Apple Mint

     10.  Blue Balsam Mint

     11.  Banana Mint

     12.  Pineapple Mint

     13.  Vic's Mint

      We know it won't add up too much to the Urban Ton but this perennial plant grows well in the shade and makes such great tasting drinks that we're decided to dedicate a good amount of space for it.  A few words of caution to those thinking of putting it in, be sure to have a way to keep it contained (like with cobblestones) otherwise it will spread and take over.  Also, removing it once it's established can be a real challenge so be sure it's in an area you will want it to be for a long time!

   

Front Yard Cobblestone Edging

 

     We've been working a lot lately on our front yard landscape.  With our theme of using old cobblestones and street pavers in the backyard we decided to carry this over for the landscape edging in the front yard.

     If you look back to the layout of our edible landscape the sketches outline the boarders between the walkways and garden beds where the cobblestones were laid. 

     Eventually we want to remove all the grass from the hillside but we need to do it in steps so the soil does not wash away without roots holding it in place.

     We still feel like we have a long way to go in the front yard but getting the cobblestones in place set the framework for things to come and really made things look better.    

   

The Sunday Supper

 

     Sometimes life can get just a little too busy to make complicated time consuming meals.  This weeks Sunday Supper was a quick alternative to picking up the phone and ordering a pizza after a really busy day.  With just a few minutes picking and washing time we had a healthy great tasting dinner.  Fresh lettuce mixed with sugar peas, yellow snap peas, and an assortment of edible flowers.  Paired with a slice of toasted bread and a bit of hard cheese it was a perfect light summer meal. 

  

The Wednesday Weigh-In : Week #24

We're at 167.9 Pounds!

     We went to New York for a wedding last weekend and decided to stay for a couple extra days to visit with some other friends.  It was really nice to catch up with some people we had not seen in ages but being gone for a good part of the week meant we were not harvesting much from the garden.  

     The chickens laid 28 eggs weighing in at 3.4 lbs.  From the garden we harvested 10.7 lbs of produce.  The top three items from the garden this week were 5.7 lbs of spinach, 1.7 lbs of spring onions and 1.5 lbs of garlic scapes.  That puts us at 14.1 pounds for the week and 167.9 pounds for the year!

Front Yard Edible Landscaping

     While we have been focusing most of our energy working on the backyard we have been working little by little on the front yard as well.  Over the past several weeks we planted several fruiting trees and shrubs.

     Along either side of the stairs to our house we planted columnar apple trees, pawpaws, cornelian cherries, honeyberries, and two dwarf apple trees from our apple grafting seminar.

     Around one of the beds near the sidewalk above the stairs we planted several different variates of currants, great for fresh eating and making jams.

     In front of the house we planted two sweet cherry trees cold hardy to Minnesota, and 4 honeyberry bushes.

     Lastly we planted wintergreen plants.  We're experimenting with these and we'll see how they do.  If they grow well they'll make a great low lying edible ground-cover.

   

The Sunday Supper

    
     This week marks the first of a new series of weekly posts we're calling The Sunday Supper.  We are frequently asked what we do with all the food we grow, and while we don't want this to become a cooking blog, we thought one post a week discussing a meal we had with a few photos would be a nice addition to the blog.

     To kick things off we decided on one of our all time favorite meals:  Roasted Beet Salad.

     We pulled the first of our beets from the ground (a candy-cane type) and roasted them in the oven with carrots, green onions, and garlic scapes.  Here is the recipe:

Ingredients:

1.    11.5 oz beets, whole

2.    3 carrots cut into 1 inch slices

3.    8 spring onions, roots and upper leaves removed

4.    6 garlic scapes

5.    2 sprigs rosemary

6.    8 springs thyme, chopped

7.    1 dried cayenne pepper

7.    1 tablespoon coriander

8.    4 tablespoons olive oil

9.    10 tablespoons white vinegar

10.  2 tablespoons cider vinegar

11.  1 tsp salt and pepper

12.  12 oz lettuce

     Combine all ingredients in a roasting dish and bake at 350 deg F for one hour.  Drain liquid from bottom of roasting pan into a glass bottle and add one garlic scape, and one rosemary spring into container.  This is a beet salad dressing and usually provides enough for several meals.  Place beets, carrots, onions, and garlic scapes atop a bed of lettuce and lightly drizzle with beet dressing.  Serve.

For this meal the lettuce, beets, spring onions, garlic scapes, rosemary, thyme, and cayenne pepper all came from our yard.

     

Flagstone

 

     Earlier this summer we moved our three bin composting system from up against the walk near the garage to alongside our fence where lilac's used to be.  We really like the new location, and moving it allowed us the space to build the kiwi trellis, but one problem has been there is about a 6 foot span between the walk and the compost pile.  With bare ground it gets muddy when it rains and is not ideal. 

     To solve this problem we decided to put in a little flagstone path from the walk to the compost pile.  The first step was digging out 6 inches of soil where the flagstone will go.

     After removing the soil we added a four inch later of class five limestone in two inch layers, compacting with a plate tamper between layers.  The limestone underlayment forms a base that will keep the flagstone from sinking into the ground over the years.

     Once we finished compacting the limestone we laid the flagstone and planted creeping thyme between the stones.  We filled in the rest of the gaps between the stones with soil instead of the usual sand so the creeping thyme would grow well, and fill in nicely.

     

The Cost of Starting Plants - Update

  

     A while back we posted on the cost of seed starting and now that we've shut down the grow lights and planted everything outdoors we thought it was time to do an update and see how starting our own plants compared to buying them at the farmers market.

Here were our costs:

Containers $30 Compost (40 lb) $15 Seeds $60 Labels $24 Electricity $133 Lights, Tubes, Timers* $54 Vermiculite (4 cf) $18 Total: $334

*Fractional cost of equipment over expected lifetime (10 years).

     To figure out what it would have cost to buy our plants we went to the Saint Paul Farmers Market a few weeks back and wrote down the prices for similar plants.  Most plants were priced fairly similarly between vendors and depended on size of container and size of plant.  To do our comparison we valued our plants based first on comparable plant size, then on container size.  In all cases the plant we grew had to be larger and in a similar or larger container than the plant at the farmers market.  A lot of plants in small containers were 3 for $5.00 at the market, and we used that price as the default for many of our plants even if they were in larger containers.  To qualify for a higher pricing our plant had be significantly larger and also have an equivalent at the market selling for more.  Artichokes and wolfberries (goji berries) were not available at the market so were priced based on the cheapest online pricing we could find.  Here is the breakdown:

Plant # Plants Price Total Tomatoes - One Gal 30 $6.00 $180.00 Tomatoes - 16 oz 41 $3.33 $136.67 Peppers - 16 oz 63 $3.33 $210.00 Peppers - 8 oz 7 $1.67 $11.67 Eggplant - 16 oz 6 $1.67 $10.00 Cucumbers 15 $1.67 $25.00 Brassicas 46 $1.67 $76.67 Lettuce - Flats (72) 2 $25.00 $50.00 Wolfberry 6 $3.50 $21.00 Thyme 16 $1.67 $26.67 Parsley 4 $1.67 $6.67 Oregano 9 $1.67 $15.00 Creeping Thyme 8 $1.67 $13.33 Calendula 22 $1.67 $36.67 Sage 3 $1.67 $5.00 Artichoke 10 $5.00 $50.00 Basil 39 $1.67 $65.00 Summer Squash 16 $3.00 $48.00 Sunflower 12 $1.67 $20.00 Nasturtium 10 $1.67 $16.67 Okra 6 $1.67 $10.00 Lavender - 8 oz 19 $1.67 $31.67 Lavender - 16 oz 18 $3.00 $54.00 Cilantro 17 $1.67 $28.33 Celary 5 $1.67 $8.33 Dill 7 $1.67 $11.67 Onion (30 plants) 5 $1.67 $8.33 Leek (30 plants) 2 $1.67 $3.34 Total: $1,179.67

     All said and done we started around 450 plants and saved around $845 compared to buying them at the farmers market.  Additionally we were able to start more unique variates than is available at the market, and we had a lot of fun doing it.  We grew enough plants to be able to give some to family and friends in addition to filling our own gardens.  

  

Indoor Growing Setup - Shutdown

  

    Our indoor seed starting and growing setup in the basement has been shutdown for a couple weeks now.  

     With the frenzy of getting everything planted we have not yet had a chance to clean everything up.  What once was a space full of life and green plants now is a quiet dark place.

     We've been working calculating the cost of starting and growing all of our own plants for transplanting versus the cost of buying them at the farmers market.  Tomorrow we'll post on the breakdown and final numbers.  Stay tuned...

 

The Wednesday Weigh-In : Week #23

We're at 153.8 Pounds!

     It has been such a joy eating almost completely from our garden.  We had company over a couple times this week and they really loved the fresh meals from our backyard harvests too!  This Sunday we'll be starting a new weekly themed posted called the Sunday Supper.  We wont go into detail now but be sure to check back on Sunday! 

     This week we had 4 lbs of eggs from the 33 eggs our chickens laid.  We had a whopping 23.2 lbs of produce!  The top three items this week were 10.3 lbs of lettuce, 5 lbs of collard greens and 1.3 lbs of mustard greens.  That puts us at 27.2 pounds for the week and 153.8 pounds for the year!

Horseshoe Herb Bed

 
     After we added the cobblestone boarder separating the espaliered fruit trees & strawberries from the rest of the yard, the right side of the back of our house looked out of balance.  We had built the espalier boarder along the fence then wrapped it along the left side of the back of the house.  This left the right side of the back feeling out of balance and a little naked.

     To balance things out we decided to add an herb bed on the right side with a matching cobblestone boarder.  We were a little short on space for the amount of herbs we wanted to grow so this worked out perfectly.  Being right next to the back door it's the perfect space for grabbing herbs for the kitchen.

     In this bed we also dug four pots into the ground that we will plant with rosemary.  Since rosemary is not winter hardy in Minnesota growing it in pots will allow us to bring it inside the house to safely overwinter it (and have it available for roasts and stews during the cold months).

     We dug each hole for the pots so they would sit just above ground level.  Instead of setting the terra-cotta pots directly in the ground we placed used plastic pots from a local nursery in the ground first.  These plastic pots will act as a liner making it really easy to remove the terra-cotta pots in the fall.  The liner will also keep the holes from filling in without the terra-cotta pots in place.  This will make it easy to just slip the pots back in place each spring.

     As we were not originally planing on adding this bed we did not have all the plants started to fill it.  We had a couple extra lavenders and some Chinese wolf-berries that we planted, but the rest we bought, mostly at the Saint Paul Farmers Market.  We choose several different types of thyme, pineapple sage, alpine strawberries, and of course the rosemary.  While these plants won't add much to the urban ton, they will allow us to make what we grow taste even better as we eat it!

    

 

Creeping Time Walkway

  

     There are two herb beds that flank either side of our propane grill and connecting the the grill to the walkway through the yard we have a sandstone cobblestone path.  There is a reasonable sized gap between several of the stones so we thought we could plant creeping thyme there to tie in the look of the path to the herb beds.  Creeping thyme is a specific variety of thyme that stays very low to the ground and can handle light foot traffic.  It is great for culinary purposes and when you walk on it the plants fill the air with that heavenly classic smell of thyme.  What a great edible perennial ground cover!

     When we were starting our plants this winter we planted several creeping thyme seeds for this purpose.

     The picture above shows the walk with the creeping thyme between the intersections of the stones every foot or so.  If it grows well we'll give an update later in the summer with what it looks like after the plants have had some time to grow and fill out a bit.

     We had a couple extra plants so we planted them in the wall between the slate grill floor and the herb bed.  If these take we'll add a few more plants in the wall as the cascading effect looks really cool.

    

The Wednesday Weigh-In : Week #22

     This was a great week, we've accomplished a lot around our little urban oasis.  We finished our warm season annual plantings and worked quite a bit on our front yard landscaping.  Even better we ate almost entirely from our garden and in the process harvested a whopping 21.4 lbs!  4.3 lbs was from the 34 eggs our chickens laid and the remaining 17.1 lbs was all produce.  The top three items this week were 8.9 lbs of lettuce, 3.5 lbs of spinach and 2.8 lbs of spring onions.  That puts us at 126.6 pounds for the year!

Only 1873.4 lbs to go!

Basil and Beans

 
     We've been really busy with our annual vegetable planting, and working on the landscaping in the front yard.  We've finished planting our main warm season crops with basil and beans.

     We dedicated almost half of the compass bed to our basil plantings.  We regularly enjoy it fresh in salads and with tomatoes during the summer, but it's pesto making that requires so much basil.  Usually we try and make enough for 16 or so jars that we'll freeze for making pesto pasta and pizza's during the winter.

     For beans we've planted 4 different variates of this year all from Seed Savers Exchange.  

     The one in the photo is Calypso or "Yin Yang".  It is a great productive dry bean for baking and soups and looks really cool to boot!  The second variety we planted is Dragon's Tongue that has cream colored pods with thin purple stripes.  The pods are stringless, crisp and juicy.  The third type is Cherokee Trail of Tears, a bean whose seed was saved by Cherokee indians.  The beans are purple striped and great for eating fresh or drying.  The last type of bean we planted was Fin De Bagnol an old gourmet european variety of french string bean.

     We've also planted another round of radishes, beets, carrots, and onion sets for spring onions.  The garden is looking really beautiful and we look forward to sharing photos of it with you in the upcoming posts!