Three times.

It froze here the two weeks before that, too.

Tomato seedlings shouldn’t be this color, you know:

But they’re still standing, and there’s new growth, so maybe – just maybe – I won’t have to restart them…three MONTHS past the optimum starting time.

Meanwhile, the Meyer lemon tree raises a leafy, green middle finger to Ms. Nature and her frigidity:

“Frost? How about MORE BLOOMS!!!”

You go, Meyer.

Well, the starting goes ok…it’s the growing thereafter that’s problematic. Not enough light produces leggy seedlings…all stem and very few leaves, as they try desperately to get closer to the light source. This shoves the leaves into contact with the moisture-laden ceiling of the seed tray cover, which then causes rot.

So, yes, with a few exceptions, I’m restarting everything I started a few weeks ago, now properly setup in the garage with a true grow light.

It’s a purchase I should have made years ago, and honestly, not very expensive at all. Amazon has the light fixture for about $22, and the bulbs were purchased at Lowe’s for about $7 each. The table came from Wal-Mart, and couldn’t have cost more than $20. Do yourself, and your seedlings, a favor, and get good light!

Meanwhile, in the back yard, the seeds we “discarded” in the compost pile are…well…

Yeah, those are pumpkins. The same pumpkin variety that yielded this monster a few years ago.

It’s going to be an interesting spring!

What possessed me to start the watermelons indoors? In January??? I’m going to put it down to spring fever and leave it at that.

More seeds incoming, from Local Harvest and RH Shumway. HURRY UP!!

Those are several tomatoes and a cantaloupe variety. Looks like I’ll have to install grow-lights in the bathroom!

Seeds started:

Blacktail Watermelon
Ruby Watermelon
Dancing/Spinning Gourd
Ancho Pepper
Paprika Pepper
Red Bell Pepper
Principe Borghese Tomato
Orange Sherbet Cantaloupe
Sweet Million Tomato
Legend Tomato
Cordova Tomato

Seeds that will be direct sown:

Giant Musselburgh Leeks
McPick Cucumber
Fountain Cucumber
Purple Haze Carrot
Bolero Carrot
Oregon Sugar Pod II Snow Pea
Early Hakucho Edamame

We’re heading to a supplier to look at rocks today. Our old wooden boxes are long since carpenter-ant/rotted away, so we’re going to build more permanently this time with fieldstone or something similar.

#1 Son, anticipating all the heavy lifting his strapping young 15-year old back is going to be doing, cried accusingly, “You just want everything to look 600 years old!”

Indeed, Son. Indeed.

We’ve had medical and financial issues to deal with, as well as the sheer psychoticness that is raising a pair of teen-agers. But this year I want my garden back, dammit. So we’re planning modestly: we’re going to build out four stacked stone boxes, fill them with a gorgeous mix of soil, peat, and compost, and grow only what I can get these carnivores to eat…plus a metric shiteload of tomatoes for the freezer. I’m actually so far ahead of the game right now that I’m starting seeds today, and we’ll build the first of the boxes this next week for the snow peas. Garden ahoy!

Anyway, I’ve been researching techniques, learning theory and practice…and this burrito sauce kicks all kinds of ass if I do say so myself.

Burrito Red Sauce

Ingredients

• 2 tbsp butter
• 1 half diced white onion
• 2 tbsp flour
• 1 cup chicken stock
• 1 cup tomato sauce
• 1 tbsp garlic powder
• 1 tbsp black pepper
• 1 tsp cayenne pepper
• 1 tbsp paprika
• 1 tsp cumin
• 2 tbsp chili powder
• 2 chicken bullion cubes

Saute the onion in the butter til soft then stir in the flour to make a nice roux.  Add everything else and simmer for 20 minutes.

I used thin sirloin steaklets for the filling in our burritos.  Sprinkle with salt, black pepper, and garlic powder, then cooked fast in hot pan (no more than 2 mins on a side).  Let the meat rest while you put the sauce together, then slice it up into thin cross-grain strips.  Take the lovely puddle of resulting meat juice and add to the burrito sauce.

As always, the spices above can be added/subtracted/substituted as you like, depending on your tastes.  Experiment!

There, that’s better.  Even though I haven’t been talking about it, we’re still cooking of course.  Twitter has been my medium of choice lately, being both fast and succinct, so all the pics are winding up there.  There’s been turtles and a gorgeous pot roast.  Thanksgiving saw an amazing cherry-brined/cherrywood-smoked turkey, and a made-from-scratch Boston Creme pie.  Before that there was cashew chicken, my new favorite bread (recipe here), applewood-smoked chicken, and a rustic peach tart.

Likewise the garden is not completely fallow.  I started the very last of my tomato seeds (I’m completely out of tomato seeds…that’s never happened to me before!) a little too late in the season for a fall crop, and am now babying the plants along, trying to prevent these crazy December frosts from completely spoiling my freezer-restocking ambitions.  Global warming, hey?  *snort*

On the agenda in the next few weeks:

• Clean out planting boxes, dammit! Restock with fresh dirt and get the winter things started (greens and snow peas).
• Completely re-work the irrigation setup out back.  It’s CRAZY, I say!
• Post more recipes!  This week will see Joe Froggers, homemade tootsie rolls and salted caramels.

There, I think that’s enough for now.  Wouldn’t want to strain myself, ya?

— giving you a moment to envision that —

…which in turn translates into near-total neglect of the poor garden.  Yes, AGAIN.

The potato vines finally started to die back last week, so this week became Potato Harvest Time.  You may recall we have two large homemade vertical bins, and one commercially produced growing bag, and this year we planted Rote Erstling, Early Rose and Red Pontiac varieties.  My curiosity got the better of me on Thursday and I dug down into the bag to find potatoes!

This is the Red Pontiac, about 3 lbs worth.  I wound up discarding about five of them due to pest chewage, but a respectable haul.  The majority of them were near the bottom of the bag, so I think we didn’t get dirt into the bag fast enough to prevent the stems from hardening off.  (Sunlight will cause the hardening, and then they’ll be incapable of producing potatoes all the way up.)

Today we cracked open the vertical bins to see what we could see. This is done by laying a tarp in front of the bin (to catch the dirt)…

…then unscrewing the front boards down to the last one…

…then using a potato fork to scoop the dirt out onto the tarp.

Of the three varieties planted, this is the haul from the Rote Erstling and Early Rose varieties.  SIGH.

Of course the Red Pontiac harvest sort of makes up for it…

So next year we’ll keep experimenting with varieties, and if the fates and gods allow, actually not have any health issues to interfere with the timely addition of dirt!

1. The XX – Intro
2. Fol Chen – Cable Tv
3. Keane – Spiralling
4. The Flaming Lips – Watching the Planets
5. The Antlers – Bear
6. Vampire Weekend – Giving Up the Gun
7. MGMT – Time to Pretend
8. The Morning Benders – Excuses
9. The Delta Mirror – He Was Worse Than the Needle He Gave You
10. The Dead Weather – Die By the Drop
11. Sleigh Bells – Crown on the Ground
12. Broken Bells – The High Road
13. Jonsi – Go Do
14. The Constellations – Felicia
15. New Politics – Yeah Yeah Yeah

And some bonus country (yes, COUNTRY) stuff I’m enjoying lately:

The Wreckers – “My, Oh My”

Click here to view the embedded video.

Little Big Town – “Bones”

Click here to view the embedded video.

Pfft, it took 2 1/2 months to compile even one!   Slow music year I guess…

1. Sleigh Bells – Infinity Guitars
2. LCD Soundsystem – Daft Punk is Playing at My House
3. Le Tigre – Hot Topic
4. Yeasayer – Ambling Alp
5. The Xx – Crystalised
6. Cold War Kids – Audience of One
7. The Heavy – How You Like Me Now
8. Metric – Help I’m Alive
9. Caribou – Odessa
10. Spinerette – Baptized by Fire
11. Ok Go – This Too Shall Pass
12. Broken Social Scene – All to All