Walkabout As My Veg Grows

Posted on May 23, 2014 by Our Growing Paynes

I get so excited when our garden comes alive and the blooms burst forth. There is satisfaction to see the veg we plant flourish, especially the seeds we plant as there is always some breath holding until they poke up through the soil. For the most part our garden is doing well. The only issue is our tomatoes went into a bit of a shock because even though I kept an eye out on the nightly temps in the weather reports, the reports were wrong and it got much colder than it was supposed to. It looks like most of them will recover as I really prepped the soil with nutrients but I will have to switch out some with the leftover plants we still have in the greenhouse. It is hard not to worry over them like a mother hen.

Walk with me through our garden…

Our black beans are half an experiment this year as half of the beans that we planted were from beans we harvested. So far so good!

Good old Brussels Sprouts. Once these are ready to harvest I have a few recipes to try for my husband.

I always look forward to the pea flowers. So delicate.

I was beginning to wonder when the potatoes were going to poke through but they finally did and they are growing strong. We just picked one kind this year and gave each bit more space to see if we get a bigger harvest.

These did very well this year. Usually we lose about half of the seedlings but fingers crossed most will keep going. Which will be great for our homemade stock.

I think something has been nibbling the tips of our onions as there are quite a few that are suspiciously flat topped. I’ll have to keep an eye on them. Haven’t seen any telltale footprints though.

This flower is so aptly named. Jumps up everywhere but it is pretty and edible so I let it.

We find the strawberry plants everywhere and we dig them up and put them back in the strawberry patch. A bit like herding cats…

I think these are ready to start cutting and make some crumble or tarts. Which will make our son very happy.

The weather needs to clear as we have a boatload more pepper plants to get into the ground.

Life is good. 🙂

You Say Potato, I Say Potahto

Posted on October 3, 2013 by Our Growing Paynes

Actually I don’t say potahto. I say tomahto but that’s it in that category. I do love that song with Ella Fitzgerald and Louis Armstrong. What a musical combo. I love listening to them. Not like today’s singers that overload on those silly runs trying to prove they can sing. If you can sing, just sing!

It was time to harvest the potatoes. I was keeping my fingers crossed we would have a bumper crop and then we’d have to figure out how to store the tremendous bounty. Reality wasn’t quite like that.

We had already harvested the two little towers and didn’t get a whole lot but they were small. We had enough for a few meals. But it was time to tackle the two big ones. You know they are ready when the plants die back.

My husband tipped them over and it was time to dig in. The kids had fun with this. Nothing like getting all dirty!

We had a few good size ones like this one but many were small and some pea sized. I kept those too. My husband thought I was crazy but dang it we grew them, we’re keeping them!

We filled the bucket about halfway. Not exactly the tremendous bounty I was dreaming about.

But it was more than what we bought to plant and they are delicious. I’ll have to do some research over winter to see how to increase our yield organically. In the meantime roast potatoes and parsnips sounds good. 🙂

As the days get shorter….

Posted on October 1, 2013 by Our Growing Paynes

When autumn arrives it is so striking how quickly night falls. I wish we could hold onto the longer days with the cooler crisp weather. Instead it is time to start saying goodbye to the garden and get it ready for winter. We were lucky this past weekend, the weather was absolutely perfect. We had a number of tasks to complete but it makes it easier with the warmth of the sun.

We needed to clear out the tomato beds. Given the blight that is prevalent in the area we can’t compost the plants. It seems like such a waste but we have to bag them and bring them to the dump. Each year we get some but we’re getting better at combating the blight.

Those tomato cages can be quite flimsy and bend easily but man some of them did not want to come out of the ground. I was hauling off on them like I was trying to pull up a tree root!

We did one round of peas this year but a few strays tried to give it another go in the bed. If your season is mild enough you can get two harvests but by the time the plants grow large enough our winter gives them what for and we don’t have much luck.

As we had already harvested the black beans we had the kids clear out the bed. Except the one lone kale. Have no idea where that came from! That bed has never had kale planted in it. But up it grew anyway.

The butterfly weed is going to seed. Wonder where it will pop up next year. I generally let it spread as it has such a pretty orange bloom.

Our hops are taking over their little area. We really need to transplant them to the back corner of our garden and let it just go crazy. The poor trellis is crying uncle at this point.

I’m convinced the pepper plants don’t realise it’s autumn! They are still going strong. I’ll have to cart a bunch to the community kitchen as our freezer is quite full and there is only a little space for some frozen peppers. The leaves aren’t as green but there is a bounty of hot peppers.

It will soon be the Brussels Sprouts turn to shine. All they need is a good frost. Though this is the only plant that produced decent sized sprouts. The other 4 grew pea sized ones. Usually they do so well.

It’s time for our bushes to turn colour. I love the red that the blueberry bushes turn. So vibrant. Hopefully they will have a good slumber over the winter so they can give us more than a handful of blueberries that we got this year.

It was just lovely being outside in the garden without melting in the heat and humidity. Wish we could slow this time of year down.

Love our Farmer’s Market…

Posted on August 12, 2013 by Our Growing Paynes

The weather this weekend was glorious, absolutely perfect. When it’s like this we love to start our weekend by taking the dogs downtown, eat our breakfast outside while people watching, and then heading over to our farmer’s market. There is a booth that always has dog biscuits and water. Let’s just say all the dogs that come know where to go. Those of us on the other end of the leash get pulled along! It’s this time of year that the market really comes into its own. Tables start to groan with all the veg. It is so beautiful with the range of colours. Usually my husband will hold the dogs at one end while I make my rounds so I took some pictures this time as I worked my way through.

I love it as most booths use organic methods and are small local farms. One farm has been off the grid since 1979! I also found out they only cultivate 1 out of 45 acres which surprised me as they sell a ton of food.

We also were able to get into the garden and harvest a ton of tomatoes. We planted 51 plants this year so I will be making a lot of sauce when it gets cooler. This is perhaps a third of what is growing currently. Of course I’ve been eating them off the vine as well. 🙂

Peas Glorious Peas!

Posted on July 6, 2013 by Our Growing Paynes

According to my husband it is hotter and muggier up here than in Atlanta and Austin. Lucky us. It is so oppressive at the moment and it looks like it will last for several days more. Averaging about 90-95F/32-35C with a heat index of about 105F/40C. I only know of one person, a good friend of mine, who is really happy about this, the rest of us are miserable!

And the peas choose this time to be ready to harvest. Timing is everything! It takes me a few days as I only have one tray that works to freeze the peas so I do this in stages. We did use some fresh for our risotto the other day. So wonderful with fresh picked peas. 🙂

The steps are easy. Pick, shell, freeze, vacuum seal. Done!

And they are a really nice treat eating them frozen as well. Especially on a hot day!

And then the rains came…

Posted on June 29, 2013 by Our Growing Paynes

It was a case of be careful of what you wish for. I wanted rain. Just enough to fill the rain barrel. We only have one. Mother Nature thought we had a 100.

The spring started off wonderfully. Some days was like an English summer. We had some rainy days then some wonderful gorgeous spring days. Then it got dry very quickly. The plants were doing well but the soil got so dusty! The wind blew and you got dirt in your eyes. Ugh. So I wished for rain.

And it came! It seems we were on the thunderstorm path with showers and bucketing rain. When it wasn’t raining it was unbelievably muggy and humid. Ick.

The benefactor of all this? Our garden. It is doing amazing. So are the weeds but that’s another story. 🙂

I love our peas. Once they start growing it’s my favourite snack as I walk by. We’re almost to the point where I can start harvesting and freeze the peas for our risotto.

I am debating whether or not to plant broccoli next year. We don’t eat it much but on the flip side the flowers are so pretty. Tiny little yellow flowers just pop in the garden of a ton of green.

I plant kale because you can get a ton out of a very small space. My husband calls it rabbit food. 🙂 It’s become a little family joke “You’re feeding Daddy rabbit food!” LOL But he’s a good sport and if I come up with dishes that incorporate it he’ll eat it. And because so much grows I get to give a nutritious food to the community kitchen. We plant about a 4 x 2 foot spot and the number of meals we get is huge.

I’m looking forward to harvesting the leeks. We usually get 5 foot long leeks and I hope that happens this year. We do all organic gardening. Miracle Grow and other chemicals have nothing on us! I brought one to the community kitchen last year and they looked confused for a couple of minutes when I tried to hand them a 5 foot leek. Wish I had a camera. 🙂 But it’s a great place right round the corner from our house. They do such good work and I really hope there comes a time when what we grow might go to waste because no one is hungry.

Zucchini. Here’s the thing. I am a supertaster. About 25% of the population has some level of this. What that means is we don’t like mushy food, overcooked veg, or some veg like zucchini, squash, or Brussels sprouts. These types of veg taste extremely bitter to supertasters. I keep reading about descriptions of Brussels sprouts being nutty and sweet. They are one of the most bitter things I’ve ever tasted. Most veg that I can’t handle cooked I enjoy raw so something in the cooking process really changes things. Except zucchini. I can not handle that raw! But here’s the thing. I also have to be a good sport. Each year we ask the kids what they want planted and our daughter chose zucchini. I don’t want to discourage them in anyway when it comes to gardening or healthy eating so we planted a bunch and I’ve been pinning recipes for when they are ready. I’m wondering how much cheese is needed to cover the taste!

I can’t wait for harvest time for the peppers. We love to make hot pepper jelly. It is so good on cheddar cheese. I think we have about 6 varieties and 35 plants total in the raised bed. We’ll freeze more when it’s time. They work really well in sauces and chili.

We went a bit crazy with the tomatoes. We planted about 50 plants of 4 varieties. I can not wait for harvest! I love picking them fresh and eating them as I go by just like the peas. And oh the sauce we’ll make! Yum. We do pick a few and make fried green tomatoes. Such a treat.

Last year we did one potato tower and this year we did four. So far they are doing well and once the pile of dirt dries out a bit I need to add more to the towers. You only want 1/3 of the greens sticking out so you add as you go. Of course we’ll have to now figure out a root cellar system because I plan on having a lot of potatoes and I don’t want them going to waste. But there is nothing like a fresh harvested potato.

My son has a neat program as school where they give out cabbages to plant in third grade. He is getting such a kick out of watching it grow. Can’t wait to see how big it gets. 🙂

I Blame my Daughter – Why I’m Hooked on Instagram

Posted on June 26, 2013 by Our Growing Paynes

It started innocently enough. My daughter and I were in the car chit chatting about various things and I asked her what her friends were picking for social media. My daughter is in middle school and at that age where it starts to get crazy with all the things her friends are doing. I’d read articles how Facebook might not be “cool” so I was curious. She mentioned Instagram was big in her group. Instagram? That photo thing? I knew about it of course but not in a social media context. Clearly I had to do some research.

The cool thing about my kids is they never do the “but everyone else is doing it!” whine so we do try to do things for them when it is age appropriate. And they know the rules. If they are on the internet guess who they get to be friends with? Me! Or at least one of the parents. 🙂 So I thought hey, I’ll check it out, join, then have my husband set up the laptop in the den for her to use. She doesn’t have a smartphone or an iPod Touch. I mean those things are $200! Which boggles my mind when I see how many kids out there have them.

First roadblock. You need a smartphone. Nuts. There had to be a way. I thought well maybe I could put her pics on my iPhone and she could use that. Oh no, pics only go one way. So after much digging and looking about I figured out we could use my android tablet. Woot!

Second roadblock. Apparently contrary to the belief you can load pics from your computer directly to the tablet via the usb, you can’t. You have to use the mini SD card. And a SD card adapter because my computer doesn’t take the mini size.

Third roadblock. I have no idea how old her phone is as her mother gave it to her used. (I’m the bonus mum, lucky me!) But like all cameras I’ve hooked up to my computer we could get the pics off of it. Except hers. Facepalm. The computer didn’t have the drivers for it. So it got passed to my husband who works with computers for a living. (thank goodness) He figured out she had a mini SD card in her phone. So to make this work she has to remove the SD card and put it in the tablet. Then for the tablet to read it you have turn off the tablet and turn it back on.

And we were finally in business! And through all this I really got hooked onto Instagram. I love taking photos and am having a blast with the filters. It is a really quick way for me to get a creative fix during the day. I thought I’d share some of what I’ve taken so far.

I love taking pictures of flowers but this one of the bleeding heart is my favourite.

This weekend they had a festival at the Wyman Tavern to showcase the 1700’s and there some really interesting things to take pictures of. Including the fruit and veg they used as dyes.

I did find an interesting bit about Instagram. When you use filters it saves a copy for you as a square. But if you just upload without filters it doesn’t save a square copy so this one I uploaded didn’t change parameters.

I am curious if any of you do Instagram and what you’ve found. A big question I have is does it drain your phone battery? My battery life is terrible all of a sudden and wonder if it is because of the app. I did keep my username as ourgrowingpaynes if any of you would like to see what else I’ve posted. And let me know yours as I’d prefer to follow those that I’m familiar with and we have similar interests! 🙂

Growing Alfalfa Sprouts

Posted on May 11, 2013 by Our Growing Paynes

We came across alfalfa sprout seeds at our local gardening store and thought they would be fun to grow. Thought this would be cool and plunked the seeds in soil and watched it go all wrong. Turns out we should have read the directions. You don’t plant them in soil but rather in a jar with water. Even cooler! 🙂

It takes 5 or 6 days to get the harvest so it is pretty easy overall.

You will need some seed, water, a mason jar, butter muslin, and some bleach. Store the seeds you don’t use in a sandwich baggie.

To start it is important to sterilise the seed in a bleach solution of 1 tsp bleach in 1 cup of hot water. The seed is gathered in fields with animals and you don’t want to risk e coli. Soak for about 15 minutes.

Pour into a strainer and rinse thoroughly.

Rinse the jar and pour the seeds back into the jar. Cut a small piece of butter muslin and place it over the opening of the jar and tighten the ring over it. Fill with water and pour most of it out again and leave on the draining board upside down so the excess water can drip out. Do this bit daily until it is ready to “harvest”.

Using a large bowl tip out the sprouts and gently loosen the clump.

Fill with water and let the seed shells float to the top and skim off.

Drain until mostly dry then store in an airtight container in the fridge. It is great on salads and sandwiches.

Pak Choi Saga Continues

Posted on April 27, 2013 by Our Growing Paynes

I didn’t have high hopes for this as the feedback we received was you couldn’t transplant pak choi. Low and behold, it’s looking fabulous! 🙂 We stepped it up to a larger pot then have since put it between the broccoli and fingers crossed it is doing well. 🙂 Can’t wait to eat it!

Leeks and Onions

Posted on April 25, 2013 by Our Growing Paynes

The other day I had the grand plan of recreating a dish I had in Paris. It was an unmitigated disaster. The key ingredient was the artichoke. I had never prepared one before and I may never again. The dish was a lovely tender bottom half of an artichoke with amazing smoked salmon, a poached egg, and a mustard sauce. The last three I was able to do. However we now have a pot that is blackened and I’ll have to attack that with oven cleaner. I hope that works. I was steaming the artichoke and it ran out of water. Sigh.

So I moved on to other things. I decided it was time to get the leeks and onions into the ground. We like to rotate our little crops each year and that was the plan for the leeks and onions. Mother Nature had other plans as one bunching onion plant is regrowing and some seeds that didn’t sprout last year are coming up now. Which is pretty cool but that bed is staying the same as last year.

For the leeks I dig out two small trenches to plant them in and mix in organic compost and fertilizer. A lot of gardeners will bury the leek as it grows to blanch it. I only do that a little bit until the leeks are pretty sturdy as I like the dark green. More flavour.

I plant them carefully and they are so delicate at this point. Hard to believe they can get up to 5 feet long and you can use them as bats. 🙂

The bunching onions are much easier. After mixing in the compost I just plug them in willy nilly. I left space to plant more seeds in a few weeks to stagger the harvest.

Our garden is well on it’s way now with the bulbs and flowers starting to grow. The peas are poking through and I think spring is finally here to stay!

Our Growing Paynes

A journey about cooking, traveling, gardening, and crafting.

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