Happy Hanukkah!

Most religious, ethnic, or cultural practices call for some sort of celebration of winter. This year for those around the world who are Jewish Hanukkah begins at sundown on December 1st lasting through sundown December 9th. Hanukkah is also known as the Festival of Lights. I find it amusing that the first day of the Dark Days Challenge falls on the first night of Hanukkah. Gail and I will be lighting candles tonight to mark the occasion. We won't be exchanging gifts because we traded presents a few days before thanksgiving. I was given mine early because it contained something alive and she got hers because I am bad at keeping a secret and the package had arrived!

We both went for the practical and very useful for our gifts to each other. Along with a beautiful wallet Gail got me this awesome set from King Arthur Flour! The set comes with a small bit of sourdough starter that must be fed and a gorgeous stoneware crock to store the starter while it's in the fridge.

In my quest to improve my baking, especially bread making skills I will definitely use the starter many times. The crock will undoubtedly get used. Also, it just looks great sitting on our kitchen table:

I too went the practical and kitchen related route when picking out Gail's gift:

I got her the above set of 3 Cherry & Black Walnut handmade cutting boards from Brad Englehardt of Kingston, NH. The rest of his work can be seen at knotagain.com. On the homepage Brad states:

At Knot-Again, we try to use as much reclaimed wood as possible, and wood that other woodworkers may not consider for their projects because they do not like the wood character. This in turn creates savings for you, the customer, and lessens the burden on the environment.

Supporting a local business that strives to lessen their impact on the environment is a noble idea and I am proud to support Mr. Englehardt whom I had the pleasure of meeting briefly this summer at the Newburyport, MA farmers market on my drive back home from a wedding. I was immediately impressed with the quality and craftsmanship of his work.

With Hanukkah coming so early this year we will be done with our holiday gift exchanging long before some people have even started their shopping. The gift giving is nice, but the nicest part is spending time with family and loved ones....and all the great food!!!

Look for a Hanukkah themed food post soon, I'll be doing research for the next few nights!

Walking Onions

No time to post lately as work and non-gardening life have gotten in the way this past week, but I did receive a lovely gift today:

Gail took a day trip to Maine today to visit some family. While there she stopped by Beach Plum Farm in Ogunquit, ME and visited the community gardens on the grounds. She ended up chatting with 2 gardeners who gave her a few bunches of Egyptian Onions, the biggest one is in the above photo.

Egyptian Onions, known as Walking Onions or Tree Onions are perennial onions which are hardy to zone 3. When a bulb is planted and grows new bulbs form on the step of the plant. Eventually the cluster of bulbs (pictured above) gets so top heavy that it bends the plant and touches the ground, taking root and growing into a new set of onions.

As they are left to grow they will spread or walk across your garden. You can pull each set of clusters off and divide the bulbs in order to plant them. The stalks of the plants can also be cut before the onion clusters form and used similar to chives.

Planting a cluster or 2 should yield enough for stalks, bulbs and to save some for planting next year. Like traditional onions bulbs also will form below the ground. If planted in the fall they can be dug up as spring onions.

I'll be prepping and planting fall seeds this weekend and will most certainly be planting some Egyptian/Walking Onions, so stay tuned for future Walking Onion updates!

Below is the full hall of the 3ish clusters of Walking Onions I was gifted:

(Walking Onions: Some for Eating, Some for Planting, Some for...?)

Seeds, Seedlings, and What I Hope to Grow

A few readers, friends, and fellow community gardeners have asked me what I'm planning to grow now that I have a plot so I thought I would give a break down of the seeds I've acquired and seedlings which will be picked up soon.
1)From Fenway Community Gardeners & The Fenway Gardens Spring Meeting:
Leeks (transplants gifted to us from a fellow gardener), Chive Seeds & Spinach Seeds - The Fenway Garden Society was nice enough to provide some seeds for their spring meeting, I got Chives & Spinach!
2)From the down:2:earth expo Gail and I attended in early April:
Mesclun Mix(planted last week!), Scarlet Nantes Carrots(planted last week!), and Dill seeds were all given out from the different garden & landscaping companies at the expo. Coincidentally all 3 seed packets were from High Mowing Organic Seeds.We also picked up packets of Basil & Sage seeds at the expo, but these come from the farmers of the Cabot Creamery Dairy Cooperative! Gail and I are huge fans of their cheese's and I think their business model is fantastic. They do not seal their seeds, they were giving them out as a gift. I am a proud supporter of their cheese products and will be proud to grow their herbs in my garden.
3)From fellow bloggers:
Daphne over at Daphne's Dandelions was kind enough to send me some delicious looking Ottawa Cranberry Beans(seen here). While Ottawa Gardener at The Veggie Patch Re-imagined provided me with Garlic Chive seeds, some of which were successfully grown indoors over winter, while the rest are ready to be planted in the plot soon!
4) Hometown Seeds:
The kind people at Hometown Seeds saw my blog months ago, long before I had a plot and were nice enough to send me their Survival Seeds package to try out. The Survival Seeds package contains 16 non-hybrid 100% GMO free seeds which are meant to have a shelf life of at least 5 years. The seeds were not in individual packets, but in 5 0z, 5 gram, & 10 gram packages, more then enough for my small plot. From the Survival Seeds package we will be planting Golden Acre Cabbage(planted last week!), Long Green Cucumber, Utah Yellow Sweet Spanish Onions (planted last week!), Detroit Dark Red Beets (planted last week!), Black Beauty Zucchini, Parris Island Cos Romaine Lettuce (planted last week!), & Kentucky Wonder Pole Beans.
5) Natick Community Organic Farm:
The Natick Community Organic Farm is a non-profit certified organic farm just west of Boston. Their mission is to provide farm products, hands on education for all ages, and to foster community goodwill through love of the land. I have visited the farm numerous times since I was a child and am honored to support them in their spring seedling sale. Next week Gail & I will be picking up the following organic seedlings for our plot:
Yankee Bell & Hungarian Wax Peppers. Peacevine, Early Girl & Striped Roman Tomatoes. Diplomat Broccoli and Cilantro.
Along with the above vegetables we will also be adding Morning Glory, Autumn Beauty & Mammoth Sunflowers, and a mix of Nasturtium's
6) Wood Prairie Farm
The prospect of having a garden of my own made me think of Potatoes. I absolutely love them. Wood Prairie Farm has a reputation as one of the best sources of certified organic seed potatoes. Not wanting to limit myself to 1 variety of potato and taking into account the limited space I will have for potatoes I decided to order the Experimenter's Special which allows you to choose 4 different varieties of potato. Each package contains 3 potatoes of each variety for a total of 12 hills. I picked All Blue, Cranberry Red, Russian Banana Fingerling, and Yukon Gold for a nice variety of color, size, and taste. Potatoes were ordered last weekend and shipped out on Monday. They should be here before the end of the week!

Looking back at this massive list of vegetables and herbs I realize successfully growing all of these varieties will be extremely daunting. I don't expect every crop to be a smashing success so I am growing a large variety in smaller quantities in the hopes that the success's will outweigh the failures. My hope is that smaller plantings will allow Gail and I to slowly ease our way into the challenge of caring for all of these(hopefully) delicious edibles.

With research, hard work, and some luck hopefully the season will be full of gardening success and delicious vegetables!

Getting down and dirty at the new plot!

This weekend Gail and I were finally to get to work on our plot at the Fenway Victory Gardens. We both had friday off and were able to spend most of friday and saturday working on our plot. We met quite a few of our neighbors while we worked. It's really nice to feel the sense of community as complete strangers came by and said hello or struck up a conversation with us. We were offered tips on identifying some of the major weeds in our plot, given advice on having a successful plot, and we were even gifted a few plants! The knowledge that many of our fellow plot holders passed to us went a long way in helping us prepare the plot. We also managed to meet some of the animal inhabitants of the gardens:

Gail spotted these mourning doves with her young expertly camouflaged in a neighbors plot. We don't know anything about birds, but were fortunate enough to intrude on a group of birders (thank you Gail) who were able to identify the species. We also learned that it was a great surprise the nest was so out in the open and the birds were really relying on their ability to blend in rather then having a nest on safer, higher ground. According to the birders the young were between 2 and 4 weeks old.

After the short distraction it was time to get to down to business. Here is look at what we managed to accomplish with two days of hard work on plot Z-1:

Gail began weeding and outlining plots while the major cosmetic task was undertaken: I built and installed a new gate(above) for the plot using 1 in x 3 in x 8 ft boards and some wire mesh fencing.

With the gate installed Gail and I weeded and started to dig out our beds...

and we kept digging...

and digging!

Over the course of two days we got the gate built and installed, weeded the entire plot, as well as digging, amending with compost, and cultivating the soil in all six of our beds!

We even managed to do some planting:

The above photo shows our half rows of newly planted Mesclun Mix, Romaine, & Spinach. We also planted Beets, Onions, Carrots, and Cabbage. Along with the seed we were given the gift of leeks to plant, which we planted along side some volunteer plants Gail found while cleaning up the plot. I suspect they are pearl drop onions or something closely related (our volunteers are the healthier looking bunch on the left, the leeks are the smaller looking bunch closer to the fence):

After two days of hard work our plot is clean, weeded and starting to look like a garden:

All in all it was a fantastic way to spend my birthday weekend!

The gift of gardening (knowledge).

'Tis the season to spend time with family, loved ones, and maybe even exchange a few gifts. As Hanukkah winds down my gift giving is nearly done, culminating with an afternoon/evening of lovely activities with my girlfriend tomorrow.
My gift receiving included a bundle of gardening knowledge in the form of some excellent reading material to keep my mind occupied with thoughts of growing veggies throughout the cold northeast winter.

For inspiration:

Barbara Kingslover, along with husband Steven L. Hopp & eldest daughter Camille Kingslover recount their experiences of eating homegrown (whenever possible) or locally sourced food for a full year. They grow their own vegetables, raise their own poultry and buy the majority of their other food directly from farmers markets and other local sources. Thus far Animal, Vegetable, Miracle has been an entertaining read month-to-month chronicles interspersed with her husband's short and extremely informative resource filled commentaries and daughter Camille's reflections and recipes offer a younger perspective alongside simple looking recipes for all seasons.

Entering the food gardening world, my intent is not to grow all of my food. I would like to grow some of my food and reap the physical & mental benefits of tending a garden. That being said I've found Animal, Vegetable, Miracle to be an informative and fun read. I've visited the AMV website and intend to try out some of the recipes found in the book.

For useful in the garden reference:

A how-to/encyclopedic guide to the ins and outs of vegetable & herb gardening The Kitchen Garden Grower's Guide is an extremely amazing guide for most levels of gardener. From seed to harvest to food preparation and storage I will be referring back to this book for many years to come. One thing I find especially helpful is that this book is geared towards those who want to plant a small garden, not a massive farm.

Another encyclopedic reference book, The Organic Gardener's Handbook of Natural Insect and Disease Control covers all the basics of plant diseases and management. Each listing covers common disease or pest problems, and useful tips to manage them without the use of chemicals. The book is full of pictures identifying garden diseases and insects. You could bring this to the garden and match your plant to a photo in the book. It seems that in most common cases identifying a disease or insect should be a smooth process.

Even if I'm not fortunate enough to be granted a plot at one of my local community gardens this coming year, I probably will be the following year. Both of the above books will be helpful for years to come, whether I am gardening at a community plot or my own yard (when i don't live in a condo).

For the kitchen:

Storey Country Wisdom Bulletins such as Food Drying Techniques are 32-page how-to guides for practical and useful topics. The techniques presented in this bulletin are very basic and explained in an easy to follow manner. This certainly isn't the be all-end all in food preservation but it is a good start for some simple small scale techniques that can be done in any kitchen, even as small as mine.

Quite the haul of valuable and interesting gardening resources to keep my head filled with thoughts of planning my own garden. Cheers and well wishes for a happy and healthy winter related holiday & new year for all!