Summer, Winter -- Who can tell? But the food plants like it!

The Garden is in an odd state; the blazing summer has given way to cold and hot weather all at the same time. Three weeks ago it was 90 degrees in Pasadena, a few days later the morning dawned at 29 degrees in the back yard.

Pumpkins produced a nice small crop, some of which have gone to the worm bin, the last two of which await metamorphosis into pie. Squash never produced much, apparently taken over by the pumpkins. Pickling Cucumbers produced nicely, but I did not hit on a pickle recipe that I really liked. A small patch of corn did well enough. Several volunteer sunflowers provided a visually interesting element. (Fed the seeds to the birds this year, though. )

Bell Peppers that nearly croaked over the super hot summer and produced nothing have bounced back during the cool-but-not-cold fall and are producing abundantly; allowed to go red, the bells are nearly apple sweet, and I have been slicing and freezing peppers for stir fry later. Here is today's haul with this many more ready any day and more still just developing.

Oak Leaf lettuce and spinach are in the raised bed, and doing well. The greens came from nursery starts, not seed, since I can't seem to get greens to make it much past germination without providing a meal for whatever pests we happen to have hereabouts. Now that the starts worked, we need a greater variety of greens, which I will try to put in over break. And we could use some other winter crops -- some garlic and onions, some brocolli, maybe even some cabbage, but haven't had the chance to put 'em in the ground.

Cauliflower -- also from starts -- is the new weird crop this year. Although they have been in the ground for awhile they seem stunted, and are growing slowly. Haven't taken the time to figure our why yet. A couple of the same plants in a terra cotta pot are triple in size.

The front yard potato patch is growing great guns, and I am inspired to de-grass another sector by spring for it. We have purple, red and golden potatoes in the ground. Bought a bag at the store for seed (Trader Joe's, so no anti-sprout chemicals or GMO.)

The patch looks a little rangy at the moment, but the big growth and light soil here mean we should get a pretty good result. Nothing quite like just-dug potatoes, looking forward to 'em come February or March.

Why potatoes? They take a lot of abuse and produce nicely, for starters. But also, since they are planted along the public sidewalk it seemed a good idea to plant something without obvious appeal for vandals or the light fingered. (I.e., a pumpkin patch might not do best here; potatoes keep the good stuff hidden.)

Time to wrap up the week for winter break; time to figure out what is going into the ground come late February for summer early summer. Standby!

Weird Summer Finally Ends (Amen!)

W hat a weird and wild summer; and here it is, fall, with some fall like weather to-boot. (Well, almost fall like. Overcast, in any case. A little warmer than fall.) My last substantive post here was back in May, so we've a bit of catching up to do.

I am disappointed that I did not have the time to note the weather and the garden all summer. I have enjoyed looking back on the fall and spring entries, and this project did provide an interesting way to record those observations and doings.

In general, then, June came on cool and dry -- it was almost surreal, felt like fall back east almost. Then July hit the hot button, and hit it for a month with a vengeance. At one point in July we hit an all time record high temperature for Pasadena of 109 F. Most of the plants did not like the heat, and as I was teaching summer school, they did not get enough attention or water through the worst of it.

The lettuce was gone by June, and in July we replanted the horse trough with bell peppers. The heat demolished them, though, and the stunted, sunburned little peppers we got on the first round were bitter and inedible. (We did shade the plants at first with an 80% orchard cloth screen, but it just didn't save the crop.)

The pumpkins went completely nuts, and covered the back fence, and smothered the zucchini and yellow squash. We got a dozen mid-sized and small decorative pumpkins out of the patch, and will be carving home grown this year.

Interesting thing about pumpkins: They get left in the field to "harden" after they are fully ripe and cut off the vine. Some of ours were harvested too early and rather than "cure" they went mushy. The rest are just fine, and homegrown Jack-O-Lantern is on the menu.

The zucchini was a great surprise -- only three or four fruits from two or three plants all summer . . . but they are coming back now that the pumpkin vines have died off.

Same with the yellow squash. Almost now production, but not the plants are doing fine.

Unfortunately, all three crops had mildew problems. The organic treatment turns out to be the only treatment that is effective -- a spray of 50% cow's milk and 50% water. But I never mixed it up in a big enough batch to do the patch, so the mildew won out, I think. The few plants I sprayed with a hand spray bottle did better for awhile, but it was too much work for the entire patch, and I did not keep it up.

Had several volunteer sunflowers from a prior year's planting. Huge things, easily 7-8 feet tall before the weight of the flower head bowed it down. Harvested the best seeds for a deliberate crop next year. Tried to plant mixed miniature sunflowers and giants along a south wall out front, but first the snails et al. snacked on the sprouts, and when I got some to grow into maturity, watering was a problem. (Hard to get to, infrequently done.)

Planted green, yellow and purple beans at that end of the world. They did pretty well but, like last year's peas, should have been planted in larger numbers, to provide a bigger pot-full when beans were harvested.

I learned the lesson about peas last year, and so planted a pretty big patch in a large clay pot, intending to do its twin a few weeks later. Lost the seed-peas, so never did the second pot, and again only a couple of scraggly plants sprouted and braved the heat. Five or six pea pods and a dozen beans made for several yummy one-person lunch side dishes. But again never more than that.

The spring broccoli lasted well into June, but soon gave out. I pulled the plants and composted 'em, planted the area in a good nitrogen fixing manure crop (sweet peas and bush beans) There had been garlic for two seasons in one part, and then the broccoli next door, so I thought a little fix up would be good, and we would get peas and beans out of it. Must have been the heat -- but one measly been plant sprouted, and never did produce anything.

The apple crop was dismal too -- less than 1/3 of the crop we had last year. My biggest disappointment was watching particularly delicious looking fruit on on of the columnar trees, which always ripen late, and then having it vanish over night. I suspect a sidewalk passer-by; now I know why all those cartoons had grumpy old men shootin' rock salt at kids thieving apples (grin).

The figs, however, loved the heat, and produced a bumper crop. We gave some away, and tried to make fig wine. Unfortunately we got fig-wine vinegar right away. Was rather tasty too, but I didn't feel like trying to perfect it, so we wantonly dumped it for now.

Unfortunately, just about the time of the worst heat the mandarin orange was in bloom -- and the current crop, due to be ripe in December - February, is going to be smallish.

Potatoes are in the ground in a 4 x 8 foot patch of the front lawn. I had hoped to clean up twice that space, but did not, and with fall in full spring, planted white, yellow and purple small potatoes there.

Coming soon:

Need to check on companion crops for potatoes; plant a BIG broccoli patch; look for other winter/early spring crops to sow, and figure out where to put a new garlic patch. (Maybe another section of front lawn.)

Equinox

The sun surrenders today, beating retreat on its battle with the darkness. Although it rises fiercely and warms us ardently all through the day , there is a hint of cold, a hint of night about the air. Soon the sun will rest, saving its energy for its triumphant, blazing return in the spring. As the sun sets, drowsy, the Greenman naps and the Holly King bides his time, restive.

Hodge Podge of Observations

The first time we put a crop in the ground we always learn some lessons about how not to plant it, or how best to harvest, or how not to harvest it, etc. When it came to lettuce, we pulled some early plants to thin the rows and put them into salads along with fresh green onions and just-picked broccoli. Then we pulled some some grown heads before we discovered that lettuce is best harvested by cutting the head off at the ground.

Having cut the last two heads, the root-stump remaining has, in each case, sprouted five new heads. Oddly, both stumps have sprouted five heads each, although they are different varieties of romaine lettuce.

How Our Lunch Became Dirt

All last summer, grass clippings, leaves, and the contents of the kitchen counter compost bin went into the outdoor bin. (The kitchen-counter bin takes all the vegetable scraps we create making meals, bread products, coffee grounds and filters and the like -- rather than throw them into the pay-to-throw trash. )

Somewhere around the Autumnal Equinox (Sept. 22 or so) I shut that bin down and started a second winter bin. The summer bin was chock full of grass, newspaper strips, and the aforementioned stuff, full to the top. Aerated occasionally over the winter, it had been cooking all summer and was left to finish off for six months.

Last weekend I began to clear out the bin. It was only about half full, now, but instead of leaves and grass and coffee grounds we had lovely rich compost. New soil, in a word.

The summer bin has produced about 1o gallons so far, and should make a similar amount when I finish cleaning it out. Soon, around the solstice at the end of June, we will let the winter bin cook and start filling the summer bin.

The winter bin only needs to cook for three or four months over summer due to the heat; in fall we will clean it out, reopen it, and close the summer bin for six to nine months.

It all seems like a lot of work, but it isn't. And by putting much of our compostable rubbish back onto the earth here at home, rather than sending it to a landfill, we add to the nutrients of our yard.

>Ploink!< Summer Arrived Monday, Alright

Speaking of things going crazy in the in the backyard -- as I was earlier this very afternoon -- all sorts of plants have taken off. The water lily went from a surprise bud to full bloom from Sunday to Tuesday. Here is Sunday:

Here is Tuesday afternoon:

The apples have begun to bloom too. From the mearest green of buds to opening blooms in just two days:

Even the fig has sprouted, growing many new and many larger leaves seemingly over night -- and not to be outdone by the apples, has shown the first pencil-eraser sized fruit :

Bees, Berries and Brocolli Blooms

Cleaning up little chores around the yard, several interesting Observations to make. With the greatest of anticipation, I noticed this past weekend that the boysenberries mentioned and photographed last week are now in full bloom, and the busy backyard bees have thrown over the broccoli blooms for berries. Here are two pictures from Sunday, May Eve.

The bottom of the barrel fell out when we last moved the berries here, and I have hopes for many years worth of suckers to populate the area just over our back fence -- for a yummy summer snack for us and to provide a surprise for anyone who happens to decide to vault our fence. (Wicked grin.)

If you look very closely at the berry blossom closeup picture at left you will be able to see two of the many bees at work for us. These bees are very mellow, and let me pick broccoli and take pictures up close without taking any notice at all.

UPDATE Tuesday, May 2

The yard, apparently sensing the May Day activities, has kicked into full speed ahead: Yesterday's full bloom berries have become, instead, today's first green berries. Look very closely at the "dead" flowers and you can see what the bees have wrought in just two days time . . .

In the Merry Month of May

Warm first day of summer weather this last weekend of April and today, May Day. (Fog this morning after a balmy evening.)

All the growing food that was just sprouted last week is well up, well flowered, growing and going where it needs to be. With a couple of exceptions: The watermelons have not sprouted at all, so I have little hope for them; the basil is almost all gone dead or dying, with one or two runty plants struggling along. Oh yes, and some cursed critter ate all my sunflower sprouts a few days after they sprouted.

Sigh.

I think we will start some new sunflowers in a tray and transplant them only when they can withstand the onslaught of the snails and other critters.

For organic controls we will try the traditional bowl o'beer (to drown the snails and our sunflower sorrows in) along with some organic bacteria called BT, and maybe a pod of Good Snails. (Although the UC Davis folk say even Good Snails eat seedlings. Sigh. )

At least one site suggests a spray made of garlic to repel slugs and snails, so maybe we will do an experiment along those lines too.

Hal an tow

This is, of course, the day which marks the Start of Summer for most northern European traditions; it is, not incidentally, also the "quarter day" upon which contracts came due, lease payments, taxes, wages etc. It just happens to be about halfway between the Vernal Equinox (~March 21) and the Summer Solstice (~June 21).

Traditional celebrations would have included all night celebrations outside of town last night, May Eve, with morning seeing the revelers return bedecking the themselves and others with May flowers.

It is a large gripe of mine that the Summer Solstice is NOT the start of summer, as it is usually termed on news shows and even some calenders. It is the MIDDLE of summer; indeed, the traditional Midsummer's Day is June 24, St. Stephens day.

So, while I am out quietly celebrating the greening of the world, with a nod to the Greenman on the wall, and debating whether I can convince our two oldest to dance a Maypole in the back yard (grin), the cycle keeps turning -- no matter what we call it.

Hal an tow

Jolly lum-a-low

We were up, long before the day-o

To welcome in the summer,

To welcome in the May-O

For Summer is i-cummin in,

And Winter's gone away-O.

-- Traditional Maying Song

\

And so, to all a Merry May! Perhaps this evening it will be a good time to bring a bottle of the Fall Cider up from the basement and see if it has gone drinkable yet.

Spring: Full of Flowered Promises of Good Eating for the Summer and Fall

The past several weeks have seen multiple warm / rain / warm cycles around Pasadena, with cooler daytime temps this Spring than usual. The apple trees, as a result, have barely begun to show leaf buds (below) , and the fig -- usually well foliaged by this time of year -- has only a few smallish leaves near the branch ends. Leslie's struggling lime out front has set fruit, but we will see if this, it's third year, is the year we get to eat some. The lemon, of course, just keeps on chugging. A full tree of fruit is now decorated with a full tree of fragrant white flowers. (Below, left.)

Loquats are quite large this year, perhaps because we pruned the tree back sharply over the winter. We still don't know really what to do with this high-in-vitamin-C fruit; according to greenlagirl you can munch it like a snack. We aren't so sold on them around here.

The cool spring means we still have mandarin oranges on the tree, but this week will pick the last of them as they have begun to go a tiny bit woody and lose flavor. Just discussed making a marmalade of the remainder, and that may be in the works for the end of the week.

Meanwhile, current crops in the ground:

Romaine Lettuce -- two varieties, heading up nicely now. Will have to learn the hard way this year when they have reached max growth without having bolted; hot weather could set in at any moment and start 'em off, but I have learned the only way to know is experience: harvesting the wrong way or at the wrong time and learning what not to do.

Sugar Peas -- Up an inch or two, ready to spiral up the tomato cages in one pot; the second pot is not planted as I have managed to lose the seeds!

Garlic -- A few small cloves perkin' along; one bulb left from the fall planting which is huge and still growing.

Broccoli -- Allowed to go to flower; dozens of small heads are available for cutting, and will go into my dinner pot tonight. The pretty yellow flowers attract heavy bee coverage, all fat and happy from the broccoli flower feed.

Yellow Onions -- several rows of yellow onion sets, and a row or two of sets in between other rows. The "in-betweeners" will get pulled as green onions for salads, can't wait to see if we can hold off long enough to get some big yellows.

Yellow Squash -- Sprouted and transplanted along the fence line.

Zucchini -- Likewise, sprouts in the ground, waiting to take over the garden.

Cucumbers -- In the ground as seeds, just poking up. These are pickling cucumbers, which are tough but edible in salads etc. still, my secret intent is to be trying some pickles this fall. We have a big crock, and as soon as I can find a good lid and a brine recipe, off they go.

Bush Beans -- Also in the ground with a few seed-leaves showing. Three varieties all mixed up, a green, white and purple(!) variety all intermixed.

Basil -- Poor anemic looking little sprouts transplanted outside, probably too early, but they were not doing well in the containers indoors. Cross your fingers.

Pumpkins -- Carving and Pie Sugar Pumpkins in the ground and just breaking earth. Last year's pumpkins never set fruit, although they flowered large. Our next door neighbor from a big family farm in Mexico, keeps telling us how good the flowers are to eat. I felt bad that the flowers never fruited, and never got eaten either. Hopefully, we will have enough fruit set that we can trim some flowers and have those for lunch one day.

Watermelons -- Icebox sized watermelons, with weird colored flesh (yellow, pink and something else). Planted in the Cursed Planter, still not up yet.

Sunflowers -- Decorative mini flowers mixed with large full sized flowers along the side of the house out front; can be eaten, I overcooked the last bunch, but make good bird food and are quite decorative against the yellow house. And may make some fun souvenirs at Green Party events throughout the late summer and fall.

Mystery Gourd -- Either a white pumpkin-shaped squash or a classic orange pumpkin. The kid's Halloween pumpkins went into the worm bin last fall, and as the worms ate the flesh, the seeds fell into the worm castings and sprouted. I transplanted several of the mystery sprouts into the Cursed Planter and we will see what we will see. If all these die there too, I may try peanuts. The soil in the tub is quite sandy, and drains fast (which is not good for either watermelons or pumpkins) but is grand for peanuts. But how to roast them? Another project for the list.

Grapes are doing quite well on foliage and new vines, and even so signs of fruit! They must have heard me talking about this being their last year on this earth if no fruit (grin).

Over in the half-barrel by the gate the boysenberries are going great guns; the canes have not spread along the fence in the new location as hoped, but the old green canes are producing a huge crop of blossoms. We will see what the birds and passers-by leave us to eat.

Believe it or not, we're still looking for a scrap of yard to put into potatoes for fall; and I would really like to put some iceberg lettuce in for Spencer, who will not happily eat romaine or any of the other things in either a home grown or organic store bought "weed mix" salad.

Finally, we are looking at a low lying clover to replace our lawn, especially along the parking strip. Replenishes the soil, leaving it in good conditions for tilling up sections to plant in food crops, or even decorative stuff.

So much to do, so little spring!

More Iron in the Fire, and In the Dirt

This is my favorite garden tool. (Not the coffee cup, look at the bottom of the post.) It came from my Grandfather, and the handle is a little loose, and the wood is dry and fragile, but it is a wondrously effective tool.

It is essentially five little cultivator blades that turn the earth to a depth of about six inches. One pass breaks the dirt up and turns it, a second turns it and breaks it up further, leaving nice, neat, loose, flat and level cultivated rows. It even takes out (turns under) weeds as it goes.

Sooner or later the handle will break, but I will replace it. I have not seen this tool anywhere for sale, and even if I did it would probably have a plastic handle and not be made of this nice iron.

I can fix iron, see. Just fire up the forge and fix it. Can't do that with cast aluminum.

Hooks and Hot Iron

This past weekend saw the opening of the Renaissance Faire at Santa Fe Dam in Irwindale, California, and I spent the whole day with friends at the St. Andrew's encampment Blacksmith shop. Not only did I get a lot of hands-on forge time, and same great corrective advice from the two more experienced boyos who built the forge, I had a problem solved for me with one quick demo.

I had been making a series of hooks, to sink into wood and hold stuff -- like hanging plants or tools and the like. But I was using a plain right angle on the hooks, or sometimes an obtuse angle to transfer some of the hanging weight against the vertical surface instead of pulling the spike out.

It worked, but it wasn't very interesting or decorative.

After about 15 minutes of verbal explanation, I finally copped to the fact that I didn't understand the description I was getting. One 30-second demo later, and I knew exactly how to add the extra little touch with ease, and still use my special angle.

Later I want to try out a wooden bending jig -- which seems like a bad idea given that hot metal sets the wood aflame instantly when touched. But I intend to set up a scroll pattern using various diameter nails, and do a series of intricate bends roughly through the nails then fix the details. The wooden-jig should allow me to experiment easily with pin placement, changing the location or diameter of a pending post quickly and easily.

If I need to have a stable and hot-iron proof jig, I will simply drill out the nail holes through a piece of flat or angle iron, slide the appropriate nails into place et viola, a proper metal jig. Not sure how to secure them yet, but this could be accomplished any number of ways, from a high temp cement to a quick spot weld. So I might have to experiment on that too.

Rain Rain Goin' Away and Naughty Garden Tools

It must be the rain, again. In looking over a few months posts here, I see that rain always sends me running for a coffee cup picture that includes a comfortable chair and reading material. It's raining today.
Shrug.

We had a gentle 1/2" over night, with probably another 1/2" today, interspersed with some non-rain, and even a few days of sun. Overall, great growing weather, and the weed-carpet we call a lawn needs chopping down. [*Update: By the end of the storm we had over 4"]

We have been talking about putting in a perennial clover instead of a grass lawn. Certain varieties do well with low water situations, it can be mowed to be acceptable for play, but the clover is said to push out the weeds.

It would also not be an accident that such would be an excellent nitrogen fixer to bolster the soil, and could be turned under as an excellent green manure if one wanted to plant a food crop on part of the lawn area.

And I was just thinking about that today, actually.

We have an area of the front / side yard that I would like to till up and plant in potatoes. Turns out potatoes are stupid easy to grow, produce a big crop of usable food, and are kind of fun to harvest.

Meanwhile, although passers-by will pick our raspberries that grow along the fence, there is nothing to pick from a potato plant.

Of course, to do this fun thing, I would not want to have to prep all that ground by hand. Oh I *could* and I *should* but I have found a naughty toy that I would really like to have. (Its naughty because is it gasoline powered. Sigh.)

Actually found it years ago, but never had a need. Could use it now, though. (Hint hint). Its called a Mantis Tiller. Just the right size for our yard (narrow) and just enough more powerful than my middle-aged physique to make it an ideal tool. Of course the fact that it is gasoline powered is a serious negative, but at the moment I could get over that for the sake of the potatoes.

Big Purple Potatoes Please, With A Side of Horse Trough Salad

R ain is on the way again; the second or third storm in a row since last post. Couple of days of modest rain, followed by clear, cool, sometimes quite cold weather. March has seen a lot of frost -- and a couple of agriculturally significant frosts overnight too.

Last fall's potatoes are begging to be dug, but I am looking for a several day stretch of dry for that. We should, if the cycles continue, have fine 'tater diggin' weather by the end of the week. Will have to get Kathryn and Spencer to help with the digging; although they know where their food comes from, it never hurts to get your fingers in the ground and really know.

This afternoon's lunch is a giant purple potato. I didn't take a picture of it, I guess I was just hungry. We planted baby purple potatoes from Organic Express last year when they sprouted. This year's purple crop was a volunteer from a missed spud from last year! Although usually sold as small, "new" potatoes, this one was the size of a medium baker -- and went quite well for lunch baked, with just a little butter.

Although the purple color makes me expect a berry flavor, they are quite mild, and buttery even without butter, and mash pretty well, but keep shape when steamed.

Main crop are some red potatoes that went off last fall -- so we planted them rather then composting them. The vines are looking wilty (probably due to the frost) and I would like to get the red crop up and a new crop in the ground pretty quick.

Wouldn't mind finding some more of the Russian fingerlings we planted last year either. Yummy steamed; do well in soups and stews.

The rest of lunch consisted of a salad of corn salad, escarole, and a couple of leaves off of an immature head of romaine lettuce -- plucked from the backyard. These, like the potatoes, were planted last fall. Too late to mature for late fall, but such that they are ready to eat right now, when everything else is just going in the ground. (Yay!)

Hard lesson: Corn Salad needs to be eaten young. We have two large plants, but the large leaves are just too tough for salad enjoyment. Today I thined the box a little and pulled the whole plant. I need to see if I can harvest the outer leaves while they are still young, and keep the plants producing young leaves for awhile.

Squash into the ground after this weekend; seedlings have a pair of leaves after the seed leaves, and I have been reacclimating them outside during the day for the last day or so.

Bush peas planted last week in one of two big pots, and a tomato cage placed over it; learned the lesson last time that peas do better when planted heavily, and taking up some ground. Something we are loathe to do with our small vegie space. Maybe some of that lawn will go this summer after all.

The basil seedlings are *tiny* and I am jealous (a little) of our neighbor, Jill, who started her basil back in the late fall, and had sprouts by mid December. Ah well, perhaps we will still have later summer pesto under the moontree.

Sunny Weekend, more rain

Friday's ran brought another 1/2 or so to the backyard, Saturday was clear and Sunny, Sunday likewise.

Everything is budding. The grapes that have never produced fruit are planning to primp and show and tease as leafs begin to show. The fig that no one really likes to eat is throwing up green leafs and tiny fruit, the first of both of the spring.

The loquat has new growth and fruit on the way; the berries are showing new growth buds, and the first stirrings in the apples and oak are showing.

In the window, basil is sprouting and yellow squash and zucchini. Another week or two and they can all move outside.

We may have pumpkins on the way, as some pumpkin seeds that were left after the worms in the bin ate the pumpkins from last Halloween have sprouted. Two or three seem to be surviving the transplant to the barrel where nothing grows. (Sigh.) Last year's pumpkins there grew, flowered, but never set fruit. Sigh again.

Will have to eliminate or fix a lot of food crops this summer. (1) growing spaces that are not working or have the wrong crop for the condition (2) food crops we don't eat and (3) food crops that stubbornly refuse to produce -- such as our stuck grape vines.

A black thumb weekend, it seems!

More Rain, More Sun, More Food

More rain overnight, starting about 4:o0 AM; it woke me up, as the house was very quiet and the pitter pit pat of new raindrops set off the "parent sense" as a wrong noise.

Nothing wrong, just another fun rain. The last rain was followed by a day or two of warm sun; the plants are loving it. Today, more rain, with part sun for Saturday, sunny Sunday and more rain by Tuesday.

This keeps up, we will have a great spring crop, so more planting is in the works.

The broccoli has about petered-out; there are abundant lush greens, though, and I find on the web that the more tender, younger leaves are edible. May have to try them. I've never been one for limp piles of green stuff, but sometimes spinach or Chinese cabbage is good in a stir-fry, so maybe we'll try some of the leaves there.

It was suggested that broccoli leaves crushed up make a spray to keep down certain weeds, but I haven't been able to confirm that -- and seems unlikely for an edible leaf.

Meanwhile, the potatoes are going great guns. Last fall I planted a number of red potatoes that had sprouted in the kitchen, and the plot is bulging with potatoes. Alas, I wish I had held out and planted the Russian finger-lings or some of the richer golds out there, but these were what went off and volunteered to be seed.

New garlic in, and already 2 inches up; need to add some more garlic to the bed and some serious nutrition -- worm compost, some home-grown compost, and maybe even a little commercial steer manure for good measure. Garlic is said to really take it out of the soil.

Also planted a few red onion sets couple weeks ago and those, too, are pushing up. Only about half of the planter is planted, though. This weekend will have to prep and plant the rest of the spring garden. Provided the sun really does come out.

Warm Rain, Hot Coffee

After a week of overnight temperatures in the 30's the so-called "pineapple express" has brought some warmer wet weather to Pasadena. Overnight temperature was about 50 degrees, and the backyard rain gauges agree: As of 5:30 AM PST we've had 3.5 inches out of this storm.

It has been raining heavily and steadily all night, with only the occasional lull; the water was loud enough that it woke me at 2:00 am or so, but has not "dumped" loudly since. A good soaking, all in all, without too much rain for the hillsides.

One day, I would really love to have a weather station hooked up to the ol' PC. I always track mud in when I read the rain gauge.

Cold Air, Rain, Broken Clouds and Solar Peak!

The cold air and rain of this weekend, and the broken clouds today, created ideal conditions for the solar cells -- and we peaked out at 2510 watts, riding at peak most of the day. Of course, our system is only rated at 2403 watts, and the inverter at 2500 watts, so we can't do much better than that!

When we had a gravity feed heater, and no air conditioning, we used a little less electricity than we do now. Last year when we installed the solar cells we were looking at doing 100% of our electric usage, with little or no compromise in terms of lifestyle. (We are a family of 5 in a somewhat drafty 1903-built house.)

With the new baby last June we installed central air and a new forced air furnace. We still don't use it much. In winter, we keep the house at a comfortable 65 at night, 67 tops during the day (although the south facing windows keep the house at 70-74 most winter days when it is not super cold outside) and around 78-80 for the AC setting in summer).

April 7, 2006 is our one year Net-Metering Anniversary, and will be getting our first electric bill in a year. (Well actually, we have had some tribulations with the billing, but we haven't had to pay one yet.) On that date we will close out our one year contract and see how much we owe for the past year.

Right now, with our peak production yet to come, we owe about $50 for the whole year. At the moment, even if we peak out every day from now until April 7, we will not likely hit 100% of our usage. But we may yet come pretty close.

Actually, if I used the older microwave a lot less, and used the electric coffee maker a whole lot less, we'd probably get even closer. And we haven't run around pulling phantom loads offline, or even always turning off the computer printer, or dealing with insulation and leakage at unsealed doors.

As BP says, "energy doesn't grow on trees -- it falls from the sky!"

Glass Handgrenade with the Pin Pulled

Three bottles of cider exploded in the basement sometime in the last two weeks. Didn't hear 'em, but had a bad feeling about 'em.

The Oak Glen Cider was pretty sweet, and we goosed it as it went down to assure a fizzy end result. The last two bottles we opened ever so carefully shot 4 feet in the air, and all but about 250 ml was lost!

It was good stuff though; and oh what a wallop!

Still, especially with the recent spate of warm weather, I should have been expecting the problem and opened and re-bottled all of them.

When I went down to the basement to put away some empties, I noticed we only had one bottle standing.

Yikes!

Since that one bottle was essentially a glass grenade with the pin pulled, I lifted the remaining bottle out of the shards and carried it, ever so slowly, in gloved hands, wearing eye protection, out into the backyard. I set it carefully on the table, and gingerly popped the cap. As I am getting better at catching air borne cider, I got nearly 300 ml of the 600 or so in the bottle.

It made a lovely meter-tall spout of out of the bottle, though.

Meanwhile, the TJ cider is cloudy, skunky, and low on alcohol too; nice fizz though. So we will give all that cider another six weeks or more before we open another tester.

'Course, this happened last time, now that I think of it. The bottling was so undrinkable at the early test that we got discouraged and let it age another two or three months -- at which point it had clarified and was quiet yummy. Stand by on this one!

Moonlight

The full moon came up tonight through the branches of the oak tree down the street, with just a swirl of white clouds brightly lit by the lunar glow. The night is cool, though the day was warm, and using the laptop on the WiFi under our own Moontree is a real delight.

We have spent many long days cleaning up for summer; chopping down the overgrown vines and weeds behind the garage, mowing, trimming, and pruning everything; losing a couple of plants we've been meaning to ditch for some time.

The winter salad garden has started to grow, finally, but something is eating the shoots off to the dirt pretty darn quickly, so I have little hope. Weirdly, some of the heirloom squash we planted and at least a few of the watermelon seeds have germinated -- although none of them came up at all over the spring and summer after we planted them last year! Go figure.

Broccoli is doing well, and I have had more than a few meals of organic home grown broccoli, especially yummy on the organic linguine noodles from Trader Joe's sprinkled with the sheep's milk TJ brand "powdered cheese" in a green can.

This being my first crop of broccoli, I have learned that the heads come out a little smaller under less than ideal conditions (like my random watering) and how to tell when a stem is ready to cut, and why it is poor eating when cut too late. Next batch will do better. I will also discover an organic antidote for the lovely cabbage worms/moths.

Oh, the kids love the little white "butterfly" that visits us. Any time they see one they pretend that it is the same one and say hello to "Cabbage." Yes, they named a moth Cabbage. (I think Spencer may have started that one; Kathryn likes to name the worms in the worm bin. )

But when I find as many little cabbage worms doing battle for my broccoli as there was broccoli on the last batch, a solution must be found!

[Update: Soaking the heads in salt water dropped three broccoli green 'pillars off of my dinner; alas the steam of cooking killed two more I missed! At least steamed caterpillar is gray so it is hard to miss in the pot. Makes me wonder though what I did miss on the broccoli I had raw on my salad yesterday!]

The winter garlic and onions never made it, although that could be due to my habit of pulling green garlic to use the chopped stems and subtle fresh baby garlic in salads and the like. (Grin). Similar fate for the shallots.

The red potatoes have been going great guns. One plant began to die off, and so I pulled it, and have five "shooter" marble sized new potatoes fresh from the ground. Meant to have them for dinner yesterday, will tonight.

Mandarin Orange crop is in full; the family love to grab a "cold one" off the tree in the morning on the way to school and work. Weirdly, they are also good and kind of fun to eat picked hot in the full afternoon sun.

Recently, I found that I could print a label on brown paper bags, and so have been giving away little collections of "Moontree Organic Mandarin Oranges" and lemons too. Kinda fun.

Now I wrote "Organic" on the bag because they are; we follow the organic farming guidelines. Or rather we use fewer even "natural" chemical inputs than the guidelines allow, and under USDA rules, we could actually sell these with this label. (We "make" less than $5,000 from sales of organic produce, so may use the label if we comply. One can only use the "USDA Certified Organic" if one has been certified.)

Wonder how the City of Pasadena would feel about the kids setting up an Organic Fruit Stand each February?