Rhubarb Chokecherry Jam

I've had my chokecherry bush in our backyard for the past five years- a gift from the former owners of the home. Before today, I had never gathered the berries (mostly due to lack of interest! They taste terrible fresh of hand, and I'd never tried jam or syrup from them). This evening, I made one of the most intriguing tasting, on the tart-side jams.

Using the no-sugar needed pectin (another first since my gestational diabetes has made me more conscious of refined sugar), I boiled up a pot of chokecherry and rhubarb jam using splenda as a sweetener. Man alive! Delicious- I licked the remains off the spoon, the funnel, the counter. Kicking myself for all the wasted years of chokecherry.

So what happens to your chokecherries??

Backyard Shiitake Mushrooms

Last fall I had the opportunity to write an article for Spezzatino Magazine (coming out Fall 2011, the piece was published in Fungi Spring 2011) on growing mushrooms in underground, abandoned spaces. White Button mushrooms were the first species to be cultivated, initially in dark, dank caves around Paris, France. Soon mushrooms were being grown all over the world in forgotten spaces: spent mines, old culverts, gutted   quarries. 

In fact, it was only last year that the last underground mushroom farm in North America failed to compete (cheap air conditioning, less technical disease management and better work environment give the above ground farms an edge). The farm was set up in a the spent entrails of an old mine in Pennsylvania for more than half a century: the tunnels sit empty again.

As I searched for other underground farms in the world, I found a farm in Australia call Li-Sun Exotic Mushrooms. Dr. Arrold cultivates a wide variety of mushrooms- none of them White Button (which is one of two kinds I usually could find at Superstore until a couple years ago!). Shiitake, Swiss Brown, Enoki, Wood Ear are mostly cultivated in a re-purposed railway tunnel. 

The article was a project that ended with me continually musing to Mat about all the abandoned underground spaces in Edmonton just waiting to be reclaimed by fungi! Imagine a mushroom farm directly underneath the City Centre farmer's market? Or directly underneath Calgary's downtown there is a four-lane wide abandoned LRT tunnel; there'd never be a problem with finding a market for mushrooms with a short shelf life!

The project also made me curious: why not grow my own? So in April I ordered - what turned out to be too many- Shiitake mushroom plugs. 600 of the plugs, packed with spawn and topped with a wax seal, arrived in bubble wrap in May. If my first problem with this experiment was too many plugs, my second problem was finding logs to drill holes then 'plant' the spawn in (literally pop the plug into the drilled holed). The wood had to be freshly cut hardwood which had sat for a month or two.  It took me a month to find the proper logs (I'm clearly not in the right circles!): mountain ash from a house down the road. I'm not even sure mountain ash will work... but its what I had. 

So Mat drilled the holes and the girls and I inserted the plugs every 3 inches up and down the logs. The two sections then got tucked away behind a couple cedars where rain will still soak the logs, but where the sun has few direct lines on the moisture, shade loving spawn. I'm told that by next summer, if all goes well, I can expect the logs to flower (mushroom!) and they will do that every three months in the warm season, for four to five years!

Drilling holes 3" part in rows around the mountain ash log.

See the one plug (in front) not pushed in? Lily would come behind me and poke the plugs down, wax flush with the bark.

Soaked the log really well. For the mushrooms to grow, the log cannot dry completely.

150 potential sites for flowering mushrooms? Tucked behind our cedars. I added a sun screen, stapled on the fence to the left of the logs, to limit evening, direct sun.

It will be difficult to wait and possibly learn that I did it wrong! But perhaps you'd like to try your hand at it? I have about 450 more plugs that I can't imagine finding room in my yard, heart or stomach for. If you want some, please email. You can bring me some baking or dried fish or something as a trade(:=

Update on Square Foot Gardens 2011

Japanese Perennial Onion flowering.

An apology to those regular readers! I've been so slow on the uploading of photos and new posts but I've got a valid excuse. Turns out my body- unexpectedly- began making a human being about thirteen weeks ago. This will be the third baby to join our house and now that I'm feeling less tired, it doesn't sound as exhausting as it did to me four weeks ago! 

As for the square foot gardens, they are doing well despite the lack of sun: besides we're thankful for the rain (and a working sump pump!).  I took these photos on June 29th- the date of my 2010 update. My biggest challenge continues to be nutrients as I don't have a great compost system yet (though Mat just built me a huge double-bin compost that should be a big help next season). This year I've added significant amounts of sheep and cow manure, as well as used a flax/hemp based fertilizer from the farmer's market. Based on a great Mother Earth News article, I will soon begin experiments with liquid fertilizers using the common household material: diluted urine. I'm hoping the girl's enjoy peeing in a bucket!

Pictures were taken July 29th:

Spinach bolting and peas a-flowerin'. The greens in front of the box are hardy, oriental poppies.

The back row are my potatoes (see below for a close-up), and the onions are a perennial Japanese onion. My girlfriend smelled them and marvelled, "They smell just like baked potato with all the fixings!" I love how this picture shows the succession planting of the carrots in the front two rows. We are just now beginning to harvest from the far left box.

The lettuce in the front, centre boxes has been harvested two times already. I'm really happy with this butter lettuce I bought from Richters. The arugula (on the right) has bolted, but the flowers are just as delicious as the now-very-strong leaves. The peas  make up the back row, with swiss chard taking over the middle. 

More lettuce. I can't keep up! Unfortunately, this prego lady doesn't have any craving for salad. Just oranges?!

The left row (north) is lettuce and arugula. THe front row are tomatoes interspersed with self-seeding marigolds. The tomatoes have grown well. I did an experiment this year and planted them successively to see if the early planted ones are stunted. They all seem to have grown at similar growth rate, with the one planted early May (second planted) being marginally further along.

Also featured is my sweet ride to work everyday. I love our scooter- $4 fill every three weeks!

Yarrow bordered by squash. These squash aren't doing great, but they may be a little crowded!

Feels like a Bumper Crop Year

Good news! My honeyberries performed better than expected this year and I definitely achieved my goal of "more than eight berries". For accuracy, there was not more than 80- but for three year old bushes, I think it's a sign of things to come. The bush that is located in the sun had sweet berries- similar flavour to huckleberries from my childhood- on Sunday, July2. The other bushes will be ready to pick by this weekend. And by then-- hurray- the saskatoons and raspberries should be just about ready. 

We've got a bumper crop of Strawberries this year too. Bowls of them are coming from the large strawberry plants. The alpines are only just beginning to flower for harvest, I'm going to guess in August... anybody have an idea of a realistic harvest date on those?

From the square foot gardens, lettuce and peas are producing like crazy. I've never had great luck with lettuce, but this year I'm giving it away. I've four boxes planted with a butter lettuce, equalling a total of 16 heads of lettuce of a variety that grows back from cut stalk!

I don't have enough peas to freeze, but I planted only enough to eat fresh. With about five boxes planted, I'm harvesting about a cup a day for the past few days. I expect I have another couple weeks of this, since I've planted a few in shadier places, so those plants are only now flowering. 

Hope you're having some bumper crops too! 

Snap peas that didn't grow as tall as I expected, but are fruiting better than expected.

The Alpine Strawberries Take Off: A View of an Old Lasagna Garden

About three years ago, this section on the south side of our house, north side of the fence, was grass. We stripped the grass because it was mostly weeds and lasagna gardened it with newspaper, compost and grass clippings. Unfortunately, we didn't have a 'planting' plan beyond that. It's been a slow process of trying to decide what I wanted in the section, this year, it's finally filling in. 

These day lilies were transplants from a friend that I planted last August. I suspect they will give the strawberries a run for their money. In the foreground, are the alpine strawberries that I planted from seed last year. This carpet of strawberries started with about four seedlings last July! (See more on alpine strawberries in this post.)

The strawberries take over the paving stones and concrete sidewalk!

Some mint that I planted from seed in a pot last year... well it kinda got away! It is now quite nicely filling a metre long section of the garden. The great thing about 'wild' mint is that it is an easy, lovely smelling plant to pull out- useful too, though I must admit that my mojito and mint tea consumption is not keeping up!

There's a 10 foot section of black raspberries, red raspberries and interspersed rhubarb at the end of this section. These two varieties of raspberries are not supposed to be planted together since a disease that the red raspberry carries, but is not harmed by, can do major damage to the black raspberries. Unfortunately, I am running out of space, and don't have anything in the yard that would be that much farther from the other red raspberry patches in the yard... So I take a risk. So far, they've been safe. These black raspberries have canes more like a blackberry in that they are looooong! But they don't sucker and so are quite a contained plant when I tie the canes to the wires fashioned by Mat. The black raspberry variety has a really different flavour and is nice compliment to a mouthful of red.

The red raspberries have been somewhat contained by, what I can only imagine, is a hatred for  potatoes. A few years ago I planted potatoes in this section, just to see how they grew in part shade. Every since, the raspberries have not seemed interested in sprouting in the past potato muck. It was only later that I read in "Carrots Love Tomatoes" that these two plants are NOT companion plants... I know nothing more about it. If you do, please comment!

The beginnings of a high bush cranberry hedge. In five years, I may be annoyed that I planted a hedge (along where the day lilies are planted now) in this narrow section of the garden. It may give our pruning shears a run for their money. But, right now, I want the fruit, the view of the beautiful colour and shape of these leaves from my dining room, and a little privacy from our south side neighbour's deck into our kitchen. I really love these leaves... and how great they look against the delicate strawberry runners.

Covering the Pergola- Transplanting Hops

I love vertical gardens. I like vines, rambling rose bushes, and pillars of flowers. Unfortunately in Alberta there aren't many vines you can depend on to cover a yaght-sized pergola. We have some incredible climbing roses (which I'll feature in a couple weeks when they really get their bloom on!) on two of the pergola's posts, but I can't depend on these to provide shade. The last three years I've experimented with kiwi (too shady) and clematis (aesthetically too like Medusa's hair). Neither successfully grew to cover the top for mid-day shade in the heat of summer.

This year I have, against Mat's better judgement, transplanted hops. Its probably the one plant that Mat remembers from his mom's beautiful, lush, colour filled garden. Even in the zone 2, windy Crowsnest Pass, hops grew to cover a trellis at the entry of their home.  Mat doesn't remember its resiliency or shade or beauty, he remembers it clawing at him as he attempted to enter his home after school. He remembers it scraping up his arms and face as he fought it off the trellis every fall. 

Not the best picture- but the only one I can access from my laptop!

So the plant has some pretty spiny fruit and has the added annoyance of needing to be cut down every fall. It's a damn good climber and pergola cover. Rumours swirl that, in the heat of summer, you can sit back and literally watch it grow, growing two feet in a single day in optimal conditions. Plus, it's the beginnings of really good beer. I also had the additional incentive that my friend had dozens of new seedlings growing as weeds in her back yard. 

The information I read about planting hops was fussy; I ended up being not. I used a spade and hacked at the seedlings, then dropped each one with some knots of roots into a bucket. I then proceeded to forget them in the sun for most of the day. That evening, I hastily dug holes about the yard and planted the roots with some compost and water. Two weeks later, there are signs of life at 4 of the 6 planting sites: two along the pergola, three against the fence, and one in the alley. In fact, one root's already grown two feet of new life. Looking on it in delight, I again reassured Mat that I will "help to" take it down. And in the end, if his memory is right, I'm committed to ripping the darlings out (easier said than done?!)

PS. I will also add, that I love Virginia Creeper. It too would grow like a child on steroids with the added benefit of not needing to be cut down in the fall- and hence having much less 'vertical ground' to cover to reach the top netting every season. I may try this next year if my hops fails to work. My main hesitation is the baffling leaf hoppers: little, literally 'hopping' white insects that lay their eggs on the bottom of the leaf which turn the whole plant prematurely red. My main beef with them is not the early onset of autumn, it is their mob-like quality at your faintest move. You flourish an arm and they all get hopping at once. It's unnerving! On my other creeper, I have found no organic solution. If you have an antidote- please let me know as this plant would be an ideal friend to our pergola... and may save me some big marital tension in the fall. 

Reclaiming the Alley from the Weeds: A Lazy Lasagna Garden

In our community there are fairly low expectations as to the state of the alleys. There are attempts by folks to monitor the garbage and weeds, some even call bylaw on major offenders. I must admit that sometimes I'm a major offender. Weeds out there are out of sight and out of mind. Our eco-station garbage has been known to stay 'hidden' "out-back" over months of procrastinating a jaunt to the eco-station. 

I decided the only way to start caring was to do some intentional planting. In the past, I've had poppies and borage growing wild.  And while it's pretty in July when everything flowers, I can't say it generated more enthusiasm for me to weed or de-clutter. 

So last weekend I cleared a small, quack-grass haunted patch by the garbage hutch and did a lasagna garden (for more details on this method check out this post). Be warned, its a lazy one where I decided not to bother with layering each item more than once! 

THE SPACE:

The square that may finally get me weeding in the alley.

 THE PLANTS:

For vertical interest, I'm banking on wild Hops. I transplanted these roots last year and thankfully the vine rises again.

The "Stick" of a bare root hazelnut tree (which I wrote about receiving here). Two weeks after this picture was taken, it is leafing out.

A Calgary Creeping Juniper, I am hoping that this great ground cover will soon choke out (some of) the weeds,  that it will spill out over the box and onto the grass towards the road.  At only a foot high, it can spread 6- 8 feet and has a great blue-green foliage.

 THE PROCESS:

I planted the perennials first then laid out thick sections of The Edmonton Journal. This will act to keep the weeds down for at least a couple summers. By then, hopefully, the other plants have established themselves enough to fight the weeds back.

I then soaked the paper thoroughly with water.

I then covered the paper with a couple different composts (sheep and cow), and over that laid a thick layer of grass clippings (not pictured!). Along the border of the bed I transplanted marigolds that self seeded in my square foot gardens. Around the base of the tree, I transplanted golden flax started in April in my garden boxes.

It doesn't look like much now- but I'll be sure to post a picture at the end of season; I promise not to weed it simply for the sake of the picture! I'm committed to a little alleyway aesthetic, just forgive me my eco-station procrastination!

A Green House Tour on 165 Ave

As a greenhouse nut living in Edmonton, I've discovered a route that beats all others: 165 Ave, east of 97 Street. Drive past Alberta Hospital and suddenly its greenhouse/nursery/market garden land. Every quarter kilometre another greenhouse pops up. Little ones, bigs ones. Some of them sell bedding plants, other's just bare root trees and shrubs (found $20 Explorer Series Rose bushes at Arrowhead Nurseries!), others, like Kuhlmann's have huge inventories of garden gnomes and water features. 

One of two hanging baskets.

It's a route on which a great deal of money can be spent on a leisurely Sunday afternoon.

Nearly at the end of the road, past the North West of Edmonton and into the North East, is my favourite spot: Visser's Greenhouse. You may know them as the potato farmers who partnered with Greater Edmonton Alliance to for the "Great Potato Giveaway". They are potato farmers, but also greenhouse operators. And what a greenhouse! Hanging baskets provide a overhead carpet of colour and scents. Each plant stand has a variety of choices, offering ideas for companion plantings in pots and boxes. There's a small coy pond and two areas (one outside with sand, the other inside with slides) for kids to play. Every single plant looks happy and healthy-- can't say that for the meagre offers I saw last weekend at Canadian Tire and Rona. 

This year, I planned to splurge on two of my hanging baskets by our dining table and on the window box Mat just built for the garage. We can see all three of these from the deck where we perch most of summer. 

In year's past I've filled these baskets/box with plants I grew from seed. So my petunias flowered in August, and my squash didn't bother to grow past a foot. Every summer I've been cheap and by August rather disappointed I hadn't cheaped out elsewhere. 

So, buoyed by this hot May long weekend and the magic that is Visser's, my cheap back was broken and I spent an average of $40 per basket/box. I filled them with a sun loving variety of begonia with startling colour then filled them out with purple and green sweet potato vine. I filled the box out with bacopia (sp?) and ivy. 

I am delighted with the result. Now, I HAD BETTER WATER!

When I married Mat, I've got to admit that "handy" wasn't on my list of qualities for a life partner.  Now, 12 years wiser, I realize that that was a critical oversight. Thankfully, Mat's handy AND knows how to operate power tools. Even better, he can turn a boring flower box into a bit of art. 

 

Finally Here- The Season for BBQ Hamburgers

Sorry to the vegetarian readers out there; some graphic raw meat pictures in today's post! 

Tonight was BBQ Burger Night- our third this week.  Now that it's spring (it is spring, right?), we're giddy with relief that the sun is out. We've spent the last eight days outside, digging compost and battling mosquitoes. BBQ seems like the only appropriate interruption.

So perhaps it seems pretty basic, a post about homemade hamburgers, but its on my mind (and I think more people buy hamburgers than make 'em). Homemade burgers are cheap, have way better flavour and way less creepy filler, than the frozen kind. A pound of beef or elk or bison will make me 9 medium sized burgers or 6 really large ones.  Even with organic, free-range beef that's just under 35 cents per patty! The one down side is cleanup: in my kitchen raw hamburger touches the bowl, the transfer tray from kitchen to BBQ, and thoroughly coats my hands. 

I'm sure there are hundreds of variations of homemade burgers. In ours, I usually add to the thawed meat a jumble of the following ingredients: 

oatmeal

cracker crumbs

shredded carrot

egg

worcestershire sauce

mustard (prepared and powder)

garlic (crushed and powder)

onions

oregano (fresh or dried)

arugula

spinach

Etc. Etc. What goes in yours?

My Honeyberry Blooms

Berryblue 

Hurray- this week my honeyberries bloomed!  Two summers ago I planted six honeyberries. Since you need at least two varieties to cross pollinate, I was extra careful and bought three varieties. Last summer, I harvested a record of seven berries off one bush. This summer, my goal is to harvest... well, more. There are many more blooms on all the bushes this time around. 

I've experimented a little with the placement of each. Reading that they grow in both part shade and sun, I've planted the six in a variety of sunny to shady spots. There hasn't been much variation in the amount of growth on each bush, perhaps I'll see the difference in the fruit output.

The fruit, if you've never seen it, is a blue, elongated berry shape. The plants come from Siberia and their blossoms withstand -8 to -10 C frosts. The woman I bought my plants from had bushes which bloomed straight through a snow storm and went on to produce a rich harvest. 

The flavour of my seven berries was pretty mild; each was seedless and plump. According to the researchers at the U of S Fruit Program, however, flavour can range from "terrible to terrific" so there is still ongoing experimentation in the flavour department. 

Shannon Dyrland, who's Shallow Creek Nurseries closed last year, recommends the varieties Cinderella, Berryblue and Bluebell. Many of the greenhouses now carry at least a couple varieties of honeyberry.

Keep in mind too, if you plan to landscape with these, that they aren't fussy about soil Ph, which can't be said for their cousins the blueberry and huckleberry (both need acidic soil). 

So, if you have a honeyberry bush, please let me know where you've planted it and if the fruit output has changed significantly when planted in the sun versus the shade! 

I'll keep you posted on my ambitious goal of "Eat More Than Eight Honeyberries in 2011".