Blue Jeans and Cotton Tees

It’s official now! We have ordered the garden seeds.

Spring is definitely coming.

After perusing the catalogs, researching the varieties, and studying all the options I have  finally decided to plant <insert dramatic pause with drum roll> the very same things I planted last year!

The only difference is that last year I didn’t start the seeds – they were given to me.

One of the guys my husband works with is big into gardening. He ordered several packets of heirloom seeds and took them into a local nursery to have them started. He specifically told them to start 25 of each kind.

They planted every seed.

Instead of several hundred plants to deal with – he know had several thousand!

He handed out heirloom tomato plants like they were zucchini’s in August!

I will admit that I was not happy when my husband brought home several plants (over 100).

My only experience with heirloom tomatoes was the year I didn’t get to the Amish store soon enough to buy my bedding plants. All they had left was the Brandywine variety.

What a disaster! Have you ever seen a bulbous nose? That’s what those tomatoes looked like. They never really turned a true red – and part of the tomato would rot while the other half was still green.

The texture was funny and they didn’t work well in my spaghetti sauces.

Major tomato fail.

But we planted the heirlooms anyway. At least they were free – and there wasn’t a Brandywine in the bunch!

It was a very wet year – and nobody had a very good tomato crop – but the ones we did get were really nice!

But the real winners were the peppers – both sweet and hot. We had a jalapeno variety that made the absolute best poppers known to man. The kids and I ate them every day for lunch for weeks on end. Seriously. Every day.

I crave them even now as I’m typing.

My husband found out where these seeds came from and last night we finally made out our order at Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds.

I haven’t started plants for at least 10 years – the old house was just too small and cold; last year was just too confusing with trying to move and settle in.

This is the year.

In a few days a packet full of springtime will arrive in my mailbox – tiny little seeds full of potential and hope.

I will plant them, water them, and watch them carefully. All the while dreaming of my beautiful, weed free garden full of luscious healthy produce.

I can just taste those poppers now!

So – how about you? What state is your garden in?

Finally!

After several years without, we have finally harvested our very own sweet corn from the garden!

The weather cooperated.

We were able to finally out- smart the coons.

And our 3 layer fence kept the deer out.

It was late – very late. But that just made it more delicious!

We’ve enjoyed several “all-you-can eat” sweet corn meals and even put a few bags in the freezer.

There’s nothing quite as sweet as the food you grew yourself. All the labor, all the effort, all the waiting pays off as you enjoy bite after luscious bite of corn – butter and salt dripping down your chin.

It’s a good life.

We spent a wonderful weekend on the prairie with Papa Jim and Nana Shirley and enjoyed these Patti pans every morning! There were yummy in our omelets and so cute!

Are you tired of those long green things that remind you of smooth cucumbers? Want something frilly & white for a change? Try the Patti Pan!

Their official name is Early White Bush Scallop Squash. We were introduced to them many years ago when visiting friends on one of our fall Minnesota fishing trips. Finding seeds here in Iowa was a challenge, but they are now a tradition in our Prairie Garden.

You can plant them directly into the garden in hills of 3 to 5 seeds after all danger of frost is past.   In a week you will see the green leaves emerging and a Patti Pan will be ready to eat in 50 days!

They do the vine thing so give them some room.

Patti Pan’s are very mild, low in calories and a good source of Vitamin A. For optimum flavor pick when about 4 to 6 inches in diameter. You can use the bigger ones, but the outside is tough, making it necessary to peel.

We like them sliced and sauteed with onion & green pepper as a side dish for any meal. This year we experimented with some zucchini recipes and found that they were interchangeable.

Next year we will try a yellow variety that we found after the garden was planted!

-Nana Shirley

My garden has gotten away from me again.

No- it hasn’t run away, but the weeds have totally taken over.

It looks like a lush green pasture that needs to be mowed. Seriously.

Somewhere in that grass there are corn plants – I hope.

It reminds of  the time a few years when the garden had gotten out of control just like this.

Our Amish neighbor had stopped by one evening and saw us out there weeding.

He said, “Got away from you didn’t it? Don’t worry – my kids will come down tomorrow morning and help you weed it.”

Seriously.

The next morning 4 Amish kids showed up at dawn – barefoot, walked out to our garden, and started to weed.

I’m not kidding. We were all still in bed.

I got out to the garden with my children just as quickly as we could and watched in awe as these kids worked.

It was amazing! Two of the kids started at the bottom of the row and pulled the weeds directly around the plants – isolating them.  The other two started working between the rows.

Each child made piles of weeds in the middle of the row.

There was not a weed left.

Those kids worked diligently and quickly until the day heated up. Then they came back in the cool of the evening and worked some more.

I was ready for them though – and had large dishes of ice cream and big glasses of kool-aid waiting.

We tried to help them – but I think we slowed them down more than anything.

It was very humbling to see those kids work so diligently on my garden. It was also very helpful to see how they did it.

My own kids learned how to weed effectively by watching them.

But we obviously haven’t applied that knowledge this summer! I wonder if we can still find the hidden corn plants before it’s to late?!

I haven’t had a strawberry bed for years.

The last time I tried it the plants were skimpy little things with tiny strawberries. I spent more time weeding the bed than picking or eating berries.

So I mowed them off, tilled them under and planted green beans.

Why mess with strawberries when I can go into the ravines and pick all the wild black raspberries we could eat?! I didn’t plant them, weed them, or water them. All I had to do was pick them.

That plan worked great until last summer.

After I suffered 2 very nasty bouts with poison ivy from picking those wild black raspberries,  I decided it was time to revisit the idea of a strawberry patch.

Armed with a shovel and some strawberry plants my husband graciously dug up from a friend on Sunday, I prepared for battle strawberry.

I decided that what was lacking in my last attempt was fertilizer and planned to pick up some Miracle-Gro in town.  But… uhh…  umm… well you see … I kinda forgot it….several times.

But since I had the plants in hand and they needed to go in the ground, I had to come up with a Plan B.

My only solution: chicken droppings. Yes, THAT stuff. Sometimes called manure, poop, dung, or meadow muffins!

It was time to attack the chicken house.

I won’t tell you how deep the droppings were on the floor of the coop – but I will say that it has been several years since anyone ventured in to clean it.  I must admit this is not the most glamorous job on farm and I really struggle to find volunteers.

My two well-filled wheel barrow loads hardly made a dent in the well-composted chicken manure laying underneath the chicken roosts!

I then carefully maneuvered this wheel barrow of stench across the yard, over the ridge and into the garden (I never realized before how far away everything is!) and unceremoniously dumped it in the garden.

Then, using my handy – dandy Mantis tiller (the wonder machine), I carefully tilled that smelly, but hopefully potent  fertilizer into the ground.

One back ache and 70 strawberry plants later, I am the proud owner of a strawberry patch.

I only hope that the chicken droppings work – and I have strawberries the size of small eggs!

Stay tuned!