Queer Farmer Project

This is so exciting to me. Makes me want to find my farm out there..

canning experience #1

I had my first canning experience last night. Last week we were in Southern Idaho visiting C's grandma, and while there we picked probably 10 lbs of plums and a full large box of corn. C blanched, cut-off, and froze 12 cups of corn, and we still have probably a dozen ears left...

Then last night I finally got around to making jam. Plum Ginger Lemon jam. Sounds delicious, right? I followed directions, but I doubled the recipe, which I read later isn't a good idea. We boiled the jam a long long time and it would not get over 215 degrees (it's supposed to hit 220), so we finally just filled the jars with half the jam mixture, boiled them and put them aside. We added pectin to the remaining jam, to try to compensate for the low temperature.

This morning we have half plum ginger syrup and half of what may turn out to be jam. Damn.

Regardless of the success (or not), the experience has made me recommit to the idea of buying seasonally. C and I agreed last night to primarily do our shopping on Sundays at the Farmers Market. We also committed to a lower food budget so we'll see if those two things can go hand in hand.

Either way I'm excited to try it out. And I'm hoping to try jam again in the near future. What a bummer to have so much syrup from SO many plums.

let the foraging begin

This link was brought to my attention on facebook - it's got me very excited to start foraging! I'm heading down to Plum Tree Park in the Central District on my way home this afternoon. Wish me luck.

In the article are links to two great websites, veggietrader.com and neighborhoodfruit.com. The latter only has a couple of Seattle spots listed - I'm positive there are much much more. If nothing else it motivated me to get out there to start looking!

Another cool website I found: The Scavengers Manifesto

spring has sprung - i think.

Here it is! The garden's latest incarnation. We have, from left to right: 2 artichokes (starts), pole beans and snap peas (seeds), cauliflower (starts), strawberries (from a large container at home), brussel sprouts (starts), potatoes (already in the garden - they were a surprise), beets (already there), green onions (already there plus we planted bulbs), lettuce (starts), chard (already there) and leeks (seeds). C is standing near the potatoes and greens.

How exciting is this? I'm sure we'll lose some stuff, but since we have a full garden I'm kind of counting on it so we can plant some later season crops. I'm thrilled, and we had such a fantastic day yesterday doing all of this planting.

Helen is the woman who's garden is behind ours - the one with all the berries. She a very nice older woman who's been gardening here for 30 years. The bed we have now had been hers for many years. She used to have 6 plots, I believe, and she's been giving them up one by one. She now has two left. She's sort of famous in the p-patch, and everyone keeps telling us how lucky we are to have her patch. It's true - it's amazing soil and she's a wonderful woman. We were very fortunate with this one - definitely worth the wait.

old seeds in coffee filters

I hate the idea of throwing away old seeds, but I also dread planting rows of hopeful vegetables just to find that none of them are going to grow.

My earlier project inspired me to find more seeds to plant, but most if not all of my vegetable seeds are several years old. I don't want to waste anytime in our p-patch, and I don't want to use my limited amount of small growing pots. In a moment of recycling genius (not mine - I read about it here), I remembered we have coffee filters for a machine we no longer own, and plenty of ziplocks.

Each bean (I had six different packets) has it's own filter/baggie, then I taped the packet to each and set them up on top of the fridge. Hopefully we'll get some (and not hundreds) of bean plants. Stay tuned!



We should garden like our life depends on it. Because it does.

Sunday 3/22 update: the filters had seemed to dry out this morning, so we opened up the ziplocks to check. They were still a tiny bit damp, but clearly the beans soaked up a lot of the water. Meaning, the beans are probably still living organisms, meaning we may end up with a TON of bean plants. We sprayed a little more water in each and put them back on top of the fridge.

Thursday 3/26 update: I opened up one of the bean bags and it smelled AWFUL. So, I got rid of that one. The peas aren't doing anything and there may be potential for one on the bean bags to do alright. I am no longer feeling like a genius. At least not for this endeavor.

May update: the beans molded and the basil got aphids. So much for that project!

tiny basils and thyme

Earlier I was transplanting some tiny basils and thyme - I've never been able to get them past the leggy baby stage, so this is always a bit of a trying experience. They seem so fragile and unlikely to reroot. I try every year anyway, never changing my methods but hoping that maybe this year is going to be the one.

For the first time I'm utilizing a grow light, of sorts. I found a tray and put them up on the mantel right next to a arm-hinged lamp - it currently only has a full-spectrum light in it but I'm wondering if that'll work...

Then I planted some old cilantro seeds directly into a chipped glass I was wondering what to do with - I want to see for once how much water is actually getting down to through the soil. Plus it'll be fun to watch the roots grow a little bit.

As I was doing all of this it struck me what a delicate job it is to transplant such a vulnerable plant. I loved every minute of it and fell for each of those plants - I'm really going to be disappointed if they don't grow. I am starting new seeds this afternoon though, so I'll have more opportunities to try...

Later: Just added to the mantel (not pictured) - tiny thyme and parsley seeds.

bike rides and seed bombs

Last night C and I had dinner with two friends we've known forever but never see - we haven't been social much this winter and it was such a nice night. Good food, good friends and conversation - and we got to see their new house, which is this charming 1920s boxcar-like house in West Seattle, which is an area I keep finding myself in lately - I'm definitely intrigued by the neighborhood...

So this morning we slept in then headed to a brunch for a local organization I just found out about called the Nature Consortium. Their mission is "to teach environmental lessons through the creative arts and hands-on conservation projects." They produce a youth art program, an urban forest restoration project and the Arts~in~Nature Festival, and I was so impressed! There was as amazing youth spoken word artist and the projects and classes they do are pretty incredible. It was inspiring.

When we got home we made lunch and started talking about our land. C had all these very specific ideas so we sat down and he drew out what he visualizes when he sees our land. I never knew he had such specific ideas - it was so fun to hear about. I started reading the how-to-layout-your-land section of the book, "Back to Basics," then we got distracted with thinking about our p-patch. We put air in our bike tires and rode the 11 or so blocks in the wind & rain. It felt truly amazing.

So the bikes were fun - and it was just warm enough today to be able to be outside in the garden (with long johns and rain coats, that is). We worked on removing the 6-12" of grass that's grown into the plot along the border, put down some organic fertilizer (on the half of the garden that was ready for it), and planted carrot seeds and pole beans. The seeds were a bit old, so we'll see what happens with that. And I'm pretty sure the soil is too cold. We'll see. Anyway I can't WAIT until the summer when we're able to harvest, although in the meantime it's already been really fun!

We came back just as it was getting dark (7:30!!), made dinner and are about to watch a movie. Not a bad day at all.

The title of this post includes seed bombs, which I did not participate in today. But I am currently scheming ways to use up my older seeds in neglected neighborhood plots, and have been trying to figure out a stealth way to remove the scotch broom tree on the corner house near the park. Stay tuned..