Eranthis or Winter Aconite just starting to peek out. The sun is beaming today and I am expecting to see some bulbs after a few nice, long days.

The truth About Coffee Grinds.

Looks like I may have less compost sorting on my hands in the future. I follow Niki Jabbour from the The Year Round Vegetable Gardener on Twitter. Niki posted this article this morning The Truth About Coffee Grinds, which I thought was a funny coincidence considering I just posted about sorting out my grinds from the compost. I would guess that my berries seemed to enjoy the grinds in conjunction with the compost and seaweed I also provided them with. I use espresso grinds, which I have read are slightly more acidic than percolated grinds due to the nature of the brewing process, although I doubt the difference is significant. Espresso forces a small amount of water through a large amount of grounds in a quick fashion, resulting in a less acidic coffee than percolated, meaning that more of the acidity remains in the grinds. Still, I think I'll start saving myself the trouble and just throw all the grinds into the compost, leaving only treats to save for the girls. Less work is never really a bad thing, I'm far from bored around here with all my projects. 

Spinach and arugula seedlings digging cold frame life. I was not sure how everything was going to germinate, and had sown everything way too thickly. The hen's won't mind cleaning up the thinnings for me. I will know for next year. I also find with greens you can bend the rules a little and sow them slightly thicker, within reason, than called for without too much crowding or ill effects.

The boots for scale. That's arugula beside the boot, spinach perpendicular to the boot, radishes perpendicular to the arugula and kale to the right. 

Black seeded simpson lettuce sown too thickly. 

A new addition last year, one of my cranberry bushes under some snow. 

Letting the frame breathe for a minute. 

Sorting the Compost.

I keep these two containers on the counter most of the time. The yogurt dish with a lid is for treats for the hens. Any scraps from food preparation, spoiled foods or compost we know the girls like, gets put into that dish and fed to the girls every morning. Every morning they wait by their door for you to let them out and get their treats. I try not to drink coffee, I have the odd cup here and there, although my boyfriend usually has a cup in the morning. We keep the coffee grinds for the blueberry and strawberry plants. They both enjoy acidic soil and the grinds make a great mulch. After using them for several years, it would seem as if both plants enjoy the grinds.  The remaining compost goes into our pile outdoors. There's many reasons to make your own compost. Firstly, it's so cost effective. A bag of compost or soil is not exactly cheap. Backyard compost is free. You do not really know what your bought compost could consist of. Plant matter from genetically modified plants may have been used to make the compost. Pesticides may have been used on plants in large or small quantities. We use certified organic seeds to grow our veggies and we certainly do not use pesticides. We compost leaves, grass clippings, chicken manure and seaweed along with the food and garden scraps. The compost adds up really quickly and is usually ready to use about a year after you started the pile. Leaving a bit of old compost in a pile and adding new debris to that will accelerate the decomposition process, we do not ever completely empty a compost. 

Click here for a great article from Mother Earth News Magazine about composting. 

The girls are quite happy to help with the compost. They jump in on their own and start scratching for worms and other tasty treats, tearing the compost to smaller bits and pieces in the process. Turning the compost manually also helps but is not really necessary. 

Too wet for working or walking, although very pretty.

The Weather Won.

The weather has pushed me back indoors with snow and cool temperatures. Everything is still cosy in the cold frame and I try not to open it much to keep heat in. Indoors I have jalapeño and green peppers, ground cherries, asparagus, celery, onions, leeks, red onions, shallots, alpine strawberries, some greens, trailing and single petunias, hollyhocks and pansies all germinated. I plant so many flowers from seed for gifts during the spring/summer months. I have even given away potted ground cherries, tomatoes and peppers as gifts. You never know who's going to move into a new home, have a birthday, invite you to dinner or just require a simple gift for some reason. Petunias are well loved and the trailing varieties will spill over the edges of the ugliest pot making a lovely gift. Petunias will last all summer and well into the fall with a little care. In the fall I have started saving seeds from my garden for winter and early spring gifts. I snuck a few in with some of my X-mas gifts. I could hardly believe how many seeds you could harvest from flowers. I will have marigold seeds for life now. I somehow managed to misplace a mason jar full of petunia seeds I had collected. I will probably locate it after it is too late to start any more. 

From left to right I have jalapeños, ground cherries, green peppers, asparagus, celery and petunias in the peat pellets. Although I have had success starting petunias in soil, I have had better success with peat pellets for these tiny seeds.  

I had sown quite a few celery seeds since I did not have the most fantastic germination success rate last year. This year the celery seedlings are doing great and the majority of seeds germinated. None have bolted yet, which they will do if they get too cold. 

In my experimentation with more environmentally friendly potting for seedlings, I tried out the eggshell in egg carton method. So far so good. I used this for greens I started for transplanting out in early spring. I planted arugula, black seeded simpson lettuce and romaine lettuce. I would only use this method for small greens and things that are not going to be staying in the eggshell cups for long. The eggshell cups are too shallow, these greens have almost outgrown them already. The cardboard stays too moist which encourages damping off, which is already problem-some enough when starting seeds indoors. I use a fan to circulate air around the seedlings, however the eggshells trap moisture between the shell and the cardboard, which could potentially be a recipe for disaster. I will still try this method for broccoli and brussel sprouts that I will be starting a short time before planting out, when there is more room on my seed starting shelves for air to circulate. It is a bit of a tricky situation trying to find an eco-friendly solution that does not encourage damping off. 

Blue rambling petunia. 

Pink wave petunias. 

Same Old Starter.

I have not talked about sourdough here for awhile now. I am still using the same starter, baking bread about once a week and feeding after each use. I make the odd batch of pancakes, pizza dough and rolls and have even made a super moist sourdough chocolate cake. Everything turns out really well. I am still amazed that bread will rise without any yeasts, sodas or powders needed. It is pictured here in a glass bowl with a wooden spoon since you cannot keep the starter in, or use utensils made of, any kind of metal. I used stone ground organic flour from Speerville Flour Mill  in New Brunswick. 

Click here for a previous post about Sourdough.

Maple Syrup.

Our maple syrup turned out really well. It tastes amazing.  

We dug up half a row of parsnips to roast under a chicken over the weekend. A lot of people grow parsnips in this manner, exclusively to harvest in the spring. What happens over the winter is something magical, the starches turn to sugars in the cool temperatures making the parsnips, and carrots do this too, super sweet tasting. I did not think it would work out for us this year, since last year the spring was so wet the parsnips rotted in the ground. This year we simply forgot or missed several, by several I mean about 20, over the winter and discovered them in the ground after the snow melted. Being an, somewhat, absent minded gardener can sometimes pay off in veggie surprises. We had dug and ate several parsnips in the early winter months. Even the cooler temperatures during the early winter start to sweeten the parsnips. If you do not really enjoy parsnips, try these sugary treats in your garden. Parsnips can be slow growing, the seed does not really keep well from year to year and they do take up enough room in the garden. They are a member of the carrot family and need to be rotated in your crop rotation as such. All this aside I still feel parsnips are a very important vegetable to grow. I usually buy a new packet of seed, and give away the extras I do not plant. You do not really need to plant many to have some for holiday dinners, a few roast dinners and a good pot of soup. If the parsnips are not too dirty you can keep the skin on while cooking like garden carrots, preserving some of the nutrients. 

Parsnips still in the ground. 

First Flowers.

Ta-da! The fantastically warm weather we have been experiencing here was enough to entice these sunny little crocus to bloom. There's only a handful of them, planted by one the previous property owners, so I'll have to add to the display someday. 

Morning light on the garden. 

The girls navigating some tricky ground. 

Small harvest of greens from the cold frame for our lunch yesterday. Kale, arugula and spinach. 

Inside the Cold Frame Today.

Arugula, radishes, a few different types of lettuces, spinach and more kale have all germinated. The temps have been in the high teens low twenties this week making it ideal weather for germination. There is going to be some cooler weather coming in the future so hopefully nothing suffers. 

A radish or two. 

Tiny lettuce seedlings. 

Again. 

Placing some seaweed mulch around my kale plants. 

The arugula. I normally would never sow arugula this thick, I was not sure how successful it would be so I planted extra. Obviously, there was no need. I will leave some of the seedlings to mature a little before thinning them. The hens will gladly take care of any discards I have. 

Dirty row Covers drying in the sun. 

Maple Syrup

We are also boiling down some maple syrup. We only have 40 litres to boil, we should get close to a litre from that amount. My boyfriend's father had tapped some trees and gave us some of the extra sap he had obtained. We are doing it on our wood stove which is far from a sugar shack, however we are making due and it's actually working out well. It has been a little warm with the wood stove on although I'm sure it will be more than worth it in the end.    

Removed the row covers, that protected our beets into the fall, and the weeds were thriving underneath. Unfortunately they are not an edible species. I removed them promptly. One of the keys to successful weeding is to weed early and often. Keeping on top of the weeds before they are able to become even more established. Use caution when the ground may still be frozen in parts. If the ground is still frozen you may rip the foliage off the plant, leaving the roots in the ground. It would be better to wait until you can remove as much as the roots as possible. 

Germination.

Arugula is an amazing green. I had sown the seeds quite thickly, as I was unsure of how well they would do. They germinated at lighting speed and darkened in colour in the lovely sun today. I'll need to thin the greens shortly, although I'll allow a few to grow a little larger since the chickens love the greens as much as we do. Arugula makes a great spring green to wake your taste buds up after a long winter without. It is, obviously, very quick growing and prefers cool temperatures to germinate and grow. It's love of cool temperatures makes arugula a great spring vegetable that can be sown as soon as your soil can be worked. I had one clump survive the winter, due to it's extra insulation the others were lacking, that's coming back with vigour. 

Our overwintered kale, green onions and spinach are growing quite well. My kale is not bolting, I've stripped the stalks of the plants for their leaves during the first part of winter and more recent harvests. The kale would probably appreciate some more seaweed mulch around it's base.

A radish has germinated to the left of the spinach with more following. I can not wait to eat more veggies from my frame. 

Lettuce germinated. 

 

Garlic sprouts along with the spring bulbs. 

The girls.  

Never a dull moment. 

Some parsnips we looked over this winter. They seem usable, not too soft, for a big pot of parsnip soup or at least to flavour a stock. 

More Parsnips. 

Kale in the cold frame. 

Reflector. 

 

Daffodils peeking out around the snow. 

Hyacinths.