December 10 – Temperatures this morning fell to 16 degrees F.  That’s the coldest its been all year at least as far as I can remember.  It has gotten progressively colder over the past few days, each morning getting colder than the previous by a few degrees.  The barn is completely frozen up and I’ve been hauling buckets of warm water from the house twice a day for the sheep and horses, exhausting!  

The vegetable garden looks so sad.  The Swiss Chard has wilted away as well as the young red leaf lettuce plants that were just coming up from the fall planting.  Even the fall kale has colapsed.  The leeks look bad and have wilted down too.  It doesn’t looks like anything can withstand such extreme cold. 

In the green house I have a few seedlings, still in trays.  The lettuce starts have died but the arugula, endive, kale and turnips still look ok.  I’ve been running a milkhouse heater at night to try to minimize the damage.  Its not keeping it above freezing but it is raising the temperature about 15 to 20 degrees.  The days have been beautiful and sunny raising the green house temperature into the low 70’s.  My potted herbs still look good.  I’ve been able to harvest Italian parsley, rosemary and cilantro but the fushias are dying back.

The corn harvest is nearly done.  The wind stom this weekend nearly flattened everything. The first variety was harvested a few weeks ago.  The 2nd, Bodacious never produced very much.  The ears that were picked were not remarkable.  We are harvesting the Golden Jubilee now and it certainly has been the best one.  The ears are perfect, large and well formed,  flavor is good and the yield is high.  Some plants have three ears and most have two.  Hopefully I will be able to freeze a few of them for winter use.

Its Monday, and its another beautiful day.  The weekend was gorgeous,  low 80’s with a breeze.  The weeks just past have each had a progression of both cool and hot days.  Occassionally we get some rain, but for the most part its been pretty dry.  The forecast for the coming week is for higher than normal temperatures, possibly in the tripple digits.  I’m not going to be happy about that.

The sweet peas are still covered with flowers and smell fabulous.  The red leaf lettuce is probably no longer useable.  Not only have the plants bolted but the remaining leaves are wilting and rotting from underneath.  The kohlrabi bulbs have grown to gigantic proportions.  I’m still harvesting them but spend more time peeling the outer skin before cooking,  just in case.  I haven’t really noticed any change to woodiness.  Lots of green tomatoes, but only a couple are actually starting to color now.  The zuchini is growing like gangbusters and so is the spaghetti squash.  Had both for dinner over the weekend.  I’ll need to find a recipe for zuchini bread soon to make use of the enormous five pound zuchini’s that were tucked away under leaves and allowed to grow beyond their optimal size.

After a very oppressively hot weekend in the mid 80’s, we’re back down to 60 degree days.  Incredible how temperatures can change here.  Its been a little drizzly since Sunday night, but we haven’ had any real real rain fall yet.  Up till now, we’ve had to keep a close eye on the plants and water many of them daily to keep them going.  We dug up the dirt mound in the front yard last weekend to plant flower starts and it was just bone dry.   We had to set the sprinkler to soak it before we could even get it planted.  I planted cosmos, lemon gem marigolds, dwarf marigolds and nasturtiums that had all been started in the greenhouse.  I sure hope there is still enough time for them to grow and bloom.  It does feel like the season is starting to come to an end.  On the brighter side, it might be a good time to start seeds for the fall vegetables.  I had wanted to get to that last weekend as well but just ran out of time.

The 4th of July weekend was a sizzler!  Mid 80’s is a bit much for us, especially when we’re trying to take advantage of the time off work to catch up on weeding, mowing, and planting. 

I ran into a great nursery website from the name tag for the started Snow Peas I purchased at Christiansen’s last month.  The website is sunseedfarm.com.   What I really like is the local planting chart they provide there.  I’ve added the link to our website on the left side of the screen.  Check it out if you haven’t already done so.  I’ve posted a picture of the Snow Peas shown below.  The variety is called Oregon Giant.

How many pea pods can you count?

I’m really happy with the red leaf lettuce shown on this picture as well.  I’ve been harvesting it daily for dinner salads.  It has a lovely crisp texture, but of course its so fresh it hardly knows its been picked.

I can’t believe its already July.  Time sure does fly. I harvested my first  zuchini the other night.  There are several others but they are all pretty small yet. 

The kohlrabi’s are getting huge and they look great!   They have been one of the best surprizes this year.  I like the bulbs but I really love the greens.  I cut the bulbs up into matchstick like pieces and saute them in some EVOO.  As for the leaves, I discard the stems, pile the leaves on top of one another, and roll them up in a tight roll.  Then I cut across the roll in thin slices forming long thin shreds.  These are then saute’d in the pan much like a stir fry.  Sometimes I also add thinly sliced carrots, onions and radishes, or whatever else I happen to have on hand.  It all picks up an oriental flair when I add soy sauce and sesame oil and serve over rice.

The Swiss Chard was purchased as started seeds in a 4 by 2 inch pot.  The seedlings were super easy to separate and plant individually, only problem,  there were just so many of them.  I knew I was planting them too close together, but I couldn’t imagine that they would all survive the transplant.  Last month I began thinning by harvesting the larger plants that were creating the most crowding to use in the kitchen.  The quality has been excellent!  I did a search on Foodnetwork and found a very tasty recipe and have been preparing them that way every since.  I’m sure going to miss them when they’re gone.

We had better luck this year planting peas from seed rather than purchasing started plants.  The plants just sat there, no growth, while the seeded peas took off like gangbusters.  They sprout very quickly anyway.  Next year I think seeding directly in the garden is the best approach.