An herbal harvest

This is one of those blogs that is better late than never - since it is predicted to snow here on Tuesday!  That snow date is a little early for us which is what makes this almost an emergency posting!  You gotta get those herbs indoors!  One easy way that I do that is to plant the herbs in pots that can come inside after the summer is over.

The above is a 14" terra cotta pot that I have put sage, thyme, and apple mint into.  The other plant is lemon cat mint that reseeded itself in the pot that I left out last year.  It is wonderful stuff!  If you have herbs in the ground or in other places, just dig them up and pot them and bring them in!  Most of the time you wont even be able to tell that they have been recently transplanted!

This one has sage, thyme, and oregano.  It looks really full right now but at the beginning of the summer these were just little 2" pot plant starts.  You can crowd them a little from the beginning though or leave room for growth!

Here is another shot of the one with oregano in it.  They live outside the greenhouse door during the summer, and then in the fall they come into the greenhouse for a bit (to make sure they are bug free) and then they come in the house.  It makes the herbs available to use all winter as long as they are cared for well.  You have to watch the water for these pots as they seem to need less once they are brought in for the first few weeks and then more as the indoor heat dries them out.

The only plant that I have not been able to mix into this type of planting is basil.  Im not sure if it needs more room than this provides or if it needs a different watering schedule or what.  I just put basil by itself and everyone else gets along great!

Don't be afraid to give it a try!  Enjoy the tastes of summer all year long!

Muffin tops? NO! Carrot Tops!

The time of year has come to harvest the carrots once again and although we struggled to get a good carrot crop (again!), we have a few and all of them have tops on them!  Why is that important you ask?  Let me tell you what you can do with a carrot top!

Above shows one of our carrot bins here at Wicked Raven.  We had forgotten that the year that we put this bin in that we had put landscape fabric under it to keep weeds down (we had cabbage there that year).  So this bin had pretty good tops but the carrots underneath were small and misshapen from pushing against the fabric.  Our other bin of carrots was the one that the moose and the rabbits both got into and pulled up or stepped on a great majority of the carrots and the radishes in it!  Darn things!

When we are harvesting carrots we harvest both the tops and the carrots - we keep a bucket about 1/3 full of cold water so when we harvest the carrot we pop the top off and put it in a hod (see below photo) and we put the carrot in the bucket.  It does a little pre-clean for us so we have way less dirt in the house sink when we are doing the final clean.  Just pull the carrots out of the water giving them a little swish as you do, then put them in the hod with your tops to take in the house.  Pour the dirty water on one of your trees or shrubs nearby - food for the winter!

Above shows a few carrot tops in the hod before we put the carrots on top.  The upper right corner of the photo you can see some tomatoes from the greenhouse in a container.  We still have lots of tomatoes ripening there.

The above carrots didn't get the pre-clean treatment but gives you a good idea of the carrots to tops situation we had this summer.  Tiny carrots with lots of top!

So wash the tops and...... Oh the things you can do!  Below photo shows some carrot tops in the dehydrator.  Once they are dry you can use them just like parsley in any recipes.  The flavor is slightly sweeter than parsley, but very close.  It is a free food and really healthy as well. Carrot tops are high in protein, vitamins and minerals.  Your carrots become a zero waste product!  When I run out of carrots and dried tops in the winter I try to buy the organic carrots with the tops on (I cant always find them with the tops here) so I can use the whole thing.

You might prefer to use them fresh as well!  There are many uses for fresh carrot tops as well.  Trim them and use them just like you would use spinach.  Make a pesto with them (this is especially useful if you are short on basil as I often am) and I have made pesto with a mix of tops and basil to make the basil stretch.  We have used the tops in salads, fritatas, and a number of other dishes as well both fresh and dried.  Enjoy the free fronds of summer! 

**The only caveat is that the carrot pulls nitrates from the soil and may be high in nitrates.  I have eaten a lot of carrot tops with no side effects, but please be aware if you are sensitive to nitrates, and always make sure you are eating organic if you are buying them.  Be safe and test it first by trying a small amount before you commit to the food play!

Houston High and the Wonderful Garden!

We have had a great year here in the garden at Houston High School!  I told you in an earlier blog about how we were a Wildfire Command Post with the fire fighters and evacuees living all around and in the school - and once our yards were cleaned up (they didn't leave too much of a mess - just had to put some things back where they belong), we got busy putting in the rest of the garden.

Two apple trees went in at the point beyond the huglekulture beds.  We have an Adanac and an Early Harvest planted there now and they seem to be thriving.  I am concerned that we weren't able to give them enough water during the season - I just read that they should have about 10 gallons per day to start out and we weren't able to give them any where near that without our hose connection.  We weren't able to hook up our hoses during the fire since it is non-potable water hose and might contaminate the water spigots that were needed for potable water for evacuees and firefighters.  Ill keep you posted on how they do.

Here they are in the ground!  We had some funny things happen - I have the spoons as markers (also see prior blog for more information on that), and I would come to the garden and the spoon markers would be out of the ground and all over the place.  Finally one of the people helping said they thought they saw a Raven messing around near the apple trees.  Sure enough - the Raven liked that shiny spoon and was picking them up and tossing them about!  I have now wire tied them to the stakes so they at least can't be absconded off with!

Another perennial we have for the garden now is Chives.  We have the potatoes and maybe the kids can do a baked potato bar and have the chives and all the fixins!  They are small now but we should be able to harvest some after next season.  we will probably add a few more plants to the patch as well. 

The Kohlrabi did wonderfully - we had to harvest them before school started as they were starting to split and were not going to make it to the opening day.  We shared them among staff members and we have some new Kohlrabi fans at the school!  Many of the folks hadn't tried it ever so this was something new and wonderful.  It tastes like a cross between jicama and turnip - very mild and refreshing flavor.  It would make great pickles or slaw as well - we just sliced and dipped it!  We will definitely grow these again next season!

Oregon snow peas are looking good - we had a harvest in the second week of school and are excited to have the kids trying these.  So good!

Yellow zuchinni did amazingly well at our location!  We harvested 5 squash off these two plants and there are at least 10 more almost ready.  The kids will be using these this week in their dishes.

The cabbage is doing great and will be ready for slaw soon.  This is Stonehead and even though it was such a hot summer, as soon as it cooled off it took off and is growing great guns!

Rhubarb.  Almost don't need to say more!  We have two of these perennial plants donated to us and we will be able to harvest next year.  Looking forward to that - our culinary arts class knows how to make some pie crust if you know what I mean.

Yukon Gold potatoes thriving in the pallet bin!  The raised bed potatoes didn't do as well (lack of water after planting I think), and the bins got hot, hot, hot.  The pallet bed and the tires did really well for us.  I didnt get a picture of the carrots but they are really doing well too!  Next year we will rotate crops and the carrots will be in one of the big new raised beds so we can plant a lot more - maybe two beds full!

Huglekulture for the strawberries.  

I completely underestimated the amount of fabric and chips it would take!  These beds are huge.  This is one whole roll of fabric and it did about a third of our strawberry row!  We planted 30 strawberry plants in this section and we will go and grow from there next year.  We have quite a few folks who have said they are saving runners and starts for us for the garden.  Can't wait!  Strawberry Rhubarb pie - that's what I'm talking about!

We also planted a few raspberries that will be perennial for us and should produce next year for some berry mixes.  We will be getting some more of those plants as well for next spring.

Stay tuned for the harvesting of the garden.  The kids are anxious and even the staff seem really excited to see what the garden holds. 

I hope your garden is growing well - no matter if you have one bin or 50!   

Where there's smoke ...... Wildfire Round three!

Yes folks - here we go again!  Wildfire in Big Lake round three!  The view above and below shows the smoke coming across the lake in front of the house (looking East now).  The fire is actually a mile behind us (West).  It appears from reports that the fire may have been started by a camp fire this weekend!  

You can see the smoke better in the above photo.  Those arent clouds in the foreground!  That is smoke!  And of course I had sheets on the line - so Ill be re doing laundry this week!  We are lucky that it appears now that we are literally out of the woods and out of fire danger as firefighters were able to get right on it and use bulldozers to create a fire line and keep it away from us.  We also have a lot of swamp around the area but it has been so dry that a lot of the swamp is dry as well!  It slows down the fire but doesn't stop it like we need it too!  There was termination dust on some of the mountains this morning (snow for you folks who aren't familiar with that term - it means summer is over) and I thought that mad me sad - but I will take snow all day long to keep from having another round with wildfires!

Above shows the plume of smoke above the trees looking West towards the fire.  The wind was blowing about 30 miles per hour and it seemed like it was blowing it right at our house!  It was blowing in our direction and the fire was moving fast for a time - thank goodness for the quick action of the fire fighters and thank them for their service as well!

I also have to say what a wonderful community we all live in - I had enough offers to help that we could have had our house cleaned out and been evacuated and down the road in about 20 minutes if we had needed to!  Its great to have that kind of friends, family, and neighbors!

Stay safe everyone and enjoy the termination of summer - may your colors of fall be leaves and not fire!