A little rain must fall - but in January?!!!

This is the weather in Alaska today - that Houston refers to Houston, Alaska!  Usually at this time of year we have -41 degrees below zero!  Not above zero!  I didn't wear a coat today to the school - just my regular clothes like it was summer or at least early spring!



These are pussy willows budding out (thank you Alicia McRoberts for the photo post).  In January in Alaska!  Is this proof that our global warming is working?  I don't know but now is not the time to have this happen!

Remember the 10" of snow I had on the porch rail?  All gone!  The three feet of snow on the cold frame?  Only about 6 inches now!  That might not be a bad thing since I was worried about the weight on the frame, but it is worrisome that our snow is going so fast that many of my plants will soon not be covered at all.  The plants under the eaves should be okay since the snow shedding off the roof has gone on them, but the ones in the Hugelkulture beds and in the meadow and the other beds may not fare as well.

All the kids are praying for snow so they can snowmachine and play in it, but I am praying for snow so that my strawberries won't all have to be replaced!  That happened a few years ago when we didn't get snow until December - they all froze out. 

On the plus side of not having a lot of snow - I was able to get into the greenhouse and do some work.  I have decided to do some rearranging so that all the tomatoes will live in the middle during the summer so they wont create so much shade and so that they will get better cross breeze.  Im also hoping that Ill find a happy place for the cucumbers.  Ill post pictures when the plan comes together, but it was really nice to be able to get out and play in the dirt for a bit.  Made me hungry for spring!

I have planted some kitchen herbs to help get me through and use in some healthy cooking.  I was also able to harvest two perfect lemons from the lemon tree, but the lemon tree is not seeming too happy right now.  Bare twigs and looking lifeless.  Ill let you know if it makes it through!

In Alaska it really is true that April showers bring May flowers (unless those showers are snow like last year), but I don't know what January showers bring - Ill keep you posted on that as we go towards (real) spring.

Waiting for Results

I  haven't posted much lately as there has been a lot going on in my world including Christmas, New Years, a Gramma visiting, a number of hockey events and trying to inventory my current seeds and see what I need!  On top of that over the past few weeks we have had a number of things crop up that were disconcerting, distracting, and caused much distress throughout the family.   Part of the problem is that we found out all in one day that my dad had to have a colonoscopy due to unexplained bleeding, my cousin was hospitalized for pancreatitis, and my uncle was diagnosed with Stage 1 non-hodgkins lymphoma.  While waiting to hear the results of the colonoscopy (which turned out not to be something horrible and dad will be okay), it got me to thinking about waiting for results!

We have to wait for results for just about everything but in farming even hobby farming, it seems, waiting for results is way, way more exciting and way, way less stressful than waiting for results of medical tests, scholastic tests or just about anything else on the planet!  Even though the waiting in farming is often much longer than  the waiting for results in medical tests, and the end result is often failure (at least in my world), the outcome of those results is almost always satisfying in some regard. 

No matter if I have success or failure with my farm tries, I have always learned something from it -sometimes what not to do!  But sometimes I learn how to do something great - like keeping the Mandarin tree alive through an infestation of white flies and a guinea pig who tried to climb the pot to eat it! 

The best thing that I have learned from waiting on plants or really anything on the farm is that waiting for results is not always a bad thing!  It gives us time to breathe in between projects, plantings, harvesting, and snow shoveling. It gives us time to think about other things that need our time, energy and passion, and it gives us the lesson of patience.  One of the most important lessons we can learn. 

Breathe. Wait. Results!

Making a Mandarin Happy!

So sorry it's been so long!  Hope you all have had a wonderful Christmas and are headed to a marvelous New Year!  I have had a few days off from the High School job and have been trying to do some cleaning and updating here at Wicked Raven.  One of the things that badly needs done is to transplant the Mandarin Tree.

 

This is a Mandarin tree that we have been growing for about three years now.  It is a four year old tree and belongs to Reed, my 13 year old son.  He has chosen a couple of interesting plants to grow indoors and this is one of them.  The pot it is in is only about a 12" pot and it has now far outgrown it so it will be transplanted to the large 36" pot on the right.    It is the dead of winter and has been -20 degrees for about 2 weeks so this process has to be done indoors and as the pot is so large and hard for me to move - its getting done right where it is!  The mandarin doesn't seem to mind temperature swings as much as the lemon trees do, and the loss of light doesn't seem to bother it either.  It has not produced so far though so I don't know if that will make a difference.  The lemon trees are all stressed right now and have lost all their leaves.  The window that this sits in front of is a set of French doors and they are right above our garage so if the garage door opens it affects the temperature and when it is -20 even the floor in that area is cold.

Above you can see the new pot and the tools I will use to do the transplant.  I use the trowel just to loosen the soil in the new pot (it had an avocado in it before that didn't live).  The water jug is only half way filled as I will be putting worm juice in the rest of it so that I am feeding at the same time I am watering the new soil.   The pink bucket is what I actually use to scoop the soil out into a bucket to make room for the plant.

This is the bucket with the worm juice in it.  I had to thaw it out - I have been freezing the worm juice to make sure there are no white flies or other bugs that could have gotten into the garage (where my worms live - see the worm blog at http://wickedraven.blogspot.com/2013/01/finally-worm-one-or-growing-dirt-in_11.html Now that its thawed I will mix it into the water jug about half and half.

I've dug out about as much soil as I need to.  (The spike plant you see sticking up in this picture is an Amaryllis that I have been nursing for about 3 years as well - it always looses its leaves and blooms around Christmas - perfect)!

I put the whole potted plant into the hole I have scooped out to make sure I have it big enough.  Then I put some of the worm/water mixture into the bottom of the hole and tipped the tree out of the old pot and into the new.

Scoop some of the soil out of the bucket and make sure you get the roots covered well enough that a good dose of water wont uncover them.  I did gently press the soil around the pot, watered once, added some more dirt and watered again.  That way I know I have good soil coverage on the roots and that I have watered the plant adequately.  The blue ball you see there is a glass fishing float.  I often add them to my plants so that when I pour water in the pot I can pour it on the float and it doesn't erode a hole in the soil.  Glass floats can be found at antique shops or sometimes on the beach if you are really lucky!

This is a rooted avocado plant that we will be putting into the pot that the Mandarin came out of.  We have tried the avocado before and have not been successful, but we are learning every time and eventually we will get it.  The last one we did not water often enough to get water to the bottom of the pot.  Ill keep you posted on how that goes and will do an avocado blog at a later date to give you all the details.

 

Don't be afraid to try things that you think wont grow in your area - just grow them indoors!  Don't worry if you don't have a lot of room - put the plant on a rolling plant stand so you can have it in front of any window and roll it out of the way if you need to!  Ill show you some of those in a future blog - that's a pallet upcycle!

 

Warm up with Cinnamon and Raspberries!

Now that it has snowed the requisite 10" here at Wicked Raven Farm, life begins to slow a bit as everyone tries to hunker down and hibernate for the winter.  We are all tired from harvesting, canning, storing and freezing and are ready for some rest and some warming recipes.

(This picture was taken November 10th 2013 - 10" of snow on the railing below the clothesline - it's dryer time again)

 

Warming recipes for me are about the same as comfort food recipes and a favorite here is raspberry jam with cinnamon.  I like to use up the berries from the freezer remaining from the prior year (if we have any), as they need to be used up and they make great jelly.

 

Start with frozen berries - you don't have to thaw them even - just throw them in your stock pot.

I usually have written on each bag how much I put in but often I have bags that are only partially filled from using them for pancakes, waffles and muffins.  Heat them through and then measure you berry product.  I have had to add water to make enough to make a full cup final measure - meaning you have full cups of product - 5 cups or 7 cups, etc.  no partials.

 

Add an equal amount of sugar to your berry product (5 cups berries to 5 cups of sugar, etc.) and then add 1 tsp of cinnamon per 2 Cups of product (10 cups of product = 5 tsp. cinnamon).  Add pectin as directed on package for the type you are using and bring to a short boil.  Simmer for about 10 minutes or until the product starts to gel on a cold spoon (sometimes this takes up to 30 minutes).

 

Put hot product in hot jars and seal using the "quick flip" method or by canning 10 minutes in a water bath canner.  Eat it with home made fresh bread, biscuits, or pancakes.  Watch out for boys who would eat it right out of the jar with a spoon!  Enjoy and stay warm this winter!