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Fall Gardening – Converted Cold Frame Pulls Double Duty for Seedlings

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Fall gardening, for me this year, means keeping it easy.

Mostly because the squirrels and sun aren’t on our side come late September.  I’ve started cabbages and kale and lovingly transplanted them to well-prepared containers up and down our stairs in autumns past, only to have squirrels dig them up daily until the sun lost itself behind the neighbor’s house.

Never again.

This year I have my magical cold frame I converted to a squirrel-free grow box – I simply swapped out the glass lid for a hardware-cloth (wire mesh) lid.  Anything I plant outside of this box will be on a whim and left to its own devices on the squirrel front.

Inside the box, we took our freshly emptied summer pots, seeds leftover from spring, and planted mesclun mix, turnips, radishes and a few onion seeds.

With heavy rains forecast for the following few days, the kiddo and I dragged out an old shower curtain, tucked it under the lid’s edges, and weighed it down with scrap wood for good measure.  These rains would be remnants of Hurricane Isaac, and all summer has been either no rain or crazy-windy-big-storm rain, so might as well add the wood.

The kiddo, B, who had methodically pinched the tiny seeds from my palm and less methodically sewed them, was very into storm proofing the cold frame. She’s three now and loves a good project, especially a short one she can get her helping little hands on.

The next day we got nearly 4 inches of rain in two hours.

I didn’t touch anything for two more days.

Today, SEEDLINGS!!!  Tiny sprouts!!!  No washout from the rain!  Not wanting to further starve them for light, we set the scrap wood cover aside but kept the shower curtain.  The weatherman says we’re still at risk for all-or-nothing rain the next few days.

Let’s see if we can squeeze a few beet, spinach and kale seeds into the squirrel-free, rain-shuttered box in a few days.

DC State Fair – Even You Can Enter the Fermented Vegetable Contest

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Our fridge: filled with delicious things in glass jars

 

Our own DC State Fair celebrates the growers, the makers, the brewers, the bakers and the fermenters.

Fermenting vegetables?

It’s not just for the Germans, Koreans and bachelors who never clean their fridge.

You can do it – do it this weekend.

You don’t have to grow your own veggies to ferment, just bebop yourself down to your farmers market, buy some stuff to ferment and get to it.

It does take a little planning. Get details below, but you will need non-iodized salt (such as sea or Kosher), an acceptable vessel (a clean glass jar with a lid or a crock) and some recipes call for non-chlorinated water.  You don’t need full-blown canning supplies. See how easy it really is:

  • Dr. Ben Kim: He wants you to buy stuff from him, so block those pop-ups, but his How to Make Kim Chi gives step-by-step pictures and cheer leading.

Once you’ve filled a few jars of fermented, locally grown, organic, hand-picked, biked-it-home epicurean treasure, you’re ready to register for the DC State Fair Fermented Vegetable Contest!  (Note: Your veggies do not need to be organic, local or transported by bike to be eligible to compete.  DC State Fair suggests reading over these researched recipes for fermenting success.  Only 50 entries can be accepted so get busy and register, $5 per entry.)

If your drunk roommate tosses your kimchi at 4:00 a.m. thinking it’s an appropriate time to clean the fridge, you should still join the 2012 DC State Fair fun Saturday, September 22nd, 2012.  As part of the Barracks Row Fall Festival along 8th Street SE on Capitol Hill, there will be a little something for everyone.

Even your hungover roommate.

Fall Gardening – Double Up and Catch Up

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Fall gardening.

Fall gardening frustrates me. We don’t have deer coming through our DC neighborhood but the squirrels pick up the slack for garden carnage. Fresh pots of soil read as “First Month Free” on a U-Store It for squirrels.

We also loose the midday sun behind the neighbor’s house way before first frost sets in, abruptly turning our full-sun back yard into a shade garden.

As a glutton for punishment, I’ll slide in under the wire this weekend with a scaled-back agenda of spinach, mesclun mix and radishes.

The fall gardening opportunity for some crops has passed, but check the following resources for your zone to feed that fall gardening bug:

  • Southern Exposure Seed Exchange: Growing Guides & Library (excellent info for everyone but planting dates are for the Southeast and mid-Atlantic)
  • Washington Gardener Magazine: The August Enews gardening checklist can’t be beat for the mid-Atlantic
  • Johnny’s Selected Seeds – Growing Guides (some of the tools are spreadsheets, but good info)
  • D. Landreth Seed Co – No “when to plant” look-ups, but sit and watch their home page as images of what you should be planting now rotate through and you’ll get excited for fall gardening.  Since 1784… Landreth has been around.

If you’re kind of done with gardening for a few months – you enjoy it but don’t really want to talk about what happened over the summer – don’t sweat it.  Fall harvest festivals abound with pick your own apples, pumpkins corn and ready-to-buy jams and pickles.

If you’re hard-core, you stopped reading this post at about the second line, you already have most of your fall seeds in the ground.

But do you have your bulbs ordered?

Kitchen – Chicken to the Garlic with Farm Fresh Tomatoes for #SundaySupper

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Whether your tomato plants are going gang busters or you just can’t help but get that extra basket of heirlooms at the farmers market, you might be running out of fresh ideas for fresh tomatoes here at the end of August.

Earlier this week I had a package of chicken thighs, market tomatoes that needed using and no recipe that really called to me. I dug out my Le Creuset covered deep covered saute pan (a very appreciated gift via a family member working at Sur la Table last year) and riffed on a few recipes I’ve cooked over the summer.

I served the creation over Trader Joe’s brown Jasmine rice and we each had a fresh ear of buttered Jersey corn. The velvety cooked tomatoes, tender chicken and juicy fresh corn made the perfect late-summer dish. Sunny flavors but comforting with the breeze outside blowing a little cooler from the north. Fall is heading our way.

Neal loved it, fondly saying it reminded him of one of his dinners in Spain, Pollo al Ahillo, and the awkward but accurate English translation on that long-ago menu: Chicken to the Garlic.

So, with that, and a thanks to Family Foodie bringing back #SundaySupper, I present:

Chicken to the Garlic with Farm Fresh Tomatoes

Serves 2 – 4, depending on appetites and side dishes. Recipe easily doubles.

Ingredients:

- 4 bone-in skin-on chicken thighs

- 1 or 2 TBS olive oil

- 1.5 – 2 cups chopped fresh heirloom or garden tomatoes (grape or cherry tomatoes are great, slice in half) you can mix your favorite size/shape/variety of tomatoes

- 1/3 cup shallot, minced

- 1 head garlic, cloves peeled and chopped

- 1/2 tsp ground cumin

- 1/2 to 1 tsp fresh thyme

- salt (sea or kosher) and ground pepper

- 1/2 cup water

- 1 TBS salted and roasted pepitas (pumpkin seeds) optional

Salt and pepper the chicken thighs and set aside while prepping the other items.

Toss tomatoes and shallots with a few pinches salt and a generous drizzle of olive oil. Let sit while prepping the garlic. This gives the salt a little time to release the tomato flavor.

In a heavy-bottomed pot with a well-fitting lid (a dutch oven is ideal), heat 1 – 2 TBS olive oil over medium-high heat and brown the chicken thighs, 4 – 7 minutes per side. Remove the thighs to a plate and reduce heat to medium low. Add the garlic and cumin, stir until fragrant – about a minute.

Add the tomato and shallot mix, stirring to deglaze the pot to get that rich chicken flavor. Add the water, stir, then nestle the browned chicken thighs down into the mix. It’s alright if they aren’t covered by the tomatoes.

Sprinkle the thyme over the thighs, cover and simmer on medium-low until the chicken is cooked through, about 20 minutes.

When the chicken is nearly cooked through, if the mixture seems too watery, finish cooking uncovered, spooning the liquid and tomatoes over the thighs every few minutes. Adjust the heat to maintain a steady simmer and let it thicken slightly. Do not let the pot cook dry – you want the tomato garlic mixture to remain very moist, easily filling a spoon with liquid alone. Add more water if your chicken isn’t cooked through but the tomato mixture is no longer juicy.

Serve over your favorite rice or shaped pasta, generously spooning on the tomatoes, garlic and lovely juices. Sprinkle the pepitas over top. Pairs wonderfully with fresh corn.

A Few Notes:

- You can easily substitute drum-sticks for chicken thighs. Whichever you use, you only want a single layer of them in your pot. (Or brown in batches and, later, switch top layer with bottom layer halfway through cooking with the tomatoes so they cook evenly.)

- The chicken’s bones and skin, cooked at a medium-low heat with the lid on, give the tomatoes, shallots and garlic a velvety texture. Using boneless/skinless cuts will change the dish.

- Do not use chicken stock or broth. By only adding water you let those fresh, local tomatoes shine! Browning the chicken first, setting it aside, then making the dish in the same pot will carry plenty of great chicken flavor.

- The leftovers reheat fantastically the next day!

- I take the worst food pictures on the planet. I mixed yellow and red tomatoes to beautiful effect, you can too!

- A tried-and-true Pollo al Ajillo recipe is here if my version with fresh tomatoes seems a little fast and loose.

Enjoy!

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County and State Fairs – Scratch that Competitive Itch

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Runner-up beans at the 2012 Montgomery County Fair

Do you love the county fair?  Did your parents ever take you to the state fair because there was more fair there?

Remember wrist-band day?  It was caution-to-the-wind as your parents said, “Meet me back here at the grandstand at 6:00.  Sharp.”

You – two bags of cotton candy.  Your best friend – dares you to ride the Gravatron for the fifth time.

We were just at the Montgomery County Fair in  Gaithersburg, MD yesterday.  I’ve been to many fairs and this one blows me away.  Aside from the delightful animal barns with their wooden stalls and open-air construction that encourage you to admire the livestock, the farm, garden and flower contest entries will make any gardener flush with envy.  Tomatoes beckon like seed catalog illustrations and impossibly plump pole beans lay alongside sun flowers that cast shadows.

The Montgomery County Fair just happened to fall on the week following the 2012 Summer Olympics.  I can’t help but wonder if the non-ribbon-winning contestants for Corn – Feed Grade feel it’s an honor just to compete, or, if like McKayla Maroney, they are not impressed with the category’s blue ribbon winner.

What about us in the city?  Can we podium with the spoils of our summer labor on our balconies, tiny front yards and sidewalk tree boxes?  County fairs have strict rules that competition entrants be raised or grown within the county, likewise for state fairs.

Our own DC State Fair answers that call to celebrate – and compete – in agriculture and craft of the urbanite.

If 80 percent of success is showing up, then the 2012 DC State Fair’s broad spectrum of twenty+ contests has a little something for everyone – pick one and show up.

From homebrewing to photography, kid’s art & poetry to beekeeper honey, pie baking to cupcake-ing, knit & crochet & sewing contests to bike accessory making, home pickling & fermenting to vegetable growing – pick your favorite hobby (or learn a new one!) and see how easy it is to register to compete.

Some contests have limited registration capacity, others will accept entries the day of, but plan ahead and envision what you’ll do with that blue ribbon.  (Can you say Instagram gold?)

If your main hobby is socializing, join the fun and cheer on the ag-athletes!  The 2012 DC State Fair will be held Saturday, September 22nd, as part of the Barracks Row Fall Festival along 8th Street SE on Capitol Hill.

Do you live nowhere near DC but want to get in on the grow-your-own and make-it-yourself competitive spirit?  Find your state agricultural fair here or simply Google your county fair for dates and location.

Get the kids involved, or cultivate your own blue ribbon wishes, the fair is for everyone.

Blue ribbons for days at the Montgomery County Fair

Travels – Tennessee Stole My Heart

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No phone picture taken from the backseat while heading to go boating on Norris Lake north of Knoxville can really convey the beauty.

However, winding through those woods and hills, seeing old barns with fresh hay stacked for the cows grazing along the road, following fences around the bend, driving through the dense shadows and into warm golden sunshine – conveyed to me the quietly incredible Tennessee that breaks the bustle of the East Coast and uplifts the sturdy endurance of the Midwest.

Oh, Knoxville, you might be my new favorite thing.

Travels – In Athens Thinking About Sassafras

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Our trip has become a gardener meet-up and I love it. Yesterday Mia and I had a whirlwind and excellent coffee break in Atlanta, today Toni Senory hosted us at The 5&10 in Athens, GA.

Considering Toni’s twitter name, I realized I wouldn’t recognize a sassafras tree if it walked up and bought me a drink. Turns out, they grow all over the US east of the Mississippi and have quite the story to tell.

To bad we aren’t passing through Owensboro, KY.

Travels – Southern Beauties and Atlanta Natives, Magnolias

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I snuck out.

An Atlanta family friend hosted a fanciful southern brunch this morning in Buckhead. Neal turns 50 Sunday and it’s a weekend of eating and catching up in his hometown.

While folks talked about how long it’s been, I stole out the French doors to the garden. The garden.

I could have photographed it for days.

After our meal and swim in the pool, we were leaving through a side garden when a leggy and perfect tree caught my fancy. Tall and thin, long broad leaves pitched perfect little canopies to shade the ferns from the remaining filtered sunlight. The tree reached effortlessly up between the grand house and the stone wall holding back the hill.

I asked our hostess what it was as we said our goodbyes. “Oh, it’s a magnolia.” “Really?” “Yes. Actually, it’s native to Atlanta. They call it an umbrella magnolia. Or maybe a cucumber tree. Anyway, the flowers only last a day but I love ‘em”

Growing up in Florida, magnolias are dear but I had forgotten just how regional they can be. I didn’t ask her if she planted it or had let it grow. Atlanta has quite a few native magnolia species, the umbrella magnolia being one.

Though, after looking at photos for way too long, it may have been a cucumber magnolia.

Regardless, it was the perfect tree to pass under after a lovely brunch with cold sweet tea and southern hospitality.

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Travels – Going Wild for Wildflowers As We Drive through NC

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It’s late June and the thick beds of tall flowers blooming along I-85 jump up and hold my caffeinated attention as North Carolina says, “Welcome back.”

They must be wildflowers.

Indeed, for 26 years, North Carolina has been planting beds of wildflowers along highways so motorists can enjoy the show.

What a treat – show times listed here.

Travels – Touring the South

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We are on our way to Atlanta for a long weekend with family for the husband’s birthday. We’ll take about a week to return to DC via Athens (GA), Chattanooga (TN), Knoxville (TN), Asheville (SC) and Richmond (VA).

Posts here will be sporadic but you can follow @TheSoilToil on twitter, Facebook and tumblr.

Do you have any favorite garden spots to share along our route?

Herbs – Sweet Woodruff Sachet Shortcut

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Sweet woodruff caught my eye as May Wine recipes flew around my April twitter feed.  I wanted to grow it then realized it already graced our garden.

Sweet woodruff’s culinary and medicinal uses make me almost as excited as its household use as a linen sachet and pest deterrent.

As easy as sewing sachet pillows may be, the likelihood of me dragging out the sewing machine anytime soon ranks up there with me waxing the car and organizing my storage unit.

The shortcut: spice bags.  I’ve cheated before by stuffing dried herbs into old socks and stockings and placing them unceremoniously into my dresser drawers and closet shelves.  But muslin or cotton spice-bag-sachet-pillows are almost cute enough to give as gifts, especially if you package them in a handsome box with nice tissue paper and fine ribbon.

See the photo above for the easiest how-to ever.

A Few Notes:

1.  Dry herbs before using for a sachet.  Sweet woodruff dries very quickly – I cut it, leave it in a bowl covered with a cloth napkin or tea towel for a few days and it’s ready.  Other herbs can be tied with dental floss and hung to dry on a hanger for a few weeks or placed in a food dehydrator.

2.  Tie the closure tight so little crunchy bits of herbs stay within the bag as it bounces around in use.

3.  Tie something you can undo, like a bow, so you can empty and refresh the herbs when needed.

4.  Wondering where to buy reusable cotton or muslin spice bags?  I’ve seen them at the grocery store and city hardware stores (in the kitchen utensil section), fancy kitchen supply stores and for cheap online.  Just search “reusable spice bags” to find a supplier.

5.  Sachet “recipes” are endless if you’d like to go beyond a single herb.  Here are a few to get you started.

6.  This can easily be turned into a crafty project to do with kids, whether you make them for your own home or to give as gifts.

Having spice bags on hand saves time in the kitchen and, as it happens, in the sachet-making department.

DIY – Pin It to Win It Clothespin Bag from Onion Sack and Coat Hanger

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Now your clothesline needs a clothespin bag.

Search Amazon or Etsy to do it up right with an attractive vintage-looking one like my mom had, or make one yourself for free in a few minutes.

Materials Needed:

1.  Plastic mesh vegetable sack used for onions or potatoes

2.  Wire coat hanger (I took the trouser wire off a broken fancy wooden suit hanger)

3.  Wire cutters and/or wire snips

See the photoset above for the basic idea and cruise internet pictures of clothespin bags if  you’ve never seen a clothespin bag.

A Few Notes:

1.  Before assembling, test that the mesh of your bag isn’t so big that clothespins fall through.  If you are going to the grocery store to buy produce for the bag, take a clothespin with you to check.

2.  You don’t have to weave every hole of the mesh through the coat hanger, you can skip a few holes between weave points.

3.  If you have a really deep mesh bag but don’t want a really deep clothespin bag, customize your depth by cutting some off the top before weaving it onto the coat hanger.

4.  A nice perk to the plastic mesh bag – it doesn’t hold water at all and it dries super fast after a rain.  If your clothespins live outside in the bag, they’ll dry quickly, too.

5.  I’ve used mine for about a week and love it.  The only small drawback is the clothespins can get a little caught in the mesh as I take them out.  Given my bag took very little tools/time/skill/materials to assemble, and it looks cute, I’m OK with it taking an an occasional extra half-second to grab them from the bag.

Whether you’re hanging laundry outside to show off your cute linens or to save the planet, you’re in it to win it with a totally reclaimed clothespin bag.

DIY – Take-it-Down-to-Party Clothesline

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Airing out your laundry isn’t just for TMZ.  Drying in the sun brings benefits other than saving electricity.  There’s a knack to it, but like all things done for millenia but abandoned for progress, the internet can tell you how to do it.

Staking out a sunny spot to dry your wash can be easy if you happen to have existing structures to support your clothesline.  For city dwellers, especially in the Mid Atlantic and Northeast where back yards are narrow and often bordered by high wooden fences, take a look around for a pair of potential clothesline anchors.  Consider between the corner of a tall deck and the fence, between a pair of opposing windows with sturdy iron security bars or between a pair of tall iron staircases such as we have.

Wet clothes are heavy, so your clothesline supports need to be secure.  Don’t bother tying it to that rickety wooden fence post that sways when you lean on it.  If you live in a condo or a neighborhood with an association, check the bylaws before you buy your clothespins, clotheslines can be considered shabby and may not be allowed.

For the industrious, a few ideas for building a traditional clothesline from scratch are here, here, and here.

See the photoset above for a simple take-it-down-at-will clothesline for a busy apartment building back yard.

A Few Notes:

1.  Our single line hangs a set of sheets or about a half-load of laundry (from our less-than-full-sized washer), which is fine.  I’m not doing this to unplug the dryer for good, I don’t want to inflict our underpants on our apartment building.

2.  I used a turnbuckle I picked up for cheap to make the clothesline easily detachable.  In theory, I can take up the line slack with it but it’s tiny and have much of an impact.  Any kind of sturdy carabiner or clip will work.

3.  To secure the clothesline to the staircase, I wrapped the line multiple times then tied a square knot.  I used two half hitches to knot the line to the turnbuckle.

4.  Give your laundry a shake as you take it down to knock off any hitchhiking bugs.

5.  You do need clothes pins.  It may drape heavily as you hang it but laundry lightens as it dries – a slight breeze will send your favorite tee off to the dirty corner of the yard (or alley).  Thankfully, hardware stores, drug stores, dollar stores and Target sell clothes pins.

6.  A laundry basket rules, but if you’re short on space, a clean reusable shopping bag or two works well.  It gets damp from the wet laundry but you can clothespin it to the line inside-out and upside down (pinning the bottom to the line so it doesn’t catch wind like a sail and blow away).  It’ll be dry before your laundry is.  (For large capacity, there’s always the mega-useful Ikea bag.)

String one up and soon you’ll be singing to your clothes out on the party line.

Gorilla Glue Giveaway – New Plant Markers from Old Items with Gorilla Epoxy

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This post is #5 in a 5-part series. Thanks to the great folks at Gorilla Glue, The Soil Toil has 5 Gorilla Glue Prize Packs to give away!  What’s included in the Prize Pack and how to enter to win is all detailed here.

To enter to win, simply leave a comment on this post.  A winner was randomly selected on June 17th at 8 am.  However, you can still share what project you have in need of Gorilla Epoxy or testify to Gorilla Tough awesomeness by telling of projects completed with Gorilla Glue products.  The winner from today’s post will be  randomly selected Sunday June 17th, 2012, and announced at 8:00 am EST has already been chosen.

If you blog, tweet, pin, tumblr, Facebook, G+ or StumbleUpon, feel free to leave your site or social media handle in your comment and share the Gorilla Glue contest throughout your networks.

This Gorilla Epoxy project came about when I realized that, really, I do need plant markers.

Whether or not I need them, our apartment building neighbors with whom we share our back yard garden need them if I’m serious about “you can cut what you need” from the culinary herbs.

Ah, but from what to make them?  I was chatting this over with our friend and neighbor, Mark Silva, who showed up later that afternoon with a few old architectural samples and the most delightful thin wood squares.  They recently installed an attic door and he had cut original pine from the c. 1900 ceiling.  It still smelled like pine.

Click the pictures above to view the plant marker construction.

A Few Notes:

1.  Check for fit by fitting the pieces to be glued together before applying any glue.

2.  Once you mix Gorilla Epoxy, you have 5 minutes to use the amount you mixed.  Have everything staged and ready to go before squeezing it out of the tube.

3.  If you use heavier items for markers, such as little tiles, bend a length of coat hanger (or other stiff wire) in half to make a two-pronged stake instead of the single-pronged stakes I made.  Glue the bend to the tile.  The little single-pronged stakes may swivel with the weight of a top-heavy marker.

4. Read the full package instructions before using.

I need to seal these markers and I left a few totally blank until I finish a final flower bed.  They turned out exactly how I hoped – easy to read, easy to relocate, easy to adjust height and compact.  Now other folks can spot the summer savory and not think it’s tarragon

To learn more about Gorilla Glue and their other products, visit their Facebook page. You’ll also find incredible user-completed projects, safety tips and a handy Gorilla Glue Guide for navigating your own projects.

Leave a comment below for your chance to win a Gorilla Glue Prize Pack! to share your Gorilla Glue stories, but a winner has been chosen for this post.  Thanks!