How Does Your Garden Grow?

We've had a run of some unseasonably mild temperatures.  We've had some rain, but as we've been on the edge of the weather systems, we've gotten a reasonable amount rather than the heavy rains just to the north of us.  We've had some sunshine.  I can't tell you how nice it is to see a blue sky, rather than a grey sky.  We've had so many grey skies this winter.

I checked the garden beds the other day.   Because we let the chooks out one day, some of the pots have been dug up from them looking for bugs.  They tend to scatter the soil about.  On the ground it isn't an issue, but in the large planters, they can make a lot of mess, and half empty pots.  I'll just have to get more triple mix and manure to make up the difference.

Last spring I bought a couple of bales of straw.   I had some that I'd used to mulch the large raised beds, but I was hoping that if I left these two out over the summer, they'd start to compost and be a nice addition to dress the raised beds in the fall.   They'd started composting nicely and I dressed the empty bed fairly heavily, with 4in - 6 in of straw.   I'd planted garlic in just under half of the other raised bed, so I only put 2 or 3 inches of straw over the garlic.  I wanted it to have an easier time of sprouting in the spring.  I've had some struggle and start off a little curled up one year when I had a bit too much heavy mulch on my garlic.   Today I checked and we have garlic already sprouting!  Of the 45 cloves I'd planted last fall, 8 are already starting to grow.   It never starts out all at once, so I'm pretty happy.   It's hard neck garlic, and mostly the Music variety.  We're supposed to have rain all week, but the temperatures will be summer like.  I'll pop out to the feed store and pick up some compost to top dress the garlic, over the straw. in hopes of getting slightly bigger bulbs.  There are enough for us to use for a while and to use some as gifts.  I've already had family members suggest that they could be the recipients of our excess!  

I planted some chives in a planter last summer.  Not even one of the large planters, but a medium-ish sized pot on the deck, so that it was easily reached to use over the summer.   It sort of languished and never really got useably large, and I forgot about it as I didn't think it would over winter in that particular pot.  It did though and is growing really, really well!  I'll have chives to use this summer for certain.

The Blue Squill is blooming in full force.   We should have two patches, but one is struggling this year.  I think it may have gotten a bit compacted by the snow, weird winter weather and its proximity to the fire pit and maple syrup production. It's hardy though and the bulbs spread quite readily.

We also have the daffodils, tulips and alliums starting.  The leaves are growing.  We won't have tulip or alliums for a while yet, but a few of the daffs are starting to bud up.   With the warm weather expected this week, they should bud up and maybe start flowering really quickly.

My son in law is generously starting some tomato seedlings for me.   He starts all sorts of interesting plants, but as we have somewhat limited our growing space these days, I'm less adventurous in what I plant.  I mainly just grow the basics that we really like to eat, and some plants to put up for use over the winter.  Sometimes it works out better than others.  One summer we at zucchini almost every other day for several months.   Another, I managed to get enough

tomatoes to can for use over the whole winter.  I haven't been able to find that particular variety - Amish Paste Tomato- since.  Too bad because it produced a lot of fruit, but it didn't all ripen at once, so canning it was super easy.  The tomatoes were really tasty too.

I'm so happy that the garden season is starting.   If I pick up some arugula, spinach and leaf lettuce seeds, hopefully we'll have  salads soon too!   Let's hope that we don't get the fruit trees flowering this early and then having more frosty weather afterwards, which damages the new buds and hurts the fruit harvests.

Maple Syrup Recipe

What to do with the extra syrup this year.  We had a couple of jars of maple syrup that didn't seal.   I tried twice, the second time by adding it to the new batch, reheating and putting in clean jars.   Everything but 2 jars sealed.  That left about 3 cups of syrup to sit in the fridge until we got around to using it.   

I've used maple syrup for butter tarts - oh so good, and for pecan pie - oh so expensive.  Also there is tarte au sucre, a very old recipe thought to have come with or invented by the  early French settlers in Quebec.  It is often made with sugar, or maple sugar, but maple syrup is also a possibility.  I've never made one before and researched a lot of recipes and history to come up with the simplest tarte au sirop d'erable that I could.  My thoughts on this were that in the late winter or early spring,  a lot of ingredients would not be available to early settlers, and flour, cream, eggs and syrup were likely available.   Hens start laying again as the days get longer.  I always notice the older girls starting to lay again in early January.   Cows can be bred to calve early too, or late so that they are giving milk all year.

My recipe turned out to be super rich but very delicious- 

You need -

Short Crust 

2 eggs (large)

3/4 cup cream.  

1 1/2 cups pure maple syrup - but you can use 1 cup syrup and 1/2 cup brown sugar to be a little more economical if you want.

Short crust is just regular pastry.  Store bought is fine if you won't want to make the pastry yourself.

Cream -  I used heavy cream (double or whipping cream) but I imagine any type of cream will do, even just evaporated milk from a tin. I've no idea if milk substitutes would work  as I haven't tried them.

Method-  

pre-heat oven to 400° F

Pour maple syrup into a bowl, add eggs, cream and sugar if using.   Beat until everything is well blended and completely incorporated.  

Pour filling into the pie crust and bake for 15 minutes at 400°F.

Turn oven down to 350° F and bake for another 25-35 minutes, until the outside edges of the filling are set and the centre just jiggles a little.

Cool completely before eating

 

Scarves and signs of spring

I put a new scarf on the loom.   I wasn't sure about this yarn and am still not quite sure I like it, but it's pretty enough I guess. The shop where I purchased it has industrial lights and the colour of things sometimes shift a bit once you get it outside.   It's a little less dramatic, and the lavender more greyish  in real life than it was in the shop.  It's working up fairly quickly.  As long as I don't get distracted it shouldn't take long to weave.  The yarn is a bit thicker than I prefer, but the trade off is a scarf that is really quick to warp up and weave off.  I think it took me 45  minutes to get the loom dressed, including winding the direct warp in front of the fire, so having to deal with an awful lot of static.

It was fairly mild outside and I was pulling some of the ever invading Virginia creeper vines from places it shouldn't be, like taking over the Weigela bush and the back deck.   I had a fairly good sized pile of it, so I grabbed some of the larger vines and twisted them into similar sized hoops.  I wired them together and then wrapped them at the joints.  I ended up using natural raffia because none of the vines were thin enough for me to use in that small an area.   I was planning on making a rather rustic melon basket.  I got the hoops tied together with the raffia, which was interesting because the raffia was in short pieces.  I sort of managed to cut some of the side stakes and get them into place.   I left the rest of the vines out to dry a bit over night, while warning my husband not to burn them or toss them into the junk wood pile, so he knew that my pile of vines was intentionally left littering the deck!

 The next day I took a bucket with a bit of warm water outside, trimmed many of the vines, curled them into manageable coils and started soaking them.  As they became more pliable, I started using them as weavers.  I learned a lot, like thinner ones work much better, and they take a bit more soaking than I'd anticipated.  Also, it takes a lot of vines.   Many more vines than my fairly large pile that I had accumulated.   It's hard work winding those vines in and out of the spokes.  

 After a while my hands were aching and I'd run out of weavers!  My huge pile of vines was down to a few scraggly bits that I'd trimmed off.  I left it out to dry a bit, but neglected to check the weather forecast.   It rained and rained, then got cold so it's still sitting outside, unfinished.  When it warms up, I'll trim a few more vines and weave that remaining bit.  Then I can trim off the scraggly bits.  It will never be beautiful, but it will be functional.

In the sheltered part of the garden, a few undersized and definitely needing to be fertilised crocuses bloomed.   Such a needed burst of colour and reminder that spring is on it's way.

It's Maple Time Again !

 With the weird weather that we've had, we had some concerns that we might not have enough maple sap to make syrup this year.   While we have a fair bit of syrup stored, it would have meant 2 years in a row without fresh syrup.  Since we gift a fair bit of it, I like to have fresh stuff for pressies.   The weather settled down however, and we suddenly had enough sap to boil.  Last week was pretty lucky for timing because hubby took holidays and had half a week to boil.  I finished the syrup inside on Sunday, but had to redo a few jars which didn't seal on Monday.    The syrup is really dark this year.  It's darker than usual I think.  Also, one of my filters kept clogging up and I used one of the new ones, which is different and it didn't do nearly as well, so some of this year's syrup may well have a lot of nitre in it.  It's just mineral buildup which drops out of the syrup.  It's harmless and apparently some people like it to eat or to put in their coffee.  We'll do our second boil this weekend and then we'll pull the spiles and end our season because we'll have enough syrup.   This first boil was quite productive with almost 5 litres, so yay for that!

I finished twisting the fringes on that pastel scarf.   I then tossed the rest of the yarn out.  I'd bundled it up and I could see why I bought it, with the pale blues shining through.  The grey dismal bits were less obvious.  It was obviously a yarn with subversive tendencies and I don't like being tricked by yarn colours, so to remove any future issues, I tossed the half skein away.   Take that ugly yarn!

I did however put a new warp on the loom.   This is using a worsted wight (#4) yarn so it took almost no time at all to put on a scarf.  It was yarn I'd used on the flat bed knitting machine to make a shawl.  I took the shawl off and not only did the yarn not work in knitting, but it shrunk up to this tiny, little shawl.   I immediately ripped it out, caked it up and set it aside for a future scarf.   I was going to use the pink and black, but last minute grabbed this because it was ready to go.  I'm happ[y I did because the serendipitous plaid is lovely.  I'm having fun weaving it and I'm just about halfway already.  Better than the months with the ugly pastel yarn.    I'll admit that I usually use much finer yarn for scarves, but this is soft, fast and pretty.  Now to figure out where I put the ball band, so I can actually figure out what yarn it is so I can get some more, in a different colour way.

Finishing up some projects.

 Grey Corriedale -  I got 1 lb of it for a present and am just finishing up plying it.   I loved it until the last bit of spinning.   It just didn't feel quite so nice to spin then because it was a bit compacted.  The bag looked like wads of sliver, but in the middle was the end part of the roving bump, still wound up.  The inside part just was too squished to be as fun as I'd have liked.  Plying is fine though and going fairly quickly.    I'm trying to decide if I want to make something out of it or use it as  the second yarn for a colour work sweater project.  Decisions, decisions.

A scarf off the loom, finally.  I put this one on the loom in the fall.   I chose this yarn because hubby was with me and he noticed that I tend to gravitate towards certain colours and thought I should maybe try something different.   So I did and I obviously chose wrong.   That black is actually a pale grey and there is also a pale blue.   I disliked every minute of weaving this scarf.   To make it worse, I put two scarves on the loom thinking it was worth the experiment of making a slightly narrower scarf and getting two of them.   I only have one scarf to show for the months of avoiding the project because I realized I'd never get anything else done if I tried for the two of them.  Instead I finished the one today - a whole 1 inch to weave  and then cut the darn thing off the loom.   I didn't heave enough weft anyway, so I know I under estimated my yardage math!  It's done and I have a pink, purple and black to put on the loom which looks like it might be fun!

Then because I was given some old acrylic lace and sock weight yarns, I oiled up the Legare 400 and cranked out a tube for making trauma teddies to donate to a local police force at a crank in event in May.   I won't make as many as last year because there was a competition component which was a bit sketchy.  The gal who won all the prizes also ran the contest.  I'm not saying that she manipulated things, but the optics were not good for this and I don't want to go out of my way to be disappointed by the way things are run just in case it happens this year too.  Plus it's a whole lot of work to finish up those little bears, cats and bunnies.   I stopped making people dollies because finding suitable flesh coloured yarns is difficult and expensive around here.  I can make animals in any colours I want!

Mother Nature, give us a break please!

 Mother Nature is having some sort of breakdown.   We've had wind.... so much wind.   We've had unseasonably warm weather which has melted all our snow.  Then it's turned cold and everything is white and icy again.   We've had it switch almost every other day, from green to white and back to green again!   It got so warm that the sap stopped running.  Then it got cold again, and the next day was mild and the sap started to run once again.  Yesterday there were wind warnings, but it was mild.  Today we had a windchill of -20 in the morning and snow squalls like it was the dead of winter.   This weather is tiring and it feels like the wind hasn't stopped since last December.

On one of those lovely days though, it was over 10C.  It was still windy but not quite as bad as it has been and it was sunny!   We've had so little sunshine that it was really nice.  I stuffed the shawls I'd knit over the winter into the washer and wet finished them.  I soaked them for a bit with a tiny bit of soap.  Then I spun them out, rinsed with a soak and spun them again.   I put one on the deck table to block it as best as I could.  The other two were hung on the line, knowing that I'd probably get little pointy bat wing type bits on the top edges.   They dried so quickly.  I did have to put a clothes peg on the tip of the beige one because the wind was blowing it oddly.  The little bit of extra weight held it nicely.  They dried quickly.  I realised that I was happy that I didn't put the lacy border on the last shawl because it would have then been way too long.

I was running errands yesterday and chanced across a yarn sale for 30% off.  I ended up with enough yarn to make a sweater.  It's recycled polyester, so not quite my favourite to work with but it's a great colour and cost only $24.  Because of the cost and the fact it's recycled yarn, it makes me happy.

Is it bad though that I'm thinking about starting another shawl instead of that sweater?  

Shawl finished in weird misty weather

 We've had quite a turn around in the weather.  All of a sudden, it's unseasonably mild. We've had lots of fog advisories issued with some areas being almost no visibility.  Last night the winds picked up. Today that wind has blown off the early morning fog quite nicely.  Instead though you can see the mist rising off the melting snow.  This is really eerie.  All the melting snow is starting to puddle because the ground is still frozen, making very wet, muddy walking.   The skies have been a heavy grey today, and we've had rain and drizzle just to make the day that much better.  

  On the plus side, the sap is running. We've got a few trees tapped this year.  Last year it was so wet and rainy, with miserable weather that we didn't even bother with making maple syrup because the fire pit where we boil, was underwater.  By the time we get to boil this year, it will hopefully be drying up.

The grey/blue shawl is done.  I opted not to do the lacy border.  It's big enough because my goal was to use up as much of these yarns as possible, I figured having the lacy bit wrapping around my legs wasn't horribly desirable.  Instead, just did a slightly larger brown bottom stripe and then crocheted a shell stitch border.  I even limited it to a single row of shells because with the dark brown yarn, all the pattern definition got all muddled.

It isn't exotic, with painted or even variegated yarn.  It's not got a lot of wow factor for being pretty, or with an amazing stitch pattern.  It's a hap shawl, which is a relatively simple, garment used for warmth.   I used up some leftover yarns so had limited colour choices, despite dyeing it.   Regardless, it's fits the purpose for which I made it.  It's big and warm and cuddly.  I've had the cat try to sit on it while I was working on it as it got bigger.  While I was finishing it, he was adamant that he should have rights to sleep on it.  The cat and I had a little argument while I was stitching in what felt like thousands of ends, because Kevin tussled with the drying yarn more than I realised, chewing it into more pieces than I'd have liked.   Dion believed he should snuggle the shawl and be petted, while I just wanted to get the darning thing finished.  It's done, and now Dion is ignoring it.. go figure.