So the figs are ripening around here…I have no idea what variety they are. They came with the house. I have to head out pretty early to fight off the chipmunks.

I got roughly a gallon over the last few days. The husband loves them, me, not so much. Since no human could or should eat a gallon of figs in a few days, I decided to try fig jam.

I sort of followed the recipe from Pick Your Own. I cut way back on the sugar…ours are pretty sweet as it is. I used 5 cups chopped figs to 1 1/2 cup sugar and 1/4 cup lemon juice. I don’t use pectin (too cheap to but any!), but if you boil slowly for about an hour or so they gel pretty well. All of this made exactly 3 half pint jars. Sorry for the bad pic, but at least here you can see the speckled a bit. Fig preserves are pretty if nothing else.

We also did more tomatoes the other night. I tried making paste. A LOT of work!! 15 tomatoes ended up making 1/2 pint plus a few extra teaspoons. I think the tomatoes we have right now are too juicy, maybe I’ll try it next time with Roma tomatoes. The stuff tastes amazing, but I am not yet convinced it is worth it.

The witch Hazel in the front yard. This was a Mother’s Day girft the year after we moved in, so 2004.

We got started on the garden about 3 weeks ago. In addition to these we planted peas and beets. We are far enough south that we have about a month until the lettuce spinach and such bolt, but they make good baby-veggies salads.

The bucket on March 15th:

Here’s the bucket today:

And the peas:

The blue bucket is the girl’s old toy bucket…it took some maneuvering, but we finally sod them on the idea of “recycling” it.

We are planning on expanding the garden this year. We’d like to eventually build up to growing most of our own veg again, like we did pre-child, that golden era where the laundry was all clean at once and I never found purple smudges all over the toilet seat.

Anycase, I have been doing some reading on the old Victory Gardens from WWII. The most practical Site I have found is called “Revive the Vistory Garden for victory over Global Warming“. I love the idea, plus they give a bit more structure on how to start planning. According to their info we can start Swiss Chard March 15th…I am hooked on the stuff after eating at Edo Squid’s this fall…total digression, I know.

The Earthly Pursuits site has several of the old books uploaded, plus lots of British garden guides from the same era. A really nice collection. The graphic above is from the book Food Saving and Sharing from 1917. The tagline states “Telling How the Older Children of America May Help Save from Famine Their Comrades in Allied Lands Across the Sea.”

This cracks me up for some reason. I really cannot picture a campaign today to try to get children to help with some problem, much less eating less. Not such a bad thought…but can you imagine it?

This article fromt the Sierra Club is also pretty interesting. It has a broader scope than just the victory gardens, but also some interesting facts. Did you know that by 1943 VG’s were producing 30-40% of our nation’s vegetables?? I find that rather incredible.

So where to start? With our last frost date….whch is reported for Richmond as anywhere from April 7th to May 4th. According to the horticulture teacher at my school tax day is a safe bet.

Oh, and don’t forget:

I learned this last year at a meeting of my teaching sorority. It is the easiest way to make a homemade fresh wreath that I have ever seen. Even the kids helped a bit.

Materials:

• Artificial Evergreen Wreath (trust me, they’ll never know)

• Lots of cut evergreens.
• (Optional) Dried flowers and seed pods from the garden.

Directions-before making the wreath

• Gather the evergreen cuttings. Start collecting early. Mine is cedar, boxwood and other clippings from the yard. Honestly I have no idea what the variegated stuff is. The cedar we scored down the road. A neighbor was cutting back some shrubs and left it out for trash collection.
• Put the cuttings in a bucket of water until ready to use. Keeps then nice and fresh.

  

Directions-How to make the wreath

• Start by setting up your work area. If working inside put down newspaper.
• Put the wreath form back-side down on your work surface and push apart all the branches. Basically you will be using these branches like pipe cleaners to tie the fresh greens to the form. It is easier to do this if you untangle a bit first.
  
• Cut the fresh evergreen into bundles about 4 to 5 inches long.
  

  

• On mine form there are two rings, one inner and one outer. I started on the outer ring.
• Place the first bundle down and twist two branches around the bundle, about 2 inches from the cut end of the greens.

  

  
  

  

• As you work make sure to lay all the cuttings in one direction, overlapping by about 3 inches. Try to tuck the branches of the artificial wreath behind your cuttings. It fluffs up the wreath, and fills in any gaps, but is otherwise invisible.
• Continue adding bundles until you have gone all the way around the form.

  

• Tuck the cut ends of the last bundle under the end of the first bundle, twist into place.
• For mine I did the outer ring in cedar, then for the inner ring I alternated boxwood and the mystery shrub. I then added dried flowers from the garden-gomphrena, seed heads from garlic chives. You could also use pine cones, seed heads from crepe myrtles, berries, bows, whatever you have on hand.

  

Note: I checked with my garden savvy stepmother-the yellow speckled stuff is Aucuba.

This also works with squash and zucchini blossoms. Whatever you have on hand.

Pick the blossoms early in the morning. We put them in a glass of water to keep them fresh until it is time to cook them with dinner. They’ll close as the day goes on, but they are still fine to eat.

Ingredients:

• 8-10 pumpkin blossoms
• 1-2 cloves garlic crushed
• 1 Tablespoon Olive Oil
• Salt and pepper to taste

Directions:

• Heat the olive oil over medium heat in a skillet. Ad the garlic and saute for a few minutes, being careful not to burn.
• Add the squash and saute until the blossom wilts, about 2 minutes.
• Add salt and pepper to taste and serve.

OK, I know the anticipation of the photos of our pumpkin probably kept you up all night…so here you go. I’d hate to be responsible for any more insomnia.

The vine taking over the front walk. I’ve had to trim it back from the shrubs 3 or 4 times now.

One of four white pumpkins. The girls especially like these and have big plans for jack-o-lanterns.

Green. I don’t remember planting any green varieties…does anyone know if these will turn orange as they ripen?

I have no clue. Frankly I expected this to be a good lesson in seed planting, and really did not expect the seedlings to live. They lived alright, it grows about 8 inches a day, on days when it doesn’t rain. The husband is getting pretty grumpy as it approaches where he parks his scooter. Once bad rain and the scooter turns into a trellis.

This has brought up all sorts of useful discussions. We’ve had a lot of male and female discussions, especially since you get a t least a week of male flowers before the females are ready. I can see all this being useful when it comes time to talk “birds and bees” in a few years. Must remember to plant pumpkins.

 And the great thing is the flowers are edible.

Well, we are finally home from Florida. Lots of rain on the drive…the girls are great little travelers though. Easy to keep quiet as long as you keep the pretzel sticks handy.

We got back to a pumpkin explosion. The seeds we planted in the front yard are huge. We now have at least 6 pumpkins coming.  I’ll try to get some shots tomorrow. We did a medley of different kinds. It seems like mostly the white and green are making fruit. I was hoping for some minis, but nothing yet. It has gotten to the point the neighbors are coming by to check on it’s progress.

I did an amazing tubular bind off for the garter rib sock I started on the road. Gorgeous. And, of course, way too tight. I think I am going to pull it out and try re doing the 1×1 ribbing with a few extra stitches added in, and bind off more loosely. It is either pretty and tight, or fits and messy. Typical.

Me!

Yup. I turned 34 yesterday. Here’s my present from the husband:

He rented a backhoe last weekend and carved out our new garden path. The next step is to start on the new beds. He also widened the driveway by quite a bit. The gravel was dumped off yesterday and it looks great.

In this one you can see the arbor he did a few weeks back, and the picket fence he’s working on. Here are the girls heading out to school this morning:

The girls and I have been putting in a small veggie garden this spring. We have had so much fun planting and weeding and checking. I realized I’ve mentioned it a few times, but no photos.

Radishes

I now start every morning, rain or shine with a cup of tea and a walk out to check the peas. It’s a nice moment to myself before the girls get up. Now that we are getting sun again they are starting to set buds.

Peas

We have also planted green onions, spinach, broccoli and lettuce. I’m not sure about the onions…they look so puny right now.

I’ve been playing with how to get a bit more out of our camera. It’s a dinosaur, and stinks at indoor photos. Nevertheless it seems a total waste to just toss it for a new one. So I built this:

Honestly build is overstating, It’s just a lamp and some fabric. And with it I got:

These are the first radishes out of the garden. I really like the effect of the photos.

Things I learned:

1. I need to do this away from a window or with the curtains drawn. I got too many shadows.
2. Radishes are probably a bit too dense for this…Our bluebells are blooming, so I plan to ry some of those tomorrow.
3. I need to iron the fabric first. Wrinkles!