Book review: Edible Forest Gardens

Edible Forest Gardens
By Dave Jacke and Eric Toensmeier
In keeping with this evening’s theme of total honesty, I will confess that I only read volume II of this two volume set.  This was partially because of a mix-up at the library: I requested both volumes but I got two copies of volume II instead of one [...]

Thyme

Adam’s making stuffing for the Rensenbrink Family Thanksgiving tomorrow, so tonight he took out some thyme he’s had drying for several weeks and removed the leaves from the branches:

Here’s a major limitation of the blog: you’ll have to just imagine how amazing it smelled in our kitchen while he was doing this.
This is the first [...]

Putting the garden to bed

Yesterday, I harvested the 2nd and last row of parsnips.  These were slightly better than the first:
Some of them were even almost perfect.  They were all tasty.  This was my final harvest for 2009 so the whole family got involved with putting a leaf blanket on the soil for the winter:

Rowan and Anneke used buckets; [...]

Garden update: November edition

Who’d have thought I would have a garden update for the month of November?  Despite numerous freezes and a couple of snowfalls, we still have a couple of things going on outside.  First, some kale that I planted in July or so.  It never got above micro-size but it was enough to make a little [...]

Hennepin County Master Gardener program

I found out today that I’ve been accepted into the 2010 Hennepin County Master Gardener program!  YAY!  This is going to be a huge time commitment, but I really like how the program is structured.  I get to learn a lot about horticulture, but the education is practically free in exchange for volunteer time.  Perfect [...]

My backyard canvas

Adam cleaned out the gutters this weekend, and as long as he was risking his life up on the roof anyway I asked him to take a few pictures of the yard. I sewed them together in Photoshop to create a visual map of our yard. It’s not perfect, but still interesting. [...]

Book review: Root Cellaring

Root Cellaring
The Simple No-Processing Way to Store Fruits and Vegetables
By Mike & Nancy Bubel
Note: the subtitle of the newer editions is Natural Cold Storage of Fruits and Vegetables.  I got the 1971 hardcover edition from the library, so my version had some awesome 70s lettering on the front.  (Same art, though.)
I was on the library [...]

Parsnips

Parsnip harvest time today, and a beautiful 60 degree day it was, with sunshine.

You can’t pull parsnips out like you do with carrots; they are so big that the top would break off before you could pull the whole thing out.  Instead you must loosen the soil around the parsnip with a fork, then pull [...]

Making permaculture plans (but not for Nigel)

I have been so inspired by the book Edible Forest Gardens (by Dave Jacke & Eric Toensmeier) that I’ve been sketching and brainstorming about what we could do with our backyard, now that we’ve eliminated our problematic trees.  We’re nowhere near consensus on what we should do (or what we will be able to afford [...]

Planting garlic

The time is now for planting garlic, in the upper midwest.  You probably have just a couple more weeks, depending on the weather.  I got mine in today during the kids’ nap.  First I dug a trench about 3-4 in. deep:

Then I pulled apart the 4 bulbs of seed garlic that I had bought at [...]