Garden Update

We planted our garden, or at least some of it, on Monday. With the weather not cooperating last week we are hoping that we don't get another late frost, however our plants were in desperate need of planting. As has been my experience over the years, the nutritional value of bagged soil is vastly overrated. The plants do well for a while, but before long the nutrients are depleted and the plants began to suffer. 

We have tried to keep our garden as organic as possible. We used organic labeled potting soil as a starter, and filled our planter beds with composted horse manure from a local horse farm. We discovered this farm last year through an avid gardener we know, and loved the results. As we put in a new raised bed this year we were greatful to have a friend willing to transport it for us. We also decided, as a form of weed control, that we would use plastic ground cover to make our gardening easier this year. We were able to fill our 2 raised beds with tomatoes, peppers, and kale before we ran out of space. Over the next few days we will be preparing our other garden beds for planting the rest. 

It was nice to see some of the plants perking up right after they were planted, some of the others, that were suffering most from lack of nutrients in the soil, will take a little longer. We hope we won't lose any. I hope you're enjoying learning with us as we garden this year. We are looking forward to watching the progress, and keeping you updated. 

Ramps

We were able to try something new today. It is something we had never heard of before, which is found wild and in abundance in the spring in Ohio. It's called a ramp. This herb is similar to a leek, and is sometimes called wild garlic. It smells like an onion, and has a flavor all its own. It is quite strong, and if you like garlic is quite delicious. 

    Henry learned of its existence through a friend. Shortly after learning about it he went to check on our beehives which are kept at another friend's property (our neighbors in the suburbs aren't particularly welcoming to beehives), and he discovered that the plant was covering a substantial amount of their forest floor. After gaining permission to pick the ramps we decided to go out as a family and do just that. 

Here is our cute little 2 year old helping daddy with the harvest. 

After bringing the ramps home we cleaned them up, and each tried one raw. The whole plant is edible including the leaves, once the base is trimmed. It looks a lot like a scallion. 

They have a very strong flavor, the white end is more mild than the leaves which have a nice spicy kick to them. After trying them raw we decided to sauté the rest in some butter. 

They turned out great. The flavor was a little more mild after cooking, and with a touch of salt they were delicious. The leaves took on an almost spinach flavor, the spice and garlic were well combined with a hint of leek. We use a lot of onion and garlic in our cooking, so this herb had us thinking of many different ways we could use it. 

It was fun to learn about the local plants in our area. We are contemplating trying to grow ramps in the future, if we can figure out how. For now we will have to be limited to finding them in the spring when they are in season. 

Oyster Mushrooms

We have been doing a lot of gardening type projects over the last few months, one of them was a mushroom farm we purchased at Home Depot. This was an easy project that was relatively inexpensive. The same kit is available on Amazon. Here is a link:  http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B00TUYGRU4/ref=mp_s_a_1_fkmr0_2_a_it?qid=1460222360&sr=8-2-fkmr0&keywords=mini+oyster+mushroom+growing+kit

Over the course of a couple of weeks we watched and waited, and for the first while we saw nothing. It said it would take ten days to grow, but after two weeks of nothing, we decided that we would probably need to soak it in cold water again.  However, the next morning the start of a mushroom showed up. 

    After some research we learned that when soaking the kit it is important to use cold water, as the shock of the temperature change is what spurs the growth.  We don't think our water had been cold enough.

     Here is a daily progression of the mushrooms as they grew. 

The first sign of growth after the two weeks of waiting.

The mushrooms double in size daily. This is the evening after the mushrooms first appeared. 

This is day 2 in the morning.

Day 3.

Day 4.

Day 5.

On day 6 they were ready to harvest. 

On day 7 we discovered that we had let them go a day too long.  As the caps start to fold upward the flavor is supposed to decrease, so it's best not to let them get this big. We figured this out just a little too late. The mushrooms still are edible however.

We ended up using this first batch in our homemade spaghetti sauce.  We are keeping the mini farm moist though, and are looking forward to our next batch.

Indoor Greenhouse Update

We wanted to give an update on how well our plants are growing since setting up our grow light. In order to support the weight of the light we decided to rebuild our frame, this time with metal piping inserted into the pvc. This structure is much more stable, and still quite cost effective. Here are a few images of the different frames. 

This is the original. 

And this is the new version with the light installed. 

The plants were doing well, but we were still somewhat concerned that that they weren't hardening up very well. Within 24 hours of the grow light being installed the change became quite pronounced. We opted to leave the plastic off to avoid it melting, or condensation on the light fixture. 

Here are some images over the last 10 days that show the progression. 

We have had to raise the light a few times to accommodate the growth, especially of the corn stalks. We are very excited to get these plants in the ground, once the weather will accommodate them, unfortunately this week has been too cold. We even have had a skiff of snow this morning. Once we have our garden in outside we will be starting our micro-greens inside. We'll post about the garden again once we get it into the ground.