New England ~ January 2014

Happy New Year. As I write this post the sun is shining bright, the air is clear and calm and cold, 18F. We are expecting a cold snow storm tonight and tomorrow with at least 8" accumulation. Brrr..... The nice thing is that it is evident that the light is lasting longer each day.

My last frost date is in approximately 134 days.  Early sowing will start around the end of February with onions and leeks. A majority of indoor sowing will happen in March and April which gives me plenty of time for planning. Last year I did manage to enter many sowing dates into myfolia.com account so I am happy to look there and see how my timing was and most of it worked well. I am going to sow seeds a little bit later than I did last year, mostly because I don't have a place to hold many seedlings whilst waiting for good transplanting conditions. I was reminded last season that many plants really do not benefit from really early planting. For example my tomato plants that were sown indoors did well but the volunteer tomatoes in the garden were all caught up by July.


Margaret Roach is one of my favorite garden bloggers and has a regular post of monthly garden chores for our northeast USA region. This month she offers a list of new seed providers, a time for reflection of the gardens last year and if her 2013 resolutions were effective for her.

Last year I became a bit slack in my record keeping and I am missing portions of my gardens in my photo album.  I am still contemplating my garden resolutions for 2014, but I am going to make more of an effort to keep better records, written and photos.

Garden Chores January 2014

Happy New Year, New England!   Looks like the Cape gets to join in the snow storm fun this time around, to the tune of a possible 14" - 18" on the lower Cape (that's me   ).

Camp, seems to me you were a little busy last year taking care of your neighbors farm and fighting bears, among other things.  It's no wonder you have a few gaps in your records.   

Well, todays the day - tomato & lettuce sandwich time   :
This is the last of the 3 Romas that grew inside the window.  Once harvested the plant will be cut back to the MM to see what happens next.  

But for now it's absolutely beautiful out so I'll be putting everything in sight onto the compost pile shortly, then I'll check out Margaret's garden chore list. 

Catch ya'll later.   
CC

So I harvested everything in the bay window today, washed it all up and this is what I have:

Tuscan kale -

Bucket o' Romaine -

Bunch of parsley -
I think it would make a great bridal bouquet.


This will be it until spring unless I decide to grow something between now and seed starting time.  But the bug situation was so bad that it pretty much turned me off.  After washing off the leafies, I got to the parsley and it was just too much.  I finally gave up and went online to find out if it's oK to eat aphids.  Apparently they are only veggie juice sacs of extra protein with legs.  ugh. 
 
But I found an interesting site that says "The FDA legally allows 2,500 aphids for every 10 grams of hops."  
  
http://health.yahoo.net/experts/eatthis/grossest-bugs-you-dont-know-youre-eating
 
Well, I mean, if the FDA says it's OK, who am I to argue...  

I also have a question.  If I dump the MM that had aphid covered plants growing in it into the compost, will the aphids eventually die off, or will they infect my future crops that will grow in that compost?

CC

I would dump it into the compost. There will always be a chance of aphids regardeless if you put the MM in the compost pile or not... Nice Kale!

Cape Codess,
 Make a solution of strong brine say 5 ounces of salt to two pints of water first pint boiling water second pint cold water so it is hand hot only .
Soak the parsley in it for 20 min then rinse it well under running water to remove all the dead aphids .
give it a gentl shape or use a salad spinner ,  have a good check to see it has worked , if not re brine it again .

After the second brine again wash well , shake and hang it to dry in a warm dark place like an airing cupboard so it dehydrates but stays fairly dark in colour  . By about day 10 you can crumble the leaf off the stems and store in in a sealed jar using it as & when you need it for cooking or pizza type sprinkle on toppings .
It's good for making white parsley sauces as well .

The brine sounds interesting.

The gov't standards reminds us that insects are everywhere. It would be darn near impossible to process foods, such as ketchup, without a few insect critters!

I'm with Plantoid. To clean critters of leafy veggies, I fill the sink 1/2 full of water with a palm full of salt added then let the leaves soak in there for about 1/2 hour. It's amazing how many sneaky critters sink to the bottom.

sanderson wrote:...It would be darn near impossible to process foods, such as ketchup, without a few insect critters!

Every October I go to an 'apple squeezing party' where we make over a 100 gallons of apple cider in an afternoon.  There's no prepping of the apples, just pull off the stem and throw them into the grinder, worms and all!

I add a cup of vinegar to my sink water to clean greens instead of salt.

boffer wrote:

sanderson wrote:...It would be darn near impossible to process foods, such as ketchup, without a few insect critters!

Every October I go to an 'apple squeezing party' where we make over a 100 gallons of apple cider in an afternoon.  There's no prepping of the apples, just pull off the stem and throw them into the grinder, worms and all!

I add a cup of vinegar to my sink water to clean greens instead of salt.

All righty then...I also use vinegar to clean veggies.  Soooo...we're actually using worm juice to clean off critters.   
 
How proteinee.

The parsley sat in vinegar & ice water for hours, then rinsed well.  I think the aphids are all dead now but some are still stuck way down in the crotch between each set of leaves.  I don't care to inspect and remove all 1000+ of them so that's that.  
  
A bunch went into my afternoon smoothie and another bunch into my supper soup tonight.  I didn't bother add the usual protein to either.
  

CC

CapeCoddess wrote:...A bunch went into my afternoon smoothie and another bunch into my supper soup tonight.  I didn't bother add the usual protein to either.
  

CC

   

Just pretend that little dark speck is a piece of dirt. That's what I do!   

boffer wrote:

CapeCoddess wrote:...A bunch went into my afternoon smoothie and another bunch into my supper soup tonight.  I didn't bother add the usual protein to either.
  

CC

   

Just pretend that little dark speck is a piece of dirt.  That's what I do!   

YUM! Fresh smoothies in January!

Hey CC, don't forget to spray your snow shovel with Pledge! Looks like you're going to give it a workout!  

PEPPER, Boffer, it's PEPPER! Dirt???   Good lord.

Camp, your map is gruesome.  Yeah...it's supposed to be the heavy wet stuff for the Cape, too.  My next door neighbor is a plow guy this year and has agreed to do my driveway for $10 a pop whenever it's over 6".  BUT he also has to do the Shaws parking lots.  I'm guessing he'll be spending most of his time over there during the next 48 hrs.  Sooooo I'll spray.  Thanks for the tip, Camp.  I didn't know about that.
  
At least I'm not worried about power outage with this one...winds only in the 40's supposedly.

    Look at this guy...he's eggin' me on.  Go ahead he says...put me on your salad.

oiy,
CC

LOL.  

I'm becoming a bit concerned about this storm.  When I came home for lunch I noticed the digital clocks blinking.  So there was a power surge if not a short outage already.   Plus I just heard that the winds here are now expected to reach 50mph sustained during the night.  40's do-able, 50's not so much.    

Soooo...after checking my wood supply, I'm kicking up the heat, putting much needed items at the front of the fridge & plastic bottles of water into the freezer, getting candles & lighters ready, climbing into my thermals and hoping for the best.

My wonderful boss said to call him if I need him to pick me up for work tomorrow.  
  

I see a lot of you have already been dumped on.  How's it going?

CC

Hang in there! Don't forget to fill up the tub with water.

I went out when the snow started earlier today.  The sampling before the tempest tomorrow.
Happy to say my dwarf fruits trees along the driveway are doing just fine and the deer haven't found them to eat yet.

The veggie and flower gardens are buried for the winter.

QB! Your weather stickie says -6 right now and -17 tomorrow night.   Is that normal for winter in your area?

CC

CC...Definitely not.  The low temps are crazy.  We rarely even have snow this early in the season, except for a couple of light dustings.  This year is a mess.  Our below zero temps are usually reserved for late Jan or Feb but not for as long as this year so far.
Happily they say this double storm from the midwest will be meeting and clashing over the Atlantic so we won't get the brunt of it, only about 12 inches tomorrow. Tonite's smaller storm has brought about 4 inches already.  I hope they are right.

Tonights smaller storm? Here on the Cape there are things banging into my walls outside and the power flickers occasionally. This is getting nasty. But the governor just made a horrible mistake announcing on TV that the Cape and Islands were to get 24 inches.
    
I'm sure it was a mistake because Joe Joyce & Nellie on ch 8 say it's only about a foot for us.

So sorry for your long winter. Those temps are just brutal!  
Kick your heat up a smidge and stay warm.

CC

It must be pretty bad out there for the local schools to be all closed today (we use them as a gauge; if they're closed, we close).  So far, it's only been about 6" which for us is nothing.  I hear other areas South of us have gotten hit far worse.  It is VERY cold, though, and expected to get worse tonight with a forecast of -30 to -40 per the news this AM.  I don't know if that's with windchill or actual temps.  

BRR!!!

Stay warm & safe, everyone.

I don't understand that kind of minus weather, Ilma. 

This mornings weather forecast during New Year nor'easter "Hercules"... we already have over a foot of snow:

Six inches more expected before it's all over & it's blowing like crazy. No work today as everyone is snowed in.  No plows here yet. Tonight will be the coldest I've ever lived through.  So grateful to have power.

CC

CC, where did you grow up?

camprn wrote:CC, where did you grow up?

Miami, then Ft Lauderdale.  It snowed once down there...turned everything brown.  I've lived on the Cape off and on for over 35 yrs but we don't get minus temps here.  Before about a decade ago we hardly got any snow...and certainly none before Christmas.

Formidable chart, Camp.
CC

QB, I love your snowy photo. Looks so quiet and still. And cold.

CapeCoddess wrote:
Miami, then Ft Lauderdale.  It snowed once down there...turned everything brown.

CC

OMG, me, too!!!  And I remember that day!  It was in the early 70s and I was in 2nd or 3rd grade and I remember thinking to myself, "Where's the snow?  Isn't it supposed to turn white?" because all of it melted almost as soon as it hit the ground.  Some time later one of my classmates brought in a picture of himself playing in the snow but I remember even back then thinking that he was lying that it was "our" snow(storm) because there was too much of it accumulated on the ground.  I thought he'd taken it during a family trip somewhere cold, but he was bragging about how much snow *they'd* gotten which made the rest of us feel ripped off.

I never thought I'd end up in Northern New Hampshire.   I moved up here almost 13 years ago now.  Prior to that, I lived in the Davie area in Broward and before that, various & sundry places ranging from North Miami, South Miami and Miami Beach (before it became SoBe).