Back yard progress: so many potatoes.

Okay, after several months of disruption, I'm back at home and going hard in the yard. Happily, much of the yard has managed to just just fine without me. As always, the rhubarb out front was among the first things up.

In the back, the garlic that we planted in the new raised beds has also almost all come up. I collected some compost from the city this week and top dressed these beds before planting the rest of them.

The bulbs are up, with the dafs being first. This little bee was tuckered out and was having a nap in one of the flowers.

I usually do some stunt gardening each year, such as melons or or weird variety of corn. Given the state o fthe world this year, I decided instead to put in 50 potato plants. They are a mix of Prince of Orange (which did amazing last year) and blue caribe (of which I had some left over seed).

Clearly the seed potatoes were good and ready to go into the ground! I also put the rest of the back yard (peas, carrots, onions, beets, some cucumbers, tomatoes, peppers, butternut squash and lots of basil. The remaining tasks are just some flowers and more tidying up.

I can now turn my attention to the front yard. It will be a mix of greens, yellow bush beans, maybe some more carrots and beets, and flowers.

Spring!

Spring has finally arrived and enough snow is gone that I can get out into the garden again. These daffodils were a pleasant surprise when I started poking around in the back yard.

The dog has been moderately interested in my puttering and providing useful supervision.

The chives are up (the first useful green, as usual) along the side of the house and I have been slowly shifting leaf litter to expose the soil in the beds I'd like to start early so they warm up a bit. We've had 20 degrees already so I hope to get spinach and peas going soon.

I built three raised beds last fall in the hottest area of the garden. Yesterday, I repurposed some old metal conduits and some monofilament netting to make a pea trellis on the western edge. When the pears are done I am hope to train some cucumbers up it. This went up fairly easily with the exception being the monofilament's tendency to catch on everything (especially my shoe treads) resulting in several Gilligan moments of entanglement.

Up next: We're off to the manure piles at the equine centre today for a bit of poop and then I hope to get some pea and spinach seeds in the ground before the weather turns. 

Paneer

We've spent the past month cleaning out the freezer and the pantry of last year's produce and are making progress. For a change of pace, I made some paneer today (under the close supervision of the dog), since the store was out.

A pretty straight-forward process. Getting back to the pantry, we're on track to use up the jam and apple sauce we canned and we're making some progress on the dried stuff. More tomato powder and paste will be on the to-do for next year. Also, more minced and dried onions.

We have pretty much everything out of the freezer except for some garlic scape pesto (more pesto in general would be appreciated). We do still have a lot of saskatoons. I need to find some rhubarb in order to make some saskatoon rhubarb pie filling. And I might get ambitious and use some of the apple pie filling we have canned for some tarts. We'll see how bored I get this week.

The paneer turned out well and is in the fridge awaiting dinner on Wednesday. I had a brief moment of insanity and started looking at greenhouses. Temu-style greenhouses are cheap but the reviews are hilariously bad. Real greenhouses are insanely expensive. Happily, sanity has prevailed and I contented myself with a wander around the seed store and purchased some green bean and pea seeds. 

Cherry Tarts!

A few years back, we bought a semi-sweet cherry tree (I think it was a Juliet) for the back yard. I harvested about a cup and a bit of pitted cherries this year and froze them in the autumn rush.

Earlier this week, I defrosted them and turned them into filling. I then made some tart dough and baked everything today.

Overall, pretty tasty. I think a better option would have been a short-bread crust, the filling, and then a crumble on top. I hope to have enough cherries next year to can some pie filling but if we have extra, I[ll give the another shot.

Last week's tomato sauce from the basis of chilli (which also used dried beans and peppers from the pantry) as well as the sauce for a pasta bake. We're making progress in the freezer and I see we have a whole lot of saskatoons to do something with soon.