Garlic, onions, kale and pumpkins

With the sun blazing and the temperatures marginally above freezing, we ventured into the garden after school to put in some more seeds. In the second cold frame on the south side, we put some kale in to get some early greens (and had our first gardening spat of the season!). It is room temperature or more inside the cold frames and the soil is nice and warm so hopefully we'll get some germination. I went with red kale as it is supposed to do better in the heat of summer.

In the older garden bed at the back, the fence and stone planter always clear the snow in this section of the garden first so we put in two more heads worth of garlic and about sixty onions. Some pretty exciting planting as the two of us crouched on one unstable board in the midst of the mud! We have about 40 onions left to put in somewhere else.

Back in the house, we also planted eight of the Italian pumpkin seeds (green and white fruit) my buddy Mike gave me in pots on the window sill. I think his instructions were plant indoors a month before setting them into the garden (which is basically the instructions for every seed, isn't it?). I usually have most stuff in around mother's day and we're aiming for about May 10th on these.

As the snow melts down in the front, I am eyeing up the pick work I'll need to do on the section of (now) lawn the pumpkins will occupy. I'm thinking of using a variation on the lasagna method of converting lawn: lift sod, dig dirt down, drop sod in upside down with covering of cardboard and newspaper, dump dirt back down on top with some compost and plant surface crops this year.

Daylilies, bulbs and rhubarb

The snow was not as bad as expected this weekend so with dinner cooking, I went out this afternoon to  poke about. On the south side of the house there was quite a bit of stuff poking through, including these daylilies. 

As I stuck sticks in various spots and considered what herbs to plant, I also noticed some of the tulips were through the leaf litter.

Around back, a large section of the old garden bed is snow-free and soft so I think we'll put the rest of the garlic and some of the onions in tomorrow after school. As I jabbed sticks in here and there, I noticed one of the red rhubarb plants had pushed up a shoot.

And some of my friend Alan's tulip tarda (tardia?) were also starting to leaf out. These guys have been thrown about with digging and soil moving and just keep coming back (in new places). I also paced out where to put the bean frames and tagged some branches to cut as soon as the footing firms up a bit.

This week's pie is strawberry rhubarb. We're more than half was through the freezer and Jenn is cooking up a chicken from Serban Free-Range farm tonight.

Planting garlic

Today was a lovely day and the snow continued to retreat around the south side of the house (alas, another 10-20cm is predicted for tomorrow!). With the garden about  a month behind usual, we decided we couldn't wait any longer to get the garlic in the ground.

We picked some up yesterday at Apache seeds (along with some yellow onion starters) and, after school, Jess plunked two heads worth into one of the cold frames. The quality of the stuff we got last year was exceptional (lasted until just this week and super juicy) so I plan to put two more heads worth elsewhere in the garden in a week or so. The soil in the cold frames was room temperature and a delight to dig around in.

While Jess was spacing rows, I looked over the site of the herb garden. It needs a lot of work before dropping some plants in (you can see the remains of the raised bed I took out in the autumn). But it was nice to see some soil and the green tips of the irises poking out.

Jess snapped this pic while I was doing some inspecting. I've included it only to highlight how old I look this week! In my defence, it has been a trying month at work with layoffs and collective bargaining starting. Nice to get back out in the garden. Next up is some kale in the other cold frame and perhaps some rooting around out back to ready the garage beds for beets.

Quilting, bread and pie

Another four inches of snow and some chilly temperatures have put the binders on spring so we spent the weekend indoors. Jess had always wanted to sew and I had been meaning to pick up quilting so we decided to start. Jess will take some proper lessons this summer but (as I recall) the basics aren't that hard.

After several hours of cutting and ironing and stitching and a bit of swearing (quilting was the only time my mother ever found Jesus...), we managed to put together two and a half squares. We learned a lot along the way and seem to be getting better as we blunder forward.

I also baked bread to go with a tomato and bean soup that is simmering. While making soup, I discovered we're onto our last head of home-grown garlic. This garlic has been amazing and is juicing still, more than 8 months after it came out of the ground.

For whatever reason, I think I finally have the bread making licked (getting great rises) so onto buns. I also made an apple and cherry pie from the freezer stocks--we're more than halfway to the bottom, which is encouraging.

If I get some time this week, I'll walk over to the seed store and get some onions and garlic for early planting (weather is due to warm and the cold frame are in good shape).

Signs of spring

I was out taking down and storing away Christmas lights today at lunch. There is still a lot of snow in the yard (at least 18 inches in many spots) and more is predicted in the next few days.

Despite this, there were lots of signs of spring. In the new strawberry bed (top left of photo above), the snow had melted off and the strawberry plants were starting to send out shoots (you can just see one through the leaf litter in the picture below).

And by the garage I found a lone lady bug crawling out of the leaves and into the sun. Ladybugs tend to cluster together to survive the winter so I expect a bunch hunkered down under the lilac bush.

By the cold frames, I see the eaves are running into a old water jug (Jess must have put this there on the weekend).

The cold frames are warm and the soil is workable down to about three and a half inches. I think we will plant some kale and maybe garlic in here next week.

Wine, pie and lichen

With Easter obligations wrapped up and the wine corks appearing to hold, we capped and labeled 30 bottles of wine last night.  I'd forgotten how much fun shrink caps are to put on.

They also finish the bottles nicely, as opposed to the moonshiner look we were rocking earlier with raw corks visible. These have now been tucked beneath the stairs to age a bit. Next up is cider (come fall).

In between bike rides, baked an apple pie this morning and unearthed some more cherries while rooting about the freezer (so we know what next week's pie will be).

We also took a walk. No sign of wild asparagus poking up yet but lots of interesting lichens.

If I get ambitious, I will bake some bread and cornmeal muffins this week. The melt is proceeding quickly which is great to see--some lawn is starting to show though and the cold frames are starting to heat up nicely.

Bottling the wine

After a bike ride yesterday on slightly icy roads  (90% fantastic, 10% terrifying), we spent the day outside enjoying the sun, chopping out the storm drain and sticking out hand in the cold frames to feel  how warm it was.

Then we came inside and wrapped up our first go at wine making by racking off the wine and then bottling it. No major disasters during either process, although I'm glad to have had this experience prior to fooling around with apple cider this coming autumn. 

The wine needs to sit for a few months before we drink it (a bit acidic right now--but not the worst Pinot Noir I've ever drunk) but we turned the extra bottle in the carboy into a pitcher of sangria. The rest of the weekend will be about cleaning up the winery, and maybe making a pair of bean trellises. I see Operation Fruit Rescue Edmonton is holding its first AGM on April 21.