Bells of the North Homestead

Yet another step made to prepare our backyard for our move from Aberdeen, Maryland to Fairbanks, Alaska.  This past weekend our goal was to dig up as many Jerusalem Sunchokes as possible and since the weather was dry and sunny we figured it was time. First a bit of history, after all, you know if you've kept up with me in the past I love reading the histories of each plant we grow. The plant commonly called a "sunchoke" is actually called a Jerusalem Artichoke. No, it is not from Jerusalem and no, it is not to be confused with a typical artichoke.  Supposedly Italian Settlers in North America named the sunchoke girasole  which is the Italian word for Sunflower.  It is believed that English settlers corrupted the name girasole artichoke to Jerusalem Artichoke.  It is indigenous to North America and was cultivated for its valuable roots.  It is a perennial (meaning it grows back on its own every year) and is actually part of the sunflower genus;  He...

Once again, we're preparing the backyard garden to be thoroughly deconstructed.  We just sold our patio table set so our back porch looks a tad bare. I'm sad to see it go but we needed to remove some weight from our household goods that will be shipped. I can say now, in hindsight, I am so glad I never put a massive amount of effort into beautifying our front yard as the military housing development here just delivered a letter to us earlier this week advising that we needed to "remove the vegetable garden" in the front yard. We actually never managed to grow too much out front. The most we've gotten to grow out there is Red Russian kale and Southern collards, both of which looked more ornamental.  Now the most we have out there is herbs so I was just a bit confused upon receiving the letter. No matter, we'll be gone soon anyways. Sweet potato vine I did manage to harvest a nice selection of items today from the garden. I have never grown sweet potat...

Well, most definitely the star of the garden this year are the SUNCHOKES. I highly recommend this plant as it  seemed that the less attention we gave it, the more it appreciated it. These are now approximately 15 feet tall and seem to just keep getting taller and taller every day.  I am really hoping we get a good amount out of these as this years Christmas presents will be herbs, jams, jellies, winter squash grown in the back yard and sunchokes. Recently my husband, Edward and I decided it was time.  Between warfare with rabbits, cabbage worms and some unknown black and yellow insect that almost looked like a ladybug on steriods, we decided to completely pull up the first raised bed near the house.   I got quite a good harvest of Red Russian Kale and Curled Scotch Kale and a few hand fulls of dill.  Then, since I was getting thoroughly into the harvesting sort of mood, I cut off the one lonely Long Island Cheese Pumpki...

Really, I feel like that is what our garden has wanted to say to us as of recently.  An Evening Visitor.   Papilio polyxenes.  Also called Black Swallowtail Butterfly. I feel as if the plants have been conspiring with each other, talking to one another, late at night,  to try to plan some surprises for us. Winter Crookneck. One of many female flowers Marina di Chioggia And last night we just walked in on them and caught them in the act. Just when we thought that the garden was slowing down, the plants were slowing down in their production.  Well that is when they have decided that it is time to get moving big time with growth and push out so many fruits and vegetables that we do not know what to do with them. Winter Squash gone wild! As of earlier this week we thought that the Black Futsu, the Marina di Chioggia, the Winter Crookneck and even some of the tomatoes were almost done.  The squashes were all looking yellowed ...

I feel like it's been forever since I've written and yet it was only earlier last week that I wrote!  So much has happened since the last time I wrote so, this is one of those moments when I take a huge sigh and try to figure out where to begin. In Alice's Adventures in Wonderland the King said to the White Rabbit "Begin at the beginning and go on till you come to the end: then stop". Good Advice. So first, our garden has stepped up production as of lately and we're eating from it non stop.  My parents recently visited and we made eggplant parmesan from eggplants out back which was thoroughly enjoyed by all.  We're easily getting medium to large sized bowlfuls of tomatoes, bell peppers, eggplants and squash every week now.  Coupled with the amount we get from our weekly CSA share at Brad's Produce , and well, it's a lot of food. The tomatoes have been turned into sauces, diced tomatoes, salsas, dried tomatoes, and fireballs....

This weekend I decided to bite the bullet and tear out our lovely, beautiful lone tomatillo plant.  If you remember right I posted earlier that I made the rookie mistake of only planting one tomatillo plant.  You know, the old saying, it takes two to tango? Well that applies here. Tomatillo plants are self infertile which means they need two plants to produce fruit.  Since I only planted one plant the tomatillo was going to do nothing else in my garden but draw bees (good thing), take up room (bad thing) and bring shade to my pepper plants (also bad thing).  So, it's gone.  In it's place I planted some Cumin seeds that I hope will come up soon.  Edward and I love cooking with Cumin so I'm keeping my fingers crossed.  This will be a new spice for me to grow. I also have one other spice that I will be trying soon but a blog will be following shortly on that to cover that one. So onto the state of the garden.  First we had a...