Baby Angora's

This is Flopsy's recent litter. I am so confused about angora colours! When they were born I thought they were all chestnut. Now I am not so sure . . . 2 coppers and a chestnut? The actual colours in the bands are all the same - grey, black and reddish brown. The difference in what you see seems to be more in the amount of each of those colours. The lightest/reddest of the group looks quite different but she actually has the same exact colours as the darkest one just more red/less grey and black. The darkest one has much more grey and black and less reddish brown. Sooo . . . are they chestnut? Copper? or something else entirely! I don't really care myself as they all look wonderful made into yarn but I would like to figure it out so their pedigrees are correct . . .

The 2012 seeds are in . . . . mostly!

I look forward to fall seed collecting every year. Some seeds start trickling in earlier in the summer but it isn't until late October or early November that I can really sit down and assess the years collection. This year was good. Very good in fact. I already have almost all I need for next year plus enough for some good trading this winter. I have a list of stuff to find still but lots of time to find it.

Some of this years highlights . . .

Beans - I grew my favourites from last year, Amish Gnuttle and Flagg. They did not disappoint. Another great success was the Tiger Eye. I started it very early and it was growing great until we got a surprise frost one night after I had started leaving the cold frame open. All but one of the plants succumbed to the frost and died back to the ground. The one surviving plant showed no sign of frost damage whatsoever and it went on to produce a nice sized crop of beans - from which the majority of this years seed came from. a few of the other plants did grow back and do fine and I saved seed from them as well to keep a bit of genetic diversity but I am very excited about the seed from the frost tolerant plant. I ened up planting about 6 seeds in late summer to see if I could get a second crop. As of October 27th they are still looking good and close to producing a few pods of dry seed. We have had several light frosts and the plants all look great still. I will probably start covering them in the next week or so anyway as we will be getting some pretty hard frost soon.

I tried Trionfo Violetta again (out in the Rayleigh garden) and it was fabulous!I also tried the mystery bean from Slovakia. It turned out to be a green snap and was very good. It is a pole and will be on the list for next year for sure. The Gold of Bacau was good and I will plant some next year but probably not a huge amount. Bridgewater did good but was planted too late for a great crop. Calima was way too late and not nearly as productive as I had hoped. I will give it one more try next year and get it planted earlier! The rest of them were all good but nothing to write home about.



Tomatoes - Tomatoes were interesting this year. I lost A LOT of seedlings this spring to to a cold snap while they were hardening off. Some survived and did well (Barlow Jap and Joe's Portugese most notably.) And Siberia did well. I had a lot of mystery tomatoes and single plants of various kinds - too many to list right now. The biggest surprise was the one from the store bought tomato that I saved seed from last winter. It turned out to be a vigorous indeterminate plant with loads of nicely shaped fruit with VERY firm flesh. The taste was good, not knock your socks of great but decent enough. I was hoping for them to be great storage tomatoes and the ones I picked just before the first frost have been keeping well, the flavour is not so great with the ones that are ripening indoors though. I think I will work with it though and hopefully though selection I can get something good. The seed I saved was from the earliest and best tasting fruit.

Another couple tomato surprises this year were a teeny little determinate plant with LOADS of bite sized grape type tomatoes. It was part of an heirloom mix and I have no idea what it is called but it was great. And Kardinal which outproduced ANY other plant this year with big, great tasting paste type tomatoes. I tend to keep away from determinate plants due to space but I think I will plant several Kardinal out in Rayleigh again next year.

As far as seed collection from the tomatoes . . . I got lots of seed for next year. Some for trades but not huge amounts.

Lots of other cool stuff too - lettuces, brassicas, corn, squash, herbs, spinach and more.

Next year I should have a bunch of biennials ready to produce seed . . .

Here is my stash . . .



And some of the trade packages. I already have one BIG bag of trades set aside and ready to ship.

My new favourite pepper . . .

I grew a few different peppers this year. Not as many as I had planned but more than any year past. The Black Czechoslovakian was great again. And I got lots of Anaheim. But the one I am most thrilled with is the Alma Paprika! It didn't really impress me much as it was growing - just a plain, smallish red ball. But when I cut open the first one (to try in a salad) I was surprised at the thick wall. There was a lot of pepper for a seemingly small fruit! But the highlight was the flavour - wow! It was mild enough to eat fresh like a sweet red pepper but with just a hint of bite. I tried some in a Thai soup and it was stellar again. This one will be most welcome in next years line up!

Chicory Coffee

I finally got around to collecting and roasting some chicory root to try as a coffee substitute. I ground the roasted root and brewed some up . . . while it was "brewing" (I actually steeped the ground root in water for a while then poured it through a coffee filter.) I sat down at the computer and did a bit more research. It turns out that one of the biggest benefits of including chicory in your diet is the large amounts of inulin it contains. Inulin, a prebiotic, is a soluble fiber that helps to feed the healthy bacteria (probiotics) in your intestines! After reading list after list of health benefits that directly pertain to me, particularly the part that showed it is very good at helping to regulate blood glucose in diabetics, I was even more excited to try it!

As I sit here to write this post I am enjoying my fresh brewed cup of chicory coffee - and I do mean enjoying! It is not only palatable but actually GOOD! And I am drinking it black, something I cannot do with real coffee. I gave up sugar in my coffee almost a year ago but I still have it "double cream." This morning I had no milk/cream (oops, forgot to stop at the store after getting home from the lake last night!!) so I decided I might as well try it the healthiest way - without anything else added to it. It is really good. Just about the same amount of bitterness as real coffee but with a hint of sweetness and flavour that is uniquely chicory. I think I could easily give up the coffee (and the cream!) if I have this as an alternative. As an added bonus it reportedly helps to suppress hunger and thereby lead to weight loss . . . I guess I need to go out foraging again!

This is chicory in bloom - it can be found along pretty much any roadway! (Photo credit - http://www.freeherbpictures.com/chicory-herb-pictures.htm)



Roasted and ground up in my coffee/spice grinder



And the fresh cup of "coffee"

Garden in August

Here are a few of the things growing in my garden right now! The Flagg beans . . . These beans are so cool looking and they are tasty AND they are productive - how much more could you ask for in a bean?! I have already harvested enough for my seed next year and some trades. There are about a bazillion pods starting to dry on the plant - going to be some good bean meals this winter!



Grapes. I hate these grapes. Ok, hate might be fairly strong word but seriously - I want BIG grapes. Ones that you can actually eat. I have tried several different grapes and still, year after year, this is the only plant that grows well and produces any grapes at all. This year it is LOADED . . . with teeny, weeny, little grapes. Now these grapes make very tasty jelly and some decent juice but I can't exactly make raisins out of them! Even if i did take the effort to dry them they would be a giant seed covered with a little bit of raisiny skin - not very appetizing. But, every year I continue to nurture the plant as it is still the ONLY grape I have been able to grow. Maybe next year the one surviving plant that I planted this spring will grow well enough to give me hope! At least these little grapes are pretty all hanging in clumps from the vine!



OOOOhhhhhh! Just look at these lovely, BIG, round, perfectly formed and almost ready to ripen tomatoes. They are growing from lovely, TALL, and perfectly sturdy, disease free vines! I'd love to share the name of this variety that seems to like my garden so well but . . . I did the UNTHINKABLE and planted seeds from a tomato I bought from the grocery store last winter. So ha! I just proved that not only can the seeds from storebought fruit/veggies actually grow but sometimes they might surprise you. Avtually I knew perfectly well that they would grow but I was admittedly surprised to see them do so well. I saved these seeds because it was a freakishly good tasting tomato - something that rarely happens from food bought at the big box supermarket. I wanted to plant some with the hope that I could find a plant or two among the seedlings that showed good storage/keeping qualities (one would assume that it being from a grocery store means it had to have good storage qualities to be shipped the distances that it was!)I was so surprised to find that all 4 of the plants I grew showed surprisingly stable type - meaning the seeds were most likely OP and not hybrid, making my selection much, much easier! BIG, STRONG plants that are loaded with huge clumps of fruit. I can't wait to taste them and test the keeping quality.

Harvest season is getting into full swing!

It seems like its been a slow start to the harvest this year. Spring was cold and wet. Much of the garden, including everything out at the Rayleigh garden, was late to get planted and slow to start growing. Some things, like the watermelon and cantaloup didn't even start to germinate until July! But when i checked my records from last year it is actually right on schedule with most stuff. Tomatoes are about a week later but everything else is doing just fine. I suspect I am going to be hit with a LOT to get preserved in the next few weeks! The highlight of this year so far has to be these Trionfo Violetta beans! They are growing out in the Rayleigh garden and two weeks ago I picked about a pound of beans - good I thought, if I get this amount once a week it will be lots (I have several other snap/wax beans at home as well)and I happily put most of them in the freezer. Then 1 week later I went out and picked FOUR POUNDS! Three days later another pound. And there are a LOT of beans on the plant still and even more flowers! We will be eating these beans all winter. I wish I liked them canned as i prefer not to rely on the deep freeze but these will all go into the freezer. The thought of eating mushy canned beans is pretty much nauseating. Fresh or frozen on the other hand - yum!



This is the first batch of tomatoes from the garden. We have been eating some fresh for the past week or so but the one "Siberia" plant is ripening en masse. This isn't really enough to bother with the canner though and too much to just eat so I will probably slice them and put them in the dehydrator. Might as well get some dried tomatoes done before the peaches start ripening next week and take up the whole dehydrator for a week! One day I WILL build a big solar dehydrator so I can do more at a time.



Another harvest worth noting . . . this is the painted mountain corn. Alex spent almost an hour shucking these while I collected beans and watered. It was delightful to hear her get so excited when she "unwrapped" each cob and discovered what colour it would be. The first cob she finished was so long that she wandered around the garden for a few minutes brandishing her corn "light sabre" Lol - she may be my little gardening buddy but she definitely has her daddy in her! Towards the end I was forced to guess what colour each cob would be before she started unwrapping!

I can't wait to try this corn in muffins or maybe some polenta. It is so pretty. It is also the quickest corn to grow and produce a crop that I have ever grown. It was the last variety I got planted and still the first to produce harvestable cobs. the cobs still need to finish drying but they flowered well before the neighbours corn even started to show tassles so I should be safe to save seed from it.

More baby bunnies!

Flopsy had her first litter 2 days ago. She has been a dream to breed right from the beginning. When I put her and Mocha out to breed she had herself in position before I even let the buck go! Very eager to be bred. And then she started organizing the hay in her nest box within minutes of me putting it in her hutch. Two days before giving birth she added fur to the nest and at exactly 32 days she had her kits all in her beautiful nest. She acted like a seasoned mom the whole time!

So far it looks like a chestnut, 2 chocolate agouti's and two that at first I thought might be REW (which would had been a big surprise as there is no REW anywhere in the bucks pedigree)At 2 days they are looking ever so slightly blonde so maybe fawn or cream? Should be able to tell in a few days.