The tomato seedlings are up, some of them.

I sorted corn kernels last night, Esme tried to help.  After reading more on corn genetics I decided to try to sort the blue out of my b/w/y and plant it exclusively in a different area.  I did some spring cleaning, need to do more.  Other than that - I am waiting for Wednesday.

Update : I couldn't wait for Wednesday.  I bought a German Queen heirloom tomato and a Blue Hubbard squash at work - because *hide* they weren't there last time I looked!  Yes, I know this is one of the warning signs of gardening addiction.  I confess, I am getting so addicted people have looked over my shoulder as I read about squash genetics at work and then they smile uneasily and say 'I wondered what is what you've been so intensely concentrating on.  It's that interesting, huh?  I'm very scared now.'   I told him I had learned more about different types of pumpkins and squash in that book than I had ever thought possible.  At that moment an old-time gardener across the room piped up agreeing with me and I took my book over there and we started comparing notes and things we had grown.  The other coworker gripped his iphone tightly, cowered and tried very hard to deal with what had started as a joke and turned into a reality, a full-fledged discussion of corn and squash genetics between two gardening geeks.  My Lina Sisco beans are coming up in the garden, and everything seems to be doing well.  There are several tomatoes that have grown LARGE and are getting ready to make flowers.  I am wondering if I should pinch them back and have them wait another week.

note on corn properties

After reading the corn chapter I did a few 'field tests' on the corn seed from last year.  The first test was extremely low-tech.  I found a flat rock with a depression in it and a sharp rock and hit the kernels of corn until they cracked in half.  Then I examined the inner makeup of the kernel to see how much flour and how much 'flint' it had in it.  The flour parts are powdery bright white and the 'flint' areas are clear and glassy.

The blue/white/yellow cob was interesting.  The blue and purplish kernels in it were mostly flour based and I could almost pick off the outer coating with my fingernail itself, while the yellow and white kernels in it had a hard glass-like outer coating that went much deeper and very little flour around the middle.  And these had all been part of the same single cob.

The 'butterscotch/rose pink' cob had mostly glassy kernels with very little flour.  These were the hardest to crack open. It would be called a flint corn.

The reddish/striped variety cob was right down the middle.  It was easier to open than the butterscotch and had some flint and some flour.  It would be called a dent corn.

The kernels I had grouped together as 'easy pop' were surprisingly mostly flour.  Even more interesting - even the yellow and white kernels of those cobs were mostly flour even though they were not easy to tell apart from the yellow and white kernels of the blue/white/yellow cob.

The second 'field test' I did was trying to parch some of the easy pop corn.  It did not go well.  I used too much oil and really didn't get the concept.  Plus, the pericarp (outer coating) of the corn was too hard I think.  I did not get any 'parched' corn.  They do have specific varieties that are 'best' for parching - but most of them seem sold out by this time in the season.

The third 'field test' was just trying to pop a bit of the b/w/y corn and the easy pop in the microwave popper and see what happened.  Both popped about half of the kernels in 45 seconds.  The resulting popcorn had a VERY hard hull center with soft white popcorn around the outside.  Keep in mind I don't really 'like' popcorn - it gets stuck in my teeth, which was why parched corn sounded like a good idea.  However, the b/w/y popped material had a salty 'limey' feel to the inside of it that was good.  The easy pop corn was like very dry fake popcorn and not worth the trouble.  The flinty yellow/white kernels of the b/w/y popped easier than the floury blue/purple kernels but the floury kernels tasted better.

And now the drumroll - the west field is planted with : b/w/y corn kernels  It will be interesting to see what comes of it this generation around, and what the 'sweet' cobs might taste like if I pull them a bit early to try before the rest dries in the field.  Mark makes a good point that chickens will not care about these qualities of corn - but well... it is nice to know more about it than I did before.

Corn planting stick and Esme comments

I think we are ready to plant the west field with field corn, but we are not going to till it again.  The earth there is just too hard for the moment.  It has been broken with the tractor but not tilled fine and deep.

I am going to make a corn planting stick today, which is a simple but useful tool.  A piece of plastic PVC pipe large enough for the seed type to go down, with one end cut at a 45 degree angle, and a piece of electrical tape taped around the bottom at the proper depth for planting that seed.  You will need to 'measure' it against yourself to find out how long it should be to have the bottom on the ground and the hole at the top at a comfortable height to work without bending. It keeps from having to stoop and make a hole for each seed but would not work too well in wet soil.  The sharpened end makes the hole, squidge the pipe back and forth and lift it to loosen the soil that is driven inside the pipe, drop the seed down the pipe into the hole, cover up the hole with your foot.  Continue to the next seed all the way down the field.

ACTUALITY: Like all good things - it can be improved upon.  We made an 'advanced' corn planting stick by cutting the top of f of a two liter bottle for a funnel, heating up the screw top end and putting it into a 3/4 PVC coupling, then attaching the coupling to a 3/4 inch PVC pipe.  Then we duct-taped it down well.  Using the stick was different than I had imagined it, as well.  I had to scrape the ground clear with the pointed end and make a furrow with it, as the earth was very rocky and hard and there were sticks etc in it. I did have to bend down several times to throw sticks and rocks out of the way and spent a lot of time 'chicken scratching' with my feet to even up the better soil that remained.  Once I had a clean furrow I used the stick to space the seeds evenly without bending over and covered up the furrow with my feet.

We are waiting for the temperature to get a little higher today before going out.  It is 50 now and an expected high of 70 today.  The other night was expected to be the very last frost.  Next year I will check the 'long schedule calendar' for frost dates - but I am glad to have a month headstart on everything that we have done.  Esme has had a bath for her sinuses and is playing with kittens.  They are getting big enough to pounce and wrestle each other now and usually come running to their dish when they hear a cat food can open.  They are definitely Pogo's children - when they open their mouths nothing comes out.  They are supersonic mewers.

Greenhouse seeds are not up yet - it has only been three or four days.  Our golden hubbard (sometimes called red hubbard) seeds have come, and I am trying to decide if I will put those in the little garden or out in the west field.  I need to plant a Jarrahdale or two from last years's seed, as well.  They are both maximas, as is the table queen that is already planted in the little garden.  I actually had an image of my Mayflower beans come to mind this morning when I was waking - not quite a dream, but a memory.  I have been intending to plant some of those few saved seeds from the plant that survived last year - but have not done it yet.  Reading The Resilient Gardener before bed, beans and squash wandered often through my mind in between sleep.  I enjoyed her anecdotes about her ducks, dropping pumpkins from heights to crack them (instead of risking trying to cut the terribly tough skin with a knife, and all of the different experiments and record keeping she had done while she bred her varieties.  I doubt I could ever keep that good of records of which plants produced which seeds with which qualities!

Aren't we just terribly stylish in our outside in the garden clothes?  And the Christmas decorations are still up because Esme really likes them.  Remember it was 50 degrees or so when I started, ie the sweater and dockworker knit hat was deemed necessary attire.  That is the sweater I made last year and it is extremely warm, even without a collar, and tpants made of a thick cotton material that has not torn when grabbed by thorns or on my knees weeding in the garden.  Esme hadn't put her coat and hat on yet, or that would have been quite a sight to boot.  She did grab a tray of seeds and told Daddy to take a picture of her posing with me and the corn planting stick.

Planted today:  Strawberry popcorn, 5-10 days germ. 100 days maturity, field corn blue/yellow in the west field, golden hubbard squash (6 seeds) in the west field.

Esme comments from the last few days:

I can't spell that word Mama. (for I can't remember that word).

He is pirates, the hand, he is pirates, on your yarn, pull the string on the boat like pirates.  (she was unravelling my knitting yarn hand over hand pretending she was pulling a boat in).

Mama, I offer you a gretchen. (ask you a question) In the big town, a truck with a man and it (sings).  ((long description with hand signs and large gestures showing how an ice cream man has a truck with a slide up window and he has people line up and hands them ice cream one by one and they eat it))  And now it's GONE!  Can you take me there?  Please?

We are ladies.  You are a lady, and I am a lady, too!  We make cakes and foods and then we bite them LIKE THIS and are happy! (said before she went to sleep at night days after we had made her cake for Grandma)

Mama, put on the batteries on this door please?  And then it go sing and you fix it go sing please?  But Mama, you are STRONG, you can do it, come on.  Please?

Mama, I will bring you this, your beans, and you will be happy?  (no - those are seeds, I don't need seeds right now - we put those in our garden)  But, you eat them, they are your beans!  (we want those ones to grow and make more)  Oh, haha, okay.

When we said we might go look at a donkey for sale in the paper to see if we liked it she started off on this conversation:  We like donkeys.  But, I don't like horses, I am scared of horses.  Horses, your hands, they will EAT them, LIKE THIS (pretends to bite off both of her hands and sucks them into her sleeves of her shirt).  But, donkeys, they are nice.  You can pet them, like this (pet something in midair and pretend to look at it adoringly).  We like donkeys.  //what?//  Mark and I both just rolled our eyes at that one.

No, Baths are for morningtimes it is night time all dark outside! (screamed at the top of her lungs as I had suggested she take a bath at 3 am because she was crying her sinuses were blocked and a drink had not helped).  She did calm down after another drink and eventually fell back asleep until 7 when I did talk her into a eucalyptus bath, which helped a lot. 

It is morningtime, it is blue outside (the sky), and it is hearts (a shirt she sees) and pants like go to work (my jeans).  I see them.  It is no work, you don't go to work today.  You going to stay HOME.  (yes, I am going to stay home today, yay!)  She expected a fight on that one like usual, and wasn't quite sure what to do when she was right and I was staying home HA.  

Mama, you find it please I need three. (she had three).  You have three, one two, three.  No, the three, she is there, I move it, you look I can't find it anymore!  (I looked under the cabinet and there was a fourth of what she wanted, pulled it out).  This is not the bumblebee lady, she is more, find the bumblebee lady more please?  Apparently there was a fifth to that toy set, too -- but I could not find her and she was very sad.

boxes and bricks on plants

 

boxes on plants

Mark and Esme covered Grandma's garden and ours with boxes and bricks last night.  It seems to have done well.  The plants looked 'boxed in' when I removed them - but they seemed happy otherwise.  There was frost on the car windshield at 7 am, which was proof of how low the temperature had gotten.  We were glad to have had all of these old boxes - they were set to be brought out to the recycling center for a VERY long time, but we had not yet gotten around to it.

I received a book The Resilient Gardener, yesterday.  It seems to be a wonderful resource on many of the things that interest me - and I am eager to read it further today at work.  I bought it because of the reccommendation by other field corn growers.  It has a lot of information about how to select for genetic traits in corn, beans and squash.  It also covers duck raising and potatoes - probably something to be gotten into 'later'.  We might have to look into keeping livestock even sooner than we had thought... Mark found an ad on craigslist that he is calling on today.

I did some mending last night and general putzing with small projects tying up ends.  I am feeling less tired and think the pumpkin seeds, nuts and green things I have been craving lately have been helping.  I read an article somewhere that nuts and seeds help produce the precursors (omega 6 and niacin leading to tryptophan)  to creating serotonin in the body.  I was having a very hard time getting 'rest' out of sleep and was in a grumpy sleep-deprived daze for several days there before I began craving spinach, bananas and nuts... so maybe my cravings for those things was biologically based?  Or, maybe I just put too much stock in what seems to work - and it is just a more balanced diet and a priority for sleep that is taking effect now.

bits of pumpkin info

Hair washing last night was not quite the usual trial.  Esme is getting ready for school and is very happy about it this morning.  I found a 'Sweet Dumpling' squash at the market last night and was very surprised - I had to buy it, at least for the seed!  I baked it at 350 for about an hour - maybe should have put some water on top of it halfway through.  It was very good, sweet but a little dry because of that.  The best way to cut them is to cut out the stem first, jack o' lantern style,  then saw them in half.  I did save some seed for planting. 

I truly have become a squash fanatic.  I tell Mark it is because of the seeds - the nutty taste really tunes into some natural craving I have.  I'm not sure what oil or mineral it is in the pumpkin seeds, but it is something I need in my diet.  In the garden this year there will be two or three types of zucchini, two other summer squashes, common pumpkins, Jarrahdale pumpkins, Red hubbard squash, Table Queen acorn squash, green cushaw, butternut squashes and perhaps this new Dumpling squash as well.  That is a lot of squash!  I am hoping the butternut and perhaps another one will have better resistance to the squash bugs.  Butternut Squash is a 'moschata' type, and the cushaw is a 'mixta' type.  Both of those are supposed to be more insect resistant than the maxima and pepo types.  The common pumpkin is a pepo variety in most cases, as is zucchini - which means they can interbreed if saved for seeds and produce new varieties!

Pumpkin Seeds:
To use the seeds I rinse them really well with water, boil them in a pot with some salt for 10 minutes or more, dry them off, then mix them with a very small amount of olive oil and roast them at 250 for about 10 minutes or less while stirring.  When they have become drier and white on the surface, but not burnt - they are ready for cooling and then for cracking and eating.  Find a small space at the top or bottom of the seed and crack the two outer layers of the seed apart - then pull out the 'meat' in the middle and eat it.  Some seeds will be 'sweet' while others will be nutty or oily.  Different varieties of squash and pumpkins have different seeds.  Some pumpkins are bred to have no hard outer later at all on their seeds - these varieties, like Kakai, are called stygian or naked seed pumpkins.  I have not yet grown this variety, because it is not as strong against the squash bugs which ate my plants last year!

It is a laborious task for whatever that small amount of green oily pumpkin seed oil is giving to me - but it has become well worth the work for me.  I tend to be drawn to 'tedious' things sometimes, anyway -- remember I hand bound that quilt last year and it didn't bother me one bit.  I am not bored easily by repetitive tasks I find productive - which perhaps is the mark of a good gardener and a good seamstress.

bits

I need to start on a sundress for Esme.  There are several fabrics set aside and several patterns - now I just need the ambition.  Also, my sewing table needs cleaning up in a major way. I have just been too tired to mess with it lately. To be honest, the whole house has a 'settled debris from a tornado' look.  Not quite that bad, but it is needing attention.  Maybe after the temperatures get a tiny bit warmer and I am on a better schedule. For some reason they have jacked me way early these past two weeks and I just have not adjusted to it yet.  The kittens seem to have adjusted - they are underfoot and very loud about their needs.

King of the Early bush bean

Esme had a great day yesterday.  She played outside in the water and sand a LOT, even though there was a slight chill to the air.  We all crashed about nine pm, which is not usual for this household.  The nurse practitioner said (last week) that her coughing was caused by sinus congestion from allergies.  Some days it is much more noticeable than others, and she has been drinking a lot more and sleeping a lot more.  But, I have not put her on the allergy medication they recommended.  She has never been on any medication at all.  Since they did not say this was serious - that it would pass when the pollen count goes down?  I hope that it will not last too much longer.  When she stops coughing so much it won't sit in the back of my mind worrying me (and I won't be putting chicken soup in her by instinct!)  I am off to get coffee, scan and water the garden and get ready for work.

For the record:  The squashes and dill  planted on the 1st of April are not yet up.  However, the sweet corn, lettuce and calendula are.  I am not sure how much of the basil has survived the cold weather.  I have been trying not to overwater it.