47 bottles of beer on the floor....

Last night I bottled a new batch of beer.  I started this hobby two years ago, and this is now my 6th batch.  So far I have made all ales from extract kits, this one being a German ale called Altbier.  Starting with my next batch I plan to forgo the kits, and branch out on my own.

Signs of things to come

 I saw our first strawberry flower this week.   Like the fig tree in the Gospels that didn't bear fruit, we are giving this patch one more year to prove itself, or out comes the rototiller!

Our small blueberry bushes have faced much adversity, (drought and grazing deer) so we don't expect to be bearing loads of fruit for a few years yet, but I did spy a few small flowers on the earliest of the three varieties.








We had a real frost last night, enough to freeze water in puddles, but not enough to harm hardy plants so it would seem.  The lettuce I transplanted from bedding plants didn't seem to mind a bit.

Lights, camera, action

Thanks to Mrs. Gardener the bedding plants we bought on Saturday have been transplanted from the little 4-pack size to a 4" pot.  This should be the last stop before they go into the garden, unless they just go crazy in the next 3 weeks.  The last average frost date in these parts is around May 5-10, so we will wait until then to put them out in the garden proper.  I made this little grow light set up a few years back, but haven't used it for the last few years.  On warm days we can set the plants outside and bring them in at night, and on cool days they can stay indoors out of the cold and wind (but not terribly warm in the garage I'm afraid).

Black Gold

 Saturday Ruth and Sam helped me move some finished compost to the gardens and refill the composting bins with new compost-able material.   It's fun to be able to recycle the garden waste and turn it into something that keeps the gardens fertile.  Saturday was just a perfect afternoon for garden work as it wasn't too hot and sunny for what was pretty manual labor. Later in the evening is started raining, and we got an inch of rain Saturday night and another 0.75 Sunday night.  I has also turned cold, with a threat of a frost tonight.  Happily, a warm up is coming.

Spuds

Today was a big afternoon in the garden.  Mrs. Gardener and I did some strategizing, then went out to the garden stores (Donahues, Farmer Seed, and HyVee) to check out what they had. Most of these places are just getting their inventory in place.  Today we bought some seed, seed potatoes, and bedding plants at Farmer Seed.   As you can see from the picture the seed potatoes went in the ground today.  Even though we got 0.3" of rain yesterday, the soil was workable by the late afternoon.  We picked smallish potatoes and planted them whole (instead of cutting in pieces).  Many of the garden books tell you to cut them, dry them, and maybe even treat the exposed surfaces with a chemical.  Last year I cut them and planted them right away with no treatment and all but one grew.  This was even easier.  We selected two varieties this year.  Our favorite, Yukon Gold (foreground) and Kenebec, a traditional baking style potato that is supposed to have good storage qualities.

A quiet week in Lake Wobegon

It's been a quiet week on the garden front.  Cool temperatures have persisted for two weeks (very normal April weather) and the lettuces and radishes aren't doing much.  The peas seem to be growing however.  No frost damage on anything that I can tell.  May never know really if the covering on the apple tree helped; at least it probably didn't hurt.  The farmers are getting their fields  ready, but most have resisted planting corn.  In about 10 days I could be on a planter, probably wearing coveralls.  Might plant potatoes and onion sets this weekend.   Mowed the grass again this week, some of the yard for the first time, some for the second time.

You never know 'til you try

It is supposed to freeze tonight, so we decided to attempt to protect the apple blossoms on our Zestar from being frozen and not setting fruit.   I personally don't think it will be enough if it stays below freezing for more than a few hours, but no way to know without trying.

By the way, last week we had zero GDD and 0 precip (though I think it did drizzle once).

Christ has Risen! He has Risen Indeed!

Our journey East of Eden takes us through some other famous gardens besides the garden of Eden and the garden-city of the new Jerusalem.  This week in the church year we commemorate Jesus passing through the Gethsemane where he prayed for us and was betrayed, and the garden tomb, where he defeated death and appeared to Mary Magdalene, who supposed Him to be a gardener.  The world around us is filled with images of death and resurrection, not least of which is the simple act of planting a seed or bulb.  Our Christian hope, put simply, is that one day we will be planted, and rise again.  "O Death, where is your sting?  O Hades, where is your victory?....Thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ!"

Will the real daffodil please stand up!

Here is the picture I should have posted yesterday.  Note to self:  all yellow flowers are not daffodils!

"The flowers that bloom in the spring, tra la"

I hope somebody gets my G&S reference....anyway the daffodils are up after (according to my bride) being absent the last few years...we don't know why.  Taking a break I suppose.  I think they look rested, don't you?

Apple Blossoms

It got down to near freezing last night, but I think our yard escaped the frost, and the apple blossoms will be OK for now.  We have high hopes for our little orchard (two apples and a peach) and don't want to lose what few apples we are likely to get with such young trees.  Pictured is our Zestar (the Honeycrisp hasn't bloomed yet).

Raspberries

The raspberry canes are now starting to put out leaves on the 2nd year growth.  The canes that bore fruit last year die and will be pruned away soon.  For the first time since we started the patch it looks like we might not get a very good crop.  Seems like we didn't get many new canes last year, so there won't be many bearing fruit this year.   It's still early, so I may be wrong (I hope), but that would be a big disappointment, because raspberries are the favorite of the Nyhus household, and have been very prolific.

That's why they're called Strawberries

We haven't been very successful strawberry growers.  This year is our  fourth season and we haven't gotten more than a few pints of small misshapen berries.  The year we planted them we got maybe one berry, but we didn't expect much.  Our expectations were high the next year (2010 I think) but a frost came through at flowering that made that year a loss.  Last year we got enough to pick, but the fruit was small.  We think perhaps we let the vines get too thick, so late in the season Lynn thinned out the stand and made walkways.  Earlier this week I put down straw in between the "rows".  This might be the last year for the stand if it doesn't work out.  I might be inclined to try again with new plants and a new location in the garden.

April showers bring.....

Mayflowers!   Except that those pictured were brought by March showers, seeing as there aren't any April showers yet.   These little beauties grow on the edge of our property, having been planted by our neighbor's father many years ago, and the patch has spread nicely to both sides of the property line.  I don't know the botanical name of these, but our neighbor, Ollie, calls them Mayflowers, so that is good enough for me..