February Seed Starting Update

Posted on February 24, 2022 by Dave @ HappyAcres

Here’s a quick update on my seed starting activities here in late February. It’s a busy time of year for me when seed starting season begins, and I am always babysitting lots of seedlings. I started parsley seeds back in early February, and they are all ready to be potted up now into individual 3.5″ pots. I like to grow several different flatleaf parsley varieties, and the one in the photo is Gigante di Napoli (aka Giant of Naples). It has large, flavorful leaves and does well for me here for both in-ground and container plantings.

parsley ready to be transplanted

A little over a week ago I started petunia seeds, and they have all sprouted now. I keep them covered and on a thermostatically controlled heating mat until the leaves emerge, then move them off the mat. They are beginning to get their first true leaves now, and I will wait for another couple of weeks before I transplant them into individual 3.5″ pots. I have several varieties of Wave petunias started, and the one in the photo is one I’m growing for the first time called Easy Wave Sky Blue.

petunia seedlings at 9 days after sowing

I usually start lettuce indoors, sowing the seeds in a 128-cell plug flat. This flat was sown back on February 5th, and thinned about a week ago. They are ready to be planted out in the greenhouse now when space is available.

plug flat of lettuce seedlings

lettuce ready to plant

I also sowed a plug flat of mixed greens, including mizuna, arugula and pac choi. they should be ready for planting out in a week or so. I will grow these in containers in the greenhouse.

mizuna and arugula seedlings

I like to grow some of the smaller fruited eggplant varieties in containers to get a jump on the season. Fairy Tale and Gretel are two of my favorites for containers, and this year I want to try growing 2022 AAS Winner Icicle that way too. I start these in a 3.5″ pot and transplant to individual 3.5″ pots once the true leaves appear. As with the petunias, I keep them on the heating mat until they sprout.

eggplant seedlings

That’s a look at my seed starting status so far. It’s about time to sow the spring brassicas I grow, including kohlrabi, broccoli and cabbage. You can visit my Seed Starting and Planting Schedule to see more details about when I start and plant things here in our garden. I’ll be back soon with more happenings from Happy Acres!

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Harvest Monday February 21, 2022

Posted on February 21, 2022 by Dave @ HappyAcres

It’s time once again for Harvest Monday, where we celebrate all things harvest related. The only harvest I made last week was a cutting of lettuce from the greenhouse. That was enough to keep us supplied for a bit, since our cold weather has us mostly eating warm foods lately. It looks like Panisse, Frisygo, Strawberry Oakheart and Salanova Red Butter was in this batch.

greenhouse lettuce

They made for a good mix of colors and textures on our salad plates. The salad in the photo had egg and pecans for protein, along with some fruit from the grocery.

lunch salad

Sweet potatoes are a winter staple for us here, and last year I dug a bumper crop of them. The white-fleshed and purple-skinned Murasaki is one of my favorites for baking whole. The flesh is drier than most orange fleshed varieties, and has a sweet nutty flavor. We baked a big one up last week and shared it as a side dish. I eat mine skin and all, since the skin is loaded with nutrients.

baked Murasaki sweet potato

Last night, I made Sweet Potatoes Anna with a mix of white, purple and orange fleshed varieties. I sliced them thinly on the mandoline slicer, then I tossed them with a mix of melted butter and olive oil before layering and baking in a cast iron skillet until crispy on the bottom and sides. This makes for a good use of the smaller potatoes too, and I used one each of Purple, Beauregard and Korean Purple for the dish, and seasoned it with salt and a bit of crushed thyme..

trio of sweet potatoes

Sweet Potatoes Anna

Seed starting is really ramping up here now, and I spent time sowing more seeds last week as well as thinning lettuce and other greens that were coming up. I hope to do an update on those activities soon.

lettuce seedlings

Harvest Monday is a day to show off your harvests, how you are saving your harvest, or how you are using your harvest. If you have a harvest you want to share, add your name and blog link to Mr Linky below. And be sure and check out what everyone is harvesting!


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Maui Getaway

Posted on February 17, 2022 by Dave @ HappyAcres

I don’t post a lot of travel photos here, but I know some of my readers enjoy them, so I thought I would share a few recent ones. Last month my wife and I escaped the cold of Indiana and made a trip to warm and sunny Maui. It was our first trip anywhere in two years, since the arrival of the Covid-19 pandemic. We gladly endured wearing our N95 and KN95 masks for the 20 plus hours we spent in several airports and planes en route to one of our favorite vacation spots. That part wasn’t nearly as bad as I expected, though the long day getting there always leaves us a bit exhausted. Thankfully we got there on schedule and without incident. The Kahului airport had colorful signs reminding everyone of the mask requirement.

sign in Kahului airport

Once there, it was refreshing to see that the state of Hawaii was taking Covid-19 seriously, with masks required in businesses indoors as well as in places like farmers markets outdoors. My wife and I have both had three shots of the Pfizer vaccine, and are doing our best to stay well and virus-free. Wearing a mask seems like a small price to pay as far as I am concerned. We also visited the large Maui Swap Meet where around 200 vendors had a variety of things for sale, and masks were also required there.

Whenever we travel we try and stay at places that have kitchen facilities so we don’t have to eat out all the time. In Hawaii our typical breakfast is enjoyed outside on our lanai, where we can see and hear the ocean while we eat. We find local papayas and apple bananas at the farmers markets, and add fruit to our Homemade Dry Toasted Muesli that we bring with us. A cup of good local coffee completes the meal for me. A brisk walk before breakfast also helps to whet the appetite. The beach where we stayed is a popular spot for both canoes and kayaks, and we saw humpback whales almost every day we were there.

We also went for a great hike one day at the Waihou Spring Forest Reserve near Makawao. The Forest Reserve was created by a proclamation from the governor of the Hawaiian territory in 1909, and today both locals and visitors like to use this cool, refreshing upcountry trail loop for exercise and trail running.  The forest has been planted with a variety of tree species, including a lot of pine trees. At a bit over 300o foot elevation up on the slopes of Mount Haleakala, it was cool and not too crowded for our late morning walk. After our hike, we headed for lunch in nearby artsy Makawao town.

While we do usually eat breakfast and dinner in our condo, we typically eat lunch while we are out and about. Fresh seafood is abundant in Hawaii, and we get it while we can. We had fish tacos several times on our trip, and our favorites came from a place called Coconut’s Fish Cafe. They had set up extra tables outside, and we made a meal of their tasty fish tacos which features 17 ingredients.  The mango salsa adds a tropical taste, while the wasabi coleslaw adds crunch.

We also enjoy getting fresh fruit and vegetables at the farmers markets. We visited several during our stay, and there was a diverse assortment of goodies on sale. We stock up on veggies, and enjoy them roasted or stir-fried with our meals.

It has become our custom to put my camera on a mini tripod to get photos of my wife and I together wherever we go. We also try and get a ‘last day’ photo of us. This time, we were posing for our photo when a kind gentleman out walking on the beach offered to take one for us as well. Our colorful shirts were dyed by my artistic wife, who also shared some (okay, many!) of her photos with me for this post.

Our trip ended too soon, and then we were back home at Happy Acres to the usual cold winter weather. We had a truly enjoyable time though, and I hope we can return there in the future. I hope you have enjoyed seeing some of our recent travel pics, and I’ll be back soon with more adventures from Happy Acres.

 

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Harvest Monday February 14, 2022

Posted on February 14, 2022 by Dave @ HappyAcres

It’s time once again for Harvest Monday, where we celebrate all things harvest related. The harvests here were slimmer than usual last week. We had an ice and snow storm hit us that left a layer of frozen ‘stuff’ on the ground which kept me from opening the greenhouse door for several days. Fortunately I got what I could before the storm hit. We still have plenty of lettuce ready, and I usually cut just enough for fresh eating but in this case I got enough to last for a couple of meals. Panisse and Sea of Red are two of my favorite leaf lettuce varieties, and they make for a good contrast together for salads.

Panisse and Sea of Red lettuce

The purple sprouting broccoli is not doing that much yet, and I only got a small handful of side shoots from Burgundy. Not enough for a side dish on their own, but we enjoyed them anyway! That was the extent of my fresh harvests last week.

Burgundy broccoli

We are well supplied with preserved food in the freezer though, and with fermented veggies. Kohlrabi kraut is one of my favorites, and we ate some last week as a side dish and had some another day on a sandwich. We’ve also been enjoying the bumper crop of sweet potatoes on a regular basis.

kohlrabi kraut

 

Since outside activities were limited due to the ice storm, I took advantage of that to do more indoor activities. I baked a couple of loaves of sourdough bread using all-purpose flour instead of my usual high-protein bread flour. The one on the left in the below photo had 30% whole wheat flour/70% all-purpose, while the one on the right was 100% all-purpose. Both were baked in a small loaf pan (8.5 x 4.5 inches) after an overnight ferment. I was pleased with how they both turned out, and they were certainly tasty. However I’m not sure they were an improvement over the ones I usually make with bread flour. I think more baking and experimenting is in order – not to mention more exercise to work off all those bread calories!

sourdough sandwich loaves

two versions of bread

I also worked on seed starting activities. Sown first was the parsley, follow by lettuce and other greens. I need to start petunias and brassicas next, and plan to give an update on those activities soon. And in case you are wondering, it is safe to say I sowed too many of the Cilician parsley seeds in the pot since I only need about three plants! I usually give a few away to local friends too, though I count more than a dozen of these coming up and I have other varieties sown too.

parsley coming up

And lastly, I have (finally) started posting on Instagram. In addition to this blog, and on Facebook you can now follow some of the Happy Acres happenings at @Dave.HappyAcresBlog. I’ve already found a few of the Harvest Monday folks there, and would be happy to follow readers and others who post there.

Harvest Monday is a day to show off your harvests, how you are saving your harvest, or how you are using your harvest. If you have a harvest you want to share, add your name and blog link to Mr Linky below. And be sure and check out what everyone is harvesting!


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Harvest Monday February 7, 2022

Posted on February 7, 2022 by Dave @ HappyAcres

It’s time once again for Harvest Monday, where we celebrate all things harvest related. It’s another year for Harvest Monday, and while harvests are always slim this time of year we are still getting a few. Last winter we had fairly mild weather, and enjoyed greens for most of the season. This year the weather has been much colder, with ice and snow storms as well. I was able to harvest a big batch of collards in January before the weather got really nasty. They kept up supplied for a couple of weeks. I have no idea if or when we will get any more from the fall greens.

collard greens

I also took advantage last month of the bounty of turnip greens and froze a few batches of them to enjoy for later use. We especially enjoyed the Turnbroc greens, and I froze two bags of them. I blanched the greens first in boiling water then cooled before putting in the freezer.

Turnbroc greens for freezing

Just as the greens took a break, the purple sprouting broccoli in the greenhouse started flowering. Burgundy is an early variety I’ve grown several years now, and Jacaranda is a new one I’m trialing here. Both made small main heads about the same time, with Burgundy being a tad bigger. Even the broccoli in the greenhouse is struggling with the unusually cold weather we’re having, so future harvests might be smaller than typical.

Jacaranda and Burgundy broccoli

The lettuce is still going strong in the greenhouse though and keeping us well supplied. It’s one thing I can generally rely on in the cold months, though the short days slow down the growth considerably. It seems to recover quite well from the freezing/thawing cycles.

harvest of assorted lettuce

The red Navara and frilly green Frisygo make good companions to the smooth leaves of Salanova Green Butter on our salad plates. With added egg, beans, seeds or nuts for protein these make for a light lunch meal for us. I make our own salad dressings using a variety of vinegars and oil, which keeps the salads from getting boring.

lunch salad

Harvest Monday is a day to show off your harvests, how you are saving your harvest, or how you are using your harvest. If you have a harvest you want to share, add your name and blog link to Mr Linky below. And be sure and check out what everyone is harvesting!

 


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