Hi all, I found these roses in winter pictures in my files and thought that I would share them with you along with a poem, My Winter Rose", by British poet, Alfred Austin (1835-1913).  Although the snow has not fallen here yet, it soon will.  Right now organic gardeners should be putting their gardens to bed by clipping down the woody stems of perennials, tilling up the soil, weeding out the annuals, and putting a mulch on the garden.  Our garden has its own natural mulch from the Maples trees around it.  The whole garden is blanketed by Maples leaves. I am also feeding the compost some Comfrey leaves which are a good compost accelerator.  The compost doesn't do anything in the winter, but since its mild this fall the Comfrey may get a chance to act.

Why did you come when the trees were bare? Why did you come with the wintry air? When the faint note dies in the robin's throat, And the gables drip and the white flakes float? What a strange, strange season to choose to come, When the heavens are blind and the earth is dumb: When nought is left living to dirge the dead, And even the snowdrop keeps its bed! Could you not come when woods are green? Could you not come when lambs are seen? When the primrose laughs from its childlike sleep, And the violets hide and the bluebells peep? When the air as your breath is sweet, and skies Have all but the soul of your limpid eyes, And the year, growing confident day by day, Weans lusty June from the breast of May? Yet had you come then, the lark had lent In vain his music, the thorn its scent, In vain the woodbine budded, in vain The rippling smile of the April rain. Your voice would have silenced merle and thrush, And the rose outbloomed would have blushed to blush, And Summer, seeing you, paused, and known That the glow of your beauty outshone its own. So, timely you came, and well you chose, You came when most needed, my winter rose. From the snow I pluck you, and fondly press Your leaves 'twixt the leaves of my leaflessness.

Composting 101

     Composting is one of the best things that you can do for the planet and your organic garden.  We have four composts right now.  The first one is a garbage can with holes in the sides and a lid.   The black plastic composter is one that I found in a yard sale for a small amount of money.  It has a lid that twists shut and a chute where the finished compost comes out. Our big wooden compost consists of four wooden pallets wired together on three sides.  The fourth side is the door. Pallets are easy to obtain and they are cheap.

We paid $5.00 each for a pallet.  The simplest compost we have is just a pile of grass clippings and leaves.

This is tilled up and will be my potting soil for next year.

Garbage Can With Holes Drilled

Plastic Composter

Composter Made from Four Pallets

Compost Made Out of Grass Clippings and Leaves

Tilling up the Grass and Leaf Compost

Feeding Your Compost

     A list of the things you can feed your compost is found at:  http://www.gardenorganic.org.uk/composting/compost_1.php .  Essentially the rule is no cooked stuff and maintain a balance between greens and browns.  Some people put diluted urine on their composts, but I wouldn't do it, just because I find it gross.  I'd rather put a bunch of Comfrey leaves on it, because the Comfrey acts as a compost accelerator.  Even better is a mixture of Comfrey and water left to sit covered for a couple of weeks.  When you crack open the cover the stink that arises is awful. It is like sewage. However, it is very good for plant fertilizer and for your compost.  I sneak out to my garden and put the water and Comfrey solution on my plants before the neighbors can catch me.  Really, though once you put in on the compost and garden it isn't that bad.  Luckily, Comfrey grows like a weed and it makes an awesome salve that helps bones knit, soothes mosquito bites, and takes the ouch out of arthitis.

Compost ingredients

'Greens' or nitrogen rich ingredients

• Urine (diluted with water 20:1)
• Comfrey leaves
• Nettles
• Grass cuttings

Other green materials

• Raw vegetable peelings from your kitchen
• Tea bags and leaves, coffee grounds
• Young green weed growth � avoid weeds with seeds
• Soft green prunings
• Animal manure from herbivores eg cows and horses
• Poultry manure and bedding

'Browns' or carbon rich ingredients - slow to rot

• Cardboard eg. cereal packets and egg boxes
• Waste paper and junk mail, including shredded confidential waste
• Cardboard tubes
• Glossy magazines � although it is better for the environment to pass them on to your local doctors� or dentists' surgery or send them for recycling
• Newspaper � although it is better for the environment to send your newspapers for recycling
• Bedding from vegetarian pets eg rabbits, guinea pigs � hay, straw, shredded paper, wood shavings
• Tough hedge clippings
• Woody prunings
• Old bedding plants
• Bracken
• Sawdust
• Wood shavings
• Fallen leaves can be composted but the best use of them is to make leafmould

Other compostable items

• Wood ash, in moderation
• Hair, nail clippings
• Egg shells (crushed)
• Natural fibres eg. 100% wool or cotton

Do NOT compost

• Meat
• Fish
• Cooked food
• Coal & coke ash
• Cat litter
• Dog faeces
• Disposable nappies

Abundant Apples

Apple Jelly

     In the fall there usually is an abundance of apples of all sizes and descriptions. We used our flowering crab apples to make apples jelly which turned a wonderful shade of red.  First I cooked the apples in some water until they were soft.  Next I put them in a cheesecloth jelly  There is some controversy over whether or not you should squeeze the jelly bag. Some women think that it makes the jelly cloudy to squeeze the bag.  However, I squeezed the bag to get more juice and my jelly turned out alright.  The next stage was to take sugar and put in a cup of sugar to a cup of juice.  The mixture is cooked on the stove and the way you tell if it is done is to take some of it and put it on a saucer. This is put into the fridge for a few minutes and if it is jelled then you can bottle your jelly.  Of course the bottles need to be sterilized. This is done by washing them in dish soap, rinsing, and then put into the over for 20 minutes at 350 degrees.  If the jelly refuses to jelly you will have to put some pectin in it.

Baked Apples

     To bake apples, I core them and put them in a microwave safe dish.  Next, I put a surprise in the center.

This could be a prune, a fig, or some raisins.  To make the liquid, I pour some diet pop over the apples and then put some artificial sweetener and cinnamon over the top.  The apples should be microwaved until they are soft.  This will depend on the size of the apples and the power of your microwave.  Watch them carefully, because if you over cook the apples they will go all flat.

Fancy Apple Pie

     Recently, I found an apple pie recipe that makes the cook feel like a gourmet chef.  First, you roll out your pastry and put it in the pie plate, fluting the edges. Next, you peel and core four apples and slice them in two horizontally.   To complete the pie you will need the following ingredients: 1/4 cup of white flour; 1/4 cup of sugar, 1/2-3/4 cup of sugar (second amount); 1 cup of blend (10% milk fat); 1 scant tablespoon of cinnamon; and 1/4 teaspoon of nutmeg.  Preheat your oven to 425 degrees F..  Take flour and sugar and sprinkle over your pastry crust. Put apples on top, sliced side down.  Distribute the second amount of sugar around the apples, and pour the milk in between.  Take cinnamon and nutmeg and sprinkle on top.  Bake for 15 minutes at high heat, and then reduce the heat to 375 degrees F. for 40 minutes or until the apples are soft.   This dessert serves 6.

** This recipe was taken from "Maritime Flavors: Apples" by Elaine Elliot and Virginia Lee; published by Formac Publishing Company Limited, Halifax, 1996

Picture of  My Gourmet Apple Pie

Making Straw Bale and Lasagna Gardens

This year I tried two different types of gardens -- a lasagna and a straw bale garden.  To make a lasagna garden you take a large piece of cardboard and place it on the ground where you want your garden.  I went to a store that sells large appliances and they gave me a big piece of cardboard for free.  The cardboard is supposed to prevent weeds from coming up through the garden.  The first layer of the lasagna garden is soil, then compost, then well rotted manure.  The idea is to layer the garden like you would if you were making a lasagna.  I put a fence around my garden to keep neighborhood dogs from digging in it.  The lasagna garden is my favorite type of garden.  Last year I grew 14 pumpkins in it.  The second type of garden is a straw bale garden.  You take four bales of straw and put them in a square, touching each other. In the middle you put compost, soil, and well rotted manure up to the top of the bales.  This mixture is also put on the top of the bales. The trick to the bale garden is to keep it well watered and to give the plants lots of organic fertilizer because there isn't any nutrition in the bales themselves. 

Straw Bale Garden

Lasagna Garden

A day at the farm

Hi all, I would like to share with you some photos taken at Open Sky Farm in Middle Sackville, New Brunswick, Canada.  The day was sunny so I helped harvest some of the pumpkin and squash and it was a very pleasant experience.  Open Sky is a therapeutic farm intended to help mentally ill persons and give them skills.  Some of the residents live right at the house, while others visit the farm as part of an activity group.  Norm is the consummate gardener and grows an amazing array of vegetables plus chickens, goats, and turkeys.  The animals know me by now because I bring them treats.  The goats love Kale and always bleat when they see me coming.  Then there is the horse that likes a few apples.  The chickens are getting fussy though.  They used to like Comfrey leaves, but now they prefer kitchen scraps.  The photos that I am sharing are of the beautiful sunset right next to the farm and pictures of the varieties of pumpkins and squash grown on the farm.  Did I forget to mention that the Open Sky Farm grows everything organic?

An Abundant Harvest

An Open Sky Sunset

Some friendly Goats

Gourmet Squash and Pumpkins

Special Wood Pile Made from Youtube Instructions

Bee Hives