Devshirme

Two new podcasts are up!  The first is a “lost episode” that includes our bizarre encounter with a graffiti-covered bus out in the country, while the second is about a trip to a farm.  You can check them out on the podcast site or on iTunes, where it is a free download (as it is on our site, of course).  If you get it from iTunes be sure to leave a comment!

Things are starting to happen with the garden.  We enjoyed our first green bell pepper the other day, and we have been harvesting herbs – mint, parsley, basil, thyme – and using them in different stuff.  I plucked my first red cayenne pepper – yum – this morning and also noticed that we have some cucumbers growing.  I did a second watering session in the afternoon (I don’t normally do two waterings but am this week due to the extreme heat), peeled back a leaf from the cucumber plant, and found one ready to go!  Here it is:

I have been shamefully neglecting the blog.  A lot of things have happened recently – festival, laity award dinner, all kinds of stuff – so let’s start fresh.  Coincinding with the first day of sun after over a week of rain and overcast days, our garden is fully up and running, so how about we start with that.  I moved the location this year from the side of the house (where the soil would get washed away during the heavy rains we often have here in Worcester) to the peninsula next to the driveway and my neighbor (and gardening guru) Karen’s garden.  I picked up compost from Hope Cemetery (they have a mountain of it for the taking) and spent spare time the past few weeks getting things ready.  Here is what I planted:  Cucumbers, cantaloupe, cayenne peppers, pumpkin, garlic and tomato in the main garden.  Next to the house, in the old garden space, I have pots with basil, mint, strawberries, bell peppers, sunflowers, parsley, cilantro, and another tomato plant.  In addition we have a pot in the back with two garlic plants, a TopsyTurvy planter (As Seen On TV!) hanging in the front, a small pot with thyme, the blueberry bushes and the apple tree.  I also have the mushroom log inside the house. 
The first thing I harvested was pussy willow stalks in the earliest days of spring.  You can’t eat these, of course, but they make for a nice decoration in the house or a gift when visiting someone.  I also harvested thyme, which grows early and often, and dried it out for seasoning use.  I have a bell peppers that should be ready soon and cayenne peppers which should turn red in the next week.  Sadly, I think we will not get too many blueberries, for whatever reason (last year we had a seemingly endless supply) but there are tons of apples coming out on the tree, so hopefully that will pay out.  The tree  has five different varieties of apples, and the granny smiths always come out first.

The sun came out for a moment today – unbelievable after all this rain! – and I took advantage of the brief window to visit our composting barrel outside the house.  There was no way I was going out in the yard during the downpours so I could empty our kitchen scraps container.  So, mission accomplished.  If you are a Worcester resident you can buy a composter from the Dept. of Public Works for $35.   The idea is that, by composting, you cut down on trash output and garbage disposal usage and, eventually, you have some nice soil after the conqueror worm and the bugs have a chance to do their thing.  Here is a picture: