Frost-o Pesto

Tonight is forecast to have frost, which will be our first frost of the season.  I'm not very happy about it because I do not at all like the garden season coming to an end, and I really don't want to see winter.  Fall is a lovely season but it always comes too soon, and ends too soon, and then we're thrown in the deep freeze until May.

I've put some 4 degree row covers over the remaining plants in the raised beds (except the carrots and parsnips which should be fine).  I'm hoping that I'll get another week or so out of the tomatoes.  We shall see how bad the frost is.  After 2 nights, it is supposed to go back to "normal" fall overnight temps, which are not below freezing yet. 

Today I made pesto cubes with the remaining fresh herbs from my raised beds.  I didn't want them to go to waste in case the frost is significant.  I had a lot of basil and parsley, and also some sage, although the sage is a perennial type and doesn't mind a bit of frost.  The basil and parsley would not do well at all in frost.  It was time to make frost-o pesto!

I don't use my food processor all that often, but I do use it for pesto because I find it really does the job well.  I suppose a blender would be good for it as well.  I have a Braun food processor - this is my second one and the first one I had lasted for a long time.  I find it works very well and is reliable.  I use the regular blade for pesto.

I put the herbs that I'm using into the bowl after giving them a thorough wash and spinning them out in the salad spinner to remove most of the water.  You can use any blend of herbs you want, and you can also use garlic scapes.  I make the garlic scape pesto earlier in the season.

I use sunflower seeds and pumpkin seeds in my pesto because Marc is allergic to nuts.  I don't think he has actually tried pine nuts, which are the traditional nut used in pesto, but I don't want to risk it. I also recently managed to get some very fine Lucques olive oil from France at 50% off .  It is a really high quality olive oil, which I think is important to use in a pesto.  Sometimes I add parmesan but I didn't do so today.  I can always add parmesan to the dish when I use the pesto.

I can't tell you exactly the amount of seeds I use - probably a cup or so.  I just do it by eye.  Then I drizzle the oil all over it and start the processor blade.

Initially, I have to use a scraper to move all the material around in the bowl to get things evenly chopped.

As I continue, I increase the speed of the blade and the chopping gets faster and the pieces are smaller.  I keep scraping it down.

Eventually, it starts to look more like a paste than a mess of chopped leaves.  I added a little more olive oil at this point.

Another minute or so, and I call it done.  It's essentially the consistency of chunky peanut butter.

At that point, I scoop it out of the bowl and into ice cube trays.  I gently press the pesto into each compartment and then pop the trays into the freezer.

In a day or two, I'll pop them out of the trays and put the cubes into ziploc bags in the freezer.  Then I can pull out a cube anytime I need one.  They add a wonderful taste of summer to dishes throughout the winter.  Sometimes I use it on pasta, but I also use a cube or two in soups, casseroles, on baked fish, or other dishes.  It's a great way to use the end-of-season fresh herbs. 

Garden Update: Raised Beds

I posted earlier this year about having some raised beds built in my backyard.  They are now filled with a mix of wood shavings (which had sat in a big pile all winter covered by snow) from Marc's garage renovation using pallet wood...

...goat-and-sheep-poop-filled-hay (thank you Lucky Nickel, Twilight and Tucker) from cleaning out the barn from the past winter's "deposits"...

...and some aged compost from a local farm.  They looked great when they were finally filled on May 10.  The layers will mix over time and I will keep them topped off each year with new compost.

After the beds were finished, I waited a couple of weeks, and then put in some seeds, because I was unable to resist the gardening bug.  Then I ordered some new seeds, because most of my seed stock was from 2007 to 2010, before I left Iowa, and that's way too old for decent germination rates.  I can't believe it has been that long since I had a proper garden.  As usual when I order seeds, I find it hard to choose just a few things.  So I ordered a lot of exciting seeds.  I bought Nikki Jabbour's book, Veggie Garden Remix, to give me some ideas, and it was chock full of interesting varieties that I hadn't tried before. Meanwhile, we continued to have cold, frosty weather.  My pak choi seeds emerged, and fortunately they are quite hardy, so the frost didn't get them.  I have some carrots coming up as well.

Meanwhile, I realized that it would be best if I had an irrigation system for the raised beds, since that would save me time (given my busy work schedule) and it would improve my harvests.  I ordered the raised bed irrigation kits from Lee Valley Tools.  My parents visited a couple of weekends ago and we sorted out the hoses and attachments and realized that a few more parts were needed to complete the system the way I wanted it to work, so the hoses were laid out in preparation for completion, but things were on hold for a while.

The additional pieces arrived and I was excited to get it all installed, but that had to wait until I had some time this past weekend.  I dug the header lines into the ground so they don't interfere with the lawn mowing, and have lengths of header coming up the side of each bed.

I then used a short length of header that comes into each bed and is capped off.  Three 1/4" hoses lead from the capped header to sprayer heads in each bed.  Each sprayer head has up to a 2 foot radius.  I have adjusted them so that they keep the water to the inside of the bed.

The sprayers keep a fairly low flow so they have a flat profile and won't spray loads of water wastefully onto the ground.

I also bought some white plastic "dividers" which seem to be some kind of strip that is used to join thin panels together, such as one might use in paneled walls. One must be creative when it comes to garden uses of non-standard materials.  These are going to be a test for my floating row cover that will keep insect pressures down as the season progresses.  We'll see how it goes.  My pak choi is looking good as you can see in the row in the bed below.

Here's the same bed with the floating row cover on it.  Working well so far!

I also had a spare cattle panel.  I used to use cattle panels for 'cheap' fencing in Iowa, but here in Atlantic Canada they are extremely expensive and not easy to find.  I am using this one as an archway for climbing plants.  On one side I have planted cucamelons, and on the other side I have planted Poona Kheera cucumbers.  I hope both will grow well on it.  This picture was taken before I had completed installation of the header hoses, which is why you can see one on the ground.

My parents also helped install a couple of pieces of wood lattice that I had on hand.  We planted "golden sweet" peas along the sides, which will grow up through the holes and make for easy picking of peas later in the season.  The peas have germinated extremely well and are already approaching the lattice holes.

Planting thus far includes a variety of carrot types, parsnips (my favourite!), pak choi, peas, herbs, Superior potatoes, Scotch curly kale, cabbage, beets, fennel, zucchini, winter squash, cucumber and melon.  It's so wonderful to have a good garden again!

Friday's Hunt v 3.05

Goodness me, where do the days go?  It's time for Friday's Hunt, already!  Teresa at Eden Hills has given us the prompts for this week, and they are:  Starts with E, Week's Favourite, and Personal.

Starts with E:  EARS!
We have quite a few pets, and all of them have Ears!  Nature has accommodated each animal by providing them with ears that suit their needs.

Mitten the cat has lovely triangle-shaped ears that are very sensitive to tiny sounds.  He's a bit of a born hunter, although not inside our house.  You can see the fine hairs that sweep across the inside of his ear, preventing dust and debris from entering the ear.  Unfortunately, I think Mitten is giving me the evil eye in this picture, since he does not look impressed at my efforts in ear photography.

Pippin's ears are wonderfully large and covered in his soft fur.  Rabbits need big ears because they are very low down on the "prey" totem pole, and they need every advantage they can get to escape their predators.  Those ears are specially designed to hear the slightest sound, and they swivel independently to let him hear what's going on in different directions.  He has an old injury that makes a little indentation on the edge of his right ear.  That happened to him long before he came to us from the SPCA, so we don't know what caused it.

Toffee and Rolo, on the other hand, have ears that are almost hidden under their fur.  Rolo has black ears, and Toffee has pink ears.  Toffee's ears also waggle when he makes his characteristics guinea pig whistling noises.  It's quite amusing, but I have yet to capture it on video.  Their ears are also very sensitive to sounds because they seem to differentiate between Marc's footsteps and mine, since they know I'm the one who usually brings the morning treats from the refrigerator.  They squeak a lot when I come downstairs in the morning.

Week's Favourite
I hang a formed, bird seed "bell" from under my suet feeder.  The birds enjoy it, and sometimes the squirrels do as well.  This week, one of the squirrels nibbled away at the bell form until the bottom fell off.

 It was on the ground under the feeder.  I happened to be watching when he (or she) tried to carry away the large bottom portion, and I took a video, so this week's favourite is a video!

He eventually took it under some wood, where I could no longer see it.  I think he's a very lucky squirrel!

Personal
I wasn't sure what to do for "personal" this week.  If it's personal, it's probably something I don't want to share on my blog!  In the end, I decided to share my personal workspace.  This is the place I write my blogs, but also the place I spend most of the hours of my day - it's where I work, it's where I play, and where I eat most of my meals.

As you can see, I have two large monitors and a large microphone, since I often do dictation instead of typing (to save my wrists, since I am prone to ulnar nerve problems in my left arm).  I also have an ergonomic keyboard for that reason.  You'll also see, if you look closely, my magnifier glasses for tiny print, my highlighters (very important for highlighting things on technical drawings), the phone, a knitting daily calendar, the rabbit wall calendar, and a lovely wooden turned container under my monitor, where I keep spare change.  Of course...you know my Dad made it!

I keep this little quote stuck to my current file bin, since I am very fond of the sentiment.

This is my view from my desk - I can see my feeders and bird bath outside.  You can also see my knitting couch where I retire for some relaxation after a long day of work!  The knitting bags are hung with different projects on the door knob to the closet in the corner - the closet isn't really a closet - it's just where the Selkirk pipe from the wood stove goes up.  If the room is cold, I open the closet door to let more of the heat disperse into the room.

The little bookshelf beside my desk has all my field guides - birds, flowers, mushrooms, trees, insects...I'm a nature kind of gal!  The mammals guide is on my desk under the binoculars on the corner (which you can see in the picture above).  I was using it this week.

My screen saver is a constant slide show of pictures I like.  Here you can also see, if you look on the far left, that I have some items on top of my computer tower.  In the picture below, you can just see the lathe-turned pear that my father made me from cocobolo wood.  There's a little stoneware sheep, and also a lovely sheep card from my mother.  So, even though it is my workspace, it's very personal - full of sheep, bunnies, yarn-related items, and other personal touches.  You might wonder why I have those odd blocks of wood between the top of the desk and the drawers/cupboard underneath. The truth is, I've had this desk since I was about 12 years old, and I needed it to be taller for ergonomic reasons.  Marc made the risers that lift the desktop height.  Maybe someday I'll get a new desk, but until then, this is my space!

The Unbearable Cuteness of Voles

That's it.  I've had enough.


All future voles wishing to take up residence in my yard are required to submit an application.  The application must detail where they plan to forage, and at what time of day, so that I can determine whether or not this will interfere with my home office work schedule, because this level of distraction simply cannot continue.  Voles with distracting foraging plans will be required to submit revised schedules.


Voles of senior age who are willing to live quietly and peacefully in the wooded areas are exempted from the application process.



All voles must submit a photograph along with their application in order to ensure that they can be identified in pictures taken by the homeowner.  If voles are photographed outside of their permitted areas, they may be subject to disciplinary proceedings, which may include temporary residence in an indoor habitat with an exercise wheel for the visual delight of the homeowner.


All voles are kindly requested to refrain from overtly cute poses on weekdays between the hours of 9 am and 6 pm, such as, but not limited to, posing with snowflakes on the nose, posing with paws holding seeds, posing while licking seed bits off paws, posing while exposing cute belly portions, posing half-in and half-out of tunnels, and posing under any form of vegetation in an "umbrella" style of setting during precipitation events.




Posing by the bird feeder pole is also not recommended due to the high cuteness factor.


Seriously, no snowflakes on the nose!


And no paw licking!


Furthermore, all voles wishing to take up residence must submit documentation on their precise species and any subspecies information, given that the homeowner is prone to fits of prolonged research on vole species following intense photography sessions.  The homeowner suspects that you are a Southern red-backed vole and a Meadow vole, but this is by no means confirmed.




All voles are welcome to clean up the area under the bird feeder before 9 am, and after 6 pm, using any pose they wish to adopt.  Neighbouring but non-resident voles are also welcome to visit during this timeframe.


Any vole seen to be making an exhibition of itself by jumping about gleefully under the bird feeder during the daily working hour timeframe shall be subject to eviction proceedings to the woods, where it must remain out of sight for at least 7 days while it considers its behaviour.

 And for goodness' sake, just stop being so darned cute! 

 Yes, you, I'm talking to YOU!

Sigh.