The Gardening Chronicles, part 2: The Installation and Prep

Greetings, dear readers!  It's time for the second installment of my adventures in gardening.

EDIT:  I've obviously got something whacky going on with the font formatting.  I don't know what the hell I did nor can I figure out how to fix it.  Hopefully all will be back to normal with my next post.

After a few delays, we finally got around to installing one of the raised beds last weekend.  This involved prepping the ground beneath where the bed was going to go, digging holes for the posts, putting the bed in place and leveling it, installing the wire mesh, etc, etc.

A few important things we learned:  

1.  Green nylon landscaping mesh (apparently used by idiots during sod installation) is horrible, nasty stuff and a total bitch to dig up.

2.  Using a weed whacker through a bunch of succulents is the equivalent of taking a shower with green water.

3.  Wire mesh is out for blood.

4.  You can have a cheaper alternative to a problem, but sometimes convenience is worth more than what money you would save.

5.  Your almost 3-year-old daughter will find a rock, name it "Rocko", and insist that he sleep in her bed at night, forcing you to make a bed for Rocko out of a pop tart box and a wash cloth.  True story.

My first order of business was to prep the ground where the first bed was going to go.  This turned out much more difficult than it should have been and I freely confess to finally not giving a shit and walking away from that particular task.  My thought was I was going to take a garden hoe and just clear out as much of the weeds (we don't really have grass) off the plot as I could.  It wasn't absolutely necessary that I do it since I'm taking further precautions against weed invasion from below anyway, but I wanted to do things correctly from the beginning.

What I didn't count on was that whoever laid our sod originally some used green nylon mesh shit to anchor the sod.  Now, I have no idea if this is common practice or not.  All I know is that it's a pain in the ass to deal with when you're trying to clear some land.    I also encountered some scary pieces of glass and the remnants of a tree.  Our "soil" (and I use that term very loosely) is also very hard, except where the gophers have been, then it's nice and loose.  We also had some type of succulent plant growing through and under our back fence from the neighbors yard.  I decided to weed whack that bitch down and was immediately covered in green goo.  Fun times.

After half an hour of working with the hoe and making little progress, I finally grabbed a shovel and just started turning the dirt and then leveled it off as best I could.  It was a total pain in the ass, but I'm very glad that I was smart enough not to try for an in-ground garden.  That would have been nightmarish.  

I then turned the project over to Hubby.  He decided to reinforce the sides of the bed with an extra support post at the halfway point on the long sides.  Then, we went out and marked where the holes needed to go, he dug the holes, and we got the bed in and leveled.

Little helper!

Once it was in, Hubby installed some wire mesh at the bottom and stapled it to the inside of the bed.  We used a 20-gauge, 1 inch hexagonal mesh weave, galvanized poultry netting.  The purpose of this is to hopefully keep our gopher friends from coming up into the garden beds from underneath while still allowing water to drain out.  Hubby made several blood sacrifices to the garden during this part.  Wire mesh will bite you, people!  Be careful!

Once the wire mesh was in, I lined the bottom of the bed with several pieces of cardboard.  This will help kill the weeds underneath the bed, but still allow water to drain out.  Also, cardboard supposedly attracts worms, which I would love to have in my garden beds.

Finally a use for all the old Amazon boxes in the garage!

Now we were ready for the dirt.  Originally, I had gotten quotes from several landscaping companies, but they were all very pricey, $200+, for soil and delivery.  Then, on the advice of a friend, I checked out the local municipal composting facility and was pleasantly surprised to see I could get a top soil/compost blend for $40 ($20 for each bed).  Not too shabby, right?

Except.

Except that 1) It's sold loose, not bagged, 2) We don't have a pick up truck, and 3) Trying to transport 48 cu feet of soil from the driveway to the backyard would be a total pain in the ass.  The composting facility would deliver, but it would cost an additional $120 and we'd still have nearly 2 tons of loose dirt sitting in our driveway.  We could rent a pick up, but again, we'd be looking at more cost and still the loose dirt in the drive way problem.

After much discussion and calculation, I finally opted to be bad and buy bagged soil from Lowes.  This way we would be able to put it in the trunk and then carry it to the back yard.  A bit more expensive to be sure, but oh so much easier.  I know, I know, I took the slacker way out.  I hang my head in shame.

My calculations came out that we would need approximately 48 cu feet of soil total, which worked out to 8 bags per bed (3 cu feet per bag).  I opted to get 7 bags of gardening soil and 1 bag of compost, which I would layer on top of the soil.  More expensive than the municipal composting facility, but Hubby was able to get enough for 1 bed into the car in one trip and he was able to move them back to the beds without too much hassle.  It also made it very easy to get the soil into the beds; a few quick slashes with a blade, dump, and you're done.  I had the bed filled in about 20 minutes.  And, since I didn't fill the bed to the very top, I had a bag of soil leftover!  Woot!

Pretty!

Stay tuned for the next installment:  The Planting.  I got stuff in a couple of days ago and it's touch-and-go at this point; there's some definite transplant shock going on.

Have a great day!

Not Your Grandma's Chicken Noodle Soup

Ah, chicken noodle soup!  One of the ultimate comfort foods, but probably a pain in the ass to make, right?  Yeah, you can always open a can of soup, and that certainly has it's place, but sometimes you just want something a little more substantial.  Am I right?

For some reason, I was always daunted by the thought of making chicken noodle soup from scratch.  I don't know why.  I had images of chicken carcasses and mounds of chopped vegetables and who the hell has the time for that?  Maybe you're the same way?  Well, never fear!  This is a quick and easy way to make a pot of delicious chicken noodle soup!  Your grandmother would probably be horrified by some of the shortcuts I'm going to show you, but we can keep those our secret.

In the interests of full disclosure, I have absolutely no recollection of either of my Grandmas ever cooking chicken noodle soup for me from scratch, but I'm sure if they had, it would have been delicious!

You will need:

• A 32 ounce thing of chicken broth.  I use Swanson.  Or, if you are so inclined and have some lying around, use homemade chicken broth.  Whatever floats your boat.
• A can of canned chicken breast.  I think it was 13.5 ounces, but it may have only been 12.5.  Either way, one of the big ones.  And, yes, I'm serious; we're using canned chicken.  Don't drain the chicken, though.
• A can of sliced carrots, drained.
• An onion, chopped.
• White cooking wine
• Italian seasonings (an herb blend containing oregano, basil, thyme, rosemary, and marjoram and maybe some other shit)
• Salt and Pepper
• Half a bag of egg noodles

Optionals:

• One or two packets of Swanson Flavor boost
• Celery, 1 stalk, chopped
• Minced garlic

How easy is this going to be?  Well......

1.  In a large stock pot, sautee your onion (and celery and garlic if you're using them) in a bit of olive oil until tender.  A note on the celery:  I love celery in chicken noodle soup, but that's the only thing I ever use it in.  I don't like it raw and no one else in the family will eat it either.  It's silly to buy a thing of celery when I'm only going to use 1 stalk, so I usually just don't even bother with it.

Yup, that's onions.

2.  Dump in your chicken broth and undrained can of chicken.  Season to taste with the Italian seasonings, salt, and pepper.  While you're there, add in a glug or two of white cooking wine.  Just because you can.

3.  Simmer this on low for at least 15 minutes to let the flavors come together.

4.  Dump in your drained can of carrots.  At this point, taste your soup and if you feel it needs more flavor, add the packet of Flavor Boost.  Sometimes I do, sometimes I don't.  Just remember that stuff is VERY salty.

5.  About 30 minutes before you're ready to eat, dump your uncooked egg noodles and turn heat up to medium.  They'll cook in the broth and be super yummy.  The noodles should be cooked after 20 or 30 minutes.

That's it!  Super easy!  This is something the whole family likes, even Eleanor.  The boy also had a few noodles, some chicken, and a couple of pieces of carrot last night and really like it.  You could also add in other vegetables, like frozen peas or fresh mushrooms, if you want.

Brown and Wild Rice with Mushrooms and Marsala Wine

I'm all about short cuts.  Sometimes they work, sometimes they don't.  This time, my shortcut worked very well.

I needed a side dish to go with the Lemon-Rosemary Roasted Chicken.  Normally with roast chicken, I would make stuffing and a green bean casserole, but I wanted something a little more fancy for this chicken.  Through Pinterest (of course), I found a recipe for White and Wild Rice with Mushrooms.  Sounded good to me!

The original recipe called for a mixture of white and wild rice.  I keep white rice on hand, but not wild (something I need to remedy.  At the store, however, boxes of wild rice cost more than I wanted to spend for a side dish.  Yeah, I can get it in bulk at the health food store, but I didn't want to make the extra stop.  So, after perusing the rice section, I stumbled on a solution:  Individual serving cups of brown and wild rice!  Microwavable!  Two for $1.75!  Woot!  I know, I know, it's the slackers way out, but, damn it, I'm a busy woman.  This turned out to be a very quick and delicious side dish.  I could have eaten all of it by myself.  I didn't, but I could have!

You will need:

• Brown and wild rice mix, prepared according to package instructions.
• Butter or margarine.  
• Yellow onion, chopped, however much you like.
• Mushrooms, sliced.
• Marsala wine.  Note:  The original recipe said you could use chicken broth instead of the Marsala wine, but why would you do that?  WHY???
• Salt and pepper

The how-tos:

1.  Brown your onion in the butter or margarine.

2.  Add in your mushrooms and cook until tender.  

3.  Dump in some Marsala wine and simmer until the liquid is almost all absorbed.  You still want some saucy goodness, though.  I don't know why I don't have a picture of that.

4.  Mix mushrooms and onions into your prepared rice.  Season to your taste with salt and pepper.

Easy peasy!  And so, so, SO good!

Lemon-Rosemary Roasted Chicken

First off, let me say that I make a mean roast chicken.  Seriously.  Ask anybody.  Juicy and tender with a nice crispy skin.  I normally do it with salt, pepper, and various herbs (whatever I have on hand; never the same twice).  And butter.  Lots of butter.  But you have to say it "buttah".  It's required.

Anyway, I make a fabulous roast chicken.  And this one is SO much better.  You know how "no one puts Baby in the corner"?  Yeah, 'cause that's where my roast chicken recipe is sitting, weeping bitter tears of shame.

I found this recipe courtesy of the Pioneer Woman  (http://thepioneerwoman.com).  I love her recipes.  You should check her out if you haven't done so already.  I had a chicken in the freezer (they were on sale for $0.79/lb recently), so when I saw this recipe pop on Facebook, I knew I had to make it.

You should make it, too.

You will need:

• A whole chicken
• Butter, softened. (And, please, for all that's good in this world, use real butter.)  I used 1/2 cup.  I'm so thrilled that I'm able to ease up on my dairy restrictions now.
• Lemons.  I used 3.
• Fresh rosemary sprigs.  I used 3 or 4.  I don't have fresh rosemary in my garden yet, so I bought some at the store.  

Time to play with poultry, people!

1.  Prep your chicken.  Thaw it out.  Get rid of the innards.  Rinse it and pat it dry.  Put it in a roasting pan.  Throw some salt on the bird.

2.  Zest 2 of your lemons.  This was my first time using my nifty little citrus zester and I LOVED it!  I strongly suggest you invest in one.  Remember, when zesting, you only want the outer part of the peel. If you hit the white pith, it's gonna be bitter.

3.  Strip the leaves off one of the rosemary sprigs and finally chop the leaves.  Relish in how good it smells.

4.  Mix your chopped rosemary and lemon zest into your softened butter.

5.  Grab some of that lovely butter mixture and rub it all over the chicken.  Get in all the nooks and crannies.  Inside the cavity.  Under the skin.  Butter, butter, butter that bird!  (Note: In the interest of not getting chicken butter all over my phone, there are no pictures of this part.  Sorry!)  Save some of the butter for basting during the roasting; I put the bowl on the oven so that the butter would melt.

6.  Squeeze the juice of one of the lemons all over the chicken.  I erred and only used 1/2 lemon and really wish I had used a whole one.  Learn from my mistake.  Salt and pepper the chicken.

7.  Cut up your remaining lemons in half and shove them up the bird's ass.  Don't worry, she won't mind.  While you're there, shove in your remaining sprigs of rosemary.

8.  Roast the chicken at 425° for an hour and 15 minutes or until the juices run clear.  Baste it periodically with some of the lemon-rosemary butter.  Your house is going to smell SO good!

9.  Be sure to let the chicken rest for at least 10 minutes after you take it out of the oven.

I served this with brown and wild rice with mushrooms and Marsala wine (recipe to come at a later date) and broccoli.  Because we always have broccoli.

 This was SO delicious.  Juicy and tender with a very nice delicate flavor.  Even the boy had a taste and really liked it!  I keep picking at the leftovers whenever I go into the kitchen.

Go forth and roast a chicken!

The Gardening Chronicles, part 1: The Construction of the Raised Beds

Good morning, dear readers!  It's a lovely Monday morning here in North San Diego county and should actually get up into the 70s today!  Woot!  However, I am still reeling from the time change yesterday.  Seriously, can we just ditch Daylight Saving Time already and be done with it?  If you agree, you should go sign this petition to the White House to abolish DST:  https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/petition/eliminate-bi-annual-time-change-caused-daylight-savings-time/ShChxpKh

So far the only benefit to the time change is that the boy slept until 7 instead of getting up at 6 like he has been.  Never mind the fact that new 7 was old 6 and I'm still an exhausted zombie, but, damn it, he slept until 7.

BREAKING NEWS:  While I was typing the above paragraph, we had an earthquake.  A tiny one, to be sure, but still a nice little jolt.  I now return you to your regularly scheduled blog.

Anyway, despite all of this, we had a good weekend.  Our big project was getting the materials for at least one of my new raised garden beds and attempting to assemble the sucker.  To be fair, most of the construction work would be done by Hubby.  He's pretty damn great.

After weeks of research and multiple postings on multiple gardening message boards, I finally decided on what we needed for the beds.  This was no easy task, as there are a lot of options and lots of pros and cons to each option.  For the record, my beds are going to be 4ft wide, 6ft long, and 1 foot deep.

Option 1:  Pressure treated lumber.  This is a matter of some controversy in the gardening world.  Until fairly recently (within the last 10 years), treated lumber was treated with a variety of chemicals including arsenic.  Some people claimed that if you used PTL (pressure treated lumber) for garden beds, the chemicals would leach into the soil and into your veggies/fruits.  No good, right?  Well, they no longer use arsenic in treating PTL, but it's still chemically saturated, and there is still some debate if those chemicals will leach into the soil and if they are safe.  The common consensus is they are safe, but it's up to you to make that decision.  For me, the idea of using chemically treated wood in my garden gave me the heebie jeebies.  However, PTL is more pest and rot resistant and more widely available and fairly cost effective.  Do your own research and decide what would work best for you.

Option 2:  Non-treated lumber.  No icky chemicals, fairly cost efficient and accessible, etc.  However, more susceptible to rot and pests and will probably need to be replaced in a few years, depending on where you live.

Option 3:  Cedar or Redwood.  Both are highly recommended (cedar more so than redwood) for garden beds as they are rot resistant and pest resistant hardwoods.  However, they can be pricey.  Redwood boards were nearly twice the cost of untreated pine, and I couldn't even find cedar lumber at Home Depot or Lowes to price it out.  For cedar boards, I would have had to go to a lumber yard and it would have been expensive.  However, cedar beds will last a hell of a long time (decades, even) and you don't have to worry about chemicals.  I would LOVE to use cedar, but, well, we're broke.

Option 4:  DIY Kits.  You can find raised bed kits on-line or at garden centers.  They're expensive, but give you everything you need.  However, for the cost, just build them yourself.  Save yourself some money, people.

Option 5:  Everything else.  People make raised beds out of concrete blocks, old tractor tires, railroad ties, bales of straw, etc, etc.

So, on Sunday, we loaded the kids into the car and headed off to Home Depot.  I had decided to use untreated Douglas Fir boards, 2 inches x 12 inches x 12 feet, and have the boards cut down to build the 4ft x 6ft bed.  So, I would need 3 boards at a cost of approximately $15 a board.  Plus, we would need corner posts and deck screws.

Then, while wandering around the lumber department, I stumbled across a solution that seemed so simple that I figured I must be missing something.  Seriously, how is this not being shouted about from every gardening blog imaginable?

Get this:  Untreated, CEDAR boards, measuring 1 inch x 6 inches x 6 feet, for $2 EACH!  Wait, what?  That can't be right, can it?  How is this even possible?

Okay, here's the secret.....

Wait for it.....

It's......

FENCING SLATS!

Yeah, you read that right.  Seriously.  Damned fencing slats.  How is this not the go-to option when you're trying to save money?  Okay, so they're only 1 inch thick.  I don't see why that's going to be a problem, and if for some reason the sides start to buckle under pressure from the soil (which I don't think will happen), then it's no big deal to run to Home Depot, but some more boards and double them up.  No harm, no foul.  And, yeah, okay, the ends of the slats are angled.  Whatever, just have Home Depot square them up.  You'll be an inch or so short of 6 feet, but let's not get picky here, folks.

So, for a 4 x 6 x 1 bed, we needed 8 fencing slats.  Adam was able to find an untreated cedar 4 inch x 4 inch x 8 foot post for the corners.  And a pack of deck screws.  Home Depot was kind enough to cut the wood down for FREE, so Hubby didn't even have to break out the table saw.  Four of the boards he had cut down to 4 foot lengths.  The other 4, he had them square off the ends.  The corner post, he had cut into 18 inch lengths (so we got 5, plus a bit left over).  Total cost for the materials, plus tax:  $32.35!

Then, once Hubby got home with the stuff, he got to work.  It took him all of about 45 minutes to put the first bed together, and that included a break to get a drink and also stopping to take pictures (He didn't get all the pictures I wanted, but I'll fill in the gaps when we make the other bed this weekend.)  Now, this doesn't include actually installing it or filling it or anything, just the construction.  It's still sitting on my patio.

This is what Hubby did:

1.  To make the ends of the beds, he attached two of the 4-foot pieces to 2 of the posts, leaving 6 inches of post below as he's going to sink those into the ground for stability.  Obviously, we used 2 pieces of fencing since we want the beds to be 1 foot deep and the fencing was only 6 inches.  He left a small gap in between the pieces of fencing to allow space for the wood to expand.  He used 2 screws per end of fencing.

2.  Next, he attached the long sides of the bed.  Same deal, 2 screws per piece at each end, leaving a gap in between the boards.

3.  Flip the thing over and repeat on the other side.

Ta da!  It is finished!

Don't forget that when this is installed, the bottom 6 inches of the posts will be sunk into the ground, so the bottom of the slats will actually be at ground level.  Make sense?

So, that's it for now.  Stay tuned next week for the installation and prepping process.  I still have to prep the plot of land, get and install some wire mesh to keep the gophers from coming up under neath, and then I'm planning on lining the bottom of the bed with cardboard and old palm fronds.  I don't know if we'll get the dirt this weekend or not, but once we get the soil in, we'll be ready to plant the strawberries.  The tomato and cucumber seedlings probably need another couple of weeks of nursery care first!

Yay!  I'm so excited!