Rhubarb is a showy plant that holds its own in the front flower beds even if the critters have a snack here or there.  Don’t worry if the leaves get a bit chewed as they get composted regardless.  Be sure not to eat any part of the rhubarb leaves as they are toxic and will make you sick.  The thick red stems is what we are going for.

To harvest, solidly grasp the stem and twist to the side and pull to remove. Do not cut the stalks.

Trim the leaves in a fan pattern for storing in the fridge or  trim the tops completely if you plan to use the rhubarb right away.

Whether stalks are red or green doesn’t affect flavour, but the red stalks are generally preferred to make the beautiful pink colour often associated with rhubarb desserts like this Rhubarb Sorbet Recipe.

Of course grapevine (Vitis spp.) is the most popular wood for making vine wreaths.  For this project I used cuttings from a Virginia Creeper (Parthenocissus quinquefolia) that trails along a shady fence.  It is a bit of a softer vine so adding an unwound coat hanger would stiffen up the frame.  As I have mine on a trellis, it holds its shape just fine. American Wisteria (Wisteria frutescens) and Honeysuckle (Lonicera spp.) would also make a great wreath.

Materials:

• vine
• pruners

Directions: 

1. Begin by gathering and untangling the vine pieces.  When they have been tamed into a bundle that is manageable, form the vine into a circular shape on a large surface.  Using a few thick strands of vine, begin to wind around the bundle, tucking the end of the vine in.

2. Continue to wind and secure the entire wreath.  When the end meets the beginning, knit the vine ends together and continue to wind the outer vines to secure, overlapping the starting point.  Tuck in any loose ends.

3. Set the wreath somewhere to dry and take shape.

My vine wreath is just the perfect addition to the bentwood trellis used to distract from the compost bin.

A side note: if you want to also make your own bentwood trellis, Making Bentwood Trellises, Arbors, Gates, & Fences by Jim Long is a great resource.  It has many designs to choose from plus information on choosing wood, suggested plantings, and even recipes.

Now if you want to dress up your new grapevine wreath, here are some creative examples to inspire you.

Faux Floral Ideas clockwise from top left: 1. Rustic Burlap Wreath from Too Much Time, 2. Felt Flower Wreath by Little Things Bring Smiles, 3. Fabric Rosette Wreath by Little Page Turners, 4. Spring Wreath by Creatively Living…Outside The Box, 5. Whimsical Spring Wreath by SAS Interiors

Painted Wreaths clockwise from top left: 6. DIY Flowery Wreath by Style at Home, 7. Blue Spring Wreath by Frugal Coupon Living, 8. Red Wreath by Wisecraft, 9. Wriggling Snake Wreath by Martha Stewart Living, 10. Spring Wreath By Two Yellow Birds Decor

Other Unique Uses for a Grapevine Wreath clockwise from top left: 11. Grapevine Wreath Chandelier by Rustchic (love this idea!), 12. Wreath Bird Feeder by Little House in the Suburbs (adorable), 13. A Grapevine Wreath Charger by StoneGable, 14. Grapevine Wreath Birdbath by Disney Family Fun

15. And of course we can’t forget about the Garden Therapy Halloween Hop Wreath

Thanks for vising the Weekend Project that will also be submitted to Between Naps on the Porch, Tip Junkie, Not Just a Housewife , The Thrifty Home, Savvy Southern Style, Delightful Order, My Romantic Home, Funky Junk Interiors, Under the Table Dreaming, Nifty Thrifty Things.

This month we take a look at a garden book from a few different perspectives.  Three of our reviewers from Garden Therapy Book Club join us to share their thoughts on The Year-Round Vegetable Gardener: How to Grow Your Own Food 365 Days a Year, No Matter Where You Live.

 

Sam Philips is a partner of Victory Gardens, a Vancouver, BC, business who helps people grow their own food! The team at Victory Gardens looks forward transforming front yards for food production, facilitating dynamic workshops, such as: “Grow Your Own Pizza”, providing education and planning tools for the new urban farmer to grow what they eat and much more. Grow what you eat!

Mimi is a novice urban gardener living in a New York City borough, documenting her adventure in gardening at gardening in the boroughs of nyc. She gardens by trial and error, seeing what works and what doesn’t and learning from her failures. Her goal is to grow her own organic vegetables, fruit, plants, trees and flowers and try to recycle, re-use, conserve wherever she can.

Zoe is a full time job is a Dietitian, but her full time love is crafting, sewing, quilting and creating beautiful handcrafted items. She has a passion for home cooking and growing food to eat from her own garden in Kansas. She writes about it all at Scout’s Stitches.

 ~

Overview of  The Year-Round Vegetable Gardener

Sam:  Based off of the Nova Scotia coast, Niki Jabbour has written a comprehensive guide to year-round gardening that can be utilized by gardeners from an array of geographical regions. This book is useful to not only the beginner gardener, but also an experienced gardener who perhaps hasn’t fully delved into winter gardening. The Year-Round Vegetable Gardener stresses not only methods for winter gardening, but how to utilize row covers and cold frames to get a jump on warm-season crops as well.  Niki Jabbour covers planting successively, intensive gardening, and crop rotation in an easy to understand way.

 

First Impressions

Zoe: I liked the book. It presented the information in an organized way and explained the advantages and disadvantages of the different devices used to extend the growing season. Even for someone who is not quite ready to commit to year round gardening there was a lot of useful information. Some of the sections I found most useful were planting techniques to improve your harvest, crop rotation maps, and the section that looked at what varieties of vegetables thrive better in cool or warm seasons.

Sam: While I must admit that the cover is not the most eye-catching, some of the photos inside the book are quite stunning; one photo that stands out for me is an image of freshly harvested, dirt-covered carrots lying on a bed of white snow. It conveys bounty even when it’s barren outside.

Sam: The layout is very comprehensive, which is integral. My personal favorite was Niki’s chart on successive planting. The chart lays out the crops’ average days to harvest, if the crop is a repeated or single harvest, planting season, time between plantings, and type of succession planting. Planting successively and timing is the key to consistent harvest!

 

Cold Climate Gardening

Mimi: I’ve been gardening in the boroughs of New York City for the last 3 years and I often wondered how I could keep growing vegetables well into the late fall and winter.  Upon reading the book, I was so impressed with the techniques that Niki was using to extend her growing season.  She gardens far North of me, in Nova Scotia, Canada, and she was harvesting cool weather vegetables well into the snowy winter.   If she can do it that far north, I figured I have no excuse not to do it in zone 7.  Some of the techniques she uses to protect plants from the cold weather elements are row covers, cloches, cold frames, mini hoop tunnels, and greenhouses.  Many of the techniques are inexpensive and easy.

Sam: Gardening throughout the colder season has its advantages; for example, Niki Jabbour points out that there are fewer pests to contend with. What’s the biggest advantage to cold season gardening? Having the gratification of harvesting beautiful greens out of a cold frame for dinner in the winter! Niki is a VERY productive gardener. Not only this, she takes the steps to making it easy for her readers.

Zoe: There are many things I learned from this book. Some of the main things I will be paying more attention to in the future is using cloches or water filled cloches on my early planted tomatoes and peppers in case there is a late frost. We have had it happen a couple years where we planted early and then a late frost killed all of our tomatoes. Another tip from the book was to pay attention to which varieties of plants are bred to grow better in cool ground versus warm ground.  This is something I will start to pay attention to so that I can maximize harvest in whichever season I am growing.

 

Project: Interplanting (p. 30) rating: TBD

Zoe:  I didn’t technically try “a project” from the book, as we have been working on one major project for the garden this spring- a beautiful fence to keep the deer out!

But there are techniques that I plan to use from this book. One of the techniques I decided to use was Interplanting (page 30). In my little corner of the garden I planted brussels sprouts (pictured below) and I scattered spinach seed between the plants to use the space to its maximum potential. The spinach hasn’t sprouted yet, but it will soon and should be harvested by the time the brussels sprouts are ready!

 

~

Project: Hoop House (pg. 36) rating: 5/5

Sam: I wanted to speed up the germination of my arugula, mustards, radishes and lettuces, so I made hoop houses over my raised beds. All it took was some rebar (4 staked on the edges per side of a 4 by 6 bed), 4 pieces of ¾” PVC conduit piping cut to my desired length that I fit over top, and some row cover that I stretched over top and weighted down with rocks. The reason I used row cover is because the rainwater can get through, there is good moisture retention, and there is still good air circulation.

Niki notes that you can use the row cover on its own, laying it over your crops with enough slack for growth, but I like the aesthetic of a neat hoop house. Also, depending on the season, I can swap the row cover for a warmer poly. Some more delicate crops also get “chafed” if the row cover is laid on top of them. Remember to install a hoop house long before insects will be a problem, and secure the bottom tightly so they can’t creep on through. The hoop house not only speeds up germination by increasing the temperature 2 degrees Celsius, it keeps out the birds!

 

~

Project: Cloches (p. 42) rating: 5/5

Mimi:  An easy technique that Niki uses are cloches, which are dome shaped mini greenhouses that you put over individual plants, often made from plastic or glass.  You can buy fancy cloches, but an inexpensive DIY method is to re-use plastic juice bottles, soda bottles, milk containers or dome shaped food containers like the kind you get with a rotisserie chicken take-out.

 

~

Project: Cold-Frame (p. 45) rating: 5/5

Mimi: The one technique that I was most interested in was the cold frame.  In Niki’s book, starting on page 45, she describes different types of cold frames from portable to permanent structures.  Since I already have raised beds in the garden, I simply added the window frame on top of the raised bed so that it could insulate the bed and trap in the sunlight to warm up the soil and seedlings.

During mid-day when the sun is out, you can prop the window open to allow for some ventilation. It’s also great if you put a hinge on the edge of the window and box to secure the window in place and to allow you to easily open and close it.

~

I’m so grateful and honoured that these amazing ladies took the time to share their thoughts on the book and show off some of the projects they tested.  They have collectively given us a thorough idea of the sheer amount of great information in  The Year-Round Vegetable Gardener and some insight as to the kind of projects you can expect.

To learn more about how Sam can help you Grow What You Eat! please visit Victory Gardens for personalized help with starting your very own veggie garden no matter what space you have.  They will even send you reminders on when to plant veggies by e-mail!

To check out the eco-conscious Mimi in her quest for a greener 2012, visit her at gardening in the boroughs of nyc and revel in all her great ideas on how to reduce her carbon footprint.  She is such an inspiration!

To follow the wildly creative Zoe in her crafty adventures, make sure you check out her blog, Scout’s Stitches.  From April 25-30 be sure to check out How Does your Garden Grow gardening series with a special guest post from yours truly.

 

Want to win a copy of  The Year-Round Vegetable Gardener?  Enter by leaving a comment below before April 25.  Get bonus entries by tweeting this post or sharing on Facebook and coming back here to let us know you did.  Contest now closed.  Congratulations to the winner: George!

Many places sell a bean mix that contain a variety of different lentils, peas and beans.  I used mung beans (these are the beans that sprout the long white bean sprouts you typically find in Asian food) and green peas as I like the combination of starchy and sweet favour.  Plus they both sprout in 3-4 days so they are compatible for timing.

Fill a 1L mason jar 1/4 of the way with dried organic beans/peas.  Cover them with water and leave on your counter to soak overnight, 8-12 hours.  Cut a square of cheesecloth and secure it tightly with a canning jar ring.  Strain off water and set back down on your counter.  Rinse the jar contents now 4 x per day, straining off all the liquid.

After 4 days or so, the contents of the jar sprout and jar will start to fill up – it’s time to eat them!  Add raw to salads and sandwiches or toss into stir-fries and soups.  I have also heard of people adding them to smoothies although I’m not tripping over myself to try that one.  Any other ideas on how to use these sprouts in recipes?

See this post featured at At the Picket Fence’s Inspiration Friday and North Coast Gardening’s Miscellany Monday.

Update: I buy my seeds from West Coast Seeds but you can also find them online here.

First made last winter, the jars were quickly gobbled up as it is my all-time-favorite jam of all time.  Then in the summer when raspberries were ripe and ready, I hunted for blood oranges.  In this day and age of abundance I though someone might stock a few.  Nope.  I settled for making the recipe with cape gooseberries and it was good.  Just not my all-time-favorite of all time.

But now it’s time, my friends, time for blood orange and raspberry jam.  Finally.  Here is the recipe:

Ingredients:

• enough  blood oranges to get 4 cups freshly-squeezed juice
• 4 cups raspberries
• 3-4 cups sugar (this really depends on your preferences and how sweet the fruit is) I used 3 cups and my jam is perfectly sweet and tart
• cheesecloth

Directions: 

• Put a couple of plates in the freezer.
• Juice those bloody oranges until you get 4 cups.  Take all the membrane and seeds out of the peels and tie into a square of cheesecloth (I used a 4-ply thickness of cheesecloth, i.e. a large square folded in half twice).  Tie the ends of the cheesecloth around a large wooded spoon.  This is your pectin bag.
• Add juice to a large pot with the raspberries and sugar and bring to a boil on medium-high.  Stir frequently.  Hang bag of orange guts from the edge of the pot.  I rigged up something with a chopstick and a clip on the side of the pot, but the large wooden spoon works great too.
• When boiling, reduce heat to medium-low and continue boiling and stirring until reduced.   Remove pectin bag and let cool.  When cool enough to handle, squeeze the bag so that a creamy gel comes out of the pores of the cheesecloth – that’s your pectin!  Scrape the pectin back into the jam and stir.  Then you can discard the bag and membranes.

• Jam is ready when it passes the gel test: put a spoonful of the jam on a plate from the freezer.  When the jam has cooled, drag your finger through the middle of the glob.  If it spreads back into a puddle, it isn’t gelled yet.  If your finger mark stays put, then your jam is ready to be canned.
• Process 125ml (aka 1/2 cup) jars for 5 minutes, or 250ml (aka 1 cup jars) for 10 minutes in a boiling water canner.

In other news, just as these flavors came together organically, it seems that right at the same time I’m all ramped up about citrus, I have a few new Garden Therapy Handmade pillows to launch.  This one seemed particularly fitting to announce today, given the citrus-y color of the crocosmia blooms.  For those of you who haven’t yet, please visit the Garden Therapy Handmade shop and take a look at all the bright-colored blooms.  Hopefully they will bring some cheer to your winter’s days.

Ingredients: 

• 12 organic lemons
• coarse Kosher salt

Directions:

1. Scrub the lemons under running water with a vegetable or nail brush to get the rind nice and clean.  Then cut the stems and ends off the lemons.

2. Score each lemon into a star: start by making a cut through the lemon from the top down to almost the bottom, but don’t slice all the way through.  Leave enough remaining so that the lemon stays attached.  Cut again twice more, to get a star shape.

3. Pack the insides of the star with lots of coarse salt.  Don’t be afraid of the salt it’s not going to become overly salty if you use too much.  Just go for it!

4. Now pack the lemons into clean, sterilized jars.  Really squish them in there so that the juices start to cover the lemons.  Add extra fresh lemon juice if you need to top each jar up so that all the  lemons are completely covered.  Keep squishing down the lemons over the next couple of days to get more juices out and covering the fruit.

5. Let sit for a month in a cold place like the fridge until the rinds soften.

To use the preserved lemons, rinse under cold running water and remove the pulp.  The pulp can be squeezed for it’s juice, but generally the rind is what is used.  Slice or dice the rind to add to recipes like this one: Chicken Tagine with Green Olives and Preserved Lemon. Yum!

Materials:

• Epsom salts
• 100% pure lavender essential oil (not fragrance)
• dried lavender
• vintage mason jars

Every year we like to hang a different wreath on our front door during the holidays.  We’ve amassed a collection of wreaths to match the holiday season trends of sparkly red berries, Christmas ornaments, peacock feathers, and square-shaped boxwood but my favorites are most certainly natural, fresh wreaths.

A fresh wreath makes for an individual work of art that smells as good as it looks.  Florists and garden centers are wonderful places to find one to suit any style but if you are feeling adventurous, a homemade wreath made with garden clippings or purchased greens, can be most gratifying.

Given the current popularity of lateral space gardening, there are supplies available for all sorts of wreath plantings. Evergreen, succulent, moss, and flower wreaths are beautiful micro gardens that will suit most any style or climate.  Care will vary depending on what type of planting you decide on, but many will last for months, if not years, with a couple weekly squirts of a spray bottle.

Here’s how to make one:

Materials:

• evergreen foliage
• grapevine wreath
• pruners
• gloves
• twine
• berries, twigs, pinecones, ribbons (optional)

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A special thanks to the wonderful neighbourhood gals who provided all the foliage, wine, and treats that go along with the annual wreath-making afternoon.

With American Thanksgiving coming up this week, I thought I’d share my homemade bourbon cranberry sauce recipe.  We gave jars of this away to each of the guests that joined us for Canadian thanksgiving back in October.  The recipe is intended for canning so you (and your guests if they are lucky enough to take a jar home) can store in the cupboard until Christmas or Thanksgiving next year.  Don’t forget to dress up your jars with some adorable canning labels you can download and print on label paper.  Here is a custom design for this recipe:  Garden Therapy Bourbon Cranberry Sauce Labels.

Ingredients:

• 6  cups cranberries
• 1 1/2 cups sugar
• 1/2 cup water
• 1 tbsp red wine vinegar
• 1/2 cup bourbon

1. Combine sugar, water, and vinegar in a tall-sided saucepan and bring to a boil over high heat.
2. Stir until the sugar is dissolved, then add cranberries.
3. Return to a boil, then reduce heat and stir rapidly uncovered for 5 minutes until cranberries burst.
4. Stir in bourbon.
5. Ladle into hot jars leaving 1/2″ of headspace.  Process in a boiling water canner for 15 minutes for 250ml (1 cup) jars.

Makes three 250ml (half pint) jars or six 125ml jars.

We’re participating in these linky parties or blog hops.

Without the space to grow hops in our small, urban garden, we were excited to receive a gift of freshly cut hops from the country.  the Golden Hop Vine (Humulus lupulus ‘Aureus’) is a vigorous-growing deciduous vine and the prettier sibling of the common hops used to make beer.    The cone-shaped flowers are green in the summer but when it’s time to cut the vine back in the fall, the flowers start to turn.  The flowers arrived a pale yellow, but have dried to a rich golden colour.  If you are lucky enough to get your hands on some hops, here are the instructions on making your own Halloween Hop Wreath.

Materials:

• grapevine wreath
• golden hop stems
• scissors
• Halloween decoration (crow or other)

Step 1: Pick out strong stems  3″-6″ long with clusters of hops at the ends.  Snip off the leaves and flowers at the base of each stem, enough so that the stem can inserted into the wreath and hold.

Step 2: Starting at the inner bottom edge of the wreath, tuck each stem into the web of grapevine branches, enough so that when the wreath is hung they will not fall out.  Insert the stems around the grapevine wreath from inner bottom edge of the form to the upper top edge.  As the hop flowers will hang once mounted upright, this will ensure that the wreath will look symmetrical.  A good practice is to periodically lift the wreath to its finished position to check the arrangement.  Give it a light shake at the same time to remove any flowers that are loose.

Step 3: Use your creativity to decorate the wreath for the season. We used a crow but a spider, rat, or even a severed hand would have been just as compelling.

Step 4: hang your wreath and enjoy the flowers as they deepen in colour and release the most delicious hop aroma.