I eat my feelings- Adventures in Enchiladas

I may live in the Pacific Northwest, but let me tell you, I am a Texas girl. I may not have been born there, but having spent the majority of my childhood in a suburb north of Dallas, I claim Texas as home. Give me a Shiner Bock and some Tex-Mex and I am one happy lady.

The past week or two has been a little rough. Sun has been shining, but I've been SWAMPED studying (read: cramming) for midterms, stressing about what the future holds, surviving a long distance relationship, and desperately, desperately missing home. Sometimes a girl just needs a hug from her mama and a glass of wine with her seeester in the Lone Star State, ya know?

Anyway, since my garden is progressing happily along without much intervention from the gardener, to cope, I decided to make (devour) my most favorite enchiladas. These delicious babes are easy to make, and just drip (literally) with my favorite Tex-Mex flavors. They turned out so well this evening, I decided that someone else might want to enjoy them as well! Here's the recipe:

Ingredients:
8-10 Flour Tortillas
1 Rotisserie Chicken, meat shredded
1 Yellow Onion, very thinly sliced into half moons
8 oz. Queso Fresco, crumbled
Sauce:
1tbsp Butter
1 Poblano Pepper, diced
1 Jalepeño, diced
2 cloves Garlic, diced
1 tbsp Flour
1 tsp Cumin
2 cups Chicken Stock
2 cups Salsa Verde
1/2 cup Sour Cream
1/4 cup Cilantro, chopped
Salt/Pepper to taste

Directions:
Preheat oven to 375

Sauté peppers and garlic in butter for 2 minutes. Stir in flour and cumin and cook for 3 more minutes. Pour in chicken stock and bring to a boil. When boiling, add salsa, sour cream, and cilantro and remove from heat. Add salt and pepper to taste.

Pour 1 cup of sauce in the bottom of a greased 9x13 dish. Assemble your enchiladas filling with shredded chicken, onion, and cheese. Place in the dish side by side. Pour the remaining sauce over assembled enchiladas and bake for 15-20 minutes until bubbling. Serve immediately.

Enjoy!

Tomatoes!! Everything you could ever want to know about my personal tomato choices

Last year I planted one variety of tomato: chianti rose. I was absolutely blown away by the amount of flavor and glory those plants produced. I got big, beautiful, meaty tomatoes until the season was over and was thrilled. I cannot even explain to you how incredible it was to eat those giant toms with some mozzarella and a little balsamic...basil and olive oil..oh man. Holy cow. Naturally, I decided to plant only one of those again, and add 5 other varieties to the mix... Logical. I know, but this year I wanted a variety! I needed some slicers, and cherry toms, and sauce toms...I want them all!

This year I went for a sunset pear tomato blend, beef steak, chianti rose, cherokee purple, roma, and siletz

Tomato plants can be either determinate or indeterminate. This means that they will either produce all of their tomatoes all at once, or they will continually produce fruit until the plant dies. Indeterminate (the latter) is my personal favorite because I am a tomato glutton. I love them. I love everything about them and want to enjoy as many of them from the garden as possible. The thing is, Roma tomatoes, the producers of wonderful tomato sauces and soups, are a determinate variety. Siletz are the same way. I happen to enjoy both of these varieties an awful lot, so I allowed them space in my plot this year. Definitely be sure to do your tomato research before choosing your variety. The day my tomatoes stop producing is always the saddest day. 

After choosing my tomato children for the year, I planted them indoors, in peat pots, under a grow light, and let them do their thing. Since I live in the Pacific Northwest, starting these babes inside is pretty essential for getting the most out of my plants. Tomatoes like rich soil with lots of organic matter. Adding compost is always a good choice. The soil where I live has a tendency to be a bit calcium deficient (silly rain and its ability to leach good things from my soil :( ), so adding egg shells is a beautiful way to make sure your little toms get all that they need. You can find an excellent article about egg shell prep here. Eggshells provide several other advantages, but I'll let the lovely ladies at thedigin.com tell you about that!

After a while, your plant babes will outgrow their peat pots and will need to be either hardened off and planted outside (if your region/timing permits), or replanted in larger containers. When you replant or transfer your tomatoes into the ground, be sure you bury as much of the stem as possible. I usually remove the bottom most leaves, leaving just the top leaves above ground. The buried stem will start to grow roots and will make your plant much more stable. This also ensures that your developed roots are deep into the ground which will allow your plant access to the moisture and nutrients found there. Good, flavorful tomatoes require deep, occasional watering and nutrient rich soil. 

Here are what my little (some not so little anymore) ones are looking like now!

If the weather cooperates, I will start hardening these babes off in about 3 weeks, being extra careful to check the forecast for frost. Tomatoes will not tolerate a frost. I will spend about two weeks getting my tomato plants adjusted to outside conditions. See my post about hardening off for more details! After that, all that's left to do is plant these little ones in the ground and cage them!

As the season continues, I'll be sure to keep you updated on my tomato progress!! In the mean time, what tomato varieties are your favorite? What do you have growing currently? Do you have any tips and tricks for healthy tomato progress?

Rain, rain, go away...Garden update, hardening off, pea progress

It has been a hot minute! The month of March here in good ol' Corvally was definitely a rough one for this girl. Not a lot of sun really puts a damper both on my gardening efforts and my mood. I have to take a second to give mad props to the manfriend for putting up with me like a champion through this depressive period. He lives just about 3000 miles away and has basically been a saint. Love that guy.

End sappy interlude.

My little babes are growing up nice and strong for the most part and I'm pretty pleased with how my expansion turned out. I left the plastic over the section that will be dedicated to greens and snow peas for a week or so and was pleased to find a PLETHORA of worms when I pulled it back! This is an excellent sign my friends. These worms have been working hard to pull the organic matter (compost) that I piled on deep down into the soil. This creates macropores for drainage, and also incorporates that OM into my clay-filled soil plot. Soil is truly a self-organizing living body. A beautiful thing.

This is my little plot of heaven just after I planted a few square feet of greens. They're hard to see because I might have jumped the gun in planting them so soon, but I just got so excited...In there I have spinach, lacinato kale, white russian kale, curly scotch kale, collard greens, bibb lettuce, and green romaine. Quite the collection! During the summer I juice. Like...really juice. Like. A LOT of juice drinking. I like to make sure I have a pretty large collection of greens to choose from as my juices are at least 50%-75% greens.

Since I planted so early and did not give my seedlings enough time in the hardening off stage, I lost three of my plant babies to a storm. Hardening off is truly an essential part of the transplanting process. This stage involves placing the seedlings outside for a few hours a day, increasing their time spent outside as the days pass. Last year, I started putting my seedling greens outside two weeks before they ended up in the ground. Every day, I increased their exposure to outside conditions. Not only does this prevent shock in your plant babes, it also increases their ability to cope with conditions such as wind or rain. As the plant babes blow around, they strengthen their stems and build resistance to these conditions. We had a pretty solid storm shortly after I transplanted these seedlings so, I lost the youngest of the 16. Their replacements, along with another row of greens are being hardened off as I type!

The rest, I am pleased to report, are thriving! As you should also be able to see on the right, my snow peas have started poking up and are also doing quite well. I've never grown snow peas before, but I'm pretty excited about them. They're one of my favorite snacks.

I planted two varieties of snow peas from seed just to see how each would fair. Not surprisingly, the Oregon Giants did considerably better than the Sugar Ann. Go figure, eh?  The peas closer to the bottom of the picture below are the Oregon Giants, while the peas closer to the top are Sugar Anns. Just over half of the Sugar Ann seeds never emerged from the soil. Last week, I went ahead and filled in the Sugar Ann gaps with Oregon Giants. They should pop up here pretty soon!

The weather here is finally starting to calm down a little bit. We're supposed to get a little bit more rain this weekend, but after that, sun for the foreseeable future!! Look for more posts soon! Thing are about to start heating up :)

Lemme Update Cha: Thoughts and Feelings about Expansion and Compost Addition

Garden time!!

SO, school, work, and seasonal depression have all been dominating my life lately, but after the purchase of a happy light, tanning (no judgey), and intensive exercise, I'm finally feeling like a person again. It stopped raining just enough to get my plot all finished for the spring! The picture below is just after I expanded the doggy-protection fence.

I bought a cubic yard of compost from a business in town called The Bark Place. They have compost from the PRC that is made up of food scraps and yard waste from the people in town. I would like to take a moment to pat myself on the back for this because I feel like that's the true essence of recycling! Things taken from in town humans, composted and taken care of in town, now contributing to soil organisms soon to be planted on my little plot of land. Its all very cute. Warm fuzzy feelings abound!! Contributing to the earth and things! Weee!

Anyway, if you've never moved a cubic yard of something, it takes some serious time, effort, and wheelbarrowing. In the end, it was worth it. A few progress pictures for you:

Eventually, I got it all done and it looked like this!

WHAT A PLOT!!!! I had to sit and stare at it for a while after my work was done. It's just so pretty!!!

After that was all said and done, I decided to cover the plot with black plastic to try and warm the soil up a bit before spring planting. We've had an abundance of rain lately (THANKS PACIFIC NORTHWEST), and wet soil has a tendency to stay cold for a long time. Hopefully this method will help. I have my garden planned in such a way that I should be able to start planting on the right and fold back the plastic as I go, until, of course, it gets nice enough outside to uncover completely. This should be convenient if we get any random late freezes as well. I can always just carefully recover in the evenings if a threat prevails.

I've heard mixed things about covering a plot with plastic, black or otherwise. From what I've seen, it's a great way to manage weeds in an unplanted bed and an excellent way to warm the soil. There are some that say it damages the delicate ecosystem of soil microorganisms and may harm important organisms. In a well developed soil, the organisms work together to make sure one bacteria or fungi doesn't take over the rest of them. The result is disease free soil! When you upset this balance, things can get out of hand and you can run into some issues, but I haven't found convincing evidence that black plastic covering for a short period of time will be enough to cause such an imbalance. 

You'll also notice that I didn't remove most of the green material in the plot (weeds or otherwise) before overloading with compost. I did this for a few reasons:

1. Ripping all that stuff out is time consuming and annoying. I didn't really like the idea of doing that especially since there was going to be grass involved. Call me lazy, call me irresponsible, call me whatever. I didn't feel like doing it and I shall accept the consequences, good and bad.

2. The more I researched, the more I decided that the plants I ripped up when I did some minor tilling would decay relatively quickly, especially with the heat from the plastic covering. This will result in more nutrients for the plant children! Bonus! Some of those plants were weeds, meaning that I've left weed seeds in my garden bed. I know this. The black plastic should delay their growth a bit, but after that, I'll just have to deal. Pulling weeds isn't my least favorite thing to do in the garden. Sometimes, it's even therapeutic :)

3. The root systems still in place from these now dead plants will act as macropores as the roots start to rot away. This will result in better drainage which is always a goal in my space. Battling the massive amount of clay in my soil is tough, but with good soil management, I shall prevail!! At some point, I'll sure I'll write a blurb about good soil management. It truly is one of the most interesting things I've studied thus far. 

Anyway, if anyone in the internet world is glancing at this, I would be interested to hear other people thoughts and feelings about what I'm doing here. What do you do in your garden beds? How do you deal with weeds and other such annoying business? Do you amend your soil? Would you be willing to give minimal tilling a try? Have you tried any of these things before? Just curious!

Until next time...dreaming of a sunny spring

Getting Started: Plot plans, plant picks, and peat pots!

In the past couple of days, I've had several people ask me about my process in this whole gardening thing. I never really know how much information people are looking for because  1. I'm moderately socially inept and 2. I could ramble on for hours about plants and their great beginnings, so I figured, what better place to blab about procedures than this blog!

The first step in starting your very first vegetable garden is consult the internet. Research what grows well and when in your area. Look at what region you're in according to the hardiness map. Walk outside a few times throughout the day and observe the places that get more sun than others. Plan your plot space! Are you on a balcony? Will you be planting in containers? Raised bed or in ground? Dig into your soil a bit. Is it fluffy and loamy? Is it full of clay? Spring/summer space or autumn/winter? How much space can you dedicate to this? All of these are things to consider when planning your space. Do you want to feed the family for a season or for the year? Is it just you? Are you planning on doing any canning or freezing? Will you be doing square foot gardening or gardening in rows? If you're a first timer and looking for some extra guidance, Smartgardener.com is SUPERB. Check it out! In the interest of keeping this relatively under control and concise, I'll stop there, but plan well! Decide what you want out of your space.

Here is a link to the US hardiness map. This is a helpful tool when garden planning: http://planthardiness.ars.usda.gov/PHZMWeb/Default.aspx

My favorite bit comes next: Pick your plants! I chose a little bit of everything this year, but again do your research! Do you want green beans? Beans that grow in bushes or beans that grow up a trellis?! Do you juice stuff like crazy (this girl) and need TONS of greens or just a few for salads and things?  Do you have a little babe that needs lots of mushy peas and carrots? So many questions!! I live in the Willamette Valley so I choose all of my greens first as they will be the first things in the ground when it kind of sort of stops raining for a minute in early March. This year, I'm expanding my garden a bit so I can have a whole corner dedicated to greens. Through the summers, I like to have a pretty steady supply of green juice. Anyway, look at the amount of space you have and plan accordingly. Again, Smartgardener.com is an incredible resource when it comes to these things.

Next, decide where you'll be purchasing your seeds. My favorite supply website by far is Groworganic.com. Not only are they a great resource for gardening tips and tricks, but each of their seed packets has very specific planting instructions including whether to start indoors or out, seed depth, and ideal soil temperatures. Here is a little sampling of what I'll be growing this season :)

The final getting started step is to actually get started!! I use peat pots and whatever potting soil I have laying around to get my seedlings going. If this is soil you've used before in pots, make sure you add some fresh compost or organic fertilizer to make sure your babes will have plenty of nutrients. This year, I'm employing the help of a grow light, but that is by no means a necessary thing as long as you have a sunny window. Before you plant your seeds in your peat pots, make sure your soil is nice and moist. If it been sitting outside in the cold for a while, wet it with warm water before putting it into the peat pots. Its also never a bad idea to soak the peat pots in warm water for a minute or two. The key to good germination with most plants is light, moisture, and heat. Keep that in mind, moisture, heat, and light. If you find that some of your little plant babies are looking a little "leggy" or "stringy" they might not be getting enough light. If you see they they're looking a little down in the dumps, they're probably not getting enough water. If, in a few weeks, you still have no little seedlings, make sure they're not somewhere freezing cold! Here are my babies as of last night:

Everything seems to be coming along swimmingly! I'll keep everyone updated as the season continues. This is one of the most exciting times for me. So much promise in new beginnings :) Enjoy!!

Soil! Soil! Soil!

So, this might bore the vast majority of human beings, but as I am going through my Soils 205 class at OSU, I am learning a tremendous amount of fascinating and wonderfully applicable information.

Side note: If you're interested in gardening, or living, or existing in a happier state on this earth, GO OUTSIDE. Dig a hole. Put a seed in there and see what happens.

Anyway, in learning about types of soils and soil orders and what not, I discovered that I live on a nice big slab of Vertisol. Vertisol is a soil order that is largely defined by the properties of the copious amounts of clay present. These clays shrink when they are in extended dry conditions and swell when there are wet conditions. In the Willamette Valley, we have Xeric moisture regimes, which means we have very very wet winters and extremely dry summers. Since the clay content is SO high on my property, soil drainage becomes a real issue in the home veggie garden.  When I started digging up my garden bed last year, I spent boat loads of money on soil amenders and compost to try and improve the drainage there.  When I started to till the soil a bit today, I found that the places I tilled in soil amender last year, were not nearly as well drained or healthy as the places I tilled in mostly compost! I also found that there were an abundance of worms (good for creating macro pores aka good for drainage) in the more compost rich sections of the garden. My soils professor, the notorious James Cassidy, says that the answer to almost anything is ADD ORGANIC MATTER. Kudos to you JC, for you are full of magical soil wisdom.

SO all of this is to give you my hypothesis and methods for my garden experiment this year. In order to make the soil more glorious for my plant babies this year, I am planning on adding almost exclusively organic matter, in the form of good quality compost and leaf mulch. The organic matter should help improve drainage and should allow the plants to access a larger portion of the nutrients and water stored up so tightly in that soil. Clay holds on to moisture and nutrients, so although I watered often, I found that my plant babies were dehydrated and sad. The added organic matter should help alleviate that issue. As I continue to add more OM through the years, I'm hoping one day, my plant babies will be able to access the all of the glorious nutrients! The leaf much will remain on top of the soil throughout the growing season to help retain moisture in that top layer. Summers are very dry here so the top 2 inches or so of soil dry out very quickly.

I am also planning on only truly loosening/tilling the sections of ground where I will actually be placing seedlings or seeds after my first addition of organic matter. Since soil is a self-organizing living thing, this will help maintain some of the tunnels (macro pores) developed by roots of past plants, worms, and burrowing animals. This should hopefully create a better draining environment for my plant babies!!

 As the season progresses, I'll keep you all (I am absolutely positive you're enamored with all of this riveting information) posted with my results! Below, you'll find a picture of my progress today. Initial till done with a pitch fork, gently, to maintain developed pores and worm life. This is pre added organic matter. Where you see the pitch fork stuck in the ground on the right side of the picture marks the future border of my plot. I'm expanding :)

Humble beginnings

So, the thought of writing a blog has always been a bit overwhelming. Dedicating time daily, or weekly to write/type down thoughts and feelings no one else could possibly care about seems a daunting task, but here I am!

I am Jorie. A Viticulture and Enology student at Oregon State University, a creator, a logistics coordinator, a gardener, a soil organism, a doggy mommy, a wine drinker, a lover of plants, a human.

The idea of garden therapy and a passion for growth are the driving forces behind this experiment. Last year, after moving to Corvallis, Oregon, in September, I discovered that seasonal affective disorder is, indeed, a real thing. For anyone who may not know, the Pacific Northwest is gray about 9 months out of the 12. It mists. Not rains. Mists. In your face. For weeks on end. Without a gleaming ray of sunshine in sight. I grew up in Texas where sunshine abounds and is gloriously overwhelming. My first winter here was rough to say the least. In an attempt to ease my frustrations with the weather and with an underwhelming job, I went out into my yard and basically ripped apart a pretty large section with the intention of building something tangible. I wanted to add something to this world I was living in. To feel useful and productive. I needed something desperately and, let's be real, gardening is cheaper than therapy. And it ended up working! The result was a lush, glorious, safe place. It became my retreat. It was what challenged my mind enough to keep me sane during the dark days.

Anyway, this is the beginning. I'm back in school now and learning a lot. Get ready for a ton of soils information...its my current obsession and hopefully you'll soon see why. I want to document and share some of that knowledge. I want a place to preserve my gardening experiences, my wine industry experiences, and kitchen experiments. I want a place to look back at and be able to, hopefully, see progress...and growth...heh..heh... see what I did there...Growth..Garden blog...heh :)

Pictured above is my garden last year. I plan on expanding, experimenting, and growing more than ever! Get ready!!