Happy Halloween From Rod Builders

I think we've gone through four pounds of candy this week. Check out our Knuckle Head pumpkins. Grew them ourselves.

The Super Freak pumpkins

Our Version of the Upside Down Tomato Planter

We decided this year to try growing our tomato plants upside down. Gardeners have been doing this long before the invention of the Topsy Turvy with mixed results, but we like the idea of the fruit hanging down, less damage that way. Bob split a couple of diesel oil barrels and built a sturdy wooden stand. Our plants require daily watering, "experts" tell us this is because our plant's roots are underdeveloped. We have cherry tomatoes and cucumber plants on top. They hold in some moisture, though that was not our intention in planting them there. The expert says roots like to grown down, plants like to grown toward the sun. The plants free to grow up do seem hardier, don't you think? We'll see how it goes. It's too soon to say our version of an upside down tomato planter was a success. The whole garden has been a bit of a letdown compared to last year's. A lot of gardeners we talked to here in Eastern Washington State were disappointed in their gardens this year.

Watching Our Garden Grow

Day 120Things are winding down in the garden. All the onions and potatoes are in our pantry/cellar. The green beans, carrots, and broccoli are in the freezer. Bob has been canning his tomatoes. There is cauliflower still to pick and a few errant cabbage, but that's about it. Bob's already put up 20 or more quarts of sauerkraut. We'll try and muster up the time and energy to deal with the rest. The acorn squash and pumpkins are still on the vine and that's a good place for them until first frost. This was our second garden and we were satisfied with the amount of food we were able to grow, eat and preserve. We are already making notes on what we want to plant next year and are planning on doing more seedsaving.

Day 90 Day 60

Day 30

Our Vegetable Garden Day 90

Here is our garden 90 days into it. Those are 10-foot high sunflower plants in the background. They have bloomed since The Skirt took this photo on August 13th. (I'll post a picture later this week.) We are harvesting Walla Walla onions, potatoes, cabbage, broccoli, beets, carrots, greens, Acorn squash, peppers, a few tomatoes and buckets and buckets of cucumbers. Bob has put up almost 50 quarts of pickles! I know what everyone is getting for Christmas.

PS Chickens will walk on razor blades for cucumbers. You have to cut them open for them.

PSS Garden on day 60

Our Vegetable Garden Day 60

Ok, The Skirt knows this is a blog about vehicle design and fabrication, but I love showing the process of things. Here's how our garden looked on July 9th, day 60. We are eating loads of lettuce, spinach, kale, bok choy, mustard, pumpkin leaves, beet tops and beets, onions, shallots, radish, carrots and Joseph's Coat. Mrs. Bui told us about Joseph's Coat a.k.a. Chinese spinach. Very tender and tasty. It thrives in this over 100-year old cattle pasture.The garden on day 30.

The garden on day 1.

The Vegetable Garden Day 30

Hey car fans, the skirt has many interests one is growing our own food. Here's our garden 30 days after planting the seeds. Those are shallots in the left foreground and watermelon, pumpkin, squash and cucumbers on the right. North of those are potatoes, cabbage, and other cruciferous vegetables, Walla Walla onions, tomatoes, peppers and all the salad fixings - lettuce, spinach, radish, carrots and such. They are all progressing on schedule and we've been eating the mature greens. Also growing well are those weeds alongside the shallots. Our friend Mrs. Bui attends to that section. She told us not to get worked up about it as she plans on eating them.

Garden Day 1

Watch Our Garden Grow

We planted 90% of our garden on Sunday. Held off on the tomatoes and peppers because they were forecasting a freeze watch for last night. Now we begin defense mode.

This video shows Bob using the Golden Jubilee fence post driver.

Pumpkins - For The Taking

If you're in the neighborhood, stop by the shop

for a free pumpkin.

Bob's Whole Canned Tomatoes

Oh me of little faith. The Skirt was just sure our tomatoes would not ripen before the first hard freeze, but Inland Empire weather during the last two weeks of summer and the first two weeks of fall was warm, in the mid-70's to -mid-80's. Last weekend Bob canned 20 jars of tomatoes enough to last until next year's harvest.

P.S. Don't be a food snob, get yourself a crock-pot.

Black Oily Sunflower Seeds - For the Birds

After years of feeding the birds we noticed they prefer the small black oily sunflower seeds, so we saved some from the Costco bird seed we use and planted them in our garden. The birds will be eatin' good in our neighborhood.

Mrs. Stahl's Jam Cake

We are making raspberry jam this weekend and thought now was a good time to use up last year's supply. Nothing uses jam like Bernice Stahl's Old-Fashioned Jam Cake recipe, which calls for two cups. We also spread jam between the layers of this moist, spicy treat. This is the second time we've made this cake. This time we tweaked the recipe by adding ground cardamon to the cinnamon, nutmeg and allspice mixture and topped it with just a thin layer of coconut pecan frosting. It is soooo good. You should try it.

The Year of No Red Tomatoes

We have come to the realization that there will be no Roma tomatoes from our garden this year. It appears here in the Spokane area it just didn't get hot enough for long enough to get the job done.

In my web search for fried green tomatoes I found this recipe for green tomato cake . Wonder if these puny Romas will work? So where are all the red tomatoes?

Update 9/10/08:

Seeing a little more color, but is there enough time before our first frost to finish them off?

We'll Be Chopping Broccoli

There will be no tomatoes to can this year, but we will be chopping broccoli and mashing potatoes.

Spokane Valley Strawberries in August

Our friend Cory brought in these strawberries last Tuesday. My mouth is watering just writing about them. They are so good we are sprinkling them on everything including our steak. Cory is responsible for the paint and body work on some very nice hot rods,

Don & Nancy Wilbur's '32 SedanDan & Jean Rennick's '55 Pontiac

These days he prefers the life of a gentleman farmer. He nurtures hundreds of blueberry, raspberry, blackberry and strawberry plants on his place just north of the Spokane Valley.

Thanks Cory!

The Fruits and Veggies Of Our Labor

One of the things we do when we are not working in the hot rod shop is tend to our fruit trees and vegetable garden. The raspberries are ready, so each night we pick and freeze the fruit in preparation for making jam. We are also harvesting lettuce, kale, spinach, yellow squash and nasturtiums. Nasturtium leaves and flowers have a pleasant peppery flavor and are great in salads. At the request of The Skirt Bob threw some into his cream cheese dip. With all the other ingredients it was hard to detect the subtle flavor of nasturtium, but it sure was pretty. Nasturtiums are related to watercress and mustard and are super easy to grow. Honey bees love them too!

The Sweet Cherries Are Ripe

Our fabulous sweet cherries are ready. You can bake with them, but we like them best by the handful, right off the tree. Exert caution, they have a cumulative effect much like eating prunes. Remember