Dirt fresh

Posted on October 26, 2015 by Laura Lindblom under Uncategorized

There’s nothing quite like hot soup on a cold evening. Soup is a perfect fall and winter food, and I find that brewing a pot of soup satisfies a need for creative expression. I don’t enjoy following recipes, which is probably why I don’t enjoy baking. I’m not brave enough to stray from a baking recipe – Bad things can happen! Good things happen when I stray from a soup recipe. I’d be happy to share my butternut squash soup recipe.

We’re still getting produce from the garden, against all odds, and last night I was able to pick baseball-sized turnips and a fist full of leeks, which were in the pot not twenty minutes later. I only used three turnips, plus their greens, and we still have many, many left in the garden. Threw in some frozen home-grown yellow squash and home-grown basil pesto, along with ground beef, onions, and carrots – It was a pretty good soup, if I do say so myself.

Perfect for autumn.

Surprised by bounty

Posted on October 8, 2015 by Laura Lindblom under Uncategorized

The sentiment this summer among gardeners was dismal. Just when we started thinking this year would be a great year for gardening, a storm whipped up out of nowhere and smashed everything. So we replanted and waited and got hopeful – And just when we started getting optimistic, another stormed whipped up out of nowhere and smashed everything. Again. It was a little discouraging. Who wouldn’t be dismal when their beautiful garden gets crushed by pea-to-golfball-sized hail, knocked down by straight-line winds, flooded out, shriveled in the heat, or burned by an early frost?

But suddenly we’ve been surprised by our garden actually producing vegetables, in spite of the late (third or fourth) planting. I don’t know if I mentioned this before, but Sarah’s boss at Dakota Greens in Custer gave – gave – us upwards of 20 tomato plants, after the first planting was smashed, plus a variety of pepper plants. Such a gesture of generosity really floored me.

Mom dutifully and eagerly planted them, regardless of how late in the season it was, content to have a garden that looked nice even if it didn’t ultimately grow anything. Someone else gave us a tomatillo plant which is now covered with fruit, other people gave us zucchini plants, and Mom replanted green beans.

But what has been delightfully surprising is that not only did the plants that she planted late do well, but many of the plants that had gotten flattened or severely bruised in the hail are doing beautifully! Mom’s square-foot gardening boxes were planted thick with root vegetables, and we’re getting a bumper crop of turnips. I couldn’t help but marvel at the color – Such a rich, pure color. The basil and oregano likewise are plentiful, and many of the squash plants are laden.

What a welcome surprise! We have bags of green beans waiting to be blanched and frozen, lots of turnips, and herbs to freeze in oil. How exciting!

We were out picking a few days ago, and Luna the Cat was darling to watch – He’s a weird cat with some really weird habits and weird quirks, but he is quite the charmer. He is uncannily companionable, although he prefers to not be snuggled, but he loves to be where the activity is. The whole time we picked, he was discovering the garden. He sneaked up on picked zucchini, prowled around in the green beans, got his little paws wet in puddles, and then discovered the leeks. He likes leeks.

Our tomato crop hasn’t been very good, since a late hail storm damaged a lot of the fruit, but the lack in tomatoes is more than made up for in the other bounty. We’re still pondering what we could use as a hail screen next year.

Lesson for the day: Patience and persistence really does pay off sometimes. If Mom hadn’t insisted on replanting the third (or was it the fourth?) time and continuing the cultivate what survived, we wouldn’t be getting anything from the garden this year, except maybe some of the root crops and some squash. But we’ll have a little to put up in the freezer anyway, and plenty to cook fresh. Nothing quite makes a meal like home-grown produce.

The mother of invention

Posted on July 15, 2015 by Laura Lindblom under Uncategorized

The air smells of wounded pines and churning earth. Hail in sprawling drifts looks like snow, then piles of rough-cut diamonds, then destruction. The grass is flattened in the ditches, in our yard, and any depression, however small, is full of red mud water. The hail evaporates, feeding the growing presence of fog hanging heavy in the air.

After making it through all previous hail storms relatively unscathed, two weeks after the storm that took down a few trees and filled our ditches, our little valley was pounded again with rain and hail. An inch and a half of rain, and hail. The garden is gone, more trees and branches are down, and water is pouring into the dam. Even though it was too dark to see, I could hear water rushing in the corrals, in places where there is never water. Our ridge became a waterfall, and more rockslides happened.

The aftermath is quite enough to dampen spirits. Mom worked hard on the garden, and to a certain extent we were counting on it for this fall. However, I know God is good and gracious, and he is not a God of whim or malice. I think back to the pioneers, the first homesteaders, who weren’t just counting on their garden: their lives were depending on it. The survival of their crops meant enough money to buy food to last through the winter into the next growing season. It meant a surplus of five dollars to add to the dollar they already had in the bank. They depended on it. We only hoped our garden would turn out this year. It looks like it won’t. But I’m already working on some mental notes for a hail screen. Necessity is the mother of invention.

Waste Not, Want Not

Posted on April 23, 2015 by Laura Lindblom under Uncategorized

Back in Illinois, a dear neighbor of ours had given us a compost barrel. We opted not to give it passage to South Dakota (do you know how big compost barrels are?), so we were out a composter when we got here!

Sarah and I scrounged for materials, and actually found everything we needed for a double-bin compost cage. Old fence posts (there were some straight or mostly straight ones in the mix), baling wire, some miscellaneous woven wire fencing, etc. There was a huge roll of wire fencing tucked conveniently behind the garden shed but, unfortunately, we couldn’t free it. That’s what happens when the garden shed is built underneath a cliff, I guess. That’s why the house is not underneath the cliff.

Driving fence posts was a new experience for me. It got old pretty fast. That is, after about a third of the end of one post. Putting the little posts in, we started hearing deep reverberations from the cliff face when we hit rock. We decided we hit bedrock, and the mighty pounding from the 12-pound hammer was causing subterranean disturbance that was then resonating from the cliff.

We got it done, though, and the end product was worth it! We put the compost cage next to the garden, so we’ll have easy access to the compost. Hopefully at some point we’ll add a sort of wooden frame to the opening, partly for support, partly to keep the compost from spilling out. But for now, this will do.

Waste not, want not.

Playing in the dirt

Posted on April 22, 2015 by Laura Lindblom under Uncategorized

Spring comes late to the Black Hills, but it is impossible to suppress the signs! We’re starting to think about planting, and have a large, beautiful garden to plant in. Back in Illinois, our garden was probably a quarter of the size of this one, pretty crowded, and (due to insufficient fencing) often fell victim to the local squirrel, rabbit, and coon populations.