First Blog Ever

I like to eat locally grown food so I'm a gardener. I'm a cook. This time of year, the two always go together. I'm also a gardener in Wyoming, and that can be a challenge on the high, dry, cold, windy plains. Here's a summary of what I've done this year.

In February, I read seed catalogs like they were The Help (favorite novel at the time). We've been gardening at our current house in Cheyenne for 13 years now. Back then, we built several raised beds, built a giant compost bin, ran water (a necessity in this climate) to as many areas as we could, varmint-proofed the garden area (turned out we didn't need to - for some reason, the rabbits leave the garden alone), tilled up an old dirt pile, got a load of sheep manure, and started gardening.

We tried a variety of vegetables and are learning what works best in this area. Remember, the wind blows here - it blows soft, and it blows hard, and it blows in-between. But it blows pretty much all the time. So we have to choose plants and areas that can withstand the gale.

When the seeds arrive, I spend a happy few hours, sorting the packages into little categories - plant these first, plant these in this bed, plant these for color, and start these in the house.

We have a grow light and a nice sunny room. I spent another happy day in March planting tomatoes, basil and peppers. Lots and lots and lots of each. I don't know when to stop. The sunroom looks like a greenhouse nightmare by mid May. Or like local law enforcement should check what's under the grow lights.

Anyway, in Cheyenne, it starts to warm up about mid-May. It's too early to plant tomatoes, but time to plant lettuce, carrots, peas, onions and spinach. We tried edible landscaping raised beds this year, and they are beautiful! Here's what one looks like in late August:

We plant beans, corn, squash, cucumbers the first of June. We plant the tomatoes and peppers about a week after that. I'll write more about each one and how successful things are, but the Blueberry-Strawberry Honey Jam is about ready. I found the basic recipe online, tweaked it a bit and it's delicious!

Blueberry-Strawberry Honey Jam

4 lbs. or 11 cups of berries

2 1/2 c. honey (I use local honey that I buy from a friend in Cheyenne)

zest from 1 lemon

juice from 1 lemon

Put the berries in a large saucepan with the rest of the ingredients. Bring to a boil, mash occasionally with a potato masher, simmer for a long time. This surprised me - the length of time this takes - about 1 1/2 - 2 hours. Meantime, wash jelly jars and lids in the dishwasher or boil for 10 minutes in a boiling water bath. Cook and stir the jam till it "sheets" off a spoon. Ladle into sterile jelly jars, cover with sterile lids, then process in boiling water bath for 10 minutes. Make sure the lids seal when you get them out of the water bath. If a lid doesn't seal, just refrigerate that jar and use it soon. As soon as you can get some bread into the toaster.