Mar

29

Brunch, and a Closing

Filed Under Uncategorized | Leave a Comment

We made it back to the Cafe on the Park again this morning. We arrived at around 10:15 a.m., right before a large group of people walked in. We found a table for two in the back and waited. We don’t normally make it out that early on a Sunday, but we’ve both been up early each day this weekend.

I again ordered the quiche, having the bacon and Swiss cheese quiche. I was lucky to get the last slice. If they had run out, my backup plan was to try their baked oatmeal special. (It is oatmeal with eggs and brown sugar, baked in the oven like a custard and served hot with a small pitcher of fresh cream.)

I don’t have much to offer in terms of new insights into dinning at the Cafe. It is just a simple, family-run eatery that does brunch really well. If I could, I’d encourage everyone to try it at least once, and if you like it make a regular thing of it. Local restaurants are having a tough time of it lately, with the contracting economy and people choosing to cut dining out from their budgets to try to make ends meet.

In fact, I understand the economy has claimed another local casualty in the High Street Pub. I’m not sure when it closed its doors, but it appears dark and I’ve heard from several people that they’re closed. (I have not, however, been able to confirm this with anyone connected to the Pub.)

Mar

29

Moving Under the Growlight

Filed Under Uncategorized | Leave a Comment

The seeds I planted a week ago have begun to sprout. I planted three types of tomatoes (Roma VF, Cherry Sungold, and Rutgers), green peppers, and Alpine Mignonette Strawberries. The strawberries haven’t sprouted yet, and they won’t for a few weeks, but most of the others have. That meant it was time to set up the grow light. We went with two 15-inch plant hangers (about $6 each from Lowe’s) and as you can see the setup looks pretty good. With the old fish tank stand in the corner of our kitchen, we have plenty of room for the pots when we transplant the starter plants into larger pots before we move them outdoors later in the season.

Mar

26

Rototilling the Gardens

Filed Under Uncategorized | Leave a Comment

I spent most of Saturday at my parents’ house, which I’ve cheekily taken to referring to as “the farm.” Rototilling the gardens was a simple process and went much smoother than I expected considering the soil in the raised beds hadn’t been tilled in at least 15 and probably closer to 20 years. The soil had subsided by several inches, so we had about five inches of fresh, rich topsoil and compost spread over all three. I then tilled this all in and the beds are now resting.

I took some pictures and uploaded two of them to the Flickr album I created for this year’s garden.

I plan to go back out this weekend, weather permitting, to do some soil tests. I’m doing a basic battery of tests — Ph, nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium — to see if we need to do anything before planting. I don’t anticipate any surprises since this soil once was some of the best around, but I want to make sure our plants will actually grow.

Sunday night I started the tomatoes, peppers, and Alpine strawberries. We’re starting 18 Roma VF tomato plants, five Pepper plants, five Sungold Cherry Tomato plants, four Rutgers tomato plants, and 30 Apline strawberry plants. I don’t expect much from the strawberries because they are notoriously difficult to start from seeds, but I got a good price on the seeds and couldn’t pass up trying. Even if they all fail, I still have 25 ready-to-transplant plants on order for later in the season.

All in all, it was a successful gardening weekend. It looks like we won’t have much to do for a few weeks, but who knows what will come up.

Mar

26

A Conversation with Marion Nestle

Filed Under Uncategorized | Leave a Comment

Marion Nestle, author of Food Politics and What To Eat, will be appearing at Penn State University on April 1 at 7:00 p.m. In a taping of WPSU’s “Common Ground Lobby Talks,” Nestle will discuss food politics with host Patty Satalia and will take questions from the studio audience.

I plan to attend this event. You can RSVP via WPSU’s Facebook page.

Mar

8

Gardening Further Afield

Filed Under Uncategorized | Leave a Comment

Be sure to check out our friends at We Love DC and their new series on Victory Gardens in DC.

We’re fortunate enough to have about 312 square feet of raised-bed garden space and an additional acre of prime Central Pennsylvania farmland available to be planted for our garden this year. Check our WLDC for ideas on what you can do if you have significantly less space than that.

Mar

7

Gardening

Filed Under Uncategorized | Leave a Comment

We began scouting out the garden this evening.

As a child, my parents, sister, and I worked in a set of raised-bed gardens, at one time even practicing a modified form of square foot gardening. (Why yes, we did watch a lot of PBS growing up. That’s what you do when you don’t have cable and the only television station you get with any consistency is from the local university.) Two of the beds measure roughly 16′ x 6′ and a third bed measures roughly 24′ x 5′. There hasn’t been a garden planted there in at least fifteen years. We are going to remedy that this year. Clearing the grass and brush so we can rototill the soil will be quite a chore, but I think it is worth it to grow some quality vegetables.

We’re starting with a few selections from W. Atlee Burpee & Co.:

Our ultimate goal is to raise an all- or mostly-heirloom organic garden. For this first season, however, we’re going to rely on a few minor chemicals like MiracleGro, probably a pesticide or two like Sevin later in the season, and are only attempting a few easy heirlooms.

We are starting some of our seeds indoors, including tomatoes, green peppers, cauliflower, Brussels sprouts, and probably the summer squash. Since we don’t have any south-facing windows and receive poor sunlight through the windows we do have, we are also assembling a grow-light. We’re using a simple four-foot, two-bulb shop light we found at Lowe’s for under $9 and two four-foot GE plant lamps. The plants themselves will grow in those little just-add-water peat pellets, to be transplanted to larger pots until we can get them in the ground after the last frost (around mid-April here in Zone 6).

Farmer's Market.