Aug
1
The Centre Gourmand Ad Campaign?
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I recently received a Goodle AdWords promo code, so I thought I’d try running an ad for this blog. You might see it in your searches. It will look like this:
Feel free to post a comment if you see it in the wild.
Aug
1
Robert Kenner’s documentary about the American agricultural-industrial complex, Food, Inc. is coming to The State Theatre at the end of the month. The film runs from Friday, August 21 through Thursday August 27. Show times vary between 4:00pm, 7:00pm, and 9:30pm.
Aug
1
EasyBloom Plant Sensor
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I deployed a new gadget in the garden Thursday evening: an EasyBloom Plant Sensor. It looks to be a partial solution to my automated garden thought piece from a few weeks ago, fulfilling the data collection step but not the instant updating requirement.
I’ll probably pull it in and retrieve the monitoring data later tonight. I’ll share a more thorough review once I’ve been using it for a while.
Aug
1
In Search of Red Beets
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I stopped by the Bellefonte Farmer’s Market this morning. First we went out to brunch at the Café on the Park at around 10:30. I haven’t been there in months, and my mother had never been there, so we thought it would be nice to take her out.
I was looking for red beets at the farmer’s market. I did see one vendor with them priced four beets for a dollar. That seems a bit steep considering that I’m looking for at least a bushel. One of the other vendors may have had beets earlier, and since we arrived as everyone was closing up at close to noon, it is likely I missed them. I’m going to try again next weekend at Millheim since we’ll be over in Penn and Brush valleys for the annual Farm Tour.
Aug
1
Garden Update
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I went away for the week and came home Thursday evening to several of these green squash, pictured here with the rest of the evening’s harvest:
Burpee call them Sweet Hybrid Squash, but they’re also known as Magda or Kousa. They’re a variety from Lebanon. Unfortunately, five of them have grown too large to use for sauteing or grilling, but I understand they are amazing when split lengthwise and stuffed with lamb, rice, garlic, and seasonings and topped with canned or stewed tomatoes. I might get around to trying something with them by Sunday. If not, I’m cooking every night next week and will certainly make something with these beauties!
We also have yellow Pic-n-Pic Hybrid squash coming along and were able to harvest a few small squash.
Aside from a few disappointments, everything in the garden is doing surprisingly well (considering we have only watered it once when we planted the squash and pumpkins, we haven’t used any of the MiracleGro we bought, and the only artificial thing we’ve done is put some water-retaining crystals in the soil). Even one of the pepper plants that we thought would die is flowering.
The pumpkins aren’t doing nearly as well as they should be. We have lots of flowers but none of them are bearing fruit. The season is still young and we have nothing but time.
The tomatoes, however, are doing great! The Romas are forming bunches of four or five in several places, and most of the plants are producing fruit — even the ones we planted in recycled kitty litter buckets! The Sungolds are coming along and should be ripe in a fortnight or so. And the Rutgers heirlooms are showing promise, with several on track to ripen by mid-August.
Overall, we’re happy with the progress of this year’s garden. We’re disappointed that something ate all of our carrots and sweet potato plants, but now we know what we need to enclose with a fence next year.
