Square Foot Garden April 29, 2010 - Garlic

Square Foot Garden April 29, 2010 - Garlic, originally uploaded by Campobello Island.

A nice sunny day after a night of rain so I decided to plant a few cells of Calendula in the Square Foot Garden. No sign of the peas or carrots that I planted but the weather has been cloudy and cool. We are supposed to have a few warm sunny days now so I wouldn't be surprised to see the peas up and growing soon.

No Knead Bread - My Metric Weight Version

I've been making this bread for a couple of years now and have made some adaptations to the original method but basically it is the same loaf with the same wonderful results.

Adapted from Jim Lahey, Sullivan Street Bakery
Time: About 1½ hours plus 14 to 20 hours’ rising

3 cups all-purpose or bread flour,(I use 450g) more for dusting
1 5/8 cups of tepid water
¼ teaspoon instant yeast
1¼ teaspoons salt
Cornmeal or wheat bran as needed (I use flour).

1. In a large bowl combine flour, yeast and salt. Add 1 5/8 cups water, (I now use up to 420g)and stir until blended; dough will be shaggy and sticky. Cover bowl with plastic wrap. Let dough rest at least 12 hours, preferably about 18, at warm room temperature, about 70 degrees F.

2. Dough is ready when its surface is dotted with bubbles. Lightly flour a work surface and place dough on it; sprinkle it with a little more flour and fold it over on itself once or twice. Cover loosely with plastic wrap and let rest about 15 minutes.

3. Using just enough flour to keep dough from sticking to work surface or to your fingers, gently and quickly shape dough into a ball. Generously coat a cotton towel (not terry cloth) with flour, wheat bran or cornmeal; put dough seam side down on towel and dust with more flour, bran or cornmeal. Cover with another cotton towel and let rise for about 2 hours. When it is ready, dough will be more than double in size and will not readily spring back when poked with a finger.

4. At least a half-hour before dough is ready, heat oven to 450 degrees F. Put a 6- to 8-quart heavy covered pot (cast iron, enamel, Pyrex or ceramic) in oven as it heats. When dough is ready, carefully remove pot from oven. Slide your hand under towel and turn dough over into pot, seam side up; it may look like a mess, but that is O.K. Shake pan once or twice if dough is unevenly distributed; it will straighten out as it bakes. Cover with lid and bake 30 minutes, then remove lid and bake another 15 to 30 minutes, until loaf is beautifully browned. Cool on a rack.

I have enjoyed all of the loves that I have made using this method but I have had a problem with consistency so I have been working on a using weights for the flour and water instead of volume measures. After several tries I've settled on 450g of Flour and 375g of water. I'm also finding that I get a much better loaf using unbleached flour. The finished product is 680 g loaf.

This collage shows the various steps that I go through to make my loaf. If you click on the photo it will take you to my flickr account and you can read the notes on the photo by mousing over the different photos in the collage.



I hope you try it for yourself at first it might seems a bit complicated but it really is very simple and fail proof. Happy Baking. PS: I have made the loaf with half white and half multi-grain floour which is great too. The one drawback being the heavier the flour you use the less rise you get in the loaf.

Square Foot Garden April 26, 2010

I just checked the light garden and I'm pleased to say that I have germination of all 17 variates that I have planted so far. Some of the earlier things to come up have already grown their second set of leaves and other thing are just coming through the surface but at least everything is starting to grow. The only thing that has missed in a few places are the Deacon Dan Beets there are a few cells that are empty but not to many and that is good because the lady that supplied me with the seed said they were five years old which is just about the end of their life cycle. I still have some seed left so if nothing comes up in those cells in the next few days I will reseed them.

I have never grown Ground Cherries before, or for that matter eaten them, so I'm really glad to see a good germination of them because I only had a few seed. I've been doing a little research on them and I can hardly wait to try them, hopefully I will have enough to make some jam too.

Today was carrot planting day the packet information says they can be planted a month before the last frost date and that is just about now. I always start putting seedlings in the garden on or around the Queens birthday, May 24th., her birthday is actually in April but the official day for the celebration in Canada is in May. The variety that I'm planting is called Napoli and the packet says it is an early Nantes type, whatever that means. I'm also using pelletized seed, for the first time. Love carrots but I hate having to thin them out and the seed are so small it is almost impossible to get them planted evenly so I'm trusting the advertising and believing that pellet seed is the answer to this problem. Each seed is a little white pellet and it was much easier planting them, I still managed to drop some so there will be extras popping up all over the place. The Square Foot Gardening book called for 16 carrot plants per square foot cell so that's what I did. I covered the seed lightly with soil-less planting mix and resisted firming up the soil. Fingers crossed for early carrots.

We had an amazing winter in this area and so far a glorious spring everything is up and growing so early unfortunately so are the black flies there were lots of them in the garden today, the earliest I think I've ever seen them.

Why I love France in seven easy lesson.

When I came back home I had an hours worth of video clips, 105 clips in all, on my flip camcorder and one of my youTube friends suggested that I turn them into youTube length movies (Under 10 minutes long) and post them on youTube. Well I just finished that little project and I've decided to put them all together here on my blog. There are seven little movies and they are basicly just the unedited clips joined together sometimes the video isn't great, sometimes the wind blocks what I trying to say and sometimes they are very funny like the scene with the three dogs or the Basque family out for a walk Mom, Dad, the Kids, the dog and of course the donkey or my two attempts at crossing a rushing stream with full backpack.

This first one is my arrival in cold snowy Paris on February first the train trip down south to Beziers and some of my travel in the south of France.



The second video is taken at the Acquarium at Montpelier and the start of the Le Puy walk.



The third video is mostly Wild flowers and walking through the national forest.



The fourth video was recorded March 30th, 2010 as I walked on a rainy day in the Basque country.



The fifth video is the last day of my walk, March 31, 2010 and the time in Saint Jean Pied de Port.



The sixth video was taken while I traveled around in France and my short trip to Brussels, before going to Paris at the end of the trip.



The seventh and last video you have seen before if you have looked at my earlier posts but I though I would put it here too so they would all be in one place, it's my river tour on the Batobus in Paris.



Well that's it I hope you got a kick out of them some of them really crack me up.

Square Foot Garden April 23, 2010

Time to plant the peas. I'm planting two heritage verities Tall Telephone Garden Peas the king my father and grandfather used to grow when I was a child a very tall variety that they used to stake with alder brush for them to grow on. Mine are being grown at the back of one of my four foot square raised beds and I plan to build a frame out of 2X4 lumber and chicken wire for them to grow on. I added a liberal amount of seafood compost to each cell and worked it into the soil before planted the eight seeds recommended for each cell. One good thing about knowing exactly how many seed you have planted is it makes it easy to replace any seed that don't germinate.

My second variety of peas is something really different, Blue Podded Peas. They are an old heritage variety that actually have blue pods, that should really stand out in the garden. The seed catalog said they are not eaten as fresh peas but are dried and used in soup. Which is fine with me because I love pea soup. I just have one problem with that when I opened the seed packet the seed are brown, I hope that doesn't mean that I will have brown pea soup.

Square Foot Garden April 21, 2010

Square Foot Garden April 21, 2010, originally uploaded by Campobello Island.

The day after I returned from France I got my light garden started and planted seventeen different vegetable varieties. Mostly heritage varieties and open pollinated, no GMO's here. I have been surprised to discover how many sources there are for these old varieties which are no longer commercially grown, all the way from seed companies that specialize in heritage seed to individuals that save seed from a favorite vegetable and share it through internet discussion groups. I have several more vegetables that I will be starting a little later on as well as several that will be direct seeded in to the garden, this is a list of the seed planted so far:

Italian flat leaf Parsley
Lettuce Gotte Jaune D'Or
Lettuce Merveille des Quatre Saisons
Cayenne Peppers
Brussels Sprouts Oliver
Cabbage Perfection Savoy Drum-head
Ground Cherry Golden Husk
Tomato Black Cherry
Tomato Buckbees New
Fennel Solaris
Swiss Chard
Broccoli Diciccio
Kale Toscano (Palm)
Red China Eggplant
Golden Beets
Deacon Dan Beets
Guardsmark Beets

Within 48 to 72 hours of planting both lettuce varieties had germinated.

As you can see I have gone heavily into beets this year, they are one of my favorite vegetables and in the past I have had great difficulty growing them. I plant them the germinate and are starting to grow nicely and the next time I go out to the garden they are all gone. I think my problem is the bunny rabbits or some other pest so this year I'm starting them under lights and will plant them in the area of the new square foot garden that is surrounded with rabbit fencing. In case it is some other pest I'm also going to use floating row cover until the plants are well established. Most seed packs say that beets are hard to transplant so this might be a problem but all I keep remembering is my grand father always transplanted all of the beets that he thinned out of the rows into additional rows of beets, they would wilt for the first few days but as long as they were well watered he always had good success with them. Mine are seeded into individual one inch cells so it should be easy to pop them out and transplant then without too much disturbance to the roots.

Today is day four since I planted my seeds and there are things coming up everywhere Swiss Chard, Brussels Sprouts, Ground Cherries and Savoy Cabbage. Things are off to a good start and I think the next item to be planted will be peas directly into the garden, they can be safely planted in the garden 4 to 6 weeks before the last frost date and right now we are about 4 weeks from our last frost date in late May.

The date on this video should be April 21, 2010, too late to change it now.

Versailles Hall of Mirrors

Versailles Hall of Mirrors, originally uploaded by Campobello Island.

Home safe but not so sound. Two days after I got home I came down with a bad cold, sore throat etc. I guess I'm improving but it hasn't been fun.

Took this little video clip in the hall of mirrors at Versailles the day before I flew home. Ivan and I spent the afternoon at Versailles and had a wonderful farewell dinner at, "Au Chien qui Fume".

I had no idea of the ash problem from the Iceland volcano until I arrived in Moncton and Christina told me about it. Just as well I would have worried about it throughout the whole flight.

Evidently I was on one of the last flights out of Europe. By the time I arrived i n Moncton all European flights had been canceled.

Last Monday I managed to get on the Batobus and take this little video of Paris from the river.



Well that concludes my little trip and camino walk. Thank you for following and for all of your comments. The blog will continue and for the next few months it will mostly be focused on my Square Foot Garden a new gardening project that I started last fall.

Galeries Lafayette

Galeries Lafayette, originally uploaded by Campobello Island.

Well I guess I'm in the wind-down stage of my trip yesterday I did my shopping and this morning I got my laundry done and ready to pack for tomorrows flight home. This photo is the glass dome ceiling in Galeries Lafayette wish I had the kind of money you need to really shop there all of the top names in jewelry and clothing are there with amazing price tags.

I also went back up to Montmartre in the afternoon it is such a fun place to people watch and watch the artists doing portraits.



This afternoon I'm meeting Ivan and we are going out to the Château de Versailles for the afternoon .

My flight leaves for home mid-morning tomorrow and I'm ready to get back home and get to work in my garden.

Paris Marathon

Paris Marathon, originally uploaded by Campobello Island.

Well I've been busy doing the tourist thing for the past couple of days. Yesterday was Paris Marathon Day and I just happened to be in the right place when the largest pack went past. I didn't wait around to see the finishe, don't like large crowds that much.

I have had exceptional weather ever since I arrived in Paris. When I was walking by the Seine yesterday the name on this boat caught my attention, New Brunswick, there was a young man washing his car next to it so I asked if the owners were from New Brunswick and he said they are friends of his and yes they are Canadians and from New Brunswick.



I think Segways are the neatest things and I would love to try it sometime but not on the streets of Paris, death by Segway doesn't interest me.



Today was my visit to the Louvre which I enjoyed but what a mob of people, it really makes it hard to enjoy the things that you want to see with so many people talking and trying to get in to see the things that interest them. I stayed about four hours and that was all I could take for one day.









Lots more photos in my Flickr account click on any photo to go there.

Tomorrow I hope to have a nice relaxing day shopping.

Hotel de l'Europe Paris

Hotel de l'Europe Paris, originally uploaded by Campobello Island.

I've been staying at this little hotel for several years now I can't decide if this is my fourth or fifth visit. It is just a little family run two star hotel nothing fancy very small rooms but comfortable and very reasonably priced 64 euros per night and for Paris that is very good. Second time I stayed there the owner saved my life, so that helps to keep me coming back. I suffered a pulmonary embolism in the middle of the night and he got an ambulance for me, but that is a whole other very long story. Because of that incident I'm recognized at the hotel the owner and his sons all welcome me and I think hope they won't need to call an ambulance. I like the hotel because of the price and it's location. It is less than a five minute walk to two of the large train stations the Gare de l'Est and the Gare du Nord both of which have excellent metro connections to the rest of the city. It is on Blvd de Magenta, this is the street:



Marche St. Quentin is just across the street:







When I was out for a walk in the street this morning I found this small patch of grass that has been turned into allotment gardens about a meter by a meter and half each. Too early to have much in them yet but I saw a few herbs and some one had planted spring bulbs.




I had plans of taking the Batobus today to get some video from the river and it would have been a good day for it except that area of Paris is covered with people today a combination of weekend, good weather and the Paris Marathon is going to be run tomorrow. Took this photo at one of the Batobus stops next to Notre Dame there were more than a hundred people waiting in line to get on the boat and there is one about every 15 minutes the problem being they can only allow as many on as get off at each stop because the boats are full to capacity, didn't look like fun to me. Hopefully Monday or Tuesday early in the morning.



Thanks everyone for all of the nice birthday wishes, I sure can't say it hasn't been a special one.

I don't know weather to call these guys buskers or not but they are amazing, I've seen them do their tricks here before but I'd never seen this one before, there were more than 100 pylons and they never touched one of them. I think maybe they just do it for the fun of it, I tried to find some way to give a tip couldn't find a container and no one was passing the hat.

Paris Montmartre Sacre Coeur

Paris Montmartre Sacre Coeur, originally uploaded by Campobello Island.

Arrived in Paris late morning and this afternoon walked up to Montmartre which is only about 15 minutes from the little hotel where I stay.

Today is the last day that I can say that I'm in my fifties I hit the big six oh tomorrow and of course I came to Europe so that would happen five hours earlier. LOL Today is also the birthday of two of my great neices Abby and Nevaeh have a great day girls.

Today is beautiful sunny and warm in Paris wish I had short pants and I will be very glad to get the packages that I sent on to Ivan's and Pru's so I can get my sneakers on and get out of these hot hiking boots.

I really enjoyed Calais and took a few more photos yesterday especially around the beautiful old City Hall and all of the lovely gardens in that area.





If you ever have the desire to try horse meat Calais is the right place to go I saw several shops that specialize in it . If Roy Rogers had only known he wouldn't have had Trigger stuffed and mounted.



If it is a good day tomorrow I want to buy a Bateaubus ticket it is the cheapest way to get on the river and I want to take the last of my videos from the river. My flip camcorder will hold one hour of video and I have about five minutes of space left. Stay tuned for the feature length movie when I get back to my own computer so I can edit it. Just jokeing I do plan to make an hour long DVD but I won't be able to post it YouTube won't take longer then ten minute videos. Copies will be available to anyone who wants one though.

Afghan refugees at the Port of Calais

Afghan refugees at the Port of Calais, originally uploaded by Campobello Island.

One of my reasons for coming to Calais was wanting to see the condition of the Afghan refugees for myself. I have seen several news items about them before I left Canada. They are mostly educated young men trying to escape the horror that the west has turned their country into. Their plight is being ignored by the U.S. and the other countries that followed George Bush and destroyed there homeland and murdered millions of innocent people. They are at the Port of Calais trying to get into England to claim refugee status and of course England and France are doing everything possible to stop this. I went over and talked with a small group of four or five young men in their 20's. They spoke English as well as I do and said they were living on this little bit of grass. I could see where the city of Calais had put three portable toilets on the sidewalk for them but that was all they had for accomodations. I explained that I didn't want to insult or offend them but if they would accept it I would like to give them a small gift to help with food or their other needs, they accepted graciuosly and thanked me.



I'll get off my soap box now.

I forgot to tell you a little story of something that I saw in Brussells. It was early afternoon and I was walking past a nice restaurant when a long black limo pulled up to the curb and out jumped two guys dressed in suits talking to their wrists. They did a quick inspection of the area and opened the back doors of the car. Out came a middle ages couple and a teenage boy. They went in the restaurant and the guys talking to their wrists whent in with them. I have no idea who I saw but the Royal Family lives in Brussels so it might have been some of them.

It's a beautiful day here in Calais today and I'm just back from a walk along the beach looking oput at La Manche - English Chanel which was very busy today with ferry traffic.The ferries had been on strike since before the Easter long holiday weekend and just returned to work yesterday afternoon.

I took this lighthouse photo yesterday when it was cloudy.











I leave here early in the morning for Paris, I can hardly wait.

Canadian Memorial Vimy Ridge

Canadian Memorial Vimy Ridge, originally uploaded by Campobello Island.

At last I think I beat Bill Gates at his stupid game. For some reason most computers using the Vista garbage can't find the small card from my camera even though it is inserted in the computer but my flip video camcorder uses a USB port and that always works so this morning I spent 25€ for a card reader that works in USB ports and was able to upload photos without a problem, don't any one tell Bill.

If you click on any of these photos it will take you to my flickr account where there are several more Vimy photos.

This one depicts Victory holding the tourch and a dieing soldier.



The most moving part of my Vimy visit was the time spent in the Canadian Cemetery.



As I was leaving I though I would check the register and sure enough there was one Calder grave, John D. Calder my great grand fathers name was John but this isn't him.



I took this photo of a fance pastry shop window in Brussels talk about special Easter Bunnies.



The next two photos are for Pru we have this ongoing joke about me seeing a big restaurant sign in Spain a couple of years ago when we were walking the Camino there. We were hungry and looking for a cafe and I told her that I thought I could see a large sign with a large Lobster on it at the end of this very long street. When Pru stopped laughing she said do you think you are back in Maine? Needless to say it wasn't a Lobster sign. So now when ever we look for a restaurant we joke about it. Well Pru look what I found in Arras and Brussels.





I just got off the phone with the little Hotel that I stay at in Paris and changed my reservation so I arrive on the 9th now instead of the 12th so now I will have five and a half days to explore Paris in the spring time, things could be much worse. I'M in Calais now for a couple of days.

Brussels

I'm still in Brussels leaving tomorrow morning for Calais for a couple of days before I go to Paris.

I haven't had any chocolates yet but I did have a good waffle yesterday with chocolate sauce.

Still can't find a computer that will let me upload photos so I thought I would take a few minutes to post a few video clips.

Brussels has a large square called Grand Place too and at least in my opinion it looks more at home here then in France.



I love street buskers and I took all of these clips while I was out for a walk yesterday.







Yesterday morning I went to see the Atomium which is a large model of an Iron Molecule which was the Belgium pavilion at the 1958 worlds fair. I noticed cables coming down from the top and thought it must be under repair, until I saw what these guys were doing. I don't suppose you don't need to be crazy to do this but it must be a big help.

Arras and Vimy and maybe Brussels

I'm in Arras only a 10 train ride to Vimy Ridge this morning, had to stay here because there isn't a hotel in Vimy. Arras is a very lovely little city but the building style really surprised me and I don't know the history behind it. If you had brought me here blindfolded I would hzve never thought I was still in France, Holland, Belguim maybe:



Took the early è AM train to Vimy this morning and was surprised to discover that I had an hour and a half walk in the rain to the monument, but it was well worth the effort, such a special place:



I have a lot of still photos but once again the computers won't let me upload them; I think the problem is Bill Gates and microsoft vista everytime in find a computer that uses it I have big problems.

Just down the road from the memorial is one of the 30 Canadian War Cemeteries in France:



I checked the register and there is one Calder burried here John D. Calder:



I'm not sure yet but I'm thinking I might go to Brussels tomorrow, I still have time to fill in before I go to Paris and I have never been there.

Happy Easter all.

Mémorial de Vimy

Mémorial de Vimy, originally uploaded by anthony_li.

I got my train ticket and I'm off to Vimy at 0618 in the morning to see the Canadian War Memorial their. I have wanted to see this for many years so it is really a dream come true. It is a long train trip with two train changes and I have to change train stations in Paris but that shouldn't be too bad with the Metro from one station to the other. I arrive in Vimy at 4:30 in the afternoon and then I will need to find a place to stay. I tried to do that on the internet but couldn't find anything in Vimy there are lots of places in Arras where I make my last train change and that is about 30 minutes away, there must be something in Vimy though it is a town of over 4000 people.

Snow in the pass toward Spain:



Trout anyone.

Thinking about Vimy

I have alwasy wanted to see the Canadian War Memorial at Vimy and today I'm thinking that might be where I go next. No luck online with train tickets so I will have to take a walk to the local station to see if it is possible to make connections on this Easter Holiday weekend.

I'm staying at a private home here in Saint Jean, run by another very nice older Basque couple I have a room on the third of four floors with a small balcony and view of the back gardens. I always wanted to be able to hang my laundry out on the balcony.



Yesterday afternoon I just happened to be in the right place at the right time for this little show.



I will try and add more about my travel plans later today.