Our Twenty Minute Kitchen Garden

Homemade Saturday with candles and ketchup

20 Minute Jan — Mon, 04 Jan 2016 03:15:41 +0000

We love burning candles, especially during the cold dark of the year, and Jim’s discovered a trick for extending the life of pillar candles once they get hallowed out from use. Jim’s innovation came into action on Saturday when trying to light a favorite beeswax candle of ours. The wick had burned about halfway down […]

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A New Year for Goals in the Garden

20 Minute Jan — Fri, 01 Jan 2016 23:53:50 +0000

Winter has finally arrived here in the Midwest. We had a lovely autumn and an unusually temperate weather until now. Some people had expressed worry about the delay in the changing of the seasons, but we do seem to be past strange interim that now. The cold snap has settled upon us, and we are […]

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Do Good while Doing It Yourself with this Humble Bundle

Jardinier — Thu, 12 Nov 2015 15:11:08 +0000

Cold has returned to the Midwest which has prompted me to blow the dust off my work bench and get busy indoors. If you are searching for do it yourself projects to fill these dark chilly hours, check out this Humble Bundle of books from Make. We at 20MinuteGarden are great fans of both Humble […]

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An Argument for a Home Orchard

20 Minute Jan — Tue, 22 Sep 2015 21:50:38 +0000

We’ve been dreaming and planning about expanding our home orchard for some time. Our three apples trees have done really well, and we are ready to add a few more trees in the 20 Minute Garden. Our goal is to raise more fruit and more kinds of fruit too. I’ve been researching different varieties of […]

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First Fruits

20 Minute Jim — Tue, 15 Sep 2015 02:16:34 +0000

Janice had pointed to a fat one, as large as my fist, its skin blushed red. “That’s the one I want to eat with you.” So this morning, my feet wet with the heavy dew, I watched as Janice plucked from the branch this very apple, the first fruit we’ve officially harvested from this particular […]

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Orchard Dreaming

20 Minute Jim — Wed, 02 Sep 2015 20:36:40 +0000

I had a couple minutes before work and instead of strolling through the garden, I took steps toward our new orchard. Quite literally. Janice and I dreamed about filling the “back lot” of the property with fruit trees even before we purchased it. Various obstacles impeded this dream, including several scrub trees and a rather […]

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The Little Heartbreaks of Harvest Time

20 Minute Jim — Wed, 02 Sep 2015 11:04:08 +0000

The heartbreaks of harvest time started in mid-August this year, with cool nights prompting the tomatoes to ripen in earnest. Barely ten days separated the pleasure of that first, vine-ripened Brandywine, still warm from the sun, from the brutal onslaught. Perhaps I overstate the “brutality” of such bounty, but this time of year there are […]

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Watermelon Pickles Recipe

20 Minute Jan — Wed, 19 Aug 2015 14:30:47 +0000

Last week, we made our first-ever watermelon pickles. I used a watermelon pickles recipe that my sister gave me some years ago, and I also consulted our Ball Blue Book, keeping in mind the principles of safe canning and our adventurous palates. As 20 Minute Jim previously noted, our inspiration in part was the several […]

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Poetry, Old Lovers, and Watermelon Pickles

20 Minute Jim — Tue, 18 Aug 2015 11:10:58 +0000

Janice and I were married at an age so young we should barely have been granted a driver’s license let alone a marriage license. But even at that obscenely young age, we found when we merged our belongings that we had duplicates. In addition to a couple embarrassingly naive records, we both owned a copy […]

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Before and After: What 20 Minutes Looks Like (8) – Weeding the Wedge

20 Minute Jim — Sat, 13 Jun 2015 19:43:44 +0000

It rained this week. At least, inclement weather is my excuse for waiting until today to head outside. I was glad to see the plants were not waiting for the weekend. The tomatoes that Jan placed in the “Wedge” bed were nice and stocky, signs that the soil is approaching the temperature of a comfortable […]

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