How does our garden Grow

Preparing for Autumn....The Fall Garden

2011-09-28T10:10:00.000-04:00

Yes, we are preparing for Autumn. Even though to us these temperatures make us hardly wince. To Sourdoughs from Alaska, 60 degree temperatures mean either late spring, early summer or early Autumn. Still we try to follow the calendar for this area as it seems so do our plants. I guess they know better than us that it's time to quit, no matter how hot it still feels to us.

Our tomatoes have almost completely thrown in the towel. They know they're done. They're just begging to be taken away. Still though, we've left them to allow those few green tomatoes to ripen naturally. Later those will turn into our Ketchup for this year along with others we've picked and frozen. Within the next two weeks Fava Beans and Rye will be planted in our tomato bed and our eggplant and bell pepper bed. This will help with the nitrogen levels and of course add more organic material back into the soil.

On the other hand our winter garden is just getting going again.

We've got Swiss chard going again which is BARELY visible in this photo. For some reason, I have found starting swiss chard from seed is super difficult. The seeds germinate and sprouts start to form but the plants seem to not want to grow higher than an inch. The brussell sprouts are (jumping up and down here excitedly) just starting to produce their first sprouts, the salsify is sprouting and growing slowing, the cabbage from earlier this summer is almost ready to be picked and best of all, our salad greens bed is doing well. Very little signs of slugs or snails thanks to the sluggo we purchased and the crushed up egg shells we've been saving.
As you can see we have fresh straw on the right side of the picture. That'll be used in all the other beds as well as these two. Nice thing about almost any sort of compostable material breaking down. It all generates heat. We'll need that come winter to help keep our kale, brussel sprouts, salad greens and onions going.

Unfortunately our Marina di Chioggia is NOT going to produce anything this year. Oh well, we'll try it again next year!

We decided to plant our garlic in the Okra beds. First and foremost, we were seriously tired of the okra. Well no, I was mostly tired of it. Okra is not an absolute favorite veggie of mine so by August I was getting pretty tired of blanching it and drying it. We got almost a quart of dried okra now, ready for cooking in the winter months.

We purchased two varieties of Garlic this year from Filaree Garlic Farm in Washington State. This year we're trying Chesnok Red and Persian Star, both of which are purple stripe and hardnecks. These are best for northern growers as they're hardier. Plus hardneck garlic varieties provide the much loved garlic scapes in late spring. Softneck garlic varieties do not. Our Chesnok Red is originally from Shvelisi, Republic of Georgia and the Persian Star garlic is originally from Samarkand, Uzbekistan. We pretty much followed the directions of several, and I mean SEVERAL websites when planting. Make sure soil is fully tiled up and loose, well composted, lots of nutrients, yada yada yada.

Then just simply plant the garlic flat side down, pointy side up. Always in mid September to Early October. Cover with straw and leave them be. Well that's what we did. Now here's to hoping we see Garlic scapes in early June!

Growing Shitake & Oyster mushrooms

2011-09-24T20:30:00.000-04:00

It's been about a month since we received our packages of shitake and oyster mushrooms. So far the oyster mushrooms have been producing about a half a pound every other week. Sadly, the shitake has produced ....nada. That's right. Zip. Zero. NOTHING.
Oddly enough in the past I have found Shitakes to be the EASIEST to grow but once again I am learning that now that I've moved to a different locale, I have to learn new ways to grow plants that I was once an expert at.
In the beginning, when we first received our package I think our mistake was not to shock the shitake block in the fridge and then submerge in water. We just set them up hurriedly and told them verbally "Okay, time to grow guys" Ha ha. Yeah, like that has ever worked for ANY plant!
Since then we shocked our shitake block once, submerged once and still NADA.
Okay. Back to square one.
Tomorrow we will be doing a repeat of everything we have already done and on top of that scouring our guide to growing Shitakes. We really miss nice fresh shitakes! It would be great to have some fresh ones in our stir fries.
Today I purchased some Tempeh (for those who do not know what this is clink on this link) at Wegmans and I could only imagine how some onion, shitake mushrooms, ginger, and maybe some ichiban eggplants would taste over rice. (Oh and by the way, later on this winter I will practice making tempeh!)

So while our Shitakes progress has really been horribly our Oyster mushrooms have really been producing well. I didn't take a photo this week but two weeks ago we got a nice sized cluster that we used in stir fry.

This week we used our cluster in a wonderfully, elegant sounding dish. Chicken Breasts with Oyster Mushrooms in Champagne. We served the chicken breasts on top of a nice hearty risotto, along with some Parmesan broccoli.

If you're interested, here's the recipe

4 boneless, skinless chicken breasts
salt & pepper
flour
2 tbsp butter
3 tbsp olive oil
1 lb oyster mushrooms, sliced
1 cup heavy cream
1/4 cup champagne
Parsley

Preheat your oven to 350 degrees.
Pound the chicken breasts between 2 pieces of waxed paper until slightly flattened. Salt and pepper the chicken breasts. Roll them in the flour.
Heat the butter and oil in a large pan or skillet and saute chicken over low heat for about 5 minutes until browned on both sides. Add the chopped mushrooms and cover your pan for about 10 to 15 minutes to let the mushrooms sweat a bit. Now remove the the chicken and mushrooms to a covered casserole dish.
In the meanwhile, pour cream into pan and simmer for about 5 minutes. Add champagne to the cream, mix thoroughly. Pour the champagne cream sauce over the chicken and mushrooms in the casserole dish and place back in the oven for another 30 minutes. Use parsley as a garnish.

Talk about yummy, creamy and filling! We loved this on Friday night. Hubby was in heaven with this. He had the absolutely brilliant idea to pair this with some risotto that we made with a bit of white wine, homemade vegetable broth, and cream which went beautifully with the chicken. The fresh broccoli from Brad's Produce with melted Parmesan just made it all even better!
What a yummy meal!

Battle of the pests-Flea Beetles

2011-09-23T15:26:00.001-04:00

This is my second year growing eggplant and oddly enough I did not have issues with flea beetles last year. I don't know why they suddenly decided that THIS year they will come to my yard to munch on my eggplants and tomatilloes. One day I walked out and just suddenly noticed all these tiny holes in my leaves of my eggplant. Upon closer inspection I found the tiny beetles sitting all over the leaves, munching away.
Now I do know after a bit of research that from now on I will probably always have them in this garden, thats even with tilling come Autumn. Unfortunately once the flea beetles figure out you have yummy plants in your garden the adults will hide in your soil during the winter and then emerge once again in the spring to feast on your young seedlings. Especially if you have mulch or straw on your bed.
There are very limited ways to get rid of these guys unfortunately, especially using organic means.

Flea Beetles

Diatomaceous earth: This is by far the most effective way to keep the flea beetle population down. I did notice a dramatic reduction in population numbers but they still managed to keep going after my eggplants. The tomatilloes fare the worst. One plant never got above seedling stage. The other one got about four feet tall but the dang little buggers kept eating at it incessantly. It's still alive but it never produced anything. Mostly I think the trick to using Diatomaceous earth is you cannot let up. You have to keep applying over and over. It's not like BT with Cabbageworms where you can let up every so often on applications. That's where we failed. Each time we let up the population just boomed again.

Oddly enough, that is ALL we used to battle those. Like some of the other Battle of the pests episodes I won't remark a whole lot on ways to fight pests that I've never tried before. I'll list them here but I just simply cannot give any feedback on it. I have read that if you use floating row covers before the flea beetles invade it'll help. But you have to get the covers on BEFORE the invasion. In our case that wouldn't have worked. I've also read about using nematodes. I might try that next year. Nematodes are microscopic worms that will feed on bacteria, fungi, and even other nematodes. Sometimes these are good, like in the case of the flea beetles. Sometimes they're not so good because some types will eat your roots of your tomato plants which will lead to your tomato not thriving as well as it should.
I've also read about using sticky traps but I really hate those things. They almost never seem to work on fruit flies, fungas gnats, and aphids.

I guess next year I'll be getting more experience fighting these guys.

No honeybees for me

2011-09-23T13:16:00.002-04:00

Well the housing office FINALLY responded back. I am not allowed to have honeybees because they are not "domesticated"

I must admit I'm a bit sad. I was kind of looking forward to trying my hand at beekeeping. Ever since I read the book Farm City by Novella Carpenter I really wanted to try this.

So obviously there will be no honeybees in my immediate future. Just wasps.

By the way, if you haven't read Farm City and you're interested in being self sustainable, enjoy food and you enjoy growing your own food then you'll enjoy this!

Oddly enough I first heard of Novella Carpenter on Youtube on the CHOW Obsessives channel. It's really inspiring what she has managed to accomplish! She also keeps a blog at http://ghosttownfarm.wordpress.com/

Check it out!

I'm so tempted to try something else. Maybe rabbits? Or Tilapia? I've heard of other people raising Tilapia but I've never really looked into it. I can't imagine the military housing office throwing a fit over fish. Unless they really smelled.
Amusingly enough my son and I were talking about the bees that we will not have last night. When I told him why we cannot he told me I should just not tell housing. I wish it was that simple.

Battle of the pests-Cabbageworms

2011-09-23T11:52:00.000-04:00

This year was my very first year dealing with these little monsters! I've never tried growing Kale, Cabbage, Brussel Sprouts or Kohlrabi before. These types of plants are VERY susceptible to attacks from Cabbageworms. They will actually attack almost any type of brassica plant.
Amusingly enough, around mid summer I noticed these lovely little white butterflies with little black circles on their wings. I even commented on how pretty they were as they flitted from plant to plant. We had loads of them in the backyard! How lovely!
UHHHH YEAH right! Once I discovered what those lovely butterflies were they didn't look so lovely.

Those almost completely killed my brussel sprouts, they did kill two kohlrabi plants, and thoroughly munched on my Red Russian Kale!

CabbageWorms/CabbageLooper

Bacillus Thuringiensis: This I have found is the most successful way to get rid of these pests. It's quick and efficient. Once I discovered what was going on with my plants I purchased some, sprinkled it on the affected plants and within three days the worms were gone. Just apply once a week until you have noticed that the butterflies and worms have died off and you're good. Now a days I re-apply when I notice either more cabbageworms or the Cabbage White butterflies.
Pick them off: Like hornworms, this is a pretty efficient way of taking care of these however since the plants in question are most pretty low to the ground it can really make your back sore as you're leaning over for quite some time moving leaves around. We just pick them off and throw them either into the middle of the yard for any bird that wanders by or I give them to my son so he can squash it. He says he doesn't like to squash these as much because "they're not as juicy". Yes, my son is getting into that "ooh that's disgusting! How cool!" stage. When you're on the hunt, the best thing to do is look for any chewed leaves. Also they do tend to leave droppings on other leaves so that's another hint for you. Make sure to also look under the leaves. They hide out a lot under there!

Big tip. If you decide to grow any of the plants in the Brassica family purchase some BT ahead of time. Otherwise you'll be in the same boat as me.

Amazon.com Widgets

Battle of the pests-Hornworms

2011-09-23T10:47:00.000-04:00

I've decided to start a running guide on how to deal with pests. My first one was Aphids.

Now I've dealt with hornworms the past two summers and I've done numerous things to get rid of hornworms. Some have worked great and some have had some not so great results.

Hornworms

LadyBugs: These are only beneficial when the hornworms are still just eggs. The ladybugs will eat the eggs which, of course, means no more hornworms. My only issue with this is I've only had very limited success with this. I've had ladybugs in my yard but I've also still had hornworms so obviously the ladybugs didn't get to the hornworms before they could hatch.
Cornmeal: This is a tip I received from another gardener and I really am not certain if it truly did work. Lightly spray your tomato plant (or any plant that is being attacked by hornworms) with a mist of water. Then sprinkle the plant with plain old cornmeal. Supposedly the hornworm will eat the cornmeal covered leaves and then explode as the cornmeal expands in its stomach. Now the reason I'm not certain if it worked or not is because after I did this I noticed almost no more hornworms. I did not find any exploded hornworms but that could be because a bird came by and snatched it up. We've left smooshed hornworms on the patio in the evening and the next morning they're gone so obviously a bird has came by and grabbed the little snack we left for it. So I guess you could try this out and see if it works for you. If you notice any exploded hornworms please let me know! I'd like to know if this really works.
Bacillus Thuringiensis: I just discoved this one so I haven't even used it yet! I only discovered it when I had to start dealing with cabbage worms. I have found it mentioned all over the internet that it does work though which makes total sense. Bacillus Thuringiensis (commonly called BT) is actually a naturally occuring bacterium that when ingested by certain types of worms will infect and then kill the worm. The really great thing about BT is it is completely safe for humans and it will not harm the beneficial insects like earthworms, ladybugs, and lacewings. I will definitely be trying this next year!
Pick them off: This I find is VERY effective. Simply look for the damage from the hornworm. Eaten leaves with only stems left. If you see their feces that's another hint of where to look. Now just allow your eyes to relax and start looking slowly around the area. A great bonus to this is it's very relaxing to do this as it almost becomes a meditative act. We like to just pick these off and then give them to our 5 year old son. He likes to stomp on them and obviously the birds like it too because they come by our yard later and grab the remains. Only negative to this option is it DOES take a while, especially if you have a lot of tomato plants.
Braconid Wasp: This is the slowest method ever. Yes it does work but only if you're totally okay with the Hornworm voraciously eating your tomato plant. You might as well give over a few branches to the thing while it merrily munches on your tomato plant. More or less what happens is the Wasp lays eggs on the hornworm and the wasp larvae slowly eat the hornworm from the inside out. What a way to die. Yuck!

There are a few other options out there but I'm only going to list the things I have completely tried or the things that make perfect sense to me. I have heard that Diatomaceous earth, insecticidal soap, and a spray made from petunia leaves works but I've never tried those.

I have noticed hornworms most definitely on my tomatoes. They supposed also attack eggplants, bell peppers, dill and potatoes but I have yet to see any hornworms on any of those plants in my garden.

I think I've gotten spoiled.

2011-09-06T11:52:00.000-04:00

I never thought this would possibly happen but I guess it has. Recently due to a potluck at work I needed some tomatoes but I had none ready to pick in the backyard (wouldn't you know, the tomatoes were ready about 3 days later. Goes to show you can't rush a good thing)

So I bought some at the grocery store to help top a seven layer dip I made. I ended up using only a portion of the store bought tomato because the thing tasted like water with a slight tomato taste. EWWWW! The worms got the rest. I'm sure they were probably put off by the lack of taste as well.

I've gotten used to sweet, tangy, tart tomatoes. Tomatoes that just TASTE like summer. I couldn't stand the fact that I even used some of the grocery store tomatoes on my dip.

Same goes for Cucumbers. My cucumber vine is just about dead. It has barely produced at all recently (not its fault, the whole placement thing which is our fault. The tomatoes are hogging all the sun). So I had to also purchase some plain cucumbers at the grocery store. These were bitter, bitter, bitter. I apologized to my coworkers for the bitterness of the cucumbers however everyone responded that they weren't which made me realize, once again. I've gotten used to produce that is super fresh, super tasty and NOTHING like grocery store produce.

Now another thing I discovered. I HATE grocery store eggs. You know, the $1 per dozen eggs that are the miscellaneous brand. The yolks are a faded yellow. The whites runny and slimy.
I poached some this weekend and they fell apart almost immediately in the hot water turning it into a white cloudy mess.
The eggs I use NORMALLY I get straight from the farm. These are about 2 to 3 days old before I purchase them. Their yolks are bright gold colored. The whites are firm around the yolk. They taste BUTTERY. Unfortunately for me, I do not own chickens. I cannot due to living in Military housing so I have to pay about $3 for a dozen but to me this is something I'm willing to spend on. My mother and I have gotten into arguments about this. She's a thrifty, frugal shopper who only wants to spend on the best deal. Nothing against those that are like this but if I'm going to spend on food then I'm going to spend on GOOD food. Not on food that has no flavor. Why should I?
It's just a matter of priorities.
So lesson learned. Do not purchase cheap store bought eggs that barely taste like eggs. Do not purchase grocery store cucumbers, tomatoes or other produce unless I have no other choice. Hurry up and get a new yogurt culture to start our yogurt at home.
And come this winter, get moving on practicing making cheese. I know I can tackle that one! I've successfully made ricotta. In fact I've made lasagna with it. Imagine a lasagna with homemade canned tomato sauce, homemade ricotta with locally grown grass feed ground beef, and some fresh mozzarella. (only thing I didn't make last time was the noodles. I have to draw the line somewhere). One word describes that dish we made last year. Heaven.

Planting our fall garden and other miscellaneous tidbits

2011-09-03T21:29:00.000-04:00

Today we FINALLY got around to planting our Fall Garden. We were supposed to do it last weekend but thanks to Hurricane Irene that got put off a bit.
So while I worked on shucking and preserving corn from the farm nearby my hubby plowed the bed closest to the house and prepared it for planting. A few weeks ago we purchased some sand, more top soil, and a bit of composted manure (since none of the Craigslist advertisers answered back about their free manure. Oh well, can't really complain too much.)
After working all that in thoroughly into the bed we started planting.

First row in that bed is Leeks. Some of these will be started from seeds I already had, some will come from the bottoms of already grown but cut leeks. See one of my previous blog entries for that!
Next is sweet onions grown from cut bottoms of onions or seeds. I'm not quite certain what kind of onions the seeds will grow so I guess I will have to wait and find out.
Next was celery. Once again, one of these will be grown due to a tip I found that is very much like onions. I really never knew you could do this with celery too! In the celery row I'm planning on trying to grow Kohlrabi again but this time from seeds. I really don't know how successful I'll be.
Next row is spring onions (sometimes called scallions). This is how I first learned about growing onions from the cut off bottoms of grown ones. We go through massive amounts of these every week as we like to add them to eggs, soups, stews, herb butters and homemade yogurt or kefir cheese that we like to make every so often.
Very next LARGE area is the mixed salad greens area. Our sons favorite. Between the slugs and our son during this last spring, we really didn't get to eat much of our greens IN our salads.

Hubby planting the spinach.

Last area was the spinach in this bed. Earlier we had absolutely miserable luck with spinach so I'm really hoping our fall planting goes better.

Next bed is already somewhat established so we could only till this up by hand with my garden claw. We already have two cabbages in here that are almost fully grown. Today I planted Chicory Greens and Swiss Chard. Once again, I have to say we had very little success with the seeds actually sown in this bed with swiss chard. I'm hoping we see better success this time.

Next the two plants kind of in the middle and to the left is the brussel sprouts. They're finally recovering from the cabbage worm episode. One brussel sprout plant (which you cannot see in this photo) was eaten slightly in the middle by slugs and then knocked over by Hurricane Irene and broken in half is slowly recovering. I don't know if that one will ever do much. Our Red Russian Kale actually did the worst in the Hurricane as Irene managed to strip a good portion of the leaves off of each plant. Weird. I would've NEVER predicted that one!

Hubby also planted crunch and munch carrots and Parisienne carrots from Baker Creek Heirloom seeds as well.

Since Hurricane Irene drowned my Salsify that were coming up I replanted a bit more of that as well. I am REALLY hoping that they come up and actually produce! I'd love to try it!

As for our other beds, well that was more or less just maintenance work. Pruning branches, cleaning up plants, spraying with Diatomaceous earth for the flea beetles, the Sluggo (Iron Phosphate) for the slugs, the BT for the cabbage worms. Our cucumber plants are just about at their end. I don't think those have much left in them. Same goes for the tomatoes.

Oddly enough, our eggplants were doing great and then they just fizzed out. We have about 7 baseball sized eggplants sitting on all the plants but we're still waiting for them to get just a bit bigger and it never seems to be happening.

I told Edward today that I'm mighty tempted to allow the okra to just go to seed. I'm so tired of blanching and drying the okra. I know come March I'll be thankful but for now, I just want them gone. They've gotten so tall! They remind Edward and I of trees.

I've noticed even the Stevia is looking a bit sad now a days. Almost time to harvest that. When it's time for that I just plan on pulling the entire thing out, throwing it in my dehydrator until crispy. Then reduce down to a powder to be used as a sugar substitute.

Our blue hubbard is also showing the signs of a plant nearing the end. It has one definite squash on it and now two that we're not certain about. Heck, even if I end up with three of these squash I'll be happy.

One of our Brandywines ready finally. These have taken so long between each series of fruitings,

Ah ha! We finally know what this tomatoe plant is. Its a Golden Girl. Now how it got in this bed we have no clue. One of those many mysteries of life.

Our harvest today. Two Brandywines, 3 Rutgers, 1 Golden Girl. 6 Okra, and one bunch of Kohlrabi greens.

Okay, THAT was a big disapointment

2011-09-01T20:35:00.002-04:00

Well we finally did it. We opened the potato bin so see if we had anything there.

And this was the result.

What an utter disappointment. No blues, no reds, no any special potatoes. Hardly anything at all. Depressing.

Still though, I told Edward that "hey this was our second time growing potatoes, our first time growing them THIS way so we should be happy with WHATEVER we get!

I still can't help but be depressed by this photo. By God I WILL get better at growing potatoes!

It looks like these possibly grew from either some baking potatoes that we haphazardly threw in there or some fingerling potatoes. Not sure which.

Now while the potato harvest was meager this was the other stuff we collected tonight. Kohlrabi, Eggplant(black beauty), 1 brandy wine tomato, several Amish paste, several black cherry tomatoes, 3 lemon cucumbers, several okra and that's all folks. Not bad at all.

And that all being said, I'm going to bed. I now have a Kindergartner in the house and I'm exhausted!

Mail day!

2011-08-29T21:19:00.000-04:00

Too exciting! Today we got the rest of our seeds for our Autumn garden. I received the following seeds from Peaceful Valley & Garden Supply. Organic Kohlrabi, Spring Salad Mix for our sprout tray, Organic Bean Adzuki Sprouting beans also for the sprout tray, Organic Mung Bean sprouts also for our sprout tray. I still need to get another sprouting tray. Ours has lost a lot of the little siphons on the bottom of each tray.

I also FINALLY managed to find some dandelion greens. These have been extremely hard to find! I've been scouring several sites and kept turning up empty!
Talk about super yummy and SUPER healthy! Saute some fresh dandelion greens with a bit of garlic in olive oil and you have a delicious side dish! Just a note, I do NOT suggest picking dandelion greens in your local neighborhood unless you know for certain that no animals have been defecating or urinating on those as well as no pesticides or herbicides have been applied. EWWWWW

I also managed to get some Organic Mustard Green seeds.. 1/4 pound worth. Oops. That's enough to grow a medium sized field of greens.

Now I'm the lover in this household of bitter greens. I love the bite, hence the reason why I love Rapini (also called Broccoli Raab. If you haven't tried this you really should. Super yummy!)

The best way to cook this is too simple.

Sauteed Garlic Broccoli Raab(Rapini)
Mince 1 tbsp garlic
Saute in about 2 tbsp olive oil for about 1 to 2 minutes.
Add rinsed rapini into pan. Allow to wilt slightly.
Add a few lemon wedges to pan. Cook for another 1 to 2 minutes.
DONE.
Do not over cook this. It is naturally bitter so if you cook it for too long it'll turn unbearably bitter.

I do apologize for the simplicity in most of my recipes that are solely mine. When I cook I do everything by hand/sight/feel. I really do not use "measurements". I simply taste as I go along, add salt or pepper and figure out EXACTLY how I like it.
I tend to use only sea salt for fresh cooking; good quality olive oil and balsamic vinegar and fresh cracked black pepper. All the other ingredients I LOVE to use fresh but if I can't, well then I end up using Mccormick. Not the best spice but THEY do have reusable containers!

To Bee or not to Bee, that is the question

2011-08-29T18:36:00.001-04:00

Lately I've been thinking more and more that it would be great to have honey bees in the backyard.

Two reasons actually. First and foremost is the honey production. Next reason however is because they're great pollinators.
Now here's the big issue. I live on a military post. They govern what I can and cannot do in my yard and house. So today I approached them with the question. Can I have a honey bee hive in my backyard.
I told them, "Look, I already have wasps a plenty. I don't want them. I want honeybees. They can only benefit the neighborhood as they go from plant to plant pollinating. They don't tend to sting quickly unless provoked. Wasps are worse then they are. And last I have a large garden in my backyard. Its a garden that's an inspiration to other neighbors. It's a great hang out spot. People love it". Oops. Why did I have to go into so much DETAIL? I sure hope I didn't just get myself caught. Originally they told me that I could have some plants in my backyard, a small garden. I don't think what I have going on is a "small garden". Of course I don't have the things that I would really love. Chickens, goats. But honeybees would make me pretty happy.

The thing that really hurts though is that while our garden is therapeutic for us, its proven to be inspiring to our neighbors who like to come over to see what's up in our yard.
This shocks me. I never planned our backyard to be an "inspiration" and yet I have visitors from many of the houses nearby that shyly knock on our gate while we're back there and ask to come in and donate shredded newspaper to serve as mulch, how our hummingbirds are, how our Blue Hubbard is producing, how the cucumbers are doing or even more amusing, how our worms are doing(and are we selling any anytime soon to any would be anglers).

I hope that my asking the housing office here if I can keep honeybees didn't just paint a big red and white target right on my back and backyard.

Tasty Ideas

2011-08-27T16:50:00.000-04:00

Recently I intended on making a strawberry jam marinated pork chop recipe however that morning I completely forgot that we were supposed to marinate the pork chops according to the recipe we were using. I did have the pork chops out in the fridge though so I figured I might as well use them and see if I couldn't just make up my own recipe.

Now, I consider myself to be a pretty good cook but I don't usually come up with really inventive recipes so the success of these pork chops was really amazing (and tasty).

These turn out very tender, sweet and savory.

White wine and strawberry jam Pork Chops

Ingredients:

4 medium sized pork chops

1 cup white wine

1 cup chicken broth

1/4 cup strawberry jam(I used our homemade strawberry lemon marmalade from last year)

salt and pepper to taste

Salt and pepper pork chops while olive oil is heating in large pan

Saute pork chops in olive oil till brown. Remove pork chops temporarily to a plate

Now add white wine to deglaze pan

Add chicken broth and strawberry jam to the pan and thoroughly incorporate

Add pork chops back to pan and bring the mixture to a simmer

Cover pan with lid and allow to cook for another 25 minutes until pork chops are cooked thoroughly and are tender.

Serve with oven roasted potatoes or egg noodles.

Fireballs

This one I got from another website out there called SurvivalPodcast. I've been really swimming in cherry tomatoes lately, some from our black cherry and some from our Christmas Grapes so I wanted a different way of using them up. I noticed this recipe recently and thought I'd give it a try.

1 gallon cherry tomatoes (green tomatoes work best)
4 garlic cloves
4 celery stalks cut the height of a quart jar
4 hot peppers
4 clump of fresh dill
1 quart water
1/2 cup pickling salt
2 quarts white vinegar

Combine water, salt & vinegar. Bring to a boil.

To each of four quart jars add a garlic clove, a celery stalk, a hot pepper, and a head of dill.

Pack cherry tomatoes into the jars. Pour hot brine over tomatoes, leaving 1/2 inch head space.

Remove air bubbles, adjust lids, and process in boiling water bath for ten minutes.

Now mine are probably going to taste a little different from this recipe because I was all out of celery and hot peppers. So instead I added crushed red pepper and cayenne. Plus I also added anise because I wanted to experiment with this a bit. I can't wait to see how they turn out!

Today I also managed to make some homemade pizza sauce that I actually started last night.

Yesterday as hubby and I were racing to get ready for Hurricane Irene I cut an eggplant, grabbed a few more ripe tomatoes from the vines and some that weren't so ripe(I didn't want to lose any tomatoes to the tropical storm force winds we've been told to expect), grabbed one of Brad's Produce super sweet candy onions and some garlic, the last bit of celery and about a tablespoon of olive oil and began the long process of cooking everything down in the oven. We have pizza stones in the oven so even after I turned the oven off as we prepared to go to bed I knew the tomato mixture would continue to cook throughout the night.
This morning after racing to the grocery store I moved the mixture to a sauce pan so I could hurry it up a bit. The trick with pizza sauce is you really have to get it to cook down to a pretty thick mixture. Thankfully I did beat Irene and any power outages and I got it canned.
All while fighting off a headache all morning long. Thankfully the headache is starting to go away. Just in time for the rain and wind to begin.

Hubby and I also managed to tie up some of the plants this morning and I even had a close encounter with a hummingbird. This little guy was about 6 inches from my face. He kept preparing to go to the feeder but sudddenly he obviously noticed me peeking out from the tomatoes and decided to try to figure out what the heck I was. For about a minute he hovered in front of me. Too cute.

Cutting Our Grocery Bill

2011-08-19T13:49:00.003-04:00

Okay first let me say that yes, we have been eating out of yard a lot. And from the farm nearby. And from the dairy.
Now oddly enough, our grocery bill has barely gone down. My husband, Edward, and I think it's simply from extras that we buy here and there. Plus, Edward has pointed out that many times we've gone shopping at Walmart instead of the Commissary or Shoprite and we've gotten things for the house/yard that just get wrapped all up in our budget as "Groceries". Then July was a bad month for groceries. We had a big surprise (the surprise meaning "surprise we're all coming to your house this weekend) party for the 4th of July. Since I had almost no time to put something together I purchased a good portion of the supplies. Chi ching. $50 worth of groceries. My birthday was at the end of July and we threw a big party which meant we purchased about $75 worth of "snack" items to go along with some of the fresh dishes I served. June was equally bad since we went on vacation and spent on groceries that normally we don't buy and of course it was just the beginning of summer and our garden wasn't fully producing yet. (and the things it was producing were being eaten alive by the dang slugs rendering all our lettuces inedible and bitter)

So as a way of even further reducing what we're spending I've now added the following chores:

Homemade croutons. Our son loves croutons on his salads. I can't stand looking at the back of a package of these and seeing all the artificial ingredients. (including High Fructose Corn Syrup)
Breadcrumbs. I use this so often that I used to actually buy a container every other time of shopping. No more. Instead I make the croutons and breadcrumbs with my dehydrator.
Creme Fraiche. No more buying sour cream. This is our replacement. I've really grown to love the taste of this!
Mushrooms. Just got our kits and started taking care of them regularly. I'll be writing about that very shortly. We always buy fresh mushrooms every week. Buttons, shitakes, oysters, etc.
Yogurt. Come this Autumn we'll be doing this again regularly.
Dried Fruit. Each and every time I see our commissary selling slightly damaged fruit that has been reduced I buy it, peel it, slice it and dry it. This way our son will have dried fruit snacks to bring to school. He is a fruit MONSTER. He will easily consume a dozen apples in 5 days. I cannot wait till apples are in season. We'll pick approximately 20 pounds and keep them around for a while. Dry some. Keep some fresh, make some into desserts, can some.
Cream Cheese. I now make this out of creme fraiche. I just simply drain most of the whey out of the creme fraiche, add a bit of fresh ground sea salt and then refrigerate. Hubby and I actually like this cheese over the store bought cream cheese!

Seriously we need to own a cow because of all the milk we use. We make Kefir, Yogurt, Buttermilk, Creme Fraiche and we also have a 5 1/2 year old son that loves to drink milk so we easily go through 2+ gallons a week. Once we get into winter our milk consumption will rise further as we'll be making ricotta, perfecting our mozzarella and possibly making cheddar.
Come to think of it I really need to own some chickens too. We eat about 1 dozen eggs a week. You might say that our cholesterol is through the roof however I have just been tested recently and the doctor exclaimed how awesome my cholesterol is. Now if I could just get my weight and blood pressure down!

Another thing that I'm going to do to further reduce our grocery shopping (and is also very Eco Friendly!) is purchase some Lunchskins for my son and for my husband and I. Amazon lists these for $25 which includes a pack of three reusable bags.

We go through massive amounts of Ziploc bags each month. Whether its just for a sandwich or some cut up veggies or fruit so I'm hoping making the investment in these will pay off later.

Now, the other side of the coin. During this entire adventure my goal has been to keep gardening costs down to under $25 a month. After all, I don't want to grow $50 tomatoes or eggplants.
The most I've spent is $40 and that was in April when we started purchasing bag after bag of topsoil, compost, and mulch. September may be also a month when our expenses rise a bit since we'll be putting together our hoophouse for our two beds near the house. Those will grow our spinach, salad mix, brussel sprouts, carrots, turnips and swiss chard during the winter. The challenge will be to keep it warm enough to keep the plants & the worms happy. I do plan to move my smaller composter also into the hoop house to help things a bit since composting generates heat. Worse case scenario I figure I can always purchase some of those fish tank heaters and hook a few up in there.

Here's an idea of what I'm planning.
I don't think we'll make ours this big but it will be tall enough to walk into, just not stand fully. Only issue is this one will be in the shade, especially during the winter months. It'll be a challenge!
We do have to purchase a bit more topsoil as the level of the soil has dropped but this time of year that's cheap. No one else is buying topsoil or compost right now. Same goes for mulch.

I have a sneaking suspicion that our monthly grocery bill will go down when I least expect it. Like in October.

Now I do have to share one other idea that is completely unrelated to gardening but is related to saving money.
Hubby and I decided to cut ourselves free from cable tv and land line telephones. We've kept our internet and have now decided to go with a Roku box. Amazon lists the top of the line one for $98 which is a one time fee.

We have also started subscriptions to HuluPlus which is $8.99 but it is free for one month since I liked them on Facebook and Netflix which is $9.99 which is also free for one month. We will still have to pay for our internet which is super expensive right now as we're with Comcast. Once the Verizon strike ceases we'll see our bill drop further.
So we're going from $165 for Cable, Internet and Phone down to $83. Once Verizon decides that they're all friends again our bill will drop even further to $57. Not bad, eh?

Cooking with natures bounty

2011-08-07T18:09:00.006-04:00

Saturday night in order to use up our excess cherry tomatoes we decided to have beef shish kabobs. Unfortunately I don't have mushrooms going yet so the button mushrooms(blog coming soon on my new mushroom farm!) on this weren't mine.

However the onions and tomatoes were! We used black cherry and Christmas Grape tomatoes here along with onions picked that day from the back yard. I really gotta start leeks here soon. I dried all our others since they were really needing to be picked. Great news about drying just like canning is I can use these later. I plan to make Cock a leekie soup this Autumn which is one of my sons favorites. Serve that with some fresh bread and herb butter or olive oil and you have a great hearty meal!

This past weekend has been extremely busy as we rushed to use up all our tomatoes, banana peppers, cucumbers, and bell peppers. We managed to put up 5 pints of Ratatouille. One of which didn't seal so we'll be eating that can next week. Then we started with 2 pints of Italian Sweet Banana peppers but one of the jars broke during the processing stage so now we have just 1. I hate going to all the work and then you lose some of your work due to something stupid like this.
We also put up 2 pints of diced tomatoes today. I love the end result of this! We used some golden girl tomatoes and some regular colored tomatoes. The coloring is gorgeous! All red and yellow.
As a last thought I also pickled some baby cucumbers. I used a Cornichon recipe that I found from Alabama Nest. I can't wait to try this later!!
Because I also have so many other White wonder cucumbers (which I'm not as fond of) I dried a good portion that I can use later on in soups as flavoring or in dips.

I also recently realized that I never got to making my Garlic Chive butter that I always do every year. I used to be just an herb gardener and I always had to figure out what the heck to do with all my herbs so every year I make herb butters. I've actually seen grocery stores sell these as "GOURMET HERB BUTTERS" for about $7 for a container. Uhhhhh, I spend approximately $3.00 on my butter with a coupon. Herbs are free.
So far this year I've made:
Basil Parmesan (great with pasta, potatoes or vegetables)
Lemon Dill (awesome with fish or vegetables)
Cilantro Chile (think eggs, a spicy alternative to corn on the cob, or even steak turns out great!)
Parsley (I like this mostly on potatoes, pasta or chicken)
Sage & Shallot(only one I actually cheated on. I purchased the shallot since I didn't grow those at the time) (good on Lamb, pasta, potatoes. Too strong for beef or chicken in my opinion)

and now....Garlic Chive (GREAT ON BREAD, good with eggs, good with steak, fish, chicken or veggies. Very versatile hence the reason I make massive amounts of this each summer!)

Each of these are super easy! First allow your butter to soften. I tend to like Land O Lakes because I grew up with up it. While it's softening to room temperature begin to collect your supplies.
The photo I've put here is for Garlic Chive.

Chop your ingredients and place into bowl with butter.

Next start mixing/whipping up your butter making sure your herbs are fully incorporated. PLEASE FORGIVE THE BLURRINESS OF THE PHOTO. CAMERA ACTING UP!

Then all you have to do is line a bowl/dish/cup with saran wrap. Fill with butter, throw in freezer until hard. Label a plastic Freezer Ziploc bag and voila. You have herb butter for cooking for the rest of the year. Makes a wonderful accompaniment to any sort of dish.

Next we had two more projects to work on. Cherry Berry Mead with cherries we picked earlier in the season and our Kombucha.

Mead is just simply honey wine but we kicked ours up a knotch by adding cherries and a few mixed berries.
We used 11lbs of honey
5 lbs of cherries
1 package of champagne yeast
3 tbsp of sugar

and a lot of water.

Then we just mixed about 3 cups of 100 degree water with sugar. Let the sugar dissolve. Then added the yeast. Meanwhile we filled a stockpot with about 5 cups of water, the cherries/berries and let it boil all the while smooshing down the cherries. We actually used our hand mixer which was fast and easy. Then we removed the pot from the stove and then added the honey.
When the temperature of the cherry honey mixture hit about 100 degrees(any hotter and it will kill the yeast) we mixed the yeast into the cherry mixture, topped our carboy with our pressure release that I purchased from Amazon.com. 3 months from now we'll do our second rack off. This will remove a lot of the debris and floating pieces of fruit.

Amazon.com Widgets

Those weird white things in there are SCOBYS (Symbiotic Colony of Bacterial Yeasts)

Last was our Kombucha.
We've been making Kombucha since last year October. Here's a link to the recipe we use. Kombucha is an effervescent drink that has loads helpful probiotics that tastes a lot like a drier version of Soda Pop. Some of my favorite flavors are strawberry lemon, strawberry mint, plain, or cherry and these are usually from our stores of picked fruits from local farms and orchards. I don't tend to purchase as many of the more tropical fruits since they have to be shipped from so far away. You know, carbon footprint and all. While I totally enjoy fresh pineapple, guavas, mangoes and passion fruit the cost of preparing it for shipment and the the shipment leaves me with a nasty taste in my mouth.

I have to say, at the end of this weekend, my feet are tired, my back is sore, and my mind is exhausted. Yet the larder is a bit more full, and I feel rather optimistic. Like a squirrel looking at its hoard of acorns and nuts while contemplating the long winter ahead.

And even better, stuffed peppers for dinner along with a glass of Williamsburg Winery wine. Now if today was Saturday I'd be even happier because I could really use another day off from work.

One last addition.

2011-08-05T20:30:00.000-04:00

We discussed this and decided, it was time to harvest one more of our Blue Hubbard squash. The most mature of the two. We have theorized that this squash plant cannot produce more than two at a time of squash so we took one off.
I don't know if this is a correct assumption,(please correct me if I'm wrong) I just know that our squash so far will not produce any more adult squash while two are already on the vine.

This guy was 7.5 lbs on the scale! I can imagine this will feed us several meals, pies or what have you! WOW! Heck maybe next year I'll grow more winter squash vertically! Possibly butternut or acorn. We'll see!

Harvest time

2011-08-05T18:19:00.001-04:00

Whew.....let me say that again...WHEW! Lately life has been hectic. Full of harvesting each day and then choosing what is to be dried/dehydrated, what is to be canned and what is to be eaten as soon as possible. First I just want it known, at this moment I'm really SICK of eating tomatoes. I eat them for snacks, I eat them with dinner, I eat them for breakfast. Still more come. I am sick of them yet I don't want to complain too loudly because I know that come February I will be craving fresh home grown tomatoes. Lately I've even been drying any tomatoes that come off the vine with splits. I figure might as well dry them so I can use them later.
I've been contemplating even making sun dried tomatoes(yes I know they're not REALLY sun dried but they are dehydrated so that should count for something) in olive oil. I just don't know how long they would be good for.
I found out today that I can also dehydrate cucumbers. I cannot tell you the relief I felt when I found THAT tidbit out. I plan later on, maybe come late Autumn or into winter to make a chilled cucumber soup? Or I can powder them and use them for flavoring. Or heck, I can even use the dehydrated and then re hydrated cukes to make Tzatziki. Okay so relief. I can get off my tomato and cucumber diet.
Still though hubby and I will be making Italian Banana Peppers this weekend along with canned Ratatouille.
Here's the recipe for the Ratatouille we'll be using. I got this off of the Frugal Canning Blog. Awesome recipes there!

Ratatouille
1 medium onion chopped
2 medium bell peppers cubed
1 medium zucchini cubed
2 medium tomatoes cut into chunks
4 cloves garlic
1 bay leaf
1 tsp. each basil, marjoram
½ tsp oregano
Dash of ground rosemary
1 cup red wine
½ cup tomato juice
2 tbs tomato paste
2 tsp salt
2 tsp pepper
¼ cup olive oil
Freshly chopped parsley

Heat olive oil in large heavy cooking pot. Crush the garlic into the oil. Add bay leaf and onion, salt lightly. Sauté over medium heat until onion begins to turn transparent.

Add eggplant, wine and tomato juice. Stop and have a taste of the wine to be sure it is alright. Add herbs. Stir to mix well, then cover and simmer 10-15 minutes. Add salt and pepper, tomatoes and tomato paste. Mix well. Continue to stew until all vegetables are tender. Just before serving mix in parsley.

The result is a flavorful mixture of veggies, wine and herbs. I pressure canned it in quart jars for 75 minutes at 11 pounds pressure.

We're going to cut out the eggplant out of this one because we have none that are ready to be picked.(wait a week and I'll be screaming about being overwhelmed by eggplant) Hubby and I were inspired to make this as both our parents used to can this when we were kids and we both had fond memories of it.

Next is the Italian Sweet Banana peppers. I found this recipe over at Cooks.com
Sliced banana peppers
Italian seasoning
Garlic cloves
Vinegar
Water
Basil leaves
Canning salt
Olive oil
Sugar
Fill pint jars with sliced peppers. In each jar put: 3-4 basil leave, pinch of Italian seasoning, 1 teaspoon salt, 2 cloves garlic, and 1 teaspoon olive oil. Bring to a boil: 2 quarts vinegar, 1 quart water and pinch of sugar. Pour over peppers and seal jars.

I think I'm not going to add the olive oil though to this. I've heard too many bad things about olive oil in canning and all of them have to do with botulism. That makes me nervous.

Next batch of tomatoes will probably be going towards diced tomatoes which we use loads of each year. Meat cooked in diced tomatoes in the slow cooker always turns out so tender and delicious.

So onto the next topic. The state of the garden and the fun part. Pictures!

This is a Black Cherry tomato. This plant is pretty much the reason why every day I have to eat tomatoes or let them go bad. This thing produces dozens and dozens and dozens of sweet, juicy candylike tomatoes. If they hadn't tasted so good I know I would have tired of them a week ago.

Rutger tomato along with a Christmas grape tomato plant hiding in the large pot and then a smaller unknown tomato plant off to the side. We honestly have no clue what the plant on the left is. It was a stowaway in the garden and my husband didn't want to toss it.

Told hubby tonight that our Blue Hubbard is starting to get a tired look like a mother who has borne several children. I'm trying to figure out when I can pull these squash off. Who knew our Okra would get THIS tall! Note to self, next year, plant more okra.

Catawba Grapes. Thanks to the advice from the owner at Legends Vineyards we know a bit more on the care of this new addition to our back yard.

Tomatoes & Eggplants Gone Wild.

These two beds are almost empty because of the heat. I'm having to trim a good portion of my swiss chard due to Cercospora. Here's to hoping it recovers. We're now starting to pick our carrots.

One last chance for some Marina di Chioggia. I was so depressed that nothing was really producing out front in our horrible soil so in a moment of desperation I threw two seeds here. PLEASE MY BABIES GROW!!

Can you believe the size of these monsters! Yes you really can grow squash like these vertically! Just stock up on orange/onion/apple mesh bags. Really helps to support the squash and keep the weight off of the vines.

The battle of the pests-Aphids

2011-08-04T12:41:00.001-04:00

This year I have encountered pests I NEVER knew existed! Here I thought aphids were the worst of my battles. Whew. I had a lot to learn.

For all of these recipes I use (except for the ladybugs of course) a cheap Walmart spray bottle. Don't need any kind of fancy sprayers.

Aphids:

Ladybugs: Whether I have to order them or they just naturally occur LadyBugs can cause massive death to Aphids.
Soap water: I've found that water mixed with a little dishwashing soap(about a tsp of soap to a cup of water) and then liberally sprayed on plants does wonders on Aphids. That is unless you live in Alaska. Oddly enough, aphids in Alaska must be a more hearty bunch. They tolerate almost every trick I know in Alaska.
Hot Pepper spray: Mix about a cup of water with about a tsp of dishwashing detergent. Mix in about a 1/2 to a full tsp of crushed hot pepper. (Chile peppers, cayenne, jalapeno, they all work) Put the mixture in a spray bottle and let sit for about a day or two. As time goes on it will get stronger. Make sure to spray AWAY from your face. This stuff could put a serious hurt on you if you get it in your eyes or around your nose.
Garlic Oil Spray: Mix 2 to 3 crushed garlic cloves, mix with about a tsp oil. I usually use plain old vegetable oil since I don't want to waste olive oil on something like this. Then mix this combination with about a cup of water. I let this sit on my counter for about 2 to 3 days and then I will apply it to the affected plants. You can keep this from going rancid by putting it in the fridge but just remember the oil will harden somewhat so if you want to use more you'll have to take it out and let it sit at room temperature until the oil has gone back to it's liquid state. Then just spray like normal.

Now a bit of caution. There are many types of aphids. Green ones, black ones, orangey colored and even red colored. I have found that the green and red ones are very susceptible to the soap or garlic spray. The black ones take a combination of all of these approaches. Also, after the checking the leaves for any ladybugs, assasin bugs or small Praying mantis you can simply spray a pretty strong stream of water at the plant to dislodge the pests.That works temporarily. I know of a few other beneficial insects but I simply have never used them.

Aphids tend to gravitate towards peppers, cilantro, culantro, cucumbers, and I've even heard that sometimes they will feed on tomatoes and potatoes but I haven't seen that on my plants.

The Plants get graded~Mid term

2011-08-03T15:15:00.001-04:00

So of course part of the reason I keep this blog in the first place is to simply keep track of what I have done wrong, what I have done right, successes, failures, and of course also my own opinion on each plant. This way I know which varieties NOT to grow the next year, which pests I need to be aware of and how to deal with those pests.

First, let me start with the plants themselves. And also berate myself for NOT WRITING DOWN THE HEIRLOOM TOMATO PLANTS THAT I PURCHASED! Dummy!
So here I'm GUESSING about the plants I have. I could probably hunt down in a message board somewhere or another but that would most likely take me a week or two. Forget it! TIP HERE! When canning tomatoes take any tomatoes that are your intended victims, uh I mean, tomatoes you intend to cook up, and throw them in the fridge till they're chilled. Later start boiling your water to a full boil. Now start putting a few tomatoes in at a time for about a minute. No more or your tomatoes will start to cook fully.
Since they were chilled and then submerged in boiling water the skins just pop right off. I've tried the non chilling method and I find you have to keep them in the boiling water a whole lot longer.

Mortgage Lifter: This one has yet to produce a single ripe tomato. Now in all fairness it could be due to the location of the tomato plant. Just now is it getting a full amount of sun. It is really super tall but is barely producing. Grade received? C because we have yet to even see a tomato yet.
Golden Girl: Very tall, good sunny spot in the garden. Has produced two very pretty tomatoes over the past two weeks. Grade Received? B for being tasty and being a reasonable producer
Black Cherry: Massive production! This is in a very large pot and it's now about 11 feet tall. It's overgrown its supports and is producing since about 3 weeks ago. Now almost daily we get at least 3 to maybe 5 little dark tomatoes to snack on. In fact I snack on these almost daily at work(along with a sliced cucumber) Of course, once again, it may be due to location. We'll try to put this in a different location next year to see if we get the same results. Grade Received? A+ for being a great producer with superb taste!
Rutger: This is in another large pot. Super thick stems, production has been reasonable. We have picked about 3 tomatoes that have been quite tasty. Massive tomatoes that are very heavy. The plant now keeps busting out of the tomato support so we keep having to tie each branch up to a support. We do have a lot of green tomatoes but each tomato tends to mature very slowly. Grade Received? A for production amount and taste.
Brandywine: This one is rather small but it has produced about 4 ABSOLUTELY delicious tomatoes. When I say delicious I mean really mouth watering. These are, by far, the tastiest tomatoes I have every tried! The size of the plant could possibly be in part due to the location in the garden. The plant is flanked by larger tomato plants on almost all sides so it could be it just doesn't get enough sun. Or it could be that its in a lower part of that bed and maybe it just gets too much water. Grade Received? A+ for TASTE alone!
Cherokee Purple: This plant is really small, and has produced maybe one tomato. Once again. It could be location. It's hard to say. The one tomato it produced was good, but not anything that I can recall as being awesome. It was definitely better than store bought but not the greatest. Grade Received? C+ for not producing enough
Amish Paste: Very tall plant, maybe about 10 feet tall. We've harvested about 6 tomatoes so far, we have about 15 completely green on there and about 6 that are very close to being ready. Taste isn't bad but we haven't been using these for snacking or sandwiches. I've only used them in spaghetti sauce or salsa thus far. Maybe next one that is ready I'll taste with a bit of salt. Grade Received A for a good producer.
Christmas Grapes: Medium height, average producer. We've taken about 5 off so far. They're tasty but their taste pales when compared to the Dark Cherry Tomatoes. Grade Received? B for a somewhat tasty tomato and reasonable production.
Black Krim: I know we planted this one but we have yet to see one tomato from it. As a matter of fact I'm not exactly certain which plant is the one. I do know we have a few unknown tomato plants that we have yet to get something from. Unfortunately we used to have labels on the plants but they fell off. Last year we grew black krims and we had awesome results so this will change the grade somewhat. Grade Received? B only because last year we had great success with a Black Krim while this year we have yet to see one tomato.

Next, the cucumbers.

White Wonder: Good sized vines, average producer. The cucumbers are a bit hardier, the skin rather tough. We only had about 2 vines and both of them are fizzling out, I think due to the high heat we've been experiencing. I think we've gotten about a total of 6 cucumbers total. This could be all due to the fact that the area that they're growing in is rather cramped. I might try sowing a few more seeds to see if I can't get some late season cukes if I can spare the time. We'll see. Grade Received? B due to the average producing, lost a bit since they're kind of tough and the flavor is mediocre. Only reason I grew these were they were free from Burpee.
National Pickling Cucumber.: Not bad producer but NOTHING like last year! I think we've managed to get about 10 total off the vines. It could be for the same reason of the white wonder. It is cramped back there behind the tomatoes and all. Maybe also it doesn't like the soil this year. We did change the acidity from high down to average this year. Grade Received? B+ due to the high amounts harvested last year, taste when fresh and even better taste when pickled.
Lemon Cucumber: Believe it or not I found the first two today!!!! Have yet to taste these but I have tasted them before. This vine is HUGE and all I have to show for it are two cucumbers? I'm wondering if this has to do with soil conditions. Not enough fertilizer? Grade Received? B due to me giving them a chance to see if they can possibly redeem themselves and start to produce more.

Eggplant

Ichiban: HEAVY PRODUCER! TASTY! Superior Eggplant!! We harvest at least 2 almost a week. Grade Received? A+ due to being a heavy producer and the taste.
Black Beauty: Slow as of yet but we are about to drown in eggplants! We have about 10 that are all within the same fist size. Within a week or so we'll be making eggplant Parmesan, ratatouille, and drying eggplant non stop. Black Beauty eggplants are really delicious in all sorts of dishes. Grade Received? A+ for being such a great producer with a great flavor!
Brazilian Orange Eggplant: Have yet to see one produce or even any new vegetables growing. We've seen flowers but those have been short lived. I'm of the feeling that within about 3 weeks we'll see more. They're supposedly very pretty. We'll see. Grade Received? C due to lack of productivity and unknown taste.

Bell Pepper

Red Bell Pepper: Only have harvested one bell pepper thus far. It was tasty, thick flesh, pretty color. Now I'm waiting to see if more start coming in as is sometimes the case with bell peppers or hot peppers after harvesting the first one. Grade Received? C+ due to lack of productivity thus far
Green Bell Pepper: No peppers harvested; small bell peppers on plant. I'm wondering with these if again the problem stems from overcrowding and lack of sunlight, poor soil conditions, etc. Grade Received? C due to lack of productivity thus far.

Hot Peppers

Here is where it gets a bit murky. I know we have a sweet banana pepper plant, I know we have a Mammoth Jalapeno plant, I know we have a mild Jalapeno plant but the last one is a mystery to me.

Sweet Banana Pepper Plant: Good producer. We've only harvested one pepper but that one pepper opened the floodgates to the plant to produce more. It now has approximately 7 peppers in varying sizes. Within about a week they will all be ready to be picked. Now the question is to dry them or to can them! Peppers are mildly spicy but slightly sweet like a bell pepper. Grade Received? A due to sudden productivity, and taste.
Mammoth Jalapeno: Slow producer thus far but this is entirely NOT it's fault. Hubby WAY over fertilized this poor baby. Almost killed the thing. It's now making a comeback and produced it's first pepper. It is also starting to regrow leaves to replace all those that were shed due to the massive over fertilization that it suffered. The taste of these jalapeno are sweet, pungent pepper smell, but spicy underneath that completely takes you by surprise. The heat sneaks up on you! Especially in salsa! (which we just used the one on the plant in our Peach Tomato Salsa) Grade Received? B+ due to the flavor of the one pepper we have picked thus far and also our plants gallant and courageous battle uphill to recover from our mistake.
Mild Jalapeno: This one is a super small plant. Looks like a little dwarf plant. Now in all fairness, it could be that we have it in a really small planter and we started that one from seed. We have yet to harvest from it but it does have a small pepper almost ready to harvest. I'll be anxiously waiting to see if this pepper plant does what many of the others do. Harvest one and suddenly the pepper plant gets the green light to produce tons more. Grade Received? C+ due to lack of productivity. Don't know if the size is what I should expect or not.
Mystery Pepper Plant: This one is a mystery simply because last year we collected a whole lot of almost dead hot peppers after they were affected by a frost. We sliced them open and then threw them in a bowl and let them dry out. Honestly we completely forgot we had them until my husband came across them and threw them into a dixie cup filled with starter soil, gave them some water and labeled them "UNKNOWN PEPPER" This plant has now developed into a pretty impressive plant! Super tall, producing now massive amounts of curley cue peppers that are rather mild but surprisingly tasty. In fact I just noticed I have one such pepper in my bowl of homemade kimchi that I ate today at work. Obviously they get hotter as they get older because my kimchi was super spicy today! Grade Received A+ for superb taste and great productivity!

Red Russian Kale: This one is a bit hard to grade as I haven't even had any yet! It's just now starting to get larger and it's just now recovering from the cabbage worm attack that destroyed a good portion of the leaves. Thankfully it looks like it's fully recovering with a lot of pretty foliage! Can't wait to try it out! Grade Received B+ due to the hardiness of this plant and it's ability to recover from a pretty damaging attack! It would have received a higher grade but I have yet to taste this!

Swiss Chard: This one is doing quite well but just as of lately it has started developing black spots or rusty looking spots. We've eaten this once so far and it was really tasty. Now the only negative is NONE of our seedlings that we started from seed ever amounted to much. I don't know if it's due to lack of sunlight, they don't like the soil or what but they're barely doing anything. TIP HERE! Just recently learned that part of the problem is since the hot, humid weather our plants have developed Cercospora. Here is the info from Wiki regarding this fungal type of disease. Looks like I'll be pulling quite a bit of our plants up. Keeping my fingers crossed that the remaining swiss chard lives. Grade Received? B simply due to the fact that I have a feeling the lack of productivity is due to soil conditions, not the plants fault.

Burgundy Okra: We unfortunately ONLY planted 8. Originally we thought this would be more than enough however we have learned this produces just enough to harvest two or three every two days. That amounts to a very meager meal so instead I've been drying the okra after blanching it. Great news is I'll have loads of okra to use come January/February and March. Mix that with a bit of diced canned tomatoes or maybe some re hydrated onions in a casserole and you have a wonderful dish to remind you of the dog days of summer. Now the plants that are growing ARE producing very well, no complaints there. It was a bit of a lesson learned that these plants grow to a massive height! Each one is about 4 1/2 feet tall! SURPRISE! The stems at the bottom are almost thicker than my thumb! Grade Received? A+ due to productivity and easiness to grow.

Blue Hubbard Winter Squash
Let me just say, this plant has amazed me at how well it has done! We have this growing vertically in the yard and the vine is humongous! Plus we have already harvested two squashes that were not exactly the most mature but they were still tasty and now we have yet another two on the vine. I'm of the opinion that the soil conditions will not permit the plant to produce more than two squash at a time as each time two are on the vine we do not have as many female flowers. As a matter of fact, currently our Blue Hubbard BARELY produces any flowers. Must be putting a lot into the two squash hanging on our fence. TIP HERE! If you're producing heavy squash, pumpkin, melons VERTICALLY then save your orange/onion/apple mesh bags. You can use these to hold the heavy melons up. Just simply put the melon in the bag while still on the vine. Then close up the top using your zip ties and attach to something secure to hold them up. This way the heavy squash will not pull the entire vine down. Works like a charm!
Grade Received? A for producing tasty squash, and so far producing four total. I'm willing to bet we'll get at least one more out of these plant after the other two are removed from the vine.

Marina di Chioggia
I had such high hopes for this plant. Seriously. I had heard the flavor was sublime. Awesome in gnocchi and pies or just baked. So unfortunately I have to report that it's not doing so hot. Now this I think is completely NOT the plants fault. We never prepared the soil out front sufficiently for this. The vines have been puny. No fruit set at all. I am trying one last experiment. I've planted two seeds in our other okra bed with hopes that I'll see SOMETHING other than small, insignificant vines. Grade Received? C simply because I do not feel this lack of production is the plants fault. This I think is more our fault.

I might write about a few of our other experiments this year but I have a lot more to cover so I want to end this blog for right now at least. Who knows, maybe I'll come back to this later if I have more to say.

Week uhhh whatever on Vermicomposting

2011-07-13T18:55:00.001-04:00

I've lost track of what week I'm on now with my little pets, the worms. Still though, every week I lovingly feed them all the scraps from the kitchen. Worrying over whether they will like the cherries better than the cucumber peels or the rotten peaches over the bell pepper parts. They honestly don't really give me much feedback since they tend to eat it all.
One of these days I'll start actually weighing how much I'm putting in there so I can see exactly how much they're chomping down. All I know is I put about two to three large bowls of mixed waste and about two weeks later it's completely eaten. All that's left is mushy mud, paper bag mulch and a bunch of worms on the top that are begging me for more food. We've already harvested loads of worm tea and so far the plants seem to like it. The plants are most definitely growing BIGGER this year. Heck, last year they never got this big, but then of course we didn't prepare our soil like we did this year. Still though I like to think that my little friends get some of credit.

This most recent time I put greens on one side and spoiled fruits on the other. Now I'm going to watch and see which side gets decomposed/eaten first. I'll be interesting to see. I put all these scraps in this past weekend. I figure I'll check again on Friday.
I'm even more curious to see exactly how many worms we now have but that will have to wait till Autumn when the temps start dropping. Now that'll be interesting. Since these are red wigglers they prefer warmer temps. Come Winter time I might have two options to keep this worm colony alive. Either
A) Bring them inside and hope that the fruit fly/miscellaneous pest infestation isn't too bad
B) Leave them outside in our cold frame/hoop house and try to heat the bin somewhat.

Don't know. I figure I have a few more months to figure out what I'll do.

Canning Recipes

2011-07-13T09:14:00.001-04:00

Okay, so like I said, yes I will provide the recipes that I used to preserve the fruit and fruit. Now first thing, I have to say, not a single one of these recipes are mine. These are all borrowed from numerous places on the web. I've provided the link to the website that I borrowed the recipe from. Our first canning of the season was the strawberries we picked at Brad's Produce.

Strawberry Chipotle Jam

Ingredients

1 quart strawberries (about 1 ½ lbs.) Try to select 1 cup of slightly-unripe berries
1 large juicy lemon, zested and juiced
3 cups sugar
2-3 chipotle peppers, minced (canned)
¼ tsp. salt

Instructions

Chop half of the berries into small pieces and smash the rest of the berries. You should have approximately 3 cups—a little extra is ok.
In a saucepan combine the lemon zest, juice, sugar and salt over medium heat. Stir the mixture occasionally, until the sugar dissolves.
Add all the berries and minced chipotle peppers to the pan. Bring to a low boil. Simmer for 10 minutes.
Then, check the gel consistency by placing a small amount on a frozen surface. Run your fingers through it. If it separates and is not runny, remove the jam from heat. If it is still runny, simmer another 5-10 minutes and check again. The jam could take 10-40 minutes to gel properly.
Place the hot jam in sterilized jars. Either seal in a hot water bath (according to proper canning technique) or refrigerate immediately.

Preparation time: 15 minutes
Cooking time: 10-40 minute(s)

This one is awesome!!! Sweet and spicy with a nice smoky flavor from the canned chipotles! I can imagine even cooking with this jam will be a treat!
***********************************************************************
The cherries we picked from Milburn Orchards up in Elkton Maryland. This is always a fun trip for us as we pack a picnic lunch, spend the morning picking and then relax and enjoy our picnic afterwards.

Chocolate Cherry Jam
Ingredients:

Ingredients

6 cups prepared fruit (black cherries)
3 unsweetened chocolate squares
4 cups granulated sugar
1 (8 ounce) box Sure-Jell
1/2 teaspoon margarine or 1/2 teaspoon butter

Instructions:
Prep Time: 30 mins
Total Time: 2 hrs
1 Pit the cherries if necessary, then chop them up. Crush the remains thoroughly, 1 cup at a time. If using frozen berries, use both liquid and solids; they all were part of the original fresh berry. Measure 6 cups of crushed fruit into 6- or 8-quart heavy saucepan. Break the chocolate squares into smaller pieces and add them to saucepan. 2 Measure sugar into separate bowl. Mix 1/4 cup sugar from measured amount with pectin in small bowl. Stir pectin-sugar mixture into fruit in saucepan. Add butter. Bring quickly to full rolling boil and boil exactly 1 minute, stirring constantly. Remove from heat. Skim foam and ladle into pint or half-pint jars, leaving 1/4 inch headspace and process 10 minutes in boiling water canner.

Think CHOCOLATE COVERED CHERRIES! Decadent, truly decadent. We were blown away by the flavor of this! This one we'll definitely be making again!
**************************************************************************
Our cucumbers are just starting to produce however we have gotten so many pickles lately from the CSA that we had to use them up one way or another. Since my son has developed a taste for low sodium dill pickles I decided to make him some. Later on I'll be making more bread and butter and pickle relish.

Low Sodium Dill Pickles

Ingredients

Cucumbers - 4 or 5 lbs of fresh, crisp pickling cucumbers - not wilted, soft or overripe!
Sugar - 2 cups - (Splenda if you are diabetic)
Pickling salt - 2 tablespoons - (available at most grocery stores)
2 tbsp whole mixed "pickling spice"
7 heads of fresh dill (1 head per pint jar) or, if you can't get fresh dill just use 2 tbsp dill seed per pint jar.
Cheesecloth or a spice bag, or even a small piece of a old, but clean cotton shirt - to hold the spices
Clear vinegar - 6 cups of 5% vinegar, apple cider vinegar works well. Store brand is about $1.25 for a 64 oz bottle

Instructions
Put the spices in the spice bag
Tie the 2 tbsp whole mixed "pickling spice" in the spice bag or a 6 inch by 6 inch piece of cheesecloth or a cotton shirt.
Again, it's available from Kroger, Publix, local "big box" stores and large grocery stores. This is NOT a Mrs Wages or Ball packet, it is natural pickling spices, just pre-mixed.

Mix the sugar, salt and vinegar in a pot and bring to a near boil

Heat the pickle mix
Add the spice bag! Bring the mix to a boil!

Be sure to use a NON-metal pot - or a coated metal (teflon, silverstone, enamel, etc.) without breaks in the coating. the metal reacts with the vinegar and makes the pickle solution turn cloudy.
Fill the jars with cucumbers and put the lid and rings on
Pack the raw cucumbers from step 3, whole or slices in and pour the simmering pickle mix liquid over them. Fill them to within ¼-inch of the top, seat the lid and hand-tighten the ring around them.

Boil the jars in the canner
Put them in the canner and keep them covered with at least 1 inch of water. Keep the water boiling. Boil them for 15 minutes

Done
Lift the jars out of the water and let them cool without touching or bumping them in a draft-free place (usually takes overnight) You can then remove the rings if you like. Once the jars are cool, you can check that they are sealed verifying that the lid has been sucked down. Just press in the center, gently, with your finger. If it pops up and down (often making a popping sound), it is not sealed. If you put the jar in the refrigerator right away, you can still use it. Some people replace the lid and reprocess the jar, then that's a bit iffy. If you heat the contents back up, re-jar them (with a new lid) and the full time in the canner, it's usually ok.

When can you start eating the pickles? Well, it takes some time for the seasonings to be absorbed into the pickles. That's at least 24 hours, but for best flavor wait 2 weeks!

I've never made this one before so I have yet to taste the end result. Looking forward to it!
*******************************************************************************
Once again this was a recipe that we ended up using because we simply got too much from the CSA for us to eat in one week. I try to preserve anything extra either by drying or canning so come the cold winter months we won't have to purchase as much from the grocery store.

Amish Chow Chow Recipe

Ingredients:

1 small head cabbage, chopped
3 cups Chopped cauliflower
1 cups chopped green tomatoes
2 sweet green peppers, chopped
2 large mild onions, chopped
1/2 cup salt
3 cups vinegar
2 1/2 cups brown sugar
1 teaspoon dry mustard
1 teaspoon turmeric
2 teaspoons celery seed

Instructions:

Combine vegetables. Sprinkle with salt. Let mixture stand 4 – 6 hours in cool place. Drain well.
Combine remaining ingredients. Simmer 10 minutes. Add vegetable mixture and simmer until just tender.
Pour into hot sterilized jars; seal. Process 15 minutes in boiling water bath. Let stand at least 2 weeks before opening.

This was unlike any relish I've made! Sweet and savory! I can imagine this would be great along with grilled ribs or hamburgers! Or even simply just along side a sandwich! I can't wait to try this in another few weeks after the flavors have really mixed!
******************************************************************************
On the same day as we went cherry picking we decided to just go ahead and pick some blueberries since we were at the Orchard and it is a long drive there and back. Unfortunately we didn't pick enough to actually freeze. The syrup used up every single blueberry we picked so I'll be buying frozen blueberries later in the season.
Blueberry Syrup
Ingredients

6 1/2 cups fruit
7 cups sugar
2 tbsp lemon juice

Instructions:

Wash the berries and sort through to catch any of the stems.
Crush the berries using a potato masher or simply a slotted spoon. I could've actually used my juicer or food processor but since I was processing cherries and blueberries at the same time I didn't feel like adding all the extra dishes that I would have to wash.
Add lemon juice and cook to a full boil.
Strain the cooked berries(I froze the remaining pulp that I plan to use in muffins, scones or breads later.)
Add the sugar to the syrup in a pot, allow to come to a full boil. Remove from heat and skim off any foam.
Fill jars with 1/4 to 1/2 inch headspace. Put lids and secure the rings tightly.
Process in hot water bath for at least 15 minutes.
You know they're good when you've pulled them out of the water and they pop shortly there after. This means you've got a good seal.

*******************************************************************************
This one I haven't tried yet but when hubby and I noticed this recipe we both agreed ardently that we had to make this. No if's, and's or buts.
Raspberries will be in season around early to mid August so we have some time before we have to plan for this one.

White Chocolate Raspberry Jam
Ingredients
5 cups raspberries, crushed (use a potato masher or other implement to crush the berries)
6 cups sugar
1 pack pectin
1 cup white chocolate chips (spring for the Guittard or other gourmet chocolate if it's available in your area)
1/4 cup coffee liqueur (Starbucks or Kahlua)

Instructions

Heat raspberries while slowly adding in the pectin. Once the raspberries are at a full boil that you cannot stir down, add in the sugar. Return to a full rolling boil, stirring for one minute. Take the raspberry mixture off the heat and add in the white chocolate. It will take awhile to melt, so be patient (unless you want chunks of white chocolate in your jam).

After the white chocolate has melted, add the coffee liqueur and stir until well blended. Because the raspberry jam is quite hot, the alcohol will burn off, so if you want to have more of the alcohol flavor, add it in at the very end. Pour jam into sterilized canning jars and process in a hot water bath for 10 minutes. That is, assuming you haven't eaten half of it already.

Yields 10 pints.
********************************************************************************
A few years ago I decided I really wanted to make sauerkraut. The real stuff, not the vinegar salt junk that always tastes too salty to me(that's me a salt addict actually talking!)

Traditional Fermented Sauerkraut
Lacto-Fermented Sauerkraut

Supplies Needed:
1- 1 gallon glass jar, with lid
1 zip lock type bag, gallon size
Large wooden spoon
A potato masher

Ingredients

1 large head of cabbage, fairly heavy and dense or 2 medium heads of cabbage
2 T sea salt
½ cup whey

Optional Ingredients:

1 carrot, peeled and grated
1 onion, sliced thinly

Instructions

Core and slice cabbage into thin shreds. I like this better than grating. I discard a few of the outer leaves of the cabbage. Then I cut it in quarters and core it. I take each quarter and run it through my food processor with a slicing disk.
Put cabbage into a large bowl. Add extra veggies if you are using them. Stir them up to mix up the extra veggies.
Sprinkle salt over cabbage.
Sprinkle the whey over the cabbage
Using a large spoon mix well. Now take the potato masher and begin pounding and mixing and pounding the cabbage. You will notice that soon the volume begins to reduce.
When this process is done spoon cabbage mixture into one gallon jar. Having a nice wide canning funnel sitting on top of the jar helps this process. Use a wooden spoon to pack and push the cabbage to the bottom of the jar and let any liquid that is there rise to the top.
After all the cabbage has been put in the jar and packed down you can add more water if needed. You need to make sure water is covering the top of the cabbage.
Ready after 3 days.

We'll be putting ours into smaller size mason jars. It should keep for quite a while since it was lacto fermented.
And of course, just remember, when in doubt, throw it out!

Super YUMMY! Crunchy, sweet yet salty. Not too salty which is really nice. I've always hated canned sauerkraut because it's always so salty! This was perfect! We now have 5 jars of it put in the back of the fridge to keep it cool.

Oh my, where to start!

2011-07-12T10:44:00.002-04:00

It's now been, what? Almost a month and maybe even a week since I've written. I kept having the best intentions to write and then.....something always got in my way.
First I injured my left foot while walking through the garden, next, was my laptop which decided right now was a perfect time for an epic fail. Then next hubby having yet another TDY, while my son and I were sick. Nice, real nice.
Hell, as it stands right now we're in the middle of a Severe Thunderstorm Warning and watch (thank God it's not a T---ado watch or warning!). Thunder is rumbling outside and the sky is lighting up as if someone has thrown fireworks up into the clouds.
So with all that happening I still rush to hurry and write.
My God, where do I start?

First, we had a few successes. Our battle with the slugs is going well, thanks to about 4 beer traps we set weekly. My hope is that when I put in our second seeding of mesclun, arugula, romaine, and other mixed greens the slugs will be far gone. And by the way, drat, the rain is started outside, not much time before I lose power!
Thank goodness that the plants are getting some much needed rain though! Plus I won't have to water as thoroughly now. However that doesn't make me feel much better currently as our lights are flickering. Damn Military Housing and it's power supply always going out.
We've had some other battles.
Hornworms were the second issue of the season (slugs being the first). We found the first few on our Heirloom Rutger and a few on some of the other miscellaneous Heirlooms. Darn things. They hide so well. However they do have a tell tale signs that they are present. Their poop and the branches that are left behind.
Now I have to say, these pictures are NOT mine, they're borrowed.

I tend to find that the poops/feces of a hornworm look mostly like the bottom photo but I have found some leaves feces like the top photo. This is your FIRST clue that you have hornworms, and actually I like to think this is the most important clue. Next step, look up a branch. You'll find damage that looks like this.........

You'll notice that all that is left is leafless stem. This is your surefire sign that you have hornworms. They will happily munch along your tomato plant till there is nothing left and then move along to the next plant. That is, until you catch them!
Best way after an infestation is to simply look for the poop, look for the stripped branches, and then grab yourself your favorite glass of wine, bottle of beer or cup of tea and start hunting. They're VERY hard to spot sometimes as they blend right into the foliage of your tomato plant.
Once you find them, you can dispatch them in a number of ways. Smoosh them under your shoe, (my sons personal favorite), drown them in water, feed them to your chickens if you have any (I so wish I could do that one!), or last but not least, just let the hornworm be, let it munch merrily along and then hope that a Parasitic wasp comes to visit. The last option is NEVER an option for me. The wasps come along WAYYY to late in the season to stop the massive destruction that the hornworms create. Still though if you get weirded out or grossed out by picking off a soft worm with a very strong grip off your tomato plants its still out there. Now of course you're going to have to watch the hornworm be eaten by the parasites on it's back. This is a slow process indeed. Imagine a bunch of hungry babies with straws sucking on a living thing. Ewwww. I'd say squashing is the way to go. The Parasitic wasp is just so slow, so agonizing and personally I've found hornworms in my garden that have gone this way and well, if the hornworm could show an expression I'd say it was sadness and extreme gratitude that I found it and put it out of it's misery with a nice firm shoe. I can't think of a worse way to go then to have the life sucked slowly out of me. EWWW.
Our next battle, and COMPLETELY new to me. Cabbage Worms.

Wiki describes them as: The imported cabbage worm is the green larva of the cabbage butterfly or cabbage white, any of several largely white butterflies (familyPieridae, type genus Pieris, garden whites). The Small White (P. rapae) is a small, common, cosmopolitan butterfly whose caterpillar has fine, short fuzz and is bright green; it prefers cabbage, broccoli and cauliflower. A larger Old World form (P. brassicae) is called Large White. A common North American form (P. protodice) is known as the southern cabbage butterfly. The green-veined white (P. napi) occurs in Europe and North America. In all of these species the larvae eat the leaves, which then become toxic to animals that consume the infested foliage.
We only noticed these as of recently. Well no, actually we noticed the DAMAGE about 3 weeks ago but had no idea other than slugs of what was causing it. That is until this past weekend after coming back from Ocean City for a quick camping trip.
I found green worms all over my budding brussel sprouts, eating everything in their path. I cannot tell you how ANGRY I was! This was MY food dang it all! I'm not growing everything to feed a bunch of ..hungry...friggin ....BUGS! So once again to the computer to research. What the hell was eating my brussel sprouts?! I was planning on harvesting these during the winter months since brussel sprouts do so well (supposedly) in the cold months. They supposedly lose bitterness and become more sweet! Goodness I love brussel sprouts and I can only imagine how tasty they would be in December, growing in our cold frame!
Well today, hubby and I took our first step towards battle. I've read if I use pantyhose to cover the sprout area the moths cannot leave their eggs.
I've never tried this, heck, I've never tried growing almost anything in the brassica family but I figured "what the hell" it's worth a shot.

First we cut the bottoms of some old pantyhose I had laying around. I found this is the best length for the job.

The trick here is to not cover the entire plant. Just the top sprouts. Oh and by the way, here is what the actual moth that lays the eggs looks like.
Luckily enough, the Swiss chard has had almost NO pests. We'll be having some of that sauteed with a bit of candy Onion from Brad's later this week.
By the way the open space next to the brussel sprouts USED to be golden purslane but the slugs were eating that down to just the stem and they were also using it to hide under during the heat of the day so we pulled every bit out and fed it to the worms. I'm going to try growing salsify there instead, just in case we don't get as many potatoes and we were hoping for. Salsify is one of those veggies that I really had never heard of before gardening here in Maryland. It's actually a root crop that supposedly tastes either like oysters or artichoke hearts, depending on who you ask.Here's a photo of what it looks like.
The tops look rather like grass and it takes up very little room. Another advantage to salsify. Salsify breaks down extremely quickly once picked. It's actually suggested to just leave the plants in the ground until you are ready to harvest and eat. It's very cold tolerant and will even resprout the next season.
From what I've read most places, once harvested you simply peel the top layer of skin with a potato peeler. I've found a few sources say to use food grade gloves to handle the salsify as your hands will turn black. Weird.
Next, place the now peeled roots in water with lemon juice or lime juice to prevent discoloration. One person has mentioned milk helps with the discoloration too but I'll probably just try the lime juice first.
I'll have to put the recipe I end up using on my food blog later. I'll link to it on this one though.

Well we've started harvesting now from our garden. So far we've gotten about 6 Ichiban Eggplants; about 2 pounds of mixed snow pea and sugar snap peas, a handful of Italian rose beans, about 10 small black cherry tomatoes, 1 golden girl tomato, 1 Cherokee Purple tomato, 3 large white wonder cucumbers, 2 blue hubbard squash (one of which actually fell off the vine unripe), several bunches of onions, numerous containers of nasturtiums for salads (however my Canary bird Nasturtiums have yet to produce a single flower. Got to look up why we're not seeing more flowers). Oh and loads and loads of okra.
Now, so far we haven't really harvested enough to be DROWNING in produce but I know that will be coming shortly. Our Amish Paste has loads and loads of tomatoes as do the Rutger, the Christmas grapes, the Black Cherry, the Brandywine, etc etc.
Right now since we're getting so little off our plants and so sporadically we're drying most of what we have with our new high speed dehydrator.

We purchased the 5 tray Excalibur and so far I've been really happy with the results. We've dried everything from tomatoes, green beans, okra, squash and cabbage. After each bit is dry I let it sit for just about half a day. Then it goes into a large 1 pint mason jar. Later on come winter we'll be able to take out these dried fruits and vegetables and use them in soups or just rehydrate them and then cook with a bit of butter.

I plan on dehydrating some of our onions and potatoes later on but that will happen when we have harvested a large amount of them.

Now, last but not least. This I have to share. This is a tour of what our garden looks like now.

SUPER HUMID NIGHTS THIS SUMMER!

Peas dying out, lettuce going to seed. Now if it would just fully GO to seed that bed wouldn't look so bad!

Mammoth sized Blue Hubbard Squash growing. Burgundy Okra is now almost as tall as us!

These two tomato plants were "SURPRISE" plants. They had hitched a ride in one of our beds. They are now producing!
We think the one farthest from the camera is a Mortgage Lifter and the one closest is a Christmas Grape. Good thing about the Christmas grape is non of our other seedlings for that variety made it. We're really happy about this one as we love grape tomatoes! Now I just can't wait till they're ripe!

This is what happens when you do NOT prepare your soil correctly. You get plants that fail to thrive. We actually keep fertilizing now but it's almost too late. Heck even the Yarrow looks like it's really REALLY sad.
So next year we'll be heavily composting this area and really prepping the soil for a future planting. Good news is I still have more seeds for the Marina di Chioggia.

Next to come, status of our worm farm, jams and jellies we've made(and the recipes I used), and more on our fighting the pests.

Back from vacation!

2011-06-15T14:18:00.002-04:00

The nice thing about vacations when you have a garden is you get the wonderful treat of seeing how your garden did in your absence.
All in all I'm pretty happy with our progress. Something ate every single little leaf off our parsley so that bit the dust. I'm betting it was a neighborhood squirrel.
Our lemon balm obviously didn't like the heat as a good portion of it died but it is still alive so I'm giving it loads of TLC to bring it back. Almost same story for the Oregano however I think that one was more due to lack of water.
Our hanging plants in the coconut husks fared the worst. One pot had completely died out. That I think was due to a fungal disease in the soil of the unknown blue creeping plant. The other was slowly petering out as well so I tossed that one in the trash.
I never EVER put the remains of a plant killed by any sort of disease or fungus in our compost so they literally went in the trash. Since we'll be using the compost later we don't want to pass any sort of disease to the other plants.

Our Blue Hubbard went nuts in our absence, as did many of our tomatoes.

We have discovered that we have Flea Beatles attacking our baby tomatilloes as well as the eggplants.

Here's a shot of what one looks like.

I don't think I've EVER had this pest attack my plants but this year they have really gone crazy. I must have a "EAT AT JOES" sign somewhere for them that I never knew was there.

Just a FYI, this is what the damage looks like on an Eggplant.

. This is on our Black Beauty Eggplant.

They don't seem to be attacking our Ichiban Eggplant as much. I've read that once the plant is flowering and producing the leaves don't taste as good to them however I don't really believe that one because these eggplants have been flowering since about 3 weeks ago. This damage is relatively new.

Unfortunately the plants that are getting hit the worst is the tomatilloes. Obviously they like the younger leaves rather than the hardier leaves of the eggplant. As a result of this horrible NASTY attack by these ANNOYING creatures I purchased some Diatomaceous earth. This will supposedly kill these bugs, at least that is what my research online has come up with.

Amazon.com Widgets

I should be receiving it by today so I'll be applying that along with a nice sized batch of ULTRA stinky compost tea. Fun, fun.

Our tomatoes are now starting to show fruit which is really REALLY exciting.

The tomato in the smaller pot at the bottom of this photo, by the way, is a surprise to us. We found this along with 2 other tomato plants in our Bell Pepper/Eggplant bed. I don't know how they managed to get in there but we knew that there would be NO way there would be room for yet another 3 tomatoes in that bed. They'll end up cannabalizing each other. So I purchased a pot, some extra soil, and gave this little stowaway a new home. We'll see if we get anything out of it.

Our Okra has obviously been LOVING the heat. We're actually starting to see what looks like flowers developing on all of them! Still though I'd like to see them develop a bit stronger stems. This bed along with the other okra bed we didn't put as much compost in so the soil is probably not quite as rich as the other larger beds. It could be the reason why the stems seem so slender. One other somewhat disapointing thing. I planted flower seeds in front of the okra here and they never came up and I don't know why! So this past weekend I planted more carrots. Here's to hoping that THOSE come up!

Next amazing thing is our snow peas.

On Saturday afternoon we actually harvested 1 pound 8 oz of a mixture of snow peas and sugar snap peas. Now the fun part is eating them all! I think I'm going to have to blanch some and freeze them for later. Otherwise I'll never get through them all!

Our swiss chard is starting to get bigger, the leeks look like their improving. I almost thought they were going to die at one point. If you remember, I started the leeks from the bottoms of leeks that I had purchased and then cut the bottoms off and replanted.

The Brussel Sprouts has had something munching on it but I'm not certain what. Could be slugs. I'll have to take a picture of it and put it on here. The golden purslane is starting to get larger leaves. I haven't wanted to take any of that yet simply because the plant was so small!

The lettuce, spinach, and rapini(also called Broccoli Rabe) are all either dying out or going to seed. I really actually don't care about the ones going to seed. No big deal since if they go to seed, they'll just reseed themselves. Just means that come August I'll have brand new lettuce and spinach coming up.

Hopefully by September when everything is starting to calm down I'll still be having new plants come up.

Our purple kohlrabi is confusing me as it has yet to develop the bulb like part that you eat. Obviously this one I need to research a bit more.

I've read you can eat the leaves so that is some consolation just in case the kohlrabi never fully develops.

Another newbie mistake. Well, I wouldn't call myself a complete newbie but I'm not exactly an expert either!

Never, ever plant a seed packet with seeds that just say "Mixed Flower Bouquet" when I want a height no higher than a specified number. I received a Red, White and Blue mix flowering seed pack from Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds for free and I decided to throw the seeds in front of the Okra in this bed. BIG MISTAKE AS YOU CAN SEE! Yes the flowers that are blooming are pretty. The foliage is nice. But its completely blocking the poor Burgundy Okra! These flowers, which by the way, I have no idea what they are, are almost chest height! The package never even gave an expected height! I'm tempted to just pull them up and throw them in the compost but they are kind of pretty. I guess I'll just have to keep an eye on the okra to make sure it's getting enough sunlight.

Okay, another bit of confusion. Our grapes. I have never planted or grown grapes. In fact other than visiting a vineyard I've never even seen them grown therefore I really don't know the first thing about growing grapes. That's fine. This is all a learning experience! And even better, you, the reader, get to benefit from my screw ups.

Is this normal for grapes to be forming already!? Do more form later I wonder? Yet another thing I need to research. That'll come later though. We're quickly moving into canning season and my time on the weekends is full of work. A few weekends ago we canned Strawberry Rhubarb Jam and Strawberry Chipotle Jam from strawberries we picked at Brad's Produce. This weekend we'll be heading up to Cecil County to Milburn Orchards. It's CHERRY TIME!

This weekend after picking our cherries I'll be making Chocolate Cherry Jam that I've found at another blog.

Plus my husband has been really wanting to make Beer lately. I might suggest to him to make Cherry Mead. That's if I can figure out how to do it and get all the supplies.

UPDATE! Found our recipe here for Cherry Berry Mead!

Not exactly beer but something different to try! Of course there are tons of desserts, Cherry Vodka and cherry nut bread too.

Compost Tea = MASSIVE GROWTH

2011-05-28T22:21:00.004-04:00

I've been looking at photos from the past few weeks, especially since I found some recently on my Facebook page from last year at almost exactly this time, and well....I really have to pat my husband and I on the back.
This is what really made the impact.

The left side was from last year. No compost, no raised beds, No compost tea, no extra soil. Nothing.
This year we've added raised beds, extra soil, extra compost, compost tea, vermicompost and bonemeal along with loads and loads of backbreaking work.
So I guess I cannot attribute all of our success to the compost tea. However, the tomato plants in our planters are doing awesome!
We have diligently been following a schedule of compost tea one week, miracle grow fertilizer the next.
The end result?

Can you believe this!? What amazing growth!

Next is our tomato and eggplant/pepper beds. Again just really awesome growth here. We've been out here almost nightly now so it's easy to miss how the plants are growing so well, but when we see the pictures, see the documented growth, well it's just amazing. Last year we had horrible progress. We did get tomatoes, a few bell peppers, and a LOT of cucumbers but that was it.
All the hard work is starting to pay off and we haven't started harvesting from the veggies yet! It makes me think that by the time August rolls around I will become EXTREMELY ANNOYED at the sight of a tomato, bell pepper, eggplant or tomatillo.
Or for that matter a winter squash. That leads me onto another, rather humorous story.
We started Marina di Chioggia seeds really early. I think we actually started them in mid February. By the time we moved the seedlings out they weren't doing that bad. Reasonably well I'd say.
Well, after we moved them outside they really didn't look happy. In fact, we thought they were going to die, so we threw extra seeds outside in the same area just in case they didn't survive.
This is what we found recently.

The larger two in the middle were the ones we planted originally. The seedlings.

However, surprise. The seedling survived and on top of that we now have one extra near one seedling.

Another one next to another seedling came up, and then one extra Marina di Chioggia that isn't even in this picture came up as well. Five! Five Marina di Chioggias! What in the world are we going to do with five, frickin Marina di Chioggia plants!!!!! To coin a phrase from a friend of mine "OMG!" These plants get really big and we only have the somewhat medium sized area for them. I'm almost thinking I should construct a tower of sorts however the fruit of the Marina di Chioggia tends to be a bit heavy so it cannot support its own weight like that. I have no clue what we're going to do here, other than kill whichever one seems to be the weakest.

Still, hubby and I both hate to kill a plant. We prefer to give it away rather than kill it.
By the way this is what the fruit of a Marina di Chioggia looks like.
I read this past winter from both books and other gardeners out there who have grown this winter squash that it is an absolutely delicious squash to grow. Great for making gnocchi or raviolis or even better, just roasted whole.

Next comes our Blue Hubbard. If you remember right, I was moved by that horrible impulse to purchase a plant simply because I wanted this poor, homeless plant to have a home filled with warmth, love, and food. Well, it's taken advantage of that I'd say!

It now is starting to crawl, rather rapidly I'd say, up our little fence for it, all the while crowding out the Burgundy Okra and anything else it comes across. Little did I know it would grow THIS big.
Still, I'm proud of it like a Mom is proud of her child. It's thriving, strong, and obviously happy.
Just a FYI on squash by the way. Squash produce 2 sorts of flowers. One is the male set, one is the female. The female flowers are obviously the ones that bear the fruit or vegetable. I have some pictures here to help tell the difference. Now the nice thing about any of the squash family of plants is that you get to get TWO harvests if you're lucky. One is the actual fruit and the other is the squash blossoms. If you missed the blog I had about this yummy treat you can find it here. Just remember first and foremost, do NOT harvest the females. After all, this is what is going to produce your much loved fruit/veggie! Next, leave some males flowers behind. Remember SEX ED 101? A female needs a male to become pregnant? Well same rule applies in nature. A Female flower can't produce without a male.

This is a female flower. See the bulb underneath the flower? It's a circular, almost ball like growth under the flower. Amazingly enough we have about FOUR of these on our plant! I self fertilized the first one today. I think it may be too early but I figured it was worth the shot. We have plenty of wonderful food(compost tea, vermicompost tea, miracle grow) for this wonderful plant so I'd like to see what happens if we continually feed this plant like this? Will it produce massive fruitings?

These are male flowers. It is completely normal for any type of squash to produce these for a while at first. Think of this period as a maturation of your squash plant. This can last anywhere between a week to three weeks for ANY type of squash.
When you start seeing female flowers you know that either
A) your plant is now mature enough to produce offspring(aka fruit)
B) your plant is receiving enough nutrients to push it into producing faster. Not always good, hence why I was telling my husband that our little baby is too young to be producing so many female flowers. Must be, yet again, the compost tea.
Now, that all being said, I have a feeling I'll be grabbing a few of these males later on tomorrow and frying them up with a bit of cheese, breading and oil for a super special treat!

So, onto the next bit. Catching up on the front yard. Today we learned the front yard is horrible sandy and dry. We deeply watered first thing this morning and by mid afternoon it was dry as a bone.

Obviously we need to work on this. In the meanwhile we purchased some extra soil to amend the soil near our door as well as a flat of Impatiens. Okay. I got IMPATIENT. I planted impatien seeds about two weeks ago and they never came up. Or maybe they did but they never got to a hight I could see them at. Who knows. All I do know was I never saw them.

We selected a flat that had mostly pink, some white and even some bright orangey red flowers.
Now if you've never grown impatiens you'll be surprised to find out they seed themselves quite efficiently.
Just like a squash producing a female flower, impatiens produce when conditions have become optimal for production of offspring (fruit, vegetable, new plants, etc). Neat thing with impatiens though is they produce like crazy and second they really have no care WHO they are reproducing with!
This provides flowers later that are weird, crazy mixtures of colors. Imagine fuschia pink with white, or red with vibrant orange. Or vibrant orange with pink. Really odd yet gorgeous colors. Sometimes it almost reminds me of a Van Gogh painting!

So this is now how our front bed looks. We still have Blacktail Watermelon planted here, and we also planted the very last of our Twice as nice melon in here as well.

I really hope those darn melons come up!

Last but not least is the status of our cabbage. Obviously last year I NEVER noticed the sun, or lack thereof in our front yard. I guess my attention was directed elsewhere, (like my backyard!) so come to find out this year that we get almost NO light in our front yard! The dang Oak trees blot it all out! If I could I'd chop those horrible things down however we live in military housing so we're limited on what we can do.

Still though, the cabbages and peas are doing ok. Acceptable is a good word to describe them

I'd like to see at LEAST one harvest of cabbage from these. It would be nice at least. Oh well, lesson learned. Front yard gets VERY low lighting.

Vermicomposting Week 2 & Status Update

2011-05-20T19:24:00.002-04:00

This is pretty rare.
This is actually only rare because
A) I did another video
&
B) My son and husband helped me

Updates

2011-05-18T21:22:00.000-04:00

Normally I like to update here each week but this past week has been extremely busy. The theme parks are open so we've been enjoying that as well as preparing for our upcoming vacation.
Plus, add the rainy weather and well. I just haven't had a chance to take photos, give any updates, etc.
So without further delay, here's a photo log of how things are going. Unfortunately I forgot to take a shot of my little friends, the worms, so they'll be following in my next blog.

We thought this Azalea was almost dead but thanks to a little TLC it's coming back!

Sweet Banana Pepper Plant

There are actually TWO tomato plants in this pot however one is smaller so you can't really see it well. Nasturtiums started by direct sowing are circling the Tomato. Later these will climb down the pot and provide us with some colorful and tasty flowers for our salads!

The grass is FINALLY growing in in spots! Not as much mud now to wade through!

Okra, direct sowed. All of the ones sowed inside died but these seem to be growing strong and healthy!

Potatoes. We have filled this 3 times now since first planting.

Another two tomatoes. One smaller so you can barely see it. More nasturtiums. We're trying a different type of Nasturtiums this year.

Aren't these pretty! I cannot wait to see how they turn out! We have two other planted. One is the Alaska Variegated Nasturtiums and then also the Empress of India. Every single one of these flowers are edible and very tasty. Along with that, these flowers are high in Vitamin C!

When we lived in Alaska we used to grow these but never actually had enough for salads simply because we ate them all off before we could actually harvest it for a salad! My son who was 2 to 3 years old at the time, loved running outside to pick flowers to eat!

Our battle with slugs continues. Thankfully we have slugs who like to Party with some Indian Pale Ale. They swim on in the beer and then drown when (I guess) they become to inebriated to climb back out.

I can't believe we're seeing flowers already on our lettuce, arugula and broccoli rabe! It's too soon!

This, of course, is not a gardening photo. This was our dinner tonight. The interesting thing? The spinach, strawberries and onions are from Brad's Produce. The lettuce and bean sprouts we grew.

The bread was from a local bakery. The only thing not produced locally (or at least as far as I know) was the walnuts and feta cheese on our salads.

The reason I add this is to simply show, this time of year. Mid Spring, there are plenty of things you can get locally. You don't have to grow your own. We just like to grow OUR own if we can and we have the space. After all it's cheaper in the long run and we get the extra health benefit of time spent outdoors, in nature tending our plants and sharing stories from our day.

Many will say they don't have space and that could be true for the bigger plants, however those bean sprouts on our salad were grown on our kitchen counter in something just like this.

As you can see, at Amazon this thing can cost you anywhere between $10 to $14. Add some seed and your looking at maybe a $20 investment. Each bag of seeds last a REALLY long time. The seed sprouter is extremely simple to use. Just add whichever type of seeds you prefer. Add water to the top level and allow the water to drip down to the bottom. If you see mold gathering around any of your seeds your watering too often. Toss those out, wash with hot water and start again. It's best to start with a small amount of seeds while you're getting the hang of it.

I have a house that's very shadowy and yet I can grow mine on my kitchen counter right next to my sink. How easy is that?