Gardening Projects at GardenTenders.com

Autumn Blooms

mmh — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 06:21:02 GMT

The garden is looking pretty shabby with the leaves falling off the trees, but I still have some blooms to enjoy, including the two Brugmansia, one of which survived the winter (USA zone 7A) as the root is next to the intake pipe of my pond and the other was a cutting that rooted. I planted the cutting this spring and it had a slow start with the cool/wet weather, but the pond mulm (gunk) from the summer’s cleaning gave it a real boost and it has been flowering for the past several weeks. We had a few mild cold spells but I covered it with Remay and it survived.

There seems to be a mutation of peach and white flowers on the same branch. I’ll have to see if it survives the winter and comes back with both colors of blooms.

The other flowers include zebra hollyhock – Malva sylvestris, Japanese toad lillies, Gruss Au Auchen rose, cosmos and a vibrant orange rose that blooms from spring to late fall.

Chilli Pepper

sharad — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 15:49:01 GMT

Almost every year I cultivate in my terrace garden something useful in the kitchen. This year I planted several chilli plants to get chilly powder which is one of the important spices used in many countries. The green chillies are allowed to ripen on the plant until they turn red. They are then harvested and dried in sun until they become crisp and ready for grinding in a home grinder. The powder is stored in glass bottles or other containers free from moisture to avoid fungal growth. The green chillies camouflage so well among the leaves of the plant that you have to search to get at them. There are several varietues to choose. The seeds are small,flat and round
Green chillies as well as the red powder is profusely used with or without coconut and garlic in many savoury recipies. It’s very important to avoid contact with the eyes or any sensitive skin – even washing your hands after preparing chillies may not be enough to remove all the capsaicin, the volatile oil in the fruit that gives it its hot taste.
Chilli powders may sometimes be adulterated with illegal carcinogenic chemical dyes. To avoid this grow chillies in your garden

Gourds

firecaster — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 11:52:04 GMT

This is the first time I’ve tried to grow gourds. I picked the bird house type. I started several from seed ands gave several away to fiends and family. I planted three vines on my backyard fence where they’d get lots of sun. One died after a few weeks without producing anything. Another died with two small gourds on the vine. I now wonder if I had vine borers?

All 13 of these gourds came off the last one. The biggest is 16” tall and 24” in circumference. I pinched off at least 30 blooms and baby gourds so these would get bigger. I don’t know what I’d of done if all three vines had produced like this one did.

These, and the two smaller ones are in the basement drying now. Next spring I hope to hang some bird houses.

Harvesting Heartnuts (Juglans ailantifolia)

Radicalfarmergal — Sat, 10 Oct 2009 19:49:08 GMT

When we moved into our old farmhouse, we acquired a beautiful, approximately 20 year old nut tree that offers us an abundant harvest of nuts every fall. After a little botanic sleuthing, I figured out it is not a butternut (which the leaves, branches and trunk closely resemble), but a heartnut tree. The heartnut is considered a seed sport of the Japanese walnut. Heartnuts produce tasty nuts, high in fiber, antioxidants and protein. The taste is sweet and mild. Like the butternut, the heartnut is a wonderful nut for cooking and baking. Toasting brings out their flavor. Heartnuts can be substituted in any recipe that uses walnuts, including pesto, cookies and quick breads. Many of ours are just eaten raw, right from the shell, because my young sons love to crack the nuts open with a hammer and eat them right away. A nutcracker works just as well, but perhaps is not as much fun.

We harvest the heartnuts in September and October when they fall from the tree. The thin, green husk on the nut remains attached at harvest, but falls off after drying. If my sons can’t wait, they stomp on the nuts to remove the shells. We dry the nuts for several weeks in a cool, dry place. After finding a fungus growing on a few of our stored nuts, we have learned to store them in open baskets to promote good air circulation.

I have taken a few pictures to show you what our heartnut harvest looks like. All I have left to do now is to go bake something….

First photo – the heartnuts as they look when we picked them up from under the tree.
Second photo – the heartnuts with their outer husks removed, drying on a paper towel
Third photo – the heartnut tree behind the house
Fourth photo – my son showing an almost whole heartnut he removed from its shell

2009 Flowers

GMman — Sat, 03 Oct 2009 23:43:50 GMT

Not a very good year too much rain.

2009 Flowers

GMman — Sat, 03 Oct 2009 23:32:28 GMT

Not a good year too much rain.

bwhttp://s300.photobucket.com/albums/nn11/GMman_2008/?action=view&current=fd36e754.p

The Late Late Show

Radicalfarmergal — Sat, 03 Oct 2009 21:24:19 GMT

What do tomatoes and Craig Ferguson have in common? They both starred in a late, late show this year.

I didn’t get a red tomato until half-way through August this year and, even then, my dozens of plants gave me only about one tomato a day. I had about given up this year when sunny, dry, warm weather appeared near the end of August and all through September. In September, all the green tomatoes couldn’t ripen fast enough and I was canning like crazy. As a result, I ended up with a decent tomato year after all. I made 31 quarts of pasta sauce and 7 quarts of pizza sauce. In addition to our tomatoes, I was able to add our own basil and onions and we went to a local farm stand for garlic and hot peppers to add to the sauce. Based on last year’s experience, this should last our family all year without having to buy any prepared tomato sauces. The tomato plants are slowing down now but we are still enjoying fresh tomatoes daily (in October!). I have finally stopped canning tomatoes for the year. Now I share my extra and less-than-perfect tomatoes with the chickens. The goats especially enjoy the sweet cherry tomatoes.

Thanks to some advice from XploreOrganics and Bob, we saved seeds from our best producing tomato plants this year. We collected seeds from Roma tomatoes, sweet red grape tomatoes, a sweet medium sized yellow tomato and a salad type tomato (I think it might be a Celebrity). If it works well, I hope to increase the number of different types of vegetable seeds I save from year to year.

First photo – some of my Roma tomato plants growing in the garden in the beginning of August.
Second photo – one day’s harvest of tomatoes in September
Third photo – a few of the jars of finished pasta sauce
Fourth photo – yesterday’s tomato harvest
Fifth photo – one of my helpers separating the seeds from the fruit for saving

my project

missterry — Thu, 24 Sep 2009 03:33:38 GMT

Just a small peek at my organic lettuce, collard greens and spinach this year. I use organic compost
that I make in my compost bins, from my hens and kitchen vegetable discards.

September....the last hurrah...........................

Iris43 — Tue, 22 Sep 2009 23:57:26 GMT

I guess September is just about the finish of my 2009 garden project, so here is some pictures of the latest flowers. By this time next month they’ll probably be all frozen, trimmed and put to bed for the on-coming winter.

Even though we all felt summer struggled to arrive, the flowers just kept coming and this last few weeks the warmth of the days and coolness of the nights and the heavy dews seemed to bring out the best of them.

This last picture is one of a viceroy butterfly visiting one of my butterfly bushes. You will noticed the strong similarity to the monarch butterfly that it mimics for the protection that affords it.

Here is a slideshow of some of my other flowers….............................

Goats are Growing Up!

Radicalfarmergal — Fri, 18 Sep 2009 01:01:03 GMT

The goats are one month old now. I wish I had a video camera to show you how they prance and jump around the pasture. Walking is definitely too mundane for the kids; running, jumping, hopping is much preferred! They love to play “king of the mountain”, trying to push the other kid off the roof of their goat houses and rocks in the yard. I picked out a few favorite pictures to show you how they are growing. If you are ever sad or stressed, find a way to watch young kids (of the caprine kind) frolic – you are guaranteed to start laughing.

First picture – Gaea (mother) with two kids
Second picture – Poseidon, the buckling
Third picture – Hestia, our doeling, on a rock
Fourth picture – Hestia and Poseidon playing together on the rock
Fifth picture – Houdini, our wether, reaching up for some tasty buffalo berries
Sixth picture – Hestia posing on the mineral block, a favorite place to climb