Jalapeno Hummus

1 - 16 oz. Bag Dried Chickpeas (soaked overnight, and don't try substituting canned -- it won't taste good)
6-8 Cloves Fresh Garlic
1/2 C. Tahini (ground sesame seeds) -- I prefer Ziyad brand
1/2 T. Sea Salt (or Kosher Salt)
4 T. Lemon Juice (from concentrate or fresh squeezed)
4-6 T. Olive Oil
1/2 T. Ground Cumin
1/3 C. Sliced Jalapeno (from a jar, with some juice) -- Fresh jalapeno is OK if you prefer

Required Tools: 
Pressure Cooker
11 Cup or More Food Processor

Preparation:
Cook chickpeas in pressure cooker according to manufacturer's instructions. I prefer to soak the chickpeas one night, cook them and leave them in the pressure cooker (without opening it) another night, and then use the cooled chickpeas in the recipe on day three. There's no danger of contamination since the chickpeas are sterilized and sealed in. Otherwise, you would need to quick cool the cooked chickpeas in the refrigerator or float them in an ice water bath in a stainless steel bowl to cool them down quickly.

Assuming you now have cooked, cooled chickpeas, put the garlic cloves, tahini, salt, lemon juice, olive oil, cumin and jalapenos in the food processor and liquify. Strain the liquid off the cooked chickpeas and retain it off to the side. Add the chickpeas to the food processor and about 1/2 C. of the liquid. Start the food processor and add a little of the reserved liquid as it works the mixture into a smooth paste. Use your own judgement as to how much liquid to add. Remember too that room temperature hummus in the food processor can be a bit thinner than you may think since it thickens in the refrigerator as it drops to the final temperature.

Transfer to a plastic container and leave uncovered in the refrigerator for a few hours to hasten the final cooling. Cover and serve cold as needed with corn chips, pieces of pita bread or celery and carrot sticks. Keeping it for a week in the refrigerator is no problem.

Garden Update - July 12, 2012

I tested soil this year and found that I had a nitrogen deficiency, so I am using blood meal for that. Also, there's a phosphorus deficiency, so that gets treated with bone meal. Blood meal is once every 60 days. Bone meal is once per season. I also use fish emulsion in the watering can about every two weeks. Definitely be carful not to over use the nitrogen. I found this out with the celery which had been dosed with the blood meal and the bone meal, and then got hit with the fish emulsion. The celery got burned.

I am trying corn this year for the first time. I planted on Mother's Day, May 13, which was a bit early. A cold snap may have killed a few sprouts in the ground, so next year, definitely plant more than you need for replacements, and figure on May 21 as a plant date instead. Also, try planting in a furrow and then filling in around plants once they are about 6 inches high. This will help them stand up against the wind.

Cucumbers and summer squash are not doing well. They are interplanted around the borders of the corn patch. The beetles are having a field day with them. I've tried BT, DE and insecticidal soap. Mother Earth News recommends floating row covers, which are esentially a fine, white screen held in place with flexible tubing to keep them off the plants. I will try that next year. For now, I will attempt a late season planting of cucumbers just in case the beetle mating season is past and they still have time to grow into the late summer.

The celery and leeks were planted indoors in third week of February, and believe it or not, they are still too small for this time of year. I may not be doing these two veggies again if they aren't mature by the end of the season.

Romaine is a big hit. We've been eating salads by picking outer leaves. Now that they have bolted (just did on about 7/4), I've cut them down close to the ground for making in to greens for eating and/or feezing. The stumps are growing leaves again, so I may have more fresh eating. Meanwhile, I've planted a group of buttercrunch lettuce which was ready for transplanting just as the romaine bolted. The transplants took it hard with the heat, but they are springing back and ready to take the place of the romaine in the same bed.

The green bean plants are tall, but the bean crop is not quite ready for the first picking. I am pretty sure that I had already picked beans last year before the Fourth of July. The beets are just about ready for picking. I think I will trim all the greens to process on day one, and then follow up with the bulbs the next day for processing. That way, I don't have to do them all in one day, or have limp greens which had to wait for the bulbs to be processed.

I am trying a patch of strawberries on the east side of the tool shed. Year one is just for plants, and any blossoms were pinched. I accidentally added lime to the patch thinking that would reduce the pH. I hurried and didn't think that lime did the OPPOSITE! Anyway, I have yet to test the soil after this mistake, but the plants look just as healthy as can be irregardless.

I put six tomato plants bought at a greenhouse in what used to be the peppermint bed, which was moved to a new, blocked off bed to prevent them from travelling. Anyway, the toms seem to be avoiding the blight in this new bed. Maybe that's why-- it's a NEW bed.

Verticillium Wilt Research

My garden has Verticillium Wilt issues. My research today shows there is no remedy for it other than crop rotation and selection of seed or plant varieties that are marked with "V" to indicate resistance to the mold spores.

So, what plants should I rotate to? Here's the text I copied from a 1981 report from the University of California Cooperative Extension:

V E G E T A B L E A N D F I E L D CROPS-Resistant or Immune

Common Name

Celery

Asparagus

Carrot

Sweet potato

Lettuce

Alfalfa

Bean

Pea

See complete report at http://depts.washington.edu/hortlib/resources/ucdavis_verticillium.pdf

Also, from the same report, there's this:

FAMILIES-Resistant or Immune

Common Name

Cactus family

Cereal grains, corn, grasses, milo, sorghum, others

Gymnosperms (cypress, fir, ginkgo, larch, juniper, pine, sequoia, spruce, others)

Monocots (bamboo, banana, gladiolus, grasses, iris, lily, onion, orchids, palms, others)

Fern family (ferns)

Beets are not on the list, but I have had very good success with them even when tomatoes have failed from the wilt. The jury's still out on this year's experiment with cabbage and brussels sprouts. They are not showing any signs of wilt. Other than getting a late start in the season, the only problem with them is the white butterflies that lay eggs and hatch little green caterpillars. Frequent leaf checks and dusting with diatomaceous earth are my remedies for that.

Garden Notes - June 30, 2011

Green onions. This was a no-brainer. I found a bag of onion sets at the local supermarket and followed the directions to plant them 1/2" apart for green onions. Full sized onions would grow with 3" spacing or more.

Butternut squash (winter squash). I will cook, mash, season and freeze these. My root cabinet works best for root veggies like onions, potatoes, carrots, garlic and leeks. I've had reasonable luck with Northern Spy apples in the root cabinet as well. When they get past their prime, I just make them into applesauce and can them.

Buttercrunch lettuce thriving. The cooler and wetter than usual June helps. Some leaves have already been picked for a salad tonight!

Verticillium Wilt attacking my pepper plants! These pepper plants are in a bed that never had infected tomatoes in it before.

Cabbage survivor from last year. This grew like a grafting to a mowed over stump!

Garden Notes - Summer Solstice June 21, 2011

Upon my return from a Florida trip to see family, I am relieved to be in a temperate environment where the soil is naturally fertile, however I am a little envious of the long growing season southern growers enjoy.

The little guys I continue to nurture along are cabbage, carrots and red onions. I'm a little disappointed at the slow growth of the red onions, but since this is my first experience with them, I have to keep reminding myself that they are a root veggie and wouldn't mind growing well into the fall.

The cabbage closest to the swing (a miraculous survivor from last year) just needed a stick for support since it had essentially grown like a grafting from the old stem. The wind broke it off, but not completely. It isn't showing any signs of going to seed.

The carrot carry-overs from last year appear to be genetically programmed to go to seed, so I yanked all but one seed plant and carefully re-distributed all the carrot seedlings to fill blanks rather then simply thin them.

The leek survivors aren't so eager to seed. Five of the larger ones went to seed, so I yanked all but one of them since the growth was all "up" not "down" into the bulbous part of the plant. However, the smallest ones from last year look like they may ignore their programming to seed. Let's wait and see on that. I planted two broccoli in place of some blank area left by the ones I yanked. It sounds crazy, but I have had successful broccoli planted in mid to late June before. They like growing into the fall and tolerate frost very well (as do cabbage and brussels sprouts).

I had many a nice tabouli salad from the second growth of parsley into early June, but they all started going to seed with long stems and few leaves. That whole bed got yanked and I started some new parsley seedlings. I have plenty of seeds for now. Maybe I will let one mature with seeds next year.

The bone meal I tried this year is Organic Choice (by Miracle Grow) at 6-9-0 NPK (nitrogen-phosphorous-potassium). I sprinkle epsom salts in a ring around peppers and the one tomato plant I have. Much debate goes on about the effectiveness of this, but I have seen my peppers improve with more veggie production and less leaf production in the past. The salts add magnesium to the soil.

As for pests, I have just noticed today, lots of small, red bugs on the ground all around the winter squash, but I haven't identified them yet. I dosed them with diatomaceous earth using my "pest pistol" and a dust mask. And, just today as well, I saw a white butterfly lite on my biggest cabbage plant. I will have to dust that with DE tomorrow!

Garden Notes - May 30, 2011

I turned the soil in the bed closest to the swing set and found not only more tree roots than I had anticipated, but tons of worms. So I grabbed a plastic tub and carefully plucked worms as I turned the soil. I was able to "plant" worms in the other beds that I had already worked in the previous couple of weeks.

Since my last post, I've planted jalapeno and red, sweet peppers (from sets) and onion sets closely together to produce green onions. I swore off tomatoes this year, but my neighbor had a couple of plants she offered, so I planted one in the ground, and one in a Topsy Turvy planter. What the hell, I thought I would give that a try.

Three of the cabbage seedlings are not coping well with the sun, so I babied them with a thin veil of grass mulch to provide partial sun. The other four cabbage seedlings are doing better. New things peeking through the soil include: butter crunch lettuce, red onions, carrots, brussels sprouts and butternut squash.

A surprise find: one more surviving cabbage plant in the bed closest to the swing set. Will this go to seed or form a head? Stay tuned.

Garden Notes - May 15, 2011

Worm heaven under a tree in a low spot that often-times has standing water after heavy rains (top picture). I peeled back a layer of last year's mowed-over leaves to reveal many inch long worms. I scooped up the wettest leaves and gently picked worms as I went. These all went into the hole where the previous year's compost pile was.

The bottom picture shows the pile of last year's compost in the middle bed. I park a wheel barrow near the wagon and put the dirt sieve on it. I sift compost a few shovel fulls at a time through it and dump the unwanted stuff in the wagon. The sifted compost is worked into the upper layer of a freshly turned and raked bed. The compost pile is hidden behind weeds under a tree (back and to the left of the wagon).

Worm castings are some very good, organic fertilizer. I might ask a local farm for some cow manure to work into the compost this year. I haven't before, but it may be time to take my compost a little more seriously. Kitchen scraps (veggie and fruit scraps) are good worm food to add throughout the summer too.