Garden Notes - October 23, 2010

This is a garden note without a picture. I've been too busy with exterior house painting since the last post. I just finished with the last of what I could paint before the weather gets too ugly.

The fall crops are all looking too small to make it by snow fall. I was able to make the most of my tomatoes and what Ed donated. I canned items purchased locally; peaches, pears, and apples for apple sauce.

The carrots will produce, but probably not like last year due to planting later than before, but most likely due to being planted in the spinach bed which had been infiltrated by root hairs from the cedar tree.

I just did some yard & garden clean-up, and I have some green tomatoes left over to try something with.

Garden Notes - September 10, 2010

The surprise harvest was the hops. I still have the ladder up where I picked them last week and spread out to dry in the tool shed. In fact, it motivated me to brew a long-overdue batch (which I haven't had the time to do all summer).

Todd's Octoberfest Recipe #1:

• 2 ea. Munton's Amber malt extract (3.3 lb. cans)


• 1 lb. Briess Vienna malt


• 1 qt. freezer bag of Todd's home-grown hops (2010 crop)


• 1 pkg. Fermentis Saflager S-23 yeast


• 5 gals. water from Bottom of the Barrel's tap


• Beginning specific gravity should be 1.044

As for the garden itself, the fall plantings of brussels sprouts, broccoli and cabbage plants have been struggling with dry conditions and plentiful caterpillar infestations. In fact, I was closely observing a brussels sprout plant when a little white butterfly landed right in front of me and deposited a tiny egg! Next season, I will make a habit of collecting little white butterflies.

The tomato plants had two or three early ripened fruits with mildew problems on the bottom and throughout the fruit itself. However, subsequent fruits have been awesome for eating and canning, even though the plants themselves look nearly dead.

The parsley finally took off and has provided plenty of greens for tabouli salad. Finally, I took time to do the tedious task of thinning carrots and they are doing well. The leeks and other fall crops are small. I will be surprised if they reach maturity by first snow!

Garden Notes - August 6, 2010

The cucumber yield was significant this year, with 21 pints of bread & butter pickles and four quarts of dill pickles. There's still some in the crisper for about 3 more quarts of dill pickles. The summer squash fell victim to mildew and had to be pulled. The beans yielded three batches of 3-bean salad, and four quarts canned (cut up & raw packed). The beets yielded 8 pints plus about one eaten fresh. The spinach was disappointing with only two quarts bags to put in the freezer. The tomatoes are growing tall and show a limited amount of mildew damage along the bottom leaves.

The fall crops in starter sets had some difficulty since it's been so hot this summer. Protecting the seedlings under the picnic table helps, and I learned not to try transplanting broccoli too soon. The fall crops are now in the beds and total as follows: 10 brussels sprouts, 9 broccoli, 17 leeks, 17 cabbage and 60 carrots. I have more leek seeds in 4 rows where the squash was, so I expect to have even more leeks later on.

Seeds collected so far for next year: Peas, radish and beets. I have a few huge cucumbers and one over-grown bean plant for seed. I have three remaining (small) beet plants to over-winter for seed next year too.

Garden Notes - July 4, 2010

The picture above shows the peas harvested on 7/1/10. About an hour and a half later, I had a bowl full of peas. This year, I thought I would try drying them. I blanched them, then coated them with olive oil and salt. After about 20 hours of dry time they shrunk A LOT! Canning is better.

The cucumbers will succeed this year. The marigold/radish barrier did not work as advertised. Sadly, I did have to resort to using SEVIN. After five treatments, with no sooner than three days spacing, the problem seems to be gone. From what I can see, the mating season for the cucumber beetle is very short. See also http://www.vegedge.umn.edu/vegpest/CUCS/scb.htm.

The tomatoes are doing well with only a little spotting on the bottom leaves. The spinach bolted shortly after the weather got hot. That patch only yielded two small quarts for freezing. So, the spinach patch is barren at the moment, and I think I will plant carrots there instead of the cucumber patch location. The cucumbers failed last year leaving the spot for the carrots. I mis-judged how long the cucumbers would occupy the space, so planting carrots in the empty spinach patch makes sense. When the cuces are done, that area can be replaced by broccoli.

Oh yeah-- I hung peppermint and st. john's wort flowers in the tool shed to dry.

Next step: Plant carrots and start brussels sprouts and leeks in containers. Cabbage can wait longer for the beans to be done (I hope).

Garden Notes - June 2, 2010

The flower shown above is a beet flower. It's last years beets flowering this year for next year's crop! I have a basket of spinach shown too, which needs to be harvested completely and frozen due to the unseasonably warm weather lately. Spinach doesn't like heat.

The radishes and marigolds are protecting the cuccumbers from the beetles so far. I've seen no beetles anywhere near the thirteen cuccumber plants. Julie likes the radishes as an extra bonus. I just plantes more radish spouts which I had sprouted separately. The peas are about 4 ft. high and they are flowering. The beans (20 plants) are about 5 inches high. I am trying parsley this year too (very slow to germinate). The summer squash (9 plants) are about 3 inches high. Finally, the tomatoes are about 4-5 inches high. I had something pinching off a few near the ground (not a woodchuck, probably birds), so I had to replace about four plants with left-over sprouted plants.

That's all for now!

Garden Notes - May 2, 2010

Before I write about this spring's planting, I need to summarize the pantry and root cabinet outcome since the last Garden Note post (January 2010). The winners in the root cabinet storage category are-- Carrots, Potatoes, Onions and Garlic! Carrots are clearly number one since we used the last one in April and it was still as fresh when I pulled them the previous November. The damp sawdust kept them very alive. Squash as a little disappointing. Next time, I will stick to butternut squash and not so many of them too. Acorn squash and buttercup squash rotted quickly after a couple of months. I will also keep a few beets in damp soil or sawdust to replant for seed. The three beets I kept in the garden for seed did not survive the winter; however, I did find one carrot that got missed and it was still alive!

As for this spring's planting, I planted peas, spinach, raddish, and marigold on April 18. I tried the broadcast sowing method on the above items (except the peas). Yesterday, I planted some parsley near the spinach. Today, I tilled up the summer squash patch and planted three hills with three seeds each. Last year I had way too much summer squash with six hills of four seeds each. I am still trying to eat up the pickled squash!

I planted the hybrid tomato seeds from last year's crop in yogurt cups on or about April 26 or so. They sit nicely on a party platter on top of the wardrobe in the family room. It's near the ceiling, away from cats and warm enought to sprout. They are about three or four inches and very lanky, so I added more soil around each one. Currently, they are being conditioned to the outdoors for a few hours at a time on the craft cabinet on the porch. Conventional wisdom says you can't use hybrid seeds, but these produce just fine and seem to be more resistent to fungal infection than the non-hybrid seeds I tried last year.

Pattie, Randy and Grandkids in Iowa

Cold in Iowa visiting Scott & Brandi!

Patti, Randy, Khristian and Kaiden

Prospect Point, Blue Mountain Lake, 2010

View of Blue Mountain in the morning

Jack is happy after breakfast

Julie, Anne, Jack, Lisa and Rand at breakfast

Janet and Steven, our guests and good friends!

An awesome fire roaring in the cabin

Todd soaking up some R&R with Janet and Steven in the background

Todd relaxing by the fire at the lodge

Julie, Steven and Janet having breakfast at the lodge

Kayla and Madison Pics

Madison at 16 months old

Kayla

Born 1/28/2010

Garden Notes - January 10, 2010

All the work with food storage and canning is definitely paying dividends. Julie and I aren't keeping exact records, but I can say for sure we are not buying as much from the grocery store as we used to. I create meals from items on hand for the most part. The missing piece of the puzzle is meat and dairy. Had I bagged a deer, we would have had one type of meat available on hand. Maybe next year.

The root cabinet seems to be working, but the temperatures are not as cold as I had anticipated. The pictures above show the outside view with the vent openings through the basement window, and the inside view shows the cabinet with potatoes and carrots on the left and squash and apples on the right. The temps have been about 45 on the left (with one vent) and about 42-43 on the right (with two vents). Today is the coldest weather of the winter so far. With an outside temp of 4, the left is 42 and the right is 40. The stairway storage area is 44.

It's been about two full months since purchasing the produce shown from a local farm. The potatoes have 1/4" to 1/2" sprouts, the carrots in damp sawdust are like fresh picked, the squash had only two rotted, and the Northern Spy apples have had only two rotted (otherwise they are still crisp). The casualties mentioned above were discovered when re-organizing them for transport from the garage to the cabinet.

Just as a side note, I cooked a chicken dish in the dutch oven yesterday hanging in the fireplace. I had everything on hand except the chicken and red potatoes. I could have used my stored potatoes, but the little red ones had a certain appeal.