Garden Update

Well, it's been a while since our last post.  I meant to post after the last leg of our Wisconsin/Chicago Trip but it just never happened.  We spent the week after the last post in lovely Chicago so in total we left our garden unattended for two weeks.  Yikes.

 Photo taken from Hancock Building

I figured things wouldn't be too bad.  I kept eyeing the weather in our area and it appeared as though we got plenty of rain during our vacation.  In fact, when we got home, we had gotten a total of 3 inches according to our rain gauge.  Most of the organic gardeners in our area aim for 1" a week to keep plants strong.  It seemed like we got that.

Our weed garden

Unfortunately, things did not fair so well. 

Where to start?  Let's see... the onions never grew into anything so I guess trying to overwinter was a bad idea.  Last year they did so well that I'm downright SHOCKED!!

All the squash died pretty much.  Not cool.  Yield was low to dismal.  They got a white chalky mildew and died.  I maybe got 3 dinner's worth out of 12 plants.  My squash plants have always been the easiest and most dependable to grow.

The beans were seriously stunted and small.  We got a few dinner's worth but that is all.

The potatoes died completely.  So much for our container experiment.  We used good soil so it was either mildew, insects, rain, or a combination of those that killed them.

You can't even tell there were potatoes here.

The raspberry plants have been half eaten by japanese beetles.  The eggplant I planted was eaten long ago by the same darn beetles.  I knew from last year to get a cover on them but we never managed to go that far. I'm a little angry at myself for that. But I didn't get a lot of support for those in the house anyway. Nick thinks they are a bug attractor.

The peppers aren't doing so hot (ha ha) either and are on death's door.   

I don't have much hope at this point for the carrots.  They are being smothered by crab grass and it's a b*tch and a half to get out.  At this point it's no longer worth it.  I learned this lesson last year but we  REALLY need to get to mulching the garden early so it's not completely swallowed up with weeds.  Time just seemed to slip by on us this year.  I'll have to be more of a thorn in hubby's side on getting this done together because it's near impossible to do on my own with the kids.

On the good side, we have several bags of wild blackberries.  The large leaf basil is looking great.  Also, the tomatoes are doing well though I wonder for how long.  Our local co-op service said there is a highly contagious tomato mildew disease going around that is killing crops.  Yay. 

The glimmer of hope?

So, after 2 great, productive years we've had a REALLY bad one. I honestly don't think it's just because of the trip though that may have been part of the problem.  I think we just didn't add enough amendments to the soil to keep it rich and fertile.  Also, we try not to use pesticides and things and leaving crops unattended is just a bad idea.   I just don't know what to do with all these darn stink bugs and japanese beetles around here!  @#$@#$!!

I'm tempted next year to cover the garden and just let it rest next year.  I don't want to invest so much to get so little like this year and if I can't do it right I don't see the point.

Monday Garden Update

It's Monday again...

Is it me or did last week go REALLY fast?  Time goes by so much quicker in the summer.  Guess we were all too busy having fun.

We harvested the last of the peas and the broccoli and tilled those babies down.  We replanted with some summer squash.  We should have squash all summer long this time with this planting.

I'm dry curing our first few onions.  You may remember we planted these last year just before winter.  The ones that are ready are the smaller ones.  We've got some biggins so we have a lot to look forward to this summer.

The first patty pans have been out for a week or so.  Soon, it'll be harvesting time.  The patty pans were directly sown in mid-April.  You know, I think I will do the same as this year and won't bother growing these from seed and transplanting them like we did the year before last.  They come up so fast on their own and there is plenty of stuff in the garden to eat while we wait for them so I just don't see the need. 

Well, that's all for now.  Check out Feet Off the Table for more gardening adventures!

Monday Garden Update

Well, it's that time again... and a lot is going on in the garden!  :)  This part of the garden season is my favorite because there is no need to water or weed.  The garden just takes care of itself.  Apart from the initial effort, there isn't much to do.  I like this time because I guess I'm lazy.... or maybe just really busy with 3 little guys.

We are just days away from some awesome fresh peas.  We are already eating baby peas straight off the vine.  They are a delicious mid-day snack.  There is no need to cook or steam when they are small and fresh. 

The first and second planting of purple onions are flowering.  I can't remember when we are supposed to pick them....  I suppose I should research that sooner than later.

Blueberries have been on the vine for a while but raspberries just started showing themselves.  We had to use stakes for support for the plants because they were getting crazy and wild and growing into the electric fence. 

Blueberry Plant

Raspberry Plant

We took the strawberries we had in the garden and added a few extra to make a giant double batch of no-cook freezer jam.  It was the first time I ever made this type of jam.  It has an entirely different flavor.  I love to store it in small tubs for easy serving and I don't have to worry about the jam going bad in the fridge... oh, and of course the most important part, I don't have to sterilize and can.  Time is very, very valuable these days.

Well, that's it for this week!  Hope to see you on over at Feet Off the Table.

Garden Update

It's been a while since my last garden post.  Unfortunately, my 4 year old computer caught a virus and the old hard drive died.  All is resolved now that we have a brand new computer.

So much has gone on the garden since the last post.  For one, we are already enjoying broccoli though it's technically the result of a huge blunder.  Nick forgot to add soil ammendments prior to planting the broccoli plants and they are heavy feeders so they weren't getting the nutrition they needed.  They grew fast and spindly.  They are delicious though and it hasn't stopped the kiddos from eating the raw broccoli by the head.  My kids are weird.

Strawberries are in season now as well.  It's so hard to squeeze off all the flowers the first year, but it has really paid off.  We've already gotten 2 large containers worth since Thursday when they started to turn red and there is plenty more on their way.  This is our first season of having strawberries and we had to celebrate with a big batch of Feet Off the Table's Rhubarb Strawberry Crisp.

 

Pickin' with GreenEyes.

I have never had rhubarb.  Ever.  But I couldn't help but grow it when I saw it at the co-op when we first started our garden.  You're not supposed to harvest it the first year so this our first year enjoying it as well.  It came in a while back along with the aspargus and I thought now was the right time to try it now that the strawberries are also in.  I harvested several sprigs out of the garden today, brought it in, rinced it and tasted it raw.  It tasted weird.  I was afraid to ruin my giant batch of fresh garden strawberries by mixing the rhubarb with them so we ended up with the plain strawberry crisp.  Let me tell you, it was still amazing!

 Yumm!

The peas are close to being ready for harvesting, the onions are starting to flower, and we planted tomatoes, squash, carrots, etc. a few weeks ago. Let's hope it's a fruitful year!

Monday Garden Update

Well last week things were a little busy, so I never got around to posting about the garden.  I think I'll be posting these on Sundays because Mondays are just too crazy at my house.  As of this moment I have a giant pile of laundry calling my name but I have ignored it all weekend so we could go hiking and do other fun things like grilling out and enjoying the gorgeous weather. 

View from our weekend hike.

There's been plenty going on in the garden.  For one, it's been cold enough the last week that we had to bring the row covers back out.  We've since put them back away.  Tomorrow's high temp is supposed to be 80!!

Tthe rhubard is getting eaten by something already.  Urgh!

The raspberries are starting to leaf. :)

The peas are poking out!

The onions and garlic we transplanted are looking fabulous...

And last but not least...

 the asparagus began to poke out last week!!!


That's what going on in our garden.  What's going on in yours?

Monday Garden Update

Gardening is a practice of trial and error and with only a few years experience under our belt there is still plenty to learn.  It was hard to admit we had failed but we gave up on the broccoli seedlings underneath the house.  We set mouse traps to kill those pesky broccoli eating varmints, but time was not on our side.  We needed the broccoli in the ground to get a good footing well before the humidity sets in.

We bought some  'Packman' broccoli and cauliflower starts from the local hardware store and planted them last week.  We'll have to use the row covers off and on the next month or so.  So far though, the weather has been mild enough we haven't needed to put row covers on them yet!   

I'd much rather have had these plants come from our own starts, but hey...  there's always next year.

Monday Garden Club

We've had a mixed bag of successes and failures the last two weeks. 

Let's start with the failures.  Mice have eaten all the broccoli starts underneath the house.  The tomato plants look terrible and the eggplant and peppers never sprouted.  Basically, the whole system underneath the house isn't working.  Great.  What a waste!  Also, the peas we planted washed away with the 4 inches of rain we received.  Super.  Luckily, we have more than enough left over seed to replant.

Moving on to the successes...

We finished planting the srawberry beds.

We planted our potatoes in experimental bins.  The bins should last forever and we'll recycle them if they don't.  Let's hope the bin method is as successful as the traditional method we used last year.  Like the old method, we planted the potatoes a few inches deep.  We will mound up the soil in the bins as they grow. 



Spring is here.  It's been hot enough that the roquette we planted in fall bolted and is now too spicy to be edible!

The rhubarb that was ravaged by japanese beetles sprang back up...

and all the bulbs are coming up.  Let's hope the tulips aren't all eaten by deer this year before they show themselves like last year.

Daylilies

Nothing yet from the asparagus.  Crossing fingers!

Monday Garden Update - First of the Year!!

Disclaimer:  When I mention "we" in the post below, I really mean my husband.  I must give credit where credit is due.  I've been a little preoccupied and haven't been able to take an active roll of late...

A week and a half ago we started our seedlings. We planted broccoli, cauliflower, squash (but a more reasonable number this time!), tomatoes (a bunch MORE this time), eggplant, peppers, and herbs.  Below is a picture taken 7 days after planting of one of the flats.  The peppers and eggplant haven't germinated yet so I'm a bit concerned there.  They took at least 14-21 days to germinate last time.  If they don't take we'll consider this an experiment.  Last year I planted them inside our house.  I was hoping they would do well under the house with some heat mats I bought on Amazon at an extreme discount.

We've been blessed with temps in the high 60's for the past few days.   The local co-op was packed with people this weekend getting seeds and miscellaneous garden items.  It's definitely time to get cracking in the ole garden.

Nick finally bit the bullet and bought a tiller yesterday.  No more borrowing the neighbor's!

We tilled the lower portion of the garden and planted a long row of peas.  We also did a little experiment and transplanted some onion and garlic plants that poked up since last year from one portion of the garden to another location.  We also planted some more arugula for a late spring harvest. 

Onion and garlic transplants.

 Unfortunately, a good portion of strawberries we planted last year were crowded out by weeds when I was incapacitated and couldn't garden.  We had planted 50 strawberries last spring and we have about 5 or 6 plants that are thriving.  Yeah, bummer. 

Needless to say, we learned a lesson.  Doing anything in the garden is a bit ambitious with all we have on our plate this year so we are going to retry them again this year and do it right.  We went back and properly mounded the beds.  We weeded where the strawberries managed to survive and we will place filter fabric around the base of the plants to keep the weeds at bay.  We also created several new rows and will be planting another 50 or so plants for next year.  We aren't completely done with this but we are working on it.

One of last year's strawberry plants as it looks today.

Strawberry planting in progress.

Below is a pic of our salad greens.  They overwintered just fine here with row covers.  This will definitely be something we do every year.  Yay for yummy winter eats!

This coming week, we'll need to finish the strawberry plantings as well as plant some carrots, and some specialty potatoes.  I don't think we'll plant any brussel sprouts as they didn't really pan out last year.  By contrast, our potatoes did great last year despite the japanese beetles almost killing them..  This year we are going to change things up and plant them in containers or trash cans and drape insect fabric over them.  I'd like to keep the potatoes out of the garden for space reasons as well as to keep the diseases they are associated with out too.  We'd like to plant adirondack blues and reds (if we can find them... they were already out of the adirondack reds at the co-op) and some fancy russian fingerlings. 

I can hardly wait.

The Last Monday Garden Update of the Year

It is hard to believe it's October already.   I spent two of the last four weeks sick so it hasn't helped me get back in the garden as I had hoped.  Nick mowed the weeds down in the garden (that's how bad the weeds were) so I wouldn't be embarrassed when the neighbors went by.  When mowed, it at least looked a little tidier.  Things are getting back to normal, thank goodness. 

I was inspired by our farm tour this year and the use of lasagna gardening so we are now working on prepping our bed for next year by laying down cardboard and topping it with our homemade kitchen scrap compost in the hopes that it will naturally kill the weeds and seeds by the time we need to prep the beds again in Spring.  We have a ways to go before we are completely done.  There is a lot of area to cover.

 Lasagna Gardening

We are still getting plenty of eggplant and peppers out of the garden everyday.  It won't be long before this comes to an end so we are savoring the last of nature's bounty.

I've highlighted some of the hanging eggplant because they are hard to notice.

I also planted two short rows of mesclun mix in the garden with some arugula.  Arugula should last here until January or so with row covers so let's hope there is enough time.  We are a little late this year but I figure what the heck.

Below are some pictures of our recent adventures in the Shenandoah National Forest.  We went for a lovely little hike on Sunday with the kids.  It was cold on the mountain but a very enjoyable day.  We are so close to the mountain it's a shame not to get out there and enjoy it more often.

Ladybug examining some bugs on milkweed.

Monday Garden Update (early, late? you decide)

There was no garden update or any posts last week because we left for Hatteras Island for a family vacation.  Unfortunately, there was a mandatory evacuation on Wednesday morning so we were forced to cut it short.  We were disappointed but we are making the best of it!   Since then, we've been back home doing a few day trips and enjoying the rest of hubby's time off.

When we got back, it was nice to find that we had a nice little harvest of eggplant and peppers.

I had enough peppers from my one meager plant that I actually decided to go ahead and roast them.  I also saved what I could of some of the seed for next years crop prior to roasting. 

I learned how to prepare New Mexican Chiles while living in New Mexico.  During chile season there you can buy a GIANT 25 lb. bag of roasted green Hatch chiles for a whopping 19 bucks.  It was such a great deal, I couldn't pass it up.  Of course, I soon learned why they were so much cheaper (by comparison a tiny, itty bitty tiny can of canned, roasted green chiles costs about $2).  When I got the chiles home, I spent the next 6 hours slumped over the kitchen sink peeling and seeding the chiles in two sittings and vowed never to do it again!  It was a crazy amount of chiles and I had yet to master how to peel and seed them efficiently.  It was a huge pain but we enjoyed the green chiles throughout the following year.  Green chiles freeze well and I saved a bundle compared to the canned versions.  The flavor is also phenomenal.

There is an interesting article about New Mexican chiles in the most current issue of Organic Gardning (Oct./Nov. 2010). You won't find the article on the web just yet (I checked).  I imagine they won't post it until the magazine officially releases in October.  The article was eye opening. Apparently Hatch chiles are grown on infertile sandy soils often using genetically modified seed and traditional gardening practices (i.e. heavy fertilizers and pesticides). It's nothing too suprising but apparently there are heirloom varities grown in the Northern part of the state on richer soil that are grown more sustainably. It's a very interesting article I suggest anyone interested in growing New Mexican chiles read. This year I grew New Mexico Jim's. My peppers aren't near as big as I thought they should be but I'm pleased to know they didn't lose a thing as far as flavor and I know what's in them!

Our Homegrown Green Chiles

You can roast chiles many ways but as our grill is out of commission I went ahead and roasted them in the oven.  To roast in the oven, I broiled them on high for 20 minutes, rotating them every five or so minutes until I got a nice char on all sides.

After that I put them in a sweating bag (a.k.a ziploc bag) for 10 minutes.  Doing this makes them easier to peel as they continue to steam in their own skin.

After that I put them in a water bath to make them even easier to peel.

I then peeled, seeded, and chopped the chiles.  Easy as pie. 

Peeling and Seeding Green Chiles

Cutting the Chiles

The Final Product

Monday Garden Club

Sorry for the lack of a post last week.  I have no real excuse, it just didn't happen.  :)

In Season Now: Carrots, Parsnips, Tomatoes, Peppers & Eggplant

I do have garden news to report.  The eggplants are finally in!!  I think this will likely be the last exciting bit of news for the year as we wind down the garden.  We "pulled the plug" on the broccoli under the house because I just don't have the energy to deal with prepping and planting beds right now.  As it is, I'm figuring next year we will have our hands a little too full to grow our tomato, eggplant and peppers from seed, let alone expand the garden as we had initially planned earlier this year.  We'll see what we can manage to fit in.  It will likely be more modest next year.

I thought the eggplant were going to get bigger so I left a couple of them on the vine and the few larger fruit I left on the plant rotted.  It seems like the size above (about 5"x4") is about the maximum size for this variety in my garden. I had a lot of picking to do this weekend and I'm not entirely sure what to do with all of them.  I found a delicious-sounding, eggplant parmesan recipe that I think I might try today for the eggplant in this month's issue of Cooking Light. 

Then again, a local restaurant I just love, Revolutionary Soup, posted this on their Facebook Page:

"We slice the Eggplant thick, batter it in local Eggs and Flour and then it is fried in really good olive oil. While crispy it is put on a roll and dressed with Basil and Red Pepper pestos, spread thickly with Chevre and then the entire sandwich is pressed on the griddle until the bread becomes nice and crunchy. Almost ...entirely local, this sandwich is healthy, tasty and refreshing. Eat seasonal veggies while you can."

Sounds serendipitous to me.  Maybe I should try my hand at that one first?  Does anyone have any tried-and-true eggplant recipes they'd like to share?  I'm sort of swimming in them.

Monday Garden Update and Weekend In Review

First the Garden Update:

I haven't done much at all in the garden this week.  I was supposed to put the broccoli underneath the house in jiffy pots, plant the peas, weed the strawberries... but none of that has happened.   I was busy last week with my neice and nephews coming in to town.  The fun must have compromised my immune system because I came down with a nasty chest cold coupled with flu-like stomach issues a few days ago.  It has been a cripling combination. 

pic removed

My lovely niece modeling with some onions and a carrot

The garden work has really piled up in my absence.  The weeds seem to have taken over.  I had Nick pick out the onions and yet another giant batch of green beans today because I haven't seemed to have the energy to do it myself.  (I feel like a 90 year old lady saying that.)  The carrots are just about ready (see pic above) but my hope is that they will hold a bit longer and I'll get to harvesting them the following week.

Onions in the process of being cured

We've had enough tomatoes and basil and onion to make a giant vat of homegrown Roasted Tomato Basil Soup.  This has come in very handy with the recent round of illnesses.

Onto the Week in Review:

I had a tremondous time enjoying some one-on-one time with my niece and nephew.  I don't get this kind of quality time with them that much, so it was really important to me they spend a long weekend with us in the country.

While they were here, we played pirate ship on the hammock...

toured the grounds at UVA....

ate lots of pizza...

toured James Madison's Home....

ran a muck on the grounds and took scenic photos...

pic removed

We fed the horses.

and enjoyed the scenery.

We also played a lot of Uno and 5 card draw poker into the wee hours of the evening!