The Gardening 2014 Thread - I just spent 2 hours in a garden center.

[MoochNNoodles]

Wish I could trade you for some beans!  I think blueberry season is officially over.  I would LOVE some blueberry muffins right now too!  

I just finished making Bread & Butter Pickles with the recipe Pam sent me.  I can't wait to taste test!!  I got 5 jars; but one isn't very full. 

  If I'd known I'd have cut more cucumbers up!  I had prepped 15 jars because it looked like I had so many!  (And I'd hoped to do 2 types tonight.)  They cooked down more than I expected.  

 

[Winchester]

Oh, I hope it works out for you....I tried to make it as easy as I could. The first time I made them with Mom's recipe, I ended up calling her a dozen times, asking all kinds of questions. She got a little peeved and finally said, "Next time, just come up and get me and bring me down to your place for the day!" Which is what I should have done to begin with. But we kept at it and I re-wrote her recipe to try to make it a little easier on me. They are good pickles; I hope you like them. 

Same with her lime pickles.....I had to ask her so many questions. Lime pickles are really good. Nice and crisp. Try them, too. 

Karen, how many blueberry bushes do you have? Our three started to produce fairly well this year, but I didn't get enough for the freezer, just for munching and for some muffins. 

We lost our cucumbers about a month or so after we planted them. Went up to the garden one day and they were gone. Just.....gone. Like they were never there. I think we might try to pick a couple ears of corn today. The husks are browning nicely. I told Rick yesterday that even if we only get two ears of corn, that's two more ears than we got last year; he was not amused. We have little Brussels sprouts growing on the plant stalks; they have a ways to go yet. I think we'll be picking lima beans in about 3 weeks or so. We have a ton of tomatoes on the bushes, but they're just sitting there; they're not ripening at all. We didn't plant green beans this year; we still have a bunch in the freezer.

We gave more zucchini and yellow squash to Rick's mom; she was really happy to get them. Gave her a bunch of green peppers, too. I sliced and diced a bunch or peppers for the freezer, too. I love having frozen chopped and frozen sliced peppers on hand....it sure saves time when I'm preparing dinner throughout the year.

While I was weeding around the peppers and tomatoes yesterday, Rick was working in the strawberry patch. He scared out three baby bunnies. Two of them just ran into the lima bean rows and hunkered down. The third one really flipped out; He ran over to the end of the garden and got caught in the bird netting. Rick was able to get him free, but then he tore out of the garden and ran all the way down into the daylilies and the bonica bush down in the side yard. He was one scared baby. He was able to squeeze out of the little fence openings; he wasn't all that big. Since I had gloves on, I was going to go after him and see if I could bring him back (he's just a baby) and  I didn't want his mama all worried about where he is. But Rick told me to leave him alone; he said the idea is to keep the bunnies OUT of the garden, not bring them back.

It's raining this morning. We're supposed to get t-storms and showers pretty much all day today.

 

[AbbysMom]

We have three mature blueberry bushes. They were here when we moved in 10 years ago. We cover them with net once the blueberries start to turn. Birds always seem to still manage to get in, but so far it hasn't been as bad this year. :cross:

 

[MoochNNoodles]

The pickles smell amazing!  My DD can't wait to taste test! 

  I think it was simple enough.  It does take time to make them; but thats ok.  I managed to make a pizza in between everything (store bought dough) so things worked out.  I didn't get started till my 2 year old was down for a nap and my DH took our 4 year old outside.  I put a DVD in and that makes time fly too!  My Mom has a mandolin slicer from Pampered Chef I'd like to borrow for the next batch!  

I scared a baby bunny off my patio from between all the potted herbs last week.  He/she went running toward my garden... 

It's strange; the zucchini and summer squash look dead and the leaves that are "standing" still have the powdery mildew on them; but there are new, baby leaves near the base of the plants that look very healthy!  I actually picked one summer squash tonight.  I also got a serving of beans and quite a few cherry tomatoes, peppers (banana and bell).  I need to pick carrots!

I'll see if I can add a few pictures from my phone later.  I saw my grasshopper that has lived in my beans all year (We've named him Kristoff).  He is huge now and turning yellow too.  I've never seen a grasshopper do that.  He posed for a few pictures too. 

 

[Winchester]

Do you have a food processor? That will make quick work of slicing those cukes. 

Aw, I really do like grasshoppers. Isn't it funny that we name our insects and stuff? And they're good for bugs, I believe. We had a bullfrog a few summers ago, who was insistent on living in our pool. Rick would take him out and he'd jump back in. His name was Jeremiah (was a Bullfrog

).  We have no idea where he came from....one day, he was just there. I would sit outside on the deck at night and listen to him. At first he wouldn't make a sound if I was outside, but then he got used to me. He was way cool.

OMG, our squash plants are huge! The butternuts are taking over that part of the garden; they're running through the tomatoes and running through the corn stalks. We've got about seven gorgeous butternuts coming along nicely. I laid them atop plastic containers, so they weren't lying on the ground all the time. I go up a couple times a week and turn them. Something's trying to eat them, though; I'm seeing marks on the skins.  Rick asked me what I was going to do with seven butternut squashes. But throughout the fall and winter, I bet I buy more than that at the store. I love to roast it in big chunks with olive oil, kosher salt, and pepper. I make squash muffins and rolls. We'll use them.

I've been reading about trellising squash plants. Evidently, it's quite doable, as long as you sling the squash as it's growing. Who knew you could do that! There was a guy with an 18-pound watermelon that grew in a sling on a fence. I was impressed. And I'm not as crazy as I thought, although Rick says that's debatable. Anyway, the plants found their way over to the fence and they are tendriling up the fence now. I'm letting them go. Next year, I think we'll try to trellis them.

This gardening thing is quite cool. I just wish I had more time to mess around, trying new things.

Karen, I dearly love blueberries. Ours are producing now, but not that much yet; The bushes are only two years old. We net them, but the birds still manage to get to the berries. 

 

[MoochNNoodles]

Jeremiah the bullfrog!  I love it!!  We have Kristoff the grasshopper in the beans (I was seeing him daily for a while; I figured it was ok to be on a first name basis!).  And we have Sven the frog who lives in a little empty flower pot on my front porch.  I've been watering it to keep it moist for him.  He also burrows in in a pot of pansies and has the roots exposed.  But oh well; that one never looked very good anyway.  We keep the front porch light on at night; but even with a bug light he gets PLENTY to eat up there.  It's really a brilliant place for a frog to live! 

  The other night I thought I saw a bat on the porch too.  Our front door is designed so there is glass; but you can't really see through it.  It did not look like another frog!  But it was gone the next day.  

I think I will be harvesting my carrots one day this week.  I've pulled a few and they look good.  I want to get them before they get TOO big or have things eating at them.  The peppers are getting tall.  I should probably go ahead and pull the cukes.  The leaves are all shriveled; but there are a few pretty flowers just staring at me on the vines; so I haven't.  I've ignored the few full size cukes still on the vine. The ends are pointy; weird looking.  Lots of baby ones on there too.  I think I can pull the zucchini too.  The summer squash might produce a little more; there are healthy looking "baby" leaves coming in.  Someone remind me next year to plant LESS of those.  I'm thinking I'd like to add another raised bed for just the summer squash, zucchini and then try melons again.  I haven't succeeded with those yet!   I definitely want to try more peppers!  Just not 4 plants with banana peppers.  Maybe 2 banana, 2 bell and some hot peppers. The little "snacker" ones are nice; but not producing a lot.  I'm wondering if I should have gotten 2 bell or 2 snackers instead of one of each.  I think the pollination might be affected.

 

[Winchester]

Sven! How cute! Not so much the bat, though....you can keep him. Bats come out some nights around here, although we don't have too many anymore. But I'd be lounging around in the pool and I could see the bats flitting around looking for dinner. I don't like them much, although I know how important they are to us. You could call your bat Boris! 

The composter will be here sometime TODAY! 

I am so excited about this thing! Just checked the tracking number. We always have stuff delivered to Rick's parents or here at work because we're not home. Mantis is in PA, so it didn't take long. 

For Rick and I, we plant a good ten pepper plants (at least). Most of them are just green bell peppers, but last year I also planted four Marachi peppers (kind of hot) and some jalapeno plants, too, in addition to our green peppers. I didn't plant anything hot this year as I have enough left over in the freezer. I go through a lot of peppers; consider spaghetti sauce, chili, pizza sauce, tomato sauce, salsa, some kinds of pickles need diced peppers. Omelets and frittatas. I use peppers in some of my cornbread recipes. When I make savory muffins, I use peppers. There's potato salad, macaroni salad, and other pasta salads. A lot of dips call for diced peppers. We go through a ton of chopped and sliced peppers throughout one year. And it is just so much easier to get out a container of chopped peppers from the freezer, thump it on the countertop to loosen up the peppers and throw a bunch into the skillet or kettle when I need them. I keep containers of julienned peppers in the freezer for pizza, for fajitas, for hot sausage sandwiches, and the like. I just julienned two quarts of peppers last night and chopped enough for one quart for the freezer. I have four nice peppers left and I'll use them this week in meals. The plants are still flowering and there are still tons of baby peppers on the plants; as long as they're willing to produce, I'm willing to take them.

I always plant more zucchini than we need and by golly, next year, I'm cutting back to one plant of each! Every time I turn around I'm up there cutting squash. When I brought zucchini and squash down to the house last night, Rick just looked at me and shook his head. We tried carrots last year, but our ground is so clay-ey that they get stunted.

 

[MoochNNoodles]

Boris is a good name for a bat!  Sven and Kristoff are names from the movie Frozen.  My 4 year old is the only little girl I know who DOESN'T love the movie.  Some of my grown up cousins love it.  I enjoyed it.  The only other major character names are Hans and Olaf.  I'm not sure either fits for a bat.  Although Hans was a bad guy. 

I guess I don't use enough peppers.  They do tend to "repeat" on me and I never add them to sauce.  DH and DD like them raw; I like them raw or cooked.  I have a pasta salad that uses a cilantro-lime salsa as a dressing and they are so good in that!  I like getting the orange bells peppers for that though.  DS isn't crazy about them but I'm working on him. 

  My father said he is growing a nice variety of them this year.  I wish he was closer so we could trade.  A friend of mine has tomatoes and peppers like crazy this year; but she's also in another state.  

Whatever I pick for a 'hot' pepper to grow should probably be something versatile.  The only one I buy in stores seems to be a jalapeno here and there.  I suppose I have time to research it.  

 

[Winchester]

Here's stuff from the garden this year....

Veggies2014.jpg

• Winchester
• Aug 7, 2014

I've been hitting the broccoli hard so far. It keeps coming back and I'm so afraid it's going to bolt on me, so as soon as I get some heads, I take them right away. There are a ton of peppers up there and lots of flowers, so they should continue to produce for a while. That big yellow squash? I swear that thing was only about four inches on Sunday night! Somewhere along the line, it got a growth spurt.....I walked up there and holy cow! Where did that thing come from? 

I think it's time to make zucchini bread. I've made zucchini bars with a spiced frosting and zucchini muffins for the freezer. We've given a ton of it to Rick's mom. I've been using one every night. There are still flowers on them, too, so we'll have a few more.

Check out the Marachi pepper, if you can grow them where you live. They're have a bite, but they won't kill you. There's also a medium-hot banana pepper, but I forget what the name of that one is. I grew them a couple years ago. One of my GFs dearly loves peppers, but they don't like her....they repeat on her, too. She can eat a sliver every so often, but that's it. 

 

[mani]

I love all the veggies @Winchester.. so lovely, fresh and healthy!

I just took this today... it has nothing to do with my gardening prowess - just one of my very favourite birds - a Pale Headed Rosella at the birdbath. My house is painted a light blue and pale yellow in their honour.  I had to take it out the window or I would have scared her away.

eastern rosella.jpg

• mani
• Aug 7, 2014

 

[Winchester]

Oh, Mani, how beautiful! That's simply gorgeous!

 

[MoochNNoodles]

Oooh!  Beautiful!  

I have been so focused on veggie gardening; someday i want to make the yard more attractive to birds!  We mostly get "plain' brown birds at our feeders.  And chickadees; which are my favorites.  No goldfinches or bluebirds.  It would be nice to put some hummingbird feeders out and flowers to attract them as well.  My 2 new neighbor cats might not help.  They are such cuties though.  Yesterday I noticed the tuxedo one has some black toes on his socks! 

I'm looking up the Mariachi peppers and making some notes.  They sound like a good option for me!

 

[Winchester]

The composter is put together and is standing guard up at the garden. I mowed lawn yesterday, so we have to bag the excess grass with the mower this morning. I've been diligently saving coffee grounds and tea leaves and all our other kitchen wastes. I even have some of the kids' fur to add to the mix. I have some newspaper shredded and soaked; it's drying a wee bit as I type. Plenty of leaf mold to add to the mix. (Can you tell we have no idea what we're doing?)

I really do like the Marachi peppers. They're bitey, but really good. And as with most peppers, the bite is in the seeds, so if you seed them before slicing, chopping, you should be fine (although they'll still let you know they're there). I don't know if I've mentioned this before, but I always wear gloves when seeding, chopping, slicing any kind of hot pepper. And I wash my hands thoroughly when I'm done. And even then, I'm really careful about rubbing my eyes, caressing the cats, etc. (I buy a box of 100 gloves from my hair stylist; they can be used for working around food. And a box will last a long time.)

The first of the 2014 corn. It's not the best, but it does have a fine taste. We took 25 ears this morning and I think more will be ready by mid-week. We've had corn on the cob now twice and I have four nice ears for dinner tonight.Here is some of it:

FirstCorn2014.jpg

• Winchester
• Aug 10, 2014

 

[MoochNNoodles]

Ooo!  The corn looks nice!  I'm tempted to try growing some. Plus; I'd have the dried stalks for fall decorations! 

 

[AbbysMom]

That is a gorgeous hanging basket @AbbysMom
  I'm going to give that a go!

OK, here you are @MoochNNoodles
and @Winchester
although I am profoundly embarrassed.... This was the most neglected bit of my garden which is why I chose it. :heart4:

There was just a strip along the fence-line so I had do dig up the 'lawn' to make this.  My soil is basically sand.. seriously - I've mixed concrete with it! And the established plants over my neighbour's fence are really greedy and their roots extend forever, so I will have to do a lot of feeding through the leaves.
The only plant that existed was the lemon myrtle (tree).  I don't know whether you've heard of it, Winchester, in your foody travels, but it has the most stunning lemon scent and is used here for cooking, tea, soaps, the lot.  They are an Australian rain forest tree and it will grow to about three times it's current height, at least.

You can't see all the little ground covers in amongst the mulch, the camilia (centre right) has a lot of growing to do, as does the little bird's nest fern way over on the left and the daisy on the right.  Broms are always a great way to fill in gaps quickly while you're waiting for things to grow.
I'm going with a rock border, but it will take time as it's quite a job getting them home, so there are a few, and in the interim I've just used old concrete borders I had lying around.

So, I could do with something more to the left of the garden that will handle sandy soil and shade... I'm always building my soil up, of course, but it's a constant job with sand. 
That's St Francis watching over it all.

P7251189.JPG

• mani
• Jul 23, 2014

I don't know how I missed this! It's lovely! Those rocks are huge! I can see where it will take time. :nod:

 

[mani]

Thanks AbbysMom..   I've put in some more plants, and more rocks.  I'll post when things grow a bit more.. we are in the sub-tropics, and spring is coming, so it shouldn't be too long...

 

[Winchester]

Update to composter.....we just received the thermometer and plant moisture meter yesterday; it was included in the price of the composter, but was shipped separately. We started a pile of compost on Sunday, but had no way to really test it until yesterday. The temp was only around 138 degrees F or so, which is low now, but it probably was higher on Monday; when I opened it on Monday, we could see the steam coming out of the composter (temp on Monday should have been about 160 degrees, but we couldn't test it). Then Tuesday, we got a ton of rain and some of it did go into the unit, which, no doubt, cooled it down. They said to smell it for the first week and it does lightly smell of ammonia (from the nitrogen), but not overly so and it certainly doesn't smell bad or foul or anything like that. Everything is breaking down fairly well, so that's good. We used 70 bushels of fresh grass clippings, layered in with kitchen leavings and 14 bushels of old, dried very-well-shredded leaves. I also learned that one bushel is kind of the equivalent of two 5-gallon pails. (See the stuff you learn when gardening?) It's a 4 to 1 ratio of greens (fresh grass clippings and kitchen wastes) and such to (browns) dead shredded leaves.  As we go, I'll add more black-white newspaper, shredded and soaked, and other stuff. This was strictly a trial run and we did it according to the instructions for a trial run.

The temp is higher for the first four days or so, then gradually cools back down to match the outside temp. I forgot to mention that it's right around 50% moist, which is supposed to be pretty good. 

We bought a bag of blood meal, which acts as a compost activator and we'll try it with our next batch. This batch still has a good week or so to develop. 

Meanwhile, this weekend, Rick is going to put the old compost bin back together to hold plant materials and weeds that are fresh, that we haven't shredded down yet. He's thinking about dividing the bin in half, half to store stuff that has not been shredded and the other half to store shredded stuff. Much of the shredded stuff will compost down on its own, I think, in time. I have a lidded compost container that I'm keeping in the fridge and I store used coffee grounds, peelings and such from vegetables, and rinsed out eggshells. Dry cat food that's leftover from a snack. Stuff like that. No meat, no dairy. 

His dad has had a shredder/chipper for years and he kept after Rick to go up and get it. Well, we finally have a need for it, so it's now in our basement (something else for the basement! 

 ) It will get used hard during the summer and fall.

Stay tuned!

 

[kathyfromcanada]

I've been hitting the broccoli hard so far. It keeps coming back and I'm so afraid it's going to bolt on me, so as soon as I get some heads, I take them right away. There are a ton of peppers up there and lots of flowers, so they should continue to produce for a while. That big yellow squash? I swear that thing was only about four inches on Sunday night! Somewhere along the line, it got a growth spurt.....I walked up there and holy cow! Where did that thing come from? 

I think it's time to make zucchini bread. I've made zucchini bars with a spiced frosting and zucchini muffins for the freezer. We've given a ton of it to Rick's mom. I've been using one every night. There are still flowers on them, too, so we'll have a few more.

Check out the Marachi pepper, if you can grow them where you live. They're have a bite, but they won't kill you. There's also a medium-hot banana pepper, but I forget what the name of that one is. I grew them a couple years ago. One of my GFs dearly loves peppers, but they don't like her....they repeat on her, too. She can eat a sliver every so often, but that's it. 

Awesome looking product Pam!!

 

[kathyfromcanada]

 
Update to composter.....we just received the thermometer and plant moisture meter yesterday; it was included in the price of the composter, but was shipped separately. We started a pile of compost on Sunday, but had no way to really test it until yesterday. The temp was only around 138 degrees F or so, which is low now, but it probably was higher on Monday; when I opened it on Monday, we could see the steam coming out of the composter (temp on Monday should have been about 160 degrees, but we couldn't test it). Then Tuesday, we got a ton of rain and some of it did go into the unit, which, no doubt, cooled it down. They said to smell it for the first week and it does lightly smell of ammonia (from the nitrogen), but not overly so and it certainly doesn't smell bad or foul or anything like that. Everything is breaking down fairly well, so that's good. We used 70 bushels of fresh grass clippings, layered in with kitchen leavings and 14 bushels of old, dried very-well-shredded leaves. I also learned that one bushel is kind of the equivalent of two 5-gallon pails. (See the stuff you learn when gardening?) It's a 4 to 1 ratio of greens (fresh grass clippings and kitchen wastes) and such to (browns) dead shredded leaves.  As we go, I'll add more black-white newspaper, shredded and soaked, and other stuff. This was strictly a trial run and we did it according to the instructions for a trial run.

The temp is higher for the first four days or so, then gradually cools back down to match the outside temp. I forgot to mention that it's right around 50% moist, which is supposed to be pretty good. 

We bought a bag of blood meal, which acts as a compost activator and we'll try it with our next batch. This batch still has a good week or so to develop. 

Meanwhile, this weekend, Rick is going to put the old compost bin back together to hold plant materials and weeds that are fresh, that we haven't shredded down yet. He's thinking about dividing the bin in half, half to store stuff that has not been shredded and the other half to store shredded stuff. Much of the shredded stuff will compost down on its own, I think, in time. I have a lidded compost container that I'm keeping in the fridge and I store used coffee grounds, peelings and such from vegetables, and rinsed out eggshells. Dry cat food that's leftover from a snack. Stuff like that. No meat, no dairy. 

His dad has had a shredder/chipper for years and he kept after Rick to go up and get it. Well, we finally have a need for it, so it's now in our basement (something else for the basement! 

 ) It will get used hard during the summer and fall.

Stay tuned!

Also didn't know you could use Blood meal as a compost activator. Thanks for the tip!

 

[Winchester]

Here is the correct recipe for the compost, at least for our tumbler.....I had it way, way wrong above, it's not in bushels!

70 gallons of fresh grass clippings and/or kitchen waste (7-1/2 bushels)

14 gallons of sawdust and/or shredded dead leaves (1-1/2 bushels)

And 1 bushel is approximately equal to two 5-gallon pails

If you think you need it, add 8 ounces of blood meal to the mix; it's acts as an activator. 

Kathy, alfalfa meal also works well as a compost activator, if blood meal is not available.

Rick worked on putting our old compost bin back together this afternoon. While he worked on that, I did some clipping around trees and clipped off all the spent flowers from the hosta. Did some dead-heading, too.

Someday I will learn not to walk up to the garden without my produce basket. I roasted Roma tomatoes for one quart of roasted chunky tomato sauce for the freezer. While the tomatoes were roasting, I put some new tomatoes in the basement (they weren't quite ripe yet, but if I don't take them while they're ripening, then they'll get root rot or they'll split in half) to finish ripening. And chopped two quarts of green peppers for the freezer. Took one zucchini and two yellow squash today, too.

The lima beans have pods, but the bean aren't completely filled out yet. Some of our Brussels sprouts plants have some nice-looking sprouts, but they're not ready to be taken yet. We will be picking corn, probably Monday or Tuesday night; that may be it then for the corn. The corn that we re-planted is coming along, but I don't know if we'll get any ears. And the butternuts look just lovely!