OH MY GOSH....I grew a sweet potato!

So, I was outside, sweating profusely, covering the garden with plastic because it's bug spray day... and I happened to notice that there are furrows developing in one of my sweet potato mounds.




On closer examination I realized that I could see a sweet potato!

There were 2 showing. One of them is below. I don't think that the neck is supposed to curve like that, but heck, I'm guessing a probably have a million sweet potatoes out there...I went back to my garden planning notebook and realized that I planted the slips on 17 April, which means that they have been in the ground about 100 days or so...WOW.

Tomorrow I will have to inspect all my sweet potato mounds and pull out any that are showing above ground. My research indicates that I will then leave them in a basket to dry or "cure" for about 10 days, and I should be able to store them.

And a few recipes...

Cindy asked about recipes for the veggies I showed a few posts back. They're super simple.

Tomato and Cucumber Salad

Chop tomatoes and cucumbers. Mix with one or two cloves of crushed garlic, thinly sliced onions to taste, and freshly chopped basil. Add light dressing of olive oil and vinegar (balsamic or apple cider). Salt. Mix it all together and let rest (in fridge, or out if you're going to eat it in the next hour or so). Sometimes I also thinly slice mini red bells or jalepenos if I have them.

Green Beans and Yellow Squash

I steam the green beans and cut yellow squash until it's al dente. Spread them on a broiler pan (I use the little broiler pan in the toaster oven). Drizzle with olive oil. Sprinkle with salt, ground red pepper and shredded parmesian cheese. Bake until the parmesian is just beginning to get golden. Then enjoy!

And finally...FALL

Sorry for all the catch-up posts at one time.

As I've mentioned, I'm thinking about fall. We borrowed a tiller, and this past week my husband set to work tilling us up a new plot for fall, the same size as the one we're currently using for spring. Eventually I want to rotate them, using one for spring, one for fall, and leaving one fallow or planting a cover crop on it. He got the whole thing tilled up, and the grass is actually dying in the heat, which means his tiller did a better job than my months of shovel work. (Go figure). He's going to till all that dead grass under again so he can get deeper. This coming weekend I'll fence it all in and bring home bags of compost manure and then he'll till that in. At that point, I'll be gearing up to plant. Mostly root veggies, as well as chard, spinach, lettuce, broccoli, kale, cauliflower. I want to concentrate on really producing some carrots this time, which I have not gotten to grow successfully yet. I'm still tweaking my garden plan...

Various other things

We harvested our onions - too late, apparently, as I lost about half of the beautiful perfect things to rot. My bad.

Sigh.

They had started to fall over, but the green tops hadn't died off, and for some reason (wrong, apparently) I was thinking I had to leave them in till September or so. My husband brought in the first batch. I nearly had a coniption fit when I saw him walking back up to the house with his arms full of onions.

"What are you doing! They're not ready! They don't have thier paper skins!"

"Some of them are rotting. These were all sitting above ground. I think they're done."

"Then you're not supposed to bring them in. I think you're supposed to pull them up and leave them out there to dry up or something..."

I wasn't really upset with him, of course, but at myself for being so unprepared to deal with them. I went back out the next day and there were two more decent ones, which I pulled up and left to lay there in the hot dirt for the day. They actually dried up on the outside and did get papery, and now they're in the vestibule in front of an open window getting a few more days of hot air.

So the good news is that this is my onion! (Sung to the tune of "This is my country" it's kind of catchy....) The bad news is that I only got half the crop that I should have. The other good news is that I am well-prepared for great improvement next spring, in onions, as in so many other things.....

The yellow wax beans I planted for a second crop of beans are flowering, as are the second crop of bush beans. Good thing too, as the bush beans are only producing about 20% of what they were previously. I was talking to someone at my daughter's dance class who was saying that they don't produce all summer, so maybe it's not just me....

I FINALLY started to get some color action on these Anaheim peppers. Only two, and too late, as they had both already started getting eaten by bugs or succoming to come kind of rot. I am really not having luck with my big peppers. I didn't last year either. I think that IS just me. Jalepenos and Serranos are still kicking.

My cucumbers are dying back. Like the bush beans they've slowed production almost to a halt. Although I truly can't complain. We ate dozens raw, and ended up overall with about 24 or more pints of pickles. Not bad for 3 plants I sprouted from seed!

Here's my basket from yesterday. As I said, no complaints!

Holy Tomatoes!

Well, the heirloom tomatoes are really popping now, and starting to earn thier keep! So we've gone into preservation mode around here, learning as we go, and exercising that hot water canner!

A local area food program that I participate in here in Southern Maryland is selling heirloom tomatoes for $4 a pound. My kitchen window has pretty much looked like this - rotating tomatoes through to finish ripening before being turned into some product (BBQ sauce, canned tomatoes or spaghetti sauce) - for over a week now. And we've eaten plenty raw in salads, and have given some away. I'd say the $25 investment for the 6 transplants was WELL worth the money. And boy are they tasty. Thank you Tasteful Garden!!!!

A batch of fresh, ripe yellow tomatoes ready to be processed....

Here they are in the pot, smothered in spices, ready to go. Full disclosure - I was actually following a recipe I got online for ketchup, but it was so spicy and tangy, it definitely tasted more like BBQ sauce, and that's what we've been using it for. One night I also poured it over meatloaf at the last minute and put it in the toaster oven. That was delicious.

This is my second batch, done yesterday, with almost exclusively dark tomatoes. It was great. I didn't process the cans, just filled them up hot and let them cool, and they sealed. But I'm keeping them in the fridge. I'm sure we'll use it up in the next few months.

You Win Some, You Lose Some

Gosh, I have a LOT to report.

I have to say that overall I am definitely doing better this year than last year. No doubt. And though I've had plenty of disappointments, everything seems to have a silver lining. Case in point, I have been lamenting the July demise of my zucchinni plants, two years running now. All evidence points to squash vine borers. I have done limited research on these little critters, but what I have done seems to suggest that at some point in early spring these moths lay thier eggs on or in the plants, and that after the eggs hatch and begin to eat the plant, the plant usually dies around mid July. This certainly seems to be the case with my zucs. But here's the thing. My yellow crookneck squash are doing beautifully, and they are virtually identical to the zucs only thier fruit looks different, so I would have to assume that they are also succeptible to the borers. I didn't put them in the garden until after I had harvested the last of the turnips and radishes and beets, 13 June, as opposed to the zucchini which were set out in May. So what I'm thinking is that maybe next year I can put out a squash and a zuc in May, and follow up with more plants in mid June, so that if (make that WHEN) the first round dies in July, I will keep getting both veggies from the new plants, my theory being that I may have missed the egg-laying stage with the crookneck squash and so they didn't end up with borers. I figure it's worth a shot. I've made a note for next spring.

I harvested some potatoes this week. This plant seemed to be falling over, and I was out of potatoes, and anyway I was just dying to know what the heck is going on in there, so I pulled it up.


This is what potatoes look like when they're growing.

The good news is that they were delicious. The bad news is that there weren't as many as I had hoped. The silver lining is that I think I can do better next year. I think that the potato "cages" were probably a good idea, but that I still did not manage to keep these potato plants hilled up enough to encourage maximum production from them. I'm thinking that next year I will not plant them in mounds to start, and that I may set them aside in their own garden plot and make it a raised bed so that I can keep adding soil to it. I think that I had way too much foliage showing. Next year I will also plant horseradish with the potatoes, as that's supposed to help deter the potato beetles. My potato beetles did not turn out to be a major problem, and next year I will be vigilant about looking for those eggs before I have to start crushing beetles.

My main project this week was to do a major pickle canning project. I bought a hot water bath canner and some mason jars, and set to it.

The good news is that the tweaking I did to the recipe after tasting my refridgerator pickles was perfect, it corrected the flavor in exactly the way that I wanted. The other good news is that although it seems like a lot is going on at one time, which can be kind of flustering, I'm not afraid of canning anymore as a concept. All my jars sealed - we listened to the "ping" of the jars sealing all evening, which was pretty cool.

The bad news is that I put one of these jars in the fridge for a couple of days and then opened it to taste. As I said, it tasted great, but the pickles turned out to be rather limp, which didn't happen with the refridgerator pickles. I think this is because I let the jars sit in the canner while the water was warming and coming to a boil, so they spent WAY too much time in hot water, rather than just being put in for the 10 minutes of boiling time. I want to try again. I'm also thinking I should see if I can do some research to ID the problem so I don't have it again, but to be honest with you I'm a little reluctant to Google "limp pickle". Heaven only knows what I might end up with.

I guess that more or less wraps up the week. I had my first sweet potato bloom this week. How surprising and lovely. I didn't know they would bloom. (Duh).

I am going to have a melon before this coming week is up, I just know it.

Here's one of the harvests I brought in one day this week. That yellow taxi is still alive and pumping out ripe tomatoes.

And here's some veggies we had for dinner! Yum!

This time with photos

Well, I had to pull this up today. It DOES have borers. The stem is turning to mush.


The bush baby zucchini though does not seem to have that problem. The part dying off is closest to the stem, and it seems to be vining out through the garden. All the new, dark green leaves are at the end, and it's still putting out fruit. We'll see what happens.

Here's my first yellow crookneck. I'm having this for dinner tonight.

Yesterday I made my first ever pickles! Refridgerator version. I'm definitely going to make more. We tried them tonight and they were quite tasty. I've also been picking the cuckes much smaller in anticipation of making more pickles. I specifically got pickling cucumbers. I need to get some jars so I can make some to can for longer storage.

Here's a basket from a few days ago...

The melon patch is going nuts. I'm still waiting for that first ripe canteloupe. I have canteloupe (muskmelon) and "Old Melon" which has white flesh. I can't wait!

And the final bit of news....I'm getting geared up for fall. At the moment I'm planning to do everything from seed. Here are my first babies - broccoli (on either side) and red kale (in the flat of 6 in the middle). Though I was reading today that I could just direct sow the kale...I bought transplants last year so I figured that's what I'd do. I got serious with the potting medium this time, 9 parts peat moss and 1 part perlite - more or less. The packets say 10 - 20 days till the seedlings emerge but it took about 24 - 36 hours. Unbelievable. And since I used a clean potting medium this time and not dirt from my back yard I'm pretty sure it's actually the seeds that I planted coming up, and not just weeds (ha ha)!

Things went well enough this spring that I have high hopes for them....

Feeling a little discouraged this evening...

Well, that yellow tomato plant I showed you a picture of yesterday today has an entire dead limb on it. Yesterday, it was only the suckers (?) the small limbs that had no flowers or fruit on them that were dying and dropping off. I pulled a bunch of ripening tomatoes off of there today.

I'm also worried about my zucchinis. I took some photos but my husband has made off with the camera this evening so I can't post them. They're yellowing wilting - the EXACT same thing that happened to me last year at the exact same time of year. Much web research this evening suggests that zucs affected by vine borers tend to die in mid July. But I don't see any evidence that that's the problem. The stems seem sturdy, intact, and fine. I still have a lot of green leaves, and a lot of new growth leaves that are a rich dark green. Also, the bush baby zucchini seems to be making it's way across the garden, and it's the older leaves that are yellowing and falling off as the part producing fruit has moved up the new plant...Promise photos later. Tomorrow I hope.

Tonight I fed the carmen, anaheim and yellow bell plants with the tomato tone. They're just bursting with huge green peppers, all of them, that just don't seem to get ripe. The bigger the peppers are the more likely they are to get ripe so slowly that the walls start getting thin on them. I haven't had good luck with the bigger peppers, though the serranos and jalepenos are growing like gangbusters...

On the bright side, I made my first batch of refridgerator pickles today. I'm excited. I need to get myself some canning jars and lids and take the plunge with the canning. This week! I should have plenty of ripe tomatoes by the end of this week. My melons are coming along nicely. I'm still picking beans. I'm also still hoping for a big potato and sweet potato harvest.....

I'm planning for fall. I've sprouted some broccoli seeds and kale seeds over the past few days and I have them under the grow light, hoping for a dozen or so robust transplants for Sept. I think I'll do the cauliflower next...

A few things...

Well, my container garden plans really haven't worked out so well. Neither zucchini, nor squash, nor cucumber seem suited to containers and I've had to pull them all up and throw them out. My one Bush Tomato is looking pretty peaked too; the same variety in the Topsy Turvey isn't making it either. I do have three carrots coming up in a pot. And my two transplanted eggplants are doing nicely, though they're still little. Maybe I can bring them inside in the fall and have eggplant for Christmas.



Most of my tomato plants are lush and huge, but not with huge amounts of fruit.

This little bugger, on the other hand, is FULL of fruit, and looks low and stunted. I haven't done anything to it (no sucker pinching, etc.) but it certainly is putting all its efforts into developing fruit and not into developing foliage. I guess that's good?

Here's what I collected Monday...

And here's Tuesday. The greenish looking tomato on the left is one of those big pear-shaped ones. It's actually quite large, and the bottom of this one is yellow, though you can't see it in the picture. Stealing shamefully from someone else's blog I decided to line these up on a window-sill in the kitchen to ripen, as it looked so cheerful.

The marigold's are my daughter's contribution to the harvest. She loves to pick them, and as we have TONS I don't mind. She's discovered all sorts of neat insects and her fear of bees has become a fascination. We like to watch them together, and talk about what they're doing. One of her favorite movies is Bees. It's cute, and a good learning tool for talking about what goes on in the garden. I bring the marigolds in and float them in a crystal bowl of water for a centerpiece. It looks nice, and they last for a week or so...

New Potatoes, Melons, and More on the Evils of Pesticides....

I wanted to try some “new potatoes” this week, so I dug out a few. At one of the potato plants I ended up being up to my wrists in ants – not good! Anyway, I just took a few of these banana fingerling potatoes, and roasted them in olive oil, and let me tell you, I have never tasted a potato with such a delicate, round, sweetish flavor, they were UNBELIEVABLE. It makes me realize that I’ve probably never had a fresh potato. WOW. Can’t wait till I can harvest more. I hope I have a lot of them!




Here’s Thursday’s harvest. I’m picking at least a half colander of green beans daily. We’re eating them, and I’ve already frozen quite a bit.

I have melons!

As far as our bug spray saga goes…

I called the County extension office and the woman that answered the phone told me to call the Maryland Dept of Agriculture and gave me that number. So I did, and the man I talked to said the product is called "Biomist" (something else is mixed with the permethrin) and that it stays aloft for about an hour, after which point it either "evaporates" (his word) or settles on a surface. My research indicates that it'll stay in the soil up to 30 days, is detectable in foliage for up to 10, that it is not absorbable by human skin, and that it is fairly easy to wash off, as it degrades quickly in water and sunlight. The man at the MDA told me "it won't hurt my garden", not to "eat anything fresh and unwashed out of the garden", but that if I wash everything it'll be fine. This seems like common sense to me and not really the answer I'm looking for, as I don't want it to be on the produce at all, but that was the response I got when I was asking about whether or not covering the garden would keep it from getting on the garden. All of my research thus far suggests to me that covering the garden should keep it off the plants and out of the soil where the plants roots are for the most part. So we’ll be diligently covering again this Monday. I will also need to cover a new plot with black plastic in the not too distant future to keep the permethrin out of the soil where I’m going to dig up the fall garden. I figured I might as well kill two birds with one stone, keep the pesticide off and kill the grass all in one go.

If anyone is interested, I also found out after last week's hysterical panic that permethrin is a main ingredient (37%) in the flea and tick product I have been putting on my dogs. Hmmn. Apparently you can also buy permethrin at places that sell camping equipment and people soak their clothes and camping gear in it. Yuck. I know from the Internet that many states use this stuff in their public mosquito control programs. They crop dusted the gulf coast with it after Hurricane Katrina. All of which is to say that the stuff seems to be ubiquitous; and I don't find that comforting so much as extremely disturbing. If you're interested, of all the websites I found about permethrin, this (link below) seems to be the most balanced - that is, it considers the possibility that this could be harmful (it’s an endocrine disruptor…anyone see The Colbert Report this week????) in addition to repeating all of the "this is basically safe" information that is out there.

C:\Documents and Settings\Owner\My Documents\Home\TEDX ? Pesticides Permethrin Citizen's Guide.htm