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Here in west central Indiana, we probably have a month and a half of growing season remaining. Of course, with the amount of daylight getting shorter each day, those days aren't quite like the long growing days of May, June, and July. For the month of September, we'll still be in full gardening mode, harvesting, canning, and freezing. Other than transplanting some late lettuce and starting our garlic next month, we're done planting for the year. Well, I did order five pounds of hairy winter vetch to plant as a winter and spring cover crop for our East Garden plot.
I moved 23 pounds of onions to our basement plant room yesterday. I had trouble finding room for them, as we've also had a good garlic harvest this year. In clearing a spot on a wire rack, I ran across 3 Waltham butternut squash saved last November. They appeared to still be in good shape.
BTW: Those aren't all computers on the rack pictured at left. There's the 2018 Mac Mini and a 2010 Mac Mini on the middle rack. The other units are external and backup drives. The rack is a Seville Classics, not necessarily designed for holding computing equipment. But after cooking several Mac Minis over the years, I thought some air circulation around the units might be a good investment.
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When I got up and dressed this morning, I put on a flannel shirt as it was just 52° F outside! That's quite a change from the high temperatures and warm nights of a week or so ago. Fall is obviously on the way. With our local food bank closed for Labor Day for its usual Monday food distribution, I hauled a load of sixteen melons to the food bank's porch today. Folks will stop by, drop off stuff and and pick up what they need. Due to the Coronavirus, the food bank has been drive through only for some time. The Clothes Closet/Free Store has been closed other than a couple of special back to school openings as well. I remember last fall when I dropped off two huge, beautiful Wandering Jew plants at the food bank's porch. As I drove away, I saw in my rear view mirror someone loading one of the plants into her car. It hadn't been on the porch for sixty seconds! Hopefully, the free melons may brighten someone's holiday.
I also included a few yellow squash. Our two remaining hills of Slick Piks aren't producing much anymore. I noticed a mature squash bug on one plant today. But we also have a couple of new Slick Pik yellow squash that I recently transplanted into our main raised garden bed that are beginning to bloom. The new plants are showing a bit of powdery mildew, so they'll need to be sprayed with fungicide this evening.
I keep thinking our hummingbirds have begun migrating south. We'll have a day or so of reduced activity and nectar consumption, followed by a big uptick in activity. I'm guessing that some of the birds that were here for the summer have left, but that we have migrants stopping by to refuel on their way south. Today, action at our feeders was pretty intense. Labor Day Weekend
An article in the New York Post, Fauci warns these 7 states are at risk for COVID-19 surge over Labor Day weekend, quotes Dr. Anthony Fauci as saying, "There are several states that are at risk for surging, namely North Dakota, South Dakota, Iowa, Arkansas, Missouri, Indiana, Illinois." Fauci noted that Illinois and Indiana are one, two in cases and deaths from the disease of the states named at risk. So, enjoy your holiday weekend, but play it safe and stay healthy. Sunday, September 6, 2020 - Seed Saving
Along with a pint jar of Japanese Long Pickling cucumber seed on our kitchen counter are quart jars of fermenting Moira and Earlirouge tomato seed. I've previously saved some Red Pearl and Quinte tomato seed that are now drying on a high shelf in our dining room. I have germination tests, an essential part of seed saving, running on the Red Pearls and Quintes.
We've also saved seed from Goliath broccoli, an early pea cross of Champion of England and Maxigolt, parsley, and gloxinias. We had a major failure this year in saving Eclipse and Encore supersweet pea seed. I have just enough seed of those two varieties left for one more planting next season. Note that the Red Pearl, Eclipse, and Encore varieties are patented (PVP) which prevents me from sharing any of those seeds with others. Corn Smut
Smut often appears first on ones corn tassels. It later will occur lower on the stalk, at the base of the plant, and even inside the wrappers of ears of corn. It will often appear to be whitish with some purple showing as it progresses. The images here are end-of-season ones. I have some possibly better images of smut in our how-to, Growing a Garden Delicacy: Sweet Corn. Pumpkins in September I mentioned on Tuesday that most of the vines of one of our pumpkin varieties had collapsed. When out working in our East Garden plot today, I cut six small, ripe pumpkins. I moved them to the drying/curing table in our garage. I have no plans for these pumpkins other than sharing them with my wife's co-workers or the food bank. Lots of Tomatoes
While our lawn is beginning to look like a jungle, I chose to can tomatoes today instead of mowing. There were enough tomatoes to fill more then seven quart jars. Unfortunately, one of the jars broke in the water bath canner even before I started the boiling and canning process. I'll have to wash the jars of canned tomatoes before storing them in our downstairs pantry. But we did get six more quarts of canned whole tomatoes. We should get at least one more heavy picking of tomatoes from our combined tomato plantings. That should produce enough canned tomatoes to last us until next season. Computer Upgrade Complete? I added what I hope is the last new piece of new equipment to my office computer setup. I installed a new APC UPS Battery Backup & Surge Protector. It seems to have taken the pressure off of my old battery backup unit which is still online protecting some less essential hardware. I also hooked up a very old G-Raid external drive that I use to back up my 2010 Mac Mini system. I'm still fussing with getting essential files moved onto the new system and figuring out how to add my favorite toolbars to several applications. But after a month of using a makeshift array of computers to publish this site, it's nice to have what I hope is a reliable system in place for the next few years.
I composted the vines, a few rotting cukes, and the grass clipping mulch. The T-posts, of course, got put away for next season. I also saved the trellis netting, although I may just buy new netting, as it's easier to deal with than used netting. I'd planned to till the cucumber area. I spread lime and fertilizer over the ground, only the find that our old walking tiller wouldn't start! I think I flooded it, but even starting ether wouldn't get it to fire. If the tiller cooperates or I turn the area by hand, it will get some fall lettuce and spinach planted in it.
From our garden, the soup will include kale, of course, and onions, garlic, tomatoes, dark red kidney beans, carrots, green beans, peas, and possibly some sweet corn. Purchased ingredients include chicken broth with bits of chicken and potatoes. Watering has returned to being a regular chore as we're again experiencing droughty conditions. Picking tomatoes and occasionally a few peppers is something fairly new. Pulling weeds that have defeated the mulch in our raised beds is almost automatic when walking by the beds. And hauling small loads of produce to our local food bank is now a twice a week activity. While the food bank got some melons, tomatoes, and peppers yesterday, the big/small item in the delivery was ten sandwich bags filled with grape tomatoes! Our Red Pearl and Honey Bunch plants are going nuts producing nice, ripe grape tomatoes. Having taken out our big trellises today, it's obvious we're into some of our End-of-Season Gardening Chores. Besides pulling the trellises, I've been cutting down a few corn stalks every few days and composting them. It won't be long until our melon vines are done and I can begin cleaning that half of our East Garden plot.
Saturday, September 12, 2020 - Kidney Beans
While Fedco lists a days-to-maturity figure for their red kidney beans of 102 days, ours were ready today at just 84 days from planting! That's what we've consistently experienced with these beans. I look for the bean pods to be just about ready to split open on their own to time our harvest. Today, I found several pods that had burst, making it high time to start picking. I first picked a small bucket of beans and came inside and shelled them. Knowing that we have a rare rain predicted for this evening, I went back out with a much bigger bucket and picked the rest of the twenty-two foot row of beans. I didn't want the beans in the row picking up moisture from a rain. While one can thresh kidney beans by banging the plants around in a trash can or a similar container, I prefer to hand shell the beans. That way, I catch small, immature beans and ones that have mold on them while shelling. After shelling, the beans sit and dry for a week or two on a cookie sheet on a high shelf in our dining room. Some of the dried beans will be frozen for future planting. I may can some of them as well, as it's far easier to make refried beans from canned beans than from dried beans that have been soaked and cooked. I'll probably store some of the harvest as dry beans in our pantry. And with our kidney beans picked, I now have all the ingredients laid in for our annual batch of Portuguese Kale Soup. Over the years, I've found kidney beans to be really easy to grow. You plant them as your would any other bean variety. I hold weeds down with grass clipping mulch around the row. After planting and mulching, the beans really don't require any care until harvest. I find that insect pests, raccoons, and deer don't much like kidney bean plants. That may be due to kidney beans being poisonous until they are cooked! Our how-to, Growing Beans, covers growing most types of beans. And those recipes, again: I'm guessing that I'll be shelling beans until late tonight. Monday, September 14, 2020 - More Melons
The food bank also got a few red peppers, a yellow squash, and several sacks of grape tomatoes. Our Honey Bunch grape tomato plant is now maturing lots of lovely red, grape tomatoes. Besides the grape tomatoes, I picked enough Quinte tomatoes to do another batch of them for seed saving. I wasn't too thrilled with the germination test of the first batch I saved, although I'm repeating the test in case I somehow goofed with it. The rest of our tomato plants also yielded a good picking. I'm building up enough fresh tomatoes to use fresh instead of canned in our soon-to-be-made annual batch of Portuguese Kale Soup. Thursday, September 17, 2020 - Kale Soup
I'm cleaning up this morning after a multi-day effort at making our annual batch of Portuguese Kale Soup. I started preparations for the soup on Tuesday by boiling down some bone-in, skin-on chicken breasts, freezing the fileted breast meat and boning the carcasses for meat. I usually have saved chicken and broth for this recipe stored in our big freezer. But when I looked there, I only found containers dated 2018 and 2019! I ended up having to add a good bit of commercial chicken broth. I also added some fresh skinned tomatoes to the broth on Tuesday. Yesterday, I was out picking kale leaves by ten o'clock. It took two five gallon buckets of pressed down kale leaves to make eleven quarts of the canned soup. I finished the canning around midnight. Part of the time in making the soup involves inspecting each kale leaf for bugs or bug eggs. I found a few as I rinsed and stemmed the kale leaves. I'd also soaked the leaves for a half hour before stemming them. This morning's chores included washing and putting away our pressure canner and storing the canned soup in our basement pantry. While I'd like to take a day off to rest, I think there is a bumper crop of ripe tomatoes in our East Garden that will need to be picked today and canned either today or tomorrow. What a nice problem to have! Later
Trips to the food bank have become a twice a week ritual last month and this month. It appears that we have enough melons still ripening for at least one or maybe two more loads of melons for the food bank. After that, there won't be much to donate until our pumpkins come in and later, our butternuts. Friday, September 18, 2020 - More Canned Tomatoes
Having said that, I didn't work outside at all today. I canned tomatoes instead. The seven quarts canned this afternoon gives us twenty-three quarts and a pint in our pantry, pretty close to my goal of twenty-five quarts canned. If we get another big picking of tomatoes, I'll probably break out our old Squeezo Strainer and make tomato purée. (Note that the Amazon page linked says the strainer isn't currently available. The manufacturer's web site shows a seventeen week wait for orders!) Our new backup power supply got its first extended test around suppertime. Our power was out for about a half hour. The UPS's display showed about seventy minutes of backup power left when the power came back on. Saturday, September 19, 2020 - Cucumber Seed
In a break from my usual practice, I harvested the seed into a 1.5 liter plastic bowl, as I feared my usual quart seed saving jar would be too small. I prefer using glass, as the fermentation process can scar plastic containers. Also, the snap top of the bowl might blow off as the fermentation process produces pressure. But due to the seed volume, I went with a cheap plastic bowl. I also harvested seed from some Hungarian Spice paprika peppers this afternoon. Only one of our plants produced nice peppers, and I let those go to seed for seed saving. Of course, the plants went into some pretty rough ground, so I'll just be happy with what we got. I've found peppers to be a vegetable not tolerant of poor soil. Wednesday, September 23, 2020 - Making Tomato Purée
It took three trips to the basement and back to bring up the canning jars, lids, rings, water bath canner, and parts of two Squeezo Strainers. Our old Squeezo leaked liquid pretty badly, so an old friend gave us parts of one she'd picked up at a garage sale. It also leaked a bit, but not as bad as our old one. With a Squeezo, one could omit the steps of coring and peeling the tomatoes. Since the tomato skins tend to clog up the filter on the strainer, I went ahead and peeled the tomatoes to be puréed. Taking out the stem and blossom ends of the tomatoes is also a good time to cut out any bad spots. Heating the tomatoes for peeling seems to release more juice and pulp for the purée. I had buckets of tomatoes to process. When I'd run them all through the strainer, the resulting liquid pretty well filled an eight quart kettle. Writing this posting mid-afternoon, it will be late evening before I begin canning the purée. Update 9/24/2020: Boiled down to about half its volume, we got six and a half pints of tomato sauce/purée. Here are a couple of step-by-step how-to's on making tomato purée. I've noticed that online recipes for it vary a bit in method, as my way of doing it does from the ones linked below. • The Spruce Eats: Tomato Purée by Molly Watson I picked our first butternut squash yesterday...by accident. I stumbled over it when walking through the high grass that has taken over our East Garden plot. It was an extremely long butternut. Later today, I hope to find one last ripe watermelon to bring in and cut. I brought one in yesterday, but it wasn't quite ripe, although its vine had died. I think our wonderful melon season is finally over. The drought has pretty well killed all of our melon vines. I've been a little lazy in updating this site of late. I've also been taking it rather easy with my gardening. I try to do one big job each day, but sometimes even that doesn't happen. I've been regularly saving seed from our open pollinated plantings. The last two seed savings were of Hungarian Spice paprika pepper seed and Earliest Red Sweet bell pepper seed. Each seed saving requires a subsequent germination test (or two, sometimes). There's no sense in saving bad seed. We're down to just one hummingbird feeder on our back porch. Even at this late date, we still have one or two hummingbirds visiting the feeder. Today's big gardening job was the sad task of clearing out our melon rows. There were lots of melons of various sizes to be moved to our compost pile. The melon vines had died due to our recent drought, leaving the melons almost ripe. I backed our pickup truck into the melon rows a little at a time to load the melons, some of which must have weighed forty pounds. The melons on the compost pile all got a whack with a machete/corn knife to speed their decomposition. I was also chopping out and composting the last of our sweet corn stalks. The whole mess got a sprinkling of compost starter, although in these extremely dry conditions, I'm not sure much decomposition will take place any time soon.
Once I thought I had all of the melons out of the patch, I ran our riding lawn mower over the area. Of course, I found a bunch of small melons that had been hidden in the high grass that had grown up along the melon rows. Clearing out the melon patch was just the first step in preparing the area for next season. I still have our butternut squash and pumpkin areas to harvest and clean up. Just from looking over those areas, we'll probably have an average harvest of pumpkins (enough for our grandkids) and possibly a really nice harvest of butternut squash. And along the east side of the East Garden, our row of caged tomato plants are still producing an incredible amount of good tomatoes. Having canned enough whole tomatoes and tomato purée to keep us in good spaghetti and lasagne sauce over the winter, I may have to get a bit creative to make good use of our potential fall tomato harvest.
Most of our pumpkins this year are relatively small. I attribute that to two wet-then-dry cycles we've had this growing season. But we cut a lot of pumpkins today and still have a good many more with a little more ripening to do. I say cut, as one should cut a pumpkin with several inches of its stem to allow the pumpkin to cure better and slow spoilage. I use a pair of loping shears to do the cutting.
At least a couple of the pumpkins will go to grandchildren who live closeby. Our postman took up my offer of a free pumpkin when he dropped off a new KVM box for my upstairs computer setup. The old KVM box "only" lasted about seven years...after being turned on 24/7 all that time. Needless to say, I stayed with the same brand, only downsizing to a two port box from our previous four port box. (Note: A KVM switch allows one to use a single keyboard, monitor, and mouse with multiple computers.) The rest of the pumpkins will probably go to our local food bank.
Our butternut squash this year have far longer necks than we've ever had. That's a good thing, as the neck is where most of the usable "meat" is on a butternut. But I have no idea why the butternuts grew the way they did this season. Even better is that we have lots of butternuts ripening on the vine. They'll get picked when all the little green lines down the sides of the butternuts disappear, telling one of complete ripeness.
I have made one change in my tomato seed saving method since writing our how-to, Saving Tomato Seed, in 2009. I now slice off the ends of the tomato and squeeze it to release seed. I still cut open the tomato to get every last seed, if possible, as I did before. Now I need to head back downstairs to catch the end of Sunday Night Football. Tuesday, September 29, 2020 Peppers, Weather, and Butternuts
I'd frozen a quart and a half of pepper strips earlier in the season. I'd also saved seed from some of those peppers. Yesterday's picking had four or five beautiful peppers that demanded seed saving. Once I washed, cored, and seeded the peppers, I cut them into strips for freezing. After letting the pepper strips dry for a couple of hours, I moved them onto a large cookie sheet and popped them into the freezer. When I bagged them in the morning, this picking filled a gallon Ziplock freezer bag.
Weather We're definitely into some gray, cool, fall weather. Daily high temperatures have remained in the 60s. It makes for nice outdoor working weather. Butternuts
In a departure of our usual practice of planting only Waltham Butternut Squash The picked squash and those cut in the future will go onto our drying/curing table for a week or two before being stored for our use or distributed to others. Our timing is about right, as butternuts make an excellent substitute for sweet potatoes at Thanksgiving. Almost Done
I also have a couple of nice shots I didn't figure out any other way to include in this posting. On the left is some of our kale that has vigorously regrown after a heavy picking a little over a week ago. I'm a longtime kale lover, having been introduced to it in my youth as boiled kale with onions and bacon drippings in it. It was one of those dishes that you could eat as much as you wanted. At right is a very young Slick Pik yellow squash. During our current drought, I had to pick what to water with our limited water supply. Our tomato and pepper plants got priority, but I also occasionally watered our young yellow squash and a couple of celery plants. Wednesday, September 30, 2020 - September Wrap-up
Much of the month was spent delivering produce to our local food bank, canning and freezing for winter use, and saving seed for future plantings. Our pantry is now pretty much full. The same goes for our freezer. We continue to be blessed with good harvest and health.
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