One of the Joys of Maturity
One of the Joys of Maturity |
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One of the joys of getting a bit older is having the time to putter around in the garden. Below is my garden blog. This site also contains sections of recipes and features about specific, and often obscure, gardening lore. My neck is absolutely killing me this morning! It's the price I'm paying for hustling to get our main raised garden bed in shape and a little planting done. (I'm still slowly recovering from a serious fall in early July.)
With a chance of rain predicted early in the week, I went ahead and did a final tilling of our main raised garden bed on Sunday. A lot of what I did was preparing for next season. I tilled in a heavy application of Muriate of Potash (0-0-60) and peat moss in the areas where our garlic, onions, and carrots will go. Other than the row of ERS peppers, the whole bed got some 12-12-12 fertilizer and ground limestone. Normally, nitrogen applied late in the season would just leach out of the soil over the winter. But with all the grass that got tilled under, the nitrogen may get bound up in helping decompose the grass and roots tilled under. While I wrote "final tilling" above, the bed may get another pass with our walking tiller once the pepper plants and cages come out. But for now, one end of the bed is ready for planting garlic there after our first frost. Basil, Parsley, and Spinach
Since we've had some real disasters this year with animal damage to our crops, I sprayed the plants with Not Tonight, Deer! I also spread Repels All and Irish Spring bar soap chips around the plants. Beside the row of basil and parsley, I direct seeded a row of Abundant Bloomsdale spinach. I'd soaked the spinach seed in room temperature water for twenty-four hours and then dried the seed. With it raining outside today, I'm hoping we might get some baby spinach leaves for spinach salad before our first frost. When seeding, I did notice one seed had germinated already and had tiny green leaves on it. Although I had spinach seed saved from this spring, I used some seed saved last year for the planting. So as we head for fall, we have tomatoes and peppers steadily producing. Our beat-the-frost plantings of kale, fall carrots, basil, parsley, and spinach are now one their way. While I may seem to be taking some undue risks, I do have plenty of floating row cover material on hand to protect against an early, mild frost.
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Saturday, September 18, 2021 - Saving Basil and Zinnia Seed
I noticed this week that our basil plants were beginning to mature seeds. So today, I used scissors to snip off mature sections of the stems bearing blackened seed pods. I'll later strip the seed pods off the stems. Rubbing the pods between ones hands easily releases the seeds...and a bunch of plant trash. When the wind is just right outside, I'll winnow the seeds and trash to clean up the seeds. Our basil this year came from a Genovese/Large Italian landrace mix from previous years when I let the plants cross pollinate and saved seed from them. I also began saving seed from our long row of zinnias along the side of our East Garden plot. Saving the seed is easy. One just cuts or snaps off browned seed heads. I pay the most attention when saving seed to the bloom color of the parent plants, trying to get a good mix of colors. I've let our saved zinnia seed tend towards taller plants. In our setting, four to five foot tall zinnias aren't a problem. For city gardeners, such plants might be a nuisance. When I pick up seed packets next spring, I'll look for some colorful, but shorter zinnia varieties.
Kale and Carrot Bed I've been surprised that I'm not seeing any weeds germinating in our bed of kale and carrots. I did, however, see a white cabbage moth visiting the tiny kale plants this morning. Upon closer inspection, I saw that we'd already had a good bit of insect damage on the plants. So I filled our two gallon sprinkling can with a mix of Thuricide, dilute fertilizer, and Not Tonight, Deer! I concentrated the watering on the kale rows, although part of the carrot rows got some. I'm hoping to transplant some of the kale and carrots to fill in bare spots in the rows. Additionally, I really need to thin some areas in the carrot rows where I dropped clumps of seed. Tilling and Raking The big gardening item of today was raking out grass clumps from our main raised bed. I woke up this morning with a very stiff and sore neck and back from having rototilled most of the bed yesterday. I sorta forced myself outside to do the raking, which surprisingly loosened my neck and back a bit. Getting this bed in shape is for multiple purposes. I'd like to transplant some nice basil and parsley plants into the area, along with direct seeding some spinach. But even more important is to have the bed ready for planting garlic next month and having the bed somewhat ready for spring planting.
I'll need to till the area one more time to get it planting ready.
I dropped off tomatoes and peppers at our local food bank today. I did, however, retain the ripest of the paprika peppers I picked yesterday. Those six peppers got split open and their seeds harvested. Since about half of the peppers were a bit wrinkly, I discarded the pepper flesh.
The pepper seed is a mix from the Hungarian Spice, Boldog Hungarian Spice, and Sweet Paprika Pepper varieties. Assuming that I'll get a good germination test from this and a previous batch of paprika pepper seed, I'll be sharing seed via the Grassroots Seed Network and the Seed Savers Exchange.
Every few days, we get a nice harvest of tomatoes and peppers. While most of the tomatoes we canned earlier this season came from our six Earlirouge plants in the main garden, the bulk of our tomatoes are now coming from the row of plants in our East Garden. While there are several open pollinated plants there, we're also getting some beefsteak tomatoes from a few hybrid plants I put out. We got a little rain last night, but our monthly total so far remains at less than two tenths of an inch. Things are really getting dry here. A local grocery had bone-in, skin-on chicken breasts on sale this week. So I bought two packages (eight breasts) of them. I began marinating four of the chicken breasts while freezing the rest of the breasts. The skins, bones, and attached meat got boiled down with just the broth being frozen. I used the breast meat boned from the boil down to make Chicken Salad.
Since my lovely wife still works full time, I get to do most of the cooking at our house, although she made some fantastic tuna casserole last weekend. When I begin to get in a rut in meal planning, I try something new. The chicken parmesan was delicious. But...I also brought in a package of frozen Member's Mark Stir Fry Mix from the garage freezer as a hint for her to make her delicious stir fry this weekend.
Saturday, September 11, 2021 - Well Vent Area Cleaned Up
I'd poured a mix of vinegar, Epsom salt, and Dawn dish detergent over the weeds on Thursday. The mix had done its work by today, with most of the weeds browned out. I took our new string trimmer to the area, and it cleaned up pretty well. I'm guessing that I'll need one more application of the organic weed killer to keep the area clean. Main Bed With my string trimmer and garden fork in hand, I got most of our main raised garden bed ready for another round of rototilling. During a previous tilling, the tiller rode up and over some stubborn grass clods. So I've been rolling those clods over with the garden fork this week. I also edged parts of the bed with the garden fork, as our walking tiller doesn't quite till up to the landscape timbers that enclose the bed.
I was finally able to clear some stubborn grass weeds close to our row of caged Earliest Red Sweet peppers. While the bed still looks a mess, another tilling will get it close to planting ready. Transplants
The sage cuttings came from our two sage plants in our herb bed around our shallow well. These sage plants seem to have gone nuts growing this year, getting larger than ever before. Basil and Parsley
We have lots of nice basil and parsley transplants on our back porch. While we probably have enough dried basil and parsley left from last year to last us all winter, I'd like to squeeze in another harvest and drying of the herbs. Carrots and Kale
Hummingbirds Over the last week, traffic at our three hummingbird feeders has considerably lessoned. We still have birds at the feeders, but not the riot of birds fussing for position we've had almost all summer. And this is about the usual time for the birds to begin their long migration south to Central America. From now on, many of the hummingbirds we see may be migrants from further north on their way to the Gulf or beyond. Hummingbirds seem to know where the rest stops are on their way south. We slightly increase the amount of sugar in our homemade hummingbird nectar for about a month before the birds begin their migration. This practice allows the birds to gain a little weight before their long flight. Our general ratio of sugar to water is 1:4. While I don't overdo it, I let a bit of sugar overflow the measuring cup as fall approaches when I make their nectar mix. Here are a couple of possibly useful links about humming birds and their migration:
New Toys
When talking to our mowing crew yesterday, the dad of the father and son team had a really funny, if slightly evil idea. He and his uncle play tricks on each other each Halloween. He plans to attach a paint roller handle to the top of a cordless leaf blower and use it to blow toilet paper up to sixty feet into the air, presumably over his uncle's trees! He noted that toilet paper decays quickly and falls off the trees after a few good rains.
As I work to clean up our yard and garden, I took a few minutes this evening to mix some of My Heavenly Recipe's 3 Ingredient Weed Killer. It's a mix of vinegar, Epsom salt, and a surfactant such as Dawn dish detergent. I'd effectively used it around our deep well vent last year, and that's where it went this evening. I prefer not to use regular weed killers around water sources. While not long lasting, the mix does knock down weeds.
I finally got enough Quinte tomatoes yesterday to save seed from them. I picked about a dozen of the tomatoes and squeezed and cut the seeds out of them. The Moira and Crimson Sprinter tomato seed I'd had in jars fermenting were ready for rinsing and drying yesterday. With these seed savings, I now have at least one batch of each of the tomato varieties I work to preserve. Most of my gardening these days could fall under the category of End-of-Season Gardening Chores. While we're still nurturing and harvesting a few crops, most of what I'm doing is getting our garden plots, yard, and flower beds cleaned up for next season. With me out of action for a good bit of the summer, a lot of areas got overgrown with weeds. One onerous chore today was servicing our lawn mower. Lacking a lift or grease pit, the easiest way to service the lawn tractor and mower deck is to drop out the mower deck. Out from under the lawn tractor, I was able to clean the deck, lubricate it, and sharpen the mower blades. The lawn tractor got an oil change and filter while the deck was removed. I'm still not able to stand the bumps involved in mowing, but I was glad to finally be able to service the mower again. I'm hoping the next time I drop out the mower deck, it will be to mount our pull-type tiller and get our East Garden plot ready for next season.
Monday, September 6, 2021 - Labor Day (U.S.)
High on my to do list today was to spray our tomato plants. The tomatoes are showing some bug damage and the foliage signs of blight. Before spraying, I picked a nice bunch of rather small Earlirouge tomatoes. The Earlirouges in our main garden and the other tomato plants in our East Garden got a good dose of Serenade biofungicide and Neem Oil. The tomatoes shown here will go to my wife's co-workers tomorrow, as we're soon going to be overrun with tomatoes from the plants in our East Garden plot. The paprika peppers I began drying yesterday were ready for grinding today. It was a small batch that topped off our jar of previously ground paprika.
I made a trip to town today to drop off some peppers and tomatoes at our local food bank. A second reason for the trip was to get some portobella mushrooms for an Olive Garden copycat recipe for Braised Beef and Tortellini. The geniuses running the restaurant chain removed the popular dish from their menu offerings a few years ago. While there are other items on their menu I like, their action reminds me why I have online recipes for Texas Nachos from the failed Chi-Chi's restaurant chain and Shrimp Portofino from Romano's Macaroni Grill before they caved from criticism about unhealthy meals, changed their recipes, and ended up having to close lots of their locations. Enough of my rant. The beef and tortellini dish was delicious.
After storms going both north and south of us all day yesterday, we finally caught a good shower around 11 last night. It dropped a much needed half inch or so of precipitation. I'd been waiting for a good rain to wet the ground. I took advantage of it today, burning a large collection of shipping boxes and some branches without danger of setting the field on fire. Peppers
The saved paprika seed was from the Hungarian, Boldog Hungarian Spice, and Sweet Paprika Pepper varieties. Unfortunately, as with some of our tomato plants in the East Garden, variety labels had faded when I had to replant. So if the seed tests good and I choose to offer it, it will be a mix of the varieties. I also picked a small bucket of Earliest Red Sweet peppers today. The oldest (sometimes a bit wrinkly) true-to-variety peppers got cut for seed. I obviously discarded their flesh. I washed the rest of the ERS peppers and will share them with our local food bank tomorrow.
Since peat moss doesn't absorb cold water well, I cut open the bales before I intend to use them and let the peat collect rain water. One hint though: Have the bales where you want them before you cut them open. The bales will more than double in weight when they've absorbed rain water.
I wanted to save tomato seed from our Moira, Quinte, and Crimson Sprinter plants today. It turned out that there weren't enough ripe Quinte tomatoes to justify the effort needed to save seed from them. The Crimson Sprinter plants had lots of ripe tomatoes. They weren't perfect tomatoes, but were good for seed saving. The Moira plants had several ripe tomatoes as well.
While I've saved Earlirouge, Moira, and Quinte tomato seed for years, this is the first time I've saved Crimson Sprinter seed. The first year I grew the variety, the seed we got was infected with anthracnose which spread to most of our tomato plantings in the East Garden and even to a hill of watermelons!
Last season, our Crimson Sprinters (seed hot water treated and from a reliable vendor) did quite well, but weren't isolated from other tomato varieties for seed saving. On the strength of last year's performance, good color, and great taste, there's a bit of space between the Crimson Sprinters and our other tomato varieties for seed saving. I did notice that some of the carrots I seeded on Sunday had begun to sprout. It was just a few sprouts that were hard to see, but it pleased me greatly. I also saw, now that I already have a full jar of ground paprika, that our paprika pepper plants are filled with ripe peppers. If the peppers are good, I may have to find a larger jar for our paprika. And...I got scolded by my lovely wife again. I tilled most of our main raised garden bed yesterday. There are some really stubborn clumps of grass that resist being tilled. I've been flipping them over a few at a time with our heavy garden fork. But I paid last night for pushing the envelope on my recovery from a neck injury. With rain today, it will be a few more days before I can and am willing to try rototilling the area again.
Well before seeding the kale, I'd watered the rows of kale and carrots this morning. Judging from how dry the soil was when I planted this afternoon, I'll need to water the rows again this evening. After re-seeding the kale, I spread lots of Repels All over the bed. Generally, Repels All does a better job at discouraging cats and dogs than it does rabbits. I'm encouraged with the kale emerging. Getting kale seed to germinate in hot, dry weather has been a problem in the past. Apparently, soaking the seed was what was needed. And if the kale continues to do well, it should mature in mid to late October to make a nice batch of Portuguese Kale Soup.
Wednesday, September 1, 2021 - Saving Cucumber Seed
It was time today to harvest seed from about a dozen Japanese Long Pickling cucumbers I let mature for a couple of weeks on our drying/curing table. It only took a half hour or so to scrape the seeds out of cucumber sections halved lengthwise and dump them into a quart canning jar. I added a little water and a teaspoon of sugar to the cucumber seeds and gel. Jenny Harrington wrote in How to Ferment Seeds: "Seeds of pulpy vegetables and fruits, such as tomatoes (Lycopersicon esculentum) and cucumbers (Cucumis sativus), require a fermentation process that mimics the natural rotting that occurs in nature. As the seeds ferment, the pulp separates, leaving behind clean seeds that are suitable for saving."
I'll let the seed ferment for at least three days before rinsing and drying it. It's important to keep an eye on the fermenting seed. One wants the gel that surrounds the seeds to detach from the seeds, as the gel prevents seed germination. But if you wait too long and the gel has separated, the seeds may begin to germinate in the liquid in the jar!
If you wonder where our start of Japanese Long Pickling cucumber seed came from, the images below should answer your question.
Watering Even with the good rain we had a couple of days ago, I watered the carrot and kale rows I direct seeded on Sunday. Some of the kale plants were just barely emerging. But then, I'd soaked the kale seed before planting. I also noticed that one of our cats had used part of a kale row as a litter box. I'll probably have to replant that area. The carrots will require regular watering until they emerge, something that often can take around ten days. Saving Spinach Seed
Spinach seeds grow in clusters on the stems and often are hard to separate. Most of these seed clusters rubbed apart easily, probably because they'd hung and dried so long in the garage. I spread the seed across a small cookie sheet and put it on a high shelf to dry. I'll need to winnow the seed as there was a lot of leaves, trash, and dirt along with the seed. The Abundant Bloomsdale spinach variety has quickly become one of our favorites since its introduction in 2016. It's an open pollinated, open source variety that produces delicious savoyed spinach leaves. While we share seed from our plantings, I really recommend folks get their seed from commercial vendors, such as the Southern Exposure Seed Exchange or High Mowing Organic Seeds, unless you live and grow in an environment such as west central Indiana. Our saved seed has probably adapted somewhat to our local growing conditions. Such adaptations are part of why we save seed.
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