Garden Update

I bet when you woke up this morning your first thought was, I wonder how Janet's garden is doing?  Oddly I woke up with the same thought!

For the most part things are now doing well.  I think the tomatoes grew about a foot over the weekend after a good 2" of rain.

There are some small black spots on some of the bottom leaves so I think I may spray with some fungicide later today or tomorrow, it seems a little early for this but it's been such a strange spring weatherwise.  The green beans are doing exactly as they should and working their way up the stringers.

Usually with just a little training they move right up the correct string.  I tried to really thin them to one plant per string, anything else just gets too heavy mid-summer.  I'm also impressed that my lines and stringers have held up amazingly well over time.  I knew the horizontals would hold up since I used some coated heavy duty wire, but the plain string verticals I thought for sure I would have to re-do each year.  Other than some minor repairs they have held strong for 3 years.

Most of the squash and zucchini are doing well, I may need to thin them one more time as well.  I'm hoping to avoid the squash vine borers this year with an early application of some sevin dust on the stems but they have hit me every year so far so all I can do is going into it with crossed fingers.

My poor pitiful homegrown from seed peppers just aren't doing well.  They are so tiny, getting eaten by some sort of bug and just don't seem to have any staying power compared to the store bought plants.  Here I thought buying seed from one of the foremost authorities in peppers (New Mexico State Univ agriculture dept) was a good idea but now that I think about it, these seeds were probably bred/created to grow in that area and not here.  I'm hoping for just one of each of the 4 varieties I grew possibly survive.  This is down from about 20 plants each.
The store bought pepper plants on the other hand are doing quite well.  You can see in most of these pictures that I am now using an entire system of soaker hoses instead of a sprinkler.  They say this is much better for the garden and it's a LOT easier as well.  I have a total of 5 hoses and one splitter so watering the entire garden is as easy as turning on the hose and going out one time to flip the splitter.

Finally I introduce you to Copernicus...

Sort of freaky isn't he?  I rescued him from Leslie's parent's shed where he was doomed for garage sale-dom.  I think he's perfect for guarding the garden when I'm not around.  Although so far he isn't doing a great job.   We have a new resident coyote who seems to come by most days and tear at least one thing up...I'm working on rounding up another garden mascot soon-stay tuned!

Planting Complete!

Well after three back breaking intense days the garden is all in!  Ok...well...all but two plants that I have yet to find this year (a white and Japanese eggplant.)  Here is my little OCD garden chart for this year.  I highly recommend a chart so you can remember what varieties of each item you have planted.

I did a few things differently this year.  First up instead of newspaper under my mulch between rows I used a "gardening fabric."  It looks like plastic but is a fabric-y material that came in 3' widths 50' long.  This was beneficial for a couple reasons.  It was easier to handle than the newspaper (I tapped it in with pegs as I went so there wasn't an issue with blowing breezes.)  It also helped me with my row spacing.  Person I talked to at Home Depot said I "should" be able to lift it back up at the end of the season which would make getting the mulch up WAY easier than raking.  He said I should be able to re-use it for between 3-5 years.  We shall see if it was a good long term investment but it wasn't too expensive and was MUCH easier than newspaper.

Also last year I planted everything at once and then went back over the course of around 3 weeks time and laid all the paper and mulch.  This year I just didn't want to drag it out-I planted a row, them mulched a row.  By Sunday evening after two days and still not being done I wondered if this was the smartest way to go about the task-but by last night when I was DONE DONE-I was pleased I had just decided to knock it all out.

I'm a little worried all my transplanted pepper plants that I started from seed are just not strong/healthy enough to make it outside.  They are so tiny and already appear to be being eaten by something...

I moved all my herbs back outside and was happy that most of them made it through the winter, I have added a new basil plant, some flat leaf parsley and a new thyme plant.

As a side note, if you like keeping potted plants inside but have white carpet like I do (who puts in white carpet?) you should get a couple of these tubs that are supposed to sit under a washing machine.  I took a picture of this nasty one on purpose so you could see how they saved my carpet this winter!  I also used one under the seedling containers.

So I leave you with some tomatoes-nice, pretty, healthy plants. 

83 actual plants planted, 5 more rows of seed, 4 cages of seed and with everything mulched and ready I can get back to my real job-oh and The Hunger Games series!

Getting Ready for Planting...

Well folks, it's about that time...that's right...time for planting.  Actually I thought last weekend would be planting weekend but our local weather guru Ken Cook (a fellow gardener who lives very near here) said to hold off and he was right.  Lows in the 30's predicted for tonight!  We got some trees cut down to provide for more sunlight in the gardening area (by got them cut I mean Leslie cut, I tugged on the rope, he cut it up and split it and I loaded it.)  So as a plus we are set for wood for awhile!

We got it tilled up (by that I mean we borrowed a tiller, Leslie tilled and I stayed out of the way.)

So now the watching and waiting game starts.  I'd like to get some things planted this weekend, but we basically haven't had any rain for almost a month and the plants I need to purchase are not on sale.  The plants I am raising inside are doing fairly well.

 Someone mentioned to me that growing them indoors might cause them to be "leggy" and they were right, I think it is because they are reaching for the sun from the windows.

All the pepper varieties from New Mexico State University are growing well, while two packs of older seeds I had leftover from last year didn't germinate at all.  I'm glad I tested them inside before planting directly.
I'm going to watch the sale ads that come out tomorrow and decide if it is time to go ahead with everything or not.  It looks like it is going to be a nice weekend for planting...

Growing from Seed

Long time, no blog...it says September, 2011.  Wow that is a long time.  Well it's that time again folks-time to start thinking about the garden.  Poor dormant, mulch covered garden.

This picture is older, I actually have about 80% of the mulch raked back now.  I decided instead of raking it into a big pile on a tarp which took FOREVER just to rake it back to each side.  I think I lost more mulch in the process and I won't have as much to re-use but dragging it by the bucket full over to another area of the yard just wasn't very appealing to me.  Also thinking if it isn't in one large pile for months on end maybe I won't have that little spider issue I had last year.  Waiting for the annual Home Depot mulch sale to replenish my stock.

So this year I am trying something different and starting some items from seed.  Often I start some plants from seed in my garden like these-squash, cucumbers, beans etc.

This year I ordered some special pepper seeds from New Mexico State University's agriculture program.  They are a variety of hybrid species that I hope will really kick up my pepper production.  So I picked up some little Jiffy Greenhouses and set to work.

I decided while I was at it and since each of these trays holds up to 72 little plants I would go ahead and plant some additional peppers, some carrots and some watermelon from seed as well.  I also went ahead and planted a few squash and cucumbers because I had leftover seeds from last year and wanted to be sure they would germinate when I plant the bulk of them outside.
The tray/seed planting was actually a little tricky.  You pour water into the tray and the little soil cubes puff up, then you have to peel back a small amount of netting from each cube, rake the soil back (note my fork, plant the seed/s and smoosh some soil back on top of the seeds.

I also decided quickly after I started that I would need some kind of labeling system-I ended up just making a blank Excel table and writing in what I planted in each spot.  Make sure you somehow label the tray as to top and bottom.

So we shall see what happens, I planted these about a week ago and am already seeing some sprouting.  I'll update in a few days...

A Tasty Salad...

Long time no blog...and it's been an especially long time since I posted a recipe so here ya go!  I made this great salad the other night.  Now...it wasn't the easiest thing ever to put together but if you have access to the ingredients and a little time for prep you have a great meal.

Chinese Chicken Salad with Peanut Dressing

For the Dressing:

• 1/4 cup rice wine vinegar
• 2 tablespoons creamy peanut butter
• 1 tablespoon fresh minced ginger
• 1 tablespoon soy sauce (I used low sodium)
• 1 tablespoon honey
• 2 teaspoons toasted sesame oil
• 1/2 cup canola oil
• salt and pepper

Combine all items in some kind of bowl and whisk together-or do what I did--I doubled the recipe, put it all in a quart size mason jar and just shook it up, a lot ;)  I figured you can't go wrong with extra asian type tasty salad dressing.


For the Salad:

•   1/2 head Napa Cabbage-shredded (Note this is not a regular cabbage-they can be hard to find, A Napa Cabbage looks like this-after being cut in half)  If you haven't had it, this is more "lettuce-y" than "cabbage-y", I liked it a lot.

 

• 1 head Romaine lettuce-shredded-recipe called for 1/2 head but you really need a full head to balance the cabbage
• 1 red pepper-julienned
• 2 carrots-julienned or shredded or cut with veggie peeler
• 1/4 lb. snow peas (raw and de-stringed)-julienned
• 1/4 cup cilantro leaves-coarsely chopped (I used less, I think it can be strong)
• 1/4 cup green onion (thinly sliced)-I used a little more
• Rotisserie Chicken meat
• 1/2 chopped unsalted peanuts

Just chop, slice, dice everything and add to large bowl or onto individual plates.  Top with the chicken, dressing and peanuts.  I would recommend that you keep the veggies separate from everything else til you serve.  We had lots leftover so I would say this recipe serves 4 adults easily (and I still have some of the lettuce/veggie mix and dressing left for meatless salads this week.)

Here is mine before adding chicken and dressing and such...

And here it is with the chicken, peanuts and dressing.  We had it for dinner one night, lunch the next day and like I said I still have some of the veggie mix leftover (lunch today!)

Thanks to Salud Cooking School for the recipe-from their Main Dish Salads Class!

Long Hot Days of Summer

Is it me or are summers getting hotter?  I'm not sure I buy into this whole Global Warming thing or anything but to me it's just dang hot this summer so far.  In fact it reminds me to pull out my favorite comic of all time...

 Sorry the scan is a little wonky, but I love the scene!

The garden likes it hot but it also likes rain, which we haven't had much of lately.  I'm having to water a couple of times a week which gets tougher as things get taller.  Speaking of taller-we had to rig up some extra supports for the tomatoes which are now taller than I am.

More things that are "tall" include the cages for the cucumbers which is working out really well.  Only real issue is if I let them get too big I have a hard time getting them back through the small holes in the cage, but has only been a problem once so far.

The squash up the cages just didn't work very well in general.  I do like the cages though and probably will use them next year for cucumbers and also maybe eggplant and peppers.  Planting around the cages gives the plants more support instead of having to tie each pepper up with a stick or rod (which was sort of annoying a couple of weeks ago.)  The squash as usual started off like gangbusters and I was giving away squash and zucchini until a couple of days ago...then it happened again...just like last year...Squash Vine Borer.

You have this beautiful squash plant and the next day...dead.  Vine blow out.  A small insect lays eggs inside the stem at some point and when they hatch and bust out, it kills your plant in one fell swoop.  Still debating re-planting at this point.  I tried last year without much success.
In other garden-y areas I have the cutest baby watermelons...(note garden hose for size comparison.)

Oddly the green beans still aren't producing beans.  As you can see the vines are HUGE and nice and green but not a sign of a single bean.

I do have quite a few lima beans coming as well as pink eyed peas...

All in all everything is doing fairly well, there are hits and misses as usual.  Leslie isn't complaining about not having any green beans yet ;)  Okra is about to really starting kicking into gear and I'm drowning in tomatoes (which is a good thing.)

Well enough typing, it's time to go out and do some picking!

First Fruits!

Ok well not fruits more like veggies-but look!!  My first pickins' are in!

I looked at last year's pictures and realized I picked squash, cucumbers and peppers this same week last year.  But I planted almost 3 weeks later this year so while I have been thinking things sure are growing quickly-they really are!  The lack of rain is worry-some, but I have been watering every couple of days by hand.  It takes some time but I get much more accurate watering on specific plants if I just walk around with the hose for 45 mins.
A few updates on other garden-y things...these were my tomatoes this same week last year...

These are my 2011 tomatoes this same week...

Holy Giant Tomato Plants Batman!

I think the squash have vine borers again.  That's frustrating.  Walter Reeves the garden expert says there isn't much you can do to stop them, other than plant early and hope you are sick of squash by the time they kill your plants (sort of funny huh?)  The cucumbers are growing up their cages perfectly...

The yellow squash and zucchini not so much, but my intent was to sort of tie them to the cages to encourage them to grow up and to tell you the truth I really haven't had the time and I also haven't wanted to work out there with all of these 90+ degree days...maybe this weekend I'll rope them up...

I should have peppers and okra soon...

 

Even though it has been decimated by flea beetles the eggplant are even coming along.

I leave you with a parting shot of green bean alley...

May you all dream of squash casserole for the weekend!