Dog Days

These hot humid August days make for a good time to kick back and do nothing.  The garden plants know it.  They are in the doldrums.  They aren't sick, they just aren't doing much, and personally I don't blame them.

Figs...... at last

I planted a fig tree three years ago.  A Brown Turkey Variety from a local nursery.  It never did well.  The weather did not cooperate and then I kept digging it up and transplanting it every year because it was never in the "right spot".  That did not do it any good. When it survived our rather harsh winter last year I knew it was a survivor plant.  This year I left it alone and it is producing figs like mad.  It is still small, only about four feet high, but has about 20 figs on it as of today.  Some are beginning to ripen.

Eggplants - Fairytale

Fairytale is my current favorite hybrid eggplant.  The plants are medium size, about 3 feet tall and really prolific. The fruit is exceptionally small by eggplant standards.  They are best when picked at about 4-6 inches long.  But boy are they tasty and tender.  They have the best flavor of any I've had.  The skin is tender enough to leave on in some recipes, but most of the time it is best to remove it.  There is none of the bitterness of other eggplants.  An added benefit is that they are beautiful.  I have them in my from garden where they are as much ornamental as anything else.  I'm on my second large crop from the same four plants I planted in the spring.  They are slow to get going, but once they do - Watch out!  We  freeze them, dry them, make appetizers out of them, stuff them and of course enjoy them fresh.  My mom had a great eggplant casserole that Diane has been able to replicate.  Mom would never write it down, but Diane has gotten pretty close. 

Lowell's Bread and Butter Pickles

Cucumbers have not been great growers for me.  One year Powdery Mildew killed them...that was before I even knew there was such a thing as Powdery Mildew. Then moles got them.  This year I have just experimented with a different variety in a different location.  I have gotten a few.  In the midst I ran across an easy recipe for bread and butter pickles that produced (with a few tweaks) the best pickles I have ever had, and I did it in 1 afternoon.  Here's the recipe:
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Lowell's Bread and Butter Pickles

Ingredients

·         1 large cucumber, sliced

·         1 teaspoon salt

·         1 onion, thinly sliced

·         1/2 teaspoon mustard seeds

·         1 cup white sugar

·         1/2 cup distilled white vinegar

·         1/4 teaspoon celery seed

·         1/4 teaspoon ground turmeric

·         ¼ tsp allspice

·         6 whole cloves

Directions

1.      In a medium microwave safe bowl, mix cucumber, salt, onion, mustard seeds, white sugar, distilled white vinegar, celery seed and turmeric.

2.      Microwave on high 7 to 8 minutes, stirring twice, until cucumbers are tender and onion is translucent.

3.      Transfer to sterile containers. Seal and chill in the refrigerator until serving.

Nutritional Information 

Amount Per Serving  Calories: 36 | Total Fat: 0g | Cholesterol: 0mg

Sweet Potato Experiment Continues

Last fall we had the greatest tasting sweet potatoes ever.  The variety was Beauregard, planted in July and dug up on Thanks Giving Day.  This spring I planted more sweet potatoes.  The variety is unknown. planted a different time of year, in different soil.  They did not taste as good as last year's.  Then I read about "Curing" sweet potatoes and wrote about it in a previous post.  We cured the SPs in the shed for a few weeks.   The taste definitely improved.  Unfortunately the taste was no where near last year's.  I planted more Beauregard's in late spring.  We will see if it is the variety.  I planted the unknown variety in July using the original soil mix from last fall.  We what tastes better.  This will teach me to experiment with unknown varieties of vegetables.  It was a free extra SP from some store.  I love experiments.

Raised Beds

After a year of fighting battles of mythological proportions that made gardening something other than the fun relaxing enterprise I envisioned, I decided to try raised beds.  Once you have gone raised you will never go back.  It solves a multitude of problems and gives a level of control you cannot get otherwise. Nematodes (those vicious underground plant decimators) are not a problem in raised beds.  Weeds are easily manageable, and the gardener can grow more per square foot than traditional gardening.  For small or back yard gardeners like myself I can think of no better way to go.  Here are a few of my details and why I did what I did:

Size - I went 4' by 8' - 4' wide is as wide as I can take and still not have to get into the bed to plant or harvest.  I can reach to the center from either side.  8' long just suited my space needs.  It has proved to be big enough to get nice harvests of peas, green beens, 30 pounds of sweet potatoes, enough eggplant for us and the neighborhood, and so much lettuce and carrots I started saying, "What's up Doc?".  I like the size.
I used 8' 2x12' pieces.  I really believe 2x10s would be fine, but the extra height has allowed me more flexibility when adding poles and frost cloth and other mechanical things that seem to sometimes be needed. 10 to 11 inches of dirt is great.  1x anything might be okay.  I just wanted the extra strength.  Sometimes I stand on the edges to tie things.  I think that if the gardener used 1x boards the 8' sides would need extra support.  The 2x boards do not.

Material - Controversial - Some people despise pressure treated wood.  I do not.  The arsenic is gone.  The Chemicals used now are safer.  I do not know what "safe" means anyway.  I do not see much that is safe about this world anyway.  People have been afraid of PT wood leaching it's chemicals into the soil.  Well yes, from what I could find, they do leach....copper leached about 2 inches out from the board in 10 years.  That was the worst I could find.  The deal on copper of course is that if it ever gets to leaching (that depends on a bunch of factors) it will kill the plant before anything else.  You won't have anything to eat from that plant, thus copper poisoning does not seem to be a problem.  With all of that said, I feel relatively comfortable with PT wood, but I also lined the inside of the bed with a construction grade black plastic.  It made some of my friends feel better....and me too.  It was easy to do.  I cut it and stapled it around the sides.  Once the dirt is in the bed the dirt holds the plastic and the staples can rust away.