Seeing Green on St. Patrick's Day

Finally the drizzle has stopped and the sun is shining.   So far this season I have yet to purchase any plants for my garden.  One of Jennie's friends is a retired teacher and now has a farm in east Austin. At Jennie's last Bunco meet-up, she called and asked if I would like some tomato plants. Of course I said sure any plant that's free is a good plant. Jennie came home with 14 tomato plants of different varieties.

Here is what she brought home:

Blond Koph Chen cherry

Cherokee Purple 

Kellogg's Breakfast 

Dr. Wyche's

Yoder's German

Blue cream cherry

Solar flair 

Hillbilly Potato leaf

German Pink

Creole Original 

and two other varieties that I lost the tags for.   

I put three plants per bed, mixed in to the already abundant cilantro plants growing. I planted 7 of the 19 acorn squash plants that I started from produce bought at HEB.   

The Brussels sprouts are coming up nicely and a few watermelon seedlings have sprouted as well.  Just need a place to put them now. 

One place is the bed I moved next to my patio.  I just need some dirt for it as well as the two keyhole garden beds I built this week for my front yard.   

The idea behind keyhole gardening is to use less water. You build a tall structure with layers of sticks, cardboard, newspaper, leaves, grass clippings, and anything else that will hold water, and then top off the top with 6" of good soil.  In the center you create a place to put in compost and containing leftovers from kitchen scraps and leaves and other grass clippings.  When watering your beds all you do is water the center compost area. When watering, water only the center compost pile so the nutrients from the compost will travel out to your plants surrounding it, giving all your plants what they need.  I used the corrugated tin and cedar 4x4s, to make them appealing and long lasting.   I had some leftover tin so I made a small planter box for under the window.  

I just need to fill them with soil and cap the perimeter of the tops to hid the edges of the sharp tin. 

For what to put into the small window box, I have noticed that the Asian lily that my mother gave me years ago is a pretty hardy plant.  I don't water it at all and it keeps coming back year after year.  So my last trip to Lowe's, I found several on their clearance racks, so I bought 3 different color varieties and a few other perennial   flowers to plant together.  I am not much of a flower gardener, but recently I have noticed several bees and butterflies around my house.  I dream of one day getting fresh honey from my backyard.  One project at a time.  

I'm a little worried about the trees I bought last fall for clearance at HEB.  Out of seven trees, I'm for sure one didn't make it (apple), but the others are really taking their time sprouting new growth. 

I've spent a fair amount of time dividing transplanting my lilies and cannas to new spots around the homestead to test the amount of sun exposure in areas.  

The only money I have spent this season for my garden has been the materials for the front yard keyhole garden beds and a bag of potting mix to start my seeds from grocery store produce.  I am attempting and doing my best to minimize the dollar amount spent on my garden and trying to see how far I can go with what I already have or what I can find for free to reuse or repurpose.

I've been motivated by the recent viewing of a documentary called "The Minimalists" (currently available on Netflix) and rereading a great book called "Serve God, Save the Planet: A Christian Call to Action" by ER medical doctor turned author, Dr. J. Matthew Sleeth.

Well, until next time...

Go garden and Get Dirty!

Finally the Fruits of my Labor are beginning to appear

Just when I was about to give up on the garden... after the week of rain and then a vacation to Branson, MO, and getting the water bill for July, I decided to not waste any more water on the garden.  Then the other night I went outside to talk to my neighbor and I looked down and saw this beautiful baby.

A zucchini squash measuring an impressive 14" long.   Now I just have to think of a recipe to use it in.   I noticed a few other small ones beginning to grow as well so hopefully I will be seeing more in a week or two.  The funny thing is though, the squash bed is the only bed that the soaker hose isn't in.  These babies just grew from the little rain we have had in July.

My cucumber vines have all shriveled and dried up, about half the tomato plants are getting sparse with foliage, most of the salad greens have gone to seed (which I will be harvesting and using next year).

I harvested most of the swiss chard last night and sauteed for dinner with some chicken sausage, garlic, spinach, and a little red onion.

Get dirty and keep on gardening!

Surprise zucchini today

After helping my father-in-law move into his new house over the weekend, I hadn't had time to check the garden in two days.  I already knew I had a zucchini that was about ready to be cut off so as I went to get it this morning it had doubled in size.  Zucchinis grow fast.  I did my usually walk around picking a few ripe tomatoes (today's haul was a little over 13 oz).   As I was rounding the back side checking on my cucumbers, low and behold, I was surprised with another 10" zucchini that I hadn't seen before.  So I told Jennie that we will have to make some zucchini bread soon before they go bad.

 
 With the netting on top of the tomato plants, the stems are now reaching about 6 ft long so they are beginning to lay sideways and starting to crowd out and shade my sweet pepper plants and into my kale "tree".  Not sure what to do, so will just leave it be for now.

Get dirty and keep on gardening!

I think my garden has officially made its value just in tomatoes so far

This morning I found some more ripe tomatoes ready to be picked.  Thanks to Jennie's yarn scale, I am able to get a correct weight on my tomato yield.  Today they weighed in just a hair over 2 lbs.  I think its about time I start swapping produce with my neighbors, because I can't eat this many tomatoes.  Went to HEB this morning for the weekly grocery shopping and was able  to plan a whole weeks of meals using mostly produce from my garden.  Only spent $76 for this week, that of course includes store bought produce that is organic.   My wife and I try to eat mainly organic or local.  My garden is grown organically, as well as I can.  No one can be 100% organic if growing outside.

Found another zucchini this morning about 7" long.  I am going to wait a few days before picking it, simply because I already have 2 sitting in the fridge.  Thinking about making some yummy zucchini bread with it and one of the meals for the week will be grilled zucchini pizzas.

Finally have a few Aladdin sweet and bell peppers that are getting to a good size.  The larger ones should be ready in about a week.

Pest problems:  Loopers (larva of moths) or some cutworms are devouring my kale leaves and aphids are starting to eat my tomatoes.

Possible solution: I might try to mix me up some Garrett Juice to help with the pests.  J. Howard Garrett has written several gardening books.  Some of my favorite are:

Garden Tip:  don't get tomato pollen in your eyes... it stings!!  It's the one drawback of clumping my tomato plants this year.  I was reaching deep in the depths of the clump and a leaf rubbed my eye.  From now on its safety glasses for sure.

Get dirty and keep on gardening!

First fruits of summer 2012

Summer Garden: day 67


Thanks to the extended cool weather, I have been able to enjoy the garden with little watering and some of its first fruits of the growing season.  So far the cucumbers are winning... with eight fruits already harvested for eating.  The zucchini plants have already produced 2 good sized fruits, both about 11" long. What I have been waiting for are the tomatoes.   There are dozens of really big green ones just waiting to turn red.  I picked 2 medium sized a little early, because a third one had already been attacked by a bug.  Jennie put the two in the window and they continued to turn redder.  This morning, I went out to cut the second zucchini and saw a small cherry tomato ready to be picked.

Produce total as of today:
Cucumber: 8
Tomato:  3
Zucchini:  2



The tomato plants have now become a 5ft high dense jungle that has outgrown my homemade tomato cage/grid.  The good thing though is that all the branches are holding on to each other for support (survived a severe thunderstorm with some pretty strong winds about a month ago), plus the dense foliage is hiding the redness of the ripe tomatoes from the pesky birds in my backyard.  I think the squirrels though are a bit smarter and will eventually find them.

5ft tomato plants

                                                    

Brandywine 

Large Cherry tomatoes

another Brandywine

The pear tree has some small fruits on them, but probably won't make it to a worthy size of being eaten.                   

Being that last year was the season of cilantro  (it was everywhere and wouldn't die), well I think it finally decided to call it quit and is flowering everyday.   This season though I have a new friend that has secretly made its way to my garden beds... basil.  I have found shoots spring up in the potato bed, some around the beans, and some below my kale tree.  Yeah the kale plant is about 5 ft tall with leaves as big as my hand.   Jennie and I are doing our best to manage its growth but there is only so much that one can eat of kale chips.

  

 The Aladdin sweet peppers are starting to grow, along with an unknown melon (most likely a cantaloupe.)



The front herb garden is continuing to do well now that its established, thanks to the two weeks of off and on rain we had a few weeks back.  I make smoothies every morning before work and decided to add some chocolate mint and regular mint to the mix....it definitely gives it that real fresh flavor.

 

Get dirty and keep on gardening!

Homemade tomato cages

Week 5, Day 28: April 17

So my attempt to crowd in my tomatoes this year like my brother did last year has me wondering.  There were a few of them that were being overshadowed, so I had to transplant them to an open area.  With the remaining ones, I decided to make a grid of sorts to help keep the tomato plants growing upward and not intertwining with each other.  I used some 36" stakes and some jute cord to create a grid pattern.  Hopefully this will work, only time will tell though.  I have used tomato cages in the past, but its been a 50/50 success.  Most of the tomato plants either grow to tall or the branches break off from the cages.

The potatoes continue to grow, so I planted a few more spuds in the front of the bed a few days ago.  You can see a few little shoots.  Funny too, is that I have noticed a few baby shoots of basil pop up in the potato box and with the Lima beans.

 The peppers are getting a little bit more growth to  them along with the onions in the back.  The kale "tree" has been my longest success to date.  That thing just won't give up.   In the lower left side of the box, you can see a few leaves sprouting from the rhubarb that I had planted about 4 weeks ago.  I wanted to experiment more with some perennials so this was my first.  I want to plant some artichokes and asparagus as soon as I find some to buy.

    

The zucchini now has some flowers on them and hopefully they will make their way to the trellis behind them.  I will most likely have to force them since the sun will be out in front of them.

The new 8x8 bed has had the least amount of new growth.  Mainly because everything was planted about two weeks later than the other beds and I hadn't set up a irrigation system for this one until today.  The 4 4x4 beds have two soaker hoses on them so allow for deeper root absorption and less water evaporation.  As you can see in this pic, I had a soaker hose but upon turning it on, found that it had a hole in it and wasn't quite effective.  So for now, I will be using a simple fountain style  sprinkler, early in the mornings.

 

Get dirty and keep on gardening!

Off to a good start

Week 4, Day 21: April 9

Finally finished the new 8x8 bed.  Planted some cucumbers, peppers, and a few different beans and peas.  This is my first attempt at the peas and beans.  I have always grown them with my students in school but never once thought to actually grow some in my own garden.

 

The potatoes are beginning to sprout and the tomatoes are gaining some height.  For the zucchini boxes, I had to saw off where the old trellis was and reposition it to the back of the raised bed.  Its a little shorter than last time, but I think it will still work.  

Another small harvest

As May comes to an end and the hot summer weather returns, I am hoping that my garden produces more produce in the next few weeks.
I went ahead and cut the two remaining cucumbers from the vines.  I think I left them on a little to long though, as they were turning a pale greenish/yellow color.  The thing about cucumbers is that the more you pluck, the more they will produce.  I also cut the zucchini, which reached about 11 inches long.











Some friends of ours already gave us two big zucchini earlier this week, so my wife and I are trying to find different ways of cooking it.  I grilled it on the grill with a little olive oil and salt and pepper.  My wife made a cucumber sauce and it was quite tasty.  We also made some kale chips in the oven, which were good.














I also picked two jalapeno peppers and two tiny little cherry tomatoes.  Besides waiting for the rest of my produce to grow, I am having a small battle with some squirrels, who have already eaten the first of my strawberries.  I had bought a squirrel feeder when I first planted my seeds, hoping it would divert them away.  I guess my little friend just loves sweet strawberries.

Get dirty and keep on gardening!

First cucumber harvest of the season, zucchini almost ready, and regrowth of the bib lettuce

I checked the vines today and decided to cut two of the cucumbers off.  The other two I am going to give a couple more days on. Can't eat that many cucumbers at one time.

What's really surprising to me is how fast zucchini grows.  One day it was about the size of a baby carrot and then the next day its about a foot long.  This is my first time growing zucchini and so far, its doing quite well in the raised beds.

I guess we will be making lots of salad in the next few days because the bib lettuce is really growing.  The plant that I cut off about a month ago has already grown back to a nice size.   Need to start a crop rotation calendar to efficiently use all the produce this year.  Saw another decent size strawberry the other day too, but I guess a critter had a juicy snack because it was gone.

 

Get dirty and keep on gardening!