Tomato Cages

Yesterday I pulled the row cover off the tomatoes and put in the bottom half of the new tomato cages.  Evening temps should hover in the 50's in the short term, so they no longer need their baby blanket.  In the past I have run trellis between stakes, which has worked fairly well.  I spied 'Texas Tomato Cages' last year and decided to order some this spring.  They are impressive!  Very heavy in weight, and I LOVE that they fold flat for storage.  That was a big selling point for us.  The nice part is that now I can split my tomatoes up into multiple beds in the future for rotation purposes.  I purchased only 6 cages this year as they are an investment, so a couple of cages were set between two plants.  The true test will be to see if they can support them both.

This is just the bottom half of the cage seen above, as the plants gain height there is an additional piece that goes on top to bring the height to six feet.  I think I ordered the 20 inch diameter cages.....if it wasn't raining cats and dogs I would go measure and take more pictures, but this is all I have at the moment, lol.

I could not get the tines in the soil as deep as I would have liked thanks to all the rocks in my yard, but they all went down the depth of the raised bed at a minimum, and will hopefully hold as the season progresses.  They even make 2 foot extensions to bring the cages up to eight crazy feet- but I don't see my maters ever needing all that head room.  :)

The Sungold plant I have been growing for my Mom went home with her yesterday, and it had a cluster of fruit growing!  My plants only have flowers, funny how the one guy hanging out in a pot being exposed to the elements made fruit.  Hopefully mine are not far behind.

In other news the sweet potato slips arrived yesterday (Georgia Jet and Vardaman), but with days of rain in the forecast (and things already drenched) I decided to hold off on planting them.  I had intentions of potting them today before the T-storms hit, but I did not make it.  For now they are heeled in the tomato bed with an upside down nursery pot giving them some protection from rain and wind.  Notice I could not add sun to that equation.  Hmph.  The 10 day forecast is calling for 3 partly cloudy days, and 7 with showers and/or thunderstorms.  This weather is bad news for all the fruit in this region.  Anything blooming right now is not being pollinated.  I may not be getting any apples this year after all, and that just plain sucks.

Wrapping up the old year, planning for the new!

I have taken a bit of a blog-acation.  It has been nice, though I am feeling very out of touch with my fellow garden bloggers.  Hope you all are doing well, staying healthy, and enjoying the seed catalogs as they stream in.

I did some ordering this past week, it was all about tubers.  Sweet and 'Irish' potatoes have been checked off the list.  Georgia Jets and Vardaman (a bush variety) were ordered for sweets, Swedish Peanut Fingerling, Caribe, and Red Cloud for the standard potato varieties.  I started with a few more pounds of seed for this past year's crop, but as I have mentioned just a few (wink, wink) times in the past I am short on space going forth.....so the varieties and total pounds of seed were slashed for 2011.  But no worries, I plan on going back to full scale potato production for 2012, so that helps make it a little less painful.

Still deliberating over eggplant varieties.  Oh, also ordered some Red Baron onion sets to plant in the new garlic bed.  I believe I grew this variety from seed in the past, but the sets were available from Moose Tubers (my potato source) so I went for it.  It will be good for the soil biology to have something growing in it until garlic planting time.

Here is the dirt on the potato varieties from Fedco/Moose Tubers:

Swedish Peanut

These fingerlings were the pleasant surprise in our potato patch this year. We’ve come to expect that our late-season fingerlings will be troubled by rhizoctonia, but these proved otherwise. One September, we pulled ten plants and filled a bushel with spotless thumb-sized spuds, even late in the season. As for taste, it is the only potato that we let ourselves eat before it goes to market. Dry and golden flesh; this year’s pick for “really soaking up the butter.” Seed in short supply; order early. BACK!

Caribe

An early digger, and a nice size. Its brilliant purple skin fades in storage, but you won’t have any left to store! For a summer barbecue, make your potato salad shout with Caribe, Red Gold, and a Yukon or two. Even though its name, pronounced ca-REE-bay, invokes the Caribbean, it was released by AgCanada in 1984 to grow in the Maritime provinces so it’s also well suited to our northeastern climate. Caribe has a creamy flavor, a medium-dry texture, and snow-white flesh. You can dig them late into the season, just make sure you hill well, and you will get some gigantors. Medium-sized plants are high yielding with purplish blue flowers. Resistant to scab and storage rot.

Red Cloud

An excellent choice for a red storage potato. With super-dry flesh, your mouth will water as you mash and fluff these pearly white potaters. Named for the Oglala Sioux chief, you will find these plants equally burly, resisting scab, early blight, hollow heart, heat stress, and drought. These plants are medium sized, with spreading vines and dark violet flowers. Supply limited; order early. BACK!

New Plans and Storage Crops

I have been sketching out plans for the 2011 garden already since we need to build some new beds, and I am still lacking space (of course- is it ever enough?).  This means I must prioritize what I want to grow, and weigh that against what I should grow.  Taking stock of what I have sitting in my pantry yesterday was insightful, and it will help me assign crop space for next year .  There is a decent amount of food put by in canning jars and freezer bags as well, though much of it is fruit we picked elsewhere.  I have herbs, kale, green beans, tomatoes/tomato products, pesto, raspberries, and currants from my own garden stashed in the freezer.  Relishes, sauces, jams etc. are on the shelves, but it is the for a pantry I am interested in.  Those high calorie, get-you-through-the-winter roots.

Here she is, my mixed bag of tricks "pantry":

 China, stem-ware, animal chow, and dirty vegetables!

Now for the walk through.....what is left of my globe onions:

(I am not going to bother growing these next year,

 space is at a premium and onions I can buy anywhere.)

Garlic braids are hanging, and I also have an allium drawer with shallots, a few heads of garlic,

 and more red onions, some of them globe, some of them a long heirloom variety:

(Onions are not my best crop.)

Next are the potatoes, and they are everywhere.  The bag holds my fingerlings, 

and the box holds potatoes from a friend's garden.

This drawer has Purple Viking, Keuka Gold, Red Cloud, and Russets:

Sweets:

And that is it.  No winter squashes from my garden unfortunately.  I have made peace with the need to just buy them from others.  A friend and I split a bushel of butternuts from a local farm, so I have a small stash to admire and cook up as I please (and an acorn with a price tag, sigh):

So would you all make my week and post what you have for storage crops, and how you store them?
Canned goods and stocked freezers are always fun to see too.
Share your thoughts on the amounts you grow, what you are pleased with, and what you would like to improve upon.  Winter will quickly be upon us and we will dreaming of digging the earth again come spring, so link your posts in the comments section and show us whatcha got!!

Stupid Dogs, Sweet Potatoes, and Relish

I know I have complained of my dog eating anything she has access to in the yard.  She is a classic example of being smart and stupid at the same time.  In reality, she is wise to help herself to all things edible, but in my anger I mutter how stupid she is all day long.  She has figured out how to get the gate open in the garden if things are not aligned properly.  Leeks have been trampled, uncountable numbers of tomatoes have been gorged on, and then thrown up.  Ewe.  She is constantly coming in the house with a big green tomato in her mouth.  So thanks to my stupid dog and her appetite for both ripe and unripe tomatoes I had to make a pathetically small pot of sauce yesterday.  This pathetically small pot even has some freezer tomatoes from last year in it.  A shame.  (Insert mumbles about the 'stupid dog' here.)

There is barely an inch of cooked-down sauce in the crock-pot.

I also decided to be a bit proactive and take some of those green tomatoes for myself.  I have a recipe for Green Tomato Relish that is quite tasty on a hot dog, at least that is how I first came to sample it at a birthday party.  I promptly asked for the recipe.

I hope it is as good as I remember it, because even after halving the recipe I have eight 1/2-pint jars of it sitting on the counter.  By my calculations that is two years worth after gifting a few jars to family.  For anyone that might be interested in away to use up those green tomatoes at season's end, or just to spite your 'stupid' Labrador Retriever, here it is:

GREEN TOMATO RELISH

3 qt green tomatoes (5 lb)

4 lg onions, chopped

2 sweet red peppers, chopped

2 sweet green peppers, chopped

1 qt vinegar

1 tsp turmeric powder

2 T mustard seed

2 T celery seed

3 C white sugar

2 T salt

Put green tomatoes through chopper, strain, and measure.

(I took this to mean that the 3 qt or 5 lb of green tomatoes

 should be post chopping and straining.)

Add chopped onions, peppers, and spices.  Boil 1 hour.  Pour into hot sterilized jars and seal.

(I also assumed the vinegar and sugar were to go in the pot for the 1 hour boil.

I left over a 1/4 inch of head space (but less than 1/2 inch) and boiled for 10 minutes.)

Now back to the subject of those sweet potatoes from yesterday!  Sweet potatoes are said to double in size (or was it weight??) every 2 weeks.  Either way the "babes" will mature if given another couple of weeks, but the "big daddies" of the bunch don't need any bulking.  I initially thought I could root around for the larger tubers and leave the smaller ones intact, but this was next to impossible.  So I harvested about half of the bed and will leave the others for a week's time or so.  We had some more sweet potato greens last night with dinner, and I gave some to my neighbor that so kindly shared a fig tree with me.

The sweet slips were planted in a 4 x 4 raised bed, in mounds which were covered in black plastic to help retain heat.  Initially a dozen were planted but I lost at least three or four in the early weeks.

This is looking in from outside the fence.

Here is another view, the tomatoes have gone over into the potato bed, 

and the potato vines have in turn made their way into the tomato jungle.

I harvested 6 lbs of sweets yesterday (and one dahlia tuber), and they are curing in my bathroom.  

Odd I know, but they like warm temps and humidity so I figured that was the best place for them to hang out for the next couple of weeks.

HAPPY GARDENING!!

Sweet Potato Dilemma

Ok kids, so I was nosing around out in the sweet potato patch today after going out to cut some leaves for sauteed greens.  I couldn't help but to reach in and start digging.  Initially all I found was roots and I was getting a pouty face.  But then I came across these two honkers, and another wee one nearby.  See honkers below:

I showed you it's pretty side here.  The not so pretty side is pretty cracked.  On both of them.  So now here is the dilemma- do I yank out the vines to keep the big ones from getting any bigger, or do I leave them so that the baby taters continue to develope?

Garden Update

The heat and humidity of the past week has kept me out of the garden, so I have a lot of catching up to do out there.  The afternoon will be full bug squishing, weeding, and maybe some potato digging.

This morning I discovered lots of baby peppers, my first ripe tomato and blueberry of the season, and flowers on the sweet potato vines.

I tried gooseberries last night, now I need to find a place for a bush in my crowded yard....that and some red currants to compliment our white.    Lovin' all the berries!  (There is a Wineberry bush sitting in a pot that needs planting too.....I have never had Wineberries, but I heard they were raspberry-ish so I jumped at the opportunity to take a transplant home to my garden).

I am off to enjoy this beautiful temperate Summer weather while it lasts - happy gardening!

New Arrivals......

This photo of my deck taken earlier  just kind of sums up my jumbled, somewhat productive, yet destructive day.  It started with a super-gross spraying of the apple trees.  This stuff truly is nasty and I don't ever want to use it again...but, then again, I do want edible apples.   I was all ready to try and go organic but then I read several accounts of apple truth and came to the conclusion that I had pest problems last year, and I didn't even have apples yet.  Sigh.  And to make things worse I burned 1/2 of the first tree I sprayed.  Not sure if I did a poor job rinsing the container out after the last Dormant Oil spray, or if the concentrate was not evenly mixed in the sprayer.  I know I measured the poison correctly because I sacrificed my favorite little kitchen measuring cup to do so.  Just a bad experience all around.  Yucky, yucky, yucky.

Then, I got some of that "put off potting-up" done.  Cow pots and a weak fish feed have put me back on the road to garden success.  The fridge is still untouched for any of you who may be wondering.  Next the mail came with live goods and a book, The Backyard Orchardist.

One of the "LIVE PLANTS" boxes had the sweet tator slips in it, a bit earlier than expected.  I was caught by surprise so their bed wasn't ready yet....off I went to throw it all together.  In the end I made 2 hills, covered with black mulch.  I amended with a bit of Potash, K-Mag, and acid loving organic fertilizer.   The slips are quite crowded, but after last year's disappointing harvest I am not willing to give them any more space to prove themselves.  The Georgia Jet slips are now tucked in under row cover with a strip of plastic thrown over for good measure, though it doesn't completely cover the bed.....I better change that (find a larger piece) sooner than later since night temps are still getting quite low around here.  So, -  hills, mulch, and row cover.  I hope it is all enough to keep them going until June comes around!

Aaaaaaand the remaining rhubarb came today as well.  They are still sitting in the box....

......and that is where they will remain until I figure out where the heck to put them.

Meet George

Don't you just want to belly up to the bar with him and have a Guiness?  He is mighty swell.  I met George at the local farm yesterday, at first I thought he was the Planter's Peanut.  He says he gets that alot.  After much consideration I decided to bring him home and see if he would sprout, he seems so good natured and all doesn't he?

(A note on George:  George is likely a local, though an immigration status is a possibility.....will this influence his ability to sprout?)

Sweet Potato Know-How

After talking sweet potatoes with one of my gardening girlfriends this evening (Linna over at Linna's Garden Journal) I decided to try and nail down my technique for this upcoming gardening season.  It of coarse helps that we had some baked sweet potatoes for dinner tonight, but they weren't my own.  These were farmstand potatoes and were quite large and delicious.  I want large and delicious tubers out of my garden this year.  And the photo?  While looking for a an actual potato picture I came across this this little "sweet tot" and had to put him in instead.  I can't believe how quickly they grow, these children.

Alright, now back to the vines.....the article linked by the title above is written by a Canadian maritime gardener and I found it to be just what I needed.  Simplified.   No-nonsense.  I have been debating over raised rows or containers for the Georgia Jets.  After reading this article and talking with my friend I think I will fill one of the new raised beds using the lasagna gardening method as Linna suggested, along with raised rows composed of light soil for planting the slips in.  Why not combine multiple techniques, right?

One Potato- Two Potato- Three Potato- Four.....

Though the longer those batatas stay in the ground the better, I decided today was the day to dig the remaining sweet potatoes. My lack of patience was getting the better of me and besides, now I have new soil to sow more cold hardy seeds in. I may try sowing early carrots and small onion bulbs, covering them with a thick mulch of straw, and then with plastic for the winter to see what happens. Hopefully it will be spring carrots and larger summer onions! Anyway, back to the sweet potatoes....

Here are some photos of the excavation (next year I will plant them under black plastic in an effort to increase yields):

Here I have pulled the vines away and started to dig in, uncovering a couple of good size roots.

***

This is a close-up of the root system coming down from the original slip. See that long skinny root above the tuber?

There it goes under the boards into the next bed. There are quite a few roots that decided to go next door, problem is my kale seedlings are growing above them.

***

I was thinking some of these pieces may continue to grow and provide me with slips come Spring if I bring them indoors. Most are pencil thin 'tubers' only, one is a vine with a few roots, and lastly there is a small potato with a section of vine still attached. I planted them in with organic potting mix and some soil from the bed they were growing in and topped it all of with a thick layer of straw. Fingers crossed!

***

And here is the less than ideal harvest. Nine potatoes in total from I forget how many slips....a couple died along the way. I am thinking there were 4 or 5 survivors. One did not produce any tubers at all, the sunflower roots took over it's territory completely.

Overall I am pleased to have home grown sweet potatoes under the cold and wet growing conditions, but I want MORE, MORE, MORE!!! I think I will attempt to double or triple my slip plantings next year and try more than one variety as well. (These are Beauregard and they came from Johnny's.) Another idea I may try is growing a few as container plants.

Steele Plant Company and George's Plant Farm out of Tennessee have piqued my interest for 2010. I did some follow-up over at Dave's Garden, the watch-dog site. The reviews were positive (Steele here, George's here) and people seemed pleased with their products. If you are looking for more information on growing, harvesting, or storing these beauties Mother Earth News has an informative article here. It's time for me to go fetch those potatoes from their sunny spot......their flavor will improve over the next month or so as starches covert to sugars, think I can wait that long??

Graden Buzz, Today's Harvest

It is hard to believe my gardening season is coming to an end, since the melons and winter squash won't be producing things should start winding down soon . Time to start thinking about where to put the cold frame, and what to plant in it. I am thinking Chard and carrots. Speaking of carrots, check out the photos below:

This is the potato/carrot bed back in late June. Going from left to right we have some herbs and a few measly carrots coming up; potatoes; sweet potatoes and my son's sunflower from school in the corner.

Wow have the carrots grown in! Anyone remember how frustrated I was by carrots earlier in the season? LOL, no more! (These photos were taken from inside the garden unlike the one above.)

And here is the gargantuan sunflower and the sweet potato vines, which are reaching over into the now foliage free potato bed. I still have some potatoes in the ground, maybe just over half have been harvested to date. What a change compared to the first photo huh? I find it funny to see the formerly full section empty, and the other two full of green.

***

The onions are done. Quite a bit smaller than I was expecting, nothing close to those grocery store sweet onions. Better luck next year I hope! (That is if I decide they are worthy of their garden space.)

***

I pulled 4 carrots up- here they are below in order. Finally, a winner!!!

I found a few more lovely carrots in the 'carrot jungle', along with lots of tomatoes, a large zuke, a couple cukes, some chili peppers and another super-tasty Carmen sweet pepper, and a handful of beans the beetles didn't beat me to. Oh, and some basil,.........

....and the first Red Cloud potato harvest!

Very exciting stuff here folks!

***

On to the garden buzz:

The Orb spiders have taken over my garden. It is getting tricky to pick around their webs.

I always have the urge to rub their cute, fuzzy, bumble buts, however after doing this once as a kid I now resist said urge.

My little man's sunflower is in full bloom, it's gorgeous!

***

Lastly, some pictures of what Late Blight looks like on a tomato plant:

These are two affected leaves from the top.

The tell-tale powdery underside of the water stained looking lesions:

I ultimately decided not to spray for blight since removing affected leaves by hand seems to be keeping it in check. It is of coarse continuing to spread, but at a controllable rate. Eventually this will change and the whole lot will require immediate disposal.

The SVB are slowly destroying my precious squash. The fruit is shriveling and rotting right off the vine. Very sad. I took some pictures but find it too depressing to look at. Also very sad is the fact that my female muskmelon flowers continue to rot instead of forming fruit. The bumble bee pictured above was on a blossom, so lack of pollination shouldn't be the culprit. Maybe there is some disease that causes this that I am unaware of??

I ripped out most of the cucumber plants and bolting lettuce today. The beets I sowed along with the carrots many weeks back have failed to germinate. That or I pulled them thinking they were weeds. Anything is possible. 8) I am very curious to see what comes home with me from the CSA today, last week was pathetic once again. I brought only a plastic grocery bag with me, and it wasn't even full when I left. I will greatly miss the blueberries though, I am figuring last week was their finale.

Edit: The Farmer's Almanac is showing 27 days until Autumn. (Me frowning.) Also,Today in History:
The Nineteenth Amendment was adopted, granting women the right to vote. It was nicknamed the "Anthony" amendment in recognition of the lobbying efforts of suffragette Susan B. Anthony, 1920.

Thanks to Susan B. Anthony and all others in securing me the right to vote!

Todays Harvest, Free Seed Offer

If you could have seen me this afternoon picking away in the garden I would have had a satisfied smile on my face. In my harvest basket today there was my first eggplant (EVER!!), my first red-ripe Carmen pepper, some zucchini, beans, and tomatoes. All these goodies weighed in at 5.6 lbs! I feel the urge to make more oven-dried tomatoes (pictured below), but then that leaves few for fresh eating. What to do?

Johnny's sent out a letter to it's customers, in it are some suggestions for crops to plant now as well as an offer for some free seeds. The offer is in bold print in the close-up picture along with some of their suggestions for sowing now. The letter also mentions the late blight disaster, and how to use row covers as season extenders. I am posting this just for you Thomas (over at A Growing Tradition)!

I have some baby acorn squash growing and the carrots finally seem to be happy to grow in my garden, I will actually need to do some thinning soon. I must go check when sweet potatoes become ready for harvest, I am dying to dig down and see what (if anything) has grown. I know it is way too early, but I can anticipate right?? :)

Yesterday's Garden Walkthrough

When I went out yesterday morning to do some watering and harvesting I found a honey bee doing a dance in this squash blossom. Of course I didn't have my camera and by the time I had retrieved it the fella was gone. Moments later another bee arrived. I am not sure what type this one is though.

***

This is the bushy, furry asparagus bed with a handful of dahlias thrown in. I peered in around back, and sure enough, new spears are still emerging. I figured they would be done by now since most have gone to seed and they are a "Spring crop". Maybe they are just trying to catch up from their late start?

***

Welcome to the tomato jungle! There are quite a few plants with diseases, but so far this hasn't affected the fruit production. All the plants seem to have caught up to one another in size (some were started much earlier than others). The flavor of the Juliet Plums is superb, but their size in my opinion only makes them good for fresh eating. I couldn't imagine trying to make sauce out of those tiny things.

***

Here's a good one.....whats the biggest thing in my garden? The sunflower seedling my son brought home in a Dixie cup from pre-school, ha! The sweet potato vines underneath are finally starting to ramble. (Don't mind the weeds.)

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This is one of the handful of winter squash growing in containers. I never thinned this pot and there are two plants growing in there, I hope they have enough room to get through the season. I don't see how they could but I just don't have the heart to pull one out now.

***

These beans are a 'fall sowing'; the muskmelon seedlings originally in this straw bale were eaten by critters in the night. I added some dog hair and metal wire for good measure and so far they have been left alone.

***

The neem spraying on the apple trees has not helped any, in fact they are worse. I think the situation is too far gone and requires a more potent chemical. The trees are not happy, hard to put into words, but I can just tell things are not good. I used Bonide Garden Dust (an insecticide-fungicide) today and gave them a fish emulsion feeding. I don't know if the dust will work any better than the neem, but if I don't stop the insect damage soon these trees may weaken beyond repair.

Next year I will be sure to use the neem proactively (as Ruralrose suggested) along with Horticultural & Dormant oil spray. If anyone has any other suggestions please share them! I know most literature calls for regular spraying of fruit trees, and I was hoping to avoid it if at all possible......maybe that just isn't realistic?

***

Lastly, yesterday's garden bounty. BLT's and refrigerator pickles are in my future, this is what I have waiting for all summer!! My bucket was actually heavy today, weighing in at four and a quarter pounds, YEAH!