Yearly Garden Cleanup

That time of year has come to clean out the rest of the leftovers in the garden for the fall. It's a sign that I will no longer get fresh home-grown goodies for another few months. Alas, it must be done.

Just look at the size of that banana pepper!

Easy Strawberry Cage

This year I would actually like to get some strawberries out of my garden. Up until this point most of the strawberries have been eaten by the birds. When I planted them, the plants were spread out to give them room to grow so it wasn't easy having a strong net system over them. When I did spread a net over them, the birds seemed to get caught in the netting half the time and I'd have to free them... to live another day to eat the fruits of my labor. Therefore, this year one of the things on my to-do list was to make a cage/enclosure to keep the birds out. Mission accomplished! I replanted the strawberries close together, which also makes for less weeding and put together my net system. It's not too big so it's easy to lift up when I need to do some harvesting.

Simple - 1" x 3"s attached in a 7' x 2' 1/2" frame, with a 1" x 1" center support

Beneficial Insect - The Wheel Bug

I first came across the wheel bug last summer. When I went to go check on my bee hive I noticed a very strange, prehistoric looking creature cruising around on top of the hive roof. I snapped a few pics and posted them online to see if anyone knew what it was. I found out that it was known as a wheel bug and it was probably doing some bee hunting. I will admit that at first I was not too fond of this bug, considering the work I put into my bees only to have them eaten. Yet, there was only one lone bug that I saw and I couldn't imagine it doing that much harm.

If you do encounter this insect in your yard be careful though! They are capable of piercing skin and secreting a substance which is said to be 10x worse than a hornet sting! Eek..

Flowering Rhubarb

When plants flower when we want them to, it's called blooming. When plants flower when we don't want them to, it's called bolting. Rhubarb is one of those plants that we don't want flowering. A flowering rhubarb is undesirable because the flowering process takes a lot of energy away from stalk production. Unless propagation from seed is your plan, the flowering stalks should be removed. Rhubarb propagation from seed takes years to develop a harvest-able stock. Also, the resulting rhubarb from seed can sometimes be inferior to the mother plant. It's easier and better to propagate rhubarb by dividing the crown of a plant that's at least 4 years old.

Now that Spring is upon us, a lot of rhubarb plants are probably bolting at this point. I know mine has been, I've had to cut many flower stalks off by now. I've read that usually only established rhubarb, that's a a couple years old bolts. I only planted mine last spring. Sometimes rhubarb does flower when it is under stress. But, since it hasn't been put through any stress I will attribute it to the cultivar - Victoria. Some cultivars are known to bolt more easily.

When removing flower stalks, use a sharp clean knife to take off the stalk as close to the ground as possible. 

Super Easy Green Onions

Have you ever bought a package of green onions and after cutting them up just threw the bottom roots away? Yea me too, but not anymore! I may not even be buying green onions at all in the near future. That's because they are super easy to grow by just planting the root end. I experimented by planting a 1"  long stem with roots and one that was a couple inches tall. Both are growing well, but it seems the smaller one actually has a little more growth. The rest of the green onions that were in the package were looking a bit wilt-ish, so I placed them in a cup with a little water and even they perked right up.

A couple days after I stuck them in soil

A week after the previous photo was taken

Happy green onions in a bit of water

Easy Garden Bed

Apparently in the spring, I ordered some saffron bulbs. I had just missed the shipment period for them to be sent out, so they were put on automatic shipment for the fall. I had totally forgotten about them (and building the box I'd put them in) until they arrived. It's a good thing I already knew what I was going to do and just needed to buy the materials and put everything together. 

I purchased:

4 - 8' x 2" x 6" Pine Boards

2 - 8' x 1" x 2" Furring Strips (chicken deterrance)

1 Box of 3" Screws

4 (1 cu.ft.) Bags of Top Soil

2 (1 cu. ft.) Bags of Cypress Mulch

Tools and other materials I had:

Drill

Assorted 2" x 6" Boards and Other Scrap Wood

Newspapers and Cardboard

The 8' boards fit perfectly next to my walkway, so all I needed to do was screw them all together.

Perfect Centerpiece

Who needs flower centerpieces when you can have something much more useful and tasty?? Dinner lacking a bit of flavor? Just pick some leaves off and add it to the meal yourself. I enjoy having vases/glasses of basil around my kitchen. My basil will last up to 3 days until it starts wilting. 

Insalata Caprese makes a perfect summer snack when the tomatoes start flowing. Lately, I've been making a super simple version of it on rosemary Triscuit crackers with a small slice of tomato, a basil leaf, and a bit of mozzarella cheese. When the evenings start getting cooler it can be nice to put it in the toaster oven to melt the cheese a bit. Mmmm.... tasty!

2012 Garden

The garden is coming along nicely this year. My tomatoes are absolutely loving the chicken manure that I've been overly generous with, and my basil is already a foot high. I had a volunteer mammoth dill pop up that is now taller than me! It's been super hot here lately, over 100° the past couple days. My fig tree is not looking so great - even with watering it everyday, it really dislikes this heat.  

Mammoth Dill

Sad Fig

Plain Jane Tomatoes

All this time, have you been thinking that all that hard work and love you put into those home grown tomatoes is what makes them so delicious compared to those bland supermarket tomatoes? Apparently there is a bit more of a scientific reason for those tasteless, hard tomatoes. Years and years ago, farmers discovered a tomato trait that produced an ideal, uniform red color and shape. Taking a cue from consumer wants of perfection, they took advantage of the trait and after generations of cultivating it, most of the modern tomatoes today have that mutated gene. They didn't immediately realize that that one type of tomato was far less sweet and aromatic.

For the whole story check out the NY Times article.

My sister sent me a collection of different types of heirloom tomato seeds for my birthday. I'm looking forward to taste tomatoes as farmers intended before the bottom line became more important than quality.

So Many Strawberry Plants!

Have you ever seen so many strawberry plants? I received a giant bag of them from a master gardener friend who was transitioning to another crop in his garden. All the brown in the picture is not dead matter just big, happy roots. I planted about 40 plants inside my fenced in garden. I also made a little patch outside the garden for the chickens to enjoy. If I had a tractor I would start myself a strawberry farm. I ran out of places to plant them and I still have more than half the bag left in the shed. Perhaps I'll start a plant a bunch of them in containers and put them all over my deck. Good thing I know how to can! I would just hate to not use them all!

Early Spring Seeding

After last year I decided that I need to have tomatoes earlier. I'm such a tomatoaholic in the spring! Now with the addition of a dehydrator this year as well... I'm foaming at the bit. This year I've planted my seeds extra, extra early. Usually it is recommended that tomato seeds be started indoors 6-8 weeks before the last anticipated frost date. Currently I am about 13 weeks before the frost date and I already started my first batch of seeds. I also planted some onion seeds, since I was not happy with the small ones I had by the end of last season.


This year I am also determined to have lots of herbs. My herbs didn't do too well last year or the year before. I had almost given up when I randomly decided to plant some dill and cilantro seeds towards the end of the season. Would you believe they popped out and did great? My mammoth dill sprang up to 4 feet! I didn't do anything special with them either, but I was pretty much in the habit of watering the garden by that point. So I'm thinking Lots of water is the key with herbs here. I've got a step up on last year with my herbs too as I have a couple of containers of cilantro and basil started. In the next couple days I'll plant some rosemary and perhaps some lavender as well.

This Years Garden

The garden is doing well so far. The bottom leaves on my tomato plants were all starting to turn brown and die. I looked online to see what it might be. I read that it could be from the heat and too little watering. Ever since I've been watering them more, and it seems to have stopped the brown leaves from spreading.

My corn has done very well this year. I think I may plant a whole bunch more outside the fence next year.

Roundup Dangers

Having an organic garden means I don't have to worry about chemicals leaching into my water or my chickens accidentally consuming a toxic substance. Not to mention what those chemicals may do to my future health. I stumbled across this article today and I believe it has some important information: Birth Defects Caused by Roundup

People have been gardening and farming for thousands of years before the invention of herbicides, pesticides, and chemical fertilizers. Yes, it takes a bit of work, but by gardening organically you can feel rest assured that you're not putting your family's future or the environment at risk.

The Garden is Tilled

Last year when my boyfriend and I were first starting the garden, we had to start it the hard way. We picked out a spot on the property that was slopped towards the south. This way the garden would get loads of sunlight. Then we started preparing the ground with a tiller. Wait, did I say a tiller?? No, that would've been the easy, most sane way of doing it. Well, no one within an hour of us rents out tillers. Also, since we had just bought our house, we really didn't feel like splurging on a new tiller either. So, we shoveled. We labored at the matted, overgrown areas of grass that were a bundle of mess, for days.

Time to Plant Seeds for the Garden!

I started planting seeds to transfer to the garden the other day. Plastic food containers that would've otherwise been recycled are great to use. I started my: onions, tomatoes, eggplant, broccoli, and peppers. This year I'm trying out banana peppers too. I didn't have much luck with my broccoli last year. They grew to be huge, but I think I planted them too late and they never formed any heads for picking.

Don't forget to label containers so you know what they are!