September 11, 2008

Well, it's been seven years since 9/11, and things in NY are still not right.  And things will never be right for those touched by this tragedy.  But we can all remember and celebrate this great country and how we came together to help those affected.  Now we can come together to stop giving our money to oil producing countries by conserving and taking mass transit and using our feet to go places and shop locally and if I'm forgetting anything, stop by Freedomgardens.org  and they'll fill you in. 

This afternoon my brother called to tell me that he had 5 pounds of cukes that he was going to pickle. He'd found a very popular recipie on the internet for dill pickles without the month-long marinade.  Instead you pack the jars with marinade and then store the pickles for two months before eating.  I couldn't get him to hold off since he had some past peak cukes and needed to do it today.  Apparently he's got more cukes ready soon to combine with mine for the next batch.  After going out and skimming off a ton of scum, I think I'm ready to can these as-is and do the next batch the post-canning marinading way.

Anyway, this evening I was trolling the boards and happened upon the GW canatloupe thread again.  I've posted there because all cubrits are pollinated the same and I've had great experience with my cucumbers by hand pollinating.  Well, re-reading it I got curious if I had any female flowers. I've read they follow in about two weeks and I figured it was close.  So I went out at twilight and presto! I've got female Minnesota Midget cantaloupe! (no cracks Granny!)



Again, sorry for the burry photos, I zoomed in all the way to take these and it is very touchy at that resolution.  But you can clearly see the baby cantaloupe there.  I won't bore you with the two others I found, but they weren't nearly as open as this one.  So I pulled the most open male and tickled it, and it's siblings too. You never know if it will work.  I've done it with the cucumbers so why stop now.

Anyway, I highly doubt we'll have the weather to take these to maturity, so I think I'll go for one per plant and pick the rest off to force all the energy into the one cantaloupe.

And while I was out there, I heard my eldest ask "Please can I you pick me a carrot daddy?"  So I couldn't help but grab him one on the way back in...



Not bad, and of course tasty!  He loves them. Now to get my youngest to eat his veggies.  Odd how kids are so different.

Well, lastly tonight, after wasting two days getting a new car, I finally broke down and made up a box for the potatoes.  I followed DoubleD's advice and used a banker's box and drilled 2 inch holes in various spots for ventilation.  Then I drilled tiny holes all over the top.  Then I grabbed some of my compost fodder, you know, the shredded paper and bills and covered the bottom with it.



Then I dumped the bag of yukon gold potatoes in the newly built bin.



See the dirt on them.  I think it was DoubleD that said not to brush off too much of the dirt until I need them.  You don't want to damage the skin.  Though I do have to find the one that I peeled a bit of the skin back hitting it with a shovel when harvesting.  That I'll use first.  Then, I put some more paper over the top to absorb moisture.



Finally, I found it fits on the bottom shelf of the storage shelves we use to store toys.  It's not completely dark but it's shaded from the natural night.  I sure hope these store well. I haven't had any yet, but I hope to find some good recipies for yukon golds.  All I know of is to mix them into mashed taters with russetts or new potatoes. 

Well, as always, let me know if I'm making mistakes.  I'd hate to learn from my mistakes after my potatoes rot or sprout too early.

I can't wait until I can store my second box right next to it filled to the brim with russetts. Here's to hoping I can make that happen!  The bin is dying a bit more and more each day, but I've kept watering it in case it's a water issue.  That's the beauty of Mel's Mix.  It retains moisture well, but it drains incredibly well, so I don't worry about overwatering. It just drains through.

Well that's it for me tonight. Enjoy your garden!

September 10, 2008

Well, short post tonight.  I picked up the new car which took all evening, including getting the old car ready to trade in. 

There's been great response to the potato answer.  No, it doesnt' answer every issue, but it solves everyone's problems that find their harvest lacking RIGHT NOW, when early varieties are ready to harvest.

But let's do a quick tour and share what's going on, then I'm outta here...



I know, I've got to pick some of these soon, but I just hate to have to buy lettuce from the store.  Unfortunately I've got no chance of waiting until mine is ready, so I guess I need to go to the store.

But do you note the massive wilt and browning?  I know I needed to water the tomato bin, but the beans are not doing so well.



I guess if this keeps up, I won't have a problem ripping them out when the peas need the new trellis. Not sure why I didn't take a picture of the peas, but for some odd reason, the outer two squares had full germination and the inner two that I planted more than 8 seeds to insure good germination I got poor results.  I hate to re-seed now.  Maybe I'll just train them over.  Not sure.   But boy are cukes proving to be great producers.



Not sure if it's particlarly visible, but a week ago, these two were tiny and now they're ready!  And so were a ton of their buddies!



Phenomonal!  I've got another batch ready to start pickling.  I've also got three slicers growing.  I must say though, I haven't eaten the one I kept of the last three (see the lettuce issue) but it is STILL firm and ready to eat in the crisper, just wrapped in paper towels. Very cool.  Maybe this weekend we'll pickle some more. My brother's got a bit more than I do.  Should be fun!

I also pulled a later succession corn cob that was big and full and took a bite of it.  It was bland bland bland.  I wonder if it's good for livestock to eat?  There's a garden buddy of mine that has chickens and goats that may be able to use it.

Lastly, something's munching my cauliflower seedlings, but only nibbling.  Thankfully the seedlings are healthy in Mel's Mix with good spacing so as Steve Solomon says, healthy seedlings can survive most pest attacks and still trive.



*Sorry for the blurry photo,  it's tough to tell after I take it.  You get the picture.*

We're also going to go to the Puyallup Fair (the biggest county fair in the region, even if it's not my county). I also saw an add for a farm festival in my county.  You can bet I'm going to both to look at the produce side instead of the rides and food, as well as look into the chickens and goats because I'm curious after all the talk over at PTF's Freedom Gardens.org. No, I don't want goats, but they're cool.  Chickens, well that's another mater.

So enjoy your garden!

September 9, 2008

Potato problem's explained!  More at 11... Oh wait, I'm not a news anchor, and also, it IS 11. Now it's 11:01.  So you missed it.  Seriously, I got a late start tonight because I bucked the economic trends and went out and bought a car.  Albeit a cheap one to destroy by taking it a mile a day to the park and ride, or roughly 1,000 miles a year.  Buying a car takes forever.  But I had to post.

Those of you that don't read the Veggie forum of GW don't know that I found amazing answers to mine and hundred's of other's potato woes.

It seems the Times article left off a key ingredient.  Do NOT use early variety potatoes. They don't need potato bins because they only set fruit once, at the bottom. My experience proved that.  (Though they would work well with SWCs or maybe a kiddie pool with 6 inches of dirt.

So pick only late season varieties to grow in the potato bins.  Aparently a substitute for Yukon Gold is Yellow Fin.  Binjte is another yellow late variety.  Russets are mid-season but I'm hoping they set more than one layer of fruit.  I'm hopeful that I get good production.

Speaking of production, Greg's customers get on average 60 pounds per bin with his personal best of 76.  A former employee of his gets over 100 pounds by using a cover to keep the frost off for 2 months.  I may do that with mine just so I can get big bakers.  Just a thought.

Well, that's it for me, I have to update my Potato Bin page...  To-date over 2,000 people are missing a key ingredient.  YIKES!

Enjoy your garden!

September 8, 2008

First off, I have done a ton of research on my potato problem.  It appears from the GW thread that my experience with bottom production and nothing more is not uncommon.  Dozens of folks have had the same results.  Then there's Granny, who thinks we're way too tall and then there are those who blame the amount of plant we allowed to grow, the hardening off crowd.  My brother even claims that in the tire method you completely cover the stalk to keep it climbing toward the surface as a root.  I'm stumped.

So I went out to the internet and found Greg Lutovsky, who owns Irish Eyes - Garden City Seeds and found the same instructions from the Times article on his site.  They also had a contact form.  So I broke down and asked for his advice.  We'll see what the expert says. 

This evening we had a salad and I went out and picked a fresh, vine ripened tomato and ate it!  OMG that was the best tomato I've ever had.  And yes, maybe I'm saying that because I grew it, so what, hehe. 

Lastly, I dressed up in two pairs of pants, long sleeves and a heavy jacket, a scarf over my neck and face and a hat to go out and do battle with a wasp nest.  They'd already proven to be very aggressive.  So I had a foaming spray I got today from my local True Value (I'm trying to shop locally of course), and my partial can of instakill spray, one in each gloved hand.  I bet I looked priceless.  At 20 minutes past official sunset, I started blanketing the general area of the nest with foam.  Whenever I saw movement I did a windmill motion with my instant kill spray, creating a fog of death for any would-be attackers.  After thirty seconds of that, it looked like they were mounting a massive attack and I retreated.  I sure hope I got them.  Threre's a chance they're ground wasps, which would be bad because I would need to clear the area to find the holes.  Not good.  I'm crossing my fingers that my kids can go out and play again.  My wife won't let them go out on the best weather days of the year.  Thankfully they've been going to parks.

Well, my brother's got about 15 cukes harvested and I've got about the same amount almost ready, so we may be doing another batch of pickles.  Speaking of which, my pot is marinading away and still smells great.  Two weeks down, two to go.

Lastly, I know it's not gardening, but it's a disappointing day for football in Seattle.  We now have zero veteran receivers on the Seahawks.  Nate Burleson was the last remaining experienced receiver and he tore an ACL and is now out for the season.  Now we need three plus receivers to step up from the rookies and practice squad players and someone to return kicks.  Not looking good for our Seahawks.

Enjoy your garden!

September 7, 2008 Part II

I don't know what I was thinking when I didn't post yesterday.  Sure it was busy, but I've been busy before and still managed to post.  So I decided to post yesterday's today.  In fact, after uploading 33 pictures from my phone, I decided to do three posts, so please go back and read what I just posted.  Enjoy!

Today, Sunday, September 7, 2008 was the day.  I decided to finally harvest my Yukon Golds!  DoubleD told me I could do so any time and gave me great info on how to store them.  I would have done it wrong.  So I laid out a tarp to catch the dirt.



I removed the boards...



And tipped it over with the help of my wife, boy was it heavy!



What's missing from the picture you say?  Well, potatoes for one.  That's right, my experiment was a failure.  I should have had layers and layers of potatoes.  Instead, I had a mountain of dirt.



And at the very bottom I had a cluster of potatoes for each plant I nurtured for an entire growing season.



I guess I should have researched it more and found out that I can't let the plant to grow more than 4 inches or so above the soil before covering it.  It's the only thing I can think of.  Frustrated?   You bet.  But as my buddy at work taught me, it goes shock, anger, denial, acceptance.  Thankfully on most things I cycle through fast and am already at acceptance as I type this.  I'm not sure I will do potatoes next year.  A lot depends on how good these taste and how many Butte's I get.  If I get squat out of all that jungle, I may reconcider doing this again.  All that work for 10.5 pounds of potatoes.  It's probably 5 meals or so, maybe more, but not a year's worth, that's for sure!

Anyway, thanks to DoubleD, I spread out the potatoes in the September sun.  They dried at 75 degrees for several hours.  Perfect weather for long-term storage, if they last that long.



Oh, and I forgot from my garden tour, look at the pretty flowers on the cantaloupe plants!



And look at what I found as I was working.



It's tough to see, but there's a fat bumble bee trying to pollinate my fruit for me.  Too bad there are no female flowers yet.

Anyway, it was about this time that my mother and aunt showed up.  You see, enough of the blackberries were ready to harvest.  Not too sweet but tender.  Perfect.



My first order of business, as usual, is to hack back a couple feet of space between the bramble and my back fence.  Haven't they heard of encroachment? hehe



So, my mother and eldest son started picking as I got out my machette and started carving a path for them.  I actually harvested more than I cut because my son's not quite tall enough to pick much.

While we were doing this, my aunt was doing what she always does, she was weeding the rose garden.  It's a never ending battle.  If it weren't for the mature roses and irises, I would napalm the area and start over with raised beds.  Someday maybe, but not anytime soon.

Anyway, it was early in the picking when a very unfortunate accident happened.  My aunt was pulling out some wild grass and weeds that had grown up between the house and the roses when she grabbed a hold of a wasp nest.  By the time my wife got out there and scrapped the clinging wasps off her, she had been stung between a dozen and twenty times on the arms, chest, throat and face.  My wife thankfully only got one sting on her stomach.  Even more thankfully, after they got safely in the house and the mini-swarm had disapated, I grabbed my son and made a dash for the door.  My mother followed shortly thereafter and nobody else got stung. 

A significant dosage of Benadryl, Advil and hydrocortizone later, we called the nurse line and on their advice, shipped my aunt off to the ER.  She's in good health, but 65 and a smoker.  Best not to take chances.  She's fine, but we blew the day.  Nobody went outside until dusk. 

So the dirt is still on the tarp, waiting to be bagged for use down the road for something other than potatoes.  The blackberries still need to be harvested.  The flower beds still need to be weeded. And my row covers still need to be installed.  Oh, and I've got a wasp nest to take care of.  My mother wants me to call an exterminator for $125 if it's the same as last time.  My dad just wants me to walk up with a spray can and do it myself.  We've taken nests out before.  When it's fall and the night-time temperatures drop considerably, they get slow and docile at night and it's easy.  But now it's still 63 at midnight!  No way. hehe.  I guess I've got a call tomorrow.  /sigh

Hope you had a good weekend.  My football team looked pittiful in their season opener and I wasted a day in the garden, on top of my wimpy potato production.  Mine could have been better.  Work tomorrow. Better hit the sack.

Enjoy your garden!

September 7, 2008

Not really sure why I broke up these two posts, but there's just a lot going on, so make sure you check out yesterday since I just posted it, hehe.

This post will be about my garden and bread.  I'll start with the bread to make sure the gardeners actually read it.

I'm not sure what happened with the bread this time.  The dough did rise high up the sides of that Tupperware bowl.  However, when I turned it out on the well flowered board, it stuck firm and was messy.  As a result, the dough didn't fold as much as it was molded and squished into a square.  Even the dough blade got coated and sticky.  Grrr. 

I had hoped to try DoubleD's method (I've been messaging her countless times over the last two days, THANK YOU!).  She uses a clay baker, but upside down.  Her bell pot is down with the flat bottom as a lid.  I figured that's how she gets her bread so tall.  I've since figured that I was mistaken, it doesn't help much. It's just her vast experience.  I had planned on using a pyrex bowl, covered with my pizza stone, to recreate it.  Unfortunately I only have one bowl of that size, so I couldn't bake with it since I used it for the final proof.  The problem is that I couldn't preheat the dish and use it for the final proof.  Silly me.  So I went back to the old standby. 

And yet again, the bread stuck to the pizza stone.  I wonder if folks oil it or not.  Not sure.  It's just really annoying to have to scrape it off.  I did salvage the bottom crust this time though.  Unfortunately, it was think and a bit over browned. Again, not sure why.  Not particularly logical, but whatever.  It still tastes great!



It's also a bit hollow inside.  More experimentation is in order, and maybe some emails to Eric at Breadtopia.  And what the heck, it's only a little flour, natural gas and time.

So, now on to my garden.  I'll finish up this post with a garden tour.



I'm getting more and more tomatoes ripening, this nice weather really is doing the trick!



And see all the new green bean production!  I just harvested last week or so!



The cukes keep plugging away.  I even saw a ton of new females starting to form.  Soon I'll be able to play matchmaker again.

And for the grand finale, I was almost done with my broccoli that I'd harvested, you know, the one EG was drooling over.  Well, I think he flew over here and harvested it.  And didn't do a good job of doing so.  Look at it!



Sure enough, some coon got past my ancient Shake Away application and found the broccoli too tasty to pass up.  Grrr.  I was looking forward to it.  So I put down another layer of Shake Away.  If I can track back to the last time I put it down, I'll know about how long it lasts.

Enjoy your garden!

September 6, 2008

Saturday was tons fo fun.  We took a trip to the mountains and it was a beautiful day.  It was a perfect hike for the kids.  It was a 1.5 mile hike with a moderate climb using log stairs to get up in elevation, and ended at Franklin Falls.  The trip wasn't bad, we took our time so the kids could walk.  No stroller this time, which is a good thing due to the stairs.  I hope you'll allow me to share some great pics from the trip...



Here is a view from the trial which followed Denny Creek up to the falls.  It is typical PNW beauty with the rock carved ravine with the trees growing out of the rock.  Very cool to share with the kids!



Here is he view down Denny Creek from the base of the...





Waterfall...  It was cool. Literally.  The weather was in the mid 70s but the water hitting the shallow pool created a permanent mist.  It was nice, but this next shot, the obliglitory shot of the "boys" proving we were there, shows that my eldest was getting cold after about 30 minutes playing in the rocky beach.



Really, the kids were actually having a good time, it just wasn't good to ask them to look directly into the sun to take a picture, hehe.  I was proud of my eldest, who is a bit "cautious" made it down a very trecherous carved rock path down to the creek floor.  It was damp and slippery, so I got a chance to teach him not to step on wet rocks and not to take a step until you had a solid foot under you.

That evening, my wife went to a Mariner's game and I started a loaf of bread for baking Sunday.  Unfortunately, I had forgotten my starter out overnight on Friday after I doubled it with barely enough room at the top to stir.  By the evening, I looked at it and found that the seal wasn't as good as I thought it was.  Not only did it burst the seam, but it spewed sticky starter all over the top of my fridge.  Man is that stuff tough to clean up!



After clean-up, I decided this time to experiment with a steeper walled bowl.



Enjoy the three posts!