August 2020 Garden Update

August was an eventful month in the garden. In the beginning of the month, I pulled a tomato plant because of fungus. On the 27th, I pulled my cucumbers from the fabric pots. They began forming very misshapen fruits, and the leaves were dying off rather fast. I also planted radish seeds that day in the two open fabric pots and in the free rows of the raised beds. They already have decent sized sprouts, and the rainy weather helps too. I noticed several of my tomatoes had blossom end rot, but I added some crushed egg shells and with lots of rain in the forecast, it had only happened to 3 tomatoes. Finally, I also ordered garlic to be planted beginning to mid-October. I tried to grow garlic last winter, but I really had no idea what I was doing, so they didn’t make it through the freeze. Finally, I’ve also begun trying to root a pineapple top. And, I found a volunteer pumpkin vine by the house.

I’ve also been thinking extensively about the garden for next Spring, Summer, and Fall. Josh and I plan to build 2 more 8X3 or 4 beds. We plan on placing them by our baby peach tree and we plan to place lower maintenance plants there, though I check on my garden at least once a day. Beans grew really well for us this year, so we plan to grow more green beans. We bought heirloom garlic from MI Gardener, so we plan to grow 3 varieties. We didn’t have much luck at all with tomatoes this summer, so though I’ll be more careful next year to water more often and soak them, I plan to up our quantity to 10 tomato plants with 2 heirloom varieties. I’d like to grow bell and banana peppers next year, potatoes and sweet potatoes, cabbage, broccoli, and more onions, but this time from seed. And, once garlic in harvested in July, we’ll wait about a month or so, and plant some peas. We are ambitious, but this summer has been such a blessing to us that we’d love to have even more fresh veggies next year! We would plant zucchini, yellow squash, or eggplant, but my in-laws always grow lots, so we help absorb some of their excess. Finally, we contemplated more carrots, growing celery, and beets, but we’d like to grow the garden in increments that won’t overwhelm me, and hopefully doubling in size won’t be too much.

This summer we also got quite a bit of seed from our garden. The radish seed pods below is about 1/2 the quantity I got from about 4-5 plants I let go to seed. It took me about 3 hours to break and filter out the seed, and I easily have 100-200 seeds. I also got 3 onion flowers from my sets this year. They formed seeds, but I want at least one other variety, so I will also be buying a packet of seeds. Finally, as I mentioned, my green beans have been doing great. We were harvesting once a week, but just Monday when I was harvesting, I found about 3 pods that were drying. So, I also got 12 new seeds from that, and I will now be harvesting beans twice a week until they slow down. I also am letting my lettuce go to seed, though we’ll see how far they get before I turn my beds.

August 18

August 27

September 1

Plants Outside the Garden

September 2, 2020 0

Preserving from the Garden

Green Beans

First, I wash my beans. I then shake them dry or dry them on a paper towel. I cut both ends off my green beans, then cutting the beans into two or three pieces. I transfer those pieces into a gallon freezer bag, use the water displacement method to remove extra air, then I label with item month and year, then I freeze. I have already done two large harvests this month and was able to fill this bag in just 2 weeks. I planted 12 green bean vines.

To do the water displacement method, fill a large bowl or pot with water. Seal your bag 3/4 of the way and remember the edge that is open. Begin submerging the bag into the water. Leave out the edge that is open, and once most air is removed, seal the rest of the bag. You can then flatten out the contents of the bag for easy storage.

Onions

When I harvested all my onions, I first had to let them dry out. So, I stored them in this container on my kitchen windowsill. The windowsill gets pretty warm but it doesn’t get much sun, just a bit when it’s setting, and it’s not very strong that time of day. Once the tops all browned, I began preserving. If you have a root cellar, you can chop off the tops just above the stem, and clean off the roots, then they can immediately go into storage. If you don’t have a dry space under ground like me, then you can simply dice them and place them in the freezer for future use. I got two full sandwich bags, and I have used them heavily before processing the last of them. I once again used water displacement method to remove air.

Carrots

Carrots can lose nutrients if you pick them and leave the tops on in hot weather. So, our harvest was in two batches. We emptied a bin, took the carrots inside. Cut the tops from the carrots. then repeated with the second batch. Once all the carrots were harvested, I scrubbed them to remove dirt and the roots. Once all were processed, I cut off the tops and the end of the root, then I sliced then and transferred them to gallon freezer bag. I then used water displacement to remove the air, labeled them, then added them to my freezer.

Tomatoes

My tomatoes were starting to go bad, and since I haven’t had any more to harvest lately, I figured one small canner of tomatoes was better than nothing for now. You aren’t supposed to use rotting or damaged tomatoes, however that is how my family has done it for generations. First, cut off any bad spots deep into the tomato. Sanitize your knife and the spots. Then treat them like normal tomatoes. Drop the tomatoes into boiling water, boil for 1-2 minutes, then transfer into an ice bath. After a minute or so, the skin will loosen from the fruit. Remove a tomato and place on a cutting board. Cut off the top stem then peel off the skin. Dice your tomatoes then add to a preheated jar. (I just soak them in very hot water.) Fill your canner 1/2 way with water and bring to a boil. Also bring a small saucepan of water to a boil, then add the needed number of lids and remove from heat. Push down on the tomatoes and add any extra juice from your dicing. Once near to the top, you need to add Lemon juice and salt. For a Quart add 2 Tbsp lemon and 2 tsp salt, and for a pint, add 1 Tbsp lemon and 1 tsp salt. Add more tomatoes/some very hot water to get to 1/2 inch from the upper lip of the jar. You will then need to stick a butter knife down the edges of the jar to remove air pockets. Then you can wipe the rim clean, add the lid and ring, finger tight, then once all are ready, add them to your water bath, add additional water to cover the jars, bring that to a boil, the process for 85 minutes. Once they are done, carefully remove hot jars and place on several towels on the counter, and let cool to room temperature. Check the tops to see if they sealed, remove the rings, wipe down the jars and label, then store in a dark and cool location for the most available storage time.

August 18, 2020 0

August Weekend Harvest and Next Year Contemplation

July Garden Update 2020

July 6

July 12-13

July 17

August 1

August 11, 2020 2

Garden Update June 2020

Hello, and welcome to another one of my garden updates. My last update was for May, and this one is for June. (Sorry it’s a bit later than the last one.) My garden has grown so fast, it’s shocking! I’ve gotten some radishes and lettuce off my plants, and this weekend I was able to get some cucumbers off my plants too.

This last month I’ve learned some valuable lessons. First, and I mentioned it in my last post, it is so important to space radishes. I tried to get them high density, just it just grew into a mess, and it took about 2 weeks longer to get any. Also, the two pictures below of harvested radishes is all the radishes I was able to harvest out of that mess. I had several radishes break under the soil and begin to rot, and I had many many more that produced no bulb due to overcrowding.

Second, I’ve discovered that cucumbers are a handful! I’ve been trying to grow them vertically, tying them to a tomato cage. And, though that works, They don’t climb naturally well, so I find myself every 1-2 days in the garden directing and tying off my cucumber plants. I also trimmed off some of the lower leaves off my cucumbers. They were turning yellow and dying, and they were also restricting air flow and making it hard to see any low hanging cucumbers.

Third, I learned all spacing needs to be respected more. I planted my green beans and cucumbers about 18 inches apart, and you’d swear they are star-crossed lovers. I go out into my garden everyday, and I always see these two plants reaching for one another, and being less than an inch from becoming a tangled mess I don’t look forward to dealing with. However, my other bed of lettuce, Swiss chard, tomatoes, and onions aren’t having any crowding issues. My Swiss chard didn’t come up. I believe I waited too long to plant. I also planted another segment of lettuce, and that also didn’t come up, I’m assuming same problem. My onions in that bed have appeared to stop growing. They are tinier than the other bed despite being planted earlier. They tops have also begun to fall over on several in that bed, leading me to believe pour drainage is likely a problem. I have several tomatoes that are nice and big, however none have begun to turn red yet. I also have one that a bug got into, but that’s not bad.

Fourth, I’ve learned good soil and drainage is important. As I just mentioned, my one bed isn’t holding onions, and I’m positive that if it isn’t holding onto moisture too much, the soil is likely not giving them enough nutrients. This bed was filled with mostly decomposed mulch, so the soil isn’t as good as my other bed. Besides that, the fabric bags we filled using soil from my in-law’s house, and their soil has a very high clay content. Because of this, in the hot June/July weather, I have to go and water them about every other day, when I see the leaves really wilting.

I’ve gotten everything planted and going. Some things aren’t growing as well as others, but I’m learning. We got a peach tree about 2 weeks ago and got that into the ground. I also left a few radishes to go to seed, and I have 2 onion sets going to seed now.

Ive also fertilized my soil about 3 times. I’ve been using Miracle Grow plant food for vegetables. Between that, watering regularly, and all the warm weather, my veggies have grown so fast!