Mid-September Garden Update

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As a first year gardener, I don’t know much about gardening. As a result, I do lots of research and planning, and even still it seems with gardening you just have to learn from your mistakes. The first frost is coming this weekend and I’ve already retired most of my garden. There are a few radishes in the ground still forming, green tomatoes sitting on the vine, and the lettuce flowers beginning to open. The only color that remains in my garden is three marigolds that are still thriving despite the temperatures. My house plants will be coming inside tonight to prepare for the frost, and soon my husband and will be struggling to find enough room to keep them for another winter.

There are so many things I wanted to do in the garden still, but yet the first frost is nearly here. I was able to amend one raised bed. I added manure and peat moss. I mixed it into the top few inches, and covered it with another thin layer of mulch. I had planned to plant garlic this fall, but with the first frost among us, it is likely too late. I may still try to get it in the ground, but we will have to see if it will warm back up at night after this frost. And to protect it from the frost, we’ll likely use hay bales to protect from frost. We’ll have to see when it comes.

I have a small patch of dill growing that I planted this fall. My tomatoes and lettuce will also be adversely affected by the frost. Once they are done, we will amend that bed too with more manure and peat moss. My biggest lesson this year was to keep healthy soil. My tomatoes performed poorly in comparison to most everyone, and though I want to blame the very dry and hot summer, I am sure the poor quality soil played the largest part in that. We also learned our lesson with netting, and that chicken wire is superior to a plastic net that can still let in all sorts of critters.

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Much thought has been going into a garden for next growing season as well. I am researching when to pull crops and when to plant new, when to start seedlings inside, and what crops do well in the spot of another crop. The plans have become more finalized, and I think I found a setup I prefer. Researching, I found a new way to string up beans/peas. It includes making a wooden frame, then using 100% cotton string as the trellis. This is a huge improvement from the plastic and metal my beans grew through this year. Pulling my beans took so long because of all the tangling and growing into the plastic. So this way of trellising will be an improvement and pulling the plants will be way easier too, and the string 100% cotton can be composted, unlike plastics or other artificial materials.

If I do get my garlic soon, I will do a post about that, but otherwise, my garden is just about done for the year. Thank you to everyone who has been seeing and checking up on my progress. Gardening has been a lot of fun and I am very excited to see what next year holds!

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September 17, 2020 0

Homemade Tomato Sauce

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Red sauce is a staple for many different meals across many different cultures. It is one of the four staple sauces of French cooking, and seeing it’s versatility, it is easy to understand why. This recipe is quite simple. Dice up tomatoes, add some water and spices, boil until tomatoes pure, then blend to make sauce smooth. You can cook out the sauce for a long time by adding extra water and boiling it covered. This will mature the taste of your sauce and get rid of any fresh tomato flavor that may remain in the dish. Some people, like my in-laws, like to add pureed vegetables or beans to the sauce. This usually helps with thickening the sauce and can add extra vegetables to your diet or your picky child’s diet. Finally, some people will also add a splash of alcohol. This helps add a richer flavor, and if you enjoy the taste, it may make your sauce taste more mature for a special occasion or date night.

Homemade Tomato Sauce Recipe Card Download

What You Will Need

3 cups diced tomatoes/halved cherry tomatoes
2 Tbsp Oil
1 Tbsp Italian seasoning
1/2 cup Water
(Optional) Diced onion, peppers, kidney beans, etc.
Pinch of Salt
Sauce pan
Blender/Dicer

Directions

Heat pan over medium heat. Add oil and tomatoes and cook until soft. Add remaining ingredients and cook uncovered until the sauce thickens.
Transfer to blender and blend till skin is dispersed. Store, or use in recipe as desired.

September 3, 2020 0

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

Homemade Pasta – Fettuccine

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Homemade pasta takes some time, but it’s so much better than store bought or boxed pasta! Homemade pasta has texture and substance. This is the same pasta recipe I used for ravioli, however instead of making squares, we made strings. I also saw afterwards that it’s easier to cut the pasta by rolling it first before cutting, so make note. Making nests is also important, though I didn’t do that. When I cooked my pasta, it held the shape it was in, so it had lots of awkward bends and twists than would have been present if i just make them into nests. Finally, form into 4 nests, because this recipe makes 4 adult sized servings.

Homemade Pasta Fettuccine Recipe Card Download