Out Of My Gourd!

When I was planning my garden, I asked the kids if there was something they'd like to plant.  John wanted to plant gourds - and who wouldn't, they look fun - right?  So, we planted gourds.  You may remember my gourds from my Grow Up! blog.  Here's how we planted the gourds:

Our "figure it out as you go" gourd project.



We made a bridge with 4"x2"x48" wire fencing and put some metal fence posts (T-Post) in the ground to support it, then we placed a couple of wood lathes on top of the posts to keep the fencing from sliding down the posts.  This was a figure it out as you go project.  Then we planted the gourds from seed on each side of the fencing.

Tomato Cage Gourd



We also planted gourds using some old tomato cages and support poles.  Whatever you have laying around will work - use your imagination.  Looking back now I think I could've just planted them along the fence and let them grow up the fence.






Growing...



Gourds send out a lot of runners.










Holding on!



Growing...

Ok, this is the last good picture I have, after this I lost control of the garden.  There are tomatoes and vines trailing everywhere.  I'm afraid I'm going to step on a snake when I go in there - it's crazy!

Here are some current pics of the gourds.



John's hand on the Bushel Basket Gourd.




My lovely hand on the Apple Gourd.

You can't really see the total chaos in my garden by the above pics so I took a few just so you know I'm not fibbing.

Chaos in the garden!

Gourds taking over the melon fence.



Tomatoes - I'm afraid I'll find a body in there in the fall.



I'm calling this my experimental garden year.  I'm learning a lot about where to put things, how to read seed packages, what will and won't work in this climate and how to safely kill bugs without compromising my fruit.  Hopefully each year the garden will get bigger and better.

Anyone want some tomatoes? 



Corn Harvest

We have some very generous neighbors out here on the farm.  Just the other day the neighbors called to let us know that the sweet corn is in!  They pretty much let us pick what we want, although we let them know what we wanted before picking just to be sure.  I don't have an exact count but I'm pretty sure it was over 150 ears of corn.  We took the kids and were in and out of the field and back home within 45 minutes - we did good.


It's very easy to get lost in the corn.

Good stuff!

We put quite a bit of corn in the back of the van.

We shucked the ears and then had to wipe them down to get some of the silk off because apparently you can "strangle" on that stuff, according to my dear mother-in-law. 

Unclean!  Had to get some of that silk off those ears.

Then we cooked them for approximately 3 minutes, I didn't time it but that's what I aimed for.  I have trouble remembering numbers and we had 2 pots going - it was cooked for a short period of time, that's all I know.

Yummy!

Then the fun begins!  This is my mother-in-law cutting corn off the cobs and bagging it to put in the freezer.  When you cut corn off the cob it flies everywhere!  I cleared off my counters so it would be an easy clean-up but we still had to scrub the counters quite a bit.  Corn has a lot of sugar and when it dries, it's like glue. 

Mama-in-law cutting corn.

When all was said and done, we ended up with 28 quart bags of corn.  Didn't seem like enough to me after all that work.  It didn't nearly fill the back of the van as it did before.  I was amazed how much we reduced the volume, how much we put in the compost pile and how much is in the bags.  It's a lot of work but I know we'll appreciate it come January when we have "fresh" frozen corn in the freezer.

Did Someone Say Zucchini Relish?!?!

It's that time of year again when everyone has an abundance of zucchini in their garden.  About 10 or more years ago, my mother-in-law and I made our first batch of zucchini relish.  We have a recipe passed on to us by my Aunti Ann in-law.  This stuff has a strange cult following, the people who love it, really, really love it.  Two years ago I had a friend actually buy me zucchini to make some relish because she had to have her fix.  I have to admit, it's pretty good stuff.  We eat it on just about everything - ham, chicken, turkey, burgers, salmon - it's all good.

So, to start out, you need to get yourself a 50 year old food processor.  Yup!  Everytime I make relish I have to use this food processor, my new, fancy food processor just doesn't get it done like this one.

My Mother-In-Law's Food Processor
(She received it as a wedding gift)

Here is the ingredient list. I always go over and sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't but this is a good place to start.

10 C. Shredded Zucchini
4 C. Thin Sliced Onions
1 Lg. Green Pepper Chopped
3 T. Salt

John shredding the zucchini

Put all this stuff in a large bowl, cover with water and let it sit overnight.




That food processor makes the best shreds!




Green Pepper!



Onion!



Zucchini mixture covered with water.

2.5 C. Cider Vinegar
5 C. Sugar
1 T. Black Pepper (you can adjust to your taste)
1 t. Tumeric
1 T. Dry Mustard
2 t. Celery Seed

The next day, drain  your zucchini and  put it in a large pot with the above ingredients.  Bring mixture to a boil and cook for 30 minutes. 

Fill sterile jars and seal.  Easy peasy, lemon squeezy - right?!?! 



Voila!  Zucchini Relish!



New Friends In The Garden

I haven't blogged lately because the only thing I have to talk about are bugs and that gets a bit boring after a while.  After picking a few hundred bean beatle larvae off my beans the other day, I went to visit my sister-in-law.  She told me she had some old chickens she wanted to get rid of before her new chickens were delivered.  After picking all those bugs off my beans I decided a couple of chickens might be the answer I'm looking for.  I asked her if I could take a couple of the girls home and put them in the garden.  I don't care if they ever lay a single egg, as long as they eat the bugs.  Since my garden is fenced, I figured the girls would be safe from our beastly dogs and we have an extra dog crate that we put out there for housing.


My brother-in-law dropped them off Saturday morning and we put them in the garden.  We gave them some water and let them out to get aquainted with the bugs.  So far the dogs seem interested but don't act like they want to jump the fence to kill them.  I'm going to call them Thelma and Louise. 


They especially seem to like the squash plants.  The huge squash plants provide plenty of shade and hiding places for them - and probably a snack or two (yes, I've seen the squash bugs too).

Thelma

Louise




Louise trying to hide in the squash.

Things I've learned about chickens after 3 days:

  1.  Chickens do not eat Mexican Bean Beetle larvae.
  2.  Chickens stink!
  3.  Chickens are, for lack of a better word, chickens.

Thelma is the adventurous, yet predictable, one.  Every evening at the same time she jumps the fence and every evening at the same time we catch her.  Last night she was perched on the handle of the tiller.  Louise is a chicken chicken.  She hides all the time - under the squash plants and in my potato bins.  At least she's easy to find. 

So, that's the story of my new garden friends.  If they don't get to eating some bugs soon, they will no longer be my friends, they will be soup!

This Is A Bug-Out!

I'm being attacked by bugs!  I hate bugs.  I know why organic produce is so expensive - BUGS!  You have to babysit each and every plant.  It's impossible for these huge farms to produce anything affordable and organic, pesticides are a must if you want to make any money - like if you have a family to support.  The best way to get affordable organic produce is to grow it yourself. 

Squash Bug - Master of Destruction!

My latest plight is the Stinkin' Squash Bug!  Yes, very similar to the plain old Stink Bug.  These things are almost as evil as the Imported Cabbage Worm.  Luckily my Neem Oil will work on the nymphs but the bugs and eggs need to be crushed.  Ick!  Last night I killed about 10 of them, at least they're big enough to see and grab.  You have to stay on top of these things or you could lose your plants.  I haven't been keeping an eye on my collards and the worms have come back full strength, I may just pull them up and dispose of them, plant more in the late summer for fall harvest.  Once the weather gets hot, the bugs become more abundant and therefore, more troublesome.

The wild & crazy sugar snap peas.

So, I've been experiencing this "writer's block" lately and it's taken me 3 days to get back to this.  Here's what I did during those 3 days.  I picked all the squash bugs off and sprayed the squash with Neem Oil, along with my cucumbers.  I pulled out all of my sugar snap peas, they're done for the summer - I'll plant them again in August for a Fall harvest - yum!  I also decided to do away with the collard greens, they were so destroyed by that dang cabbage worm and the weather is getting so hot I knew there wasn't much hope for them.  They are history!  I sprayed the dirt with the Bt to hopefully kill any cabbage worms and their larvae if they were hanging around.  I'm transplanting some of my kale so it has more room to spread out. 

Post sugar snap peas - all neat and tidy.

My garden looks so neat and tidy since I took out the sugar snap peas, they were so big and bushy.  Now my onions, kale and carrots can get more sun.  Woohoo!






Also found one of these little dudes living in my kale, a baby praying mantis.  I hope he sticks around, he will be fat and happy!  Very cool. 

I need to get going - we're having a music ministry picnic at our house on Saturday and I have a lot of cleaning to do.  I also want to hit the local Farmer's Market today, I saw one of the farmers is harvesting some garlic and I need to get me some of that!  Have a blessed day and get out there and plant something!

Easiest Pickles Ever!

A couple of weeks ago, my son John and I were at a local farmer's market and bought some homemade pickles from B'more Bill's Dills, they were called "Half Sours".  I had never heard of half sours before and questioned the gentleman extensively on the process because the pickles were quite yummy.  The pickles we bought had a crunchy, garlicky flavor but did not have vinegar or dill, which after eating a couple of pickles, I started to miss.  I started my search for a pickle recipe, I didn't want to make another mushy, flavorless cooked pickle.  I started seeing a lot of recipes for refrigerator pickles, I've never heard of refrigerator pickles.  A refrigerator pickle isn't cooked, it's soaked in a briney juice and kept in the fridge instead of canning and hot water bathing.  After reading several recipes and instructions, I got the gist of it.  Below is my recipe, I like it because it's easy to increase/decrease depending on your cucumber supplies.

Basic Dill Refrigerator Pickles

6 Cups Water
2 Cups Vinegar
1/2 Cup Salt
Onion  (1.5 medium)
Garlic  (8-10 cloves)
Fresh Dill  (1 oz. prepackaged fresh dill)
Cucumbers

Brine:  Bring water, vinegar and salt to a boil.  Turn the burner off after the mix is boiling and the salt is dissolved.

Pickles:  Scrub your cucumbers.  You can leave your cucumbers whole (if you're using pickling cucumbers - because they are small enough, just cut off the bloom end), or slice them however you like.  We did spears and slices.  The grocery store didn't have pickling cucumbers so we bought regular cukes and sliced them.  We had also bought some pickling cucumbers at the farmer's market that we cut into spears.   

After you're done slicing (or not) your cucumbers, slice your onion and garlic and break all the stems off your dill.  These are the quantities I used and how much I yielded from it, you can change the recipe according to your taste.  I used 5 regular cucumbers and got 2.5 quarts of pickle slices and 8 pickling cucumbers that we cut into quarters for spears and that made 2 pints.  I used 1.5 medium size onions and 8-10 cloves of garlic.  Hope that is helpful.

When you're done slicing everything, start layering them in the jars:  cucumber, onion, garlic and dill.  I put onion, garlic and dill on the bottom of the jar, layered in cucumbers till the jar was half full, added more onion, garlic and dill and filled the jar with more cucumber slices, then added more onion garlic and dill on the top.  After that you take your brine and fill the jar to the top.  Continue until you're out of cucumbers.  I did run out of brine but quickly mixed up a quarter of the recipe to fill the last jar.

Let the jars sit on the counter for a few hours (3-4), then stick them in the fridge.  They are ready to eat in 3-4 days. 

We couldn't resist and had to try them - they are delicious!

Have a blessed day, I'm off to water the garden!

Potatoes and Fuzzy Gloves

When I asked my daughter what my next blog should be about she said, "Fuzzy gloves!".  I really don't see what fuzzy gloves has to do with anything else I've written here so I told her that was probably more her style and she should blog about fuzzy gloves if she feels so passionate about them.  So this ends the fuzzy glove portion of my post.

Fuzzy Glove Love!

Ok, so this post has taken me 3 days and this is all I have.  I want to write, I just don't want to write about potatoes so let's get this show on the road. 

I researched quite a bit on potatoes and how to plant them.  You Tube has plenty of folks who are more than happy to show you how to cut up your potatoes and how and where to plant them.  I thought about doing a deeper (10") raised bed but it didn't seem deep enough.  I saw some people planting them in tires and you keep piling tires up as the potatoes grow.  Didn't want to do that, don't want piles of tires in my yard.  I have a friend who planted hers in a trashcan and they are growing wonderfully.  I wish I would've seen this method before I planted but I had the chicken wire so that's what I went with.  I've been toying with the idea of picking up a couple of those Colored Tubs at Walmart and using them next year.  We will see. 




Chicken wire I had laying around.



I cut a 3' (H) x 10' (L) piece of chicken wire fence and made it into a circle-like shape.  I then covered the ground and about 6" up the sides with 3-4 layers of newspaper and started filling it up with a 50/50 mix of topsoil and compost, just like the raised beds.  I bought some seed potato from my local Southern States Store, you can order these through the mail also but I liked the convenience of buying them locally and not paying shipping.  I bought red, white and Yukon Gold seed potatoes.  I cut them so there were 2-3 eyes on each piece and placed them eyes up and covered them with about an inch of dirt.  Within a week they were growing like crazy!






Lined with landscape fabric.



The reason I planted them in this deep container is when they start to grow, you keep adding more and more dirt until they have grown up over the top and you can't add anymore dirt.  Then the potatoes start growing in the container.  As I started to add more dirt I lined the chicken wire with some nice heavy landscaping fabric I had laying around the yard killing grass.  This way the dirt won't just pour out through the chicken wire and it stays nice and dark in the containter - just the way those taters like it!

                                                           

The finished product (pretty, right?).

As you can see mine are in need of dirt and one of the bins is just about over the top.  The red potatoes seem to be the slowest growers but they were the first to sprout.  They will be ready to harvest when the tops turn brown and wilt, then we get to dig, dig, dig our potatoes!

So there you have it, now get out there and plant yourself some taters!









Grow Up!

While planning my garden, I learned that there are quite a few plants that you can grow "up" and save on precious garden space.  My thoughts were that some of these plants produce fruit that is way too heavy to have hanging, but I'm giving it a try. 

The first obvious choice for growing "up", for me, was sugar snap peas.  My family loves these, and I only say that when it's something we all love.  A vegetable that everyone in my family loves carries a certain amount of clout, so for me to plant sugar snap peas was a no brainer.  We tried 2 different fence plans, the first was straight up and the second was a tent-like shape. 




Straight Up!

The Tent!

After watching them grow, I believe the Straight Up plan works best for these.  They just didn't seem to get the whole "Tent" concept, they wanted to grow straight up.  I was just being cheap anyway, wanted to save a few bucks on fence posts, so now I know that I need to buy a few more.  I've already decided that next year I'm planting more sugar snaps, I may plant along the whole back side of the fence.  My husband doesn't think this is such a great idea, he says the deer will eat them if they are up against the fence.  I'll find a way to make it work, possibly hire my sharp-shooter son to keep an eye on them at night - ha!  I may just have to redirect my Scarecrow.

The second veggie I decided to grow "Up" is cucumbers.  I didn't plant a lot of cucumbers because I don't like them very much.  I like them in salsa and sometimes in a cucumber salad but for the most part, not so much.  I planted them using the "Straight Up" plan, they aren't big enough yet to see if this will work, but I'm pretty confident it will.

Cukes.

Cukes with Zucchini

As you can see, my cucumbers share space with my zucchini squash.  I'm hoping this will work out well, the cukes only take up a small amount of space at the end of the box.

I have two more veggies I'm growing "up", Butternut Squash (this is the one I was concerned about) and my Rich Sweetness melons.  I'm not too concerned about the melons, their full grown weight is only 1/4#.

Rich Sweetness Melons

Butternut Squash

We shall see.  The fences are plenty sturdy and quite simple to put together.  We just used 2 - 5' T-Posts and about 5' of 4x2x48" welded wire fence.  All we did was wrap the ends around the posts.  I highly recommend wearing gloves when you work with the fencing. 

We are growing one more vegetable "up" but I'm going to share that in another post.  They are so special, they deserve their own page. 

So that's it for me this week, I hope you all have a blessed weekend.  I'll be working at the Farmer's Market on Saturday selling cheese from Bowling Green Farm.  So get out to your farmer's market and support your local small farms!

To Spray Or Not To Spray

When planning my garden, I decided I wanted to go organic.  I knew it would be challenging but if I want dangerous pesticides on my produce I can buy them at the store.  Lately I've been having some problems with some very destructive beetles and worms.  The first bug I discovered was chewing away at my green beans, it's called the Mexican Bean Beetle. 

My beans - eek!

As you can see, those little suckers tore up my beans pretty good. They only chew on the leaves but can do a lot of damage.

I started picking the beetles off every day and dropping them in a little pan of soapy water to kill them.  I was also squishing the eggs as I found them.  I was having trouble keeping up with those little boogers so I did some research into organic pesticides and found something called Neem Oil. 

Life cycle of the Mexican Bean Beetle.
Eggs (right), larvae (bottom), beetle (top)

Neem oil is extracted from the seeds of the Azadirachta indica (or the Indian Neem) tree.  In India (and surrounding countries), people harvest the fruit of this widespread tree, take off the green husks and sell the seeds to facilities where the oil is pressed and sold.  The remnants are solds as "neem cake" to use as organic fertilizer.  Neem is a great renewable resource that is a replacement to our dangerous, petrochemical pesticides. 

I bought a ready to use spray and used it immediately.  So far, so good.  I haven't seen any bean beetles in the last 2 days and my beans already look healthier, that could all be in my head but I think they look much better.  I believe I'll have to spray them about once a week or after a heavy rain.

The next bug that was getting into my goods was the Imported Cabbage Worm. I seriously hate this bug, it destroyed my Collard Greens in no time at all.

Ugly littls suckers, aren't they? 
When you pick them off the plant they poop - always wear gloves!

They were moving on to my Kale as well,
I had to do something quick!



My poor Collards!













Back to the research.  I found a product called bacillus thuringiensis or Bt. Bt is a naturally occurring bacterium common in soils throughout the world used to kill leaf- and needle-feeding caterpillars.  It was developed in 1911 and made available to the public in the 1950's.   Bt insecticides do not kill beneficial insects. This includes the natural enemies of insects (predators and parasites), as well as beneficial pollinators, such as honeybees.  The major advantage is that Bt is essentially nontoxic to people, pets and wildlife.  Yay! 

I bought a bottle of concentrate and mixed it up myself, I used 1 teaspoon to 42 oz. of water.  After picking all the worms off the collards, I sprayed them and the kale and am hoping for the best results - no more worms.  I'll probably have to spray every couple of days since Bt is susceptible to sunlight degradation (big words, right?). 

So far, those are the only major problems I'm having in the garden (other than weeds).  I'll keep you posted as I move forward and hopefully save you some time and heartache in the future.

Now I need to get out to the garden, I have some potatoes that need tending to!

The Scarecrow

While searching for a method to keep my garden safe from all that prey on veggies I came across a little item called The Scarecrow, it seemed too good to be true.  How can something so simple and organic possibly work??  I was looking for something to keep the birds and deer away so I bought one and had my dear husband install it in the garden for me.  The instructions say it will cover up to 1000 square feet, I'm not sure about that but I don't think I need another one in my garden.  The noise alone is enough to scare some critters.

As you can see, it's quite intimidating to look at.  It has a motion detector that goes off when it senses a presence in the garden and sends out a 2-3 cup shot of water to frighten the predator away.  It uses a 9 volt battery and hooks up to your garden hose.  I don't know who invented this baby but I think they're a genius.

The Scarecrow has been working great so far and I ordered another one to put in my second garden.  I bought both of them for less than $100 on Amazon.  I think that's a pretty good deal.  I just put the stickers on mine yesterday and they look so much better with the stickers.  They say the look alone scares off some pests. 

Now I need to work on some organic bug deterrents.  Any ideas?