Suburban Sharecroppers

P.S. Turkey Thoughts

2011-12-04T09:00:00.000-08:00

After the harvest of our 40+ pound turkey I have an observation that should be obvious, but just became evident. The remaining chickens and turkey are sure eating less food. I used to give them two 1kg. containers of food a day. Without Dinner, it is now one container and some days there is some left in the feeder.

No wonder he was 40 pounds dressed out.

Our Thankful Turkey Harvest

2011-11-27T08:49:00.000-08:00

This post is a summary of our turkey slaughter. Some of the pictures will be graphic, so this is a warning to the squeamish.

This is our turkey just before the processing.

We chose to hang the turkey. It did calm the bird, but after cutting the jugular veins there was one burst of wing flapping, and then a settling down.

The next few pictures are of the process of plucking the bird. We heated two pots of water and added them to some cold water in the red plastic tub. We didn't have a pot big enough, so the tub was used. The water should be warm, not hot. We read 160 degrees, but we didn't check on ours.

After waiting a bit over a minute the turkey was transferred to the wheelbarrow to begin the plucking. We had seen the wheelbarrow idea online and it did help. Being in the wheelbarrow allowed more than one person to pluck at the same time.

After most of the plucking was done, we hung the bird up again. We were tired of bending over to get to the feathers.

The next step was the eviscerating and cleaning of the cavity. We had a bucket with two trash bags to catch the organs, which this year we decided to discard. Care must be taken at both ends. The incision at the bottom end shouldn't be too deep to avoid cutting the intestines. It was fascinating to have most of the organs almost fall out once the hole was big enough.

A piece of plywood was used as a cutting table. Formica would have been better because plenty of water was used to wash the carcass, constantly.

We know what this is. . .

. . .But what are these?

The finished product. The pan weighs 4 pounds, so the final weight was 40 pounds. As a side note, we didn't have a pan big enough to cook the bird, so we cut it in half and froze one part. Also in hindsight we found out we could have cooked the bird at the full 40 pounds with the proper pan. It just would have taken 7+ hours. Has anyone smoked a turkey before?

After thinking about the event and writing this post, some final thoughts came to mind. Overall the process wasn't as daunting as it was imagined to be. With little slaughtering under our belts before, there was some apprehension before starting. Now, afterwards, it doesn't seem too hard, just a bit of work. The chickens look to be much easier now.

Some thoughts about the past and the future came to mind. Seems like slaughtering is natural and normal for meat eaters. I could imagine our grandparents doing this. We could also see having to do this in the future if food becomes scarce or questionable healthwise. Being connected to our food source in a hands-on manner has to be better for us in the long run.

Carrots!

2011-08-24T14:17:00.000-07:00

...lots of them:)

Our carrot bed is full and the weather is miserable, so I decided to heat up the kitchen canning some carrots...ugh.

I picked not quite half the bed and filled the wheelbarrow...

...and after cleaning and discarding the tops, we had 25lbs. worth...nice!

Info on the Dreaded Wilts

2011-07-18T09:06:00.000-07:00

I started to respond in the comment section to several questions from Barefeet in the Kitchen and then decided my response was getting a bit long-winded for that venue.

I should qualify this advice by admitting that we are not experts in this area but have done a LOT of research and asked a lot of questions....and would welcome any contribution from gardeners who have had experience with these diseases.

We've examined our plants and have determined that the probably cause is one of the Wilts, Fusarium or Verticillium. These fungus were probably in the soil for some time but have been 'triggered' into action by the wet spring. They are similar to the fungus that causes 'damping off' and some of the same preventative measures apply. Unfortunately, sterilizing an entire gardens worth of soil is not feasible so we are choosing to do the following...

1. Treated with an organic fungicide called Actinovate, but more to prevent the disease in the adjacent plants than to cure the ones already infected. Unfortunately, the fungicide is rather expensive ($20 to treat maybe three -4x8ft. beds) so although we did use it this year, it probably won't be a regular addition to our garden expendatures.

2. Pulled out the plants that were near death and those should not be thrown in the compost pile because the fungus can survive unless subjected to intense heat. (Which means it might die in the valley but you'd be taking a chance.)We chose to leave

a lot of the plants in the ground in the hope of harvesting the tomatoes, especially in the beds where they all looked sick anyway.

3. Next year, plant resistant varieties or ones that have shown resistance this year. One of the heirlooms, Chico, looks lush and healthy despite being in a bed where even the Early Girls are suffering.

4. Limit the heirlooms to beds that have been treated or to pots for the next few years.

5. Feed plants, with compost or organic fertilizers, heavily. Healthy plants are much more capable of fending off diseases. The tomatoes in our home garden, which has a much longer history of good soil-building practices, went almost unscathed.

6. Lastly, while we try to rotate our crops, it is almost impossible to follow a strict rotation policy

with limited garden space

(because this would include the admonition of not following tomatoes with any of the Brassica family). Rather than try to avoid any possible negative crop interactions, we'll concentrate on keeping the tomatoes on a 3 year rotation.

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Here are some helpful excerpts from our Web searches ~

Fusarium wilt and Fusarium crown rot symptoms begin as yellowing of older leaves. With Fusarium crown rot, the leaves often turn brown or black and eventually wilt. With Fusarium wilt, the yellow leaves turn downward and droop.Fusarium oxysporum, the cause of both diseases, is a common tomato fungus that lives in the plant's vascular system, which carries water from the roots to the leaves. To see if either of these diseases is present:

Check watering practices. Both over- and underwatering can mimic disease symptoms.
Check the roots. Discolored roots indicate root rot.
Cut the lower or main stem and look inside at the vascular tissue. Fusarium wilt causes a dark brown discoloration within the vascular tissue. Fusarium crown rot causes a rot or canker at the base of the stem and possibly a root rot. (We found when we cut open the stems of infected plants the entire diameter was brown.)

Most tomato seeds or transplants are labeled with a code such as "VFN," "VFNA," "VFNT," etc. This indicates that the plants are resistant to Verticillium wilt (V), Fusarium wilt (F), southern root-knot nematode (N), early blight (A), or tobacco (tomato) mosaic virus (T). Do not plant tomatoes, potatoes or eggplant in the affected area for two or three years.

And on another site~

The first line of defense against wilt is to use disease-free seedlings. This avoids introducing wilt fungi into the garden. Remove and destroy wilted plants and all debris of tomato and other susceptible crops at the end of the growing season. Rotate tomato-growing areas, growing tomatoes in the same part of the garden only once in four years. The benefit of rotation is less with wilts than with other diseases since both wilt fungi survive for years in the soil and the Verticillium fungus attacks many different crops. Fungicides for control of leaf blights have no effect on the wilt diseases, which are internal infections. Once soil is infested and further rotation impossible, the only possible management practice is use of resistant varieties.

Disappointment

2011-07-17T18:06:00.001-07:00

It's not the only reason I haven't posted in quite a while, but the Fusarium/Verticillium wilt that has decimated our tomatoes this year has definitely played a part in my reluctance to show 'garden progress' at this point in the summer.

We think it's a combination of the wet spring, heirlooms that were more susceptible to the diseases and ground that went untouched for 20 years (the destruction is primarily in our shared garden). Whatever the cause, it has been a frustrating experience, but hopefully we are learning something in the process. I will post more pics in the next couple of days, if only to help others who are dealing with similar issues...

...I feel your pain.

You Decide

2011-07-13T14:13:00.000-07:00

There is a controversy in Oak Park, Michigan over a vegetable garden in the front yard of a family trying to feed itself and become a bit more sustainable in troubling times. Above is the picture of the garden. Here is a news piece on the story.

This is a defense by a recent law school grad that formerly lived in Oak Park and the daughter of a Oak Park city employee....and the rebuttal by Julie Bass (whose tale can be followed on the blog Oak Park Hates Veggies).

This article is a commentary on lawns.

Seems to me Oak Park may one of the few places in the United States that hasn't had it's citizens affected by the Recession if they can worry about vegies in the front yard.

We Will Have Beans this Summer

2011-05-23T19:36:00.001-07:00

I have an excuse for not writing for awhile...and it's a good one....I've been busy.

Here are the beans that escaped the marauding herds of voracious pill bugs (rolly pollys, sow bugs...whatever...those little guys can eat!). I've replanted this spot twice and another one 3 times (it is now the pumpkin bed).

Up against the fence in this same bed are the transplanted olallieberries that a friend gave us this winter. I'm assuming the harvest will improve in the coming years:)

Edit~ I was asked what an olallieberry was (we've always just considered them a blackberry) and I found this definition.

Genetically, an Olallieberry is approximately two-thirds Blackberry and one-third European Red Raspberry. The Olallieberry was developed in 1949 by the U.S. Department of Agriculture at Oregon State University by crossing a Loganberry with a Youngberry. While primarily developed in Oregon, it has never been very productive there and is primarily grown in California. Because the olallieberry has blackberry on both sides of its parentage, it exhibits many of the same flavor characteristics of the blackberry. However, olallieberries are much larger in size and generally are sweeter than blackberries grown under the same conditions.

...thanks for asking Barefeet :)

Garden Update for May Day

2011-05-02T20:24:00.000-07:00

It is always fun to cross the street and see the garden, even doubly so when Pecan our transplanted cat greets us. Quickest purr in the West.

This is one of my responsibilities, the compost pile. Actually quite a fun venture. Pile a bunch of stuff and watch it rot. This is the half that is left over after sifting the good stuff out. This will break down for a while more. Some will be added and then the sifting will begin again. Probably not the "correct" way, but it works for us and we get good compost.

The next three pictures are of beds recently planted. In the first you might just be able to pick out the new O'Henry peach planted (way way back there) near the shed on the right (note from Maureen~ I will post a close-up photo in the next day or so). The rest are general pictures of the beds and some of the many tomatoes that have been planted this year. We are now up to 74 plants, counting the ones in our home garden, of the 110 eventually going into the ground.

12 more slicing tomatoes...mostly heirloom.

10 more paste tomatoes...also mostly heirloom.

Maureen is weeding around the artichoke, cilantro going to seed on the left there and oregano in the foreground of the photo.

Look close and you will see one artichoke and three smaller ones in this picture.

With all said and done, a good weekend.

...and in case you were playing the 'Where's Waldo' game with us~

Peach tree....

...and baby artichokes.

Tomatoes

2011-04-23T19:56:00.000-07:00

Starting April 15th, we've been gradually getting our seedlings into the ground. It would be a faster process but our Army son surprised us last weekend by coming home for a visit......yay...before he ships out to Iraq...boo. I just don't want to spend time in the garden when he's here; it's such a precious time. Even when all he's doing is playing Mario brothers with his sister in the next room, I savor the moment.

Anyway, when he goes to hang out with friends, I rush out to the garden and put a few more plants in the ground. Here are some of the slicing tomatoes planted in our late carrot bed....hopefully we'll get some carrots harvested before they are completely shaded by the tomato plants.

Jubilee, Mortgage Lifter, White Queen, Jet Star, Copia and Gold Medal.

A second wave of slicing tomatoes went into the spinach bed.

Early Girl, Goldie Yellow, Thessalonika, and Consoluto Florentine are planted with the last of the calendulas and chrysanthemum. We'll continue to save and dry the calendula flowers to use to make teas and antiseptic salve.

We're leaving the kale in to save the seeds...it's one of the easiest to save and this one plant will provide all the seed we need for next years crop.

Our first bed of paste tomatoes....2 each of San Marzano, Roma, Consoluto Genovese and Goldmans.

Progress....slowly but surely.

2011-04-20T09:34:00.000-07:00

Then.....

...and now.

Lovin' the old washer and dryer that used to sit by the back fence...

...not lovin' the cardboard, but if it kills the weeds we can live with it temporarily.

We were written up today in the local newspaper, The Foothill Sun-Gazette, and wanted to say thanks to Mo Montgomery for the very nice and comprehensive article (it was great Mo...and not just because we're in it:)

Rummaging thru old photos reminded me of how far we've come in the 2 years that we've been gardening in our wonderful neighbors yard.....and how much work is still left to be done ~

DG pathways (instead of cardboard:)

Take down the rickety shed and put in more raised beds.

Plant more fruit trees.

Build a proper compost bin.

Lots to do....good thing we like working in the dirt!

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Fruit trees are a new addition to Joyce's yard (upper left corner)....we'll be posting more on that process in the next couple of days (as well as the tomatillos that went in today). Potatoes and oregano are waiting harvest in the left bed, garlic in the one on the right.

Edit ~ I should point out to those just stopping by because of the article- this blog is a journal of our sharecropping adventure in our neighbors yard. We are entering our third year of gardening in this yard but we've been growing food in our own yard for over 20 years (seems like we'd be past making mistakes......not the case). My personal blog is where I write about our garden as well as canning, dehydrating, bread baking, soap making and other aspects of this cheap hippie lifestyle :)

Brrrrrrrrr

2011-04-08T18:33:00.000-07:00

Our current weather situation may not impress the rest of the country, but this is cold for springtime in the valley....and it isn't doing the recently transplanted tomatoes much good.

So we have set up an improvised greenhouse on the dining room table for the overflow from the downstairs shelf. The plants will be spending the next couple of nights here....hopefully they can go out and play in the sun tomorrow.

They don't seem to mind it so far:)

More Tomato Transplants

2011-04-04T08:21:00.000-07:00

The rest of the tomato plants needed to get out of their little cells and into the sunshine. These larger pots will give them enough space for their roots to expand in the next few weeks before they go into their permanent homes in the garden.

Our very kind neighbor, who happens to work in agriculture, gave us several flats of these 3inch pots. Not as big as the first ones we transplanted, but much easier to move around

(and less tippy).

120 more tomatoes! Hopefully we will find the space for most of these to get planted....if not, there's always Freecycle:)

Peas!!!

2011-03-29T16:54:00.000-07:00

We didn't do a great job of keeping them trellised....

...but they are producing.

Just takes a bit more work to find them:)

Transplanting Tomatoes

2011-03-28T18:27:00.000-07:00

The tomato seedlings planted in January are outgrowing their little six-packs so we've started the process of transplanting them to bigger pots.

Decided to transplant a flat of 72, mostly because that's all the shelf space I have under the grow-lights. Some will probably be going straight into the ground this week as our expected temps. are pretty encouraging (80 degrees by Friday).

Mixed up some potting soil with a bit of leftover seed-starting medium....

...and planted some in picnic cups, while others went into saved nursery pots.

This year I shall try to keep tags in their pots to avoid the seemingly inevitable mystery tomatoes.

ps. check out the wonderful soup I made with garden goodies:)

What's for dinner?

2011-03-12T14:08:00.001-08:00

Not sure...but it's going to involve what I pulled out of the garden today.

(and chicken:)

Purple Cauliflower!

2011-03-07T17:20:00.000-08:00

It's called Graffiti and next year we will definitely be planting more. Tastes the same but I just love the color!

Stalling

2011-02-27T13:03:00.000-08:00

Sorry about my absence of late....I will be posting tomato seedling progress in a day or two. In the meantime if you just have to read something, take a look at my post on the Urban Homesteading brouhaha.

see you soon!

Seed Starting

2011-02-04T11:17:00.000-08:00

Finally got around to buying some decent seedling trays this year and what a difference! These are really solid and should last many years (unlike the cheapies that we'd been using that sprung leaks on the first use...sigh). Wish we could afford to buy more, but at $12 a pop our limit was four this year.

We usually order most of our seeds from Fedco, they are non-GMO and probably the least expensive of all the companies we order from, but this year decided to try some varieties from Baker Creek. I also found an organic seed business based out of Fresno that carried several 'heat tolerant' tomato varieties, so we are adding them to our list of acceptable seed companies.

I mixed up a big batch of seed-starting medium using 3 parts peat moss, 3 parts vermiculite, and 1 part potting soil (amounts are not exact). We bought 72-cell trays for the tomatoes since we need so many and the peppers are in a single 48-cell tray (not pictured).

Planted 204 tomato plants total ~108 paste, 90 slicing, 6 cherry...and 12 tomatillos.

Under the lights and on a heating mat for faster germination.

With a timer for the lights and a temperature control for the mat we have quite the high tech system here. Actually, the timer is a convenience and the temp control came with the mat (and is kind of useless).

The peppers were actually planted Jan. 15th and sat on top of the fridge until they sprouted (I didn't want to use extra electricity until I absolutely had to) and then were moved down into the cellar. The tomatoes were planted on the first of February.

Peppers are VERY slow growing and that extra 2 weeks will be needed later in the season so we can harvest them at the same time as the first tomatoes.....salsa here we come!

Potatoes....ever again?

2011-01-06T17:23:00.000-08:00

It might have been a very good thing that we got a few potatoes last month since the freeze has dealt a pretty severe blow to the ones currently in the ground. Not sure how much the damage will affect the potato harvest in the Spring....if they survive....but it's a 'wait and see' game at this point.

...and I'm thinking row covers for next years crop!

Potatoes in December?

2010-12-16T09:57:00.000-08:00

Yup...the freeze killed a couple of the plants that were planted in Sept. and when I went to pull them out yesterday, there were 4lbs. of potatoes in the ground....yay! Amazingly the younger plants (not yet up in this photo) weren't affected. More plant out of the ground made them more vulnerable?

I really didn't think that they were mature enough to get a harvest, so was pleased that our attempt to salvage sprouting potatoes hadn't been entirely in vain. Next year we may go ahead and plant more spuds early in the fall so that we can have home-grown tots for Thanksgiving and Christmas.

Progress

2010-11-04T22:58:00.001-07:00

This is our first year growing everything from seed and though the plants are still small, we are optimistic that we will be doing more of the same in the future. In the past, all our brassicas were planted as transplants bought from the local nursery, with lettuce, spinach and peas planted as seeds.

In August, the 6-packs were set out with seeds of cauliflower, cabbage, and brocolli (and onion, but that's another post). We didn't direct seed because our garden was still in production and with weeks of heat left in the Valley, we could protect the trays of seedlings from the hotter afternoon sun.

Around the middle of September another flat of seeds was sown. I could say that it was to stagger the harvest, but actually it was an incident involving the cat and our precarious tray set-up...sigh.

Most of the work in our winter garden comes in October, pulling out the summer veggies (of which several still remain) amending soil, and planting the cool-season crops...

....and eventually we'll get to that bed of BERMUDA in the background....geez.

One of the neatest things about starting from seed is that you can pick out varieties that aren't available at the nursery. We chose4 kinds of cauliflower ~ Violet Queen, Graffiti, Charming and Snow Crown....3 kinds of Cabbage~ Early Jersey, Super Red and Ruby Perfection...and 2 kinds ofBroccoli ~ Waltham and Tendergreen. Can't wait to see what Graffiti Cauliflower looks like!

We are Here, We are Here!

2010-10-26T09:38:00.001-07:00

...but probably we're the only ones that are:)

This is the mess that is our winter garden at the moment.....more pics to follow....soon!

Watermelons!

2010-08-16T08:38:00.000-07:00

We haven't grown watermelons in a very long time, for all kinds of reasons... mostly bug related. The aphids always seem to kill off the plant long before the fruit can ripen. This year was no exception to the aphid issue...we still got plenty and they have managed to limit the number of big melons....but several made it to the red stage and were edible. Not as sweet as they could have been but tasty nonetheless. Yeah for us!

This was the biggest at just over 10lbs. ...the others were 6, 8, and 8lbs.

Yummmm

Tomatoes

2010-07-30T11:33:00.000-07:00

...sort of.

I debated posting these photos as it might turn away anyone who thought I actually might know what I am doing here :(

The tomato harvest has been a bit of a disappointment this year....considering we planted 81 tomato plants in this yard alone (over 20 more in our home garden). I thought we would be able to make enough sauces, salsas and catsups to last thru the winter. Sadly, that is not to be the case and I will be heading to the Farmer's Market tomorrow to try to make up the difference....sigh.

Not sure what happened here but because the plants in our more shaded garden are doing fine I think it might have something to do with the unrelenting heat and possibly the fairly new soil. We will continue to amend with our own compost and try to add more manures this year to get the fertility up to snuff.

The plants mostly seem to be dying on the bottom half.

So we decided to try to protect the fruit with screens .

This is just pathetic....these are BellStar paste tomatoes, which are a small determinate tomato plant. Pretty sure they're not supposed to be this small.

This bed of Romas is probably the healthiest of the lot....they are shaded from about 3pm on.

Fortunately, most of the garden has been really productive this year. I'll post pics of our more successful plantings in the next week or so.

Pumpkins

2010-07-24T15:00:00.000-07:00

Looks like someone is going to be carving a big 'ole Jack-O-Lantern this Halloween!

Not sure how big these will end up but they are a good size right now and as long as we can fight off the squash bugs, we'll let them stay in the garden. If it looks like they will get damaged, we'll pick 'em and store them in the cellar. Pumpkins were a complete failure last year....and these are the same seeds...so we are quite happy with our success.

And I spoke too soon on our onion failure. This box was planted about 2 weeks after the original sets (the ones that all went to seed) and these are doing wonderfully. I pick a few every day, some get used immediately, some get layed out in the shade to dry. Haven't bought onions in months!

Carrots.....

2010-07-15T10:53:00.000-07:00

....finally! We have had amazingly poor results in the past with our carrot crops. The ones planted in the fall never seem to make much progress (last year 6 survived...mostly eaten by snails if they came up at all) and the ones in the summer wilt in the heat or bolt to seed before the carrots fully develop. We've tried planting under the shade of other plants, which works marginally, and planting later in the fall, which works not at all (no germination in the cold). This year we seem to have hit on the right combination of planting time and location. We planted around the first of March....in a bed previously growing broccoli...and the germination rate was fantastic. Tho the plants grew slowly...they grew!!!

We have been pulling up carrots for about a month now and yesterday I was able to make juice with the 8 lbs. the we picked....yippee yahoo! And the nice thing, the bed is still FULL of carrots. Now the question remains as to how much longer they can handle the 100+ temps before going to seed. This area does get a bit of shade in the afternoon but as soon as the plants start to flower we will pull the entire bed!

Garden Progress

2010-06-24T15:25:00.000-07:00

Hoping to sit down in the next few days and get some pics of the garden posted. We are picking LOTS of green beans, plenty of zucchini, and some onions (one bed planted later than the others managed to not go to seed, but are still not huge) .

...to be cont.

Big Ole Onion

2010-06-15T12:18:00.000-07:00

This one escaped while I was planting the onion bed and grew where it landed. I started calling it our 'James and the Giant Peach' onion.....I thought it fit. The stalk finally fell over yesterday, so I picked it....weighing in at 1.5 lbs.....we're saving it for burgers!

....and more Garlic

2010-06-13T19:56:00.001-07:00

The garlic has been outside drying for over 2 weeks now and the cloves seem just about ready to dust off and store in mesh bags in the cellar. Our makeshift drying racks, which consist of an old wire shelf and several refrigerator shelves, pale in comparison to those created by Maybelline's hubby but they do the job. Maybe next year we'll have time to build our own (now that we have plans we can copy :)

Garlic

2010-05-27T05:36:00.000-07:00

We're expecting temps of 90+degrees this weekend so the garlic needs to be pulled to make way for the final 1o tomato plants.

The heads will go onto drying racks (old refrigerator shelves:) and sit out for a week or so before storing in the cellar. I'll be back later today to post pics of the haul!

ps. The poppies were volunteers from the compost we added to the soil.

Transition Time in the Garden

2010-05-17T08:47:00.000-07:00

Trying to get double duty out of some of the beds in the garden. Here is our tomato/lettuce seed-saving bed. We just tucked the tomatoes between the lettuce plants that we'll be collecting seeds from next month. They are just starting to flower and the process takes a good couple of weeks before we get viable seed. This bed was actually planted with seed saved from last winters crop. It's an easy one to save but because of the time involved I've learned to keep the plants that are going to seed on the outside of the bed (mostly :) so we can plant our summer crops while we're waiting.

ps. the onions on the left side of the bed will be replaced with jalapeno peppers next week.

His Empire of Dirt

2010-05-08T20:53:00.000-07:00

I found this by reading a magazine, which led me to a book, which I Googled on the web and found the New York Magazine article and this video. Maybe we should be more enterprising and get ourselves published in New York.

The article spells out more of the travails.

What's New and Happenin'

2010-05-05T07:06:00.000-07:00

I don't write much about the garden. I tend to let Maureen because she does a better job and I like to think of myself as the brute strength of this operation, emphasis on brute. Here are some crude pictures of what is happening in the last few weeks.

This is one of the new wine bottle herb beds. The bottles are filled with sand and buried upside down to form a bed. They are at the end of the wooden formed beds and set off the garden. 'Tis also fun to create more empty bottles for more beds.

This is one of the older beds with a winter crop.

These are the new beds that have been created in the last two weekends. Besides tidying up the place a bit, we now have more places to grow.

More fun than a barrel of monkeys in store for us.

Onions

2010-05-03T08:55:00.000-07:00

....sort of :(

This year we are once again seeing our multitude of onions go to seed and fail to grow into decent bulbs....eek!

As I found out last year Onions are very weather dependent and our fluctuating winter temperatures confuse them into thinking it has been 2 seasons so they flower in order to propagate.

The plants never develop a sizable bulb and most of that is an inedible core.

Tho this is actually a leek (also going to seed) the idea is the same. A very hard inner core with only a few usable outer layers. I used 20 white onions in a pot of spaghetti sauce just to get enough actual onion. ....sigh.

The only ones that seem to be avoiding this fate are the red onions (planted as transplants vs. the sets used in the other bed). Of course I didn't plant very many of those....sigh.

From the Plant Answers Website---
Most folks want to grow onion bulbs NOT onion flowers! What causes bulb onions to send up flower stalks? Flowering of onions can be caused by several things but usually the most prevalent is temperature fluctuation. An onion is classed as a biennial which means it normally takes 2 years to go from seed to seed. Temperature is the controlling or triggering factor in this process. If an onion plant is exposed to alternating cold and warm temperatures resulting in the onion plant going dormant, resuming growth, going dormant and then resuming growth again, the onion bulbs prematurely flower or bolt. The onion is deceived into believing it has completed two growth cycles or years of growth in its biennial life cycle so it finalizes the cycle by blooming. Flowering can be controlled by planting the right variety at the right time.

So for all of you who live in HOT summer areas, when do you plant your onions and what kinds do you have the most success with?

Beans

2010-04-30T08:18:00.000-07:00

The beans are up...Yippee Yahoo!

Provider green beans were a HUGE success for us last year, we still have bags in the freezer and cans in the pantry. This year we are even dedicating one bed just to save seed, if we get too many we can always use them as soup beans (very versatile bean, this one :)

Tomatoes

2010-04-19T09:30:00.001-07:00

We've had such warm weather that we decided to go ahead and get a few of our 'first time ever growing tomatoes from seed' tomatoes into the ground. We have never planted outside this early and have already been informed that another storm is on it's way, but the freezing weather should be over at this point and I think/hope these little guys can withstand what's coming.

The bulk of seedlings are still in little pots in our back yard.

We planted 10 and have 100 (I kid you not) left....what was I thinking...eek!

Provider green beans went into the ground also,

but a box of dirt does not make for a good photo :)

Kale

2010-04-12T09:30:00.000-07:00

....flowers :)

We grew kale for the first time this year, but still haven't actually eaten any. We grew it for the chickens, who BTW....LOVE it!

Spring

2010-04-09T03:12:00.001-07:00

Transplanting tomatoes and peppers over at our other blog.....go take a look!

Why it's OK to be Lazy....

2010-03-20T15:24:00.000-07:00

....occasionally.

Letting the broccoli bloom attracts bees!

Broccoli

2010-03-08T10:45:00.000-08:00

....in all it's glory!

We have the better-looking than anything in the grocery store speciman...

...the going to seed even tho it hasn't been above 70 degrees plant...

....and lastly, the barely 6 inches tall what the heck ?!?

They were all planted in the same soil, the same day.....heck they all came from the same six-pack.....sigh.

Garlic

2010-03-03T08:08:00.000-08:00

We planted a 4x8 bed full of garlic (foreground).....and it all came up....eek! We really weren't too sure what would happen here. I was less than the purist on this one, bought garlic bulbs at the grocery store for 5/$1....considerably less than the organic at $3/bulb. We'll see how they compare when we start pulling them up.

We don't do anything special with our garlic, other than amending with homemade compost. Because our winters are fairly mild (freezes occasionally, but no snow) we don't even have to cover them. Tho we did put another hefty helping of compost on top after the cloves went into the ground. The brown tubing is part of our drip irrigation system, but during the winter we don't use it at all. Even in a drought year we get just enough rain to not have to water our winter gardens except when the plants first go into the ground and maybe a little in the spring as it starts to warm up. This year we've been happily drenched by storms and tho I hesitate to say the drought is over, I'd like to think we're at least on our way! These were planted at the end of November and we hope to harvest in May, if only so the summer crops can get started :)

Potatoes

2010-02-27T09:14:00.000-08:00

I am alive.....just lazy. If it makes a difference,

I've been neglecting the garden as well as the blog :)

So, this week I will do a little garden tour to kind of catch up on what's been going on here in our California zone 9 garden....starting with the potatoes.

The furrows were pretty weedie, but the plants were big enough to start covering the lower parts...or hilling up. This is done to prevent growing potatoes from peeking out from under the dirt and turning green and toxic. Potatoes grow up from the original tuber and by hilling up around the plants, you give them more dirt to grow in (make sense?)

Guess I should've brought a ruler to show scale:)

Not sure why there is such a difference in the size of the plants.

As I was weeding I did unearth a marble size potato on one of the smallest plants (still attached, which is why I covered it back up and didn't get a photo) so I know they are growing down there.

The joy of potatoes is when you dig them up in the spring, obviously; we all know that harvesting veggies is the fun part. But with potatoes there's that element of surprise as well. There's just something magical about finding these edible goodies underneath all that greenery.

Brocolli

2010-01-21T10:52:00.000-08:00

We are almost ready to harvest some of our broccoli....yea! These went in ground on October first (as nursery seedlings....next year we plan on trying more from seed).

Tho their growth rates are a bit inconsistent, we are happy that most (not all) actually look like they will produce our favorite veggie. I didn't get a photo, but some of the seedlings still look like....seedlings. They are alive but seem to be in a state of suspended animation. Not sure what's going on there; good thing we planted plenty. And looking on the bright side, if those don't make it they will be the first beds planted in the Spring.

On a side note we are getting our FIFTH rain storm today.....the drought may actually be ending....yippee yahoo. Still plan on conserving water as much as possible, but it sure is nice to see the rain barrels filling up!

Planting Potatoes

2009-12-30T19:12:00.000-08:00

These went in the ground about a week ago....

This is actually after planting...the potatoes went in about 6 inches from the top of the boards, then were covered with just a couple inches of soil. As the plants grow we'll hill up around them with the excess dirt.

I ordered quite a few seed potatoes from an organic source but also planted a couple of regular spuds that we bought from the grocery store....we'll see if there is any measureable difference.

November Tally

2009-12-01T11:32:00.000-08:00

I'm posting this on both blogs this month,

about half of our harvest this month came from this garden

and half from our yard.

Sweet Potatoes .................27.5 lbs.

Butternut Squash...............23.5 lbs

Feijoas..................................13 lbs.

Green Peppers....................9 lbs.

Tomatoes...............................6.5 lbs.

Peanuts..................................4.5 lbs.

Soup Beans..........................3 lbs.

Salad Greens........................2 lbs.

....and 159 eggs!

Total for November.............89lbs.

We are finally eating Feijoas from our tree,

and by we I mean 'I' am finally eating them....

....if I eat it I get to count it :)

Mostly I'm eating them because my sister finally showed me how to eat them (let's not go there). I was peeling them and leaving too much of the pith around the fruit so they always tasted bitter. We have for years just thrown them in the compost. But after smarty pants sis showed me the 'cut in half and scoop' method.....I'm hooked, these things are delicious!

ps. lucky for the tree too, we were about to take the dang thing out and plant something worthier in it's spot. SO glad we are not complete idiots.

Garden Tour

2009-11-13T15:37:00.000-08:00

Here's an overview of the mostly winter garden. The first 2 beds as you enter (from the right) are broccoli...and the artichoke is in the wine bottle bed.

Future DG walkway....maybe in the Spring.

Still cleaning up some of the beds, gotta love Bermuda grass!

Cabbage and Leeks

Not sure why some are kind of stunted.

Onions in front (we planted close to 180) and the back bed is peas and carrots.

With the ever popular crushed egg shells as snail deterrent.

Just today I picked the last of the Butternut squash hiding in the bed...got 24lbs. total from 6 plants.

Makes great pumpkin pie:)

The tomato plants look pretty good....

...tho I'm not sure if the fruit will ever turn red in this cold. I'll probably bring them in and set them on our windowsill.

Peas and Spinach

Future potato bed in the foreground.....

Peas and broccoli against the fence.

View from the back - Lettuce and broccoli in the foreground and the bed back between the squash and tomatoes is more onions....not sure why I ordered so many....hope they store well!

What's Left in the Garden

2009-11-02T08:35:00.000-08:00

Still harvesting peppers...

... butternut squash...

...green beans...

...and tomatoes,

....tho they do look a bit sickly.

Planting time!

2009-10-29T18:36:00.001-07:00

We're almost finished planting the back garden...

...more photos to follow :)

More Gardening Space

2009-10-19T03:01:00.000-07:00

Our wonderful neighbor Joyce is allowing us to plant food in her front yard, as well as the back.

So I spent Sunday weeding and planting.

The trellis is for sweet peas and in front there will be cabbage and calendulas.

And some pansies by the front door.

Before...

...and After.

Soup Beans

2009-09-28T13:32:00.001-07:00

Hard to believe there is anything growing in this bed (besides Bermuda grass) but we are still harvesting kidney beans....unfortunately they do not all come off at the same time. I've been picking dried beans for almost 2 months now. Not sure this experiment will be tried again :)

Then there is the shelling process.

And I've only gotten 3 lbs. of beans so far.

But it is kind of fun filling up more jars for the pantry (I'm weird that way).

Oops!

2009-09-24T14:51:00.001-07:00

Pretty.....

...not so much.

As you can see, this blog is not the only thing I have been neglecting lately. With our trip over I can finally start to work on the garden...and there is plenty to do. Many of the beds are overrun with Bermuda grass, the bane of valley gardeners. The stuff makes a great worry-free lawn because it grows with little to no care, let alone water. However, that is exactly what makes it such a pain-in-the-butt weed in the garden. Some of the roots go down several feet and it's almost impossible to completely eradicate. This should be fun :)

Death by Bug

2009-09-01T10:18:00.000-07:00

Our wonderful plan to grow our very own pumpkins for Halloween Jack-o-Lanterns has been thwarted by the nefarious squash bug....bummer.

These guys were absolutely merciless; the plants went from healthy to decimated in less than 24hours!

Fortunately, they don't seem to like the Butternut squash...

...or they're just full :)

Aptly Named

2009-08-20T12:04:00.000-07:00

Joyce and I have decided that this tomato has earned a place(or five) in next years garden. It's called Gold Medal but I think it looks like a sunset, very pretty inside and out....plus they're huge and taste great.

We have a Winner!

August Seedlings

2009-08-19T18:46:00.000-07:00

Waltham Butternut Squash...

(kind of need to weed this bed)

...Provider Beans...

...and Big Max Pumpkin

August Plantings

2009-08-13T09:04:00.000-07:00

This weekend I'll try to post pics of the plants already coming up, but these are the beds we did a second planting of ....

...Provider Green Beans....

...Butternut Squash...

...and Big Max Pumpkin.

This is a bit of an experiment as we don't usually bother with more than one 'crop' in the summer. But fall plantings are months away and it seemed a waste to leave these beds empty. I'm sure the beans will be successful (if the pill bugs don't eat them all) and we've had good luck with this particular squash. As for pumpkins... since the first crop was so sickly and unproductive, I amended with plenty of compost this time around.

Now we'll just have to wait and see.

That is one BIG tomato!

2009-08-07T15:09:00.000-07:00

And there were actually 2 of them! I wrote a couple posts this week on what we are doing with all our lovely tomatoes from this garden and from our home garden. For the first time ever...I made tomato sauce and for the first time in a non-electric dehydrator I made sun-dried tomatoes.....Go see!

Zucchini

2009-07-29T15:00:00.000-07:00

It happens every year. First the lady bugs fight off the aphids and then just when the plants seem to be recovering, the leaves start growing out....for lack of a more descriptive term....skinnier. The plants look anemic.

And then of course there's this...

The funny thing is, despite all the problems they've had the plants are still slowly producing veggies. And with the total for these 12 plants at 40lbs. I think we're doing ok :)

Melons?

2009-07-27T16:56:00.000-07:00

Thought I'd start with the saddest looking plants in the garden...

....and add one of the flowers, so it's not too depressing.

Not sure what happened to our melons/pumpkins this year. We got 4 cantelopes on 2 plants, but nothing else produced anything edible. The watermelons started out fine, but ended up splitting before they were ripe (the chickens loved them :) and the pumpkins have been on their deathbed from about the first week. I've been reading that they can be planted as late as Aug. for Halloween Jack-O-Lanterns so we are going to give it one more try. We'll keep you posted.

Another Progress Report

2009-07-25T16:42:00.001-07:00

What a difference a month makes...

(above photo was taken July 25th, the one below June 14th)

I will try to post pics of the garden this week, tho much of it looks pretty droopy (because of the HEAT). The tomatoes and peppers are going strong (made a batch of salsa today...yum) but the zucchini and cucumbers are barely hanging on. The green bush beans have stopped producing and the soup beans are drying on the vines (which they are supposed to be doing).

Them are some tall tomatoes! (Steve is 6'2")

Corn

2009-07-18T13:00:00.000-07:00

...sort of. This is actually a testimony to how deceiving a photograph can be. For one thing, the plate on which these ears are sitting is actually a....

...salad plate. Which makes these much, much smaller than they appear.

And if you turn them over, most are quite sparse in the kernel department....sigh.

Next year, we plant more or none at all. Corn needs to be planted in large blocks so it can properly pollinate and despite my shaking the stalks daily, our success was minimal.

The chickens, however, were quite content with our failures.

Cantelope

2009-07-13T20:29:00.000-07:00

...And it was absolutely delicious!!!

Beans (and more Beans)

2009-07-07T03:09:00.000-07:00

One of my goals this year was to learn how to use (and not be afraid of) the pressure canner.

I think I accomplished half of that this last weekend...these things still slightly scare the beegeebers out of me.

The green bean plants have been pretty prolific so far this summer. We are harvesting from 2 beds of snap green beans; the pole beans are not producing yet and the other 3 beds of beans will be used as dried beans for winter soups.

Right out of the garden...

...washed and ready to go into the jars...

I used the cold pack method because beans are fairly tender

and will get soft quick enough once the cooking starts.

Added 1/2 teas. kosher salt and filled jars with boiling water.

Into the monster they go.

I love the fact that you can stack the pint jars

to get more into the pot; it actually holds 20 total.

Holding steady at 10 pounds of pressure.

Ta Da!.......11 pints of 'to be eaten this winter' green beans.

I've also frozen about 10 pounds of beans

but the freezer is filling up fast.......and it's a BIG freezer.

(more than one person has commented that we could fit a body in there....who are these people?)

Ladybugs...

2009-06-27T21:30:00.000-07:00

...to the rescue!

As predicted, we are being inundated with aphids. They have covered the zuchinni and the cucumbers and are starting in on the melons. We've even found them on tomatoes. For the first few days of the infestation I just washed them off with the hose and waited for the cavalry...which has finally arrived.

Hopefully in time :)

Pupa stage...

...Larva, which actually eat the most aphids...

...and the adult Lady bug.

So if you see these little creatures in your garden....let 'em alone, they have work to do!

Ta Da!

2009-06-26T11:33:00.000-07:00

We have water!!!

Well, we've had water, it's just that now our drip system is hooked up to the main water system and is on a timer....Yipee!

Of course we are still working out the kinks in the system (tomatoes really don't need to be watered as often as zuchinni) but for the most part it's all good :)

Thanks Robert!

Beans

2009-06-25T11:44:00.000-07:00

I picked 2lbs. of Provider green beans this morning....yippee!

(also - 3 more zuchinni and 2 green peppers)

Corn

2009-06-24T11:06:00.000-07:00

We weren't sure we were going to bother with corn, but once a plant gets past about 6 inches, I just don't have the heart to pull it up. This does seem to be tasseling pretty early tho, the plants are short (about 4 feet tall) and not very old. But we haven't grown corn in quite a few years and never this variety (Spring treat) so we'll see.

You can just barely see the lima bean vine climbing up the stalks...and aren't the silks pretty...maybe we'll actually get something edible.

Drip System

2009-06-23T11:41:00.000-07:00

We finished putting in the drip system...

...under the tomatoes...

...snaking it's way between the melon and pumpkin plants...

...and keeping the zinnias in front of pole beans nice and wet.

Tho I love going over to Joyces to see how the garden is progressing, having to spend an hour a day watering is not my idea of fun....at least not anymore...now my idea of fun is seeing what veggies are growing and what we will be having for dinner.

We are all anxiously waiting for this pepper to turn red

(we are easily amused :)

Progress Report

2009-06-18T13:37:00.000-07:00

Still looks a bit unfinished without the DG walkways but everything is up and growing (picked 5 more zuchinni today - gave them to our neighbor). I've spent the last few days putting in a drip irrigation system (will post pics tomorrow).

First Harvest

2009-06-14T10:17:00.001-07:00

I'm sure it won't take long before the excitement level dies down a bit, at least with zuchinni, but for now we are thrilled!

Future Tomatoes!

2009-06-10T07:31:00.000-07:00

...Green Zebra

Weeding Inhales Deeply, But

2009-06-07T22:36:00.000-07:00

It will pay off in the end. The truth of weeding is a little done each day adds up and the job is done in a zen-like fashion. Truth in gardening is better than truth in lending.

Ambrosia Cantelope

2009-06-06T21:47:00.000-07:00

I'm very excited about this little melon ball! We haven't grown cantelopes (or watermelon) in ages. They take up a lot of room and tend to get aphids that cover the leaves and sicken the plant before the melons can ever ripen. I'm doing a bit of research on ways to combat the ahpid infestations should we encounter them. Ladybugs do a great job on my roses, but then I have the luxury of not caring if a few flowers die off....... Stay tuned :)

Onion crop failure

2009-05-30T00:16:00.000-07:00

Very Pretty...not so good to eat tho.

You can see the lack of bulb growth on our 'should have been huge by now' red onions. These have been in the ground for 7 months and because they decided to bolt, should have been pulled the minute they started producing flowers. They would have been at least slightly edible. I believe I mentioned that this was only the second time I had tried growing onions and there were plenty of mistakes to be made. Tho I'm not actually the cause of the flowering..

...that can be blamed on the weather.

When the onions flower

the core hardens to an unappetizing log,

only the outer few layers are edible.

From the Plant Answers website.....

Most folks want to grow onion bulbs NOT onion flowers! What causes bulb onions to send up flower stalks? Flowering of onions can be caused by several things but usually the most prevalent is temperature fluctuation. An onion is classed as a biennial which means it normally takes 2 years to go from seed to seed. Temperature is the controlling or triggering factor in this process. If an onion plant is exposed to alternating cold and warm temperatures resulting in the onion plant going dormant, resuming growth, going dormant and then resuming growth again, the onion bulbs prematurely flower or bolt. The onion is deceived into believing it has completed two growth cycles or years of growth in its biennial life cycle so it finalizes the cycle by blooming. Flowering can be controlled by planting the right variety at the right time.

Ultimately, I'm guessing that our unusually warm Feb. was responsible for 'fooling' the onion into repeat dormancy. Now I just need to find the right variety for our area, or plant later so there will be less chance of severe temperature flucuations.

A Time For Everything Under the Sun

2009-05-25T16:39:00.000-07:00

It's hard to get a true idea of what we are doing from these pictures. Maureen is fastidious about taking photos from a variety of angles, and at different times of the day, but as with many things the experience in person is better than Technicolor, Panavision or any such technology.

Above is most of the garden we are working across the street. Squash/pumpkin/watermelon in front and beans, peppers, and tomatoes everywhere else. I hope you get the idea I'm not always the "specifics" guy. My point though is if you were to set foot in the garden at this moment it would look different in many ways. There are weeds, though we are working our way through them. The puncture vines especially are being quarantined and carried away. This picture was taken only a few days ago, but most of the plants are much bigger. We have peppers on some and tomatoes on some also. Some of the plants are being eaten by critters of various types. You can even get different ideas of the garden during different times of the day. I have been over watering this weekend mid-day and in the morning, and visited during the evening to show J, A and their lovely smaller versions the garden. A different look each time.

For me at this time I am having my eyes opened to the process of farming and the daily changes in the plants. A fellow worker years ago told a story of watching silage corn grow. He said it was a miracle to go into a field and watch the corn literally grow taller before you eyes. I haven't had that pleasure with beans, peppers and tomatoes; but I sure am enjoying coming back each day to something new. I suppose that is why men and women spend their lives digging in dirt.

The poet's wisdom of Ecclesiastes says there is a time to plant, and a time to pluck that which is planted. I know I will enjoy the plucking and eating. I now am enjoying the planting and weeding and watering and growing. That is what time it is now.

Here's what's in the Garden

2009-05-20T10:08:00.001-07:00

...'cause Garrett and Becka asked :)

Provider green beans

Rattlesnake Pole beans

Vermont Cranberry beans

Our oops for this year....I originally planted corn, then decided we could buy it local (and cheap and delicious) so I dug in the same spot and planted Lima beans. The plan was to pull up the corn as it came up and trellis the beans. Well, the beans came up and were immediately attacked by some bug, many are dead (or dying) so we decided to let the corn stick around for awhile and see what happens. Many people grow pole beans next to corn specifically to use the corn stalks as support for the vines. I have a feeling tho, if that were what we had set out to do we should have left a bit more room for both crops to intermingle. Oh well, live and learn.

Red Kidney beans

Midnight Black Turtle bean (soup)

Cantelope - Amish, Ambrosia, and Pride of Wisconsin

Black Valentine green bean

Kentucky Wonder Pole bean

Watermelon - Picnic and Chris Cross

Zucchini - Black Beauty and Golden

Cucumbers - Bantam, Lemon and Armenian Long

Pumpkin - New England Pie, BIg Max and Long Pie

Winter Squash - Uncle David's, Candy Roaster and Waltham Butternut

Tomatoes - LOTS!

Peppers - Red, Orange, Purple and Green sweet peppers plus several hot peppers for salsa

About the only thing not growing in this garden is standard basil which we planted in ours. I only need a couple plants and it likes a bit of shade in the afternoon so it was better suited to our home garden.

Just for reference for those of you gardening in HOT (that's me yelling) summer zones, we can't grow certain things that many people consider summer crops (but we CAN grow all year long). Things on our Fall planting list include -

Peas

Brocolli

Cabbage

Lettuce

Potatoes

Onions

Herbs and flowers

Planting Day!

2009-05-05T08:32:00.000-07:00

Tomatoes and Peppers go in the ground.

Also, there are pole beans behind the peppers to climb up the shed wall.

Look what we Found...

2009-05-01T08:12:00.000-07:00

...under all the weeds.

ps. it's a grape vine :)

Amending

2009-04-29T09:20:00.000-07:00

We don't usually buy dirt...but there was definitely not enuf compost in our pile to amend this much square footage of garden. So a load of humus was delivered and carted to the back yard .....

.....to be incorporated into the fairly loamy (?!?!?!) soil. In our wildest dreams we never thought that this job would go as smoothly or as fast as it did.

The soil at our house (a mere 100ft. away) was rock-hard clay that, at least in some spots, remains difficult to work even after 10yrs. of amending.

We avoid even trying plants that call for sandy soil - no point. But after digging for a couple days in Joyce's yard we are planning on putting in some blueberries next year....Yea!

Repurposing

2009-04-27T08:37:00.000-07:00

What was once a (falling apart) deck at my Moms house.....

...becomes raised beds in the new garden.

Tilling Day!

2009-04-24T15:34:00.000-07:00

This monster was worth every penny. It took us (US) 3 days to clear the weeds and it took Steve an hour and a half to till the entire yard...yea!

Notice the Amish farmer thing he's got going here....tee hee :)

Lovely rose overhanging from neighbors yard.

The light-colored strip of untilled land is where an old foundation still exists....soon to be a walkway.

Ta Da!!!!!!!!!!!!

Getting Started...Finally!

2009-04-18T09:10:00.000-07:00

Thank God for power mowers!

It was looking pretty darn intimidating at the beginning of the 2-week 'vacation' Steve and the kids got for Spring break. With baseball or rains keeping us from getting to the yard every weekend up till now, the weeds had taken over the yard and had already gone to seed...eek!

We don't plan on using any kind of chemicals in the garden so I'm sure we'll be fighting the weed battle all summer. Hopefully our plans for drip irrigation will help to keep some of the seeds from germinating and we'll just deal with the others as they come up.

We started with a hand tool and used it for some of the taller plants....

... but mostly relied on good ol' John Deere to tear down the majority of the weed invaders.

We followed with a rake (the bag had to be taken off because it filled up too fast) or a smaller mower and deposited all the remains in a pile to be used as compost...the plan is to add some horse manure to help heat it up and kill off the seeds.

It was a long hard couple of days...

...but we got it done and ready for the rototiller.

Weeds CAN be pretty....

2009-04-14T17:16:00.000-07:00

....but they still gotta go!

More on our Spring Break project to follow :)

If at First...

2009-04-05T03:26:00.000-07:00

...you don't succeed...

...try, try, again :)

Yes, the first set of tomato and pepper seedlings bit the dust, and yes it is actually much too late to be starting over (unless the plan was to not be eating tomatoes until August) but I really wanted to at least try to get these things to grow from seed. I do have some seedlings coming from Seed Savers, but I'll most probably be buying the bulk of my tomato and pepper plants from the nursery.....sigh.

Next year I start this process in January.

Tomatoes

2009-03-09T10:33:00.000-07:00

I have never grown tomatoes from seed....ever! Not that these are actually going to grow.....

...but at least they sprouted! Unfortunately, the peppers I planted along with them have yet to show signs of life.

I bought this niftly seed-spouting tray from Gardens Alive ($25 off coupon) and each slot has a pre-drilled dirt plug...just drop the seed in and water. I'm really late here, these should have been started a month ago...but the tomato seeds were freebies I got off the Wintersown site and I figured I might as well give them a go!

Seeds !!!

2009-02-12T10:02:00.000-08:00

I just LOVE when the UPS guy knocks on my door (even if he is just delivering Sam's tea).
Sometimes I want to buy stuff just so I can get a package in the mail!

This day it was our seed order from Fedco,
our official first purchase for the Sharecropper project....
...yippee yahoo!

Here's what we got today - - -

1 1/2 lbs. Provider Beans
1 lb. Red Kidney Beans
1 lb. Midnight Black Turtle Dry Bean
1/2 lb. Black Valentine Bush Green Bean

A quarter oz. of the following - - -

Big Max Pumpkin
Long Pie Pumpkin
New England Pie Pumpkin (sensing a 'theme' here)
Candy Roaster Squash
Uncle Davids Dakota Dessert Squash (bought strictly for the name:)
Waltham Butternut Squash

ps. the cucumbers are in the Seed Savers order Joyce...
...not to worry!

Hey, there's cement under here....

2009-01-22T08:53:00.001-08:00

....Of course there is. Because in our world nothing goes as smoothly as we anticipate, we found the foundations of 2 tiny rentals that used to sit on the property where the garden will be going.

Some came up rather easily...some, not so much.

So, I measured where the unmovable cement will remain and reworked the garden plan so that the walkways will coincide with the cement....done.

And the funny thing is, I like the new plan better....yea!

The Plan

2009-01-12T08:47:00.000-08:00

In case you missed it I talk about the our decision to garden smaller on my personal blog....from now on everything having to do with this yard will be on this blog.

We graphed out our new location and came up with a total of 500 sq. ft. of garden space plus room for 4 fruit trees. This doesn't include walkways and compost bins. For us, for now, this will be plenty. In fact, even with it being considerably smaller in scope than our original 1/2 acre idea...it still seems HUGE!

My drawing isn't so neat and I'm sure there will be changes along the way...but this is a rough sketch of how we will set things out. We've made walkways (decomposed granite) to get to the back alley and side yard, and we've given ourselves plenty of space between planting beds (each square is 2ft.). We're not sure how much we'll get planted this summer but the plan is to get all of it tilled and maybe a third of it amended and planted. We can work all summer on the pathways and building compost bins as well as getting more garden space ready to plant. Hopefully, by next fall we'll have most of it productive. We'd like to do raised beds, but again that will depend on finding the wood. If this is to be beneficial to us, it needs to be done as cheaply as possible so we may just hill up the beds and build the boxes as we find wood.

Change of Plans?

2009-01-05T03:44:00.000-08:00

Here's the deal...as much as we are excited about our half-acre...we're also feeling quite overwhelmed by the prospect of 'starting over'. It's a huge undertaking and we are stepping back for a few weeks or so to make sure we are up to the task.

We are by no means giving up our plan to become self-sustaining, just not sure this is the way to go about. We've been mulling over some ideas that would be smaller in scale and a bit closer to home (walking distance). We have a neighbor whose entire back yard is barren. She loves my garden but just doesn't have the time or the inclination to do much beyond a few flowers in her front bed. We may talk to her about the sharecropping idea....use of her yard for fresh veggies all year long. It would mean walking across the street rather than driving or biking the mile and a half to Anns. The yard is fenced, so we would only have to fence a portion of it to keep out the dog. She and I get along great....and I know she would appreciate fresh veggies....she loves getting salsa and tomatoes from us every summer.

Lots to think about....lots to pray about...stay tuned.

God's Little (half) Acre

2009-01-01T10:31:00.000-08:00

We have staked our claim and started a compost pile....yippee yahoo! We went out to Ann's property about 2 weeks ago to measure out and position the 1/2 acre she is letting us cultivate for our garden/sharecropping project.

It is so nice that she is excited about it too, actually had us move the garden closer to her house than we had originally planned. And we are getting a bit more than 1/2 an acre....the garden will be 150x180ft. or 27,ooo sq. ft. (22,000 is half an acre). Wow... that seems like a lot.

Here is Steve staking the back left corner of the garden.... take a look at the panels on the red barn...

....we SO have solar envy :)

The dirt has not supported life for several years but was a plum orchard originally. It will take a bit of amending and probably a few years to get the enriched soil we want.

This is the front left corner, nearest the house, where the entry gate will eventually be. Ann's property extends to the trees, which are hers....she left them to provide a privacy barrier between her property and the neighbors.

Same corner looking towards house. This house was originally in town and was going to be destroyed....Ann bought it and had it moved a mile and a half out to her property.

The official beginning of our farm project...aka Suburban Sharecroppers came this last week when we emptied all our leaves from the house to begin the process of composting. Most probably we will be using this compost for the fall '09 garden....we don't think it will be ready by spring (especially since we won't be turning it).

The property is really beautiful, nice view of the Sierras and farmland on all sides. You can see the orange grove behind the truck Steve is emptying (which is for sale by the way :)

We've moved!

2008-12-27T14:43:00.001-08:00

Well, our blog address has moved. I was tired of all the ads on Today.com so we are now on our own....and the 3 people who actually read this blog don't have to be assaulted with weight loss ads.

good times :)

Freeze!

2008-12-27T12:41:00.000-08:00

Too lazy to post twice on this one....check out my personal blog for details ...hey, it's almost Christmas!

Rain and....Hail!

2008-12-27T12:22:00.000-08:00

Originally posted Dec. 16, 2008...

Our dear daughter came running into our room at midnight to inform us that it was hailing outside. Her desire, as is all our kids, is to have it snow here....something it has not done significantly for ten years. Every once in a while we get a bit of frost that lingers in the morning and if you squint and turn your head just the right angle you can imagine what it would be like to have snow on the ground here in the Central Valley. But snow to the degree that my children would appreciate comes maybe 2 or 3 times in a lifetime. The last great snowstorm of '97 closed down schools (all 2 inches of it:). We drove around town taking pictures of snowmen and kids skiing (ok, being towed by their parents) on their front lawns. Great day!

But I digress. Last night it was hail and the suggestion of snow....today its sunny and the dream has disappeared. Oh well. The garden has survived and tho things were a bit droopy first thing in the morning.....

...all plants are alive, upright, and thoroughly enjoying the sunny afternoon....yippee yahoo.

The little broccoli peeking it's way thru the green leaves is our first sign of winter veggies and I am thrilled to finally see some of our future harvest.

Kind of wonderful to be out picking salad greens after a hailstorm...ain't life grand!

More Lettuce?

2008-12-27T12:16:00.000-08:00

Originally posted Dec. 2, 2008...

Yesterday was the first of December (son’s birthday…yea!) and I planted another pkg. of lettuce seed. This is the first time I’ve sowed a second crop of greens and tho it is quite foggy and a bit chilly outside I’m hoping that some of what went into the ground will germinate and we can have a few more baby green salads this winter. Our other beds of lettuce and mixed greens are doing well, the black-seeded Simpson and Romaines are about 6 inches tall and still quite tender. The Asian baby leaf (in photo) came up fast and got tough fairly quickly. Next year I will plant those more sparingly, we couldn’t eat them fast enough and they were much more tasty as babies.

Powdery Mildew

2008-12-27T12:07:00.000-08:00

We are having a bit of an issue with powdery mildew on our ornamentals. These are our little calendulas growing by the broccoli out in the front yard garden. We have had such a warm fall (see garlic post :) and powdery mildew is especially prevalent in these particular situations…..

Warm temperatures and shady conditions encourage the fungus to grow and spread. However, the spores and mycelium are sensitive to extreme heat and direct sunlight.

...from Green Guides

Unfortunately, the spot where these are planted is still shady because our deciduous trees haven’t lost their leaves yet. I’m trying 2 different solutions as sort of an experiment...one I learned about on another blog using a milk and water mix and the other is the standard organic defense using baking soda. Maybe the baking soda or milk mix combined with a bit of sunlight will take care of the problem. It is still pretty sunny and the leaves are falling as we speak, plus the condition is not fatal. So I guess I’m not going to worry too much at this point. It shouldn’t spread to the broccoli, tends to keep to just a few plant species in our area and I knew calendulas were susceptible. The only other advice I could find was to pull up all the infected plants...which is all the calendula plants in the garden, so that’s not happening.

I’ll take my chances with soda and milk.

Garlic ...Maybe

2008-12-27T11:58:00.000-08:00

Originally posted Nov.19, 2008...

The warm fall weather, not my ignorance at all mind you, may have messed up our chances at garlic. I planted at the end of October and we have had spring-like weather from that day on.

To form cloves, garlic must be exposed to temperatures below 41 F (5 C). Thus, if planted too late in the spring, garlic will tend to form large onion-like bulbs instead of individual cloves. In the North, garlic is normally planted in October so that it can establish roots before winter and really take of in the spring. Southern gardeners can only plant garlic if they know the temperature will dip low enough. Often, they can wait until November or December to plant.

This is only our second attempt at growing garlic. The first time it went into the ground at the beginning of May; I guess I now know why that didn’t work out so well. I figured this year we were going to get it right. Maybe I should have paid a bit closer attention to the weather channel my daughter always consults before clothing herself….or maybe I should just ask my daughter :)

We have the garlic planted in one container, another spot by the lavender, and a row by our side fence. I wanted to try a few different locales to see which ones were the most productive, now it may be moot...sigh. At this point I guess only time will tell. It’s so wonderful outside, sunny and warm, that I probably shouldn’t be hoping for a quick drop in temperatures…but I am.

Links to avoid the mistakes I made :)

Organic Gardening

Fine Gardening

Green Guides Growing Garlic

Houston Grows

New Life

2008-12-27T11:54:00.000-08:00

Originally posted Nov. 18, 2008...

There is something incredibly satisfying about going out in the garden and discovering the first signs of life on new plantings. I start looking the day after I sow seeds….despite knowing that at least a few days will have to pass before nature does it’s thing and this small, hard, shell of a seed can burst from it’s cocoon and push it’s way up thru the soil to greet the sunshine. I am tickled by the green that arises from seemingly insignificant pods of brown. Many times I have gotten excited checking out the raised beds only to discover that for several days I have been cheering on a weed (or in the summer - a morning glory…virtually a weed at our house). No worries…usually the real plants are not far behind.

Today, the onions are up and reaching for the sky. This is one of the Com Reds that were planted last week. The shallots are starting to poke their way thru the composted soil, but are not quite as speedy as the little red guys. I know it will be months before they are harvested but for today I am happy just to see sprouts and know there is hope for our little patch of onions.

Slow Food

2008-12-27T11:46:00.000-08:00

Originally posted Nov. 13, 2008...

One of the many reasons Steven and I are dragging our family along the organic/grow-your-own food road is the abysmal state of the American diet and the long term health consequences of continuing down that path. How sad that the ‘Greatest Nation on Earth’ is now foisting upon the rest of the world our propensity to consume large amounts of sugar, fat and salt. I was dismayed to read the following article out of Greece about the consequences of a fast food diet replacing the heart healthy, and highly acclaimed Mediterranean diet. In countries famous for their diet of olive oil, fish and fresh veggies, the rates of obesity and diabetes are skyrocketing. Call it the McDonaldization of the world, call it whatever you want, we don’t want anything to do with it.

When our kids were younger and our vision of food and it’s vital importance to future health issues not nearly as sharp, we frequented fast food establishments as a convenience. While attending out-of-town sporting events, shopping trips to malls, or evenings when the days activities precluded having time to prepare a home-cooked meal, we succumbed to the temptation for fast and fatty food. We still do occasionally (she admits sheepishly) though we are much more particular in choosing the places we trust to feed us (McDonald’s remains off-limits).

But even as we were eating various chicken shaped stars and burgers piled high with condiments and secret sauces, we never considered it healthy. It was a ‘treat’, much like going out for ice cream or eating candy. While I am embarrassed to admit that we ever ate in certain establishments, I can at least say that we never confused them with Whole Foods. And the more research we did, the less money we spent in fast food joints. These days, our kids rarely drink sodas and the standard response in the evening to the age ole, “what’s for dinner?” query will most likely be, chicken...or leftovers, or smoothies, or make-your-own….you get my drift.

So I guess I’m kind of amazed that so many people still frequent these places so, well….frequently. I would like to see them all go bankrupt as more people choose to do their slow food shopping at the local farmers market. I would like to see the United States take the lead in teaching nutrition and it’s effect on disease prevention, I would like to see kids eating green at every meal...
...I would like a flying pony for my birthday...sigh.

The Seeds of Suburban Sharecroppers

2008-12-27T11:39:00.000-08:00

Originally posted Nov. 11, 2008...

This life we now lead started years ago. It is as much the growth of our marriage and life together as it is our desire to eat better and healthier. We thought it might be nice to go back and write about some of the influences that brought us to where we are now. Some things have been forgotten and some remain. Maybe we will remember some that shouldn’t have been lost. Though we didn’t have the current name, the beginnings of our present endeavors came after we were first married. We had a book on the shelf called The Integral Urban House. This was a project of the Farallones Institute in Northern California. It was a normal urban house in Berkley, CA that had been changed and converted into a self sustaining urban farm. We started to incorporate some of the ideas from this book. We started slowly with a compost bin and garden around our little rental house in Visalia. The gardens were double-dug and we planted some vegetables in that first experiment. The double-digging idea came from another book, How to Grow More Vegetables Than You Ever Thought Possible on Less Land Than You Can Imagine: A Primer on the Life-giving Biodynamic/French Intensive Method of Organic Horticulture by John Jeavons. Double digging has become one of the staples of our gardens. When we convert a piece of ground to garden, that is what we do to start. Double-Dig, compost, manure at times, gypsum, peat moss and lots of shovel work.

...to be continued...

Onions

2008-12-27T11:23:00.000-08:00

Originally posted Nov. 6th...

Planted onions and shallots this week. We love onions, and by ‘we’ I mean Steve and I. The kids are not quite sure about them and tho I put them in tons of recipes I usually dice them as tiny as possible so no one will notice. Lately I’ve been substituting shallots for onions in most recipes because they get more tender after cooking and therefore more easily disguise-able (is that even a word? :) Part of being a good parent is learning the fine art of subterfuge.

Years ago when we first switched over to organic milk, the kids were unsure of how this alien milk would taste and hesitant to drink it. So for about a month I poured organic milk into a couple of normal milk cartons that I had saved. After a month of drinking it without noticing, we told them they had been drinking the organic stuff and all was well from then on (neener neener). I also used to put tofu in quite a few dishes without informing the young ‘uns. I distinctly remember the evening Wilson found out he had been eating it in my enchiladas….. said he thought it was cheese. Months later, after finding a tiny piece of soy in the eggrolls, he asked me if I had put mushrooms in them. When I told him that it was tofu, he was relieved. Maybe our kids just need to learn to eat with blindfolds on.

But I digress. Onions, shallots, and garlic. These antagnonists of peas and children everywhere went into the ground this week for our winter garden. I have grown onions only 2 other times so I am still a novice….still plenty of mistakes to be made. I got my sets by mail order - Comred onions, Dutch Yellow and French Red shallots, and California hard and soft-necked garlic. No pics of the garlic, they went in the ground last week and I forgot to take photos.

Here is the onion bed….inter-planted with 4 broccoli plants and surrounded by mixed greens and an unfinished concrete pathway (long boring story)

The onions were about an inch in diameter and we planted them about 6 inches apart and an inch deep.

The shallots were considerably bigger (not withstanding the little guy in the pic)…

but the instructions said to plant just deep enuf to cover the crown…so that’s what we did.

They are also planted next to broccoli and their archenemy, the pea, is probably 3 ft. away….we’ll see how that goes.

Good onion info can be found on these links…

Info on onions bolting
National Gardening Assoc.

Harvest to Table

Vegetable Garden Harvest

Eek! We have bugs...

2008-12-27T11:15:00.000-08:00

...Specifically we have cabbage loopers… nasty, voracious little buggers. I wish I’d take a before pic of these purple cabbage plants; they were quite healthy …were being the operative word in this case. 3 days ago they looked a lot like the ones in the Cat guard post…those are in front yard and for some odd reason completely escaped the onslaught.

We proceeded to hand pick the little guys off the plants and then sprayed with BT.

—BT….Bacillus thuringiensis var Kurstaki, a naturally occurring bacterial insecticide. After consuming Bt, caterpillars stop eating and die within a few days. Controls tent caterpillars, gypsy moths, cabbage loopers, tomato hornworms and other leaf-eating caterpillars. Derived from natural ingredients and does not remain in the environment for long. May be used up to the day of harvest.

I was so intent on squishing the invaders that I forgot to get a photo of the green monsters. More info on loopers can be found in this article from Organic Gardening. Hopefully the plants will recover and I can post pics of the patients well on their way to a long and healthy life….until we decide to eat them :)