Gardening 2nd week December

Well no photos this time. Just reminder of things to do in December. I just finished splitting the last of the firewood for the year. I now have 8 cords in the shed. I am a little bit of an Internet junky and found a great site on you tube. The Victorian kitchen garden. It was produced by the BBC in the "80's I believe. My broad band is quite slow but it is interesting to learn more about how they grew food for "The Big House" in Victorian times.

Also seed catalogs are showing up in the mail. By the first of the year the big box stores will be having generic seeds on sale. Watch the sales and pick up many of the generic seeds for next spring. Remember when the growing season starts for your location and do not sow too soon. I know I always sow too soon and pay the price with slow growth on my gardens.

Keep warm and remember old gardeners do not die they just spade away.

B

Later in Life

I can hardly wait for winter to be over and we're only in fall.  

I found this really great idea for a pathway in my garden.  See the slices of wood?  I think this is such a great look and so creative!  I've attached the website I found it at here.  

  

I also love this idea for some rain storage in my garden so I don't have to drag the hose across my yard all of next year.  I'm sure it will not keep my garden watered all year, but it'll be a nice option to have when we do get some rain.  :)  

Website is here.

Bedtime

I worked on my garden yesterday.  It was the perfect fall day in Portland.  Lots of sunshine and very brisk air.  I didn't get out there until around 1 and by the time I was "calling it a day" around 3pm the sun was already behind the clouds making it feel like 6pm!  I didn't get nearly enough done, but I had let the weeds take over, so the weeding part of my chores were a lot bigger than I planned for.

It was a little heartbreaking pulling out some of the plants that were not quiet dead yet.  I kept hoping those bell pepper plants would produce SOMETHING!  Not one bell all summer.  :(  Green leaves, happy little flowers, but no peppers!  My jalapeno plant...I'm going to try potting it and bringing it inside.  I can't seem to let that one go.  It gave me so many wonderful peppers!  If I can keep it going, I'm going to try.

I think the next time I go out I'll have a more realistic timeline in place.  I have some pea gravel, left over from our french drain that I was going to use in the entry way of my garden.  I got the weeds pulled up in that area, but didn't get the gravel moved.  I hope to do a little each night until it's done.  Maybe on Tuesday and Wednesday this week.

As I finish it up, I'll take some "after" photos to share.  All of these were right when I started.  This is the worst of it.

Gardens 2012

Well as we clean out this summers gardens and prepare them for winter it is time to begin planning for next seasons gardens. Each year I get distracted with my business when my garden needs to go into the ground, may be next year will be better. Just work on improving. Today I found an article in "Oregon Live" about pumpkins for eating. Silly thing. Many years ago Bobbe and I searched out information an cooking with pumpkins and everything we found started with canned pumpkin. Times are changing. Last year I did take a real pumpkin cut it up baked it and made a pumpkin puree that we froze. It was fine but the color was very lite and flavor was not very good. next year I hope to try some more pumpkin varieties and see if I can find one that taste great. Pumpkins and other winter squash take up lots of room in the garden but many of them will stay fresh for many months after harvesting. Oh, Bobbe often puts pumpkin and winter squash chunks in soups and stews. A great addition to a winter meal. Now remember if you do plant pumpkins or winter squash, remember they take up a lot of room in the garden. Well see if this works, the link to the Oregon live site : http://www.oregonlive.com/foodday/index.ssf/2011/10/pumpkin_in_food_its_scary_good.html#incart_hbx

Bob

Got more Zucchini?

Well it keeps coming. Each week I expect it is the last harvest and the hard frosts stayed away and we keep harvesting a few more. The yellow crook neck were a bust but the regular green zucchini keep on coming. I planted garlic last weekend and will be mailing off some bulbs to Ellie Monday. I hope weather is ok for you then. Plant them 2 inches deep 6 inches apart, mulch and enjoy winter. I need to start my grow room soon but too many irons in the fire now. I still need to put up 4 cords of firewood for winter. We plan to work on that today after I do some work.

Bob

Website Share

I found a wonderful website for home remedies for garden pests/problems.  I just thought I should share it here.

Flowers

I am really not that interested in flowers.  I just don't care one way or the other about them, but I was chatting with my physical therapist about my garden and my aphid issues this last week and she mentioned that she plants a row of flowers a row of veg, etc and that she has very little issues with aphids or other common pests because the flowers attract the "right" kind of bugs.  It sounds very logical, so I was doing a little research on it and it seems like this is a really common way that people grow veg organically.  It allows for a reduction in the need for pesticides....

Now I just need to figure out what flowers to plant next to my veg so they are flowering at the right time of year.  This is getting very complicated now!  :)

Butter leaf lettuce (second batch) is really flourishing!!  Pulled out the Kohlrabi last week and I am overflowing with Jalapenos right now.  Probably the best investment in my garden so far.  That plant has produced pretty much the whole summer and now into fall, with some very flavorful jalapenos.  Definitely getting another one of those!!

Anyone else plant flowers with their Veg?  Any luck??  Suggestions for flowers to plant + veg combo?

I've seen a lot of people on the Internet speaking about planting morning glory...but I always thought that was a weed...maybe I'm thinking of the wrong plant??

Also, sun flowers?  I wish it was spring again already....Still love my garden, but it's not as fun to go out there when it's pouring down.

Garden update

Anyone know what that white powder is on my pumpkins?!

Corn Down

So, I pulled all of my corn out of my garden this last weekend.  I boiled it up and then froze it.  I think it still is very tasty.

My carrots are coming out next I think.  The cabbage got away from me and is a pile of mess.  I pulled out the worst of it, but I kept a few I thought I could salvage.  I'm not sure if I waited too long into the season to plant my onions or not, but they really aren't doing much.  They just seem to be dying but when I pull one out they dont' have the "onion" bulb on the end.  It's just the greens coming out of the ground.

My brussel sprouts and pumpkins seem to be the last survivors.

Oh!  I finally gave up on my tomato plants as well.  They are in the compost bin with the corn stalks.  Seems the garden is ramping down for the winter.  Now that we're in a perfectly lovely Portland winter....

Fall Jobs

Well fall is official. I have been hoeing the fall weeds from the beds to prevent them from becoming established before spring. I cleaned out my heated greenhouse, pulled one of the benches out and build a raised bed for my winter crops. I will be sowing leaf lettuce, beets tops, kale, Etc. as soon as I have some more free time. I am going to lay some pavers down the center aisle. That should help keep it more enjoyable than walking in mud all winter. One year I put in some sod. Bobbe loved sitting in the greenhouse in April with her shoes off and toes in the green grass and we had 3 feet of snow outside. I have been cutting back on irrigation also and starting the irrigation later in the day to reduce the chances of causing ice on driveway & patio. I transplanted some more raspberries last week from mom's place. If I had time I will transplant a few strawberries also. So many projects and never enough hours in the day.

Bob

Horn Toot'n

Chard + Zucchini + Yellow Squash - Very pretty

All baked up, not as pretty, but very yummy

Swiss Chard + onion

Last night I made a baked Swiss chard + zucchini + yellow squash all together with some olive oil, garlic and cheese.  I baked the stems of the Swiss chard, zucchini and yellow squash together for about 20 min before I took it out of the oven, put some cheese over the top of that, then topped it with the greens from the chard and drizzled that with olive oil.  I think it was quite good.  Derrick liked it too.  It's my first time cooking Swiss chard.  I never would have bought it but I signed up for a local veg bag through work.  I spent $5 and they gave me a HUGE bag of veg that was grown locally.  I'm glad I did it because I think I'll be planting Swiss chard next year.  The flavor of the greens were amazing.  I really liked them.










We also had our first FULLY grown corn from the garden.  I know I am bias (of course) but I think it is the best corn I have ever eaten.  Ever.  I simply loved it!

To round out the meal I made a weight watchers recipe (one of my favorites) for chicken cordon blu.  I take a chicken breast, flatten it out, use a laughing cow wedge, and a few slices of Canadian bacon, but I had picked a few jalapenos from my garden so I diced some of those up as well and added them to the chicken roll.  It was a nice kick and it added a new flavor that I really enjoyed.


Anyway, it was a great meal and I am really excited that most of it came from my garden.

Week of Rain

It basically rained all of last week.  Not a lot going on in my garden.  The self raising flour I put on my cabbage and brussel sprouts did some damage to my cabbage.  So much for that great idea.  At the same time, I don't see any more worms or white butterflies fluttering around.  That might be because of the rain and drop in temperature, or the flour trick...not sure.

We pulled some very nice corn off of the stocks this weekend.  Derrick told me he didn't want to do corn again next year because it takes up so much room in the garden and it's only $1 for 4 ears at the grocery store....I can't really argue too much with that.  Other than I like watching them grow!

This next week is supposed to warm up, and I hope to see some massive growth on my onions.  Right now they just seem to be dying and I'm not sure why.

The only thing really flourishing is my jalapeno plant.  It's producing more jalapenos than I can cut and eat.  I'm wondering about freezing them....

PB & J

I really enjoyed this article about the community garden in LA.  I do not think I could make myself go to a garden plot across town to take care of my veg.  I think that is a different level of commitment.  As much as I enjoy my garden, if I had to schedule a time to drive around to get to it, probably would not do it!

Cabbage Worms

Last Saturday when I was cleaning up my garden I noticed my brussel sprouts were looking a little worse for wear, but I saw no signs of the dreaded aphids.  So I just rinsed them off every morning this week like I'd been doing to everything else in the garden.

What I DID happen to notice this last week has been the daily white moth looking thing fluttering around my garden.  I thought it was a good thing, killing off my aphids.  Wrong.  I'm still fighting my arch nemesis the aphid, but in addition, I'm fairly sure I have cabbage worms as well.  Some of the images from the cabbage worm destruction look a little too familiar.

So I went out tonight in my pj's and dusted my cabbage and brussel sprouts with self rising flour.

I wonder if using chemicals would be harder or easier sometimes.  Knowing I just went into my kitchen and potentially fixed a problem without adding anything harmful to what I'm eating is kind of cool....assuming it works.  And I always wonder how long it will work...is this a every week "fix" or for a month??  Who knows!

I run a lot in neighborhoods now, and I always want to stop at a house with a big garden and look for their bugs.  I wonder if I'm the only one struggling sometimes.  Are they cheating and using something?? Or did I just not put the right amount of prevention into my garden before I started?  Luck of the draw??  I guess on the bright side, I'm learning out how to deal with these regular pests early on.  I should be a pro just about the time we sell this house and I have to start a new garden at another place.  :)

P.S.  So far, the hosing off trick for the aphids has not worked.  They're still enjoying my veg.

Got Zucchini ?

One of the reasons I have a garden is to to have FRESH & HEALTHY FOODS. One of the many challenging parts is too much of a good thing at once. If you can or freeze garden produce that is one thing, it you are a consumer of fresh produce that can be overwhelming. My favorite way to eat many of the things I grow is by gazing the garden. Just walk through the garden picking and eating. :) Peas, baby carrots, and of course the berries, strawberries, raspberries, and black berries. Zucchini, & tomatoes are another crop that is hard to control. They all seem to mature ate once and tons of fruit. Bobbe came up with a new zucchini recipe this year. I have been trying to get her to write it down so we could share it but she has had other priorities. So how have you been eating your garden this season?

Earwigs

I cut my first cabbage tonight...I got home and knew I was making stir fry and I was so pleased that I get to use my own cabbage! SQUEEE...

Walking into my house, pleased as punch to use my very own cabbage and I look down with a stupid grin on my face and two earwigs popped out of the cabbage and jumped on my hand. At which point I lost all cool screamed like a little girl and threw the cabbage across my kitchen...

Not the brave gardener I thought I was.

Hops

My hops were getting these small brown spots all over them, and when I was down in Bend last Uncle Bob said it was from mites.  I bought an organic miticide and used it as directed but now it looks like my hops are almost completely dead!  I'm going to give them some water (I've been neglecting this a little bit lately, focused mostly in the back yard) and a little fertilizer and if they don't perk up in a week or so I'm going to have to google it again...

Final Product

I spent about four hours out there today.  I wish it would have been just 5 degrees cooler, I could have gotten a lot more done, but I was boiling!

Anyway, I got most of it done.  Its pretty tidy now.  I'm going to put my asparagus trenches against my back wooden fence, where the tomatoes are right now.  I'll probably put them in at the end of October when the tomatoes are completely finished.  My only concern is the amount of pine cones that fall back there.  With only one pine tree on the neighbors yard, I really am shocked at how many pine cones I'm constantly raking out of that area.

I might put the corn back where I have it right now.   Originally I thought this was a bad place for them because the second row is not as tall as the first, but I do feel the reason I picked the space (lots of sunlight and blockage from any wind) is still valid, so I might do that again, and putting my corn in earlier I hope, will help them grow larger.

I pulled my home-made pea trellis out.  My peas were dead and I never liked the place I had it anyway.  Derrick helped me do this and suggested I use the wiring and poles to make a compost area.  I love that idea!  Why didn't I think of that?!   I really hate it when he does something like that.

Next year, I'm doing half rows and doing more things.  What I need to figure out is how to stagger my crops better and how to organize the layout so I'm watering plants that need to be watered frequently and avoiding plants that do not need as much.  I think I really killed my squash and zucchini with over watering.

Okay, that's all for today!

Hope everyone has a nice weekend and make sure to stay cool and hydrated....beer dehydrates!

Zucchini!

Getting there!

Sad little tomatoes