Happy Halloween

It’s been two weeks since I’ve posted, but the vegetable beds haven’t provided many reasons to post.  It’s the time of the year to remove spent plants and their supports (trellises, cages) from the beds.  The recent rains have made it easier, but not easy, to pull up the 6’ fence posts that supports the cages and trellises.   Only the trellis that supports a small planting of sugar snap peas remains. 

Last week the total harvest was 4 oz of green beans.  I was hoping to get one more picking, but the sunny weather was cut short by several overcast days.  The beans have been in a race against the bean beetles, and as long as the sun was shining they were producing fast enough to stay ahead of the beetles.  Once the sun was blocked the beetles took the lead.  It was time to take out the beans. 

I was hoping the beds would produce a pound per square foot this year – 250 pounds – but it doesn’t look like I’ll reach that number.  Still, there’s a 4x8 bed of leeks and parsnips that hasn’t been disturbed so I expect to add to the 205 pounds that I’ve picked to this point.   I’ll start pulling parsnips in a month or so.  Not making excuses, but the bacterial wilt killed the cucumbers and all the squash except the butternut this year, a major setback, but something always happens every year.   These are the parsnips, the foliage still green:

This week I picked a batch of peppers – Hungarian wax, red hot cherry, giant marconi and pimento – and made more salsa using the same routine that I posted earlier.  The marconi’s don’t peel as easily as the Cubanelles after roasting but the flavor is mighty fine.  For the salsa I added about 10 more cherry peppers that were in the refrigerator.  The heat level is about right.

The potatoes were an experiment this year.  I planted Red Pontiac in three cages this year, and planted Yukon Gold in front of the cages on the south side of the bed.  Nearly all the potatoes were done by midsummer, succumbing to the fungi and pathogens that attack them.  One cage of potatoes showed a lot of new growth at the base of the stems, so I let the potatoes in that cage set out new foliage in the hopes that they would produce more spuds. 

The first light frost on Sunday morning left the potato foliage looking worse for the wear.  I got the pitchfork and dug up spuds - a little over 7 pounds of potatoes.  The reddish potatoes are likely the newer ones that resulted from the second growth of foliage, while most of the potato harvest is the older potatoes.  The previous cages produced about 4 ½ pounds per cage, so this cage produced more taters.  The bigger potatoes showed some pest damage but it doesn’t look systemic.  The new small potatoes should make some nice redskins with butter and parsley. 

Next year I plan to space the cages to allow for better airflow, maybe plant onions between the cages.    They sure are good, much better than store bought.  I’d like to get 10 pounds per cage next year.

I got one last eggplant then pulled the plant.  This was a large plant, about 5’ tall, and it had an impressive root system, much deeper than a tomato plant, and not easy to pull up.   The peppers are hanging on but the frost withered the leaves somewhat.   Too bad, they have a lot of peppers that will never mature.  There’s still some Chinese cabbage, lettuce and spinach growing in the beds.  Not done yet. 

Yields (two weeks):  Green beans 4 oz;  Eggplant 4 oz;  Sweet peppers 17 oz;  Hot peppers 11 oz;  Potatoes 7 lb 1 oz.  And a catfish, 9 oz of fillets.  Totals for the year are under the Results tab. 

Salsa

Hope the eggplant doesn’t find out that summer is over.  The eggplants have some surface blemish but are sound.   Same with peppers and beans.  This month has had a lot of sunny warm weather and even though the days are short the warm weather plants are producing more now than they were a month ago.  Not at summer levels to be sure but any production is a bonus at this point.

The last patch of Provider beans produced almost two pounds this week.  Many of the beans had to be tossed because of beetle damage.  About 10 days ago I picked any beans of size then sprayed with pyrethrins to control the bean beetle.  Since then I’ve given up on spraying.  I’ll probably get a few more pickings before the cold weather and the beetle combine to put an end to it.

I’ve wanted to make salsa with the bumper crop of red hot cherry peppers.  The Brandywine tomatoes are no more, except for some orange split tomatoes on the picnic table which may or may not mature, so I used a can of plum tomatoes, or plum-shaped tomatoes as it says on the can (????). 

While grilling chicken this weekend I put two whole Cubanelle peppers at the edge of the grill and let them cook with the chicken, turning them several times.  By the time the chicken was done the Cubanelles were lightly charred all around.  I put them in a plastic tub and sealed it.    After an hour the skins slipped easily off the peppers.  A small kitchen triumph for a novice, this is the first time I’ve successfully deskinned a grilled pepper.  And the flavor,  sweet and smoky, perfect for salsa.  Here’s how it was made:

Plum tomatoes from 28 oz can or better yet fresh tomatoes

2 Cubanelle peppers, grilled and deskinned, deseeded

6 Red hot cherry peppers, seeds removed

2 Hungarian wax peppers, seeds removed

1 small onion, diced

2 cloves garlic, minced

Juice of ½ lime

4 tablespoons red wine vinegar

            Parsley and greek oregano, fresh

Put tomatoes in a blender and break up briefly.  Stir onion in a little olive oil at low/medium heat until translucent to remove pungency.  Add garlic to onion, stir briefly then add to blender.  Dice peppers, parsley (use a lot) and oregano (not too much), add to mix.   Add lime and vinegar (I added vinegar later to give the salsa more bite, more lime juice would probably work as well).  Add tomato liquid to desired consistency.  Salt to taste.  Blend to desired texture.  Let sit overnight. 

How’d it turn out?  Darned good.  It wasn’t hot enough for my taste, which was surprising, since the red hot cherry peppers have been comparable to jalapenos in heat.  Maybe the autumn hot peppers don’t have the heat of the summer peppers.  Next time I’ll throw a Serrano into the mix.  The flavor was excellent, slightly smoky but fresh.  It wasn’t a good sauce for eggs, but as a fresh dip for tortilla chips it was nearly impossible to stop dipping.

Yields for the week:  Beans 31 oz;  Eggplant 10 oz;  Sweet pepper 10 oz;  Hot pepper 13 oz.  Closing in on 200 pounds for the year.     

Sweedey Hollow revisit

The excellent fall weather prompted me to do another hike at Morgan-Monroe State Forest.   I got to the Low Gap trailhead on Sunday afternoon at about 4 PM, too late to go very far with the shorter days.  I hiked to the top of the ridge and down the other side to a bottoms area where some creeks intersect.  This is where most of the backpackers put up for the night.  This area is isolated from the roads and usually has reliable water from the creeks until July.  I’ve walked the dry creek beds and found a few geodes in the past.

 A few of the trees are changing, but peak color is another week away.

On Tuesday I went back and hiked the section of trail to Sweedy Hollow.  About a month ago I hiked the hollow and wrote a post about it.  The camera batteries were low and I only got a few pictures before they went dead.  This time the batteries were fresh but the shadows were long.  I reached the hollow about 4:30 PM and found sunlight in short supply.  Most of the pics were blurry from poor exposure with my basic point and shoot camera, but a few shots were OK.  The weird rock formations in the hollow make it an intriguing place to visit.

This picture was taken standing underneath the largest overhang.  It’s a very dark and damp place.  I always think about all that mass of rock overhead.

I didn’t stay long.  The sun was getting low and the trail was sometimes hard to see beneath the leaves. 

October 10, 2011

For the last week and a half the weather has been warm with ample sunshine.  Not only is the grass a verdant green, the garden has been producing some vegetables lately.  It’s nothing compared to summer production but I’ll take whatever it will give me.  The last patch of Provider beans are still hanging on.  The beans look different this time of year, and many have some insect damage, but they are still beans, and still mighty tasty.  I also got two eggplant, a Marconi pepper and a Cubanelle pepper.  Enough to roast beans and grill eggplant for company this weekend. 

This is what the garden is up against now.  This picture was taken at 10:30 AM looking south.  The peppers are just  getting the first direct sun of the day.

And here’s a picture taken at 3:30 PM the same day, facing WNW.  The peppers have been in the shade about 20 minutes or so.  There’s a large red oak tree that casts a lot of afternoon shade in the fall.  The beds get about 4 ½ hours of direct sun right now, and less everyday. 

I don’t know if the Chinese cabbage will get to a head before it just stops growing.  I’m still hoping for some lettuce.   It’s just about over, and I’m already planning out next years beds.  

Yields for the week:  Snap beans: 21 oz;  Eggplant 12 oz;  Sweet peppers 12 oz.     

Short post October 4, 2011

September was a crummy month weather-wise.  Lots of overcast, cool days – November weather.  This week is supposed to be sunny and warm, no rain, highs in the high 70’s.  I hope so, the beds should produce some more with some sunlight, even this late in the year. 

I picked the rest of the Butternut squash (Metro from Johnny’s) on Sunday.  The overnight temperature was supposed to drop into the 30’s and I did not want to chance a frost.  I got 9 squash from one vine this year.    Two of the butternuts set in midsummer and the color of the skin is paler than the others.  Don't know if they will taste as good as the ripe ones.

With a few sunny days last week some more eggplant matured.  Also snap beans, a pound.  Not great but it’s something. 

Well I forgot the notes with the actual weights, but it was something like 9 pounds squash, one pound beans, 12 oz eggplant and a few peppers.   About 190 pounds for the year now – I’ll update the figures later.   Cheers
Correction it was 8 oz eggplant, 2 oz hot peppers.  Totals are updated on the Results page. 

2011 - Was it productive?

Until a month ago when I started teaching part-time I had a lot of time available to complete projects in the house and the yard.  It seemed a good time to assess what was completed in 2011 and what I still want to do in order to get the property in the shape I want. 

Thursday saw fantastic weather, clear, sunny and mid-70’s, the first nice day in nearly two weeks.   I’ve been looking for ways to expand the growing space, now about 250 square feet in beds.  The tree shadows don’t allow for any more beds to the south of the existing beds, but the bed in front could be expanded on one side.  The triangular shape fits into the contours and also looks nice.  It should be a good spot to grow some herbs.  I started this project last weekend, was stopped by a rain shower, and finished it on Thursday. 

At the beginning of 2011 I started remodeling the master bath.  That project dragged on for several months.  I replaced the vanity and toilet, installed ceramic tile on the tub surround and new vinyl tile on the floor, put new casing around the doors, installed a ceramic tile baseboard and repainted the room.  It was a long job and ceramic tile can be very time-consuming for a novice but the finished results make it all worth it. 

In March the raised beds looked like this.  The cherry tree that I felled the previous autumn did not quite drop where I wanted it to fall.  Before I could cut it into logs the snows came and left me with this spring project.  At this time I’m splitting the logs for firewood.  The damage to the beds was not as bad as it looks here.

Another spring project were the shade beds behind the back deck.  The landscape timbers that formed the beds were rotting away.  The ground under the beds has a lot of slope, and the beds not only look nice but prevent erosion by terracing the slope.  When the old timbers were removed the soil actually held in place until I put in the pressure treated 4x4’s.   I tried to avoid walking in the beds when doing work, and finished this before the hostas came up.

Putting some flower beds around the front porch was another spring priority.  I used retainer blocks to form two semicircular beds around the front porch.  A foundation bed was built along the front of the house with edging blocks.  A yard of compost and a yard of soil/compost mix were dug it into the clay.  The beds were planted mainly with hostas and lillies.  The rhododendron is a little out of its comfort zone but has survived several hard winters in its south-facing location.

The ongoing project in the house has been the repainting of the interior doors and jambs and refinishing the wood trim throughout the house.  I removed the doors to the pole barn and painted them on sawhorses.  All of the door and window casing and the baseboard is varnished cedar which was only half-finished by the builder (shocking isn’t it?).  The woodwork was never sanded to smoothness and the original varnish had already soaked into the wood. 

 I removed the baseboards and the top and bottom pieces of the window trim, then sanded and revarnished them (two coats) in the pole barn.  Since there was some extra wood available I was able to cull out the wood that was off-color and replace it with better wood.  While the baseboard was off I repainted the walls in the walk-in closet, second bedroom and sunroom.  So far I’ve used six quarts of varnish.  

The sunroom was the most work of any room.  It has more windows than all the other rooms combined and more wood casing.  Here’s a picture of the almost finished sunroom with the top pieces over the windows being put back on.  That’s a glass of red wine next to the miter saw – I was finished for the day and thought a reward was in order. 

The chicken tractor and mobile henhouse projects were in earlier posts.  Here’s a basic workbench I built in one of the minibarns.  It’s hard to get work done without a decent workbench.

Can’t forget storage.  A double row of shelves across the back side of the polebarn provides a lot more storage space.

Now that I’m working part time I won’t be able to get as much done.  The one project I still hope to complete this year is the installation of a light tube in the kitchen.  Part of the kitchen never gets enough natural light and the suntube looks like a good way to light up a dark area.  Next week is supposed to have nice weather, maybe a good time to cut a hole in the roof. . .

The drought is officially over

It started raining Saturday night.  It rained all day Sunday and into Sunday night.  Monday morning before I left for work I checked the rain guage.  The drought is officially over.  This rain in addition to the rains last week total about 7 inches after a late summer drought.  The grass is now very green and growing fast.  The pond has risen about a foot.  Now we need some sunshine.

I’ve been thinking about extending this 4’x8’ bed like this and decided to go ahead and do it (I still have to finish it).  The triangular shape fits well into the landscaping I want to do in this area.  It’s a small increase in the square footage, about 7 square feet, but it should be a good spot to grow herbs.  And the soil doesn’t have to be great to grow herbs, so I can get out of deep digging this spot.  I may put some black plastic over this to kill the overturned sod.

Yields have been really off since the hot weather broke.  The cloud cover has been nearly continuous, but there have been a few sunny days that produced some growth.  Just a few days ago I picked the first batch of Provider beans from the last bean patch of the year, in the middle bed above.  A few more weeks of sunshine should give some more beans before their curtain call, if the bean beetles don’t get everything first.  

There’s a lot of peppers that also need some sun. The red hot cherry peppers and Hungarian wax peppers have really set out a lot of peppers on long stems that drape over the sweet pepper plants. Just one week of sunny weather and there should be enough peppers to make a batch of salsa. I was planning to can salsa but after some research it looks like canned salsa requires more vinegar or lemon juice than I want in a fresh salsa. So I think I’ll make salsa the way I want then put it in plastic containers and freeze it.  The eggplant is big but not producing.  Doggone heat-loving plants.

I’ve been really lazy this year about planting crops for fall.  There are two chinese cabbage (Soloist) and a bok choi growing in the brassica bed, but I never really got started with brassica seedlings.  Too many things going on right now.  There’s spinach and lettuce seedlings in the greens bed which are coming along.  Soon I need to plant the other half of the bed in spinach and lettuce for overwintering.    

Yields for the week:    Okra 1 oz;  Hot pepper 1 oz;  Beans 13 oz;  Tomato 14 oz;  Sweet pepper 3 oz. 

Total for year:  176 pounds.