Spare Thyme

I have a few days break from the harvester, so I'm doing catchup around the house and putting things in order so I can put a good half day into the garden and yard.  Some rain over the last 2 days (which is what is giving me the short break from the harvest) has helped the garden take care of itself (although some fertilizing on a few things wouldn't hurt), with the exception of a solitary sage plant dying (probably from the heat), things are chugging along.
However that same rain is keeping me indoors, and probably away from the lawnmower for a little bit.  So time to catch up on some things we laid down earlier.

Back on the 5th of this month I put some herbs away to dry.  So it's about time to check up on them.  Although the basil and parsley still have about a week to go, the thyme was nice and dry - so it was time to jar it.

Most leafy herbs such as basil, sage, and parsley are fairly trivial - you simply cut or gently crush up the leaves and put it in a clean jar. Thyme however is a little different.

All those strings and stems are not terribly nice in a dish - when I use it fresh, smaller stems dissolve, or you could wrap it in cloth.  But I like to simply use dried herbs.
All those little leaves have to be removed from the stems.  One way is to run your pinched fingers from the tip to the base of the stem and the leaves will pop off - this is a bit time consuming though, and the oils from the herbs will rub off on your fingers - meaning you lose a lot of that flavor. I have yet to find an ideal solution to this problem.

 Lately I've taken to gently crush the ball of herbs while still in the bag to loosen the leaves - then put them in my baking sifter.

Alternating between gently turning the handle, tapping the sides, and plucking out the occasional stem seems to give me a good separation and minimum handling.

The end result was the leaves (large pile) - the stems (small pile) and some stems with a goodly amount of leaves on it.  These were worked with the pinch method and in the end it was all put into a small clean glass jar.

Sealed and ready for the later months when I might not have thyme on my hands like I do now.

There is still plenty in the garden for use (along with others), but if you have an abundance it makes sense to use it or save it.  The price of herbs being what it is, this is probably the most cost effective change anyone can make to their lifestyle.  The growing is trivial, the bagging is easy, and the storage of even the fiddly herbs such as tyme only takes about 10 minutes. Going by supermarket prices I probably saved around $5.  For the 15 minutes (of total active time) it took, I think it's a clear savings - even if you say 'time is money', that 15 minutes was paid to me at $20 per hour.

Hey, How About This Heat?

I think Georgia doesn't really have spring or summer, but instead opts for a mixing of the two called 'Sprummer'.  The heat this week has been up the 90's (that's 32 celcius ) and a heat index of around 105 (40).  And it's not even Summer yet.

In the heat like this there are some strategies you need to take.  Shifting your watering time is a good one.  I water my plants in the evening. The sun doesn't go down till nearly 9pm, so there's plenty of time. After the sun goes behind the house and the garden is in shade is when I start.
Wilted plants will end the day just as wilted if you water them in the sun, and you'll lose a lot of that water to evaporation anyways.  Furthermore those little droplets of water on leaves will refract sunlight and burn holes though your plants.. Same as when I used to do contact juggling, a 3 inch acrylic sphere will give you blister if you hold it still in the palm of your hand.  You can actually use them to light a cigarette.  Or, in the case of someone I know - burn down your tent.

Self watering pots are what I've been using lately - they lose less water, and the evaporation of water on the top of soil can eventually lead to a build up of salts.  Also mulching can lock that moisture down in the soil during the hot hot day.

For fellow vermicomposters out there - keep an eye on your thermometers.  My latest bin came with a 'worm thermometer' - which is just a meat thermometer with a fancy faceplate on it.  If you don't have one, get one.  Indoors or outdoors high temps in the bin can lead to some heartache, and if you have an indoor bin with a spigot - remember to drain off as much excess as you can.  That water will heat up and hold that heat.  I had that happen to me just last night. at over 90 degrees inside your bedding you can expect a mass exodus.
  I caught mine just in time (I lost maybe 20 worms total, but inside they were lined up to make the move).  I put a fan in front of them and put some frozen bananas I had in the fridge into the top trays (I was a little late to make banana bread with them.. so I froze them for the worms). This took the top tray down by 10 degrees and gave them a cool place to hang out while the rest of the bin cooled down.
I cleared away the area around the bins, so I could see if any more were deciding to leave, and left the light on to deter them from leaving the bin.  This seemed to work alright, bringing it down to around 85 degrees in about 20 minutes.  I didn't have any more escapees - but this is going to be an ongoing problem as the workshop does get some heat trapped in there.
Tonight I have made some large ice blocks I'll be putting in to keep temps down. I'll be leaving the spigots open as well so as that ice melts it will drain out.

In the garden, you might lose some plants.  It's a pain and you get attached to them, especially seedlings. But the weather will be what it will be, and sometimes you're just postponing the inevitable.  Try and cut your losses and move forward.

 If you're trying to move seasonally, and stay just ahead of the change, the upside is that for every plant that decides to pack it in, you'll probably find another that will thrive......

.....until the seasons change again.... to 'Finter'.

Picking for Dinner

With Fathers Day on Sunday and a 80% chance of going back on the harvester on Monday or Tuesday - that only leaves Saturday for yardwork, so I figured I better get in on the garden today.  I doubt I'll have a chance next week to do very much, and there were a few things that probably wouldn't wait another week.

On the potato front, the Tater Pot I was testing needed to be pulled.  It comes with 3 varieties of potatoes, and 2 of the plants had died back, the third was yellowing about the same rate as mine. Leaving it too long could have caused problems, and I'm glad I didn't - one of the varieties had some rot and so had nothing to give. Left too long it would have spread to what was left.
So there were some ok sized ones, but not a lot of volume - and not too many tiny sized ones.

 By comparison, the crate had volume (and many more that were too tiny to consider).  The plants could have gone for several weeks more, and these would have bulked out,but so could the Tater Pot's remaining plant.
I pulled both as I wanted to see how they both fared, and also learn a little bit about potato growing in the process. There were too many variables to call this an objective comparison. It was more about simply finding out if these would work. At the end of Summer we will plant them both with the same seed potatoes and put them next to each other in the same sun and check the results.
Both mediums were stored in a large garbage bag (until I rummage up a better container) and will be amended with compost and castings and reused in the garden. When I replant I'll remix some tater soil for my crate and get some sphagnum moss for the Tater Pot.  From there we should be able to do at least a cost comparison between the two and hopefully get better results.  Still, there are few things nicer than fresh baby potatoes - so it's still a winner.

The green beans, are starting to look a little faded, they've been fertilized and looked after, picked constantly, and they're still putting out buds for more beans. Some of the plants are starting to look tired, and that's to be expected.
They've performed better than I thought they would, and when they've finished producing they'll be pulled.  More beans are in around the corn and should come in while these fade out.  The squares they leave should come up vacant just in time for the first of the late Summer planting, so we'll see if I can get some overlap between the seasons.

Other veg is coming in, and although not all is promising (I'll certainly be trying to fertilize the corn a lot more next time) the broccoli and cabbage look promising. I doubt I'll get multiple ears from these corn plants, the others out of shot look a better - but you have to try things to learn.
The beans I planted around them are just starting to poke up, so we'll see if the added nitrogen this late in the game will make any difference.

Some fresh carrots were also pulled, they're coming along pretty nicely. Of the 32 I planted, around 28 or so came up. They were planted in 2 squares with about a 2 week gap between them.  I should be kept in carrots for a little while.  Next planting I'll probably do twice as many.  Perhaps split them into two varieties for a taste comparison.
As always with carrots and other root crops you don't know what you've got till you pull them, but I'm slowly getting a feel for when they are ready.
By comparison the ones grown in a container were slower growing and not as full (yes obvious I know), so now that I'm getting better at growing them I'll have them in the garden full time and turn over that container for germination.

 Finally in a move that left me a little stunned, my teenage stepdaughter asked if I had any kale that was ready.
Truth be known I have 3 plants worth, and was getting a little worried that if I left them they might get bitter as they get older (as swiss chard can do - that earthy taste with that little tang to it does get stronger as it the plant ages).
I was happy to oblige, pulling up one of the larger plants and stripping it down.  I still have 2 fully grown, 2 smaller plants and a few seedlings.  That should be more than enough.

Everything but the meat, fresh from the garden.

We had one of my faves planned for tonight, chicken fried steak, so we doubled up and put the baby potatoes into a green bean casserole.  The kale I trimmed out the stems (which was a lot simpler than people have made it out to be), seasoned with salt and lightly steamed for 5 mins.  Carrots were sliced up and boiled with a generous tablespoon of honey from the bees at the farm.   Wife prepared the steak, bacon, and casserole.

Really a meal where the veg took the center stage.  Not that the chicken fried steak wasn't good - it was great, and still one of my fave comfort foods.  But the vegetables going from garden to plate in less than 2 hours retained all their sugars, and were just outstanding.
We could all stand to eat a little less meat and a little more vegetables in our diet - this crazy cultural lunacy of massive slabs of meat for a 'manly meal' that is 'filling' is lunacy and pretty unhealthy.  I walked away from this meal with a full belly and my tastebuds satisfied in a way that a plate o meat rarely does.

That being said - I do wish I could grow a bacon bush.....

Finally Fertilizing, The Uses of Worm Castings.

A couple of days off from the blueberry harvest, and I'm back home after a few long days.  We'll be back into it next week, so now I get to play catch up on a bunch of things, including the garden.
Last week several inconvenient thunderstorms rode through - which was great as far as watering goes, but it had set me back on my fertilizing.  With many of the Summer plants coming on, you need to keep up on this to maximize the amount of flowers you put out.  Nearly all plants that bear an external seed (which I will usually refer to as 'fruit' even though I'm it's not always correct) have it grow off a flower - tomatoes, beans, peppers, squash, strawberries, the list goes on. Every flower is a potential 'fruit' so you obviously want to maximize what you can get, and it all starts with growing them.
Now it's not a strict case of more fertilizer = more flowers.  A fellow blueberry farmer uses far too much fertilizer on his acreage, and as a result has hard to harvest overgreen bushes.  My Father-In-Law / Boss put it so simply the other day "In this business you have to choose. You can grow berries or you can grow bushes".  So what we are looking for is to get the plants not as massive or bushy as we can, but as overall healthy as we can.  Neither hungry for nutrients, nor an abundance.
Root crops like carrots actually need to dig down to find them. If you over fertilize the foliage or the upper soil you find yourself with stumpy carrots.

As I've discussed before I don't use any chemical fertilizers or pesticides.  Although this is incredibly green and 'organic', my decision is based on the costs of commercial fertilizers (including 'gardening' products like Miracle Gro and it's brethren) as it's my firm belief that these 'easy to grow' products are promoted to replace knowledge and monetize on it. When you factor the costs in it makes the produce from the garden more expensive than buying it.
I have absolutely nothing against it's use, or people that use it. Fresh food is a fantastic thing to have regardless of how you go about it, and I have nothing but respect for any who try their hand at it - for my goals though the cost is a factor.
Secondly with a true organic fertilizer like I use, it is impossible to overdose plants. I've done that before with a farm grade fertilizer and watched plants turn black from tips to roots.  I like the forgiving nature of that, in that my own ignorance doesn't cost me everything I worked for overnight.

If you've read most of my blog you know where my primary source of fertilizer comes from - Vermicompost aka Worm Poo or for the less vulgar out there 'castings'. I know a couple of readers have made the move to buy some worms and start this process - including my own Mother. So I'm going to go over some of the ways you can use them, and how it might relate to fertilizing methods you're already familiar with.

Soil Additive/Amendment

When I make new soil, or dig over soil that's been used and harvested, I put a couple of generous handfuls of castings in and mix it through.  You have to replace what you took out with the plants (this is where the Miracle Gro type potting soils make their money - once their additives are spent, the hobby gardener is left scratching their head till they go and buy new potting mix).  This turns that slightly spent soil into what would be the equivalent of a fresh bag of Miracle Gro potting mix.  I add other composts too, such as composted cow manure, mushroom compost, or my own garden compost if I have it on hand  - but the worm castings are the true powerhouse that put back most of what you took out, ensuring the next seeds are given all they could want or need.

Casting Mulch -  Slow Release.

I've already covered this one, and it's great if you have fresh castings on hand. You simply add the castings in a thin layer and spread them around the base of the plant, and cover the entire square/container.  This not only gives you the benefits of mulching (which cuts down evaporation and locks more moisture into the soil, prevents soil erosion and washout, makes it harder for weeds to break through) but all those goodies in the castings will release slowly into the soil in the same way a slow release pellet plant food will.  Also as it gets older and breaks down - it forms into tiny pellets and aids in the overall composition of the soil.
When possible I put it down when a seedling is just over an inch or two high - it's second leaves have come in and are good and healthy.  You've seen the difference in previous posts with the beans and peas from the first planting for spring - but I can give another example:

These two eggplants are using the same soil, amended the same way. They were planted on the same day, and sprouted the same day. they receive the same amount of sun, and are located approx 10 feet away from each other. They are watered and fertilized the same days, with the same amounts.  One is in a square foot in the garden, and one is in a 9 inch square pot. Both were transplanted at the same time.  I'll let you guess which one was mulched in worm castings.

Was it this one?

Or was it this one?

Now the only differences are the pot and the mulch.  Even if we say the pot played some sort of factor, the Brocolli you can see off the side in the next pot has a sister plant in a square foot a couple down from from the eggplant.  It receives less sun, and is double the size (the difference is sun, pot, and casting mulch).
So even given this small point, you have to credit the casting mulch as making the big difference.

 

 Liquid Fertilizer - Run Off / Worm Tea

Every week (usually on Sunday) I give my plants a liquid fertilizer from what I call 'run off' - the excess liquid that is drained from the bottom of the worm bins.  Some people call it 'worm tea' and it's a hot topic on some forums, sparking heated 'I am righter than you!' internet type discussions. Proper worm tea is a compost tea made from castings and 'brewed'. Personally I don't care what people call these things, I use the term 'run off' so people know exactly where I am getting this from.

My run off comes from the spigot in the bottom of my worm bin. Excess water and moisture  seeps down through all the castings that have been made into the collection basin at the bottom - in this regard I don't think there is much difference between it and 'brewed tea' - this probably has other things in it from scraps that are breaking down - and this is easy to collect. It's a by-product that you have to get rid of, but it also happens to be incredibly good for plants.
I collect on average 10 - 12 mason jars of this per week. I water down my bins on Wednesday and Sunday - and get the majority of my fertilizer then. This is best used fresh - so use it, or you lose it.

In use it's pretty simple. Add one jar to one watering can of water, then water over your plants just like you normally would.  As I use mainly rainwater on my garden - I water using the can most the time (I haven't put in an irrigation system, and won't until I come up with a better rainwater collection system) so it's easy to just replace the Sunday watering with fertilizing.  On my garden I use between 6 and 7 jars, so I can very easily keep up with the demand without having to put more water through my worm bins (which isn't that great an idea - you want your worms happy to give you casting - this is a by product of that process.. why compromise one for the other? )
For any extra, there is another use.

Foliage Fertilizer / Pesticide

Any leftover or excess I have I put into a spray bottle and fill out with water (if needed).  This nice heavy duty sprayer is from the garden section of WalMart and cost me a couple of bucks. I did use repurposed bottles from other products (thoroughly cleaned out of course) but I found they kept getting blocked up after a while.
Set it to a fine mist and go over the foliage of your plants. It will fertilize them as well as keep many pests off your leaves. You'll always have some, but there are natural ways around those as well. I also found that squirrels aren't too fond of my garden beds after I've mulched or sprayed.
I use this on all my plants - but try and be more sparing on root crops. Too much on those will lessen root development. All fresh seedlings are given a generous amount to help them boost up to a transplantable stage.  I've found on beans it will speed up the development of new buds and flowers, likewise on peppers.  This single spray bottle will give everything in the garden a pretty good cover and only takes 1 1/2 jars to fill.

Worm Tea

A slightly different animal than run off.  It's a purer fertilizer and a great way to use your castings effectively.  There are many many recipes out on the internet - but I'll go over the method I've used.

I start with a 5 gallon bucket of rainwater - or if I don't have that, 5 gallons of town water and let it sit in the sun 24 hours to evaporate any chlorine out of it.
Get 2 cups of worm castings and wrap them in some cheesecloth, an old t-shirt, old pillow case, anything the water can go through. Form it in a little baggie and tie it off with a rubber band or a zip tie, then pop it in the bucket.
Add 2 tablespoons of molasses or brown sugar.  this will feed the microorganisms released into the bucket and they'll have a population spike (think of yeast when baking bread).
Finally I put an aquarium airstone in to add oxygen to the mix, then let it sit to 'percolate' for 24 hours.  After that you can use it as you will.
Remember there is a shelf life on this stuff so use it or lose it.  Personally I don't like it sitting more than 3 - 4 days.
When your done just pop those castings on your fave plant as a bit of mulch.

Personally I find the brewing of worm tea a bit of a pain, and if I have to hunt around for this and that, a pump, an extension cord - it becomes too much trouble to do regularly.
To this end, over the next few weeks I'll be scrounging my workshop for bits and pieces to make a 'worm tea brewer' - it's going to be low tech, but will take some of the racing around out of the process. A dedicated bit of equipment that I can quickly put the right amounts of things into and switch on.  I'll be documenting it when I get the final bits of the puzzle together.

Cheers!

Random Rumblings and Ruminations

The problem with writing a garden blog is that when you're rained in, which is the ideal time to write - you have nothing to write about!  Thankfully the rain started AFTER my weekly landscaping visit to the county, but when it came time to spend an hour in my own - rain rain rain!.  I'm not sure how this will effect the blueberry harvest tomorrow. Rain is anathema to harvesting, and might see a late start or a cancellation all together.  Too much rain, too much water in the ripe berries and they explode. So fingers crossed on this one.

I can't complain really - there are some things I'd like to get done, but more water for those Summer squash, tomatoes, and the like isn't a bad thing. Still there are garden related things you can do indoors as well:

Seed Sorting, and Seeds In General.

I've sorted through my seeds and loosely organized them into the ones that you can plant in June/August.  These will be the Autumn garden (as in harvested in Autumn) plants.  Looking over the seeds I've come to the conclusion that I REALLY need a better system for this.  I've tried several but for some reason it gets pushed down so low on the totem pole that I just don't get around to it.... until it's time to plant, and then it's sort-sort-sort, plan-plan-plan.... to be forgotten till the next season.

My original 'system' was a small box. I buy seeds, I throw the packets into the box.  Done.. go through the box and look at what I feel like planting.   Of course what happened was all the things I like were 'next season' so I'd put them back in the box them um and ah about what to do till I all but missed my planting windows, and utterly forget to plant what I like when the time came.
This time around I decided to get 'organized' - yeah air quotes on that because although I bought 2 little check folders and sorted them into herbs and veg, it pretty much amounted to the same system. I always think 'oh yeah I'll remember to plant this...' and of course we know how that goes. So, a new system is in order. For buying and for organizing.

Seed Varieties

First is a matter of buying seeds and varieties.  I'm trying to get better - but old habits die hard. When buying seeds I usually have either a general idea of what I want, or have a looksee at what's for sale.  Most stores sell seeds at the times they are good to plant, so you can get a good idea of what your upcoming garden can have.. it's almost too easy.  Unfortunately I tend to just see that big label 'Lettuce' 'Garden Beans' 'Tomatoes' and a glance at the picture to see what it might look like - which isn't always accurate.
My lettuce situation early this season for example.  Looking through my seeds I came across the empty packet I used in Autumn - I'd specifically put it aside so I could remember what I'd bought (as I said - I'm TRYING to get better, but success still eludes me).   They were Salad Bowl Lettuce - a nice compact and crisp lettuce for growing in cooler temps.  I'd replaced them with 'LETTUCE' - but further examination showed they were Black Seeded Simpsons - a leaf lettuce that you harvest leaves off of, and grows more upwardly. It has sweet delicate leaves, that although lovely tasting, will get hammered by rain and fried by sun.
Different varieties can have different plant times (I know - Captain Obvious strikes again huh?) adding to my general confusion when I buy replacement seeds and have no luck.
Under a new system I'm going to try and actively force myself to buy several different varieties of any veg type.  Make notes of varieties I enjoy more than others, and try and extend my planting options - and giving me a margin of error.

Organization

I'm getting better, but I think my organization method at the moment is flawed.  I'm organizing by types and by plants.  Which seems like the obvious way to do it, but I run into problems with planting times and doubly so when a plant can be grown in 2 or more seasons.  Pulling everything out and sorting each season sort of helps - but it's time I'd rather spend elsewhere, and work I'd rather front-load.  One solution is to keep folders for each season (or general planting months as defined by hardiness zones - that little map on the back of a seed packet).
This would work well for most plants, but what about ones that have 2 plantings? A Spring and Autumn for instance?  A possible solution is to double down and buy 2 packs of those seeds, and keep them filed separate.

Documenting

 Lucky for me I'm doing that here.  I can look back and see what I did and where, I think I'll have to start putting some more info in my posts about exactly what I planted, that way I could always refer here to refresh my memory.


In the end I need a better way of keeping, storing, and retrieving the information. The geek in me thinks this might be a job for some kind of database - or perhaps a 'Big Manly Garden' android app, so the info would be there on hand when I'm out and about with my Kindle.

Hmmm - well the call came in, 10am blueberry harvest - so I'm going to start thinking about getting some rest - all these problems and possible solutions will still be here when I get home tomorrow night :)

Cheers.

Sunday Harvest/Garden and Yard - June 6th

"The best laid schemes o' mice an' men,Gang aft a-gley"  - Robert Burns.

For those non-geeks, or those not of the Scottish persuasion 'Gang aft a-gley' roughly translates to 'go often awry' -  back in the 90's you could use it to 'out' all the wannabe Scots that came out of the woodwork after BraveHeart hit the cinemas.

Anyone who's followed recent posts (both of you), know I'm up for a busy few weeks - between the upsurge or people needing work done on their properties, and the blueberry harvest, this time of year whizzes on by at a fast clip.  Lucky for me it's also the time when there really isn't very much you can do until July; Summer planting for Autumn.
At this time there's a lot of things that get a little behind and need to be caught up on, and Sunday seemed like a good day to play catch up.  Pool maintenance, mowing, composting, cleaning up the yard.  The plan was to then unleash the kids in the pool for a few hours and weed/fertilize (yep STILL haven't fertilized)/harvest then let them inside. They'd crash out - I could catch up the laundry and a few other bits, and we could eat dinner and watch Game of Thrones.... bliss.

Well it seems the weather had other plans.  The kids got about 30 mins in the pool, and everything past that point went out the window.   Wow! yes! My path is underwater!
This was about 10 mins after it started to come down, so as you imagine it was pretty heavy.  It's since past, but it's too dark to take any decent pics of anything.
I'm just hoping it stays clear so I don't have to reshuffle my work schedule.

That's a pretty big bean!

I did brave the thunder for 5 minutes to grab the full grown beans. We won't be eating them tonight, but I wouldn't want to leave them on the vine too much longer. Again, consistently getting bigger and in greater quantities.
This was a single weeks growth, and all the plants still continue to bud and flower.
I also grabbed some kale, trimmed from the lower leaves of the 3 sizable plants.  My bowl was overflowing with a goodly amount (enough to stuff a gallon sized ziploc bag - wilted down it was a dinner side dish for 3)
To look at the plants you'd never know they were trimmed, so this will be a regular on the plate for a little while.



The propagation containers have overflowed with water several times.  With all the rain the blend of soil that was turned over and mixed has nearly self sorted back into it's respective groups.  I was going to write it off and start again when I noticed that the kale I'd put in there on the 5th had already sprouted.  Blew my mind since it's planting window by hardiness zone was passing (May being the last month) - so a few bonus plants that may find their way into the main garden!
With the way things went this Spring, I've got a little ways before the Summer yielding plants kick in, so I'm sorry to say this may be the 'beans and kale show' for another week.

My 'holdover pepper' from last year, the last of the Garden #2 peppers, is putting forward some nice lil green fruit.  The other new plants are doing fairly well - some get more sun than others, and the ones that get more shade seem to be doing much better.  Either way the shaded plants are still getting PLENTY of sunshine throughout the day.  I'll be trying to narrow down what squares will keep them best over winter if I can.  I'd gladly forfeit some of the shadier ones near the house for near permanent plants as I'm planning to expand the garden (funds permitting) by another 16 square feet over Summer in time for Autumn, but I'll leave the exact plans on that for another post.

Queen of Hearts are continuing to put out more green tomatoes. They'll ripen up when the heat of Summer starts to hit them - These are not a 'sure thing' even though I've had no critters thus far trying to nom them.  But either way I'll be taking seed from these plants.  They grew to a nice size in a container, haven't branched out all over the place, and seem to put out a nice sized fruit for what I want. If I could get another 5 of these planted I'd be making pasta sauce all Summer long.

Ok a crap blurry photo, but the sun had gone and the rain looked like it was coming back. The butternut squash is meandering across the concrete slab at the end of the driveway (where I currently store a bunch of junk) and has put out this nice sized lil squash. With the rain and the sun I'm hoping this keeps growing.  If I only get a single squash off this plant I'll consider the experiment a success.  The regular summer squash are producing, but it's small early squash that hits the dirt and rots out before gaining any size - I'm hoping this will change in the very near future. All things considered, squash in containers is going along AOK, the only thing I'd change is perhaps trying to buy or build larger self watering pots.

Potatoes are starting to yellow up, and in the 'tater pot' one of the plants has already died off. This isn't a bad thing! At this point all the remaining energy is going into the tubers that are formed to finish them off. I could harvest lots of baby potatoes at this point if I wanted to (oh and how I am tempted!) but I'm still in the process of testing the 2 systems in my somewhat unscientific comparison (the next test will be a LOT more objective - this one was very ad-hoc and had several things out of my control).
Potato-wise in Georgia the weather and seasons are such that we are supposed to be able to do 3 crops of potatoes in a year - A Spring planting, a late Summer planting, and an Autumn planting that although won't put out full sized spuds, should be able to give you new potatoes at Christmas - something I'm certainly going to be trying.
In my next planting I'm going to be adding a couple more crates to continue what looks like a good method for me, while the original and the tater pot go head to head once again.  I really want to get more going in the 'tater department as I plan to have this as the 'entrance point' of new soils into the system. I'll rotate the soil out after a potato harvest to be used to top up or fill new containers and squares.

One thing I want to try  that is still within my time-frame deals with corn and polyculture.  I'm all about getting as much as I can from every square foot, and if I can get it to take on part of the garden maintenance, then I'm there!  When I planted corn this Spring, it was something I'd  had on my mind since last Autumn. I'd planted beans and peas there in order to rotate the corn in. The beans/peas put nitrogen into the soil which the corn needs and takes up in the next planting.  The Native American Indians had been doing this one better for centuries - the '3 sisters', planting corn, beans, and squash together was an absolutely brilliant example of plants looking after each other in several ways, and sharing the work of the farmer.  The beans climb the corn, the squash leaves shade the roots and prevent weeds, the beans give back nitrogen.
Now I can't put my squash with my corn (for spatial reasons), and I use bush beans rather than pole (climbing) beans,  but I can still use part of the principle - increasing the bean harvest while at the same time giving much needed nitrogen to the corn.  This is something I overlooked when I planted and had since brushed it off as 'too late' - but reviewing my seeds today I found the variety I'd bought as a replacement actually should be planted right now.... so this is one experiment I can still try this season... I'll be going more in depth on this 'happy mistake' in a future post on seeds and planning.

Anyways that's the weekly Garden update.

Cheers!

Got Time for Lunch? Barely!

It never ceases to amaze me how far the myth that cooking takes enormous amounts of time has permeated our society. It blows my mind.  I've cooked for myself for nearly all of my adult life.  This was looked upon as an impressive feat when I was a bachelor (note to younger single guys - knowing how to cook a couple of decent dishes will buy you a LOT of forgiveness in areas you are lacking), and people have always said things like 'oh I'd do that, but I don't have the time' or 'it's just more convenient to pick up something' - and my favorite 'oh it's cheaper'.

Several years ago when I lived in Vegas I offered a friend a steak dinner - to which he said, "I'm really really hungry right now, I'll just go down to a local McFastFood and be back in a bit". I had all the ingredients out and ready at the time, and a bet was born.  I put up $50 that I'd be eating by the time he came back.  He took off to the local drive through (and this is the Las Vegas suburbs, there were several within a few blocks to choose from) , and I fired up my pan.  By the time he returned with his bag o food I had already started eating. A medium rare steak with onions, steamed brocolli, corn and some mashed baby potatoes.  Once you factor in driving, waiting, ordering, driving back - he'd been gone 20 minutes.  I was $50 richer and he got a double dose of butthurt by missing out on steak.  If I really wanted to make him cry I'd have told him that if I factored in portion cost, I spent less money as well.

Anyways. Today.  Lunchtime to be exact.  I got home from the first day of harvest around 10:30pm last night. I've spent my morning catching up things that have fallen behind while I've been busy (most of last week). I'm sore, I'm tired, and I'm hungry. Ravenously so. The kind that needs to be sated with the greatest of urgency. In this situation many people would fish the 5's and singles from the wallet and get the car keys.  I go to the back yard.

Doing a quick look over what I need to get done once the midday sun passes (mow, compost, weed, fertilize) I do a bit of quick picking. The lettuce looks like it's growing up rather than out - it's probably going to bolt.  Radishes are looking like they're coming close to an end, so 2 of them. A couple of leaves of kale from one of the larger plants, a quick rummage around the beans - I want the larger beans for tomorrows dinner veg, so a few of the smaller tender beans for a salad - or steaming - or both!

Coming back to the kitchen door I grab a few sprigs of parsley, some greens from chives and garlic.  Hmm, a salad would be nice - but would it be filling enough? I could steam, but it's a hot day...  The good thing about cooking your own - you don't need to compromise.  I trim out the lettuce, cut up the radishes, take a half of one Kale leaf, the smaller beans and a little parsley- mix them up and put them in the fridge.
What's the best, fast, easy and filling thing to use as a base for some steamed veg?  Rice.

 The simplest thing in the world to make and yet people look at it like its some enigma of cookery, spending a small fortune in instant, 5 minute, and boil in a bag varieties - pointless.
Straight normal rice - easy as 1,2,3 - get an amount of rice (any amount) add twice it's volume in water to a pot with a well fitting lid. for 2-3 people, 1 cup of rice = 2 cups of water. Add some salt and a tiny bit of oil to seperate the grains.  Put the lid on and bring to the boil then immediately reduce the heat and let it go on a soft boil for 15 minutes.
remove from the heat, add a few slivers of butter, put the lid back on and let the remaining steam finish it off while it rests for 5-10 minutes.   20 - 25 minutes is all it takes. Perfect rice not stuck to the pot just about every time.

Crappy blurry photo for no extra time or effort!

Well and good, but what about the steamed veg? Even if (like me) you put the rice on and prep everything else (and clean up after it) you STILL need to do the veg? - newp.  Not at all - you can have it all with NO additional time and next to zero extra effort.  Instead of letting the steam just finish the rice - let it steam the veg as well.
If like my you like lightly wilted and things like beans to still have a little snap to them, add the veg when you take it off the heat.  If you like them a little more wilted and soft, one or two minutes before you'd take it off - add butter then veg then - let it finish out for a couple of minutes, take it off the heat and let rest for 5.  Like I said, next to no effort and all the flavors from that veg and herbs will go through the rice.

 I need a new camera!

Plated up - salad on one side and rice on the other - finish off with some Italian dressing and a dollop of ranch to dip on the side.
This might be a little misleading - as there was actually enough for 3 plates... Fresh cooked lunch in 25 mins.
Your milage may vary, but that beat a Las Vegas McColostmy Crappy Meal and the local branch of Dominus Pizza (yeah, you won't even get name placement with me) .

Point being:  It was no more inconvenient for me to prep a filling fresh lunch than it would have been for me to go buy an overprocessed crap one.  Cost wise was nothing, as I keep rice as a kitchen staple at all times (who doesn't... ok maybe a few of you young bachelors - in which case read this article from the top AGAIN and pick up my subtle tip).
In the larger economic sense of 'cost', being 'opportunity cost' I would argue that one of these things has me getting my shoes, settling the kids, leaving the house, and being stuck in a car. Not exactly 'fast'.  While the other has me in the kitchen, continuing about my daily business and still having time to see to the kids miscellaneous needs. Although the time to cook and prep was 25 minutes, it still didn't take me away from the things I was doing. In fact 15 of those 25 minutes was spent doing other things.  Which makes you wonder about the how we're redefining 'convenience'.

Cheers, and happy Saturday!