2022 Garden Thread

[DuaeGuttae]

A while back I had posted some pictures of my indoor gardening experiments this summer: a salad mix, za’atar, and zucchini. I wanted to give some updates.

I’ve harvested the salad mix once pretty aggressively, and I’m getting ready to do another big cutting perhaps today. I sowed the seeds way too thickly since I was expecting poor germination even inside since our temperatures are regularly 80 degrees and higher in this area. Things germinated well, but clearly they’re too crowded. Nevertheless the kids and I enjoyed our first salad from this, so overall I’d call it a success. The biggest problem has been fungus gnats. After the harvest today, I may move the container outside.


The za’atar got moved outside quite a while ago, and it is doing well. I think I’m not going to transplant it this fall so that I have the option of keeping it inside during the winter and perhaps putting it in my herb area in the spring.


The zucchini I was growing inside started doing poorly a while back at about the same time that my outdoor plant succumbed to squash vine borers. We hardened off the inside plant in its pot and then transplanted it to the garden area. It took a while to get established, but it’s growing well now. It actually had some flowers before the transplant, but it took a while to recover and hasn’t had any outside yet. I’m hoping for some soon so that I can get a little crop before the borers do it in.

 

[Dan Freeman]

Today, I washed and scrubbed about 80 rocks and put them in the pond. Most were placed near the edge of the shelf that surrounds the pond so when I add the gravel, it won't fall into the deep area. The rest were placed randomly on the shelf so when I add the gravel, it will look more natural with rocks projecting up through the gravel.

I also forgot to mention, I put 2 of my goldfish (from my small pond) in the FF pond a week ago. They are doing well. So, I bought 8 comets the other day from the nursery. They are trying to get rid of them because it is the end of the season. I paid $28 for all 8, each about 2" long. So far, all 10 fish are thriving.

 

[Riverbanks]

Every year at this time, I struggle with getting bored with veggies, road side stands are packed with everything. Some day I'm going to buckle down and start canning, I say it every year

 

[Dan Freeman]

Last night, we took all the San Marzano tomatoes we harvested this summer from the FF out of the freezer to defrost. We had 5 large bowls of them. This morning we started skinning them, pressing the water out, and putting them through a food mill to get all the seeds out. We wound up with about 2.5 gallons of sauce.



We also defrosted 6lbs. of chop meat and 4lbs. of sausage to make meatballs. We'll fry the meatballs and cook them in the sauce, then freeze them in those little 1lb. cole slaw/potato salad containers from the grocery store. Two of those containers makes a meal with some leftover for lunch.

 

[Riverbanks]

Great God, I have to start doing that,2.5 gallons of homemade goodness? I'm jealous

 

[Dan Freeman]

Great God, I have to start doing that,2.5 gallons of homemade goodness? I'm jealous

Oh yes. And the sauce and meatballs should last us through most of the winter.

We made about 150 large meatballs this afternoon. This pic is of one bowl with all the breadcrumbs, onions, garlic, parsley, and parmesan cheese. The other bowl is just the raw meat before adding all the ingredients.



The sun came out this afternoon, so I did some more work at the pond. I spread 8 bags of river rock along 2/3's of the shelf. I need to buy 4 more bags, and I think I will buy 4 bags of river stone, larger, to vary the composition on the shelf.

 

[EatenByLimestone]

We blanche and freeze the tomatoes then slowly pull them out over The winter.

I bought a squeeze off Craigslist a few years back. I still haven't used it, lol. We seem to still be able to eat everything put up without making sauce.

 

[Dan Freeman]

I went to Lowes today and picked up a few more bags of river stone and "egg stone" to finish the shelf of the pond.

All I have left to do is put the rocks around the pond on the outside as a "surround".

I created a "beach area" where the stones rise up out of the water so any critters that fall in can get out (like the mouse that fell in last week that I had to chase with a shovel to get him out) and other critters can easily go down into the pond for a drink of water.

 

[begreen]

Tomatoes are starting to fill up the boxes. They are big this year. These are the Pomidoro Squisitos. Each one is 3-4" long. I harvested the rest of the delicatas and butternut squash yesterday. The other delicata plant yielded another 6 squash. We are growing smaller varieties this year because there are only 2 of us. And the hot peppers are coming on strong. These are Fresnos that I am going to try lacto fermentation on. Our Beaver Dam peppers are starting to redden up. We have eaten a couple. They are great on pizza.

 

[Dan Freeman]

Got the first course of rocks placed around the pond today except for the area where the overflow pipe will be. Set the overflow pipe and will set it in place with pond foam and dirt tomorrow.

 

[Dan Freeman]

Today, I got the pond overflow pipe buried and put pond foam all around where it comes out of the pond, so the water runs through the pipe and not under it.

I brought down a lot more rocks and started finishing the "surround". I have one more day of placing rocks, and the pond will be finished. After that, we can put wood chips right up to the edge of the rocks.



This is the area I have to finish tomorrow.



And I spotted this little guy in the pond while I was working today.

 

[begreen]

It's nice to see the locals moving in.

 

[Dan Freeman]

Yes, I was surprised. I was just standing there, looked down, and there he was. He backs down under that rock for a while, and then comes back out for a while. He was there all day.

Took a good look at the tomatoes today, and they are just about finished. The few days of rain seems to have done them in. Most are split because of the fast increase in water volume. Nights are now going down into the low 50's/upper 40's. We could hit the lower 40's tonight. I should be harvesting the second crop of beets and turnips soon and will probably harvest the acorn and butternut squash this week.

 

[Dan Freeman]

FOOD FOREST POND FINISHED!

Today, I finished placing rocks around the FF pond and covered the perimeter with chips.

Project started June 11th:


Finished September 16th...just a few days over 3 months:

 

[begreen]

Well done, Dan. It looks great. I admire your energy.
The food forest is going to look great in 3-5 years as the trees start to mature.

 

[Dan Freeman]

Thank you, begreen. Yes, I look forward to when it does look like an honest to goodness food forest in a few years.

 

[Dan Freeman]

Today, I cleared out 6 of the large, raised beds and 4 of the small, raised beds down in the FF. I probably could have "squeezed out" some more tomatoes from some of the larger beds, but I felt I needed to get a jump on things since there is still so much work to be done before the winter. The smaller beds were all annual and perennial flowers. I pulled the annuals and cut back the perennials. Tomorrow, I should be able to finish clearing out the raised beds down in the FF.

After that, I will top off all the raised beds and begin transplanting one comfrey plant next to each fruit tree and bush. Comfrey can be cut down 3x per season and the leaves make great fertilizer for fruit trees/bushes since they pull up nutrients and minerals from up to 20 feet down when mature.

I also harvested all of our butternut and acorn squash...not as many as I had hoped for. I think next year I will plant them to run horizontally on the ground rather than vertically up the netting I used this year.

 

[EatenByLimestone]

Very nice! I can’t wait to see it mature also!

 

[DuaeGuttae]

@begreen, thanks for the pictures of your harvest. The produce looks great.

@Dan Freeman, congratulations on being done. You worked so hard, and the results look wonderful.

It’s been busy here. I had some really bad digging in the garden Saturday morning. Most of my mature plants were spared, but the animal dug where there was more exposed soil, and that took out some of the smaller plants or newer transplants. I had been wanting to put in Sugar Snap Peas that I started inside, but I can’t do that till I figure out what is getting in and deal with it. I set the game camera last night, but it ran out of battery before it caught the digger on camera. (It got lots of waving leaves and grass because it was very windy.) The digger did return, but my next door neighbors had helped me protect some higher value crops like corn (special to my kids) and sweet potatoes (something that might actually produce substantial food) by putting mesh around or on top of individual beds. We protected three of the four beds in our new garden area, and this morning the only digging was in the unprotected bed and in the paths. Yesterday the old garden area had been torn up something fierce (my poor kale and cauliflower!), but this morning it was untouched. Mystifying. I was thankful, though, not to have more significant mess to clean up.

 

[Dan Freeman]

Thanks, DG.

Sorry to hear about the "digger". It is frustrating when you work so hard.

 

[begreen]

Bummer, are there wild pigs or boars in the area?

 

[DuaeGuttae]

Bummer, are there wild pigs or boars in the area?

There are feral hogs in the area, but thankfully I’ve never encountered one on our property. I think I actually saw a young one dead on the side of the road on our way to church on Sunday.

I think if a feral hog wanted to get into our garden, I probably wouldn’t have any questions as to how it got in. I’d probably find half the fence pushed over. I understand that they can use a lot of brute force when they want to. They’re a sight I’d rather not see.

I did catch one raccoon in a trap last night. He was a really big fellow, so heavy that I had to set the trap down to rest when I was carrying it out of the garden area. I had my camera set but couldn’t make out anything in the pictures it took. There’s too much space to survey, and my garden plants can block a lot of the view. I’m not sure whether more visited, but there was digging in both gardens, including in the bed which I loosely surrounded with mesh. I used marshmallows for bait, and they were missing from one of the smaller traps. The coon was in the larger trap in the same garden. I’m hoping he was a loner, but I still have three traps set from last night (I own two, and I borrowed two from the next door neighbors).

Yesterday I harvested a small watermelon whose roots had been damaged and a cantaloupe that I figured would be a target if a coon was the culprit. Both were really small but good. My kids and I ate them up today as a late afternoon snack.

I also have seen a few tomatoes forming on my Captain Lucky and Taiga plants. Those are my bigger tomato varieties, and I’m excited to see fruit starting to form. (I have more fruit on my other smaller varieties, though once again the plum types are having problems with blossom end rot.)

 

[clancey]

Well my one tomato plant or (bush) is producing and today I picked three tomato's off of it. I gave my carpenter about ten red tomato's and the people next door about eight red ones the other day and this giant has about 75 green ones on the plant scattered around. My carpenter told me this was the largest tomato plant that he "ever saw"--lol.. Next year I will try another kind that will be more manageable for me to handle for this one has a mind of its own..Pictures.. old clancey

 

[EatenByLimestone]

That’s Great Mrs Clancy!

I set an Aerogarden to growing Tiny Tim tomatoes earlier this week. 2 plants so far. Next month I’ll start another 2. Hopefully I can have fresh ones for snacks and dinners all winter long.

 

[Dan Freeman]

Congrats, Mrs Clancey!

Lime, that reminds me I have to start my indoor TT seeds, too.