Monday, August 29, 2011

Dinner

Some, but not all of this, was dinner last night. It ended up stir-fried and next to some rice. Most of the remaining beans will find themselves blanched today; a couple of the eggplant will go to work with me to give away; and the remaining tomatoes will go into the freezer where they'll wait for the rest of the canning tomatoes to get ripe.

I'm also posting this link to Daphne's Harvest Monday entry.  I ran across her through Laura's Modern Victory Garden blog. Both are consistent, high quality posters.

Friday, August 26, 2011

Spuds

This is 12 pounds of potatoes. Luke and I dug these from a single hill yesterday. This is in stark contrast to what we've been getting in the few hills we've dug prior to this. There are two notable differences with this hill. First, I planted it in one of the new garden beds, meaning the soil (Tagro potting soil) was freshly brought in. Second, I paid more attention to this one. The others were planted in an ad-hoc fashion wherever there was a bit of room and didn't get properly hilled or watered. This hill was in a bed with our sweet potatoes and some lettuce. The entire bed received more attention.

The potatoes in this hill weren't perfect, however. Some had small white, hardened speckles across their face and some were sporting a red hue around their eyes. Doing some looking around, I found a nice potato disease page. That lead me to:

Swollen Lenticels
White dots can often be seen on the skins of potatoes that have been left in very damp soil for a long time; they are swollen lenticels.


Pink Eye
Pink eye is a disease characterized by a pink discolouration of the skin around the eyes. During storage, or in the field before harvest, it causes a superficial rot (1) that closely resembles the first signs of infection with late blight. Infected tubers do not keep well. The cause of the disease is not known, but it is always found in tubers of crops affected by Verticillium wilt.

Pink Eye and Swollen Lenticels


The swollen lenticels won't be a problem. The Pink Eye looks like it means that I need to find a way to use them sooner than later.


Wednesday, August 24, 2011

Remedies for aphids

Here's something that I ran across during the morning commute--

To kill Aphids:

Dry and powder bracken leaves. Soak one dram (weight) in six ounces of water. Let it stand for twenty-four hours, strain and bottle. Use one dram in one gallon rain-water. It should tinge the water green. Spray, or better still, wash the leaves attacked by aphis.


Via Common Sense Compost Making, sourced from Steve Solomon's Soil and Health Library


Tuesday, August 16, 2011

Pickled beans

I have never made pickles. Now I can't say that. Shari was great, laying out all the materials to pickle. I have a few cucumbers, but not really enough to pickle. The other issue I discovered tonight was that most recipes called for soaking the cukes for several hours beforehand. Given that, I picked another pound of beans, giving me a bit over a couple pounds. Those two pounds were cleaned, stuffed into jars and bathed in brine. I need to wait three weeks before I can try them.

Big bomb - is it?

I plucked a couple jalapeƱos and one of those pretty Big Bomb peppers. Would the Bomb be a bomb? It is tasty and a little hot, but not terribly so. The jalapeƱos are not hot at all. In their defense, they'll turn red before they are done, adding more heat as they progress.

Saturday, August 13, 2011

Big bomb

A good angle on the Big Bomb peppers. Their hotness remains to be tested.

Hops

The hops have emerged to hang with the sunflowers.

Friday, August 12, 2011

Eggplant / Peppers

Millionaire eggplant are the way to go. I tried these out the year before last. They produced very nicely. Last year I switch to Dusky, which didn't produce for me at all. This year I'm back to millionaire and they are not dissapointing.




It is a good year for lettuce, broccoli, and peas. It isn't a year for outdoor peppers. The indoor peppers are doing great, which leans me toward a lack of heat, not necessarily a lack of sun. I moved two peppers from the ground to the greenhouse a couple weeks ago. I hope they'll catch up, but I suspect it is too late.

This isn't one of those recently moved peppers. This is one of the Jalapeno plants, heavy with fruit. Our Big Bomb peppers are starting to turn a nice red. Our bell peppers are starting to take on their final yellow hue.