quasar's Blog
Quasar's Blog
Last Post 302 days, 22 hours Ago
Sep 7, 2007 | 7:32 PM PST
I haven't posted for awhile, no excuses, just a busy life, distractions, etc.
Here on the 7th of September I still have in production: Beans--Cabbage--Tomatoes--
Lettuce--Onions--Winter Squash--Banana and Green Peppers--Turnips--Carrots--Cuc
umbers--Swiss Chard and Onions.
Planted for Fall: More Onions, Lettuce, Kale, Radishes, Spinach, Edible Pod Peas, Broccoli, Brussels Sprouts, Mustard Greens, Beets.
Overall it has been a pretty good growing season. Not without it's trials but pretty good. Had to battle the bugs and dry weather but that is usually the case isn't it?
Now that the fall garden has been planted I am starting to prepare for my winter garden. That's what I said, "winter garden".
I had thought about investing in a small greenhouse but instead I am going indoors. I have a small section in my basement where I had installed a grow light a few years ago. One of those with a hood, ballast, and a 1000 watt metal halide bulb. (see below). This rig is good for about a 5x5 foot area. I had been using it to winter over some of my wife's plants and had grown some lettuce in there the past couple of winters. This year I want to expand it and grow lettuce, spinach, radishes, kale, onions and mustard greens. In other words I want those fresh salads coming all winter. This will be a grand experiment but I think I can do it. Wish me luck. I am now in the process of trying to figure out when to plant each vegetable so that it will be maturing in January and February. I plan to use rope handle tubs and those plastic storage bins as planters. I will post a picture when I get it all set up.
If this all works I will for the first time in my life be growing vegetable 12 months out of the year. Of course this is nothing new for people with greenhouses, but it is new for me. I'm excited.
Aug 1, 2007 | 6:47 PM PST
This is what it is all about. It gives me such pleasure and sense of accomplishment to go out to the garden on any given evening April through hopefully November and pick what I need to make my own salad. What is available might vary from month to month but it is always there. It is nice to have all the vegetables that one can produce but I have to tell you, salad fixings are the most important to me. I love my salads and if I couldn't produce anything else I still would be happy.
In this one, three varieties of lettuce, butter crunch, salad bowl and a romaine type, I can't remember what the exact variety was, I need to write these things down. Also as you can see, tomatoes, green peppers, cucumbers. and onions.....all from the garden. With the money I sink into potting soil, organic humus, seed and fertilizer, I know I don't really save anything. I could probably go to the farmers market and buy the same vegetables for what it costs to produce them myself, but you know it's ability to have it available when you want it and the sense of accomplishment that is really important. By the way this one was dressed with Newman's Own Olive Oil & Vinegar salad dressing, I highly recommend it.
I posted a few days ago that we had gotten few ripe tomatoes, well several days of mid-80s to low 90s temps have cured that. The tomatoes are coming in bunches now. We'll be having a lot of dishes that feature tomatoes for the next few weeks and can hopefully store some as well. My slow growing winter squash plants are starting to take off now too. Like some other folks posted, I too am having to water every day. No rain in sight here for the for at least the next week....maybe longer.
Jul 30, 2007 | 5:57 PM PST
This entry actually covers Sunday's activities, too busy to post it yesterday. Sunday was a near perfect mid-summer day, at least as far as the garden is concerned. The temperature was in the mid-80's and humidity was up there. Did more work on the fall garden, transplanted five Chinese cabbage plants and five brussels sprouts plants. Also made my last succession planting of green beans, my typical three five foot rows. It is 75 days till my first frost date, will they make it? I believe they will.
Come on guys....get ripe!
We have had a few ripe tomatoes but they are very slow ripening. I think it is because previous to Sunday we had about a week and a half of weather with temperatures in the upper 70's and not a lot of sunshine, didn't rain very much but was cloudy much of the time. At any rate we've had enough for salads but it would be nice to get more ripe ones. Out temperature forecast for later this week is for the low 90's, maybe that will help.
Lost two more plants to the squash borers, this time they attacked the yellow crook-necked squash. I have two yellow squash plants left...hope they make it. Good news to report. I have three surviving cucumber plants, I mentioned a few blogs ago that the cucumbers had gotten the bacterial wilt...I am glad a few survived.
Everything else seems to be doing well....the heat this week should have things really growing in a few days.
Jul 24, 2007 | 6:17 PM PST
What a pleasant evening to work in the garden. The temperature was in the low 70s, we got a little rain, not enough to soak the ground but it did cool things off nicely. I made further progress with the fall garden, planted three 5 foot rows. one carrots, two turnips.
My second planting of beans is coming along very well. I will make my final planting sometime this week. I know that doesn't look like a lot of beans but it is designed to produce three or so pickings, each provides two or three meals plus some to put in the freezer, and with the succession planting we can have beans late June through September. Two people can only eat so much. I used to make the mistake of planting too many and they would usually go to waste, especially if we got really busy and failed to put them in the freezer.
Had a salad with the evening meal that consisted of lettuce, onions, green peppers, tomatoes, radishes and mustard greens, all out of the garden. So fresh and so tasty.
One final note. I had some radishes growing in one of those long tray type flower planters....had them on a table out behind the garage, not in the fenced in garden area. Deer got them last night...just trimmed the tops right off.....those #*&%%@* deer will eat anything. That's what I get for trying to grow something outside of the fence.
Jul 22, 2007 | 8:06 PM PST
It has been one of those near perfect summer days here in Northern West Virginia. Lots of sunshine and the high temperature was only 75 with very low humidity....very untypical for the upper Ohio valley.
Now for the bad news, squash bugs have gotten to my zucchini plants. I did manage to harvest at least 10 or so before the plants started to die. I pulled them up tonight and replanted. Do you think I can get them to bear in the remaining days of summer. With a 60 day maturity they should start producing around the first day of fall. It's a gamble but why not?
The other bad news is the cucumber beetle has has gotten to the cukes causing bacterial wilt. Only two plants remain and there is just one solitary 4 inch cuke on one of the vines. Don't know if they will make it or not. I will probably replant them as well.
Losing plants is a reality of gardening but it is never easy for me. Always makes me a bit frustrated even though I know it is going to happen.
Some of my Roma tomatoes had blossom end rot early on but they now see alright, probably a result of the very dry growing season.
This evening I harvested another mess of beans from my first planting, that makes four. Then I pulled up the plants and prepared the soil for the next crop, probably fall turnips. I plant my beans intensively in small 3 x 5 beds. This gives us enough beans for several meals and few to put in the freezer. I probably could have squeezed another picking out of this plot but my second planting at another location in the garden is coming on and will be ready about mid-August. I will make my third planting about Wednesday of this week.
Also cleared out the remaining green onions that I had planted in the spring....about a 3 x 3 section. The tops are long gone but there remained about a dozen half dollar sized onions in the ground. This little plot is now available to put some brussels sprout plants in that I had started from seed a few weeks back.
Next to go will be the spring lettuce beds, a couple of 3x3 plots. Believe it or not, I am still harvesting lettuce off these plantings but they are now bolting so that is about over. This lettuce is in a partially shaded section of the garden and that is probably why it has lasted this long. I will do one final harvest this week then clear it out.
That's about it for now. Most everything is doing well....cukes and zukes aside.
God bless.
Jul 15, 2007 | 8:18 AM PST
Usually lettuce and onion sets are the first things to go into my garden, and here in zone 6a that is around mid to late March. Here on July the 15th we are still enjoying the last of the green onions. The tops are long gone but the little bulbs are very tasty in salads.
A few years ago several people were made ill and some died from eating in a Mexican restaurant not far from here. After the investigations it was determined that the toxins came from green onions served in some of their dishes. Since then we have not purchased a single green onion from a grocery store. For one thing they aren't labeled and there is no way to tell where they come from.
So I have been trying to figure out a way to have green onions longer through the growing season. As you may or may not know the little onion sets are not available for much of the year, usually just a few months in the spring. Even places like Burpees will tell you, if you order at certain times of the year, that they are not in season.
This year during the spring I bought a couple of extra pounds of sets and stuck them in the back of the refrigerator. A couple of weeks ago I pulled them out, they looked o.k so I stuck in few in a container just to see what would happen.
They are all coming up and I believe I am going to have green onions for our salads the rest of this year. If the ones in the picture do all right I will plant the rest in mid August for the Fall garden.
This may not be news to some of you advanced gardeners but for me I am blazing new territory. And I know I can grow my own sets from onion seed but I haven't had a lot of success the times that I have tried to grow onions from seed. It's just so much easier with the sets bought from the store. 
Jul 14, 2007 | 11:28 PM PST
I try to include something from the garden in every meal. Tonight however much of the meal was made up from things from the garden.
My wife made a pasta dish with cooked vegetables. In the dish from the garden was zucchini, banana peppers, onions and kale. It also contained tomatoes and mushrooms that came from the store. We are about a week away from ripe tomatoes here. News flash!!! Sunday morning found two ripe cherries!!
Also with the pasta we had a salad comprised of mostly all garden vegetables. Lettuce, onions, radishes, banana peppers, and mustard greens. The only thing that wasn't from the garden was a sprinkling of shredded cheddar cheese and of course the dressing. I am telling you that was one great tasting salad. There was no meat in this meal and although we are not vegetarians, I didn't miss the meat at all.
Along with the harvest of our spring planted vegetable I am starting to concentrate on the Fall garden. Tonight I set out five broccoli plants that were started in peat pots a few weeks ago. Soon to follow will be brussels sprout plants and Chinese cabbage. I have never grown these during the late season so I am anxious to see how they work out. Also will be planting spinach and turnips soon as well, sowing these directly in the ground. I also want to start another bed of kale for the fall garden and this time I plan to plant the smooth leafed variety, as opposed to the curled leaf that I planted in the spring.
Everything else is looking pretty good. The rain we received mid-week certainly helped.
Jul 12, 2007 | 6:34 PM PST
It's that time of year folks:
Home Grown Tomatoes
There's nothin' in the world that I like better than
Bacon, lettuce and home grown tomatoes
Up in the morning and out in the garden
Pick you a ripe one, don't get a hard 'un
Plant 'em in the springtime eat 'em in the summer
All winter without 'em's a culinary bummer
I forget all about the sweatin' and the diggin'
Every time I go out and pick me a big'n
{Refrain}
Home grown tomatoes, home grown tomatoes
What'd life be without home grown tomatoes
There's only two things that money can't buy
That's true love and home grown tomatoes
You can go out and eat 'em, that's for sure
But there's nothin' a home grown tomato won't cure
You can put 'em in a salad, put 'em in a stew
You can make your own, very own tomato juice
You can eat 'em with eggs, you can eat 'em with gravy
You can eat 'em with beans, pinto or navy
Put em on the side, put em on the middle
Home grown tomatoes on a hot cake griddle
{Refrain}
If I could change this life I lead
You could call me Johnny Tomato Seed
I know what this country needs
It's home grown tomatoes in every yard you see
When I die don't bury me
In a box in a cold dark cemetery
Out in the garden would be much better
Where I could be pushin' up home grown tomatoes
Jul 8, 2007 | 9:32 AM PST
Most gardeners I've ever talked to like mornings the best to be out among the plants. For me however I am at work 6 days a week by 6:00 AM so that leaves me just one day to enjoy the morning garden stroll (coffee cup in hand).
This morning though there were a few things I wanted to accomplish before it gets too hot. The weather forecast for today is calling for a high of 92.
I picked a couple hand-fulls of immature green beans (first of the season) for stir frying later today.
Also harvested some kale which will be cooked with zucchini this afternoon.
Harvested a couple days supply of lettuce for salads, wanted to get it before it gets all wilted from the heat.
Replanted some carrots which were coming up spotty.
It was a good morning, very peaceful and it's going to be a beautiful but hot day.
Probably will find things to do in the house before venturing back out to the garden this evening when the temperature goes down.
Jul 5, 2007 | 2:02 PM PST
It's finally raining today.....has been about 10 days since we have had any substantial precipitation.
Started raining about 1:15 and I was so overjoyed that I went out to the garden to celebrate with the plants, got kinda wet.
It has been very dry here for the past couple of months and for anyone who has lived in the Upper Ohio Valley you know that May and June can be very wet months and usually are, not this year.
I don't know of anything more frustrating to a gardener that lack of rain. It seems like no matter how much you water you just can't generate the same results as mother nature.
Last evening was very frustrating as I sat here with the Weather Channel radar on watching a major storm system miss us my just a few miles. The county below us was getting soaked and we were left high and dry.
Does anyone one else monitor the Weather Channel radar like I do....my wife says I am obsessive about it. I do the same thing in the winter time checking for snow storms....maybe I need to get a life....I think I may be a frustrated weather man wanna bee.
At any rate we did get quite a bit of rain today and it looks like there may be more on the way.....(I just checked the radar...again!)
I am rained out of the garden today but have plenty to do in the house.
I did pick some Swiss chard today, (see pictures). Tomorrow I may share how I like to prepare this versatile green.
Thanks for those who have welcomed me to Garden Guides, I think I am among friends.
God bless!...and thank you God for the rain.
Jul 4, 2007 | 6:23 PM PST
It would have probably been a better idea to have started this blog at the beginning of the gardening season but I just didn't think about it then.
It has been a fun and productive year so far. I don't know which I enjoy the most, working the garden or eating the results.
So far this year we have had, lettuce, five or six different varieties, onions, kale, mustard greens, zucchini squash, Swiss chard, radishes and banana peppers and spinach.
Hopefully this coming week we will pick our first green tomato and yes I do like fried green tomatos, having been rasied in the south that is a down right delicacy.
This afternoon I made my second planting of lettuce. The weather hasn't been too hot so I hope I won't have germination problems. I have it planted in containers and in an area that doesn't get much sun. This is the lettuce that will take me into fall of the year. I planted salad bowl, red sails and butter crunch varieties. I will probably make another planting in late August. I almost always plant too much lettuce and wind up giving a lot away, but that's o.k. , isn't it?
The lettuce I planted this spring is nearing marturity but hasn't started to bolt as of yet.
That is enough for my first entry.
