Some useful recipes for fruits and veggies that abound locally
Water-cured Olives
Drain-cleaner-cured Olives
Sicilian Sun-dried Zucchini
Nettle Pesto
Borage soup
Moroccan Mallow
Limoncello Lemon Liquor
Other Liquors
Friday, December 24, 2010
Wednesday, December 1, 2010
Fall Planting
Todays plantings near the vine: very dry, hot area in summer, south facing.
Sowed some sugar snap peas at the back (Oregon Sugar Pod II), supposed to be 28" high. In front of this, planted the shallots that grew so well this year in the same area, with a couple of lines of garlic in front.
The previous sowings of carrots and lettuce havent come up, so I'll have to sort something out there. The carrot seed was my own (F1 hybrid parents perhaps?), and the lettuce was bought in January, so perhaps freshness is the problem there.
The tomatoes are still bearing, although the last few fruit are taking ages to ripen. Still, it's nice to have a few garden tomatoes in December. Other than that, the only things really growing at the moment are the Leeks and Parsley, both of which are doing well. Some radishes are growing slowly.
Sowed some sugar snap peas at the back (Oregon Sugar Pod II), supposed to be 28" high. In front of this, planted the shallots that grew so well this year in the same area, with a couple of lines of garlic in front.
The previous sowings of carrots and lettuce havent come up, so I'll have to sort something out there. The carrot seed was my own (F1 hybrid parents perhaps?), and the lettuce was bought in January, so perhaps freshness is the problem there.
The tomatoes are still bearing, although the last few fruit are taking ages to ripen. Still, it's nice to have a few garden tomatoes in December. Other than that, the only things really growing at the moment are the Leeks and Parsley, both of which are doing well. Some radishes are growing slowly.
Wednesday, November 17, 2010
November
Once again I'm having a problem in developing winter crops. On the one hand, I hate to kick out plants that are still producing the odd food here and there, like the tomatoes, peppers. On the other hand, seed I have been putting down recently hasnt been coming up. Carrot seed harvested from the color mixture that went to seed hasnt shown much signs of germinating, although at the beginning I thought I saw something. Maybe slugs are at work. But then I find carrots really slow to germinate. I've been throwing more and more seed on top of the area, and if nothing happens by the start of December, I think I'll give up on the carrots for now.
More worrying, I threw radish and lettuce seed down a couple of weeks ago, covered with a light layer of compost, and only a few radish sprouts are showing. I'd hate to have to move to pots to germinate things.
On the plus side, the leeks are growing well and are at pencil thickness already and a foot high. Hopefully I should get a decent crop in Jan/Feb for the pot. This year I'll be testing a no-till philosophy. The general idea is that if you stop digging the ground, all the plant roots will break up the soil. Adding buckets of home-grown compost on the top will then be worked in by the worms providing a great environment for plants. Certainly digging last winter while the soil was wet didnt result in great soil, even with the stuff I dug in. I'll still be digging in the occasional pile of chicken bones though, about a foot deep. Lots of nitrogen and long-term phosphorus (bone is calcium phosphate).
At the moment, the pomegranate and persimmons are yielding - not massive amounts of pomegranates, although more than 100 persimmons on one plant, and the apple tree still has some apples on it. For value-for-effort, its hard to beat the tree fruit. I recommend everyone in the area to grow citrus (Lemon, Orange, Lime, Grapefruit, Kumquat), all of which crop very well; Apricots are easy too (ours gets little to no water), I would plant 2 or three varieties of grape, at least one persimmon, and probably 3 pomegranates. I think its a little hot and dry here for apples to do really well, but they do grow. Our peach tree gets peach leaf curl, so to avoid spraying, I'd forget about peaches. I think the pomegranate sets fruit best when it has water, so consider that aspect - the persimmon doesnt seem to need much at all.
The herbs are all still bearing fresh herbs, although by now I have cut back most of the mediterranean herbs for drying. I have a huge jar of "Herbes de Almaden" ready already for the winter.
More worrying, I threw radish and lettuce seed down a couple of weeks ago, covered with a light layer of compost, and only a few radish sprouts are showing. I'd hate to have to move to pots to germinate things.
On the plus side, the leeks are growing well and are at pencil thickness already and a foot high. Hopefully I should get a decent crop in Jan/Feb for the pot. This year I'll be testing a no-till philosophy. The general idea is that if you stop digging the ground, all the plant roots will break up the soil. Adding buckets of home-grown compost on the top will then be worked in by the worms providing a great environment for plants. Certainly digging last winter while the soil was wet didnt result in great soil, even with the stuff I dug in. I'll still be digging in the occasional pile of chicken bones though, about a foot deep. Lots of nitrogen and long-term phosphorus (bone is calcium phosphate).
At the moment, the pomegranate and persimmons are yielding - not massive amounts of pomegranates, although more than 100 persimmons on one plant, and the apple tree still has some apples on it. For value-for-effort, its hard to beat the tree fruit. I recommend everyone in the area to grow citrus (Lemon, Orange, Lime, Grapefruit, Kumquat), all of which crop very well; Apricots are easy too (ours gets little to no water), I would plant 2 or three varieties of grape, at least one persimmon, and probably 3 pomegranates. I think its a little hot and dry here for apples to do really well, but they do grow. Our peach tree gets peach leaf curl, so to avoid spraying, I'd forget about peaches. I think the pomegranate sets fruit best when it has water, so consider that aspect - the persimmon doesnt seem to need much at all.
The herbs are all still bearing fresh herbs, although by now I have cut back most of the mediterranean herbs for drying. I have a huge jar of "Herbes de Almaden" ready already for the winter.
Tuesday, October 19, 2010
Zucchini finished
Another milestone to note for future reference; the Zucchini are more or less over now, still one or two here or there, but the lower sun is definitely limiting the speed and amount of growth of the fruit. With the recent rain, a few are now showing mildew spots, so its game over. The season ends here.
Garden winding down for winter
Well the garden yielded a fair amount this year, but with the first rain of any significance last weekend, its clearly time to migrate from summer planting to winter planting. Last week I cleared out the shade bed with the beans and corn (both unsuccessful, but then they were started late in the summer, so I wasnt really expecting much. I did get some beans, but not many, and the corn was fist-sized. Before that, I had cleared the neighboring Swiss Chard and planted out the leeks I sowed much earlier in the year. After digging the bean/corn bed over and incorporating a couple of buckets of last spring's compost (looking nice now), I sowed some carrots quite rustically - by crumbling some of this years seedheads over the area. Then I added another thin layer of compost, and the soft rain got it settled in nicely. There should be enough warmth left in the year to get things going.
All the beans are pretty much over now - I was hoping for a second flush in the cooler weather, but that never really happened. All in all, the beans were pretty much a bust again this year, despite changing to runner beans from pole beans. The experiment next year will be to sow the pole beans much more thickly and quite early, and I'll be using the Insuk's Wang instead of the regular runner beans to test its heat resistance. I really want to get some beans working in this hot climate, not only because their green crunchy goodness is a welcome change from the Solanum family, but also because it adds nitrogen to the soil. And particularly as this garden is a new one, I want to build up soil nutriment as quickly as possible.
The tomatoes are still hanging on, but I havent really had much from the "Health kick", the "Beefmaster" or the "Champion" for a while now. The cherry tomatoes are still going relatively strong, in that they are covered in flowers still; the Black Krim is throwing out a few more juicy treats before it shuts down, and the Green Zebra remains consistently throwing out a few tomatoes each week.
The tomatoes I have had pest problems with are the Black Krim and Beefmaster, both of which get pecked by birds and creeping things alike. I'm not sure why these should be so attractive, while others like the Yellow Brandywine, the Green Zebra, and various others growing next to them remain untouched. However, the solution is fairly clear: The "Brandywine" I bought cheap (its probably not) was tested in both a topsy-turvy and in the ground, sprawling over a wall. The birds attacked the ones in the ground, but not in the planter. Therefore, at least part of the problem occurs when tomatoes are close enough to the ground that the birds have a firm perch. Creepy-crawlies then finish the job. So yes, staking would probably have prevented the problem. But that doesnt account for the preferences mentioned earlier, as only the planter tomato was "staked". The rest were equally exposed, but unequally attacked.
In general, I would have to say that growing tomatoes in planters was very worthwhile, especially the topsy-turvy, which outdid its ground-based twin twofold. Its another $10 per plant, but its yielded about 15 pounds ($50?), and I can re-use it next year.
Of course there's another $5 of compost in it, but now I have my own compost stream, I can cut that cost down dramatically. Next year I plan to have 4 or 5 installed, and will try out other varieties. Getting Black Krim off the ground, for example. Black Krim was definitely the tastiest, together with Yellow Brandywine (few, but large fruit, with a great taste), Green Zebra and Lemon Boy. The cherries also taste good, of course, but I'm finding them a pain to deal with as they sprawl so much and are tedious to pick. The cherry I left sprawling through the rose Bush was an exception - it scrambled happily by itself, bringing the fruit to picking height and requiring no staking. That cherry was suppose to be "sunsugar red", and it was nice and sweet, but it was an orangey-yellow, definitely not red. Another Nursery mislabel.
The bell peppers in containers yielded well, so long as you're OK with half-sized peppers, and they're still going strong (although, of course, with the waning sun they arent growing as fast as they were earlier). The peppers I left growing from last year in the ground survived, but didnt do very well, just got one or two fruit off them. So much for my dreams of a larger, more productive plant second year round. To be fair, they werent watered assiduously, so they frequently got dry. However Peppers are supposed to like it dry...
One of the best experiments was in snapping off small branches and replanting; I got a few extra tomato plants that way, its easy and definitely works. I've also been saving some heirloom seeds, so we'll see how that works next year.
From here on, I'll be thinking of sowing lettuce, radishes, broad beans.
All the beans are pretty much over now - I was hoping for a second flush in the cooler weather, but that never really happened. All in all, the beans were pretty much a bust again this year, despite changing to runner beans from pole beans. The experiment next year will be to sow the pole beans much more thickly and quite early, and I'll be using the Insuk's Wang instead of the regular runner beans to test its heat resistance. I really want to get some beans working in this hot climate, not only because their green crunchy goodness is a welcome change from the Solanum family, but also because it adds nitrogen to the soil. And particularly as this garden is a new one, I want to build up soil nutriment as quickly as possible.
The tomatoes are still hanging on, but I havent really had much from the "Health kick", the "Beefmaster" or the "Champion" for a while now. The cherry tomatoes are still going relatively strong, in that they are covered in flowers still; the Black Krim is throwing out a few more juicy treats before it shuts down, and the Green Zebra remains consistently throwing out a few tomatoes each week.
The tomatoes I have had pest problems with are the Black Krim and Beefmaster, both of which get pecked by birds and creeping things alike. I'm not sure why these should be so attractive, while others like the Yellow Brandywine, the Green Zebra, and various others growing next to them remain untouched. However, the solution is fairly clear: The "Brandywine" I bought cheap (its probably not) was tested in both a topsy-turvy and in the ground, sprawling over a wall. The birds attacked the ones in the ground, but not in the planter. Therefore, at least part of the problem occurs when tomatoes are close enough to the ground that the birds have a firm perch. Creepy-crawlies then finish the job. So yes, staking would probably have prevented the problem. But that doesnt account for the preferences mentioned earlier, as only the planter tomato was "staked". The rest were equally exposed, but unequally attacked.
In general, I would have to say that growing tomatoes in planters was very worthwhile, especially the topsy-turvy, which outdid its ground-based twin twofold. Its another $10 per plant, but its yielded about 15 pounds ($50?), and I can re-use it next year.
Of course there's another $5 of compost in it, but now I have my own compost stream, I can cut that cost down dramatically. Next year I plan to have 4 or 5 installed, and will try out other varieties. Getting Black Krim off the ground, for example. Black Krim was definitely the tastiest, together with Yellow Brandywine (few, but large fruit, with a great taste), Green Zebra and Lemon Boy. The cherries also taste good, of course, but I'm finding them a pain to deal with as they sprawl so much and are tedious to pick. The cherry I left sprawling through the rose Bush was an exception - it scrambled happily by itself, bringing the fruit to picking height and requiring no staking. That cherry was suppose to be "sunsugar red", and it was nice and sweet, but it was an orangey-yellow, definitely not red. Another Nursery mislabel.
The bell peppers in containers yielded well, so long as you're OK with half-sized peppers, and they're still going strong (although, of course, with the waning sun they arent growing as fast as they were earlier). The peppers I left growing from last year in the ground survived, but didnt do very well, just got one or two fruit off them. So much for my dreams of a larger, more productive plant second year round. To be fair, they werent watered assiduously, so they frequently got dry. However Peppers are supposed to like it dry...
One of the best experiments was in snapping off small branches and replanting; I got a few extra tomato plants that way, its easy and definitely works. I've also been saving some heirloom seeds, so we'll see how that works next year.
From here on, I'll be thinking of sowing lettuce, radishes, broad beans.
Monday, September 6, 2010
Leeks planted out
Finally ripped up the Chard as a bad joke (what with the leaf-mining grubs and a lack of familial appreciation) - otherwise it was fine.. and tilled the area and incorporated some home-made compost and some cheap store-bought. In that area (the right-hand third of the shade bed), I then planted out the leeks that had been in a seed bed all summer, and were still quite thin (about as thick as grass stems).
Planting leeks is unusual - one stick a broom handle a few inches into the ground, pops in a leek seedling, and when the bed is full, the entire area is watered - "puddling-in" the leeks. This method gives them a fair amount of moisture, and presumably, room to expand. Possibly it also encourages them to grow, as they now need to grow up again to regain their lost height (giving good stem length).
The tomatoes are slowing down quite a lot now, and the Zucchini appeared to take a bit of a break. I decided to trim off all the yellow leaves on the Zucchini, re-fertilize them a bit, and see what happened. As a result, they appear to be putting on some new, dark green growth. Hopefully this will re-energize them and encourage a second burst of fruit.
Although the runner beans did crop a little in the cooler weather we have been having, they didnt exactly provide a massive crop (about 4 meals for 20 plants). So far, my expectations of growth/yield improving hasn't materialized. The Insuk's Wang Kong (or, as I like to call it, "Giant Wang", so far hasnt developed very far - the plants vary between 2 and 3 feet high. I'm a little concerned that they might be upset by the fact that the days are starting to grow a little shorter, possibly triggering slowing in growth. We shall see on this one. Certainly, next year should provide a fairer trial of these.
Planting leeks is unusual - one stick a broom handle a few inches into the ground, pops in a leek seedling, and when the bed is full, the entire area is watered - "puddling-in" the leeks. This method gives them a fair amount of moisture, and presumably, room to expand. Possibly it also encourages them to grow, as they now need to grow up again to regain their lost height (giving good stem length).
The tomatoes are slowing down quite a lot now, and the Zucchini appeared to take a bit of a break. I decided to trim off all the yellow leaves on the Zucchini, re-fertilize them a bit, and see what happened. As a result, they appear to be putting on some new, dark green growth. Hopefully this will re-energize them and encourage a second burst of fruit.
Although the runner beans did crop a little in the cooler weather we have been having, they didnt exactly provide a massive crop (about 4 meals for 20 plants). So far, my expectations of growth/yield improving hasn't materialized. The Insuk's Wang Kong (or, as I like to call it, "Giant Wang", so far hasnt developed very far - the plants vary between 2 and 3 feet high. I'm a little concerned that they might be upset by the fact that the days are starting to grow a little shorter, possibly triggering slowing in growth. We shall see on this one. Certainly, next year should provide a fairer trial of these.
Sunday, August 22, 2010
August: harvest time
Crop so far; 100 Zucchini from about 10 plants, about 4 smallish bell peppers per plant, and enough tomatoes for 2 families. The runner beans havent been great, presumably because of the heat, but recent, more cool weather has at least set some.
Overall, August appears to be the month for tomato harvests, with 2-3 pounds to harvest every 3 days or so. There is no doubt that the heirloom varieties were far superior in taste, a fact appreciated by some pest (my guess, a bird) thats been pecking holes in the black Krims. My experiment at growing tomatoes largely unsupported has assisted the birds in this, I think. Next year, I'll definitely include some support. Perhaps its worth building some permanent support system, as most veggies can use it - peas, beans, squash, tomatoes, etc.
The sweet corn was mostly a flop, either because of a poor variety choice (Kandy Korn Hybrid) or because of insufficient fertilizer and poor pollination. The cobs were generally small, and the male flowers came much earlier than the female tassels, giving lousy ear fill at the ends. Overall, neither the taste of freshly picked cobs, nor the yield (one fist-sized cob per plant) was worth the trouble. Fortunately, my primary goal of growing the corn as stakes for the beans succeeded, as did my secondary goals of shading my wall from summer heat and getting compost material. Next year, I think I'll try a different variety and see what happens.
Growing Swiss Chard here without pesticide turned out to be a major disaster; some leaf-mining grub has continued to destroy each leaf throughout the season. I was hoping that this was a one-wave attack, and that the plants would eventually get a decent set of unblemished leaves, but that wasnt to be the case. The family dont like the chard anyway, so even though the stalks were healthy and pretty, its not worth growing unless you want to go the pesticide route.
The herbs have been a great success, with the exception of some basil and dill grown on a patch of rather thin soil. Other basil grown in the main vegetable beds is doing fine, and the oregano, thyme, chives, lemon balm, peppermint, and flat-leaf parsley is all doing great. The sage is spectacular as a garden plant as well as a herb. The bees have been working the peppermint and especially the oregano with a will.
While I was generally disappointed with the carrots earlier in the year, they have in fact provided a decent crop with little attention. Some that went to seed gave a spectacular show and attracted and supported lots of hover-flies (good insects), and have yielded lots of seed, some of which I will test for growing in the fall.
My leek seed planted in late spring is looking kinda grassy, and I'll be replanting it out shortly for a winter crop. First, I'll have to bite the bullet and pull out the Chard.
Another great success was the shallots; given the price in the shops, its been remarkably easy to grow. Starting from shop-bought bulbs (grocery, not nursery), about half didnt grow at all. I suspect a growth inhibitor is applied. But those that did, each provided about 5 small-fist-sized bulbs - bigger than the originals, probably about a 10-fold increase over the originals. I'll be using these as starters next year, so they should all grow well. These were grown in an area that gets infrequently watered (once a month), and almost never fertilized. Next year, I'll try the garlic here too (which also grew well this year in the semi-shade bed).
So far, I'd estimate I spent about $50 on tomato plants, pepper plants, various seeds and a new spade, plus some incidentals. In return, I have had about $50 in Zucchini, $40 in tomatoes, $30 in salads, $20 in herbs, $20 in peas, carrots and beans, and $20 in corn, eggplant (didnt work well), radishes, rapini, and cress - with more on the way of most things. And the fall/winter crops arent even in yet.
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