joene's garden » cucumbers

A Veggie-wrap, please.

joenesgarden — Sat, 21 Nov 2009 00:43:41 +0000

November 20, 2009. I would love to be growing salad greens and cilantro in outside beds as I have in the past, but it's just not going to happen this year. The vegetable garden needs a major re-work that I hope to have at least partially done by spring, so outside of whatever I plant inside, growing edibles in Joene's garden is done. So, with 2009 veggies tastes, smells, successes, and disappointments still fresh in my mind, here's my 2009 veggie-wrap.

In spite of a very wet and very cold, slug-infested, and generally disease-prone growing season in my Connecticut zone 6 garden, I managed to grow enough greens to keep us from buying lettuce for a good 3 months, enough eggplant to keep our urges for eggplant parmesan fulfilled, plenty of hot peppers to can a few jars and ample sweet peppers for summer use, a bounty of beans for late summer meals, and cucumbers enough to eat fresh and pickle.

Here's a list of varieties I planted – new to me in bold. Those with a Y will find a spot in next year's garden, the few N's will not, and those marked with ? may get another chance next year. And, while I planned to have photos of most of my veggies, my old computer had other ideas. Hence, few photos but lots of info.

Radish: both continue to be good performers.

Cherry Belle – Y.
French Breakfast – Y.

Snow Peas: tough year due to wet conditions.

Carouby de Maussane has beautiful purple flowers and lovely, tender, flat, sweet pods. It's as ornamental as it is good to eat – Y.
Snowflake Pea Pods produced a few sweet pods in spite of a vole attack – Y.

Lettuce & Salad Greens:

Buttercrunch has great flavor and grows reliably –Y.
Winter Density has not grown well for me, but it may be just me – N.
New Red Fire has fantastic color – lives up to its name – and great taste – Y.
Blushed Butter Oak has sweet red-tinged leaves and grew well –Y.
Oakleaf is a standard –Y.
Tom Thumb grows tiny, tight, crispy heads. I may use it as a border in a perennial bed next season – love it –Y.
Tatsoi; great flavor in salads and when sliced into thin strips and added at the last few minutes to cooked dishes – a good spinach (which grows very poorly for me) substitute – Y.
Salad Burnet; will have to think about this – was not too thrilled with the flavor -?

Eggplant:

Ichiban produces multiple long, slender fruit on a 2.5 ft plant with purple stems and purple-edged leaves that match the skin of the fruit – very ornamental and good grilled –Y.
Lavender Touch – lavender-tinged fruit with a mild flavor –Y.

Peppers:

Red Beauty; a sweet pepper that produced numerous fruit – though most remained green – in spite of the cold, wet conditions. –Y.
Cubanelle; a frying pepper with sweet flavor and many fruit –Y.
Early Jalapeño is one of my standard hot peppers –Y.
Hungarian Yellow Wax is another standard hot pepper –Y.
Dancing Spirit; a hot pepper I will try again before making a final judgment -?

Tomatoes:

Sweet Million Cherry; all starts succumbed to the wet, cold weather but I had a couple of volunteer plants sprout up from wayward seed that produced well late in the season –Y.
Pruden's Purple; the flavor overrides the fruit's tendency to crack and its tall, gangly growth –Y.
Manyel; produces small yellow fruit with wonderful flavor – my husband's favorite –Y.
Oregon Spring; supposedly grows well in cool spring conditions but it must do better in Oregon soils than my New England soils – N.
Martino's Roma; the best producer this year, great for fresh tomato sauce – Y.

Cucumber: Little Tyke; very prolific, good for pickles and eating –Y.

Beans:

Purple Queen Bush; though I did not get these or the Sequoias planted till late, both produced beautiful purple beans with great flavor. Hint: great beans for kids to grow; when cooked they turn green –Y.
Sequoia Bush; a flat purple bean with great flavor , see above –Y.
Pencil Pod; very prolific yellow bean with great flavor, one of my standards –Y.
Henderson; a flavorful bush lima bean that grew well for me in 2008, but not in the cold, wet 2009 season –Y.

Summer Squash: because I planted both late I did not have to fight squash borers – hmmm … sounds like a plan.

Ambassador; a zucchini with good flavor –Y.
Sundance; yellow fruit, good flavor –Y.

If any of these varieties sound familiar, please share your experience with them … or make some recommendations on what veggies – a favorite bean or summer squash, or tomato - worked in your garden. And, watch for follow up posts on the herbs and flowers that grew in my 2009 garden.

Categories: Edibles, Gardening.
Tags: 2009 vegetables, beans, cucumbers, eggplant, peppers, radish, salad greens, snow peas, summer squash, tomatoes.

Pre-frost action

joenesgarden — Sat, 03 Oct 2009 01:41:44 +0000

A quick walk through the yard today added urgency to my pre-frost list of to-dos. Last night's temperature dropped low enough to slightly burn the top edges of a cherry tomato plant - the temperature at 6:30 am was 39 degrees – so a good hard freeze is not too far off. So what's done and what's left on my to do list?

Most of the abundant crop of cucumbers have been used in salads, canned to dill pickles, or canned to relish. I still hope to try brining a few into pickles - something I've not tried before – and if this doesn't work, I can still make more dills or relish.
Most of my meager crop of hot peppers have also been canned for winter use, though I still hope to can at least a couple more pints.
Just a few eggplant, plum tomatoes, cherry tomatoes, and Pruden's purple tomatoes, and yellow and purple string beans remain on their plants. I'll pick all before frost gets them.
A good amount of sage is cut, tied into bunches, and hanging to dry. I'll use this in winter recipes, but hope to cut and dry more, perhaps for the kids to use.
Marjoram is drying in a borrowed dehydrator.
Basil is mostly picked (any remaining outside gets covered to protect from night temperatures below 50 degrees), and either dried,made into pesto, or frozen into a blended mash for use in soups. Some plant will live on for a while in a small hot house, other plants have already been moved to an inside sunny window.
My rosemary plant is also inside after rejuvenating outdoors in the warm summer sun. I'll use fresh cut rosemary in winter recipes.
Thyme has yet to be cut and dried.
Fall raspberries continue to produce. Those not eaten get frozen on a cookie sheet then stored in an airtight baggie.
The 80 pounds of peaches we picked at a local orchard were peeled, sliced, covered with a mild sugar/water solution, and frozen in airtight bags. Eating these in the dead of winter is like eating summer.
A similar amount of blueberries from a local farm have also been frozen for winter use.
I still need to pick apples from a local orchard. They will become applesauce or apple butter.
Pumpkins, from a local farm, now sit outside as seasonal decoration, but will be cooked down, mashed, and frozen for later soups and pies.
There's still some hosta to move and new purchases to plant.
The Siberian iris are in desperate need of thinning.
Spring blooming bulbs need to be dug up, thinned out, and replanted.
Volunteer lamb's ear, foxglove, and sedum need to find better homes.
Finished compost must be screened and spread on lawn and planting areas.
Every last garlic chive blossom must be cut off and burned, otherwise I'll be overrun with unwanted volunteers in the spring.
And, finally, if I get the chance, I'd like to set up a small cold frame in an inconspicuous sunny spot so I can encourage some late planted lettuce and overwinter some cilantro seedlings.

So forgive me if blog posts come just every few days … at this time of year, end of season garden chores beckon … and I know I've forgotten something!

Categories: Edibles, Gardening, General, Seasons.
Tags: apples, basil, beans, cucumbers, eggplant, marjoram, peaches, peppers, pre-frost chores, pumpkins, raspberries, rosemary, thyme, tomatoes.

Magic milk update …

joenesgarden — Thu, 17 Sep 2009 16:22:28 +0000

Sometimes the magic works, sometimes it doesn't - borrowed from Chief Daniel George in the movie Little Big Man. This could not be more a more accurate description of my experience controlling powdery mildew this year. As readers of my original post on Magic Milk know, I used a spray of 9 parts water to 1 part milk on plants with powdery mildew. It halted the powdery mildew advance on my lilacs, phlox, cucumbers, and zucchini, but spraying must continue regularly or powdery mildew takes over.

This is exactly what happened to my zucchini. I was away for a few days and missed my chance to spray immediately before I left … I came home to a totally infected plant. Not a pretty sight. Rather than trying to save this plant, I'll harvest any remaining fruit then remove the infected plant from the vegetable garden later today.

Still, magic milk spray seems to have controlled – not cured mind you – but controlled the spread of powdery mildew on my lilac. You can see it beginning again on the leaf at the center, but this plant has not been sprayed for two weeks, and this is how it looked leading up to the last time I sprayed.

The same spraying routine has controlled powdery mildew on my phlox. You can see the white indicators of infection on some of the leaves, but otherwise the phlox are still blooming and the leaves look pretty good for this late in the season.

And my cukes are producing and producing and producing; with no sign of powdery mildew after two doses of magic milk, two weeks apart.

So it appears that vigilance pays off. I'll spray again today. Next year I'll try to remember to use magic milk spray as a preventative, or at least try to catch any powdery mildew outbreak earlier. The minimal time and expense it takes to do so is well worth the benefit of keeping susceptible plants looking good and producing fruit late into the growing season.

Categories: Gardening, Techniques.
Tags: cucumbers, lilacs, magic milk, phlox, powdery mildew, zucchini.

Magic Milk for Powdery Mildew

joenesgarden — Wed, 26 Aug 2009 03:08:34 +0000

You know … the unattractive white powdery-looking spots that seem to appear from nowhere during mid- to late-summer? These fungal spots begin on lower leaves and can quickly spread to cover leaf surfaces of entire plants. Lilacs, phlox, bee balm, asters, dahlias, cucumber and summer squash are all susceptible, particularly if the plants do not have good air circulation (a problem I plant to avoid). Not liking to spray fungicides, I've tolerated powdery mildew for years. But when cleaning up paperwork this past winter, I found a note I had jotted down, likely while watching any one of gardening shows I try to take in during cold weather months. The note said: powdery mildew; 1 part milk to 9 parts water; spray 2x weekly.

My guess is this tidbit of advice came from one of those shows HGTV deemed unworthy … probably Gardening by the Yard … but I can't be sure. It also may have come from an old Victory Garden show on PBS. Anyway, I tried this concoction on all my phlox, one lilac (saving the others for comparison), and my cucumbers and summer squash. In previous years all had been covered by powdery mildew. The cucumbers and squash would simply succumb. The phlox would valiantly bloom on in spite of the truly unattractive appearance of its leaves. The photo at the top shows an unsprayed lilac … it just looks plain sad. The photos below show a nearby lilac two weeks after just one magic milk spray. The powdery mildew is not completely gone – you can see a few traces on the lower leaves - but is controlled. Just one spraying of magic milk stopped powdery mildew in its fuzzy little tracks on my cucumbers and squash leaves – though I will spray again for insurance. The phlox leaves look better than they ever have by this time of year … two weeks after the initial spray only small traces of powdery mildew appeared – I re-sprayed.

I've not yet figured out exactly why milk works to stem the spread of powdery mildew – there must be a substance in milk that holds fungus in check – but I'd love to hear from anyone who can explain milk's effect. But the point is it works, it requires no special permit to use, and its nearly free.

Categories: Gardening, Perennials & Annuals, Techniques.
Tags: cucumbers, lilacs, milk spray, phlox, powdery mildew, squash.

CT Grown Eats

joenesgarden — Sat, 08 Aug 2009 17:30:34 +0000

August 8, 2009. Today is the last 'official' day of Eat CT Grown, but this does not mean we cannot continue to enjoy the fresh grown vegetables and fruits, and other freshly made local products so easily found at CT farm stands and farmer's markets. Yes, the campaign was poorly advertised – there is not even a mention of it on Buy CT Grown … nope not on the home page, the news page, or the event page. Regardless, buying locally grown produce and other products is the best – outside of actually growing your own – way to get really fresh foods. Besides, doing so supports local businesses and it's considered an environmentally-friendly practice.

In addition to the list of CT Grown products mentioned yesterday, my family will enjoy more sweet corn, more blueberries (see freezing method below), and more tomatoes, cucumbers, summer squash, and plums – all from Staehly Tree Farm and Gardens. Plus we'll try more cheese (Nehantic Abbey aged cheddar) from Beaver Brook Farm (already love their Pleasant Cow and Aged Feta cheeses), and we'll grill up the first eggplant from our own garden (photo) to accompany the last of our home grown lettuce, and our continually producing yellow snap beans.

Blueberry freezing tip: wash freshly picked blueberries in a colander, then scoop about 2 cups into a pint-size zip lock bag. Zip closed, eliminating as much air as possible. I found 5 pint bags fit into a quart-sized freezer bag. Once all berries are bagged, lay the bags flat in the freezer. Once frozen, store bags of berries so they will not be crushed. Use frozen on cereal, add to winter fruit salads, sprinkle a few on top of a bowl of vanilla yogurt (this tastes sinfully delicious, particularly when accompanied by a square of dark chocolate), or eat frozen berries right out of the bag. Oh, and save the emptied zip lock bags to hold kitchen fruit and veggie scraps destined for the compost pile.

So, what do you say Connecticut … will you join my family in celebrating CT Grown?

Categories: CT Grown, Edibles, Gardening.
Tags: Beaver Brook Farm, blueberries, cheese, cucumbers, Eat CT Grown, eggplant, freezing blueberries, locally grown, plums, squash, Staehly's Farm, sweet corn, tomatoes.