Tuesday, August 10, 2010

Squash. And more Squash. And Squash pickles.

I'm very behind here on the blog, so sorry.
To update: We ate all the asparagus we could stomach and froze the rest. The bed is all fronds now, but as we let it go, I noticed some tiny seedlings from the Martha Washington plants reseeding themselves. This is good.
We found out we still don't like swiss chard. It took awhile to get going, and in all honesty, I planted it because my mom used to love the stuff and I thought I might too, since my taste buds are not as finicky as when I was a kid. There's nothing wrong with the plants, I just don't find them really very exciting.
Radishes. French breakfast radishes make a tasty addition to salad or for a snack. But I really didn't need to plant two whole packets. I tried those, and a mixed packet. I will definitely plant daikon again, it was in the mixed packet and it was delicious and crunchy. Red globes grew very hot, not so tasty. The French breakfast radishes were the best for our taste--mild, crunchy with absolutely no woodiness ever. Our friends ate them. Our neighbors ate them. We ate them. I planted too many.
Turnips. I'm still picking turnips, a few now and then. I liked them better when I was a kid (ya, I was a strange kid, liked brussels sprouts too, but wouldn't eat potatoes unless they were fried). I never developed a taste for the greens, and don't know anyone who likes them. Probably won't plant again.
Peppers. We eventually planted 44 pepper plants in 9 varieties. The number of each was dependent on how many survived the planting delay. We've just started picking peppers, which was good timing, as we needed them to pickle squash. More on that in a minute. We've had Cubanelles, which are very good large, light green fruits, about 7 inches long or so. The NuMex Big Jims are tasty too, with more "green" flavor, and sorta mild on the heat scale. We found out Cascabellas are NOT mild on the heat scale when Brian munched on one without expecting heat. They are prolific producers of small, yellow, jalapeno shaped fruits, so we will be making some salsa. I would like to find other uses for them as well though. Banana peppers are always sweet, I've never gone wrong with them. We also planted Godfathers, Chinese Giants, and I think another kind which I haven't seen fruit from yet.
Onions. Walla Walla sweets are fantastic onions flavor-wise, but we've found them hard to peel, and ours didn't get very big. Maybe they don't. This was our first year growing onions, and I'm quite pleased that we have had enough so far to use in our squash pickles. We didn't plant very deep, but mounded the mulch up as they grew. They were very easy to pick this way.
Garlic. The next batch of pickles will be garlic dills. I've used a few cloves and braided the majority, only saving the biggest for reseeding this fall. We planted Susanville garlic, and I like it. Garlic must be one of the easiest things to grow--stick it in the ground, one clove at a time, in the fall. Cover it up. Wait. Uncover in the spring when the shoots poke through the leaf mulch. Wait. When it begins to brown, dig it up. I think we planted 2 pounds and easily have 6 pounds of dry bulbs. Maybe thats good? I dunno, first year for garlic too.
Ya, I ended up planting tomatoes. A friend gave me some plantlets, and I stuck them in the ground when I pulled the garlic up. No tomatoes yet, but no signs of blight either. I have no idea what kind they are.
Squash. A friend of a friend gave me 9 squash plants, and she is therefore now my friend as well, having shared food with us. I haven't been able to keep up with picking the squash, and we frequently find 2 or 3 foot zucchinis under the biggest squash leaves I have ever seen. They are monstrous and healthy, and I am pleased. Squash is one of my favorite vegetables, and we have eaten much of it, and pickled the rest. Pickling is another first for me this year, and it's easier than I thought it would be. We have crookneck, butterstick, and yellow zucchini, all good.
We planted one hill of cucumbers, expecting to be overrun with those. I even put a tomato cage over them and trained them up. 6 plants, 3 cukes so far. They were sweet, as we've had rain appropriately spaced to water.
So, what did we do different this year?
I got about 20 bags of manure and 2 bales of peat moss to upgrade the "dirt" in our garden. It's pretty compacted. I just spread the manure over the "dirt" and then the peat moss over the manure as a mulch. We will definitely put all the leaves through the shredder again this year; they made nice mulch. We've not spent more than an hour or maybe two all year with weeding. That's why we mulch. I love that kind of gardening. Mulch. Plant. Mulch. Jump up and down when sprouts come. Mulch. Pick stuff. Mulch. Repeat. Seriously, hardly any weeds.
I also used epsom salts to water. We spread a bit of Milorganite around too, according to package directions. Seems to work.
Anybody had any stellar successes or dismal disappointments? I'd love to hear...

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