Dehydration

My folks got me a sweet dehydrator for my birthday back in September.  It has been very useful in preserving my massive quantities of hot peppers.  This weekend I cut and loaded another batch, and they were dry today. I dry them crisp and hard, since my plan is to grind them into flakes this winter.  Kung Pao pepper flakes.  Scotch Bonnet flakes.  Jalepeno flakes.

I've also dried tomatoes in it.  Next up is rosemary and chives from the herb garden.  Well, once I'm done with the backlog of peppers.  The dehydrator is set up in the Batcave.  The hot pepper scent while the drying is in progress is pretty strong, and the constant hum gets a little annoying inside the house.

Seed

Over the weekend I ripped tomato stakes, cucumber cages, string pea trellis, and row ID stakes out of the garden.  Basically, all the hardware is up and stored for next year.  All that's left that's actually alive are kohl rabi, green onions, some dill, and weeds...lots of weeds.

It's rainy and cold outside, so I'm planning next year's garden.  It's time to do a seed inventory.  I have seeds from 3 basic sources...Seeds leftover from packets I purchased in 2011, but didn't need all the seeds in those packets or never used the packet at all...seeds that I or a relative saved from plants I grew or ate...and finally, a handful of seeds I bought recently from online heirloom seed seller Tomato Bob.  He had packets on sale for 50 cents.  I couldn't resist.  So here's the list...
Leftover 2011 seed:
Sweet Basil
Cayenne Pepper
Cherokee Purple Tomato
Big Beef Tomato
Dill
Cilantro
Salad Bowl Lettuce
Kohl Rabi
Lemon Cucumber
Early Scarlet Globe Radish
Sparkler White Tip Radish
Catskill Brussel Sprouts
Purple Top Turnips
Mammoth Sunflower
Long Imperator Carrot
Lettuce - Park Seed Summer Blend
Yellow Straightneck Summer Squash
Genovese Basil
Jalepeno Pepper
Romano Bush Beans
Danish Ballhead Cabbage
Black Beauty Zucchini Squash
Seed saved from plants/fruits:
Altris Pepper
Yellow Meat Watermelon
Green Meat Cantaloupe
Zuchini Squash
Jalepeno Pepper
Small Thai Pepper
Large Thai Pepper
Kung Pao Pepper
Scotch Bonnet Pepper
a bag of Melon seeds of unknown provenance
a bag labelled "Best Cantaloupe Ever 2011"  I think it came from Aunt Sharon.
4 bean seeds that look like black lima beans.
Butternut Squash
Yellow Tomato
Beefsteak Tomato, yellow with orange stripes
Cilantro
Dill
Red Watermelon
Burgundy Sunflower
Impatients
Wildflowers
Seeds I bought on sale:
Ruby Red Lettuce
Southern Giant Curled Mustard
Long Island Brussel Sprouts
Early Wonder Beets
Grand Rapids Lettuce
Kentucky Blue Bush Beans
Straight 8 Cucumbers

That's a lot of seed.  Next step is to consult with my people to determine what we're actually going to eat, and procure seeds that we need to fill in the holes.  I know I need to get broccoli and more snap bean seeds.  We eat a lot of those.  Our friend Nikita wants us to grow those yard-long Asian green beans.  Angel loves spinach.  With my existing crop of sweet potatoes, I should be able to produce slips without too much difficulty.  I'll need green onion seeds, and maybe onion sets for a regular variety.  More carrot seed.  Hmm, I'm going to need a bigger garden.

November Garden Ridiculousness

Yeah, another big handful of strawberries.  They taste good, but we must eat then within 24 hours or they get soft.  I'm so amazed by these berries.  I mean, it's cold here.

I picked produce a couple times this past weekend.  Here's the Friday harvest...I cooked up a huge pot of turnip greens on Sunday.

This is the Sunday harvest. I picked heavy on the hot peppers because I'm worried about losing them to frost.  Normally I just pick the ripe red ones, but I went ahead and picked them green too.  If they freeze and then thaw out, they rot very quickly.  Somehow there are were still some cherry tomatoes out there, too.  Also radishes, cilantro, green sweet peppers, more turnips, and green onions.

These green onions were planted in March.  They are huge and healthy...check out their root structure.  I love omelets with onions in them, and these guys are fantastic with my egg concoctions.  I also chopped and cooked some with the turnip greens.

Sweet Taters

So, we harvested the sweet potatoes.

I initially bought a pack of 9 plants at Lowe's for about $3.  I had no real idea what sort of conditions they needed to grow, but I put them in the ground between a row of yellow cucumbers and a row of tomatoes.  They spread some, but around mid-summer they took off, vining all over the garden.  When the cucumbers died, they took that space over, and vined up into the tomatoes and the peppers.

As summer turned into fall, the ground where the slips were initially planted started to mound up like hills.  I knew the roots were big, but I didn't really expect the size and quantity that we got.

The end result was 2 five-gallon buckets full of sweet 'taters.  At least 30 pounds of them.  Some were huge and beautiful.  Some were thin and scraggly.  A small number of them looked like they had cracked and healed at some point.  The only problem is that we now have to wait to eat them.

Apparently, you have to cure your yams for 6 to 8 weeks to make them taste right.  If you try to bake them right away, they don't come out sweet or soft.  At least that's what the interwebz say.  You're supposed to put them in a warm place with high humidity for 5 days, and them store them at 60 degrees at regular humidity for the rest of the 6 to 8 weeks.  So, we won't have sweet potato casserole for Turkey Day, but we should for Festivus.  Yum.

First Frost

Well, the almanac said that our area would have its first frost on October 30, and it was dead on.  The morning of October 30, I wandered out to the garden and discovered wilted crookneck pumpkin leaves and wilted sweet potato leaves.  A light frost had hit overnight.

I did a little picking that day.  Only the vining plants were wilted, and I went ahead and picked the last of the ripe crookneck pumpkins.  This week I will harvest the sweet taters.  I also picked a huge handful of strawberries!  Yes, our crazy little strawberry patch is still producing.

They're not really the same as the berries we get when they first start producing, but they taste good.  I'm not complaining at all about a strawberry that I harvest on October 30.  Just getting anything is amazing to me.

The evening of the 30th, the frost was harder.  The next morning, thick frost covered the turnips, radishes, most of the leafy stuff in the garden.  A 5 gallon bucket of water I left outside had a layer of ice on the top.  I thought that maybe that was it for the turnips, but I was wrong.  This morning I checked them, and they were just fine...

These turnips laugh at frost.  They smack frost around a little bit, and demand frost bring them a Coke and make them a sammich.  Nonetheless, I need to pick these things this week.  I was giving them a little longer to let the roots develop more, but I don't want to miss out on turnip greens cooked with onions and bacon.  Time to pull.

October 23 Harvest

This weekend's harvest was big. I expected an insane amount of ripe peppers, which we got, but I was surprised by the amount of cherry tomatoes and the size of my carrots. So, left to right in this picture we have scotch bonnet and kung pao hot peppers, tomatoes (probably the last of them for this year), a couple rubbery green beans, Jalepeno and Altris peppers, a crookneck pumpkin, carrots, radishes, green onions, and turnips.

Here's what I have left in the garden...more pumpkins, green onions, radishes, turnips, carrots, and kohlrabi (which doesn't look like it's going to produce root bulbs). I also massive quantities on hot and green peppers. My peppers are still flowering and producing fruit, which they will do until frost hits. I have two volunteers eggplants that should give me 4 more fruit. The volunteer mustard greens are going strong. I'm eating those greens in my lunch salad every day. I also have chives, volunteer dill and some 2nd season cilantro I planted.

The most surprising plant left is the sweet potatoes. These vines have taken over the middle part of the garden. The leaves are edible, and taste good in salad, and there are a ton of roots to be harvested. My plan is to wait for the first frost, let the vines die back some, and then harvest them. There's going to be a ton of sweet taters.

Givler Garden on Google

Google Maps is pretty cool, and I'm a little shocked how up-to-date their satellite view is.  I recently took a look at my house, and was surprised to see the 2011 garden right there for the whole world to see...

So there it is, in the top right of the picture.  This looks like the garden in May, I think.  Just below the garden you can see the greenhouse, and to the left of the garden is the batcave.  This aerial view shows just how massive our two pecan trees really are.
Also, I do not own a creepy white panel van.  I'm not really sure what that's doing in my driveway, but we had a bunch of AC work done around the time this image was created, so I figure that's our HVAC dude's work van.
The garden looks surprisingly small to me from this view.  Clearly I have room to expand, but 1000 square feet really should be enough for now.  I've thought about putting in two smaller, narrow raised beds between the garden and the greenhouse, but deciding that is a task for winter.

October 15 and still growing strong

It's mid-October, and while much of the garden has died and been overrun with weeds, I'm really pleased with how much is still being produced. Crook-neck pumpkins are ready, and the vines are still flowering and producing fruit that has no hope of reaching maturity. Peppers in all varieties are doing very well. The attached pic shows what I harvested this morning...only a fraction of the ripe peppers still in the garden. If you want some heat, get your butt over to the Givler Garden. I'm also finally getting carrots like I want them to be...long and thick, not the shrivelled hairy stubs from 2 months back. Sweet potato vine is taking the garden over, and where the vines were planted, the roots have started to push up and make mounds. I'm not going to harvest them until after the first frost and the vine dies back, but I'm stoked about them. I've been putting the leaves in my salads. Tasty.

Fall Plantings

Labor Day weekend was a great time to be in outside in the garden. It was warm but not hot and partly cloudy most of the time. It was also the last possible weekend I had to put in some fall crops. The almanac says that first frost will hit around October 30. That means whatever goes in has to be harvestable in 60 days.
There's still plenty of plants producing in the Givler Garden...yellow meat watermelon, eggplant, tomatoes, sweet 'taters, crookneck pumpkins, onions, green beans, carrots, and tons of peppers. This being first of September, there are lots of bare spots where earlier crops were harvested and we haven't filled it yet.
So I got out there with the action hoe in hand and filled those holes with good stuff. We planted spinach, lettuce, radishes, kohlrabi, dill, and cilantro. Last week I put in turnips, and they've already sprouted. Fingers crossed for a late frost.
I was over at my aunt's house on Saturday, and her figs are in. They were delicious right off the tree. So, today at Lowe's, on a mission to find a patio umbrella, I bought a fig tree for $8. I also found $40 outdoor chairs on sale for $9.99 each. I got 4. I planted the fig tree, and am now typing this post sitting in one of the new chairs, feeling pleased with myself despite not accomplishing the original task. The garden is good.

Volunteer Mustard

I've heard other gardeners express displeasure over volunteer plants popping up in unexpected places.As long as they're not weeds, I love volunteers. There's something I really dig about the randomness of nature messing the unnatural even rows we plan out. This being the second year for the garden, I expected some unplanned plants. The garden did not dissappoint.
I got 3 black cherry tomato plants, two Thai hot peppers, two eggplants, and a yellow cucumber.
However, today I found mustard greens growing from seeds that came from the one mustard plant that germinated this spring. It bolted, flowered, and produced seeds that grew. Very cool.

Produce Donation

Well, we just donated 19 pounds of cucumbers and hot peppers to the Food Bank. Felt good, and I literally saw folks who were going to use the veggies dividing my gift up. That was felt even better. I told them, "Those peppers are really hot!"

Not sure how many points this gets me with the big man, but hopefully the gardening thing can now help prevent me from burning in hell.

Bonus nachos!

Canned!

We have a lot of tomatoes.  So many tomatoes that no matter how many we give away, eat, or sell, there is still more left.  Lots more.  Two nights ago I canned every red tomato in the house.  I decided to keep it basic and just make plain crushed tomatoes.  Below is the visual record of the process. 

The starting supply of tomatoes.  It's a lot. 

Peeling the tomatoes...boil them a little, then drop them in ice water and the skins slip right off.

Skins on the right, fleshly mounds of tomato deliciousness on the left.

Close-up of the skinned tomatoes.  Angel says they look gross.

The canning set-up...filling jars from the big pot of crushed tomatoes.

I cut the 'maters in half, squeezed out the juice and seeds, and crushed them with a masher.
I added salt and lemon juice and brought it to a boil before filling the jars.

Hot water canning: boiling the filled jars.  I had one jar that wouldn't fit in the big canner.
However, I discovered that the asparagus steamer (with wire basket) makes a perfect one-jar canner.

The finished product is on the right...6 jars of homemade crushed tomatoes.
On the left is salsa that I canned a few weeks ago.
I've also canned dill pickles and another earlier batch of salsa.

Week ??

Ok, I'm quite unsure what week I'm on in the garden and in this blog about the garden.  Here's where things currently stand...

Here's a picture of the garden.  It's lush and green.  The light green plants in the foreground are broccolli.  Behind them you can see cucumbers, squash, peppers, tomatoes, etc.  I have to get some fall crops in this week...there are open spaces in the garden...just gotta do it!

Here's the herb garden...left to right, Thai hot peppers, chives, dill, cilantro, basil.  The herb garden was a huge success, and I am really happy that I dug out the nasty shrubs that were in there.   I'm drying basil and mint leaves, and harvesting dry dill seeds and coriander (cilantro seed).

Angel found seeds for these amazing burgundy/black sunflowers a couple months back.  We planted them in the house's side flowerbed.  They grew a little over chest-high, and opened up to reveal these gorgeous flowers.  I've never seen sunflowers quite like them.

Rain, hot sauce, yellow watermelon, and super sweets.

This was one morning's harvest from a couple days ago...maybe 45 minutes of picking!  We then went on a two-day weekend trip to a family reunion.  It rained hard while we were gone, and a bunch of the ripe tomatoes cracked or burst open.  We got home this afternoon, and while there was still plenty of good stuff to pick, it was sad tossing the fruit that had gone bad.  I did keep a bunch of the "lightly split" tomatoes and made a quick hot sauce this evening.  I even bottled it...

You don't have to say it.  I already know how classy I am.  On a very cool note, yellow watermelons are in.

The flesh is sweet and juicy, right down to the rind.  That sounds a little dirty to me.  This evening it was super hot.  I sat down to take a break and felt the sweat rolling down my skin.  Heck, I could see it!  I'm growing these cherry tomatoes called "Super Sweet."  They are perfect little spheres that get deep red when ripe.  Tonight, every third one had just split from the rain.  At first I tossed them in the compost pile...if they are spilt, they quickly go bad.  But I tasted one.  It was the sweetest tomato I'd ever put in my mouth.  (I think that could be taken the wrong way too.  Oh well.)  So I ate as I picked.  They were fantastic over-ripe.

Vegetable Insanity

The garden is insatiable.  It needs constant picking and tending.  I'm barely keeping up with its production.

This is what I harvested yesterday.  Huge zucchini, yellow squash, yellow & green cukes, eggplant, tomatoes.

Here is what I harvested today.  Turnips, jalepenos, Kung Pao, and Hot Thai peppers in addition to the rest.

The Hot Thai Red Peppers are coming in.  The harvest will be huge and fierce.  None will be spared.

Chemicals

We haven't picked anything from the garden since Monday morning.  Why?  We sprayed Sevin, a fairly mild pesticide, and you really shouldn't harvest for three days from when you apply it.  Last year I used a little Sevin powder, but that was it.  This is the first time we've actually sprayed the stuff.  The squash were covered with bugs, the sunflowers seeds were being eaten by worms, and strange orange and black bugs are all over the broccolli.  I'm not apologetic about our use of modern chemistry to ensure a good crop.  The garden is work, and I'm not going to just roll over and let insects enjoy the bounty we've created.   

I fertilize.  Yes, I also compost and till manure into my soil, but plants need food, and fertilizer is cheap, easy to use, and safe.  I hand-broadcast this 10-10-10 maybe every 3 weeks or so on most everything except the tomatoes.  This is a 10+ year old bag of fertilizer that Mr. C left in the Batcave for me.  It's ammoniated, a high ammonia content can prevent fruit set in tomato plants.

This is what I use for the tomatoes.  I prefer using water from our rain barrel and mixing up the Miracle-Gro by the spoonful in the watering can.  It has a very low ammonia content.  I'm a fan of Miracle-Gro...the regular formula is what I used exclusively on the garden as fertilizer last year.  This year the free 10-10-10 is working just fine, so that's just one less cost.

I have a lot of respect for organic farmers and organic gardening.  That's serious work, and you've gotta really know your stuff to be successful.  I really don't know my stuff, and it's not massively important to me to reach that level of greenness.  I feel good enough about having a garden.  I know I've gone a little earth-love hippie with the composting and collecting rainwater in a barrel.  Chemical use moves me a little back to the center.

Harvests

It's late June, and the garden is in full swing.  We were gone for 4 days on a trip, and it got ahead of us, even with a substantial harvest the day before we left.  Here's a zucchini that can double as a home defense weapon...

Tomatoes are coming in strong.  We're getting a half dozen a day of regular size varieties, and a dozen a day of the grape and cherry tomatoes.

Here's some of our other harvest pictures.  Here's today's harvest...4 days of growth.  My parents did pick some while we were gone.

Some other harvest shots from earlier picks...

Turnips were, and are, fantastic

This was the harvest before we went on the trip.

More from pre-trip picking

Angelia calls this section of the garden "The Jungle."  She won't do in there unless she's in long pants.  I admit that it's a scary place, but I've been going in barefoot and in short pants.  I've really got to feel my way through there to pick the veggies.  I planted stuff way too close together.  Another lesson learned for next year.