2010 Retrospective: Diva Cucumbers

You might remember the crazy rowcover structure I stuck to the fence with velcro, described back in this post. It resulted in decent protection. Above you can how the diva cucumber plants looked as of August 4, 2010. That's pretty good considering my cucumbers were a yellow spotted, shriveling up, powdery mildewed mess by Aug. 9th in 2009. There were just two major problems: 1) the Agribon didn't stick to the velcro very well, so even after I tried stapling it, it was tough to peel the cover off for harvest without ripping the velcro from the fabric and 2) I think some especially intrepid cucumber beetles were able to get to the plants through cracks in the fence. Still, it was good enough protection that the plants stayed healthy for a longer time. I was a bit disappointed with the Diva's production though - I probably picked less than 10 cucumbers, even with 4 plants. This year I'm going to try sewing the velcro to the Agribon with a wide zig zag stich, and plant Cool Breeze cucumbers. We'll see if they're any better.

Here is one of the cucumbers I harvested, along with some other garden veggies & berries picked that day. When they did grow, they were great! Really smooth and not bitter at all.

I made it into one of my favorite summer dishes - cold peanut soba noodles. I also shredded the carrots and turnips from the garden in it too. Turnips are suprisingly sweet when shredded raw!

Turnip Harvest Even Better This Year

I thought last year's turnips were pretty spectacular, but this year they really outdid themselves! I left my finger in the picture for size comparison. Just look at the size of these!!

I only harvested the biggest ones that day. It was June 12th. There are still quite a few nice sized ones left in the bed for later - I'd say this was maybe a little over 1/3 of the bed. I think I'll pick them in the next week or two before they get too woody and bitter in all of this heat. The ones pictured above tasted great steamed and mashed with potatoes.

Radish Harvest

I didn't plant a lot of radishes this year. I thought I'd do a second batch but never got around to it. That's ok, I still got a decent harvest. They weren't nearly as big as last year though. I guess all the rain last year must have made the roots grow big. Here's the first batch I picked on May 9th - 3 Easter Egg in the top row, then I think a mix of Crimson Red and Sparkler White Tip:Then I picked the rest on May 15th to make room for the tomatoes and peppers. These are all the Easter Eggs:And the rest of the Crimson Reds and White Tips:
Hopefully I'll have the time to plant another crop in the fall.

Awesome DIY Seed Tape

I'll never forget trying to plant my fall crop of carrots and turnips in the heat and humidity of August 2009. It was backbreaking and excrutiatingly sweaty. Well, never again will I have to go through that, thanks to information about how to make DIY seed tape that I read on the gardenweb forums.

I tried it for the first time this spring, and I'm happy to report it worked great! Here's what I did:

First I soaked my seeds overnight (each type in its own section of an ice cube tray). That made them sort of sticky.

Then I laid toilet paper out on a plastic tablecloth, misted it with a spray water bottle, and spaced the seeds out onto it with measuring tape as a guide. Then I folded the tp over and voila! seed tape.

The only tricky part was making sure the tape didn't blow open/away when I brought it outside. I guess that would be less of a problem if you use Elmer's glue as some people suggest, but since I wasn't planting a ton of rows, it wasn't really a big deal for me. It was so much easier than bending down to plant each individual seed! All I had to do was make a trench at the right depth, lay the tp tape on it, and bury it with soil. All of the hard part was done while comfortably sitting on my couch. :-)

Here is a piece of radish seed tape getting buried:

And the result about a month and a half later. I think they're spaced pretty nicely, considering I didn't do any thinning at all!

The carrots and turnips I planted with the seed tape worked pretty nicely too. It is a little tougher to see since some clovers have since popped up around the carrots that I still need to weed - but you can see 3 distinct rows of carrots & 2 rows of turnips. All with no thinning at all. I will never do it the old way again!

Not a Fail Afterall. Hooray!

It turns out the carrots and turnips weren't dead afterall! It warmed up and hit 50 this Saturday, so I went outside to see if the carrots were still edible. To my surprise, the green tops had perked back up and looked alive! They were still damaged, but nowhere nearly as bad as the greens in the other bed (which are definitely still dead, or at least dormant).

The next test was taste, and the carrots passed with flying colors! Sweet and cruchy, they tasted just as good as they did in the summer. So I picked 90% of them. I figured I might as well eat them when I knew the eating was good, before it snows again. I left in just a few as a test, to see how long they'll last.

The turnips were also alive, but the ones I picked seemed a tiny bit soft. I am still going to try cooking them to see how they taste, but I haven't gotten around to it yet.

I lightly steamed the carrots along with some green beans, then finished them off in a saute pan with a bit of vegan butter, toasted fennel seeds and garlic. They were delicious! It was my first time using fennel seeds like that. I would definitely make this dish again (it was based off this recipe).

I had two friends over for dinner last night so I served them along with chickpea cutlets parmigiana (with Teese mozarella), homemade teese & unpepperoni stromboli, and saffron risotto from Nonna's Italian Kitchen.
We also had an endive and apple salad as a first course. Next year my goal is to grow endives so we can have them fresh in the winter. In any case, my friends were happy they trekked on NJ transit all the way from the LES. :-)

Four Season Gardening = Fail

Well, not a total fail - but definitely not a success! The plants under my rowcovers have been dead since it first dipped into the low 20's back in early December. Here is what the greens bed looks like today:
Even the mache is frozen. So much for that!

And here is the bed of carrots. The turnips look the same.
I wish I had known this was going to happen, so I could have at least picked everything when I saw the temps were heading down that low. A lot of good food was wasted. My brother says I can still dig the carrots up and eat them, but I've read in other places frozen ground will turn them into mush. In any case the ground is frozen hard right now, and it is so cold out I have no intention of going out there to dig. Nope, I'm staying right here on the couch with my fuzzy blanket, snoozing doggy and tea.

Overall, I don't feel too bad. At least it was a learning experience. Now I know what the Agribon can do, so next year I can plan better. And it did at least make everything last until early December. If it hadn't been the coldest winter on record in over a decade, it might have worked better. I'm also still glad I built the rowcovers, because I'm sure it will help me get an early start in the spring. Now I've just got to be patient and wait for horrible January and February to pass!

C'est la vie!

Update: Looks like the problem is I needed an additional layer of poly. Thanks Robin! I am definitely going to try it. http://www.mofga.org/Default.aspx?tabid=833

Happy Thankgiving!

I'm so happy that my rowcovers seem to be working so far. Just look how lush and green the plants are underneath! Granted, it hasn't been that cold yet - after that one period of frost that killed the peppers, squash and tomatoes, it has been pretty warm since. Still, I think it is helping, and I can't wait to see how long they will stay green. Above you can see the bed with carrots, turnips & a little bit of chard along the sides.
Here is the leafy green bed, with mustard greens, arugula, red romaine & buttercrunch lettuce, and mache. I'm really excited about the mache, since it is supposed to be the one green that will last through winter. It looks really healthy under the rowcover. I can't wait to eat it, but I'm trying to hold out until it gets really cold. Here's a closeup of the mache, which is growing all along the front of the bed:

I harvested a variety of goodies from these beds for today's Thanksgiving feast. The pictures aren't great because by the time I got home from work, it quickly got dark, and on top of that it was raining. But I still had fun out there picking the veggies. The Frech innovation described in Coleman's book - using the ropes - really does make it super easy to get in and out. All I had to do was push the cover back - I didn't even need to untie it. Then just slid it back down when I was done. Here's what I got:
This was maybe about 1/3 of the carrots growing under the rowcover. They're still a bit small, but not too dissapointing. I figure this harvest was about equivalent to a bag of baby carrots, just a lot better tasting and no chlorine involved. :-)
Unfortunately, most of the turnips were still too small to harvest, so this was all I got. The rest of them looked like these four on the left in the picture below.I think it may be because I did a crappy job of planting them back in August, since it was a miserably hot day. I hope what's left under the rowcover grows more (there is still a lot). Worst comes to worst, at least I can eat the greens.
I also picked a ton of arugula. I only have a picture of it packed up and ready to transport to my mom's house. Here is everything ready to go. Starting from the top left, moving clockwise I've got :





-Arugula
-Turnip Greens
-Green Pepper
-Kung Pao & Jalapeno Chili Powder
-Turnips & Baby Carrots
-Nasturtium Lemon Butter
-Thyme, Rosemary & Edible Marigolds







I'll update the blog with everything I made from it later.

Hope everyone enjoys their thanksgiving and has a wonderful day!

Four Season Harvest "Chenilles" Low Tunnels Completed

Just finished building two low row covers for my winter crops. I did it as described on page 89 of Eliot Coleman's book, "Four Season Harvest". Apparently this is a French innovation - to have little loops on each hoop so you can tie a rope to hold it down, rather than burying it with dirt. This makes it easier to harvest and vent.

I used #9 wire, and bent it into a semi-circle shape a little longer than he said, actually 8' long instead of 6.5' since my beds are wider. (approx. 40 - 42" rather than 30 - 36" he calls for) I used needle-nose pliers to put a loop about 1.5' from each end, again a bit longer than he called for (1'). It needed to be longer to accomodate the cinder blocks. I pushed them about a foot into the ground on either end.
Then I laid the #30 Agribon over it. (actually this was better as a two person job, and Mr. Aubade helped a lot - both with cutting and shaping the hoops, then with laying down the fabric) I finished it by tying poly outdoor rope like a shoelace through each loop.

The first one came out too short, so I've got to staple on about 2 feet more. It had lettuce, arugula, mache and mustard greens in that bed (not pictured).

But the second try, as seen here in the pictures, seemed to work pretty well. This bed has carrots, chard and turnips in it. It didn't come out quite like I had hoped, as it seems a little wobbly - but I think it will be ok since my backyard isn't too windy. Guess we'll see how it goes. This is definitely an experiment. I just want to see how long the plants will live.

Quick Catch Up

So many pictures, so little time! Once again summer has me outside and not on the computer. But, it has been a good month so I'm not complaining. Here's a quick slideshow of some garden highlights:J.J. taking time to smell the borage flowers.

Somehow both pink and purple flowers grew on the same borage plant.

Fresh picked blackberries went into my morning fruit salad for work.

The nasturtiums are doing fabulous in their new spot by the fence. Much better than the tiny one that grew then died in the hanging pot last year!

Just picked all of these kung pao peppers on Saturday. I can't believe so many grew on just three plants.

My partner the pepper lover pickled them yesterday.

This was all but one of the italian frying and bell peppers that I've picked so far. A bit dissapointing, but, with this crazy weather I'm happy I got any at all. Hopefully things will pick up in the next few weeks.

The tomatoes are doing better - not quite as good as last year, but still decent. Here's the first batch of Roma, plus some grapes which have been producing a few handfuls each day now.

The yellow and red grape tomatoes, plus jalapenos and cilantro from the garden got made into this delicious black bean salsa yesterday. You can't quite tell from the pic but the bowl is huge - a few handfuls a day really adds up nicely. The only things we had to add were a can of black beans, a little white onion and some lime juice.

This was the biggest haul yet from two weekends ago. Who needs the CSA! It is beet greens, rainbow and fordhook giant chard, the peppers, turnips, beets, some blackberries, tomatoes, a cucumber and a lone calendula flower that I accidentally cut off.

The Emerite haricot vert were outstanding. This was the 1st batch from earlier in July, and I picked two more even fuller bowlfuls after that, plus about a half a bowl this weekend. This was the second batch of carrots I picked, and even more peppers. I just planted a new crop of carrots this weekend - now I can hardly wait until November!

Midsummer Meal

This was last nights dinner. A little random, but it used up everything I picked from the garden. On the left was a quinoa, turnip green, smoked tempeh & almond dish. It was garnished with lightly sauteed red and yellow grape tomatoes on top. (we've gotten about 10 so far - I can't wait till the tomatoes really get going over the next couple weeks!!) The turnips were diced and sauteed in garlic, smoke flavor, onion & red pepper flakes. It was delicious! The almond added just the right amount of crunch. I got the idea here: Novel Eats Simply Vegan blog Thanks Samantha.

In the middle are dill pickles made from 10 pickling cucumbers & a packet of Ball dill mix. Also added some kung pao peppers from the garden and a bit of garlic. I didn't do a water bath with them - just refrigerated in two jars. I don't think we'll have any problem eating them within two weeks. I already ate almost half a jar myself yesterday! Above you see the cucumbers (I didn't use the three on the right - those were left on the vine too long) and below is the final product. I picked 6 more today.

Finally on the right are more mashed turnips and potatoes. I really can't get enough of those. On top is a beautiful edible Amazon Jewel climbing nasturtium - it was really delicious! Floral yet spicy. I'm looking forward to more of these gorgeous blooms. Here's a collage of the various colors. I took all of these pics last night. The hardest part is picking them to eat - I just want to keep looking at them.

Tip Top Turnips Again

I had a successful turnip crop last year, and sure enough, this week I pulled half the row and they grew beautifully again! Even better that last year - some were huge! I put my hand in the picture so you can see the size:I mashed them with an equal amount of potatoes, a little bit of Earth Balance vegan butter and Silk soy creamer. A good shake of smoked salt & black pepper = heaven! I even had a bowl for breakfast the next day haha. The nice thing about turnips is they are so low in calories (only 36 per cup), so it makes mashed potatoes a lot friendly to my diet, but even better tasting. Now I just need to figure out what to do with the greens, where most of the vitamins are. They're washed and ready to go in the fridge.

What's Up Doc

I just pulled this row of beautiful carrots on Tuesday. I planted them closer together than recommended on the seed packets, in two rows using a staggered pattern. So I'm really happy they grew this well!

I think if I left them in longer they would have gotten bigger, but they were a little too close to my cucumbers. Happily there is still a whole other row, so this is less than half of what I'll get. Wuhoo! I'm also very pleased b/c last year my carrots barely grew at all. Must be b/c they got more sun this year + a better variety of seed (Napoli hybrid, Eliot Coleman's favorite type).

They are really sweet tasting too. I've just been eating them raw so far, like Bugs Bunny. Tonight I will probably make a shredded carrot salad, with some lemon juice & herbs.

I'm going to plant more for a fall harvest soon.

And now I have to post a gratuitous JJ picture. :-) I went on a camping trip for four days this weekend that didn't allow dogs, so Mom took care of him. Boy did I miss this furry little guy, barking and all! He loves carrots.

Spring Harvest and Two Meals

Here's a good pic of the different kinds of radish I grew this spring. White Icicle, Easter Egg (white, pink, purple, maroon) & Red Globe. Most of the White Icicles ended up taking a bit too long to mature, so by the time they were big enough to eat, they had bolted and gotten woody. I think they'll be better in the fall. The Easter Egg & Red Globe, on the other hand - were fantastic - I picked about 100 more that aren't pictured here.



Now here's a picture of the Mustard Greens. I picked at least 3 more armfuls as big as this one. They were so tender and delicious. The trick is to saute them with a little maple or agave syrup to bring out their sweetness. I will definitely grow these again.






This is a big pile of Arugula. I also picked about 3 more piles this size. It is great sauteed like spinach. I like to mix the sauteed Arugula in with a tomato bean sauce and put it on pasta. It's also good just raw as a salad green. I love the nutty taste.

I even used the arugula flowers in a meal one evening. They have the same nutty taste as the leaves, delicious! You can see them at the top right corner of this picture:

It is cajun-spiced seitan on a bed of radish & mustard greens (sauteed w/ garlic, smoked paprika & red pepper flakes), dirty rice, and a wonderful salad composed of thinned baby turnips and beets, plus radishes w/ chive & arugula blossoms and a light herb vinagrette. I really do like the taste of the chive blossoms. I sprinkle them on everything now.

But that meal was nothing compared to this brunch! Grilled Vcon smoky tempeh w/ black-eyed pea salsa & grilled smoked rosemary potatoes + mustard greens sauteed in the leftover tempeh marinade. It is all sprinkled with chive blossoms and also dollops of oregano pesto. (I had to make something with the oregano since I have sooo much of it. The pesto was tasty!). More purplish-pink easter egg radishes on the side, with a bit of the pesto on the end + chamomile flowers. The yellow flowers by the pile of greens were actually mustard green flowers. Spring is great!