Thanks!   Yeah,I often learn more from the "less than perfect"  than the perfect.  One thing that surprised me when I started growing thing was the difficulty I had telling sometimes if something was ripe, particularly if I hadn't had it before.  Even if I had gotten it from the grocery it can still be problematic.  Do you wait until the stem turns brown and the plant dies?  Does it start to have a certain scent?  How about skin texture changes and color?  This is particularly problematic with winter squashes and melons where each item is a substantial part of the harvest from that plant and they sometimes sit on the plant for a long time looking "done" before they are actually ripe.   (Honeydews were a real problem with that for me).

Thanks C_C!  I will keep the jalapeno in mind - I like to use the tomatillas for salsa verde, and jalapenos are needed for the recipe.  The thing I love about the salsa verde other than the fresh taste is that its all done in the food processor so I don't spend forever chopping everything.  Dump it all in, hit the button, heat it to boiling in a pan on the stove, jar, and process.  Done.

Hey all,

Sorry at the lack of response; it's been crazy here.  Work has spiked up to 60 hour weeks with a 1 hour commute each way, and my energy levels haven't been great.  I do plan on doing a final summary in a month or so after the sweet potatoes come in.  

Well, between work and health issues the garden has gone by the wayside a good bit.  I managed to harvest a few things on the weekends, but lost a good bit of the crop.  

I didn't manage to get any tomato seeds from this years early girls - I waited too long to get around to it, then didn't see any pretty specimens.  Next year I think I will go with 1 early girl and a handful of patio tomatoes.  The logic on the patio tomatoes is that I may just need to better size the plant to the space.  The early girls are insurance.  :)

The garden in September:




Harvest:






I am very pleased with the popsickle peppers.   Here you can see how thick the walls were:


This is the vining okra I tried as a zucchini substitute.  The taste wasn't too bad but you really need to peel it, and with the ridges that is a bit of a pain.
The texture was a bit slimier than zucchini which also was not ideal.



The carrot experiment.  Carrots in my fall garden are almost bullet proof, sweet, and productive.  The problem is getting them to start in the September heat.  I tried an experiment sowing them in a pot and using the boiling water stratification method.  In about 3 days....carrot seedlings!  Wow.


I let these grow for about 2 weeks after the pic above due to outside temperature and hectic days, then rinsed the dirt off and just stuffed them into a groove I cut in the dirt.  I then proceeded to get too busy to keep them watered.  I honestly expected them all to die, but I went out about a week later and most of them had made it.  

Much belated, but here is the review for last season:

chinese vining okra - this gets pretty large, and as a zucchini substitute it's not bad, but not great.  The taste is nothing to write home about, and the skin is tough enough to need peeling.  Add that to the ribbed surface and it's mediocre but workable.  On the positive side nothing tried to eat it.

trombocino - this has excellent flavor and texture as a zuch substitute, but the extra long narrow shape when immature makes it a bit more of a pain to cook then a regular zuke.  The mature fruit keeps okay, but the cut stems leaked a sticky substance everywhere, and the mature flavor was bland with none of the butternut sweetness and richness I was hoping for.  On the plus side, nothing tried to eat this either, it looks like it would keep, and the harvest was massive.

suyo long cucumber - this was wildly productive, and did not get bitter.  Unfortunately, something liked to burrow into each one and you couldn't tell until you peeled it.  I ended up pulling these and tossing them.

The peppers I tried took a while to get going but produced through first frost, which isn't until October/November-ish around here.

The sweet potatoes from last year's slips produced like mad - I got the equivalent of 2 huge tubs from the handful of slips I put into the dirt.

How do you store your sweet potatoes?  I'm on the Gulf coast and should be able to grow lots of sweet potatoes which I love.  I have a commercial size deep freeze.

They keep fairly well in the garage in a box most of the winter.   By spring what is left has sprouted and becomes that year's plantings.

The job has settled a bit - I can no longer work from home so I will be doing a things that take less babysitting.  I will, however, be gardening.  

It's that time of year again.  Here is the current garden master plan.   Each line represents a 4ft x 4ft block, with 4 blocks totaling a 16 ft bed.


1.  bush beans -> zucchini-> carrots->
2.  onions --------> potatoes-------->
3.  onions --------> potatoes-------->
4.  -->s. squash -> corn -> broccoli->

5-8. ---->tomatoes*------------------>

9.  herbs---------------------------->
10. herbs---------------------------->
11. potatoes ----> butternut sq.----->
12. potatoes ----> butternut sq.----->

13. ---peppers**--------------------->
14. ---peppers**--------------------->
15. broccoli -> sweet potato--------->
16. gai lun -> sweet potato---------->

Varieties:
tomato - glacier
tomato - patio princess
tomato - bush steak
tomato - best boy
tomato - bush big boy
pepper - orangesickle
onions - georgia sweets (from home store)
s. potato -  seedlings from last year's stock
sweet basil
lime basil
terragon
oregano
cilantro
dill


*Tomatoes will all be determinates in 3x4 spacing.  
I want to see how it goes for amount of work involved when there is limited space as compared to the indeterminates I have been growing.
**I tried some Anthohi peppers but they did not germinate.  :(  I got the seeds off Amazon instead of a standard vendor so that may be the cause.  I plan on filling in with whatever pepper plant looks good once the seedling come in - possibly the dwarf bells I have been seeing a lot of.

Well the seedlings are coming along and the beds have been amended with Black Kow.  I also picked up and planted sweet onions.  It is always nice to see them go into the garden as that always feel like the true start of gardening season to me.  Everything else will have to wait - by the calendar here you are almost guaranteed to get a frost at some point up to March 11th, and fairly safe after April 15th.  Everything in between is pretty much a crap shoot.  I have gambled several times in the past and lost so I am getting a bit more cautious.  It is frustrating because starting around mid-February we have frequent 70-80 degree days that are sooo tempting.

Current plan:
Mid-March - potatoes. I had good success last year on the second attempt at covering them during a frost, and they need to have enough time to finish by mid-May when it gets too hot for them to form tubers.  I will also try the broccoli and gui lan as they should be fairly frost tolerant in case we do get hit.

Early April - less tender spring veggies like bush beans.

Mid-April - tender summer veggies like tomato and sweet potatoes.

It's April 1st and the extended forecast shows the lowest expected temp between now and the 15th is 43 degrees!  Time to plant!

I did a bit of adjustment on the planting plan - I realized I don't eat that many peppers so growing more than one in the main bed might be a bit much.  On the other hand I always get to a point mid-summer when a lot of other things are dead - I may try growing one in a pot to transfer mid-summer to see what happens.  Also every time I have tried a replacement planting of any kind of summer squash the svb's got it before I even got any fruit, so I nixed that as well.  

1. bush beans -> --------> carrots-->
2. onions ---------> potatoes--------->
3. onions ---------> Brsl Sprouts----->
4. -->zucchini --> corn -> broccoli-->

5-8. ----->tomatoes*------------------>

9. ------herbs---------------------------->
10. potatoes ----> butternut sq.----->
11-12. cucumber -> butternut sq.--->

13. ------peppers**--------------------->
14. -summer squash-->Collards------>
15. broccoli -> sweet potato---------->
16. gai lun -> sweet potato----------->

Gonna follow along. Do you mind elaborating a bit on the way you did your carrots last fall? You said you planted them in a pot and poured boiling water on them or something?

Is that one row of corn?  It's generally recommended to plant corn in a block vs. a single row to get better wind pollination.

I poured really hot water over them - it wasn't quite boiling.  It is supposed to stratify them a bit and I will say it's the fastest I have had carrot seeds sprout so far.

I do all my corn plantings in blocks.  Usually I only have space for either 4x8 or 4x4 but it seems to do the trick.

Me too.

Everything except the lemon cucumber has either been planted or direct-seeded.  I got the watering system most of the way set back up - hopefully I can finish that Tuesday.  I am not too worried as it is supposed to rain tomorrow but I don't want to leave it too long.

I added grow lights this year to my seedling setup.  The pepper plant grew much better than last year, but the tomatoes are still pretty spindly.  I might need to try adding a fan and see if that helps.  I have been using peat pots on my tomatoes and peppers the last few years but did not get as good results as I did just using the bottom of 2 litre soda bottles.  The peat pots tend to dry out on my unless I keep the environment a bit wetter than I would like - I think next time I will try the suggested red solo cups and see how it goes.

The herbs weren't doing so well indoors so I planted them out early - too early it looks like.  I lost the dill and the cilantro to a cold snap - the rest appears to be recovering.  I bought a replacement cilantro but realized I don't cook with a lot of fresh dill so I am debating replacing it or not.  It has been a full year since I did any summer squash so I am going to try and see if I can get a decent harvest before the FSVBs find the plants.

I am trying to keep better track of varieties and planting locations this year so here goes nothing...

Current planting layout:

Well, the garden was coming along decently and I set out this weekend to put out some straw to cut down on water consumption and cool the plant roots a bit through our summer.  I'd been having trouble with my back and after getting the first of the beds done my back started twinging badly enough I was having trouble standing upright.  So now each bed has an end-cap decoration of a straw bale and I am due to travel for work the rest of the week.  Hopefully I can get it put out this weekend and the cords keep the bales together until then.  I won't completely bemoan getting older - I have worked hard and advanced in my career, which I enjoy.  I am more laid-back then I was which is also nice.  The physical aging part I could do without though.

Thanks; I appreciate the support.

I had to travel to Vegas for 3 days for work which really isn't my thing, but I did manage to carve out enough time to hit BattleField Vegas, so it wasn't totally wasted.  :)  The garden seems to have grown a lot in my absence:























I have been trying to eat a reduced crap diet and have the largest portion on my plate be veggies.  Just in time the spring harvest has started in the garden:

Last night's veg - Gai Lun, aka Chinese broccoli or flowering broccoli.  For those of you not familiar with it, this is the other parent along with broccoli to get broccolini.

I harvested a few plants....


Chopped and boiled for a few minutes yeilds the results below (yes, you do eat the flowers).


The greens portion was suprisingly good - similar to spinach but a bit milder, all round a win.  
It turns out I should have cooked the stem portion first since it takes longer, but it wasn't bad - It tastes like broccoli with a bit of a celery zing to it.  One of the things I like about this plant is you can harvest leaves and let the plant grow if you want, and unlike broccoli you normally eat the whole plant.

For tonight's side I went with some broccoli, since it was at peak and doesn't keep as well as the broccolini:

Good to see things are plowing along.  My brassicas are already finished for the year.  I just harvested the last of my cabbage on Sunday.  All in all, it was a really good winter and spring here for broccoli, cauliflower, and cabbage.

Do you leave your broccoli in the ground after you harvest the heads?  I do and I usually get 3-4x as much broccoli from the side shoots as I do from the main head.  

FYI, the leaves and stems (flowers too if you miss the head) of broccoli are edible.  Broccoli stems are one of my favorite stir fry ingredients.  The thick ones are tough so it's better to peel them first.

One of the advantages of leaving the plants in after the main head is harvested is that you get a lot of side shoots with 4-5" long stems that are a half inch or less in diameter.  They are nice and tender at that point and don't need to be peeled.

Case in point:

Yes, with broccoli I cut the head for a second crop.  I know the stems are edible, but I don't always want to deal with peeling them.  Thanks for the heads up on the leaves; I had wondered after eating the gai lun leaves if they were edible but I wasn't sure.

That's just garlic, although parm might be tasty.  With the gai lun I got lazy and just dropped into into boiling water for 6 minutes then dressed it with butter, garlic, and salt.  It has a nice mild, slightly lemony taste, and the leaves have a bit more body than spinach - somewhere midway between spinach and collards.

Well, operation eat fresh out of the garden is on day 3 and I pulled a bunch more of the gai lun.  I know there will be lulls, I just want to see how many days in a row I can get a veggie side for 2 out of the garden.  

The harvest has been coming in fairly steadily - I just pulled the last of the broccoli and gai lun - I had a bunch of un-harvested gai lun since I wasn't eating it fast enough, and it ended up going to seed.  I will most likely plant it again since it was one of the tastiest greens I have tried, but probably less of it.



The first of the summer harvest is trickling in - even though potatoes and onions are cheap in the store our short spring and hot summer limits what we can grow, and I get satisfaction out of harvesting them.  :)