Squishysquashy's Experiments

[squishysquashy]

Hi!  I have been really busy planting on my days off.  Planted all my beans Tuesday and got a mighty sunburn, because I forgot all about the sun...I haven't really seen it since October.  Also planted Cranberry Red potatoes.  Lots of stuff that I planted last week came up in the rains we got last week.  Also, carrots and beets did not rot, but came up and seem to be thriving in the rain.  We've had Rain, Sun, Rain, Sun and everything looks very happy.  I wish my greens would grow a little faster, though.  By the time they get to an edible size, it will be hot.  I need to start them indoors, but I don't have the space.

I have a question about cabbage.  I have two January Kings, and they have taken ages to head up.  I don't know when they're ready harvest. 

The smaller one has a nice tight head, but is very small.  The big one has a kind of loose head.  I can squish it between my fingers.  Are they ready?



Here's the big, loose one


and the small, tight one

[squishysquashy]

Working hard this week.  We finally got the fence in so the dogs can stay out of the garden and not have to be on tethers anymore.  Stuff's growing, but I can tell it will likely be a bad pest year because it got hot so fast.  Snow in March and then BOOM! hot.  I am already seeing an unusual number of aphids, but also a pretty good showing of ladybug larva.  Pics from today:

the left end, with our lovely fence and other things strewn about.

 
The middle


The right end


ok now let's look up close from right end to left end!  I have a diagram with variety labels somewhere, but for now I can't remember which carrot row is which.  The beets are bull's blood and Chioggia.  Purple Majesty taters and next to them, newly emerged Cranberry Red.


R to L, Perennial potato onions, Inchelium red garlic, lemon mint and calendula.


I pulled a garlic today to check its progress.  No bulbing yet.  I planted late Oct.  I have no idea when it should start bulbing.  At some of this one tonight as green garlic on top of my steak and roasted taters/beets.  It was delicious.



R to L, my one remaining January King, sunflowers and Snow Cap beans, more snow caps, Sunshine F1 squash, morning glories.  Ignore the butt load of weeds, because apparently that's what I have been doing.


in the back a row of various runner bean varieties, in front, assorted sweet peppers (Gamba and Jimmy) and Fish hot peppers.  also, Zinnias.


assorted tomatoes (Costoluto Fiorentino, Stupice, Roma VF...and one of these is a yellow Mortgage lifter...we'll find out at fruit set.  Either by the yellow fruit or lack of fruit.)  More runner beans, and a snow pea called Carouby de Maussane which may turn out to be just for flowers.  


and that's just the fenceline bed!  It's ridiculous how much weeding I have done to day, and how much I still need to do!  I am not using mulch this year.  I don't have access to any, and it harbors rabid roly-polies that munch my plants.  Dust mulch it is, until cover crop time.

[flowerweaver]

Squish, garlic is ready to harvest when the tops die back. Here in southwest Texas that's late summer early fall, so you've got a ways to go. It's getting late for the brassicas in Texas. If you let them go too long they can get bitter before they bolt.

[kazedwards]

Stupice was our favorite tomato from last year. Very productive too.

[steev]

What kind of wood is that fence? It's very striking.

[squishysquashy]

Wow, I guess garlics need their own bed next time. I didn't know it would be that long. I have watermelons planted in front of them. Guess I will have to redirect those vines when they come up...
Yeah, we'll see what the cabbage is like. It is now in the fridge, awaiting experimentation.
steev, I have no idea. The neighbors put it up two years ago when the wind blew it down. I doubt they know what kind of wood it is, either.

[steev]

Too bad; it's so pretty; something locally available, I guess; never seen here in any common outlets.

[flowerweaver]

steev almost all fencing material in Texas is Western Red Cedar, kind of like Redwood is in California.

[squishysquashy]

Here's another experiment.  Let's see if I can put pictures on here that are hosted by Facebook.  I have my pictures set to public view, but sometimes they still won't show.

Our cabbage, before we ate it:



Not sure what to call this dish, I just made it up.  Garden skillet fry?  Cabbage, green garlic, green onions from the garden, with canned peppers (not from the garden, because I don't know how to can yet,) bacon, onion, and some leftover rice and sausage.  Put a little cajun spice and magical sweet curry on it, and it was delicious.  


good with Crack-a-roni!


hopefully you can see this pics... if not, boo Facebook!  

[Al]

If you've got cabbage to use up I can recommend Okonomoyaki; a Japanese pancake with vegetables. Originally a street food, popular after WW2 when most food was rationed but this could be made from unrationed ingredients
4oz flour, couple pinches salt & sugar. Sift, add 2 eggs & 5oz water. Mix in 5oz finely chopped cabbage, some grated carrot, a leek if you want. Heat oil in pan, flatten mixture in pan, cover & leave on low heat for 10 minutes. Carefully work a spatula under & flip. Cook a further 5 minutes or so, until nice colour. Serve with mayo & brown sauce.
Okonomoyaki actually means; "as you like it" so try other fillings. Pickled ginger, bacon, bean sprouts, Spring onions, etc.

[squishysquashy]

Chioggia and Bull's Blood

I didn't know Bull's Blood would get that big.  Hopefully it still tastes good.  I only had these two beets reach any kind of size so far.  They were both the first in the row, so I wonder if it was because they got the most sun.  The others all have leaves the same size, but the roots are not showing yet.

We have had sooo much rain in the past two weeks.  It ain't no regular ol rain either; it's big loud thunderstorms with torrential rain and 60+ mph winds.  Every other day!  There is flooding all over N TX.  The garden is really happy, but it is so muddy out there that I don't want to go out and get pictures!  I am very curious what this harvest season will bring.

I hope the rest of my stuff doesn't get powdery mildew.  I grew Green Wave and Red Giant mustards and they both got powdery mildew before they reached convenient edible size.  Isn't Green Wave supposed to do well in the Pacific Northwest, where they get even more rain and have more powdery mildew than me?  

[squishysquashy]

Beet greens are the bees knees

There are onions, bacon, and pickled pimientos in there, too.

The makings of a garden quesadilla.  When the garden is producing, there are no more menus or recipes, just stuff like this.  Those are french breakfast radishes and pieces of leftover beef sirloin.


My flying saucer morning glory has a single flower on it.  I had no idea the flowers were going to be that huge!


Sunshine F1 squash, already trying to be like the beans and climb the trellis


A young Sunshine F1 squash. Notice the roly-poly on the leaf. That is what the foil is for. I never thought crustaceans would end up being my worst pest. They chew up everthing!  Their favorite feast right now are the stalks of my beets and carrots.  Next time I will space them wider, since the pillbugs seem to hate the sun.  Still, I'd take them over vine borers.  Even though they chew up everything and make it rot, they also build lots of compost for me.


Tomato row, lookin good and settin fruit.  Scarlet runners are behind them.  I've got three varieties in an attempt to get some kind of pod set.  So far, 4 Corners has bloomed beautifully and profusely, but set like 5 pods.  Tenderstar bloomed pretty well and seems to be setting every pod.  Painted Lady Improved has made 6 flowers and set no pods.  Darn.


Fish peppers (hot) and purple basil, with a ton of weeds.  I kept them well-hoed until the rains started, but it's been 3 weeks since I was last able to do anything.  It was two days without rain in this picture and you can see that the soil is still saturated.  The next day after that, it rained some more and hasn't stopped.  Good thing I kept up with the weed control in the beginning, or I would have no garden, just weeds!


My packet of mini zinnias was supposed to be mixed colors, but all I ever got was pink! Oh well, I guess I will have to buy zinnias from a real seed company next time.


ready to eat mini cabbage (Jersey Wakefield) and an experimental chickpea, Hannan Popbean


Costoluto Fiorentino looks like a monstrous sandwich.

[squishysquashy]

We have had so much rain!  I remember saying that I thought this was going to be a bad pest year because it got hot so fast, but it sure has cooled down because of the storms.  It has rained almost every day for 3 weeks straight.  I think the pests have been rained out!  But we'll see what finds my garden once June hits.  For a short while I did see snails--we didn't have those last year.  

The rain has saturated the soil to the point that there is water just standing around.  We have always had rabbits in the neighborhood, and they enjoyed resting in the shade of my garden last year.  Strangely, they never ate any of my plants.  This year, a rabbit made a nest and had babies in the walkway of the garden.  I never would have noticed them if Cheeto the dog hadn't smelled them behind the garden fence and had a conniption fit over them.  He would never have smelled them either, if two of the babies hadn't drowned and started stinking.  I went into the garden to investigate and found the nest with seven soaked bunnies in it, five still living.  It was raining at the time and the nest was full of water.  I thought they would all die of drowning or chilling if I left them, since mother rabbits usually don't come back to feed their babies til evening.  




pulling the wet kits out, mama rabbit style


I removed the dead rabbits and buried them, and then got some hay mulch and and padded the nest with it.  I put an old sock down in there for them to lay on so they would be dry and warm, and then covered the nest with more hay.
Checked on them an hour later and they were already drying off, even though it was still raining.  


After that, all I could do was hope the mother was alive.  Two days later I went to the garden to check the nest.  It looked like the mother had not returned because the straw I had placed over the nest seemed to be unmoved.  When I opened the nest, the babies were nearly double in size, so obviously they had been fed.  Clever mother had replaced the hay just how I had placed it.  I only saw three because I didn't dig down under them.  Their eyes were open and they were ready to run.


Several days later they were running around.  Here's mom, watching me do stuff in the yard.

[steev]

Lucky she didn't decide they smelled "wrong" and abandon them.

[philagardener]

May 21, 2015 19:34:37 GMT -5 squishysquashy said:

Here's mom, watching me do stuff in the yard.

I try to keep bunnies outside my garden fence