Green Thumb Up My Nose

Garden Report for 231030

This is the last crop report of the year, although I will have a Lessons Learned and Plans for 2024 coming soon. Weather was cold (lows around 20F), with snow.

Closed out the garden. Harvested 2kg of ripening tomatoes (not red but lots of color), and 9kg of greenies. Also brought in the last of the squash, including a large green one that looks like a kabocha, except I didn’t plant any of those.

Squash

Green Tomatoes

Red Tomatoes

As part of the closeout process, I’m trying a new chop and drop method. Turns out, my new whipper-snipper (AKA weed-whacker) is one with stiff plastic blades instead of nylon twine. The blades are strong enough to chop their way through most tomato and squash vines. So once I cut down all the remaining plants onto a tarp, I went through and hashed it all up. Part of it went into a trench in Section 3, and part was layered into four of my grow bags (along with some pelleted fertilizer).   I also took up all the old black soaker hose, and plan to replace it next spring.

Week Ending 10/30	Vegetable (bold = final)	Count	Total Weight g	Unit Weight g	Grand Total	Total Weight kg
	Tomato	81	11000	135	331	32.8
	Butternut	1	880	880	2	1.9
	Potato				52	4.83
	Cabbage				2	0.45
	Tromboncino				37	13.5
	Cocozelle				40	11.14
	Acorn				3	1.29
	Pattypan				7	3.87
	Zucchini				11	2.93
	Carrots				–	0.57
	Pumpkin	2	2610	1300	8	8.82
	Spaghetti	3	1200	400	3	3.9
	Beets				–	0.25
	Beans				–	0.81
Grand Total						87.06

So we beat 2019’s 67kg, but were nowhere near 2021’s all time high of 107kg.

Green Thumb Up My Nose

Garden Report for 231023

No report for last week because there was nothing to report. Cool and rainy, followed by warm, with a high of 72. Forecast for cooler, with rain. And frost. And maybe snow.

I left most of the tomatoes on the vine this week to get as much color as possible. First frost is forecast for Tuesday, so I’ll do a big harvest today. Meanwhile, the pumpkins and the winter tromboncino looked to be as good as they’re gonna get so I harvested almost all of them. There was one really big winter tromboncino, 1.8kg, and a handful of medium summer varieties. (The summer/winter split, of course, just depends on how long you leave them on the vine).

Tromboncino

Pumpkin and Spaghetti

Week Ending 10/23	Vegetable (bold = final)	Count	Total Weight g	Unit Weight g	Grand Total	Total Weight kg
	Tomato	9	1007	112	250	21.8
	Butternut	1	1000	1000	1	1.0
	Potato				52	4.83
	Cabbage				2	0.45
	Tromboncino	6	4104	684	37	13.5
	Cocozelle	1	438	438	40	11.14
	Acorn				3	1.29
	Pattypan				7	3.87
	Zucchini				11	2.93
	Carrots				–	0.57
	Pumpkin	5	5003	1000	6	6.22
	Spaghetti	2	1602	801	3	2.78
	Beets				–	0.25
	Beans				–	0.81
Grand Total						71.44

Back in 2019 we closed out the garden on 28 September, just ahead of a killer frost and a touch of snow. So the 67kg cumulative total for that week was also the total for the year, and included  a couple of kilos of green tomatoes. We are now 4kg ahead of that, and I have not even started on the tomatoes.

Pumpkin Oats

So, MJ wants me to eat more healthy-like, and one of her friends has a husband who swears by putting pumpkin in his morning oatmeal. I suspect that he’s eating something that looks like orange cream of wheat, but anything to keep peace in the family.

Setup: 1/3 cup of stone ground rolled oats, one cup of beef broth, two heaping teaspoons of canned pumpkin, two dinner teaspoons of potato flakes, salt. Cook for 10 minutes or so, depending on the exact style of oats. Add the pumpkin at the beginning and the potatoes at the end.

Results: Not bad, not great. Tastes like beef broth with something in it. I guess that’s about what I want — something that won’t interfere with the taste. Now to try it with other additions. After all, I still have most of the rest of the can.

Rating: *****

Pumpkin Oats

Almost two years ago I wrote about a failed oatmeal experiment involving an ancient bottle of pumpkin spice liqueur. I said then that I’d wait until I had some real pumpkin available to make another test. Well, recently, one of our dogs got sick.

It turns out that canned pumpkin is one of the things you feed sick dogs. Ours had eaten some industrial fabric that didn’t want to be digested, and it waited until 2AM to let us know that. One thing and another (you don’t want details in a cooking blog, OK?), and MJ decided a bland diet of mashed potato, pumpkin, and a smidge of dogfood was the dinner of the day, until various innards had settled down.  We had almost a whole can of pumpkin left over (it was a big can), so I decided to see how it would do as an oatmeal extender. We were out of broth, so I used plain water. I know, but where can you find a pound of brothing chicken at 5AM of a Sunday morning?

Setup: 1/3 cup of stone ground rolled oats, two generous dinner tablespoons of canned pumpkin (probably close to a quarter cup), two dinner teaspoons of potato flakes, one cup of water, salt.  Cook for 10 minutes or so, depending on the exact style of oats.  Add the potato when you take it off the stove..

Results: Quite good. Definitely pumpkin-y, but it didn’t overwhelm, like cornbread wants to. Would be a good base for something more elaborate. Needed more salt. Needed a good ten grinds of pepper melange (it sounds like a lot, but our grinder is feeble). I’m going to try it again, once the government delivers on its promise of two chickens for every pot. Maybe I’ll even try some pumpkin spice.

Rating: *****

Green Thumb Up My Nose

Garden Report for 131007

As has become traditional, the publication of last Monday’s report was immediately followed by two days of wild weather, with sustained winds of 40mph gusting to 50. When it wasn’t winding it was raining, about half an inch worth.

Despite the lack of frost, the long beans didn’t survive. By Monday afternoon they were all wilted, and the beans were still only 3″ long. The lemon cucumbers didn’t survive. There was only one worth picking. As a precaution, I harvested the KHG tomatoes and squash. Less than half a basket. I also harvested the just-breaking pumpkin, and found it quite orange on the ground side (22lb).

The projected lows were in the lower 30’s with one night of light frost, so I harvested any tomatoes with color from the container plants, and then watered them and wrapped them all in plastic. I don’t plan to open it up for a week or more. I don’t expect to get more than 5lb of tomatoes there, bringing the total to maybe 40lb or so. This time last year I had close to 100lb.

I harvested the KHG corn, 10 ears of corn, 30oz worth (when husked, but not stripped from the cob), two were six inch long monsters. It tasted much better than the deck-grown, but I still think it’s too much trouble.

In KHG Section 2, where I planted lots of lettuce two weeks ago, almost nothing has come up. Well, a mass of seedlings came up in one corner, then disappeared. I suspect slugs. On Sunday, our last really warm day for a while, I replanted, and then liberally dusted with diatomaceous earth. I used that heavily earlier in the year, and am down to my last 40lb.

Cooked up one of the Delicatas. They’re a lot like Acorn squash, with a slightly sweeter flavor and a slightly different texture. We will do them again next year. Note that they were nothing like the picture on the packet. The packet squash are long things, like pie pumpkins. Our Delicatas were the same size and shape as an Acorn squash, but the packet-depicted Delicata coloring.

Week Ending	Vegetable	Count	Weight oz	Unit Weight oz	Total	Total Weight lb
9/23 Last Week
	Tomato	80	288	3.6	188	29.5
	Summer	0	0	0	3	1.2
	8-Ball	1	39	39	3	7.0
	Crown	0	0	0	1	2.0
	Cuke	0	0	0	4	2.7
	Beets	0	0	0	22	1.4
	Delicata	2	64	32	3	6.0
	Corn	8	22	2.75	8	1.4
	Pumpkin	1	19lb	–	1	(19)
Running Total						51lb
10/7 This Week
	Tomato	43	93	2	233	35.3
	Summer	7	13	2	10	2.0
	8-Ball	1	10	10	4	7.6
	Crown	1	57	57	2	5.5
	Cuke	1	2	2	5	3.0
	Beets	0	0	0	22	1.4
	Delicata	0	0	0	3	6.0
	Corn	10	30	3	18	3.3
	Pumpkin	1	22lb	20.5lb	2	(41)
Running Total						64lb

Green Thumb Up My Nose

Garden Report for 130923

And just like that, we’re autumnal and I’m doing some shutting-down-the-garden things. The weather this week was cool and intermittently rainy. Highs in the mid-60’s (with a couple in the 70’s) and lows in the mid 40’s. The forecast is for a continuation of the trend — lows around 40, highs around 60, with intermittent rain.

We’ve got some men coming round next week to cut the excess bits off our trees, the ones the pumpkins are growing under. Harvested the ripe pumpkin (19lb), and moved a crown squash vine with one adolescent squash out-of-the-way of the boots. I’m not going to count the pumpkins in the weekly weight totals, that would be like piling on.

Great Pumpkin

Harvested the deck corn. 16 plants => 8 ears in the 4″-6″ range. 22oz total trimmed ear weight. I suspect I didn’t grow enough plants for them to pollinate properly. 15-20 plants left, over in the KHG, but they went in later.  Given all the problems I’ve had, for such little gain (the flavor was good, but it was tough, and stuck to my teeth), I’ll probably not plant corn again.

All that work for this?

Originally we were forecast to hit 34F next Friday night (now the predicted low for the week is 39F), so I trimmed the tomato plants way back, to try to get some ripenizing in before then. On Saturday I harvested everything that had any color. I’m hoping the real frosts hold off, because much of my garden production last year was at the end of September and beginning of October. A little disappointed with the KHG tomatoes. 14lbs of ripe or ripening or green-but-my-shears-slipped. Almost all under 2oz, or less. Almost all Early Girls. The two biggest were 6oz. Some didn’t produce at all –they were long leggy things that were just now starting to flower. Another two months of warm weather — say, into mid-December — and I’d have a bumper crop. Also picked the two Delicatas that I’d been letting grow. Except that they didn’t. They came in at 2lb each, about the size and shape of an Acorn squash, only yellow. There’s half a dozen summer squash that I decided to hold off on, plus maybe a dozen KHG tomatoes. So far, the container tomatoes have outproduced the KHG, but I think that’s because they got a lot more sun.

Also made a first pass through the deck containers. About 30 ripe, etc, totalling 4lb.

My foot long beans are now up to three inches. I doubt they make it.  My lemon cucumber (container) produced a myriad of blossoms, and no fruit – it was planted late, as a cabbage replacement. My dwarf watermelon produced one grape-sized melon that I doubt will have a chance to get to be plum sized.

Week Ending	Vegetable	Count	Weight oz	Unit Weight oz	Total	Total Weight lb
9/16 Last Week
	Tomato	44	75	1.7	108	11.5
	Summer	0	0	0	3	1.2
	8-Ball	0	0	0	2	4.5
	Crown	0	0	0	1	2.0
	Cuke	1	9	9	4	2.7
	Beets	22	22	1	22	1.4
	Delicata	1	33	33	1	2.0
Running Total						38lb
9/23 This Week
	Tomato	80	288	3.6	188	29.5
	Summer	0	0	0	3	1.2
	8-Ball	1	39	39	3	7.0
	Crown	0	0	0	1	2.0
	Cuke	0	0	0	4	2.7
	Beets	0	0	0	22	1.4
	Delicata	2	64	32	3	6.0
	Corn	8	22	2.75	8	1.4
	Pumpkin	1	19lb	–	1	(19)
Grand Total						51lb

Green Thumb Up My Nose

Garden Report for 130909

The weather this week started out showery, then rainy, with t-storms. Temps were in the low 80’s, but plunged to 65 by the end of the week.

Here come the tomatoes. Harvested 13 early in the week, with an average weight of 1.7oz. That’s a little misleading, because there were four that ran close to 4oz each, with the rest being cherry-sized, despite not being cherrys. Later in the week I got another 13 tomatoes, totalling 33oz, including a giant 5.5oz one.

Harvested one of the Delicata’s, possibly too soon. It was about two pounds, and the grooves were just turning green. I guess you’re supposed to treat them like pumpkins and let them grow until first frost.

Speaking of pumpkins, I just found a second, bucket-sized one, hidden in the ornamental weeds along the fence. It’s still green all over, but the original one is just starting to turn. I guess it will be ready by Samhain.

For some reason, none, as in zero, of my lettuce replants have come up, as haven’t any of the container beans. Did I plant too greedily and too deep, or did I just not water enough, or too much? One bean came up in my container replant, so I’ve re-sown. Harvest date should be around the first of November.

I think the squash are winning the perennial battle with the tomatoes. They’re spilling out on both sides of the KHG, and on the South end. Over on the North end, one adventuresome vine looks to have grown a couple of feet in a couple of days, headed for Section 4 and the strawberry patch.

The squash were planted on the other side of the tomato bed

The corn is hanging in there, despite having one of the containers tipped over by the t-storms, again. My red pepper spray seems to be helping against the squirrels. I peeked into one ear, and there’s still an inch or so of kernel development needed. Maybe the middle of the month.

The hops are coming along nicely. I figure they’re covering about 15% of the area I want shaded. I have started fertilizing them with the remains of my making of dashi from scratch — a 2×2″ square of seaweed and a quarter cup of shaved bonito (with all the taste gone) per batch. The seaweed gives lots of minerals, and the bonito is a slow release fish fertilizer.

Week Ending	Vegetable	Count	Weight oz	Unit Weight oz	Total	Total Weight lb
9/2 Last Week
	Tomato	10	20	2	27	3.4
	Summer	0	0	0	3	0.8
	8-Ball	0	0	0	2	4.5
	Crown	0	0	0	1	2.0
	Cuke	2	20	10	3	1.6
9/9 This Week
	Tomato	26	56	2.5	53	6.7
	Summer	1	7	7	4	1.2
	8-Ball	0	0	0	2	4.5
	Crown	0	0	0	1	2.0
	Cuke	0	0	0	3	1.6
	Delicata	1	33	33	1	2.0

If my addition is correct, we’ve gotten almost 20lb of harvest so far. I don’t think that’s as much as last year, but it’s more than I thought we’d done. And I’m not even counting the pumpkins.

Green Thumb Up My Nose

Garden Report for 130819

The weather this week was typical for mid-August in the NENW — highs in the mid-80’s and lows in the mid-50’s. No rain, and it probably won’t rain until mid-September.

Early spaghetti, unless they’re Delicata

My efforts to curb the blossom-end rot seem to have worked, and the summer squash is starting to come in. I suspect we’ll be eating one per day before too long. No more 8-ball yet. There’s a couple that are coming along. The spaghetti squash is just starting to produce little thumb-sized yellow fruits (unless it’s the Delicata). Also found one biggish pumpkin in a back corner of the yard.

We’ll have at least one pumpkin for Samhain

Now, which plant did this tomato come from?

tomatoes also starting to ripen — I found four Early Girls (I think) buried under the foliage at one corned of Section 3. I say I think, because even though I recorded where I planted each plant, they’ve kindof grown together.

Harvested the last of the lettuce and I think I’ll let the soil rest for a bit before I put in the winter chard. The Corn I planted in Section 2 is producing heads, and should be ready by early September. The corn I planted in Section 1 (to replace the cabbages) is doing well, and so is the corn I planted in containers on the deck. Maybe late September for them. Speaking of containers, the miniature cucumbers have climbed out of their pot and are now hanging out off the end of the deck.

And finally, the hops are doing well. All bushy at the top and starting to leaf out along the stems. Of course, the worst heat of the year is over, but they’ll still provide a bit of shade, and I have hopes for next year.

Not a lot of shade, but it’s a start