End of Summer Garden

The prime garden season is quickly coming to a close. It's October 12, and we still haven't had a frost yet, but there are only a couple of tomatoes left to pick, and I just picked the rest of the peppers and eggplants. Even the pumpkins and squash are starting to wind down. I still have some things planted for the fall garden; Brussels sprouts, kale, parsnips and lettuce are still going strong, but they just don't have the appeal of a nice ripe tomato. Hopefully within the next couple of days I can muster enough enthusiasm to create a little synopsis of the summer garden, so I have a list of things that went right and things that went wrong. Overall, it was certainly a success. It produced more vegetables than I could eat, and it kept me busy for most of the summer. It definitely gave me an experience to build off of for my next garden.

Preservation

I'm definitely at the point where the garden is producing more than we can eat on any given day. It's not an extreme overabundance, but unless we want to eat zucchini six times a day; We need to find ways to preserve it. The serious preservation project will come when the tomatoes start to come on a little stronger, but for now, we're doing a little bit of freezing, and a little bit of pickling.

The freezing was very simple. Some people online were suggesting doing a few things to the zucchini before freezing it, but a number of people said it can easily be shredded and froze, with no additional preparation. After picking and scrubbing all of the zucchini and yellow squash; I brought out the food processor, and attached the shredding blade. That made the process quite easy. I generally use the shredded zucchini to make zucchini pancakes. That's a savory dish that resembles hash browns more than zucchini bread, which is also an excellent use of shredded zucchini.
The turnip crop was another one that was starting to wear me down. I really like turnips, but it can be exhausting coming up with different ways to cook them. They were starting to get too big, and I didn't want them to start to get woody and flavorless, so I yanked them all out, and found a nice pickling recipe in my favorite cookbook, How to Cook Everything Vegetarian: Simple Meatless Recipes for Great Food. His recipe for Three-Day Pickles is a nice simple refrigerator pickle recipe. It can be used on just about anything. I used it on the turnips, and mom used a similar one on the cucumbers.

• 2 lbs. of vegetable
• 6 tbs. salt (kosher or sea)
• 2 c. white vinegar
• 1/4 c. sugar
• 1/4 c. pickling spice.

Slice the vegetables up, and put 2 tbs. salt on them; letting them sit for two hours. Rinse them, and pat them dry. Put remaining ingredients in a sauce pan and bring it to boil. Let it cool for a couple of minutes than pour it over the vegetables (I also included some fresh chillies for a little kick) and let it cool to room temperature. Transfer them to an airtight jar, and put them in the fridge. They can be eaten in three days, and will keep for three weeks.

Problems in the Garden

Overall, I've been exceptional happy with the early results of my garden's production. I've already eaten many pounds of produce, and flavored many meals with my herbs. Even so, I am a novice gardener, and I was bound to run into some problems. I'm hoping I can solve some of these with internet solutions, or others will work themselves out. I am a little worried about my tomato plants. While they all look very healthy on top, and have many blossoms and green tomatoes, there is some yellowing of leaves on lower limbs.

On the web, there are many potential explanations of this phenomenon. Over watering is one explanation. That seems unlikely. This happened during a dry spell, and while I was watering regularly, the soil did not look over watered. Hopefully, it's simply the result of healthy plants with too many branches to provide nutrients for. Apparently, it's not uncommon for lower level leaves on tomato plants to yellow and die, especially while producing tomatoes. For now, I'm just going to keep my eye on it, and hope for the best.

My cucumbers also have some yellowing and browning in the leaves.

Like the tomatoes, there are many potential explanations for the cause. It could possibly be a fungus. Because I'm trying to go organic, I'm going to let the plant try to fight it off on it's own. If I knew for sure it was a fungus, and what to use to combat it, I would just go ahead and use the fungicide, but since I'm in doubt, I'll continue to go the organic route.

Probably the most disappointing (so far (fingers crossed), if my tomato crop goes down that would be devastating) is the browning of my cauliflower heads. One of them was so bad that it had to go straight to the compost pile, and the other just had a couple of spots on it, so I cooked it up and it was good. This is disappointing, because I only had a couple of cauliflower plants.

I don't know what happened. It could have been the string of 90 degree days we had. The reason I didn't notice it earlier is because I had been blanching the cauliflower with the leaves. Blanching is the process of folding the leaves over the head, so it doesn't get any sun. This is supposed to improve the flavor and the texture. If I can find some more seeds I've going to plant some more cauliflower to harvest in the fall. I'm going to have to do a little more research before they start producing a head, so I can avoid this situation in the future.

Harvest is Gaining Momentum

I'm starting to have a hard time keeping up with the garden's production. This is a very nice problem to have, and I'll enjoy it while it lasts, because my supply of root vegetables (with the exception of potatoes) is dwindling. I did plant some more turnips and beets a couple of weeks ago, so hopefully, I'll have another round of root vegetables coming up. For the time being, I've been pulling up lots of turnips, beets, carrots, and onions. I don't know if I'll ever be able to construct an entire dinner with ingredients  solely from the garden, because I'll never be making my own vegetable oil or salt. Nevertheless, I'm beginning to make meals that are made mostly from vegetables and herbs from the garden. Most recently I made Cheesy Turnips and Carrots a recipe I got from my favorite online recipe source, allrecipes.com. It's a simple recipe that enabled me to use turnips, carrots, onions, and celery from the garden.

In addition to that dish, I made beet and goat cheese gratin from my favorite cookbook, How to Cook Everything Vegetarian: Simple Meatless Recipes for Great Food by Mark Bittman. Like everything I cook, it's simple and healthy. After roasting the beets in advance, I tossed them in olive oil and salt and pepper. I then put them in a baking dish and sprinkled fresh time on them (from my herb garden, of course). Then I crumbled some goat cheese over the top, and put it under the broiler for about 5 minutes.

With the potatoes coming on strong, I hope my first round of root vegetables will last me until the tomatoes start coming on in a couple of weeks. Right now, the plants are loaded with green tomatoes and blossoms, so it looks like it's going to be a great crop.

Harvest Time

Even though I do enjoy all the work I do in the garden, it's the harvest that makes it all worth while. So far I've been able to grab a bunch of radishes here, a handful of peas there, or a few leaves of lettuce for a salad, but until today, I haven't been able to make a meal out of a harvest. I pulled out 9 turnips (about 3 pounds worth), and I still have a little over a dozen left (plus the seedlings I just planted).

I used them to cook braised and glazed turnips from Mark Bittman's How to Cook Everything Vegetarian: Simple Meatless Recipes for Great Food. Like most of Bittman's recipes it's quite simple:

• 2 tbs. butter/oil
• 1 lbs. turnips
• 1/2 c. vegetable stock
• Salt & pepper
• Lemon juice
• Chopped parsley

Combine butter, turnips, stock, and S&P. Bring to a boil, turn it down and let it simmer until the turnips are tender (15-20 min.).

Uncover and raise the heat until almost all the liquid has boiled off. Turn off the heat and garnish with the lemon juice and chopped parsley.

Herb Garden

Vegetables provide the sustenance, but herbs provide the zest. This year, I'm going all-out on zestiness. I've got herbs located in about a half-a-dozen different locations. To the left here is my little herb garden in front of the greenhouse. The bushy plant in front is chamomile. It's flowers can be used to make tea. Behind it are basil and cilantro. Basil and cilantro are herb all-stars. I use basil in every pasta dish I make, and I use it in large quantities. Likewise, I use cilantro in every Mexican dish I make, and of course salsa. Italian and Mexican dishes lend themselves well to my style of eating. I care about three things when I prepare a meal. It has to be relatively simple. It has to be healthy, and it has to be tasty. Mexican and Italian dishes work for me, because they use recognizable ingredients. I can usually leave meat out of them, and most importantly, I can load them up with vegetables. Next to the greenhouse, in a pot I have a little bit of mint. My mint didn't germinate too well, so I should probably get some more seeds started pretty soon. Mint is another of my favorite herbs. It will allow me to impress my Sanilac County friends with my Mojito making skills. In addition to those, I planted some chives, dill (I also have some dill next to my cukes), marjoram, and thyme around a bird bath, just south of the basement wall. I would've liked to have some rosemary as well, but it didn't germinate. I don't use those herbs as much, but I do use them occasionally, and just having the opportunity to smell them once in a while makes the minimal amount of effort I've put towards planting them all worthwhile.

Just in case I didn't plant enough basil and cilantro in front of the greenhouse, I planted a few rows of it in the garden. I planted a couple rose of basil in front of the tomatoes, a row of cilantro in front of the peppers, and a few parsley plants (they didn't germinate real well) alongside the peppers.

I almost forgot to mention, almost a third of our back lawn is oregano. Mom planted it one year, and it became invasive. For the most part, we just mow it down, like we would do to grass, but we've let one little section of it grow. I hope my basil and cilantro shares its ambition.

Starting to Produce

It's very satisfying to see a little production from the garden. So far, it's come in the form of a couple of veggies to snack on while I'm in the garden. I've eaten a handful of peas, and a few radishes. I planted radishes from two different seed packets. The Burpee radishes have been very uninspiring, with skinny little roots, but the package I bought from Lowes is producing some plump little radishes.

I'll probably harvest the rest of that row sometime this week and make a nice little salad. I still have a month or so before my staple vegetables start producing, but the reassurance offered by my early producers is comforting. I'm hoping my cool weather crops, like cauliflower, Brussels sprouts, and cabbage start producing relatively soon. The plants certainly look healthy, and have been growing away.

 My potato plants won't be producing for a while, but they are looking very healthy. As they continue to grow, I will continue to mound straw up around them in order to protect the young taters from sun poisoning.

 My tomato and pepper transplants mostly look healthy, and I even have a few little maters growing. We've been getting a lot of rain around here, but I'm going to transplant my eggplants on the next warm sunny day we get. According to the weather, that could be tomorrow.

Tomatoes

The tomatoes have been transplanted. On May 26, mom and I transplanted 10 Bloody Butcher's, 10 Big Boy's, 4 Sweet Million's, 4 Red Currant's, and 4 Cherry Bambino's. That's about a week earlier than we would normally do it, but it's been so warm, and the 10 day forecast looks promising, so if everything goes according to plan, there should be no shortage of tomatoes at the Rheaume homestead this summer.

 We will be waiting another week or so before transplanting the eggplants and peppers. The garden has been doing some serious growing in this warm weather, and the peas are starting to blossom.

All we are waiting for now is a nice rain shower. It rained about every day for a week earlier in the month, but it hasn't rained since then, and we've had a lot of hot weather. I've been watering them once or twice a day, and we have a lot of clay in our soil, so it has good moisture retention, but they're ready for a nice saturating rain. There's a 50% chance of rain on Memorial day, so I'm keeping my fingers crossed.

Cardboard Sidewalk & Bean Teepee

Two weeks ago, the big gardening infrastructure project was putting up the snow fence to protect from the deer, and to a lesser extent, the rabbits. Last week, I laid down some cardboard to mark a walking path, and to keep the weeds down. For now, I have to way it down with rocks. This is somewhat inconvenient, because it makes pushing the wheelbarrow through the garden somewhat challenging. I'm hoping once the cardboard gets packed down, I can remove a number of rocks.

 I also built a teepee for my beans. We put it on an area next to the garden where we've been stacking our compost for the last forever. It will be interesting to see what effect it has on the beans. What the teepee lacks in symmetry, it makes up for in functionality. It has five poles, and I planted about 7 beans around each pole. Dad and I will have to make some adjustments with the snow fence in order to protect the beans from the deer and rabbits. Originally, I thought I would put up two teepees for the beans, but mom planted some bush beans in the garden, and I have about 35 bean plants planted around the teepee, so I might use the space next to it for my broccoli.

Coming Along

After I arrived a couple of weeks ago, we had a string of terrible weather after a couple of days of decent weather. It was about 40 and rainy every day. That weather was not conducive to germination. Finally, we've strung together some warm and sunny days, and it really shows in the garden. So far, I've got turnips (picture below), peas, spinach, radishes, and carrots sprouting in the garden, along with the some potatoes and onions.
 
I'm still waiting on the beets and parsnips. The cabbages, Brussels sprouts, cauliflower, and peas that mom planted have really started to grow. The lettuce on the east side of the house is growing slowly, but looking healthy. Except for my broccoli which germinated almost immediately, all my other seeds except for sage are just now coming on strong; cilantro, parsley, eggplant, basil, and chamomile.

With all the sun, I've been watering like crazy. Especially since we got that extra length of hose, so I can spray the garden directly using the wand, rather than fill up the watering cans, and walk another 20-30 yards to the garden. I am worried a little bit about using our tap water, because it's so hard, and a little salty, but all the seeds germinated using it, and I've talked to other people who've used it, so hopefully it'll be ok. I don't have much choice. We do have a barrel for collecting rainwater, but there's not enough of it, and there's no way to realistically transport it from the house to the garden.

All in all, I'm cautiously optimistic about the garden at this point. It's growing, and starting to take shape. I've already put a number of things in there, and I still have some transplants to put in after the first of June (if I can wait that long).

Week 2 To Do

To start my second week home I was greeted with a May 10 frost, but it did turn into a beautifully crisp spring day afterwords. For the rest of the week, it's going to be cold and damp until the weekend, when it's supposed to warm back up into the sixties, and possibly seventies by next week. Besides regular maintenance of checking on my seeds and plants, I've got a few special projects going this week. One that I'm excited about is trying to get my dad's bike back up and running with the help of the Bike Forums I think I figured out what tool I need, and the part to replace the broken freewheel. I ordered them from Amazon, so they should both be here this week. If I get it fixed, I'll describe it in a more detailed post.

I also started working on a three box system for the compost. Using the chicken coop as a backstop I've got three walls up, so it's kind of a 2 box system. I'd like to find one more board to use as a fourth wall, so we can stop using the garbage can altogether. I'm also going to be building a couple of tee-pee trellises for my pole beans to climb. I've located some long ash limbs. Now, I need to cut them and get them in place.

The chicken coop is looking a little abandoned, so I've got to start getting it ready. On Monday the 17, Uncle Paul and I are going to head to the stockyards, and pick up a few laying hens.
Work begets work, so I'm sure I'll discover a few more projects while working on those I've already got planned. To wrap this up on a positive note, I got my finally grades back, so I've officially got the 36 credits I need to graduate. I'm now a certified Master Librarian, or masterbrarian as I like to call myself.

Week 1 Recap

May 3 was a beautiful day, and I got sunburned on my first day in Michigan. I got a chance to help my dad plant 100 Russian Olives, and starting prepping my garden. The next couple of days weren't quite as beautiful. There was a chill to the air, but at least it was sunny. I got some carrots, turnips, parsnips, radishes, beats, peas, potatoes, and onions sowed in the garden. I also started some broccoli, chamomile, cilantro, mint, basil, and sage in the greenhouse. The broccoli germinated within a couple of days, and I have a bunch of healthy looking seedlings. The chamomile germinated shortly after. The basil and cilantro are just now showing some signs of life. Nothing in the garden has sprouted up yet. Since those first couple of beautiful days we've had some nasty, cold, wet weather. On the morning of May 10 there was frost. That's probably slowing down the germination process. I thought I had some beets sprouted up, but then noticed similar looking sprouts in a handful of other rows, so it's probably just a weed. The germination process always makes me nervous, because I can't see what's going on. Almost everything in the garden right now is a root vegetable, and I'll be planting them throughout the year, so I've got all summer to get it right. If anything does grow, dad and I got the snow fence up to protect the veggies from the dear. We're still working on a plan to keep the rabbits out.

Getting Started

My mom was a major help lying the foundation for me, but the work is just getting started. Mom has already started the tomatoes, peppers, cauliflower, Brussels sprouts, cabbage, lettuce, and peas. We still need to wait a few more weeks before transplanting the warm weather crops and sowing some of the others like squash, melons, cucumbers and beans, but there are some herb seeds I wanted to get started in the greenhouse, as well as some frost resistant crops I wanted to sow directly.

My first step was to sow some basil, parsley, mint, broccoli, and sage in some seed trays. I put them all in there with some nice store bought top soil, labeled them, and loosely covered them with a garbage bag to retain the moisture. I then put them in the greenhouse to keep them nice and warm. It's now been a couple of days, and the broccoli is already popping up.
My next project was to sow some of the frost resistant crops in the garden. Mostly these are root vegetables which are some of my favorites. I've got beets, turnips, carrots, potatoes, radishes and parsnips. I'm already learning as I go. I planted the first couple of rows by digging trenches and then covering them with our garden soil. Our soil is well worked, but it does have a bit too much clay in it, so I was worried about stifling the plants by covering them with even a thin layer of clay. I told my mom about it, and she said I should use the composted manure we have behind the house to cover them. I will be interested to see how big of a difference it makes.
I also wanted to give a little tlc to the frost resistant crops that mom already transplanted. I went out there and covered the soil with newspaper, and covered it with straw. I hope this will help keep the weeds down, and keep the soil moist.

Mom the Helper

I would not have been able to do this experiment without the help of my mom. While I was in Miami, she got a bunch of seeds ready for me in her green house, and even planted some of the frost resistant plants in the garden.

Reacclimation

I've been back to Deckerville, Michigan for a few days now, and I'm starting to settle into my decision to leave my librarian job in Miami for a summer of working with my hands in The Thumb. This had always been my plan. I was going to attend the University of South Florida, getting my Master's Degree, while working as a librarian in Miami. I never really wavered from the plan, but I was suffering from some anxiety when it came down to crunch time. In making the decision, I was making an important investment in my future based on my socio-economic world view, and the prognostications that stem from it. I believe we are on an unsustainable path in this country, and our castle of wealth is really a house of cards. A consumer based economy, entitlement culture, personal and public debt, and a potential energy crisis are converging to make the continuation of the status quo to be unlikely. I don't know what's going to happen. I don't know what the fallout will look like, but I do think it's important to develop some skills that will allow me to survive in a failed state. These skills include anything that will allow me to produce and manage tangible products, because the days of us selling each other goods, made in China will be over.

My delusions don't extend far enough to lead me to believe, I'll be able to support myself with a backyard garden in The Long Emergency America. Nevertheless, the mental preparation, and hands on experience will put me ahead of the game in a nation of sleepwalking consumers. I don't know whats going to happen, and I don't know where this little living experiment will lead me, but the mystery and the challenge are what makes it worthwhile.