Garden slowdown

The Webmaster's Garden, morning of 8/5/08

The webmaster’s garden has been a pretty quiet place, lately. Sure, some of my veggies have been growing and maturing – I have pulled my shallots and most of my garlic, and I am starting to pull onions. We’ve had a side dish of green beans for dinner once, and there are a few more beans waiting to be picked. Unfortunately, my late start planting combined with the cool weather and torrential rains we’ve been having for the past month or so has not been conducive to plant growth. My tomato plants are smaller than normal and the splash back from the rain has done a number on their bottom leaves; my squash is coming along, but not quite as fast as I’d like it to grow; and, well, I just don’t want to talk about my puny cucumber plants.

Puny cucumber plants under the trellises. (Next year: hills!)

Amazingly, my peppers and eggplant are blooming and looking fairly lush. I think there’s a sweet spot in the garden where I planted most of those – the tomato plant nearest them is also quite vigorous. (So I’ll end up with an abundance of Schemmeig Striped tomatoes – which are hollow like peppers. Maybe I should fill them with bacon, shredded lettuce, croutons, mixed with a little mayo, and enjoy fresh BLTs that way.) I planted a few peppers on the other side of the garden and they just aren’t as big – it’s very odd. Next year: more compost, and somewhat fewer thunderstorms (please). It has been a great year for rainbows.

Busy bee pollinating a squash blossom

Thankfully this week some warm, sunny weather is forecasted – just in time for my vacation. I really hope it gives my tomato plants the jumpstart they need – I usually harvest the bulk of them from September into October anyway (for the past three years, my yard has not received a hard frost until mid-October, and last year it was on Halloween!). So, ever the optimist, I am still hoping for enough heirloom tomatoes so that I can make a big batch of canned salsa. Sure, they take a month to ripen, and right now I probably have enough greenies to make a few capresce salads when they ripen, but my plants will set more fruit.


Leeks, swiss chard, and peppers

OK, so maybe I’m being too optimistic. But that’s why I’m very lucky to work here at Johnny’s, where we have a farm and do product testing that often results in plenty of extra produce. Even though my home cucumber crop will probably be a bust (whatever my internal optimist says), I have been able to bring home enough cukes to fulfill my pickling obsession and fill my cupboard with enough homemade canned goods to last until next summer (even when I give some away as gifts).


Eggplants, peppers, and tomatoes, oh my!

I made 19.5 pints of bread and butter pickles last weekend, and have received even more cukes to make dill pickles and probably another batch of B&Bs. Homemade sweet pickles are the way to go – bread and butter pickles aren’t as sugary as the store bought type, and have a wonderful flavor that always makes me think of summer. They’re sweet and sour, with sugar, vinegar, turmeric, mustard seed, onions and peppers melding with the cucumbers to create a sublime delicousness. Opening a jar of those in the winter and using them to liven up hot dogs and beans, or adding them to tuna salad (I know, it sounds crazy, but it is really yummy), or just nibbling a few out of the jar is one of life’s little pleasures. My family’s (secret) recipe is very similar to the Ball Blue Book of Canning recipe. I also use a couple of different dill pickle recipes from the BBB – it’s tough to go wrong there. Having a book on home canning is very handy, and having an up-to-date one is important, as canning techniques have changed over the years.

Bread and butter pickles, yum yum.

Well, another bright side of having vacation next week is that the garden is growing slowly, and I shouldn't have to deal with any pesky harvesting. Once I can the rest of my cucumbers, I can spend the week at the beach. I sure hope the rain stays away!

Hacking into the Irri-Gator

Every once in a while, my husband accidentally runs something over with the lawn mower, usually because the grass has grown so long we’ve both forgotten what might be under it. Earlier this year he got a little too close to the corner of the garden, and my Irri-Gator pressure regulator ended up under the blades. Thankfully I had a spare one. I kept the remnants of the broken one because one never knows when such things will come in handy. And handy it was!

Before I worked at Johnny’s, I purchased the Irri-Gator system from them, and in my few years of gardening I’ve enjoyed using it. I’ve laid out my garden with it in mind, so all of the rows have tubing along them and all of my plants can get enough water. It is under my black landscaping fabric, which protects it from the UV rays. Watering hasn’t yet been an issue this summer, but it is starting to get hot and we don’t always get a thunderstorm, so I’ve started using it intermittently.

One thing that I like about the Irri-Gator is that I can use my hose timer to just “set it and forget it” (to quote a certain infomercial). One thing that’s always made me wonder, though, is whether there is a way to get the Irri-Gator to distribute liquid fertilizer throughout my garden. Other watering systems offer this option – Johnny’s offers a fertilizer injection system that you can attach to a sprinkler, for example, but the low water pressure used by the Irri-Gator is incompatible with it. So that got me searching on the web. I did find a system that can be hooked into the Irri-Gator or similar systems, but I’m pinching pennies this summer (we’re buying a woodstove and chimney plus cord wood, so we can stop using oil as our sole home heating source) and the $50 plus shipping just seemed like too much for such a simple thing. So I got to thinking – there has to be a way I can fashion such a thing cheaply at home.

I did consider that all of the fertilizer might stay close to where I have the Irri-Gator connected to the hose. I can live with giant onions if that is the case, and I can always reconfigure the attachment to better accommodate other areas of the garden. Other liquids disperse pretty well in water, and I think that the fertilizer will be spread out pretty well through the garden.

A couple of Sundays ago, I wandered my local Agway for a while and found a hose end sprayer which appeared to be made up of component parts that I could separate. The one I chose has a dial on top to regulate the ratio of fertilizer-per-gallon of water that passes through, and it sucks the fertilizer into the water going through the sprayer, rather than mixing the two within the container. I purchased two, just in case I could splice parts and end up with a hose end on both sides, and I also purchased a female-to-male hose adapter, so I could hook it to the system if that worked. I hoped that I could just change some parts around, attach the fertilizer sprayer between the hose and the Irri-Gator’s pressure regulator, and go.

Fertilizer Sprayer, converted
Alas, that did not exactly work out according to plan.

The sprayer I purchased was injection molded plastic, and, while I could get it somewhat apart, the hose attachment end and the sprayer end were firmly attached as one solid piece. However, I found another way as I took it apart. The sprayer nozzle opening, behind the adjustable attachment that allows you to vary the spray, is the perfect size to connect a piece of aquarium air tubing, of which I have plenty for my fish tank. I attached that and dug through my box of Irri-Gator spare parts. I found the broken regulator, which had a male end, which could fasten to the pressure regulator, and had nothing blocking the way for water to flow through in reverse. The broken female end held snug one of the Irri-Gator’s tee connectors, but it did pop back out with little coaxing. To the air tubing I tightly taped a piece of Irri-Gator tubing (sans irrigation holes), and connected that to the other end of the tee. I blocked off the side connection on the tee, as it was unnecessary (I just didn’t have any straight connectors – a straight connector would be perfect for this application, too).

Air Tube Connection
And then I tested. Things went pretty well. I filled the sprayer vessel with TerraCycle’s worm poop liquid fertilizer, which I had left from last summer, and set the sprayer to it’s highest fertilizer:water setting. I turned on the hose and it started going. It worked – but there were a few bugs to work out.

Tee Connection
First of all, the heavy hose tipped the sprayer vessel over when I turned on the water. That was an easy fix – prop it up with some rocks. Then there were some leaks. Water was spurting out from around my tee joint to the broken regulator connection, and also coming out of the broken regulator through a small hole in its side, which probably adjusted for pressure when the regulator was whole. So back to Agway I went.

I returned the extra sprayer and adapter, and picked up a tube of silicone sealant/caulking and a roll of Gorilla Tape. After allowing my Frankenstein sprayer to dry, I caulked the tee into the broken regulator, and caulked the small hole in the regulator. I shortened the length of the Irri-Gator tubing that I’d connected to the air tubing, and re-taped that connection. I let everything dry for a couple of days and tested again.

Connection to the Irri-Gator
It worked pretty well. I adjusted the fertilizer to a lower setting but the uptake wasn’t quite as thorough – there was still quite a bit left in the vessel at the end of my test. Also, the taped connection leaked quite a bit – obviously the tape isn’t the best solution. Next I am going to try caulking that connection and see how that works. There are a few more steps to be taken to perfect my device, but I’m excited – my theory worked, and so far it’s only cost me about $15 plus some old spare parts. And I can forgive my husband for running over the Irri-Gator with the lawn mower.

July already!

Wow, I can't believe it's July already! I've got almost everything planted in the garden, and my beans, squash, and corn are looking good. I do have a flat of lettuce and a flat of leeks waiting for me, but that's it. I got the peppers in (hot and sweet, several varieties of each), and my 45 tomato plants are thriving as much as they can considering that we've been averaging 3 thunderstorms per week lately, complete with downpours. Rain is good for the garden, but an inch in a few minutes can take its toll. Lots of my plants have holes in their bottom leaves from the violent splashback. I haven't noticed any hail but it's not impossible that we had it.

Last week I was in the grocery store when a thunderstorm rolled through. It rained very hard for about half an hour, and when I got out my car was in an eight-inch deep puddle. I had to wade to it - luckily my pants were easy to roll up, and I was wearing waterproof sandals. Here is a (cell phone) picture of the maelstrom at the drain in the parking lot.







We're sure not lacking for rain this summer!

Last Saturday it was barely misting, so I went to a local strawberry farm and picked 25 pounds of berries. Many went into the freezer, but some will be used for strawberry shortcake, and I'm also going to make some nice strawberry jam. It is a good feeling to have lots of strawberries put away for the winter, and having a taste of summer in February is very pleasant indeed.

I hope that everyone has a wonderful Fourth!! I think I'll be buying my peas this year, since things are behind in my own garden. Thankfully there are lots of farms in central Maine, so I'll just take advantage of what they've grown.

Corn and cucumbers, so far

Whoops, time got away from me! When summer showed up last weekend and really drove the garden guilt into high gear. The tomato plants have been patiently waiting for me during this time, and are now hardened off and ready to go in the ground. After my hectic weekend I was exhausted, and just happy to come into work and sit under the air conditioning vent and mouse around doing my job. I also used every muscle in my body to excess (note to self: wait for husband to get home before you move the chest freezer or other heavy appliances) and needed a little rest. Going home in the heat after work did not preclude getting out into the yard, I’m afraid. Finally, last night, after some more reasonable spring weather arrived, I got some direct seeding done in my own garden. Also, weeding was completed, last year’s tomato plants torn up (with the help of my husband), and cucumber seeds and some corn seeds were planted.

Last Saturday I helped a friend put in her garden, and we had a wonderful time hanging out for the rest of the day. Sunday I had a lot of household stuff to do in preparation for visitors at my house (happy birthday sis!), so I never got to any work in my own garden. During the “lets hang around outside” phase of the birthday party I did get the irrigation system hitched up (it’s set up underneath my “I don’t have time to weed” garden fabric, and rows are set up along it so every plant gets plenty to drink right at root level, to prevent fungus growing on wet leaves. I know its a little OC…). Luckily, it had only come apart in a couple of spots, and it was a pleasure to fix the geysers on such a hot night. I set my automatic timer to water it nightly, which may seem excessive, but our soil has super drainage and the onions have grown quite a bit this week alone.

I sure hope that no relations of the pesky chipmunk who made our garden home last summer show up this year. That chipmunk systematically ate every squash, cucumber, and corn seed I planted, and dug up the beans and left them on top of the soil because they weren’t tasty enough, apparently. He is now in chipmunk heaven, and I hope that none of you think less of me for it. I tried bribing him first with some delicious sunflower seeds, but apparently his appetite was insatiable. I finally figured out what was going on and got all of my seeds replanted in mid-July, and had to buy cucumbers to make my pickles. This year I don’t want to have to do that.

So goals for tonight and tomorrow (before I head south for familial obligations) I want to get more seeds planted (squash, beans, and more corn), and get tomatoes, peppers, and eggplants in the ground. I am probably deluding myself in thinking I can get 80 seedlings planted tomorrow, but I can try!

The Perfect Sunday

It is so nice to stay home for one day on the weekend to catch up on all of those things that need doing in the garden. After spending Saturday at a family party, we came home to a pile of work on Sunday, which we started promptly after brunch. I didn't get everything on my list done, but my little fruit trees are planted, and I got a bunch of seeds in the ground, and did some weeding in our big perennial bed.

I am very lucky to have a recently deceased elm tree in my yard. I know it sounds odd, why would anyone want a dead tree? Well, I'm lucky that it has been infected with the fungus that produces morel mushrooms! I know, I sound crazy for eating mushrooms I found growing in my backyard, but I did my research, and apparently I've lived to tell the tale. (NOTE: I am not encouraging the reader to go out and willy-nilly eat wild mushrooms you might find. Please do some research!) I sauteed several morels in butter and we had those with our comforting Sunday supper of cube steak, twice-baked potatoes, and salad. They were absolutely heavenly! There are a few morels in my crock pot right now, simmering with a nice pot roast, carrots, potatoes, onions, garlic, and fresh herbs from the garden. There isn't much better than coming home to dinner all ready to eat.

This week I need to divide my tomato, eggplant, and pepper seedlings, and pot them up for planting and sharing. I have some more seeds to plant, and some strawberry plants, as well as potatoes. I'm afraid the taters won't be planted in their special wire container until next week. Aaah, Memorial Weekend, time for some fishing! Hope you all enjoy it!!

Not enough time in the day

Well, they say that the road to you-know-where is paved with good intentions. Will I end up in that hot place for not having planted my garden on time? I did get the onions and shallots into the ground last week, but I haven’t had time to plant any of my seeds. I’m definitely breaking the “plant your peas by tax day” rule – the IRS may give extensions, but Mother Nature typically doesn’t. I had plenty of free weekends all winter long, but when spring shows up, it’s time for graduations and their related parties, family get-togethers, fishing trips, etc., etc. ad infinitum. I do hope that I’ll have a free minute after Memorial Day to plant my tomato seedlings. I plant 40 tomato plants, all of which I started from seed back in March, and most of them are different heirloom varieties (there are a couple of hybrids in there, and a couple of duplicates; Black Krim is my favorite so I plant two of those).

So tonight after work I’m going to get some seeds in the ground. It’s another beautiful Maine day and there’s no reason not to! I also picked up a few perennials to put into a couple of small gardens I have around the yard. I am so tempted by those poor lonely pots at the nurseries, I have to bring them home. I will probably have to dig holes for them with a crowbar; I’m definitely guilty of overcrowding the beds.

Yesterday in the mail I had a surprise – the tree saplings I ordered from the Arbor Day society arrived. (You can get some wicked deals on trees there – membership is around $15 a year, and the trees are cheap. This is my first experience with them so I will pass along updates as my trees grow.) I got a few dwarf fruit trees: peaches, cherries, and plums. That’s another task for this weekend, if I’m home during any daylight hours. I’m very glad that my husband is willing to dig holes when he isn't fishing! I am a canning fool, and the thought of home-grown fruit for my various canning recipes thrills me to no end. Ah yes, but the trees have to grow to produce fruit. Which means I have to find time to plant them.

Is anybody out there as far behind as I am? Where do you get stuck this time of year? Is there anything (besides time) that would make your life easier in the gardening department?

the webmaster's garden

Tonight after work I’m going to start planting my vegetable garden. This will be my fourth season gardening at my own home. For most of my life I have gardened in some capacity. Sometimes I’ve only had houseplants, but as a kid I often helped my parents weed and harvest their huge vegetable garden. I’ve planted bulbs, trees, and perennials with my mom, and one of my earliest growing experiences was planting a tiny vegetable garden (using leftover seeds) at the end of the dirt driveway at age 6, with my little sister. Needless to say those seeds sprouted and that’s about it.

When I learned about vegetables (besides peas) that you can plant early in the season, I was very excited. We always put our whole garden in around Memorial Day, but I’m very happy to know that I can get a jump on things and enjoy early season veggies. We’ve already had homegrown salad here at Johnny’s; the farm folks brought some beautiful, delicious greens, radishes, and pea shoots to our last team lunch. I don’t own a farm though, and spend my days in front of a computer, so my garden is a little behind. Thank goodness I planted garlic last fall or there wouldn't be anything green in there!

My goal for this evening is to plant onion sets and shallots (which I bought here at Johnny’s), and to direct seed one or more of the following: peas, radishes, beets, spinach, Swiss chard, broccoli, cauliflower, cabbage, and pak choi. It’s tough to drive home after work and then work some more, but it is a beautiful day and I do love my garden. Maybe it won’t rain this coming weekend and I can get some more done, but I’m not going to bank on that. I’d better get it done while the weather’s nice. I’d work in the rain but I don’t want to compact my soil, nor do I enjoy getting muddy.

The weather is still chilly at night for tender plants, but perennials are well on their way out of the ground. In my neck of the woods, my tulips are just starting to bloom, and the first daffodils are going by already. My oregano, sage, chives, and thyme came back and I used some of them in a nice meatloaf on Sunday. The rhubarb is on its way up, and I can’t wait for that first pan of rhubarb crisp. I may even have enough to put up some rhubarb jam or sauce.

I am so glad that spring has come to central Maine. We had so much snow this winter, and with the price of heating oil, nice weather couldn’t arrive soon enough. Now I have to bide my time for planting tomatoes and other warm weather garden plants, but if I can stay motivated to do some work tonight I’ll have a great start.

Daria Walton, Webmaster