September 29, 2011
Bishop
Beans, Gardening, mulching, Vegetables
asparagus, beans, beets, carrots, gardening, lettuce, vegetables
A week or so away from a fresh green bean
Today we had a nice line of storms come through and bless us with about a half of an inch of rain. Now we are only about 21.5 inches behind. Even better is the fact that a front hits tomorrow and our temperatures will drop significantly! The stress from the heat has been a real pain in the butt! Some of my attempts to direct seed have worked and others are not doing so well. Most of the lettuces are not showing up. I will reseed them over the weekend. The old reliable, the radishes are flourishing as are the beets, turnips, carrots and peas – well most of the peas….
The previously planted pole beans are climbing and now blossoming. I have zucchini beginning to develop and the bush cucumbers may actually produce before it gets too cold. I munched on some late sprouting asparagus shoots this week. Wow, so sweet straight from the garden.
Rain, rain come and stay!
Seeing the water gushing down and out the drain is a good thing. Haven’t seen much of that since early spring. Forecast is for another chance tomorrow. Fingers are crossed, prayers made and maybe, just maybe we will put a small dent into this lingering drought. I will do my part and gather the neighbor’s leaves and shred them for leaf mulch/mold. They must think I am nuts when I go up and down the street gathering leaves……Am I nuts? – Don’t answer that!
August 24, 2011
Bishop
Beans, Gardening, mulching, Solarizing, Vegetables
asparagus, beans, environmentally friendly, gardening, grass clippings., mulching, peppers, tomatoes
Compare the garden beds from the “Too Much Sweat” post to now. A lot is going on. On the right hand side I am about 3 weeks into the solarizing effort to eradicate the Bermuda grass….. I hope! The left side is beginning to show signs of life. I have a nice Serrano Pepper Plant with lots of blossoms. A squash plant is emerging, the pole beans are beginning to climb and I have
three fall tomato plants struggling against the heat. In the background my asparagus ferns are cranking a ton of energy back into the roots for storage. I am so looking forward to the bounty of spears for next year;
“From these “ferns”, the mature plant manufactures food and stores it in “storage roots.” This reserve supplies the energy necessary to produce spears the following year.”
Click on the photos to see them in larger size.
I am mulching like crazy. I have been using the grassclippings and a big pile of leaves left over from the fall collection to conserve moisture. We are on mandatory water restriction here in Kingwood now. We are over 20” of rain behind for the year.
I am still sweating though. Between the beds I am poring 2’X2’ squares of rock looking concrete. The mold handles about all of an 80# sack of cement. I am adding a buff color for grins and have to say that it should look nice when done. The pouring and finishing of the squares sucks the water out of the body! I sweat through one T-shirt per square.
I am always amazed at how the beans always twist the same direction when they climb. Yesterday I swear that the two climbing now grew 6 inches overnight. My guess is that I will pick beans before the end of September. That will be the second crop for the year. I love fresh green beans. We sure could use some help for rain……please, dance, chant or pray for rain……even nice thoughts will be appreciated!
TTFN
Bishop
August 6, 2011
Bishop
Composting, Gardening, Vegetables
asparagus, beans, compost, gardening, tomatoes, vegetables
I lost count of the T-shirt changes to get my garden make into some sort of change, but, it is well above 25. I went a little beyond but it will be worth it down the road. I pulled out the old 2X4’s used for the raised beds and went with 5/4X6 corral board to give me a little extra depth.
Rented a roto-tiller to speed the process up and sweated like a big dog. I worked some aged compost in both beds while I was at it. The right hand bed was the worst of the worst of the 4 for Bermuda grass invasion. I pulled out a huge pile of Bermuda grass and roots. Unbelievable how the roots run. Next week I will tightly cover this bed with clear plastic and “solarize” the weeds – i.e., kill them without toxins….. I like a chemical free garden for my veggies.
I have planted two tomato plants visible in the far left bed. They have been in for 4 days and seem to be handling the heat pretty well. I will add some fall potatoes in the day or so to this same bed. I have wanted to experiment with trying to grow some fall potatoes. I have about a pound of fingerling potatoes, cut and scabbed – ready to go in the ground. All of the commercial sellers look to be sold out so I am using store bought….. Not the best choice but it is just a $3.00 experiment.
I you look to the far back right in the photo you can see the dense growth of asparagus ferns. It appears that I should have a great harvest next year. I added a handful of 2 year old crowns the the existing bed in an effort to create a long term asparagus bed. If managed well this bed should produce for 20 years or more.
I also planted two mounds of zucchini squash. I have never had any luck but heard that if started in the heat of summer I may avoid the dreaded squash beetles. The other tip I heard was to plant hundreds with the likelihood the beetles will get some but not all of the vines. Well, my beautiful and loving wife has not approved the land purchase so I will be forced into plan C, D of F as I try my squash growing skills. The poles you see on the left will support my Kentucky Wonder pole beans. I love fresh green beans and they seem to produce well here in the Hoston area.
TTFN
Bishop
July 28, 2011
Bishop
Composting, Gardening, Vegetables
asparagus, compost, cucumbers, garden, gourds, peppers, tomatoes, vegetables
A month away from the garden and strange things happen! My
daughter Ashleigh is to be commended for her diligent hand watering of my
backyard patch. So, thank you Ashleigh. As a result the cucumbers survived the
brutal July heat, the tomatoes limped along, the asparagus ferns look stout,
the eggplant did well, but the real stars were the gourds. Wow is all I can
say! They literally overran the garden, over the fence and up the wall of the
garage.
The weight of the big gourds pulled my Creole tomatoes to the
ground and smothered the vines. Up until we left on vacation the Creaole vines were prolific producers. The upside is that I have some very interesting and very large
gourds for ?????????????? Maybe our friend Beverly can think of a themed
painting scheme to go along with the shapes.
The 150 strawberry plants I put in the ground the first of June all perished before we left on vacation. I will try a fall planting to see if I can get them well established prior to next summer’s heat hits. I would sure like to get a few of those Santa Maria patented varieties. The problem is the minimum order is 10,000 plants……. Just a few more than I need. I have considered hiring one of the midnight suppliers to rustle up a dozen or so. I could then begin propagating my own! Dangerous but it could be worth the effort.
Started the garden clean up yesterday – it is going to be a lot of work. Managed to get the gourds and vines out – just a two t-shirt day. Piled them up and shredded the vines with the mower before putting them into compost bin today. Today I pulled out 5 past their prime tomato vines and transplanted a bell pepper over into one of my wine barrels. I tidied up some drooping cucumber vines, pulled a bunch of weeds, gathered up some new red potatoes that I nearly forgot about and made a cucumber salad with blackberry balsamic vinegar. All in all a good day.
It will probably be another few more days before I can display the after pictures. I promise that they will be PG rated, suitable for all gardeners.
(click on an image to enlarge)
TTFN
Bishop
April 20, 2011
Bishop
berrries, Canning, Gardening, jam and jelly, Mason bees
asparagus, beans, beets, berries, blackberries, cucumbers, gardening, strawberries, strawberry jam, tomatoes, worms
I think my wife really does love me. I was out of town on a job in the Midland and Lubbock areas of West Texas and unable to tend to my gardening chores. I flew home early last Saturday morning and she surprised me with a big basket of my home grown strawberries. Wow, what a gal!!!! I finished filling one of the 1 gallon freezer bags already partially filled in the freezer and started a new bag. I need to make another batch of jam this week and may fill the next bag by the end of the week….. I will be swimming in my heavenly strawberry jam – Yum!!!!
Today was a partial day in the garden and I only sweated through one T-shirt. I weeded, watered and finished pulling up the last of my Detroit Red beets. I still have a very beautifully leafed beet variety that I forgot the name of yet to harvest. Very nice looking tops and we will see about the beet taste soon. I made a pickled beet recipe today to eat like a cold salad – it is pretty tasty.
I used about 3 + cups of skinned and sliced up roasted beets. FYI – drop the hot roasted beets in ice water and the skins nearly remove themselves. I boiled ¾ cup of cider vinegar and ¾ cup of beet juice….. I poured almost a cup of hot water over the beets in a bowl to make the beet juice. Once that mixture was boiling I added 2 tbs. sugar, 2 whole cloves, 3 whole black peppercorns, a bay leaf, about ¾ tsp. of sea salt and about a cup of chopped red onion. Brought it back to a boil and poured over the beets. Refrigerated for a couple of hours and man, they are pretty darned good! Recipe is almost exactly like one I found in allrecipes.com. Great recipe resource!
Updates;
The Mason Bees. They are rapidly depositing eggs and filling the tubes. I have about 11 of the tubes filled and sealed. Should have quite a few more next season.
The worms. I checked on the poor guys Saturday when I returned and they were trying to escape. I had neglected both the food they need and the bedding necessary for their comfort. I was able to feed them a big a big batch of strawberry parts and tops – see the comments about my lovely wife above, some old bread, beet cuttings and other veggie scraps….. They seem to be back to work and not complaining now.
My Green Beans. The Kentucky Pole beans are leaping and now blossoming. The bush beans look to be on the same time table.
Asparagus. Slowing down and will let them fern out. I put some Martha Washington in a few weeks ago and they are sprouting.
Tomatoes. Slow but setting fruit….except my Brandywine – I do have a few blossoms on one but I have my fingers crossed. The Juliet tomatoes and Creole tomatoes are doing well.
Cucumbers. I put up twine to let them climb this morning….part of the sweaty shirt stuff. My cucumbers in my friends backyard ( I put a 4×4 patch in his yard) are blossoming and way ahead of mine! Grrrrrrrrrrr.
Enough for now, hopefully blackberry news soon!
Bishop
March 25, 2011
Bishop
Composting, Gardening, Vegetables
asparagus, beans, beets, berries, blackberries, chard, cucumbers, peppers, strawberries, swiss chard, tomatoes, worms
Well the harvest is ramping up and it appears I may have some competition. My wife snapped a picture of a night raider hanging out by our backdoor. We have seen him, or a relative, making regular treks out from the garden area near the midnight hour on several occasions. I see the tracks but no evidence of thievery yet.
I have had some brussel sprouts off the crowns and now the side shoots are plumping up, yummy beets and beet greens, asparagus for the first time, the strawberries are really producing and vey sweet and my dwarf Meyer lemon is blossoming and producing.
The green beans are really starting to crawl up the poles and the bush beans are 4-6 inches tall. My swiss chard is a little slow this year but 2 or 3 plants will overwhelm us (really just me… Kathy won’t eat it) Cucumbers are really slow this year…. may have to replant the armenian variety as well as the pickling variety. It is still pretty early in the season so I am not worried. My tomatoes are in the ground – the Brandywine tomatoes are absolutley the best tasting but they do not seem to be responding well. Fed them some fish emulsion today to help them along. The Roma, Creole, Mortgage Lifter and Juliet are doing well as are the peppers and eggplants.
I made a cold pasta salad with roasted beets, beet greens and penne pasta last week and it was pretty good. It was my made up recipe but lacked a little for seasoning/complimentary flavors so I will experiment again. Just picked some very nice beets this morning while bringing in the morning’s strawberries and asparagus harvest. I will try again over the weekend if I just don’t eat the roasted beets as they come out of the oven.
Kathy took excellent care of my green babies while I slaved away in Dallas this week. She won’t pull weeds but she does a nice job of watering and picking….. even froze a bunch of berries so I can make jam a little late this springr. My blackerries are beginning to leaf out so the May harvest may be a very good one.
The worms were fed today and they said hi to all y’all! ; )
TTFN
Bishop
February 24, 2011
Bishop
Composting, Gardening, Uncategorized, Vegetables
asparagus, beets, carrots, chard, compost, peppers, strawberries, tomatoes, wine, worm poop, worms
Had a week free from travel and got the spring work under way. Not much growing through our winter but I did manage to get a huge pile of leaves for mulch. I am trying something new to stay ahead of the Bermuda grass invasion of my beds. In one of the photos shown I have put down a heavy paper barrier. I covered it with my leaf mulch to hold it in place and to help conserve moisture. As I was prepping the soil I was amazed at how many earth worms I disturbed. I added a bunch a few years ago and added some vermipods (encapsulated worm eggs) a year ago. Looks like it is paying off. My composting worms, earthworms and vermipods are all from Uncle Jim’s Worm Farm. http://www.unclejimswormfarm.com/
I have planted my tomatoes in this bed….. just cut a small hole and dug down a little ways. I am trying Brandywine tomatoes again but I am placing them where they will get more sun this year. If this year is a bust with then I will look to find another heritage style that tastes as good and holds up in our Houston weather. I also planted a Mortgage lifter, a Celebrity and my prolific Juliet tomato. The pole beans are in the ground but have not broke through. Some chard is up and I just thinned a couple rows of carrots. The beets look healthy and adjacent to them is my Asparagus bed……. I am getting anxious to harvest this year. Also put out swweet banana peppers and a couple of eggplant plants – is that redundant????? or is it alliteration????
I harvested worm poop today. They are just as busy as ever and multiplying like crazy. I may need to make a convert and share my worms with some like-minded person. It looks so rich, no odor and is so good for the plants. While I was in the mood I rounded up a bunch of wayward strawberry plants that had escaped the bed. I may look to fill in some bare spots in my other beds or …… get some started in a friend’s yard.
I finally got a “round-to-it” and cut the wine barrel that my daughter Ashleigh brought home. I have it out on the patio and I planted a – go figure – a patio tomato surrounded by a couple of marigolds. Looks pretty good!
TTFN
Bishop
October 11, 2010
Bishop
Uncategorized
asparagus, beans, compost, cucumbers, leaf mulch, tomatoes
- Cleaning up the Garden
- Fresh Beans for Tonight
After neglecting my garden for quite awhile and suffering through the closing of my previous site. Found this one that allowed me to archive my old site.
So, today, October 11, I was out chopping weeds, clearing the old vines from the Armenian cucumbers and pulling out the torch to incinerate the stubborn weeds. The torch worked awfully well! Salvaged 4 of the brussel srout plants and relocated them to a clean plot.
The recently planted tomatoes have blossoms but I am not sure they will produce by the end of the month. The shining stars are the Pole Bean tepee, the asparagus ferns, the Serrano peppers (too hot to eat but a beautiful plant) and if lucky a few Straight 8 cucumbers.
As always a bit warm and humid – it was a two shirt effort along with two quarts of water. I began pulling some of the rotted compost out and will unload the bin over the next few days. Then comes the hard work – turning it into the soil. I had such good luch last year with leaf mulch that I will triple that effort this fall/winter. By spring I hope to have the compost neatly tucked under with a smothering layer of leaf mulch to strangle the weeds!!!!!
I will not flood you with my ramblings but should be a little more regular (not due to my fiber intake!!!!!) with the new site and the
cooler weather should be more conducive totending the patch and seeing my plants grow. Next blog may feature my worm farm – the little guys are working in the dark and being fed waste……hmmmmmm sounds a bit like a mushroom…….mushrooms could be my next venture.
TTFN
Bishop
April 3, 2010
Bishop
Uncategorized
asparagus, beer, beets, carrots, lettuce, potatoes, smörgåsbord, swiss chard, tomatoes
I have been out pulling weeds, removing early berries on the strawberry plants, checking on the blackberries and I just loving seeing it all grow!!!!!
Here is a picture of a mixed bed. I have heard that there are some real benefits to utilizing the companion planting techniques. Problem with that is- there has to be a plan….. I sometimes just group stuff by height and width…. makes sense to me. So… if you look closely I have;
Swiss Chard, Romaine lettuce, garlic, carrots, asparagus ferns, beets,a few small weeds, potatoes way out in back and empty plastic jugs waiting to be put in service…. they will be mini greenhouses. I call it Smörgåsbord grouping. I can pick a salad without taking a step.
I was down at the farmers market this morning and saw Romaine lettuce going for $2-$3 per head and they didn't look nearly as good as mine. Swiss Chard- bunches of 5 leaves for $3 to $4 an bunch. People were carting out bags of the stuff. Makes me wonder if maybe I can have a fourth or fifth career selling organically grown veggies….. Hmmm. Maybe I should pull out the business plan forms I picked up a couple of years ago and give it a try. The booths selling eggs ran out by 9:30 AM except for one and the line was 10 back…. $3/dz. for white eggs and $4/dz for brown. Same feed, same pasture, same bugs to eat….. there is not an advantage to buy brown eggs, they taste the same …….. the farmer likes the perceived differences!!!
Check out my new photos from today's garden visit, Oh, by the way, my latest batch of beer is ready to drink – Farmhouse Ale…. go figure. Even my wife liked the finish, not too hoppy- just right.
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March 20, 2010
Bishop
Uncategorized
asparagus, beans, cucumbers, first, lettuce, slugs, snails, spring, strawberries, sweet
Wow! The first berry of spring and I picked it the day before the official first day of spring. I was not expecting a ripe berry so early because of the wet and cool spring we have been experiencing. I noticed lots of blossoms in my sunniest patch but this was an early surprise.
I noticed something else after I picked it and took a closer look. See the heart shaped image of the berry. Pretty cool huh! I wonder if there is a message here? Hmmmm……
As with any good berry it meets the same fate. I did offer the first bit to my wife Kathy but she deferred that honor to me. – Thanks Hun…… it was so good. The home grown berries just have so much more of the "real" Strawberry flavor. It compares well to the wild strawberries I used to pick in the fields surrounding Fort Lee, Virginia.
Here is the first berry of the spring nestled in amongst the leaves, blossoms and the early berries that have set. It looks like it will be a good and sweet spring. I have found a good organically safe slug and snail deterrent so I hope to share fewer berries with the slimy little buggers.
On another note….The new June bearing varieties are doing very well. They are establishing themselves well and looking very healthy. The garden is beginning to hop now… The pole beans are up, potatoes looking good, the lettuce so good and lots of snap peas to munch on. The cucumber plants were slow showing through the layer of leaf mulch but I see they are now breaking through. My asparagus, first year, is spindly and needs staking – next year I may be able to get some spears!
Get out and grow something…..
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