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Archive for the ‘Vegetables’ Category

Garden Cage

Posted in Vegetables on February 26, 2012| 3 Comments »

Here’s one of the main reasons I’ve been MIA for the past several months. Moving to the country introduced me to the joys of gardening with wildlife. My original fence was deer and rabbit proof, but did nothing for the squirrels. I had to go back to the drawing board and come up with a design that included a roof to keep them out as well. Aside from puting in the 4x4x10 posts, we did the entire thing, my husband and I and a couple friend of ours. We are almost done, and will be by the time my tomatoes set fruit this spring. Our masterpiece is around 3000 sq ft.

The poles are all set in concrete. I originally planned on digging these myself, but after about 15 minutes of work I hired the guys at South Austin Fence to do it for me. They did a great job and were completely reasonable on price.

We used stucco mesh for the wire. It is a stronger gauge then poultry wire and much less expensive than other hardware cloth.

We had the posts set outside of the original cross fencing, that way I have a built in place for beans and peas to climb.

Back view

One of the poles inside of the cage. These are used to hold up the meshing that lays over the top.

Recent view of the cage, with the gates and most of the roof installed. We have about 2 work days left to completely finish.

I know we built the cage to keep critters out, but Davey lives inside. He's in a hutch of course, and he is a compost making machine.

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Why My Spring Veggie Garden Failed

Posted in Vegetables on July 19, 2011| 1 Comment »

Where do I start?? This year was by far my least productive spring. I am now getting okra every day and a few peppers here and there, but the rest of the garden is a huge disappointment.

The green beans are all dead. The butter beans and hot peppers aren’t producing. The tomatoes, melons and cucumbers have all been eaten.

So what happened?

1. My garden got a late start. I had just moved in and had to put up deer fencing before I could plant. It was late March before the garden went in. During a normal year this might have been ok, but with the April temperatures mimicking June my plants never got a fair chance.

2. I don’t believe my soil mixture is right. In the past I’ve always done a 50/50 mix of Hill Country Garden Soil and Compost from The Natural Gardener. This year I was having it delivered in bulk and one of the workers told me that there is plenty of compost in the Hill Country Garden Soil and it wouldn’t need any amending with compost. I don’t believe that is true.

3. Rabbits! I wasn’t able to dig several inches down to bury the rabbit fence, since the ground is so hard from lack of rain. The rabbits didn’t find the garden for several months so I didn’t think they could climb under. Well they can and they did. It took several weeks to finally get the fence completely rabbit-proof. By this time most of my tomato plants were not dead, but took a good beating.

4. Squirrels! Once I had the garden deer and rabbit proof I thought I was safe. Not with these squirrels. The ones in my yard don’t wait until the tomatoes etc. are ripe. They are so thirsty with the drought (even though they have bird baths within reach) that they steal the fruit the day it appears. My veggies don’t even have a chance to ripen.

I tried bird netting but the squirrels  just climbed under it. It also ended up catching tarantulas, lizards and giant beetles. I won’t be using that again.

5. Hot, hot, hot! This summer is the worst I’ve seen in my 6 years. It’s so hot and there’s no rain in site. I put in rain barrels in March and since then it’s only rained 2 inches. I’m just hoping the plants can hold on until fall. (At least the ones that are still alive).

I took some pics of dead, sad plants for this post, but does anyone really want to see them?

The current thinking is to build a 4000 sq ft cage. I’m starting to plan it out in my head and hope to get this build within the next few months. We’ll see!

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>Recipe: Zucchini Cole Slaw, Bubbles and Squeak

Posted in recipes, zucchini on May 2, 2011| 1 Comment »

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What to do with all of that extra zucchini?

We aren’t too far into squash season yet, but at some point the family doesn’t want to see another zucchini, even if you do hide it into a delicious loaf of bread. Last night I mixed it up with a zucchini cole slaw. My husband, who is not a huge zucchini fan, went in for seconds.
Fresh Veggies
2 zucchini, 1 red pepper, 1 red onion, 2 carrots
Thinly slice all veggies
– I used the peeler for the carrots to make them softer, depends on how much crunch you’re going for.
For the sauce
Mix mayo and apple cider vinegar. Do this to taste, I believe my portion was either a 4 or 5 to 1 (mayo:vinegar). Add salt, pepper to taste and a dash of celery seed. I also added a dash of cumin to go with the smoky flavor of the BBQ chicken pizza we had with it.
Bubbles and Squeak

This is a great way to use a mix of your late spring veggies.

Veggies used: potatoes, onion, carrots, brussel sprouts
Boil potatoes and brussel sprout halves in water or chicken broth.
Finely dice onions and carrots and cook in olive oil until soft. Season with salt and pepper while cooking.
Once potatoes are soft and brussel sprouts have lost their leaves, drain. (You can reserve the chicken broth if you used it).
Add whole potatoes to onions and carrots and mash right in, along with butter, salt, pepper to taste.
Add brussel sprout leaves. I left out the centers this time, but feel free to add them.
Stir and serve.
I served mine with a side of turkey smoked sausage. Yum!

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>Cucs and Tomatoes Variety Review – 1 month in

Posted in cucumbers, tomato on April 29, 2011| Leave a Comment »

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Suyo Long
Not sure if you can tell from this picture, but this baby cucumber is really long. The tag says they get to be 15″! It’s amazing how much of a difference I can already see between this variety and the others.

Sweet Slice
I have two of these plants. (You can kind of see the other in the background). These have really done nothing. I’m hoping they take off at some point, but right now they are just wasting valuable real estate. The one has at least grabbed hold of the trellis, but barely. I’m interested to see if I get any production out of them.

Suyo Long

This one has taken off vertically and seems to be doing pretty well. It has produced a few baby cucs so far and is flowering well.

National Pickling

Seems to like horizontal more than vertical and ignores any efforts at training it to go in a specific direction. It does have a few baby cucs and is flowering though, so I can’t complain too much.

General Lee
This one is growing off very well and has taken to the trellis. You can see it also seems to prefer the horizontal direction. I have three plants all heading for the exact same corner, must be something about the morning sun.

Lemon

Doing well and seems to be a vertical climber, which I am very happy about.

Roma

All six of these have fruit.

La Roma

Neither of the two have fruit, but one has some pretty good flowers. I didn’t think there would be much of a difference between Roma and La Roma, but apparently there is.

Black Cherry
These and the Sun Golds have maturing fruit, good plant growth and lots of flowers.

Yellow Pear Cherry

I have two of these and one just got it’s first fruit today. I’ve had luck with these in the past, so I’m not too stressed about their late start.

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>Tomatillo Production

Posted in Vegetables on April 27, 2011| 1 Comment »

>Last year was my first year growing tomatillos. I love the flavor and couldn’t wait to make all kinds of salsas and sauces, but much to my disappointment the plants would not set fruit. They finally produced about 10 total near the tail end of the summer, but that was hardly a good crop.

I had read that you need at least two plants, since they will not self-pollinate and proceeded to plant the minimum number. This year I decided to double them and have a total of 4 in the same bed. Already I have at least 15 full size husks. I am excited to see how the summer plays out with this kind of production so early.

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