Garlic Ordered

I haven't updated this blog in a while because not much has been going on garden-wise.  I'm still getting peppers, I've got some lettuce planted, and that is all.  I will try again next year and hope that I can find a better balance between homeschooling, gardening, and everything else I want/need to do. 

I did finally order my garlic today.  So far, garlic has been one of the easiest plants I have ever grown.  Here in the south, I plant a warm-weather variety and plant it in the fall.  I use cardboard as a weed barrier, which is all I need in those cooler months, so I don't have to weed it.  We get enough rain where I don't really have to pay it any attention all winter or spring.  Then in early summer I harvest.  This leaves us with our own homegrown garlic for much of the year. 

I did make a major error last year.  I planted tomatoes amongst the garlic, not realizing how fast the tomatoes would grow.  They soon grew so crazily that I never could find a lot of my garlic when it was time to harvest!  I still got quite a bit that was growing on the outer edges.  This year, I might plant peppers or herbs around it, since those shouldn't bury the garlic like the tomatoes did. 

This year, I also hope to grow enough where I don't have to buy any and can just plant some of my bulbs from the previous year. 

Didn't Water

So, I got busy with summer, planning our homeschool year and taking the kids to camps and the pool, and I just  didn't water my garden.  Now my tomatoes are dead.  I feel like an idiot. 

I still have hope for my peppers and tomatillos, and I've harvested tons of basil that has made delicious pesto and herb rubs.  My other herbs aren't doing so well since my sweet husband accidentally mowed my herb garden down.  I think I'm going plant an herb garden in one of my beds.  I've decided that I really have too many beds(!) for my level of interest right now.  And to think that at one point I wanted to double my beds! 

The problem is that my motivation for things changes, and I can only concentrate on so many hobbies at a time.  Right now, I've been focusing on weight loss, learning Spanish, and getting ready for the upcoming homeschool year.  I vow to do better next year. 


I have five 2-cup containers of pesto stored away for the winter, which is pretty good.  If I get about 12, then I'll have enough to use 2 containers every month for six months.  I've also decided to repurpose small glass jars for my pesto and herb rubs, rather than freezing them in plastic containers. 

I have nothing against plastic containers; it's just that the glass ones are free, and the plastic ones wear out eventually.  I'd rather use them for putting snacks for my kids when we go out, than freezing food in them.  Also, it's more difficult to clean the oily sauces from the plastic. 

I'm going to start my fall crops!  Lettuce and spinach.  I'll also be starting some tomato seeds for container varieties, as I'm going to experiment with growing them in the cold months.  They'll be in pots, so they can be outside when the weather is nice and indoors in front of a sunny window when it's not. 

Worm Bin: Six Weeks

It's been about six weeks since the purchase of my Worm Factory.  There's not really too much to say about it.  I shred up cardboard, crush up eggs, put in vegetable/fruit scraps and coffee grounds, and the worms eat them.  The cardboard is so absorbent that I haven't had any drainage at all into the reservoir.  I prefer using cardboard to shredded paper because of that.  The paper gets so soggy.  I just stick my shredded paper in my backyard bin. 

I do wish that I had bought more worms initially so that they could have eaten all of our suitable fruit and vegetable scraps right away.  I was cheap and only bought 500.  But that's okay--they will be fruitful and multiply. 

I do love opening my bin and checking on my worms, even though I know it's bad to disturb them. 

Freezing Tomatoes

Well, after my first batch of tomatoes turned into a disaster (I blanched them for 5 minutes instead of 30 seconds--got them confused with green beans!), I have successfully frozen several baggies full. 

With the bigger tomatoes (beafsteak and roma), I blanch them for 30 seconds, plunge them in ice water for 30 seconds, peel them, dice them, scooping out seeds but not worrying too much about it, and then stick them in the freezer.  With the cherry tomatoes, I don't bother peeling.  They taste just fine in stews with the skin on. 

I love freezing the tomatoes because we use them in several recipes during the winter in place of canned tomatoes.  The homegrown tomatoes have such a nice, strong flavor--the difference is obvious.  I use them for beef stew and chilli.  My husband uses them for his delicious jambalaya.  They are perfect for any recipe that calls for canned tomatoes. 

The tomatoes were ripening en masse, but now things have slowed down a lot, since it's gotten so hot.  I hope/expect to have another big crop in the fall. 

Tomato Screw-up

So, I screwed up freezing my tomatoes.  I blanched them for 5 minutes instead of 30 seconds before bagging them and putting them in the freezer.  I am rather annoyed about it.  I think what I will do is try and remember that batch is too well cooked and just add them at the end of a stew rather than the beginning.  Sigh. 

Worm Farm: 3 Weeks

I continue to like my Worm Factory.  After 3 weeks, I have had no problems with it.  Like everything else I do, I have been totally unscientific about it.  On most days, I add a small amount of vegetable scraps or coffee grounds, but I don't measure it out.  Every few days, I've been added damp shredded cardboard from cereal or K-cup boxes (tearing it up is therapeutic).  When I use eggs, I grind them up in a paper towel, wet them, and stick them in to keep the soil loose.  I've been surprised at how fast things are decomposing.  I don't cut my scraps up into tiny pieces or freeze them either because I don't want to.  I've had no pests and have decided that worms make the most interesting and low maintenance pets. 

What to Do When You Break Your Tomato Plant

Yes, I broke a branch off of one of my tomato plants today.  I was very sad.  It was one of my tasty 4th of July tomatoes, and it had a number of delicious looking green tomatoes on them.  As the saying goes, when life hands you a broken tomato branch with green tomatoes on it, cook them. 

My husband broiled them, and we had them as a side dish to our hotdogs.  I made up a delicious basil-mayo sauce to go with them.  I use this recipe for the tomatoes and the sauce. 

There are few things more tasty than grilled/broiled green tomatoes.  I love them.  I love fried green tomatoes too, but grilled tomatoes are a whole easier to cook, and they are definitely lower in carbs/calories than the friend version. 


For lunch today, I made whole wheat pasta with my favorite pesto sauce from a book called Pasta Pizza Presto.  It really is the best pesto I have tasted, and it is especially good when it is made from fresh basil from the garden.  It has been a huge hit anytime I made the recipe for a potluck.  My children love it.  I mixed the pasta with some pre-cooked frozen grilled chicken from target for protein.  My husband and I each cut up a small 4th of July tomato to mix with our pasta, and our younger son ate some Sun Golds. 

For dinner last night, I harvested green beans and carrots.  I just cooked them in butter and salt and pepper.  Can't get much better than that.  This year, I grew some baby-type carrots.  Wow--I can't believe how much better they tasted than store-bought.  I definitely plan to grow more carrots in the cool seasons from now on.  They are worth the extra watering. 

I love planning meals around my garden's harvest.  I tend to find cooking boring in general, but the fresh vegetables from the backyard inspire me, and I find it more enjoyable than I usually do.  I enjoy the vegetables even more if my husband is the one doing the cooking. 

Plant Review: Tomato Short and Sweet

I bought two Tomato Short and Sweet plants from my local garden center back in the early spring/late winter in order to jumpstart the tomato season.  I put them in an Earthbox, and they grew pretty well at first.  I kept them inside on cold nights and wheeled them back outside for warm days and nights.  I got my first tomatoes in early May.  They were not great.  They were grocery-store quality in flavor.  Also, they tasted bad once they got really ripe.  It was nice not to have to buy little containers of tomatoes from the grocery store, but the flavor really was a disappointment.  The plants died earlier than I would expect for a determinate variety.  I suspect a mineral deficiency and wish I had added dolomite when I planted.   I did add fertilizer.  I'm not sure the dolomite would have improved the flavor of the tomatoes.  I doubt it. 

Anyway, I liked the concept of growing tomatoes in a container early and will do that again, but next year I'll try a different variety.  I'm really happy that my other varieties of tomatoes are ripening--they are delicious and tangy and taste like what I'd expect out of a homegrown tomato!

Worm Farm: Day 5

I set up my Worm Factory on Monday.  My worms arrived by mail on Tuesday, very healthy and in great condition, from a place called Uncle Jim's Worm Farm, and they seem to be living very happily in their new home.  As I kept homemade worm bins before, I feel fairly confident that I know what I'm doing in terms of maintaining the bin.  So, far I have only given them some tiny bits of food, in addition to their bedding, and I plan to add a tiny bit a day, gradually increasing the amount.  I stared with only 500 worms, so I will probably be using this first tray for a while. 

I would have ordered the worms and bin from the same place and have them arrive on the same day EXCEPT that I ordered the worms on impulse and then had to figure out what I was going to do with them, and I decided to order a commercial bin.   I know it's weird to order 500 red wriggler worms on impulse.  Most women buy shoes and purses on impulse--I buy worms.  I'm a freak. 

My main concern with this indoor bin is the possibility of attracting fruit flies--how I hate flies.  I am putting layers of damp cardboard on top, right under the lid, to keep the fruit flies out.  If they do show up, it's easy to make a fruit fly trap (I know from a terrible infestation we had last fall--unrelated to worm bins).  [To make the fly trap, just put cider vinegar in a container, put plastic wrap on top, and punch a few holes in it.  Works great.]

If I get ants, I will just put a Terro ant trap next to the bin.   I love those things.  They are safe to use around pets and kids, and they have worked wonders on any ant we've gotten in our house. 

I'm still pretty excited about the new bin, as are my kids.  I've calculated that within a year, we should  be able to put all of our veggie scraps into the bin (except for the garlic, onion, and citrus, which can go with the garden waste in the backyard pile).  My garden is so huge that, even at full capacity, the Worm  Factory could not even make a dent in the amount that I need each year, which is about 2-3 cubic yards for all my vegetable beds and front flower beds.  Still, I like the idea of efficently using our kitchen waste and less trips to the compost pile, both of which the Worm Factory should afford me nicely. 

Gardenscape: Video Game Review

If the weather is yucky, and you can't garden, or you can't garden for another reason (like it's midnight), why not play a gardening video game?  A few months ago, I really enjoyed playing Gardenscapes with my kids.  It is not really a gardening game, in that you don't do a lot of plant growing or anything like that, but you get to "decorate" your garden as a reward for finding hidden objects to sell in a cluttered mansion.  It is a very low-stress game, but the objects were a lot of fun to find.  I was sad when the game was over, but at that point I was a little bored of the rooms.  Overall, a fun game, completely appropriate to play with young children, cheap, and with a gardening theme. 

I liked enough that I want to try its sequel, Gardenscsapes: Mansion Makeover one day when the kids and I are bored.

Stuffed Cherry Tomatoes

A couple of times this year, I've whipped up some stuffed cherry tomatoes.  I'll post a link to a couple of recipes, but one quick variation is this:  Mix goat cheese with basil, salt, and pepper, as much as you think you'll need for the amount of tomatoes that you want to make.  Spoon out the top and a little of the insides of each cherry tomato.  Put the goat cheese inside.  Easy and delicious.  

Recipes:

• Cherry Tomatoes Filled With Goat Cheese
• Stuffed Cherry Tomatoes Recipe

Garden Update: May 2012

Well, it's been a good month.  Not a whole lot to harvest.  It got too hot for the radishes to taste good, but we still had tons of tasty salad greens.  Mostly, just waiting on vegetables to mature.  I did get many tomatoes off our little cherry plants that I kept in an Earthbox.  They were good, but not as good as the indeterminate varieties I grow in my beds.  Unfortunately, the plants are dying.  I only hope that the millions of tiny green tomatoes I have in my tomato bed start to ripen soon! 

I was able to harvest herbs (mostly parsley and basil) for sauces and herb rubs.  Yum!   We had enough green beans from my bush bean plants for a side dish for one meal. 

And the peas were wonderful.  I didn't use them all and don't really have a need for more split peas.  Next year, I think I will plant 2 beds of peas and be organized about picking them in time and freezing them for beef stew.  This was the first year, I've ever had enough peas to actually make a dish out of them!  In the past, we've just enjoyed eating them in garden. 

The cucumbers and squashes are  flowering.  The peppers are flowering and growing tiny peppers.  It looks like it was rainy enough this spring that I actually have some carrots to harvest soon!  The tomatillos and eggplants are coming along, although I think it'll be a while before I get anything of off those. 

It's the tomatoes, oh the delicious tomatoes, that I can't wait for! 

Worm Bin: Here We Go Again

I love composting.  I'm a lazy composter, however, and mostly buy have my compost delivered.  I don't make nearly enough compost to supply my entire garden.  And it's very slow to actually become compost since I don't turn it much or really do much of anything other than put our kitchen scraps and garden waste in their, combined with shredded paper and cardboard. 

Before we had a house with a yard and room for a compost pile, I experimented with some homemade worm bins.  I eventually grew tired of them and stopped my worm composting.  I found my homemade bins to be messy annoying to harvest compost from.  However, my children loved raising caterpillars so much that I thought they might enjoy some other critters.  This time, however, I'm going to give it a shot with The Worm Factory, a commercially made bin. 

The advantage to a bin like The Worm Factory is that it minimizes the time involved in sorting our your castings from your worms and unfinished compost.  

I think this is going to make the experience a lot more enjoyable.  Also, it will mean less emptying of the dreaded compost bucket that I keep under my sink.  I can add a lot of things to the worm bin as I go, rather than putting them in the bucket.  It will take a few months for my worm population to build up to the amount of kitchen waste we produce, but the composter can support a lot of worms.  And there are still some fruit and vegetable scraps that I will need to save for my compost pile, like onions and citrus, that worms don't really care for. 

I'll be updating this blog with some new adventures in composting and how my new bin works out!  

For more information on worm composting:

• The Worm Digest
• Worm Woman

Should I bother with pepper seeds?

When I first started gardening, I was obsessed with starting everything from seed, just for the thrill of it, to watch a tiny seedling emerge from a tiny seed and grow into a huge plant and produce fruit.  Then I realized that as fascinating as seed starting is, depending on the kind of plant, it can be very time consuming, annoying, and can end in failure.  And if it does end in failure, and I go out and buy the plant AFTER spending the money on the seed packet and the bit of soil or seed starter pod, then I have wasted both time and money. 

I like starting many plants from seed.  Tomatoes are pretty easy to start from seed, as are lettuce and basil.  I direct sow cucumbers, squash, radishes, carrots, green beans, peas, arugula, cilantro, melons, and many annual flowers.  And, if it doesn't work out entirely, I will supplement with some garden center plants. 

Peppers are annoying to start from seed, mostly because they take a while to germinate and are very slow growing at first.  I have to remember to check on them and water them daily for a very long time, giving me plenty of chances to screw up and forget about them.  I also always want to plant them out then too early, before they are quite old enough and before the ground has warmed up enough. 

I think next year I may just buy my peppers at the garden center (and possibly from Burpee, if I can't get my ancho ones locally).  I long gave up on broccoli and cabbage.  Parsley and spanich are supposed to be easy, but I consistently fail on them, so I take advantage of my local garden center for them too. 

Harvesting Herbs

I harvested a cup each of parsley, basil, and cilantro, and blended it up with oils, salt and pepper, and dried herbs to make a delicious herb rub..  I use the recipe from George Stella's book Eating Stella Style.  I doubled the recipe and divided it into 4 small plastic containers, labeled them, and put them in the freezer. 

The herb rub is delicious, especially on chicken.  I like to put chicken thighs in the slow cooker, spread the herb rub on top, cook on high for about 4 hours.  I'll put the rest of the rub on some peppers and onions and broil them for a few minutes right before serving.  Add a little whole wheat cous cous, some yogurt, hummus, and/or chutney, and it becomes a delicious and very easy meal that even my picky children enjoy.  

I change the herb rub up, depending on what I have available.  The original recipe calls for parsley, cilantro, and basil, which is a delicious combination.  However, when I don't have those herbs available, I have successfully substituted arugula, spinach, oregano, sage, rosemary, and thyme, in various amounts.  It always turns out well. 

It's hard to remember to harvest herbs in time and to remember to make successive plantings all spring.  I went out tonight, and noticed that the 2 cilantro plants that I had bought at the garden center were just about to bolt!  I was not happy.  I picked a lot of leaves from those plants.  I do still have 3 or 4 cilantro plants that I grew from seed to pick from.  They are pretty far from harvest.  Unfortunately, when the days start to get hot, cilantro bolts quickly.

Basil does much better in the heat, but it needs to be picked aggressively, or it, too, will flower before I've got a chance to get a good use out of it.  I need to plant another row or so of it.  Tonight, I also planted a new variety of basil that I bought at the garden center, a variety called "basil boxwood" that looks like it will keep from bolting for a while. 

I have tons of parsely this year.  For some reason, I don't ever seem to be able to grow it well from seed, so I have given up and buy it at the garden center.  It's a lot cheaper than buying it at the grocery store, and it's easy to grow once it's stuck in the ground!  In my compost-rich raised beds, I don't bother adding additional fertilizer when I plant herbs. 

Hopefully, this weekend I can make up and freeze some pesto.  I think I'll try and alternate once a week between making pesto and herb rub and try and make a chimi churri as often as I can!

Honeysuckle

I remember how beautiful and rare I thought honeysuckle was, when I was a girl growing up in West Texas.  When I moved to Virginia, it was one the plants I knew, and I wanted some in my yard.  However, I had trouble finding any to buy.  I also learned that here in Virginia, as well as many other parts of the country, it's not exactly something people seek out.  Rather, it's sort of an invasive weed.

It's beautiful, and it smells heavenly.  I feel a little drunk, actually, everytime I smell it.  Here, our honeysuckly grows huge and vigorous, and it's omnipresent.  In fact, I didn't have to do anything or spend any money to get some honeysuckle of my own.  I didn't even have to take cuttings.  It found me, and is taking over our back fence.  I must say that I don't mind a bit. 

I also don't mind the clovers that grow in our lawn, nor the purple flowers, nor the yellow flowers, nor the pretty tiny white daisies that show themselves each year.  And I love dandilions.  As long as its pretty and not prickly, it's welcome in my lawn.  If the bunnies and squirrels eat it instead of my vegetables, all the better.

Peas, delicious peas

We've had a wonderful garden/shelling pea crop this year.  I have them growing up against my tomato cages.  In previous years we've just snacked on the peans outside.  I told my younger son that they were "pea candy."  When he was 2 and 3, he just loved picking them and eating the little peas.  He still does, and this year he's even better at picking out the ones that are fat enough to eat.  My older son likes them too.

This year, we had so many peas that younger son and I went out last evening and actually picked enough to sautee in butter and serve with our hot dogs!  I couldn't believe it.  Next year, I might even grow another bed of peas so that we can freeze some.  

The variety I used this year came from Burpee.  It is called Burpeeana, and it is the best pea I have tried.  I've also tried Maestro and Mr. Big, with less success, although they were good too.  The peas are very tasty, and the plants are vigorous and healthy.  I will definitely grow this one again. 

It's a bit tricky to grow peas here because it gets hot so fast--we don't have much of a spring, so any variety has got to be able to withstand heat.  Any time I tried to grow peas in the fall, the bunnies or squirrels ate them.

Hurray for peas!

Technorati Claim

ZTHQV8UF492K Just trying to claim my blog for Technorati! 

Using compost and cardboard as a weed barrier

We had 3 cubic yards of compost delivered today!  That's actually the smallest amount of compost I've ever had delivered.  I get organic mushroom compost, which is supplied by a local company.  Last year, I actually did not order compost, although I had some left over from the year before last.  But I do like to add quite a bit to my beds each year, so I am very happy to have it again. 

I completed my first project with the compost: as a topdressing and mulch for my front flower garden.  Now, this area is really terrible.  I did a good job of digging out the bermuda grass and weeds the year we moved in, but there were a couple of seasons where I didn't weed at all (hard to weed when your toddler keeps running away from you), and it just got awful again.  So, I surrounded my annual seedlings and perinneals with paper and cardboard and spread compost on top of that as a mulch.  This is extremely effective in my vegetable garden, and I think it will be in my garden as well.  It looks quite nice right now. 

The bermuda grass is making me so crazy that I may have to resort to a chemical solution, but for now I'm going to give this a go.  I may add a wood mulch next month, so I can repeat the process, adding an additional weed barrier.  I find that the paper/cardboard is far more effective against bermuda grass and other weeds than a weed fabric.  I'll update on how it goes.  I'm hoping for a pretty flower garden this year, which I haven't had for the past 2 seasons! 

Pick Your Own Strawberries

It seems crazy, as much as I love fresh food, but yesterday was the first time I went to our nearby farm that offers strawberry picking every spring.  My older son and I went out and picked two pounds of delicious strawberries.  Today, I made freezer jam for the first time, using an instant fruit pectin.  I made 18 cups of strawberry freezer jam, to be exact.  Hope my boys like it!

If they do, I'll pick more strawberries and make enough to get us through the year.  I'm trying to buy more local.  I had an awful moment in Trader Joe's when I realized that their strawberries were from California, even though we have tons of strawberries growing right now here in Virginia.  It's ridiculous to have to buy fruit that's been shipped 3000 miles when we have the same fruit right here that would taste a whole lot better (and stay fresher) than the shipped berries.

I bought 2 wonderful bell peppers and a delicious cucumber at the same farm.  Now that my youngest child is a little older, I think it will be easier to go gathering produce at the different farm markets.  I refuse to eat flavorless produce anymore.  Life is too short.  I hope that someday, it will be easier to buy delicious, local produce in the grocery store.

May tomatoes!

Here are my almost-ripe tomatoes:

They came from these plants, in my Earthboxes:

This has got to be the earlist I've harvested tomatoes before.  I bought them in late March at the local garden center.  They were already flowering a little.  I put them in the container on my front porch, which is the hottest place in my garden.  I wheeled them in on nights when there was danger of frost, and there were a couple of days where I just had to keep them inside all day.  I left them on my front ponch until about mid-April, when the afternoon sun got to be too much for them.  Then I wheeled them through the house into the back porch, where they get morning sun.  It's also nice back there because they get rain, so I have to water even less.

The tomatoes are a determinate variety called "Short 'n Sweet."  I haven't tasted them yet, but I'm optimistic that they'll be superior to our grocery store tomatoes.  I also have lots of larger indeterminate tomatoes growing out in my raised beds, but the first ones I planted (in late March) are just now starting to flower, so these will be all that we'll get for at least a month, I guess.

So happy that tomato season is back!  Depending on when our last frost is, we may have real homegrown tomatoes until Christmas! 

April Garden Update

I can't believe how long it has been since I updated my blog! I'm still gardening, loving it more than ever.

I am very proud that I have tomatoes ripening in my earthboxes! I'll write more about them tomorrow.

I've also got tomatoes flowering out in my beds. I'm so excited. It's been a very warm spring, so I also have some peppers and eggplants already planted. I have tons of beautiful lettuce, and a few radishes, although it really got too warm for the radishes. The peas are almost ready, and they are tall and beautiful. My garlics are growing, which is good, because I am nearly out of the garlic I grew last year for cooking. I've got my herbs growing too, and enough parsley that I really need to make some chimmichurri sauce as soon as possible, and save it up. I'm also wanting to plant lots of flowers in my beds this year, mainly zinnias.

I'm still battling the bermuda grass in my front garden, but have planted some very tough perinneals and annual seeds. I'll be using paper/cardboard as a weed barrier.