Seminole Pumpkin - A Garden Favorite!

Seed catalogs are arriving now, so it's a good time to share one of my garden favorites with you, Seminole Pumpkin. I was enticed by the Baker Creek seed catalog description "The wild squash of the Everglades… sweet flesh … productive vines … resistant to insects and disease." Squash bugs are often attracted to my organic garden, and I'd lost hopes of growing my favorite butternut squash ever again. (Note: winter squash and pumpkins are in the same vegetable family). But Seminole Pumpkin gave me new hope, and I figured a plant native to the Everglades should find happiness in my hot, humid Tennessee garden. So I ordered a package of seeds in late 2012.


Big squash plants need lots of space for their vines to spread, so I ended up only growing one Seminole Pumpkin plant in the 2013 summer garden (two are recommended, for optimal pollination). But it proved true to its description, growing strong with no damage by insects, and giving me a good harvest of about 5 big fruit, shaped much like bird house gourds. It was a lovely plant too, with large distinctive variegated leaves and huge yellow flowers (edible by the way). I enjoyed the taste just as well as butternut squash, so more good points for the pumpkin.

This past season I left the vegetable garden unplanted, as I renourished the depleted soil. Low and behold, in early summer a couple of healthy plants began to grow out of my compost bin, and I recognized the leaf as that of the Seminole Pumpkin. Evidently, some of the seeds discarded in the compost bin when I cooked the vegetable the previous fall had survived. Never one to throw away a good healthy plant (which explains why I have too many flower gardens!), I carefully dug three seedlings and planted them in the big pile of rich composted mulch from a nearby mushroom factory, which had been left from tilling some into the garden a few months previous. Wow, did they grow! A few times I gently re-directed the vines, as they spread across one of our walking trails.

By early September, ten big squashes had matured from green to tan and the skins were thick, indicating ripeness. Amazingly, I still had one Seminole Pumpkin left from the previous year, stored in our basement which maintains a year-round temperature of about 60°F... so it stores very well. I picked the ripe ten squashes and  continued to harvest individual pumpkins for several weeks. When a heavy frost threatened in mid October, I read that I should pick any remaining squashes and let them ripen indoors; these would not be as good for longterm storage as those which had ripened on the vines. So I picked about 10 more which still had some green skin. Not wanting to line them up in the living room, where the room temperature would be closer to the recommended 80 degrees for ripening, I placed these on my open shelves in front of the south-facing basement window. It took many weeks, but eventually these fruit did ripen, and tasted just as good as the others.

I also recommend Seminole Pumpkin because it is very nutritious, easy to cut, and the seeds roast up as a delicious snack. My raw harvested squashes cut very well with my best bread knife. You can roast, boil, microwave, and cook squashes in a variety of ways; I find it quick and easy to cook large batches in my pressure cooker, unpeeled. Once cooked and cooled, the pulp easily scoops out of the shell. To use fresh pumpkin in baking (especially in recipes calling for canned pumpkin), it is best to drain off the excess liquid from the pulp. After I mash the pumpkin in the food processor to make a smooth consistency, I either

• drain the puree in a colander lined with coffee filters and discard the liquid 
• put the puree in a container and refrigerate overnight, then pour off the liquid which separates from the pulp

This pumpkin freezes well; I measured about 3 cups of puree from each harvested squash, and stored it in zip bags which stack flat in the freezer.

If you want to grow Seminole Pumpkin, just ask me for some seeds and I'll save some I don't eat!

Also, check out these recipes which use fresh pumpkin:
Pumpkin Chai Snickerdoodles
Pumpkin Cranberry Bread
and watch for my future posts (like the yummy pumpkin cake shown here) using this nutrituous delicious vegetable!

January in the Vegetable Garden

This week we return to 10 hours of daylight in Zone 7, and my new garden seeds will be arriving tomorrow. So my thoughts are on gardening 2012! Meanwhile, I am still harvesting fresh veggies from the garden daily. Our winter continues to be mild, with regular rainfall. I actually transplanted some of those tiny celeriac seedlings from the cold frame to the garden a few days before Christmas, and they are growing fine. I bought a big ugly celeriac root at the supermarket and tried planting it too - no sign of life yet though. Earlier this month the mercury fell to about 15 degrees for two nights and we had a light snow cover; I didn't bother to cover the brussels sprouts and they survived - I harvested some, halved them, and sauteed them with onions and tamari soy sauce one day last week… they tasted excellent! I've been picking and using fennel as a raw veggie dipper with homemade dips (cut like celery stalks), as well as sliced thin in a salad with apples, toasted almonds, and my Caesar dressing. I love the fennel seeds I saved last summer too - they are a great addition, whole, to my morning granola, and I've also ground them and added to biscotti recipes. A few beets are still in the ground from last summer, probably big and woody now, and they continue to provide fresh leaves for harvest. Many wild plants are growing well this winter too; the white clover we seeded as a ground cover has established itself in a healthy patch just off the front steps, and I use the fresh leaves in our green smoothies. My crocuses have begun to flower and daffodils are several inches out of the ground, so spring is just around the corner here.

More of my gardening time is spent indoors this month, as I plan what I'll be growing. Here are the basic lessons which my 2011 garden taught me:

• Don't grow plants which attract bugs and succumb to disease

I am surrendering to some of my bug battles, and simply not planting many of the vegetables most attractive to them. This means I will not grow squash-family plants, since I got little or no harvest last year, due to squash bugs. No zucchini, no butternut squash, no melons. I will try one new heirloom "pumpkin" called Cushaw (which is an edible winter squash) which is described as resistant to squash bugs. I am also planning to grow a gherkin instead of cucumbers, for fresh eating. I am not planting calendula, which is a very pretty edible and medicinal "pot marigold" - even the ones which reseeded themselves in late fall grew full of little bug holes in the leaves. The amaranth I tried to grow also succumbed to bug attacks, so that's off my grow list too, as well as oriental greens such as chinese cabbage, tat soi, pak choy and others I've tried. I now know that fall/winter is the best time for my cabbage family favorites, like brussels sprouts, kale, and collard greens, and, fortunately, their pests are not around in the cooler seasons, so that's when I will grow them from now on.

A solution to tomato blight still escapes me, so here is the 2012 tomato plan:

1. Plant "blight resistant" varieties only (I've found and purchased seeds for two heirloom varieties, Legend and Old Brooks Red)
2. Plant the tomato plants outside the vegetable garden this year
3. Try ground cinnamon on the ground around the plants as an anti-fungal (a tip from gardener friend John)
4. Don't start the tomatoes outdoors as early - makes them more susceptible to "early" blight
5. Clean all the tomato cages and garden tools, so fungus residue from last year is destroyed

•  Don't grow plants with little yield

The only snap beans I intend to grow are my favorite Blue Lake Bush beans. I planted yellow wax beans at the same time, and the yellow beans took forever to mature, with very sparse production. Meantime I was harvesting the green beans continually, and the Blue Lakes are great raw, cooked and frozen. The "bush" nature of this heirloom means it doesn't need trellising, since the plants only grow about 18-24" tall and stand upright on their own.
 

• Don't grow plants which take up too much space, when smaller comparable varieties taste as good

The Thai "long beans" were an interesting novelty, and tasted ok, but their long vines overtook and spilled out of one corner of the garden. Yes, I only needed about 2 beans to make a side dish for two, but they took a long time to mature. And the flowers attracted too many little biting bees. Fortunately, I used up the whole envelope of seeds.

• Grow plants with a longer harvesting season

I was disappointed with my sweet peppers last summer - even though I started the plants very early and grew one in a red plastic Kozy Koat, I didn't start harvesting any for a long long time. So this year I'm growing some described as early, and also described as "dwarf" which should result in quicker harvesting.

• Don't grow too many of one vegetable

If I grow any jalapenos or eggplants this year, I know that one plant of each is enough. I have a large supply of dried and powdered jalapenos, so I only need some to use fresh, in salsa and other dishes. I prefer eggplant used fresh also, and one eggplant at a time is all I need to harvest; one plant will give me a supply over many weeks. I will again limit my planting of basil, since I still have lots of frozen pesto. I am going to try "lime basil" as well as a large-leaf variety.

• Grow more edible greens in the hottest part of the growing season

Since we've adopted a routine of daily green smoothies, I've loved having cool weather greens to harvest. Now I want to be sure to have a variety of greens to harvest in warm weather, when spinach and many lettuces will not grow well. The "heat tolerant" edible greens I look forward to planting this year include: two variaties of edible Japanese chrysanthemums; leaves of black garbanzo beans (I can harvest the pods and beans too); two spinach-tasting plants which are not true spinaches: "strawberry spinach" which is related to lamb's quarters, and "red malabar spinach" which is a heat loving vine of greenery; and a bronze lettuce. Some of these are for fresh and cooked recipes - you'll be hearing more about how they taste later this year.

• Try new plants

I am adding okra to my garden this year. I've ordered seeds for a dwarf variety - only 3 feet tall! As you can tell, this is normally a very tall plant. It grows well here in the south, seemingly with no pests or diseases, and I've developed a taste for it. My friends Bill and Julie grill the whole pods (with a little coating of oil) until crunchy and eat them like french fries, and they are yummy this way. I am also planting more herbs, including lovage (celery flavor), stevia (so I can dry the leaves again, for a great natural sweetener), shiso (a red leaf, used to color pickled Japanese ginger), dock, and cilantro (a hot-weather cilantro).

Start planning your garden for 2012, even if it's just a pot of herbs on your porch!

September in the Vegetable Garden

My September garden looks empty compared with previous months, but it's a time of transition. I have pulled up plants which have stopped producing and I'm busy nourishing the soil with composted manure and lime for my fall plantings. The weather turned a bit cooler (highs in the low 80s) after we got about 8" of rain from the remnants of Tropical Storm Lee, and the soil was nicely loosened up by all the moisture so it's been easy to dig. Last week I stopped at my favorite fruit market to buy fresh produce (they have a ripe banana bin for 33¢/lb so I stock up and freeze them for smoothies) and I was delighted and surprised to find seedlings for many cool weather crops. Even though I'll plant seeds for many of the same crops, the 5" tall seedlings I purchased will give me a headstart. It's hard to see the small plants against the red clay soil in the photo above, but here's an update:

1. One BUTTERNUT SQUASH plant has survived attacks from squash bugs and I am hoping there is time in its growing season for some to mature. For the past 2 years I've harvested about 25 butternut squashes from my garden, and they stored well in my basement until I used them all in about 9 months. I'll surely not get many this year, but I'd love a few!
2. Both JALAPENOS are producing profusely (the second one is in the red Kozy Koat). The plants were so heavily laden with maturing peppers that they leaned over in the last windy storm. Now each one is in one of my largest tomato cages, anchored down with rebar. Remember, jalapeno and sweet peppers are not ripe in the green stage, even though that's how they are sold; let the jalapenos turn red/black, and bell peppers turn red (or purple, yellow, orange, depending on the variety). If you look at my Facebook page, you'll see my photo of a big bowl of red jalapenos I harvested recently. I dehydrated them and ground them into hot powder.
3. The grasshopper raids on my SWEET POTATO bed seemed to have stopped and I am looking forward to digging lots, probably in October.
4. I bought and planted a 4-pack of ROMAINE lettuce, planted on the edge of the garden so I can easily harvest a few leaves at a time.
5. I pulled out the THAI LONG BEANS, since they were taking over everything. They were sold as a "bush" variety, but grew as long trailing vines for me. I got a decent harvest, and they are long and tasty when cooked, plus growing beans adds nitrogen to the soil they are in. But I am once again convinced that blue lake bush beans are my favorite green beans to grow - short plants, heavy yields, great taste, freeze well, and I like how they taste raw. In place of the long been plants, the CHRYSANTHEMUM babies, MARIGOLDS, FENNEL, and HOLY BASIL, which all were being covered over by the vines, are now happy. Every one of the 30 mum cuttings I planted last spring rooted, and the continuous pinching back now finds them loaded with flower buds, just in time for fall flowering. I need to move some into pots and other garden areas soon! I cut back the fennel plants after harvesting loads of seeds, and new young plants are growing from the root. I'm sure some of those seeds I missed will start new plants there too, and I'll be harvesting green fronds this fall.
6. The red plastic mulch where the tomatoes had grown is now removed, up to this sprawling CANTALOUPE vine. Lots of flowers on it, but I haven't seen any fruit form, so it might have been planted too late. This plant hasn't been bothered by squash bugs … maybe it's due to the red mulch?
7. I've planted nine seedlings of KALE here, and I'll be starting kale seeds elsewhere in the garden, as well as setting out seedlings I started indoors. Many fall (or early spring) seeds will not germinate in soil above 70 degrees, so I'm waiting for cooler temps to plant seeds directly in the garden so I won't waste seeds, as I have in the past due to my ignorance.
8. I tried growing BRUSSELS SPROUTS unsuccessfully last spring; the weather warmed and the "sprouts" flowered right away. I knew it was a fall crop, but I tried anyway. Now I've planted 6 purchased seedlings and I will transplant the smaller seedlings which I started indoors last month when they get a bit stronger. I am looking for success this time!
9. I've never grow COLLARDS, but I bought seedlings and planted them here. I will try them in my green smoothies as well as in many cooked recipes. The more veggies I eat, the more I like. Also in this area of the garden are small PARSLEY plants I purchased. Parsley is one of the only plants I have discovered which grows nearly year round in my garden, and it's yummy and nutritious. I love to make tabouli salad, use it in green smoothies, and use it as an herb in salads, sautes and soups.

   I have pulled out all but two TOMATO plants, after they succumbed to blight. I've already purchased two blight-resistant tomato seed varieties for next year, "Old Brooks" and "Legend". I have searched, unsuccessfully, for organic ways to rid my soil of the fungus which causes blight (the same blight which caused the Irish potato famine in the late 1800s). What's a garden without fresh tomatoes?
   The EGGPLANTS have also been under attack by grasshoppers, so I've had a lull in my harvest. Each plant has a couple of maturing fruit, so I am looking forward to making more Eggplant Parmesan with my new favorite recipe.
   One of my photos is a bit gross, but shows a TOMATO HORNWORM. When I discovered this one I was happy to see it covered with a natural parasite. The "braconid" wasp lays eggs on the hornworm and the larvae feed on the inside of the hornworm until the wasp is ready to "pupate" into a cocoon. The white, rice-shaped protrusions on the green hornworm are the cocoons. The wasps will kill the hornworms when they emerge and will seek others to parasitize, so I don't squish the hornworms when I find them in this state.
   The LEMON GRASS plant is enormous, and the lemon flavor is the strongest of any lemony herb I've grown. I hope it will survive the winter here.
   One CASABA melon plant is growing well, and I've warded off the attacking bugs with dustings of diatomaceous earth and sprayings of diluted kaolin clay. One melon has formed which is about 6" in diameter, but still green. I am hoping it will ripen to golden without being eaten by any critters except me!
   Some of my chioggia BEETS which had overwintered from last year grew flower stalks. I let them go to seed; some seedlings are starting where the plant dropped them and I have also spread some seeds which I harvested. In addition, on the south edge of the garden I've planted seeds for another variety of beets called "Bulls Blood" whose red leaves are recommended as colorful and good raw for salads.
   I've planted 100 seeds of a CARROT variety called "little fingers." I've also planted SPINACH seeds after using cold stratification to help them germinate better. I'll be planting lots more spinach - we love it, and it's one plant which grows here continuously all winter.

   I was happy to find some ONION SETS, more rarely sold in the fall than in the spring, so I'll be setting them out this weekend. It's about time to plant GARLIC also, and I have some heads left from my own harvest, which I'll divide and plant each clove about 3" deep and 5" apart.
   'Still harvesting lots of Thai BASIL to use fresh and to give to friends; there's lots of pesto in the freezer from last year, so no need to make more.

   I've transplanted the slow growing CELERIAC seedlings I started into larger pots. Only 7 plants germinated They are puny, and still in the basement window until large enough to go in the garden. My experiment with CELERY failed, due to the very hot weather, but I'll try it again under different conditions.

Don't stop gardening if you are in Zone 7 like me. The season is just beginning!

July in the Vegetable Garden

July has brought successes and failures in my veggie garden. The sun is strong, the temperature is very hot and the humidity is high, so I try to be out early when I need to do some garden work. Rain has been fairly regular, most often in heavy downpours. Despite all this, I've been eating, freezing, canning, and dehydrating my harvests, and the vegetable garden is free of weeds and looking good. (Can't say the same about some of my flower gardens, unfortunately!) Here are the details:

1. SWEET POTATOES - My plants are still surviving attacks by leaf-eaters - probably grasshoppers, as reported early. Leaves grow back, pests come again, and the cycle repeats. I don't think this is harming the development of the sweet potatoes themselves, since the abundant green leaves can be harvested and cooked like spinach.
2. EGGPLANTS - I took off the protective covers, and the leaves looked better than if I hadn't protected them, although some flea damage is still evident. Purple flowers have now formed into glossy eggplants and I picked the first one today. Anxious to try a new eggplant parmesan recipe from my sister Jean tonight!
3. LEEKS - Growing well, while being fully ignored.
4. BEANS - I harvested loads of delicious Blue Lake Bush green beans, and pulled up all the plants last week. The yellow beans, planted as seeds at the same time, are only just flowering now, but the plants are healthy. Overflowing the north side of the garden is a bed of Thai Suranaree "Long Beans", now in the flower stage. They were described in the catalog as "bush" but seem to be growing in long vines, so I am letting them trail. My beans need constant attention this year, to keep away whatever eats little holes in the leaves and beans. I spray with Garlic Barrier and keep scattering marigold petals over the beds. So far, so good. I froze 12 bags of green beans and I've started another small crop which will be great to eat fresh next month.
5. FENNEL - I over-wintered fennel plants and now I have a huge flourish of flower heads, which I am letting mature so I can gather the licorice-flavored seeds. I'll have enough to supply an Italian sausage factory! The seeds are good for digestion.
6. TOMATOES - I am now deep in battle with tomato blight, spread by a fungus in the soil. All the organic measures I have employeed to avoid it have only delayed the inevitable. I've already removed two of the plants, and three more are fighting blight. I've got some cherry tomato plants growing from my friend Sherry's seedlings, and they are healthier so far. I picked 13 beautiful half-pound tomatoes today, and in the last month I have harvested enough tomatoes to make lots of salsa (fresh, frozen, and canned) and salads, as well as eating them warm from the garden, like biting an apple. I plan to spoon a homemade bruschetta over the eggplant for dinner this evening. The white line points to a row where I've covered the soil with a garden weed-barrier cloth and transplanted 3 new tomato seedlings, so I hope to get a late crop, and I wish it to be blight-free!
7. CUCUMBER - One cucumber plant succumbed to "wilt" which is spread by the cucumber beetle, a bug about 1/4" long with yellow and black stripes or dots. You'll see the leaves begin to wilt, one by one (see photo to the right). I delayed the damage by cutting off the bad leaves, but eventually it killed the plant. My other cuc plant, a different variety, is doing ok in comparison. I've planted seeds to start another plant.
8. PEPPERS - In the collage of photos above, you can see the jalapeno plant which has been in the red Kozy Koat since I planted it last spring... it loves the heat and is loaded with peppers, with the plant growing tall above the red jacket. I've also picked a couple of sweet pimento peppers, but the sweet "Chinese Giant" variety (the tall one I've pointed to in the photo of the whole garden) hasn't formed any peppers yet. Funny thing, a friend to whom I gave one of these seedlings reports picking peppers already.
9. MELONS & SQUASHES - I've started my late crop of cantaloupe - one here where I removed a tomato plant - as well as casaba melon and zucchini, next to the cold frame. I've put in 2 butternut squash plants also. I am hoping these late plantings are beyond the season for squash bugs, and our growing season is long, so I should have plenty of time for the fruits to mature.

In other growing news, I continue to plant successive rows of carrots, which I really like because they are content waiting underground until I decide to harvest a few for fresh eating - unlike other crops which need immediate picking when ripe. I'm still digging up beets, as needed, and some I had over-wintered are sending up flower stalks. I transplanted a few beets which I dug that were tiny, and some have re-rooted for a late harvest. Onions seedlings I planted last month are providing me with scallions while the bulbs form and grow. The Little Gem Lettuce started sending up flower stalks, as the leaves became too bitter to use. I'm letting it go to seed, since it's the only lettuce in the garden now; the seeds will not have been crosspollinated with another variety, so I can save them for future plantings. I've not been successful starting lettuce lately, even varieties described as heat tolerant. I even resorted to buying romaine last week, to have a big salad with all the other garden goodies. The flat leaf and curly parsley, as well as the Thai basil, are big bushy plants now, which do best with frequent harvesting by cutting off the plant tops. I picked enough parsley to dry some last week.

I found loads of ripe grapes on my two concord grapevines last week, and devoured a few handfuls. When I anxiously went to harvest a bucketful today I discovered some critter wiped out the entire crop (raccoon? deer?). I was so disappointed, after my careful pruning last February, fighting off a wormy thing in the spring, and saving the vines from Japanese beetles recently. I'll need to correct my timing next year. My garden education continues, and I hope you learn something from my experiences!

June in the Vegetable Garden

June has seen many changes to the vegetable garden. We've had about 1" of rain in the last week, after nearly 8 weeks of dry hot weather. I resorted to watering with the sprinkler, which you can see outside the corner of the garden. On the longest day of the year, June 21st, our area officially got 12 hours and 34 minutes of daylight, with sunset at 8:56pm. Here's the garden update:

1. SWEET POTATOES - I planted 11 sweet potato plants, half as many as last year: two which I grew from last year's potatoes (my other efforts failed) and a 9-pack of "slips" I bought,  all "Beauregard," a dependable variety for our area, and the most common supermarket sweet potato variety. I planted where the edible pea pods had been, after they had stopped producing in late May. About 2 weeks ago I noticed the sweet potato leaves were being eaten, and, when I sprayed my Garlic Barrier on them, I saw grasshoppers jumping away. I've never had a grasshopper problem, but I've heard they can devour the garden. In addition to spraying, I've also been scattering cut-up garlic greens around the plants and this seems to have solved the problem.
2. EGGPLANTS - I bought 2 mesh laundry hampers and turned them upside down over the wire cage on each eggplant to help protect the plants from the bug which eats the young tender leaves. I used wicket-type garden stakes to hold the handles of the hampers in the soil. It's helping so far. I'll have to remove the coverings when the plants flower, so the bees can pollinate. As the season progresses last year, the bugs became less of a problem and the plants flourished, so perhaps I can go into flowering with healthier plants this year. These laundry hampers do not have netting on the top, but rain or sprinkler spray gets in on all sides. They fold down flat for easy storage too.
3. JALAPENO - I kept one jalapeno plant in the red Kozy Koat and it already has pods! Couldn't resist planting a second seedling I had started, but there is a noticeable difference in the size of the two plants.
4. MELON - One "casaba" melon is growing well and has a green fruit about 6" big already. I keep checking the plant for insects which attack squash family plants (see photo and zucchini info).
5. LEEKS - Most of the transplanted leeks didn't survive, but I'll still have plenty. Don't think I'll try them again though.
6. CUCUMBERS - My attempt to grow the cucumber plants in vertical cages is going well. They send out tendrils, and I usually just have to coax them to grab and wrap around the cage wire. The fruit is clean and perfectly shaped. I've been picking both varieties, one pickling size and the other a 6-8" salad cucumber. I keep watching the undersides of the leaves for the brown eggs of the squash bug (see photo), and discard any leaves with eggs.
7. TOMATOES - The photo shows the growth of the tomato plants in the past month, but I nearly lost them to an attack by big fat healthy tomato hornworms. The earliest plant I had put in the garden, which had looked gorgeously healthy just one day earlier, was totally defoliated. The other 5 plants each has one or more worms eating away. Fortunately, I caught them right away (it pays to visit your garden daily) and successfully treated with "Dipel," an organic biological insecticide for leaf-eating worms and caterpillars ("bacillus thuringiensis"). I dug up the defoliated tomato and replaced it with one of 3 cherry tomato plants a friend gave me, which I had planted in the cold frame. I've also kept the bottom 10" of the tomato plants trimmed to the center stem, which seems to be helping me avoid tomato blight, which is a fungus spread from the soil to the lower leaves. When I see a leaf with yellow spotting I immediately pick it off and discard. With all this effort, I've now been picking juicy red tomatoes for 3 weeks from the Riessentraube and the Al Kuffa heirloom varieties. I'm keeping a close eye out for pests.
8. BEANS - My favorite variety of green beans is Blue Lake. I plant the "bush" version vs. "pole" beans, which grow only about 12" tall and don't need trellising. Blue Lake tastes great and freezes well. I planted marigolds around the beans and keep breaking up the spent marigold flower heads on top of the bean plants, to deter an invisible insect which eats holes in the bean leaves, and potentially, in the beans. L:sat year the bugs ruined my crop. I've picked just a couple of ripe beans in the last couple of days and eaten them raw, and I'll have lots to harvest for dinner starting in a few days. I've also started a small bed of Golden Wax bush beans and a long bean from Thailand.
9. GARLIC - Before we got last week's rain I harvested about 2 dozen garlic heads. Garlic is ready to dig up when the green tops turn tan and dry. It's best to dig them when they are not wet. I rinsed them off right away, which is not recommended, but our clay soil is either like peanut butter when wet or like concrete when dry. Then I dried them in the sun for a few hot dry days before moving them onto newspapers in the shade of the porch to dry for a few weeks. This prepares them for storing.

Also in the garden...

CARROTS - I've finally been harvesting carrots and they are delicious. I like that it's a crop I can leave in the ground, just pulling what I want to use immediately. I've decided I have the patience to grow them, and I've continued to do more plantings from seeds.

BEETS - We ate beet greens initially, and now I've been roasting the pink and white zebra striped Chioggia beets. I'm proud to say I successfully grew them from seeds I harvested from my own plants in their 2nd year. The size of the beet root seems more dependent upon how much room you allow between plants than on how long they are in the ground.

ZUCCHINI - Pulled up the one zucchini plant which had quickly gone from lush and healthy to wilted and sickly. I think it suffered from a squash vine borer. I'll try another plant again in July.

BRUSSELS SPROUTS - I also had to dig up the brussels sprouts. Just as the little Barbie-doll size cabbages began to form on the stem, the leaves unfolded immediately. This is due to our hot weather. I'll try growing it again in the fall, which is what is recommended for my zone.

LETTUCE - We ate the last of the romaine and Little Gem Lettuce. So far I haven't been able to get any of my heat-tolerant varieties of lettuce to germinate well. :-(

BASIL - With lots of pesto still in the freezer from last year, I only put in 4 Thai basil plants, which have a really strong flavor. This way I have some to pick fresh, which I love in a Salad Caprese, with tomatoes and mozzarella.

FENNEL - I moved small fennel plants which had over-wintered and now they are flowering. I will save the seeds which follow the flower, a licorice taste used in Italian cooking, and I've been slicing up the stems and adding to roasting vegetables.

PARSLEY - Both curly and flatleaf parsley plants I started from seed are growing well. This week I picked lots and made tabouli, and I'll share my recipe on this blog soon.

POPPIES - In another garden bed I am growing "Breadseed Poppies" and the flower is an old-fashioned purple shade. I grow red poppies and the seeds they produce are tiny, so I am hopeful that this variety will be larger and suitable for me to use in cooking.

GARDEN HUCKLEBERRIES - My two garden huckleberry plants have suffered from bug-eaten leaves since I first set the seedlings out, but this hasn't hampered the production of flowers and berries. I picked a cup full one day recently, put them in a saucepan with a small amount of honey and some cornstarch dissolved in blueberry juice, to thicken as it cooked. I mixed the cooled sauce into plain yogurt and it tasted great. The raw berries sort of taste like blueberries but with a slightly bitter bite, but were great when cooked.

STRAWBERRIES - My strawberries ended production in late May, and I dug up approximately 12 dozen plants from the big mass I had left to grow at the west end of the strawberry border. I am trying to keep the baby plants clipped off the established bed, but will allow some to root later in the summer for more friends who want to start their own bed. Let me know if you want any.
I removed the coldframe covers, and the frame itself is permanently attached to the garden corner. Two little cherry tomato plants are all that is growing inside now.

Happy gardening!

Lessons from my Garden

I've bought my new seeds, started some seedlings, and I'm reviewing last year's garden successes and failures while planning the 2011 garden. Here are some things I learned:

Tomato plant growing in the cold frame.

• Onions: Even though I "cured" my harvested onions as prescribed, I found most either sprouted or rotted in storage. I had been more successful in past years, so perhaps our growing season was too wet. Fortunately, I harvested so many at once that I also dehydrated onions. This proves to be a great option for me, since the dehydrated onions can be used for dips, soups, and other recipes. To dehydrate I peeled the onions then quartered them. I pulsed them very briefly in my food processor, just to get them chopped. (Processing them too long will turn them to onion mush.) Beware of the fumes when you take of the lid! I did all this on the porch so the house wouldn't fill with the onion fragrance. Then I spread the chopped onions in a thin layer on parchment sheets on my electric dehydrator trays. I dried them until they were brittle and golden, then packed what I wouldn't be using right away in a vacuum sealed mason jar.
• Tomatoes: I grew several varieties of tomatoes, and I'll try others next season. The Brandywines had a fabulous flavor, but they crack even if you pick them early and ripen indoors. I learned I prefer a smaller tomato, and I weighed some to determine 7 to 8 oz. is a perfect size salad tomato for me. I also grew a hybrid called "Jelly Bean" and they were tiny and the sweetest I ever tasted. I am leaning away from hybrids, so when I've used all those seeds I won't repurchase them. Late in the season I grew "Amish Paste." They were larger than Romas, very low in seeds, meaty, and very flavorful… worth repeating. They are also "indeterminate" which means they fruit continuously during the season, vs. "determinate" like Romas, which are compact plants but ripen their fruit over a shorter time period then stop setting new fruit. Also regarding tomatoes, many gardeners in my area had "tomato blight". If you know any organic solutions, please let me know.
• Winter Squashes: My harvest was limited, due to an infestation of squash bugs, but I've verified that Waltham Butternut Squashes are all I need to plant in this category. They store in my basement for nearly a year, they can be substituted in any recipe for pumpkin, they are good producers, and they taste great. The white with jagged green stripes acorn-type which I planted turned cream with orange stripes and were gorgeous, but disappointing in the taste test. I think planting the Butternut (and its cousin Cantaloupe) a bit later in the season might help miss the cycle of squash bugs, and our season is long enough to allow me to do that.
• Eggplants: I planted two varieties, and the heirloom "Black Beauty" wins out over the long skinny "Early Longs". They had better taste and were easier to cook with. I continue to be plagued with flea beetles, which eat away at the young eggplant foliage, but toward the end of summer they had left and the plants produced vigorously. So my solution in 2011 will be to start my eggplants later. 
• Beans: All my snap beans suffered from bug bites on the leaves and beans, so I barely got enough to eat fresh. In 2011 I am returning to my favorite bush varieties, Blue Lake Bush and Golden Wax. Both are stringless, taste great fresh (I eat them raw!), and freeze well. Hopefully I can manage the bugs.
• Strawberries: To keep down weeds in my "June-bearing" strawberry bed, I had planted them in two staggered rows in black landscape fabric, and covered that with a layer of straw. Big no-no. Perhaps this might have worked if we had less rain, but the result was that after I harvested a good crop of berries a fungus or mildew developed under the straw and killed the plants. Fortunately, many at the end of the patch had sent out babies that I was too busy to snip off, and I let all the runners grow freely into the other sections of the vegetable garden. By the end of summer, I dug up enough new strawberry plants to replant the original bed (with no mulch this time), planted two new beds (in case the original bed retained any fungus), and had enough left to share with a friend.
• Garlic & Basil: 'Can't have too much garlic, but I can have too much basil! My garlic harvest has stored very well and should hold me through the next harvest, around July. But 20 basil plants supplied me with too much, fresh and frozen. I think I'll still have some in the freezer well beyond next summer, so I'll try to limit myself to just a couple of plants this year, just for fresh use.
• Experiment! Just to see what would happen, I planted some of the mung beans I use for growing sprouts, and two plants grew well and produced a little crop! This year I plan to grow Huckleberries, a melon which will store for months in the basement, calendula flowers (edible and dried for an ingredient in lotions and salves), and new varieties of tomatoes and cucumbers. I'm also going to try some different growing methods, like trellising my cucumbers so they grow up off the ground.



Black Beauty Eggplant, ready to pick.

• Cold Frame: I purchased an Austrian-made Juwel 1000 cold frame last February, and it was a great addition to my garden. The assembly instructions were in German, but my handy husband managed to figure out how it went together from the diagrams. We positioned it in one corner of our raised bed vegetable garden. I used it for numerous purposes:  hardening-off indoor seedlings before setting in the open garden, rooting cuttings from chrysanthemums and other plants, growing my second crop of tomato seedlings, starting fall seedlings, and, now that it's winter, growing lettuce and spinach plants under protection. Temperatures have fallen below 10 degrees F many times already, and several inches of snow have covered the top at times, but the lettuce and spinach plants look healthy and happy inside!

Like fellow gardeners, I am anxious for warmer weather and getting my hands dirty again soon!

Pumpkin Cranberry Bread

Now that I've posted how to cook pumpkin, here's a delicious quick bread to make with the pulp. This recipe uses fresh cranberries, which are easy to find this time of year. Beware of dried cranberries, by the way - you won't find any that don't have added sugar, since the berry is so sour. Incidently, cooked butternut squash substitutes perfectly for pumpkin.

• 2 eggs, beaten slightly
• 1-1/2 c honey
• 1/2 c vegetable oil
• 1-1/4 c cooked, drained pumpkin
• 2-1/2 c flour
• 1 c chopped fresh cranberries
• 1 T pumpkin pie spice*
• 1 t baking soda
• 1/2 t salt

Preheat oven to 350 degrees, grease two loaf pans. Mix the first 4 ingredients in one bowl, and the remaining dry ingredients and cranberries in a second bowl. Add the wet to dry, mixing just to moisten thoroughly. Bake 1 hour.

* See my Ingredients in the right column for directions to mix your own Pumpkin Pie Spice

Pumpkins

The pumpkins I painted for Halloween are still looking good, so they are hanging around for a while. But if yours are ready to retire, don't just throw them away. Pumpkin seeds are delicious and nutritious, and the puree is great for eating and baking into breads and pies.

Carefully cut the pumpkin into halves or smaller, depending on its size. Use a spoon to scrape out the seeds and inner pulp. I boil the seeds in water for 5 minutes, which helps clean the strings and pulp off, then drain well. You can season the seeds, with Italian salad dressing or olive oil, and sprinkle with salt or other spices. Bake in a single layer on a cookie sheet at 250 degrees for 30 minutes, stir and bake 30-60 minutes more, until crunchy.

To bake the pumpkin pulp, line a roasting pan with foil - do not skip this step... the pumpkin is full of natural sugars which carmelize while they roast and can ruin a pan with burned-on residue (I know, I've scraped a few roasting pans!). Place pumpkin pieces cut side down. Add water to the pan to help keep from sticking. I also recommend covering tightly with foil - keeps down the splattering and slows down the evaporation of the water. Bake at 350 degrees for 1 to 2 hours, until fork-tender. Remove. When cool, scrape pulp from shells. Puree the pulp with a potato masher or in a food processor and set in a colander over a bowl to drain out extra moisture, and you'll end up with a nicer puree than what comes from a can. The puree can be used immediately or frozen in a zipper bag, in 1 cup portions for easy use later.

Incidently, you'll see some of my mums in the photo. I'll tell you more about this in another blog, but, for now, if you've bought pots of fall chrysanthemums, they can be planted for next year. When the flowers die off, just cut off the tops and plant in your garden. It is a perennial and I've had them come back year after year, even in the cold of New Hampshire. More info on this later.