Every summer, around mid-July or early August, I start hearing complaints about cucumber, squash, and melon plants whose leaves have acquired that gray-ish look that goes with Downy Mildew. Productivity slows, and the plants die. Out of desperation (possibly) and a longing for more fresh cucumbers and squashes and melons (likely), many gardeners treat their ailing plants with an array of sprays, from baking soda mixtures to compost teas to official fungicides purchased in the pesticide section of a garden center. All of these can slow down the spread of Downy Mildew to some extent, but none will actually cure the plants.
In general, the inability to cure the problem is a good reason to grow the most disease-resistant varieties we can find. UGA Extension publications list varieties that are good to grow in our area, and a big reason varieties make it onto the list is that they show pretty good resistance to diseases that are common here in the Southeast.
These are the currently recommended cucumbers: Salad Bush Hybrid, Bush Crop, Fanfare, Burpless Hybrid, Diva, Marketmore, Straight Eight, Sweet Slice, and Sweet Success.
When I first started gardening here, about 25 years ago, I tried several different varieties of cucumbers before settling on Straight Eight (notice that it's on the recommended varieties list) as the best for my yard, but I later switched to Straight Nine, a selection of Straight Eight from Sand Hill Preservation, and each year I find that it out-performs most other varieties in local gardens. Part of its charm is that it is slower to succumb to both Downy and Powdery Mildews.
This year, though, I am going to grow another cucumber variety alongside Straight Nine. I found the seeds through my trip to Monticello with a couple of gardening friends last September. We had a great time meeting other attendees at the Harvest Festival and asking about their gardens, but we also met some seed producers, one of whom was a young man from Commonwealth Seed Growers. After a brief conversation with the grower, we bought a few seed packets and added our names to his mailing list, and then we moved on.
When the catalog showed up in the mail, though, I saw that a big focus of the group is identifying and producing varieties of cucumber/squash/melon family plants that resist Downy Mildew. Talk about a great gift to gardeners and small farmers here in the Southeast!
My seed order from that group includes a packet of the cucumber variety DMR-264, a selection released from Cornell University. The variety has shown excellent resistance to Downy Mildew on the farm where it is being grown out for seed, and I am very interested to see how it will compare to Straight Nine.
I have friends, including some at local Community Gardens, who have been looking for mildew-resistant squashes, melons, and cucumbers, and it seems possible that Commonwealth Seed Growers could have the seeds of our dreams.
I surely am hoping so. Meanwhile, next weekend, I will be looking into more new varieties and other gardening discoveries at the Georgia Organics conference. It will be great to spend some time with other people who are so very focused on growing good food.
Showing posts with label cucumbers. Show all posts
Showing posts with label cucumbers. Show all posts
Sunday, February 21, 2016
Tuesday, June 2, 2015
Squash Beetles and Bean Harvests
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| Squash beetles look a lot like pale ladybugs. |
My camera hasn't wanted to focus on the little beetles, so the picture at the right is a bit fuzzy, but if you imagine a "washed out" looking ladybug, with seven spots on each side of its body, and it is eating a plant in the the squash/cucumber family, then you pretty much have a good picture in your mind.
Tuesday, September 2, 2014
The Garden Keeps Rolling Along
The three-day weekend was reasonably busy in the garden. Joe helped with the biggest job, using the grub hoe to churn up the cleaned-up squash/melon bed, so I could spread on a layer of compost and then set in the little plants I've been growing in a flat. The plants include a couple of kinds of kale, cabbages, cauliflower, beets, more cilantro, and a couple of broccoli.
I also worked more on clearing the last of the older tomato plants. I'd like to be able to plant that bed soon with spinach, bok choy, and winter radishes.
The bed I've saved for carrots still needs to have the buckwheat cut down, and there is a little space where the tomatillos were that will be available for re-planting after I've dumped some compost on it. Otherwise, though, the planting for fall is nearly done.
The first lettuces have developed some true leaves; the first cilantro looks less frail; the peas are a couple of inches high; and the cilantro, collards, and kale that I planted in the garden as seed a couple of weeks ago are all looking like actual little plants.
Meanwhile, we are still bringing in peppers, okra, and tomatoes (the Principe Borghese that were planted last have just recently begun to ripen), and the late-planted green beans and cowpeas will begin contributing to our meals later this week.
I had planted seeds for pickling cucumbers several weeks ago, to find out whether a late-planted crop was a possibility, and those are beginning to make cucumbers; however, the leaves already are very damaged by mildew, so I'm thinking that the late cucumber crop is going to be tiny. The plants won't last long in the garden at the rate they are going downhill.
I also sprinkled some critter repellent around the perimeter of the sweet potato bed. The chipmunks have already been in there, eating my little crop. I'd like for the little rascals to leave me some this year, and I'm hoping the repellent works.
A highlight of the weekend was eating watermelon from the garden. This year's melons stayed smaller than they should have, but they were sweet, with good flavor and texture. I had completely forgotten that they would be yellow inside, so I had a very brief "uh oh" moment as I sliced into the first one. It is great that the garden offers so many surprises! I am never bored.
I also worked more on clearing the last of the older tomato plants. I'd like to be able to plant that bed soon with spinach, bok choy, and winter radishes.
The bed I've saved for carrots still needs to have the buckwheat cut down, and there is a little space where the tomatillos were that will be available for re-planting after I've dumped some compost on it. Otherwise, though, the planting for fall is nearly done.
The first lettuces have developed some true leaves; the first cilantro looks less frail; the peas are a couple of inches high; and the cilantro, collards, and kale that I planted in the garden as seed a couple of weeks ago are all looking like actual little plants.
Meanwhile, we are still bringing in peppers, okra, and tomatoes (the Principe Borghese that were planted last have just recently begun to ripen), and the late-planted green beans and cowpeas will begin contributing to our meals later this week.
I had planted seeds for pickling cucumbers several weeks ago, to find out whether a late-planted crop was a possibility, and those are beginning to make cucumbers; however, the leaves already are very damaged by mildew, so I'm thinking that the late cucumber crop is going to be tiny. The plants won't last long in the garden at the rate they are going downhill.
I also sprinkled some critter repellent around the perimeter of the sweet potato bed. The chipmunks have already been in there, eating my little crop. I'd like for the little rascals to leave me some this year, and I'm hoping the repellent works.
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| I totally forgot that this year's watermelons would be yellow inside. PHOTO/Amy W. |
Tuesday, June 17, 2014
Beans, Berries, and Cukes
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| Sunday's harvest. |
Saturday it was beans, berries and cukes. Sunday it was beans, berries and cukes. Yesterday it was beans, berries, and cukes, and I am guessing that the pattern will hold for several more days.
On Sunday, I did pull the onions and lay them out on the porch to dry, along with most of the garlic. The potatoes are nearly ready, but not quite yet. Leaves are turning yellow and falling over, but I like to see a higher percentage of them looking absolutely done before digging up the spuds.
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| 140 pots of basil seedlings. |
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| Monday's harvest. |
It's been several years since I've planted wax beans, and I had forgotten how great it is to actually be able to find the beans in all the foliage. The bright yellow beans almost glow against the background of green leaves.
The other photo is of a whole lot of basil seedlings. My workplace will be celebrating Horticulture week, July 7-11, and part of the celebration will include giving away basil seedlings to people who stop by the office that week. If anyone is worried about the crowded condition of the little plants - it may help to know that I plan to thin them to ~2 seedlings per pot sometime in the next few days.
Hope the harvests in other gardens are going well!
Sunday, July 21, 2013
Attack of the Pickleworms
My garden has been attacked by pickleworms before, so this is nothing new, but can I just say that I am not happy to see them? Luckily, so far they are not in the zucchini or melons, but they like those, too.
If your cucumbers have been attacked, what you'll see on the outside of the cucumber is likely to look a lot like this:
If you slice into the cuke carefully, you may find the whole caterpillar. Of course, you might also find just half the caterpillar, which is a little disconcerting.
Since I don't like to use much in the way of pesticides in my garden, my options for controlling the problem are limited. One year, I thought I'd try covering the plants at night, then uncovering them in the morning. Since the worms are the babies of a night flying moth, covering them at night would keep the moths away from my plants.
It turns out that I don't love cucumbers enough to go to all that work - I would forget to cover them at night, and sometimes, when I'd managed that, I'd forget to uncover them in the day, which meant the new flowers didn't get pollinated.
If the rain would hold off for a few days, I'd spray the plants with Bt for caterpillars, which is supposed to not harm any other kind of insect, but the weather-radar this afternoon is showing little storms all over the Southeast, several of which are pretty nearby, and one of which is pouring water all over my yard right now.
The real trick would have been to get the cucumbers planted earlier, so my harvest-window would be longer, but the cool wet spring delayed planting, and my garden was plagued by crows as the seedlings began to show above ground. The crows kept pulling them up, and I kept replanting them. It may be a miracle that we have any fresh-garden cucumbers at all!
The good news, sort of, is that the onslaught of pickleworms coincides with some other cucumber-related problems. Even if I could keep back the pickleworms, there's still downy mildew, and we have some cucumber beetles, too, eating the leaf tissue while leaving behind a netted lace of the leaves' veins.
Sometimes, the best thing is to prepare to say "goodbye" to the cucumbers. While I wait for the other problems get worse, I will be trimming away the wormy spots, to get as much good cucumber as possible for as many more cucumber salads as I can.
If your cucumbers have been attacked, what you'll see on the outside of the cucumber is likely to look a lot like this:
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| Evidence of pickleworms: Pale green frass and little round holes. PHOTO/atlantaveggies.blogspot.com |
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Actual pickleworm, tucked neatly into a cave of his/her own making.
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It turns out that I don't love cucumbers enough to go to all that work - I would forget to cover them at night, and sometimes, when I'd managed that, I'd forget to uncover them in the day, which meant the new flowers didn't get pollinated.
If the rain would hold off for a few days, I'd spray the plants with Bt for caterpillars, which is supposed to not harm any other kind of insect, but the weather-radar this afternoon is showing little storms all over the Southeast, several of which are pretty nearby, and one of which is pouring water all over my yard right now.
The real trick would have been to get the cucumbers planted earlier, so my harvest-window would be longer, but the cool wet spring delayed planting, and my garden was plagued by crows as the seedlings began to show above ground. The crows kept pulling them up, and I kept replanting them. It may be a miracle that we have any fresh-garden cucumbers at all!
The good news, sort of, is that the onslaught of pickleworms coincides with some other cucumber-related problems. Even if I could keep back the pickleworms, there's still downy mildew, and we have some cucumber beetles, too, eating the leaf tissue while leaving behind a netted lace of the leaves' veins.
Sometimes, the best thing is to prepare to say "goodbye" to the cucumbers. While I wait for the other problems get worse, I will be trimming away the wormy spots, to get as much good cucumber as possible for as many more cucumber salads as I can.
Sunday, July 14, 2013
Garden Update
The usual abundance of the summer garden is finally kicking in:
The harvests aren't wildly varied right now, but that will change as the summer rolls on. The cucumbers are doing especially well. I don't know how long that will last, though, because the first vine up already has some interesting angular lesions on its leaves. That is not a good sign. However, Joe started a crock of brined pickles today, and I loaded the dehydrator with tomatoes and peppers. Things are looking up!
The woods have been a source of abundance, too. We've eaten chanterelle mushrooms with a few meals in the past week or so, and a lot were dried (have I said lately how much we love our dehydrator?) for later use.
Out in the neighborhood, the Cobb County Water department has been working on the water lines. We have a new fire hydrant in the Northwest corner of our yard, which is definitely good, but we also have a bit of a mess up by the curb. When we found out about the plan to replace our pipes, I delayed planting some of the crops that had been slated for the beds nearest the road.
The workmen did a great job of avoiding my gardens, even though they technically encroach into the easement, and I decided last week that it was probably safe to plant those spaces.
It is too late for the peanuts, so those will have to wait until next year. It is probably too late for the sorghum, too, but I planted some anyway. There were a lot more seeds in that packet than in the peanut packet, so it seemed like a safer gamble.
I also planted some bush beans. There is still plenty of time for those! There is a plan to put a couple of tomato plants where the first bush beans came out (those pesky Bean Beetles did a lot of damage!), but the weekend has been very busy, and that isn't done yet.
In a weird bit of good news, I have a bad habit of tossing tomatoes affected by things like chipmunk bites and blossom end rot into the shrubbery by the creek.
A couple of tomato plants have come up over there, and they both already
have a few flowers. I have no idea what kind they are, but I will be
digging them up one evening this week to transplant into the garden.
Meanwhile, I am expecting the zucchini plants to expire soon (due to Squash Vine Borers), and when they do, I will be planting buckwheat as a short-term cover crop in that space. In mid-August, when it is time to start putting out the fall crops, I'll turn the buckwheat into the soil and plant carrots in that bed.
I hope that all the other gardens out there are enjoying our break from the rains and doing well!
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| Straight Nine cucumbers; yellow, red, and black tomatoes; assorted peppers. PHOTO/Amy W. |
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| Chanterelle mushrooms. PHOTO/Amy W. |
The woods have been a source of abundance, too. We've eaten chanterelle mushrooms with a few meals in the past week or so, and a lot were dried (have I said lately how much we love our dehydrator?) for later use.
Out in the neighborhood, the Cobb County Water department has been working on the water lines. We have a new fire hydrant in the Northwest corner of our yard, which is definitely good, but we also have a bit of a mess up by the curb. When we found out about the plan to replace our pipes, I delayed planting some of the crops that had been slated for the beds nearest the road.
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| Cucumber on a still-healthy vine. PHOTO/Amy W. |
The workmen did a great job of avoiding my gardens, even though they technically encroach into the easement, and I decided last week that it was probably safe to plant those spaces.
It is too late for the peanuts, so those will have to wait until next year. It is probably too late for the sorghum, too, but I planted some anyway. There were a lot more seeds in that packet than in the peanut packet, so it seemed like a safer gamble.
I also planted some bush beans. There is still plenty of time for those! There is a plan to put a couple of tomato plants where the first bush beans came out (those pesky Bean Beetles did a lot of damage!), but the weekend has been very busy, and that isn't done yet.
In a weird bit of good news, I have a bad habit of tossing tomatoes affected by things like chipmunk bites and blossom end rot into the shrubbery by the creek.
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| Poblano peppers. PHOTO/Amy W. |
Meanwhile, I am expecting the zucchini plants to expire soon (due to Squash Vine Borers), and when they do, I will be planting buckwheat as a short-term cover crop in that space. In mid-August, when it is time to start putting out the fall crops, I'll turn the buckwheat into the soil and plant carrots in that bed.
I hope that all the other gardens out there are enjoying our break from the rains and doing well!
Sunday, June 9, 2013
Finally, a Summer Harvest!
I have been bringing in green beans for a few days now, and this is not
the first pepper, and the zucchini isn't quite full-sized, but today is
the first day I could bring in more than one or two kinds of veggies
from the garden in the same day.
In honor of the occasion, I have arranged it all in Grammy J's cut glass bowl (Grammy J was my mother's mother's mother -- my great grandmother). That is just how happy I am with the little harvest.
I brought in the regular bulbing onions today, too, but they need to dry a few days on the front porch before I trim and weigh them.
We've had crows in the yard over the past couple of weeks, which means that seedlings have been pulled up and tossed about. I've replanted some of the cucumbers (and melons, and butternut squash) more than once.
To protect the most recent batch, I cut the bottoms from small plastic cups then pushed the cups down around the seedlings as they emerged. This seems to have been enough protection; the smallest cucumber plants finally all have a couple of true leaves. This may be enough that they are no longer so attractive to crows.
At home and at the garden/farm where I volunteer, I have been pruning the tomato plants. If I can't stand up tomorrow, it's because I have been hunched over pruning leaves and suckers from about 150 tomato plants in the past couple of days. Here in the South, diseases are an ever-present threat to tomatoes. It can help if the plants are pruned up a bit.
I like to get them to the point that there are no leaves within about 18 inches of the ground, and I prune away leaves that are growing in toward the center of the plant, to create a cone of air-space in the center. This takes several weeks of work as the plants grow, but the improved airflow can help keep the remaining foliage drier and less susceptible to the most common airborne fungal diseases.
Hope all the other gardens out there are growing well!
In honor of the occasion, I have arranged it all in Grammy J's cut glass bowl (Grammy J was my mother's mother's mother -- my great grandmother). That is just how happy I am with the little harvest.
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| First real harvest of summer crops, 2013. PHOTO/Amy W. |
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| The 2013 harvest of bulb-type onions from my yard. PHOTO/Amy W. |
To protect the most recent batch, I cut the bottoms from small plastic cups then pushed the cups down around the seedlings as they emerged. This seems to have been enough protection; the smallest cucumber plants finally all have a couple of true leaves. This may be enough that they are no longer so attractive to crows.
At home and at the garden/farm where I volunteer, I have been pruning the tomato plants. If I can't stand up tomorrow, it's because I have been hunched over pruning leaves and suckers from about 150 tomato plants in the past couple of days. Here in the South, diseases are an ever-present threat to tomatoes. It can help if the plants are pruned up a bit.
I like to get them to the point that there are no leaves within about 18 inches of the ground, and I prune away leaves that are growing in toward the center of the plant, to create a cone of air-space in the center. This takes several weeks of work as the plants grow, but the improved airflow can help keep the remaining foliage drier and less susceptible to the most common airborne fungal diseases.
Hope all the other gardens out there are growing well!
Monday, April 29, 2013
Of Gardening and Bees
One of the things I love about gardening is that I get to really see miracles every day. Here is Saturday's miracle:
My zucchini seedlings have pushed up through the surface!
The huge cotyledons (seed leaves) on these baby plants expand out from seeds that are actually pretty small. My friend Becky says that the baby zucchini plants remind her of solar panels - they flatten out when the sun is high but fold closed for nighttime.
Also on Saturday (before the Big Rain started), I was able to plant the rest of the cucumbers and some okra and sunflowers. I still have a long way to go in terms of getting my summer garden planted, but it feels good to have made some headway.
Earlier in the day, Joe and I did our usual couple of hours weeding out at our friends' garden/farm on Dallas Highway, and I was invited on a little field trip to Burnt Hickory Roots Greenhouses to pick up flats of tomato and pepper plants.
I had never been out to that particular greenhouse - and I'll be lucky if I ever find it again, because I had a hilarious tour of Paulding County on the way there. However, the plants, which are grown from seed at the greenhouse, were beautiful and astonishingly affordable.
Joe and I also checked our hive on Saturday afternoon (it was a very full day!). The bees have started to make comb on seven of the bars in our top-bar hive. Here is Joe with one of the just-started combs:
We even found the queen! She has a red dot on her back; otherwise, I wouldn't have noticed her. The closed white cells at the top of this comb contain honey, and the closed yellow cells (we think) are "brood cells," with baby bees inside.
When Joe built the hive, he put in a viewing window to let us do quick checks on the hive without disturbing the bees as much as when we've opened the hive and pulled out bars to see how the bees are doing. The window has been a good source of reassurance to us new beekeepers that all is still fine.
Every now and then, though, we will need to check on the hive comb-by-comb, to make sure all is as it should be. There are mites and beetles that cause lots of trouble for bees, and we need to keep an eye out for those, and we will need to add more bars to the bee-side of the hive as more comb is built.
Right now, there is a divider in place, keeping the hive space a little cozier until the bees reproduce and need more space.
Hope that everyone else had a great gardening weekend, too!
My zucchini seedlings have pushed up through the surface!
The huge cotyledons (seed leaves) on these baby plants expand out from seeds that are actually pretty small. My friend Becky says that the baby zucchini plants remind her of solar panels - they flatten out when the sun is high but fold closed for nighttime.
Also on Saturday (before the Big Rain started), I was able to plant the rest of the cucumbers and some okra and sunflowers. I still have a long way to go in terms of getting my summer garden planted, but it feels good to have made some headway.
Earlier in the day, Joe and I did our usual couple of hours weeding out at our friends' garden/farm on Dallas Highway, and I was invited on a little field trip to Burnt Hickory Roots Greenhouses to pick up flats of tomato and pepper plants.
I had never been out to that particular greenhouse - and I'll be lucky if I ever find it again, because I had a hilarious tour of Paulding County on the way there. However, the plants, which are grown from seed at the greenhouse, were beautiful and astonishingly affordable.
Joe and I also checked our hive on Saturday afternoon (it was a very full day!). The bees have started to make comb on seven of the bars in our top-bar hive. Here is Joe with one of the just-started combs:
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| Joe with a comb that is being newly formed by our bees. |
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| The queen is marked with a dot of red paint. |
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| New comb, seen through the window on the side of the hive. |
Right now, there is a divider in place, keeping the hive space a little cozier until the bees reproduce and need more space.
Hope that everyone else had a great gardening weekend, too!
Monday, June 18, 2012
Not an Avanlanche of Food, but Close Enough
This might be my best "zucchini year" ever. We have brought zucchini, sometimes two or three squashes at a time, to the kitchen almost every day for a few weeks now. Some of it went into the freezer this past weekend, and some went into the freezer the weekend before this one.
Our green beans have produced enough for current meals, but we have harvested more at the garden/farm where we volunteer on Saturday mornings. This weekend, we not only managed to get a lot of our own zucchini into the freezer, but my husband canned 16 pints of green beans, we made a batch of blackberry jam, made a blackberry pie, and we put a couple of quarts of blueberries into the dehydrator. Not exactly an avalanche of food, but it was a very busy weekend!
The raspberries and blackberries in our yard are never quite so abundant as the blueberries, and they have passed their peak of production. However, the berries have really brightened up our breakfasts. Most of the blackberries that went into this past weekend's jam were from our Saturday work. The berries below are from our yard.
The peppers are doing pretty well, and the cucumbers are now producing "eatin' size" fruits.
The bad news is that the day-flying moths of the squash vine borers that I saw awhile back did exactly as expected; they laid eggs on my zucchini plants. The hole in the big petiole below is a sign that the eggs have hatched and the larvae already have bored into my plants. It is likely that, in a few days, I will need to pull these plants from the garden.
In the better-news category, the cucumbers are about to provide a lot more food. We had a cucumber salad tonight with our potato/zucchini soup, and if all goes well (I have heard some sad tales of downy mildew recently) we should have plenty of cucumber salads ahead of us.
Our green beans have produced enough for current meals, but we have harvested more at the garden/farm where we volunteer on Saturday mornings. This weekend, we not only managed to get a lot of our own zucchini into the freezer, but my husband canned 16 pints of green beans, we made a batch of blackberry jam, made a blackberry pie, and we put a couple of quarts of blueberries into the dehydrator. Not exactly an avalanche of food, but it was a very busy weekend!
The raspberries and blackberries in our yard are never quite so abundant as the blueberries, and they have passed their peak of production. However, the berries have really brightened up our breakfasts. Most of the blackberries that went into this past weekend's jam were from our Saturday work. The berries below are from our yard.
The peppers are doing pretty well, and the cucumbers are now producing "eatin' size" fruits.
Friday, July 15, 2011
Overgrown
My front yard is hilariously overgrown right now. The first cucumbers will be coming out soon because they're looking a little mildewed, and some of the herbs that are going to seed will be trimmed back and look a little less unruly, but the corn will be there for a while; it's popcorn that needs to stay on the stalk to dry for several weeks after maturing.
Right now, the sweet potatoes, just left/front of the corn in the photo below, are looking very healthy, and in another week or two, they are going to really sprawl all over the place. Their area will look less and less tidy as the summer progresses (but it will be glorious!).
My harvests are still heavily skewed toward cucumbers.
As a result, we've been eating a lot of a modified version of "Israeli salad," something I learned to make a long time ago, from a friend of a friend's grandmother.
The version I learned is approximately equal parts finely chopped cucumber and tomato, about a half part finely diced onion, the same for parsley, a little salt, then lemon juice and olive oil as dressing. This should sit for a few hours in the fridge before being served. I never wrote down exact proportions for all the ingredients because I watched it being made and figured out how to just "eyeball it."
However, for anyone interested in giving this a try, there is a more precise version of the recipe at MyJewishLearning.com.
The salads we've been making over the last few weeks have zero tomatoes because we've had so many cucumbers and so few (or zero!) tomatoes. I've been using lots of parsley, too, because the swallowtail butterflies haven't found my parsley yet. When they do, and their little caterpillars start to grow, it will be all over for my parsley.
Lately, I've been going light on the onion, partly because I've been taking it in my lunchbox to work, and partly because I'm running low on onions grown in my own yard. I find myself balking at the thought of actually buying onions before August.
Soon we'll have more tomato to add to the salad. My first-crop tomato plants are loaded with green fruits, and each plant has a few tomatoes that are beginning to show the pink blush that signals the beginning of ripening. It's been a long wait, but we are almost there . . .
Right now, the sweet potatoes, just left/front of the corn in the photo below, are looking very healthy, and in another week or two, they are going to really sprawl all over the place. Their area will look less and less tidy as the summer progresses (but it will be glorious!).
My harvests are still heavily skewed toward cucumbers.
As a result, we've been eating a lot of a modified version of "Israeli salad," something I learned to make a long time ago, from a friend of a friend's grandmother.
The version I learned is approximately equal parts finely chopped cucumber and tomato, about a half part finely diced onion, the same for parsley, a little salt, then lemon juice and olive oil as dressing. This should sit for a few hours in the fridge before being served. I never wrote down exact proportions for all the ingredients because I watched it being made and figured out how to just "eyeball it."
However, for anyone interested in giving this a try, there is a more precise version of the recipe at MyJewishLearning.com.
The salads we've been making over the last few weeks have zero tomatoes because we've had so many cucumbers and so few (or zero!) tomatoes. I've been using lots of parsley, too, because the swallowtail butterflies haven't found my parsley yet. When they do, and their little caterpillars start to grow, it will be all over for my parsley.
Lately, I've been going light on the onion, partly because I've been taking it in my lunchbox to work, and partly because I'm running low on onions grown in my own yard. I find myself balking at the thought of actually buying onions before August.
Soon we'll have more tomato to add to the salad. My first-crop tomato plants are loaded with green fruits, and each plant has a few tomatoes that are beginning to show the pink blush that signals the beginning of ripening. It's been a long wait, but we are almost there . . .
Saturday, July 24, 2010
A Day's Harvest
This is most of what I brought in from the garden yesterday. The cucumbers include both Straight Nine salad cukes and Littleleaf Pickling cukes. The squash is a trombocino. It will feature in more than one meal, because it is a lot of squash. (For reference, the veggies are in my biggest dough bowl; it is more than two feet long.) Surprisingly, we are still getting to pick blueberries. I am bringing in a quart or two each day. There were several birds out picking with me this morning, so that may end soon, but I am very happy to continue putting these into the freezer, the dehydrator, and our stomachs!
The Alabama Black pole beans have not been especially productive, but that may change as we have had cooler weather recently (low 90s rather than high 90s). I hope that's the case, because a rabbit ate all my bush bean plants down to the stems.
I picked the hot peppers, that Joe put in the smoker with a chicken, later in the day, so they didn't make it into the official Harvest Photograph. Smoking the hot peppers is one way to save them for the winter; we use them like chipotles (which, I guess, they are).
I am growing two kinds of little yellow tomatoes this year. The Yellow Marble are the size shape, and approximate flavor of regular cherry tomatoes. They started producing EARLY and show no signs of stopping. I have been taking these in my lunchbox to work every day, and I'm not tired of them yet.
The other little yellow tomato is Olivette Jeune (possibly misspelled). This is like a little Roma tomato: same shape, thick walls, low "juice" content. These were late in starting up production, but they are making up for it now. The plant (I have only one), pictured below, is covered with tomatoes. They've been especially good in salsa, but they have a surprisingly short "counter" life; they start to turn mushy within a few days after harvest, so they need to be eaten or processed as soon as possible.
The squash patch is still healthy and has several more smaller squash coming along. I've had to tear some patches of squash-bug-eggs from the leaves, but otherwise it is problem-free.
The lima beans are also still doing fine. The picture shows the funny flat pods.
The Jimmy Nardello peppers are finally starting to turn red. When they do, they become more sweet than any other pepper I've grown, so I have been just as patient as I can in letting them stay on the plants. However, I will get to harvest these, soon!
The Alabama Black pole beans have not been especially productive, but that may change as we have had cooler weather recently (low 90s rather than high 90s). I hope that's the case, because a rabbit ate all my bush bean plants down to the stems.
I picked the hot peppers, that Joe put in the smoker with a chicken, later in the day, so they didn't make it into the official Harvest Photograph. Smoking the hot peppers is one way to save them for the winter; we use them like chipotles (which, I guess, they are).
I am growing two kinds of little yellow tomatoes this year. The Yellow Marble are the size shape, and approximate flavor of regular cherry tomatoes. They started producing EARLY and show no signs of stopping. I have been taking these in my lunchbox to work every day, and I'm not tired of them yet.
The other little yellow tomato is Olivette Jeune (possibly misspelled). This is like a little Roma tomato: same shape, thick walls, low "juice" content. These were late in starting up production, but they are making up for it now. The plant (I have only one), pictured below, is covered with tomatoes. They've been especially good in salsa, but they have a surprisingly short "counter" life; they start to turn mushy within a few days after harvest, so they need to be eaten or processed as soon as possible.
The squash patch is still healthy and has several more smaller squash coming along. I've had to tear some patches of squash-bug-eggs from the leaves, but otherwise it is problem-free.
The lima beans are also still doing fine. The picture shows the funny flat pods.
The Jimmy Nardello peppers are finally starting to turn red. When they do, they become more sweet than any other pepper I've grown, so I have been just as patient as I can in letting them stay on the plants. However, I will get to harvest these, soon!
Monday, May 4, 2009
Pest Control: Cucumber Pickleworms
Planting time is a good time to think about pest control, so I looked up the UGA fact-sheet on growing cucumbers and found a warning about cucumber beetles—keep them under control (through unspecified means) because they spread disease. That could be a useful warning, but I am pretty sure I have never had a problem with cucumber beetles. My pest problem in cucumbers is cucumber pickleworms .
Last year, the cucumber pickleworms had a very good year, and my cucumbers had a correspondingly bad year. Almost all of my cucumbers had the little shot-holes that show where a larva has eaten its way into the fruit. The little pests were also worse than usual at the Plant a Row for the Hungry garden where I volunteer, so I know the problem was not just in my yard.
I have a copy of The Organic Gardener’s Handbook of Natural Insect and Disease Control , and when I realized the cucumber harvest was in serious jeopardy I checked the pickleworm section for advice. One suggestion was to plant a “trap crop” of yellow squash, since the pickleworm likes those even better than it likes cucumbers. The other advice was to plant early maturing varieties of cucumbers so that a good harvest could be brought in before the pickleworms totally demolished the crop.
This advice might have been useful a couple of months earlier (at planting time!), but it didn’t help much at the time. However, spring has come around again, and I have another chance. I am not changing my cucumber varieties, though, because they already are varieties that mature fairly early, and I don’t really have the space for trap-crops, other than the zucchini that usually keels over before the onslaught of the pickleworm, so I am hoping for a different solution.
The Pickleworm Management page from North Carolina State University, recommends the use of Sevin (carbaryl) to manage pickleworms. People who are averse to using pesticides (even this one which is a relatively safe chemical for home gardeners to use), are going to hope for another option.
According to the fact sheet Cucumber, Squash, Melon & Other Cucurbit Insect Pests from Clemson University, pickleworms don’t survive winter freezing, and the adults fly up from Florida each year:
It seems reasonable that when the Southeast has an early or unusually warm spring, or early, strong winds heading north out of Florida, the pickleworm damage might start earlier than usual, like it did last year.
A couple of those linked resources also mention that the parent of the pickleworm is a night-flying moth. This seems like information that could be used to thwart those pickleworms. I am thinking about covering some of my plants at night, to keep the moths from laying eggs on my plants, then uncovering the plants in the morning, so bees and other pollinators can get to the flowers.
This sounds like work, I know, and some of my cucumbers will be trellised and a serious hassle to cover up each night. So, I will leave the trellised vines uncovered and only cover the pickling cucumbers that will be sprawling on the ground this year. This way I will have both an experimental plot--covered-- and a control plot--uncovered-- (ignoring that they are different kinds of cucumbers), so the experiment may be able to tell me whether the nighttime covering makes a difference in pickleworm infestation.
I’ll let you know how the experiment turns out.
Last year, the cucumber pickleworms had a very good year, and my cucumbers had a correspondingly bad year. Almost all of my cucumbers had the little shot-holes that show where a larva has eaten its way into the fruit. The little pests were also worse than usual at the Plant a Row for the Hungry garden where I volunteer, so I know the problem was not just in my yard.
I have a copy of The Organic Gardener’s Handbook of Natural Insect and Disease Control , and when I realized the cucumber harvest was in serious jeopardy I checked the pickleworm section for advice. One suggestion was to plant a “trap crop” of yellow squash, since the pickleworm likes those even better than it likes cucumbers. The other advice was to plant early maturing varieties of cucumbers so that a good harvest could be brought in before the pickleworms totally demolished the crop.
This advice might have been useful a couple of months earlier (at planting time!), but it didn’t help much at the time. However, spring has come around again, and I have another chance. I am not changing my cucumber varieties, though, because they already are varieties that mature fairly early, and I don’t really have the space for trap-crops, other than the zucchini that usually keels over before the onslaught of the pickleworm, so I am hoping for a different solution.
The Pickleworm Management page from North Carolina State University, recommends the use of Sevin (carbaryl) to manage pickleworms. People who are averse to using pesticides (even this one which is a relatively safe chemical for home gardeners to use), are going to hope for another option.
According to the fact sheet Cucumber, Squash, Melon & Other Cucurbit Insect Pests from Clemson University, pickleworms don’t survive winter freezing, and the adults fly up from Florida each year:
“In South Carolina, pickleworms starve or freeze to death during the winter. They overwinter in Florida and spread northward each spring. Severe damage usually does not occur before summer in South Carolina. Heavy populations generally do not build up before the first flower buds open; however, late crops may be destroyed before blossoming.”
It seems reasonable that when the Southeast has an early or unusually warm spring, or early, strong winds heading north out of Florida, the pickleworm damage might start earlier than usual, like it did last year.
A couple of those linked resources also mention that the parent of the pickleworm is a night-flying moth. This seems like information that could be used to thwart those pickleworms. I am thinking about covering some of my plants at night, to keep the moths from laying eggs on my plants, then uncovering the plants in the morning, so bees and other pollinators can get to the flowers.
This sounds like work, I know, and some of my cucumbers will be trellised and a serious hassle to cover up each night. So, I will leave the trellised vines uncovered and only cover the pickling cucumbers that will be sprawling on the ground this year. This way I will have both an experimental plot--covered-- and a control plot--uncovered-- (ignoring that they are different kinds of cucumbers), so the experiment may be able to tell me whether the nighttime covering makes a difference in pickleworm infestation.
I’ll let you know how the experiment turns out.
Tuesday, April 28, 2009
Cucurbitaceae Fun Facts
The plant family Cucurbitaceae has the same root name as the squash genus, Cucurbita, so it is often refered to as the Squash family, even though it includes cucumbers, melons, and watermelons. The melons that most of us plant—canary melons, cantaloupes, and honeydews--are the species Cucumis melo. Cucumbers are the same genus as the melons, but a different species—Cucumis sativa. Watermelons, that I don’t plant because I can’t plant just every sprawling plant that I want to due to lack of space, are in the genus Citrullus.
All of these garden plants grow as vines with coiling tendrils that help them climb, unless a variety is specially bred (and labeled) to not have long vines. These “bush” types are essentially vines with very short internodes (spaces between the leaves ). They (mostly) still have tendrils, but they sprawl in miniature.
Plants in this family also have both male and female flowers—only the female flowers produce fruit, but they need the male flowers to accomplish this task.
All the garden-plants in this family are warm weather lovers, needing full sun, warm days, and plenty of water as the fruits begin to develop, for best production. Also, they do best with a soil pH between 6 and 6.5. (Click on the plant name for more growing information from UGA: cucumbers, melons , watermelons)
It turns out that a couple of native members of the Cucurbitaceae grow in the western U. S., and they are both in the genus Marah. The common name for each includes the word Manroot. These plants are vining and have both male and female flowers, just like the garden members of this family, but these plants include an unusual “extra.” According to this website about the Native Plants of Montara Mountain in California,
“The name "Manroot" comes from the surprisingly large tubers (4 - 8 ft long!) of these plants, which can appear to be a dead body when dug up.”
According to this webpage from a website about the Natural History of Orange County that is sponsored by the University of California at Irvine, one tuber “of unknown age dug at Rancho Santa Ana Botanic Garden stood for many years at the entrance to the Administration Building. It had been transported on a flatbed truck, was several feet in diameter, and weighed 467 pounds.”
Tubers of the Manroot have been used medicinally as a purgative, so they aren't exactly something that you'd want to serve at the supper table. Can you imagine trying to dig giant inedible tubers out of the garden at the end of each season? I am thankful that the garden members of this family are less exuberant than the natives in their production of underground parts.
All of these garden plants grow as vines with coiling tendrils that help them climb, unless a variety is specially bred (and labeled) to not have long vines. These “bush” types are essentially vines with very short internodes (spaces between the leaves ). They (mostly) still have tendrils, but they sprawl in miniature.
Plants in this family also have both male and female flowers—only the female flowers produce fruit, but they need the male flowers to accomplish this task.
All the garden-plants in this family are warm weather lovers, needing full sun, warm days, and plenty of water as the fruits begin to develop, for best production. Also, they do best with a soil pH between 6 and 6.5. (Click on the plant name for more growing information from UGA: cucumbers, melons , watermelons)
It turns out that a couple of native members of the Cucurbitaceae grow in the western U. S., and they are both in the genus Marah. The common name for each includes the word Manroot. These plants are vining and have both male and female flowers, just like the garden members of this family, but these plants include an unusual “extra.” According to this website about the Native Plants of Montara Mountain in California,
“The name "Manroot" comes from the surprisingly large tubers (4 - 8 ft long!) of these plants, which can appear to be a dead body when dug up.”
According to this webpage from a website about the Natural History of Orange County that is sponsored by the University of California at Irvine, one tuber “of unknown age dug at Rancho Santa Ana Botanic Garden stood for many years at the entrance to the Administration Building. It had been transported on a flatbed truck, was several feet in diameter, and weighed 467 pounds.”
Tubers of the Manroot have been used medicinally as a purgative, so they aren't exactly something that you'd want to serve at the supper table. Can you imagine trying to dig giant inedible tubers out of the garden at the end of each season? I am thankful that the garden members of this family are less exuberant than the natives in their production of underground parts.
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