Fall = Winding Down The Garden

The garden is winding down. It's been a good year for some things (zucchini, lettuce, snow peas) and not so good for others (peppers, eggplant, tomatoes). The last month was slow. We had a lot of cantaloupe and watermelon, but really - that's boring.

Because the zucchini plants died, the cantaloupes over-ripened and the eggplants just weren't right - we had a surplus of rotten produce. What can you do with rotten produce? Shoot it of course!

Ryan and I used the leftover produce as target practice for his new .22. It was completely random and totally awesome at the same time.

A cantaloupe was the first victim:



Mid-way through the experiment:



We wanted to make sure the cantaloupe was completely destroyed:




The mini-sized eggplants may have been terrible to eat, but they were great target practice:



I think I nailed this thing about 20 times!



I also took A LOT of video - but I realized it's not as exciting as I expected. I tried to upload a file, but it didn't work. Oh well!

Happy fall!

Midget Mutant Eggplants Have Purpose

The midget, mutant eggplants have a purpose. They are the perfect size for eggplant fries!!! (and the crowd goes wild). Eggplant fries are a recipe I found on the internet last year. They are wonderful and go great with anything you would normally have french fries with.

You start out with cutting the eggplant. With my midget version, you don't even have to cut them that much!



Mixture is made of 3/4 c flour, 2 tsp garlic powder, 1 tsp Italian seasoning, 1 tsp parsley flakes (salt and pepper to taste). No eggs, milk or breadcrumbs (which make most fried recipes messy to prepare).



After mixing, deep fry to a crispy, golden brown. These delicious guys were the perfect side:



Yay to eggplant fries! Maybe I should edit the eggplant tag to "mutant midget eggplant". LOL.

Blossom-End Rot Strikes Again

I thought I was safe from any more damages from blossom-end rot. But, I was wrong. I have been patiently waiting for my eggplants to grow like they did last year. Unfortunately, this week I realized that last year we had mature egg plants at this time. In fact, we were well into the "Summer of Eggplant". Hrmph.

Today, I began to examine my eggplants a little more closely. They had started to rot...still attached to the plant. So, our plans for eggplant fries galore have been reduced to "we'll have some."

Here are the minature eggplants all ready to be eaten (the non-rotted ones):



As I mentioned previously, the green peppers were affected as well. They were already miserable looking, but I took the opportunity to take a picture of this "bell" pepper. They are already turning red...at this size:



Oh well, next year we may have to scaled back the garden and focus on the important things.

Blossom-End Rot

As someone who has spent a lot of time writing about Rhizoctonia Root Rot or Phytophora Root Rot (both soybean diseases for those of you going "huh?"), you would think I would be thrilled to talk about my new discovery: Blossom-End Rot . WRONG. It's in MY garden!

Blossom-End Rot is happening all over my tomato plants and from what I can read on the internet, there is nothing I can do about it! Blossom-End Rot is associated with calcium absorption into the plant and is caused by many things.

Here is what my friends at THE Ohio State University Extension have to say about it:

This may result from low calcium levels or high amounts of competitive cations in the soil, drought stress, or excessive soil moisture fluctuations which reduce uptake and movement of calcium into the plant, or rapid, vegetative growth due to excessive nitrogen fertilization.

Summary: I had too much water followed by no water, my plants are screwed.

This picture was taken from tOSU's website and displays what is happening. I keep forgetting to take pictures when I am out in the garden.



While this problem will not spread from one fruit to another, it can cause quite the problems throughout the garden. Again, tOSU says

This nonparasitic disorder can be very damaging, with losses of 50% or more in some years.

So far, I have tossed as many tomatoes this year as I have picked. I am hoping that it is just on the early ones and we can continue on to a successful growing season. Unfortunately, a lot of the plants are already struggling due to the various dead parts caused by the flooding.

Blossom-End Rot also appears on peppers and eggplant. My eggplants are troopers and I am seeing no signs of this disorder on them. However, the peppers are getting taken pretty fast, so their likelihood of survival is very low.

Let's hope some rain and balance of calcium can get these plants out of their stressed disposition! To read more about blossom-end rot from tOSU go to this link: http://ohioline.osu.edu/hyg-fact/3000/3117.html. And, please remember to use "the" before every mention of Ohio State. Thanks.

Growing Gardens Need Water

I knew I would be saying this eventually - but I think we could use some rain! Oh well, if we don't get it early next week, I will be forced to water, water, water. As far as weather goes, HOT is the only way to describe the last few weeks.

I heard recently that I am "quite the gardener" or from others they heard I "love gardening". I'm here to set the record straight on this, or at least provide some clarity. I like planting and watching things grow. I LOVE eating what comes out of the garden. The process of weeding, however, is my LEAST favorite thing to do. And, I'm terrible at it (you'll see as this post goes on). So, I think that would make me a B- gardener, at best. I guess this post somewhat falls in the "not an expert" area again. I just want to say that I'm not "quite the gardener." I think its about 80 percent luck!

A few things have transpired this week, so let's take a look at them...Some of the tomatoes are ripening! Please note: none of the early girls are ripening or close to ripening. What a joke! I won't waste my time/space with them in the future. This small picture really doesn't give you a full idea, but it does show some orange amongst the green.



We still see the results of earlier flooding. The tomatoes are a bit stunted, I would say. Aside from large areas of dead plant, the fruit that is producing is smaller than average when it is ripening. I see this with the surviving green peppers as well. Of course, this doesn't stop the appeal or taste. In the case of this tomato, size does not matter. It was FANTASTIC!



The eggplants, which are actually in the same row as the tomatoes and one row over from the green peppers, look just fine (another mystery)! I predict eggplant fries in our near future!



Oh look! The watermelon is getting bigger! We now counted 13. "Sharing is caring" will be our motto in a few weeks I'm sure.



I received feedback on my last melon post suggesting my cantaloupe didn't look like cantaloupe. They were still pretty young at the last post. Here is one that is maturing and OH NO! it looks like a cantaloupe to me! (This is also the same exact cantaloupe from the last post):



I researched the cantaloupe life cycle online and they appear to be normal at this stage. I grew cantaloupe last year, but I never even noticed them until they were yellowed and ready to be picked!

In other news, the green beans produced well and the zucchini keep on ticking. I didn't take any pictures, but they're good to go - trust me.

The Good, The Bad, The Ugly

We spent time in the garden yesterday. After a few days of dry weather, things are finally drying out. The future looks better than it did last week.

The Good

Watermelon



Eggplant



Other things of note: The peppers that did survive look to be rebounding quite nicely. The tomatoes have more fruit this week than last, so they must still be producing. Their leaves look normal and have left the drooping behind!


The Bad

Onions



The onions probably should have been done now, as their tops have died off. Unfortunately, this is as big as they are. I will replant bulbs soon. We also tilled up the snow peas and lettuce, they had run their course! I plan to replant the lettuce, I have really enjoyed having fresh salads all the time. We are also adding some pumpkins to the garden soon.


The Ugly

Broccoli



Cauliflower



Aside from the broccoli and cauliflower, I think some of the plants can bounce back from the water torture. I'm going to wait it out before digging them up.

Full Garden Pictures

It's been awhile since I posted full garden pictures, mostly because there was nothing to show. I didn't get the whole garden in a picture so I will show them in two stages......

The "North Side":



Hotcaps (Rows 1 and 2) are the watermelon. They were planted in hard conditions, so I left the hotcaps on this week to give them a chance.

Row 3: All Tomatoes

Row 4: First three plants are Eggplants, the rest are Tomatoes

Rows 5 & 6: Green Peppers and Jalapenos, respectively

Row 7: Banana and Chili Peppers, Onions

(See next picture for rest)

The "South Side"




Row 1: Same as Row 7 in first picture

Row 2: Zucchini

Row 3: Broccoli

Row 4: Cauliflower

Row 5: Snow Peas

Row 6: Green Beans

Row 7: Lettuce/Radishes

"Open space" Rows 8 & 9: Cantaloupe

I never counted the rows. 15 rows of fine, fresh, farm-raised produce growing! I know we will really enjoy the "fruits" of our labor this summer. It's hard to imagine right now!

EMERGENCE!

Ok, it's been almost a week since my last post - SORRY! It rained A LOT last weekend, so there isn't anything I could do in the garden...but the plants had plenty to do!

I went out today and planted zucchini. I removed the asparagus plants (RIP) and using their row for the zucchini. I'm looking forward to the assortment of squash this summer (zucchini and eggplant.)

Here is a picture of the freshly planted and watered zucchini. Please note, it's incredibly windy today. Check out the emergence of the corn next to my garden!



As a part of my blog, I plan to give regular updates on each of vegetables on a semi-regular basis. Here is your first progress report:

Tomatoes - all plants are growing, looking strong

Eggplants - great leaf growth in these plants, they really strive in our soil type

Green Peppers and Jalapenos - looking good, growing

Banana Peppers - all plants growing well

Onions - some have taken off quicker than others - hopefully this will result in a spread out growing season

Snow Peas - I fear a repeat of last year's sugar snap pea disaster, I see nothing........

Green Beans - EMERGENCE. They look great coming out of the ground!



Lettuce - I had no idea how to plant the lettuce, so I may have not spread it out enough. But, more emergence!



Radishes - The last thing planted from seed, the radishes seem to be flourishing! Glad I have a lot of friends who like Radishes!



I'm still looking for a good selection of watermelon and cantaloupe plants. I plan to check out the Macon County Extension's plant sale this weekend and see what I can find.

Adding to the Garden....

Once I planted the garden last week, I realized I had some room for additional plants. This week has been an adventure in finding the additional plants.

I needed about 4 more tomatoes, so I ended up purchasing a 9pk of Beefsteak tomatoes. I only planted 4 of them though! We now have three varieties of tomatoes in the garden (Early Girl, Better Boy and Beefsteak), totalling 15 plants! I apparently didn't get enough tomatoes to eat or give away last year...so we're trying for more.

We also had space for about 1/2 row of something, an additional eggplant and one more banana pepper plant. These proved to be an adventure.

I found nothing of interest at Lowe's while I was buying the tomato plants, so my next stop was Farm and Fleet. They had nothing in their plant area, but I was able to pick up some radishes. Note to self: Mondays are not a good time for plant shopping. My partner in crime, Ryan, searched some stores and found an eggplant, but still no banana peppers.