let's see your veggie garden {pics}

[deluxestogie]

I already have a very light and a very dark pipe stain. I purchased them years ago. The black walnut hulls I removed crushed into a fine, black powder. It stained the margins of my fingernails! (My mother would not have allowed me to eat dinner with fingernails like this.)

Bob

 

[ChinaVoodoo]

We don't have walnuts here, but I remember about ten years ago encountering them in Ontario, and I was taken aback at the pungent aroma of the green fruits. I was wondering what they smell like when they burn and whether you think it might be an enjoyable flavour.

 

[deluxestogie]

Most burned nut meat smells like burning fat. I've tested hazel, almond, cashew, peanut and Carpathian walnut. I guess I'll have to dig some of that nasty, black crud that used to be the black walnut husk out of the kitchen garbage, along with a fragment of the inner shell, and do burn tests. My test of pistachio shells revealed that the aroma is pleasant, but so minimal that a fistful of them burning is hardly noticeable.

It takes a nut to burn a nut.

Bob

 

[BarG]

Bob, your poor fingernail margins made me laugh. Heh Heh. Wait till your driving a 33 year old truck and you thought your mechaniching days were over and end up with grease stain around your nail margins. My mom would freak, heh heh.
My grand dad would say. hell yeah, chip off the old block, I wish I had his knowledge as he was the head mechanic for a major city that started with a 2 man crew to 120 before his retirement.

 

[deluxestogie]

I combusted some blackened, dried husk from the black walnut, and independently did the same with a piece of the shell. The aromas are pleasant, but no different from burning most hardwoods. So that's a bust for Latakia.

Back to "garden".
For my germination tests of beans (2014), peas (2016) and a particular winter squash, Guatemala Blue (2012), all on filter paper in bags on the seedling heat mat, I once again looked up their typical germination time. Beans and peas take 7 to 14 days to germinate. Winter squash typically take 6 to 10 days. It's now been 4 days, with nothing other than seed swelling. I think the beans and peas have a good chance. They are typically good for about 5 years.

Squash, on the other hand, is said to be viable for up to about 4 years. [2019 - 4 = 2015]. That particular squash is sometimes available as seed from Southern Exposure or from Seed Savers Exchange. These particular seeds were saved from my own planting of them. It produces a two-foot long, banana-shaped squash with a dark orange flesh that is mildly sweet and somewhat nutty. I consume it, after it has been harvested and cured, by lopping off as much of a section as I need to prepare, then just covering the cut end of the remainder with plastic wrap, and storing it in the refrigerator. I found it similar to the Georgia Candy Roaster squash, though the Guatemala seems to store better.

The only reason I'm fussing with the bean and pea seeds is that I purchased larger bags of each, and still have a ton left. If I know their percent germination, then I can plant a suitable number of seeds for my requirements.

Bob

 

[nict]

2019 Garden. Garlic and shallots starting to make some progress.

 

[OldDinosaurWesH]

This year, I planted Watermelon and Brussels Sprouts seeds at the same time I planted my tobacco seeds (March 8 & 9) and now have new life popping up all over my seedling nursery. I'm trying to get ahead of last year's slow start. When outdoor planting season arrives, I'll have some nicely developed seedlings to transplant. Or...that's the plan anyway. You never know what mother nature will do.

Wes H.

 

[deluxestogie]

Last summer, I had spectacular success with growing Big Beef, F1 Tomatoes. They have the most extensive resistance to tomato diseases of any variety: Alternaria Stem Canker, Fusarium Wilt races 1 and 2, Gray Leaf Spot, Nematodes, Tobacco Mosaic Virus, Verticillium Wilt. So it takes care of Early Blight (Alternaria), but not Late Blight (Phytophthora infestans). It's a decent size "beef-steak" tomato, with a nice flavor.

Although I enjoy having Roma-type tomatoes, those that I've grown, year after year, manage to attract some disease or other that limits the crop. Just yesterday, I was reading that grafting a susceptible tomato variety onto the rootstock of a resistant variety will increase the resistance of the scion. Also, the grafting process itself tends to increase production (likely because of the grafting's encouragement of earlier blossoming).

So...I have a half-dozen or so Big Beef seedlings going (from purchased seed). I may purchase a few of the easily available Roma transplants locally, when the weather is warmer, and graft at least a couple onto the Big Beef rootstock, while planting a couple of the Romas directly into the garden, as a control.

Bob

EDIT: Johnny's Select Seeds has a clear instruction sheet on top-grafting tomatoes: tomatoes-top-grafting-vigor-disease-resistance-technique.pdf.

 

[Moth]

Have you considered grafting on to a potato root stock?

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-24281192

Even though Thompson and Morgan are a fairly large horticultural provider in the UK, they no longer sell these plants (the BBC post is 2013).

Although reading Tamacco thread, I wonder if you could graft a Tobato?

 

[deluxestogie]

I believe the key element required for a successful graft is an identical vascular structure in the root stock and the scion. So, I would guess that you could successfully graft most or all of the members of Solanaceae to one another.

Jalapeñato. Deadly Nightmato. Egg Plepper.

Bob

 

[ChinaVoodoo]

You could make some interesting dip out of tobaño.

 

[deluxestogie]

Blood Loss Was Not Severe: Cleaning-up the Blackberry Patch

The theory of growing everbearing blackberries is that each winter you remove the two year old canes, and prune the one year old canes. I skipped doing that last year. My Prime Jim blackberries are lots of years old--at least 10.

Their state, as of this morning, was a nearly impenetrable wall of armored, interlocking canes (some alive, some dead, some real dead) that crisscrossed one another, and reached out to the sides of the beds with vicious thorns, just lying in wait to rip human flesh. These aren't annoying little raspberry thorns. They are 1/4" to 1/2" hooked beasts that dig deep, and sometimes break off a tiny tip in the skin.

One by one, I extracted the old canes, and tossed them to the side (where they remain). When I was done, I had several embedded thorn tips in each hand, and blood dripping down the back of my hand and onto my fingers. After some handy tweezer work, several scrubs with soap and water, some Neosporin ointment and a band-aid, everything was happy once again.

I really do love the huge blackberries that this bramble patch produces, both early and late summer, but the annual clean-up is always a daunting prospect. Last week, I removed the two levels of old wire from the posts. I'll put on two new stretches of steel wire maybe next week.

Bob

 

[BarG]

A good blackberry pie might be worth a little blood loss. I may have said this before but I have done work for 1 neighbor and get paid in a gallon of blackberrys and give em to another neighbor to make blackberry pies and share with them. heh heh, I love em.

 

[coachmike554]

Hay bale garden underway. I have drip irrigation system installed. Will supply 1/2 gallon of water a day. This picture is 4 of 10 bales. I purchased 10 bales at $2 a bale. Local farm. These were called construction bales. Worked fine last season. This season I decided to up my yeild and installed a drip system on a timer.




This picture is my dutch bucket hydroponics. Using recycled fish aquarim water as my nutrients. Today is day 3 and seems to be growing fine. Experiment.

Next day off I will add drip system to my tobacco beds.

 

[GreenDragon]

Wife's terraced garden I made her to try to utilize some otherwise wasted space. Potatoes, cucumbers, onions, carrots, and herbs currently in production.

 

[deluxestogie]

One of the nice things about growing garlic is that you "set it and forget it". It goes in during late October or early November, after the first frost. Then you ignore it completely, until it's time to harvest. And garlic heads will easily keep for a year or more. Besides, (with apologies to peanut butter) garlic is the wellspring of all life.

Bob

 

[deluxestogie]

Terrible Recipe for Garlic Scapes

[No accompanying photo.]

My Slovenian Anka garlic was ready to have its curly scapes removed today. I harvested them, cut them up, and then mixed up an ill-conceived "tempura" batter in which to fry them.

I used a base of pancake mix with masa harina added for texture. I fried them in 1/2 olive oil and 1/2 Canola. Aside from the batter innovation being a bust, I failed to get the oil fully up to temperature, prior to adding the battered scapes.

Nearly all of the oil was immediately soaked up by the batter, which then fell away in a soggy, bubbling mass. I drained the final product on 4 paper towels atop a plate. I think I ended up with about 1/4 pound of oil in those paper towels.

The kitchen, indeed the entire house, smelled wonderful. The not-quite-crunchy garlic scapes were edible and marginally okay. The cooked batter stuff was neither.

I think an actual tempura batter, using rice flour, might work, if the oil is hot enough. But garlic scapes simply fried crispy brown in pure olive oil would likely be a winner.

Bob

 

[Moth]

Tempura. Introduced to the Japanese by Portuguese sailors in the 16th Century, with the fried green bean recipe called peixinhos da horta...

 

[GreenDragon]

I'd add some to a batch of corn fritters: Make a loose cornbread batter, add whole corn, a little grated cheddar cheese, and your scapes. Fry 3" disks of batter (i.e. mini pancakes) in a cast iron skillet with a thin layer of oil coating the bottom of the pan. Of course the traditional recipe (leave out the cheese and scapes) are awesome eaten with butter and cane syrup.

Dang it! Now I've gone and made myself hungry!

 

[deluxestogie]

It's not of photo of my veggie garden, but it was all in the garden when the sun rose this morning, until I dug it up. There are ~16 heads of Slovenian Anka garlic, and closer to 24 heads of Czech broadleaf garlic. Once the tops have wilted a bit, I'll tie them into groups that I can hang over a rope in my shed. There, they will dry for a month or so. (I never wash them. Doing so dramatically increases the risk of rot and mold.)

After drying, the remaining dirt comes off with the outermost paper layer, and the roots and tops get trimmed. The cleaned hard neck garlic (Anka) gets tied with twine into "strings", while the soft neck (Czech) gets braided. Both will hang in my kitchen throughout the year. Typically, a closed head of garlic will last about 12 to 18 months, before it begins to rot or shrivel.

And, of course, before using any of it, the two largest heads of each variety will be hung in my dark pantry, in an open-mesh bag, for planting in the fall. Unlike most veggies and tobacco plants, garlic seems to do quite well in a garden bed with tree root intrusion. I'm guessing that's because they do most of their growing during the winter, when the trees are relatively dormant.

Bob