First Harvest, 2011

Here's Elijah holding the first harvest from our little garden--a cherry tomato.  Elijah loves home-grown tomatoes.  He was eager to convince me that this one was ready to harvest.  After the photo it went straight into his mouth--well, after a quick stop by the sink to be rinsed off. :)

We are in the midst of a severe drought here in southern Texas.  They say it's the worst in forty or fifty years.  We haven't had rain since January.  Thankfully our well is fine, so with regular watering, my garden is doing well. 

First tomatoes!

Over the past week, my tomato plants have started producing lots of baby tomatoes:

These are cherry tomatoes.  Looking back at last year's garden-related blog posts, I see that I have gotten a much earlier start this year--last year my tomatoes weren't even blooming till the end of April.  Hopefully this means I will get a good crop of tomatoes before the stink bugs show up (I haven't seen any yet).

(Is that sad, that I use my blog for record keeping?)

There's a story behind these tomatoes.  I was out one afternoon when I got a call from Jeshurun.  He told me that a friend was getting rid of some unwanted tomato plants, and asked if I would like him to claim some for me.  "Sure," I said, picturing a plant or two, or maybe a tray with six plants.  Well, I got home to find that Jesh had brought not one, not two, not six, but fourteen tomato plants!  And various seed packets and onion starts as well.

Well this was wonderful of course, except that I didn't actually have enough garden space for all of it.  I grumbled about this a bit.
Jesh said "Well, just dig up another bed, right there."  He pointed. 
"Easier said than done," I grumbled some more.
Jesh, being a "Get it done" sort of person, strode to the appropriate point and stuck the shovel into the ground.  "Oh wow," he said as he turned over a shovelful of stiff, sticky, heavy clay, "this soil isn't very good, is it?"

A memory from the previous spring popped into my head.  I was hacking and stabbing at rock-hard dried clumps of soil with the shovel, trying to break them apart.  Some of the clumps were so hard, they might as well have been chunks of concrete.  In fact, some of them *were* chunks of concrete (left over from the construction of our house, I suppose).  The problem was, I was never sure which I had--a chunk of dried soil or a chunk of concrete--until I had been hacking at it with the shovel for a couple of minutes.  The difference was not obvious.

"No, it's not very good," I agreed with Jesh.

(Thankfully, the beds I dug up last year are much better this year, perhaps due to the addition of peat moss, compost, etc.)

Jesh finished digging up a 4' by 4' bed for me, and with that, after some clump-hacking, I was able to get all of the tomatoes planted, along with a few carrots, beans, onions, and basil.

I'd still like to plant some hot peppers and some okra, but that will entail more digging and clump-hacking, so it might be a while before I get it all done.

Garden Planning 2011

The weather is beautiful, which means--it's garden planting time!  I grabbed the shovel and turned over my little garden plots yesterday--which only took a few minutes.  Last year I had three little 3' by 4' beds.  This year I'd like to expand a bit.  How much?  We'll see!

I really ought to have started my tomatoes from seed at the first of the year, in order to have them ready for planting now.  Since I didn't start my tomato seeds on time, I have to decide whether I will buy plants, or start seeds now and plant late.  Maybe I'll do some of both.

I harvested the last of last year's tomatoes the first week of December, so if I'd started seeds the first of January like I should have, I would only have had a three-week off-season from gardening!  I really could have gardened year round, actually, and the Cambodian community not far from us did just that--I saw garden plots lush with kale and other greens all through the winter.

Three things I'd like to figure out this year, all being well:
1. Figure out how to support my tomato plants.  The cheap tomato cages from Wal-Mart that I used last summer were completely inadequate.  I would have had to prune back my tomatoes by 2/3 to get them to fit into their cages.  I'm really not sure how I will support the tomatoes this year.
2. Figure out the whole composting thing.  My whole "throw all kitchen scraps and weeds into a heap" method isn't working too well.  I'm left with a pile of dry, woody stems with black sludge underneath.  (Interestingly, the black sludge is inhabited by a big, fat toad.)  I'm sure the black sludge would make excellent fertilizer, but I would have to hack through all the dry, woody stems to get to it. 
3. Find effective ways to combat stink bugs, hornworms, and armadillos, without resorting to toxic pesticides.  I still think that manually picking off the bugs could work well, but I would have to be more diligent than I was last year.

And of course, any solutions I come up with have to cost next to nothing, given that gardening funds are squeezed out of the grocery budget. :)

I can't wait to get seeds and plants into the ground!

Okra

I like okra.  I like breaded-n-fried okra.  I like oven-roasted okra.  I like gumbo with okra.

And I really like growing okra in my garden.  I got off to a bad start when I let my okra seeds get moldy (long story).  I planted them anyway; half never sprouted, but the other half have been growing happily ever since, despite the fact that I totally ignore them.  It's 100 degrees outside and we haven't had much rain and our soil is like a brick, but the okra plants just soak up the sun and shake off the bugs and grow like weeds.

I love that I can run out to my little garden and come back with these

and I slice them with some onion and saute them with a little olive oil and end up with this

Mmmmmmm.....

I wish I'd planted twice as much.  Or three times as much.  Maybe next year.

Learning About Bugs

This morning's harvest:

A nice lot of organic produce.  (Yes, I carried them in my skirt.) 

If you're my friend on Facebook, you may have seen me talking about the hornworms I was dealing with last week.  If you're not my Facebook friend, by the way, feel free to add me.  If we have mutual friends, or if I've at least heard of you, I'll probably accept your friend request.  As my Facebook friend, you would get to join in exciting discussions about hornworms.  Did you know that squished-up hornworm juice is an effective hornworm repellent?  That interesting little tip came from Nat.  Thanks, Nat. 

Anyway, hornworms can do a lot of damage.  They mostly ate leaves, but I did find one big guy who had eaten half a tomato.  I'm trying to avoid using pesticides (also trying to avoid spending money) so I manually removed the hornworms and dropped them into soapy water.  I did that every morning for three or four days, and that was it.  No more hornworms.

I did get some help from the wasps, actually.  Apparently, certain wasps like to eat hornworms.  Take a look at this specimen.

I know, he's hard to see, because he matches my tomato plants so well.  The red horn (upper end) and diagonal stripes indicate that he is a tobacco hornworm as opposed to a tomato hornworm.  But he still eats tomato plants.  See the white things all over his back?  Those are the cocoons of a tiny little wasp called the Cotesia wasp.  An adult wasp injects eggs into the hornworm.  The eggs hatch and the larva feed on the hornworm's insides.  When full grown, they emerge from the (now dead) hornworm and spin these cocoons on its back.  After a few days, they cut circular holes in the cocoons (you can see the holes above) and emerge as adult wasps, ready to lay eggs in more hornworms.

I like learning things, don't you?

Some of my tomatoes are sparkly.  I wonder why?  Maybe tomorrow I will learn about sparkly tomatoes.

First Harvest

I harvested these jalapenos today.

 

What they lacked in size, they made up for in flavor.

I sauteed them in a little olive oil, with some onions from Froberg's, for a tasty taco garnish.

 What's next?  Maybe more jalapenos?  Or maybe one of these yellow bell peppers?

I am totally hooked on vegetable gardening now, though there are unpleasant moments, such as this morning when I dug up a fire ant nest and they swarmed my leg.  I tried to brush them off and keep working, but they kept up the attack; so finally I gave up and ran away, leaving shovel and ant-covered shoes behind me. :)  I'll try again tomorrow, armed with a pot of boiling water.

Gardening in Texas, Early May

My garden is coming right along.  I haven't had many bug problems, which is great because I'd like to avoid using pesticides if at all possible.  The aphids have been few, perhaps thanks to a couple of resident ladybugs.  I have seen a couple of green stink bugs, and some keeled treehoppers, but never more than one or two at a time; I flicked them off into a cup of soapy water, where they perished after a brief struggle.

I'm looking forward to lots of tasty jalapenos.

My yellow bell peppers are still pretty small.  Mom, do you think they'll be ripe by the time you get here?

My tomatoes are blossoming well, but I think it may be too hot for fruit to set at this point.  I probably should have planted them a month earlier than I did (March 1st instead of April 1st). 

They're filling out their cages nicely.

Last but not least, my Knockout rosebush is blooming beautifully.  This plant is seriously indestructible--it's still in the tiny pot it came in, which means it's quite top-heavy, and every gust of wind knocks it over.  I'll get around to repotting it eventually, really I will.

Greeeeeeeeen

This spring, I planted a garden for the first time in a dozen years.  I gardened with my Mom as a child and teenager, but since leaving home at 18, I haven't had a spot of earth to call my own.  I did attempt some container gardening a few times, with mixed success.  But this spring, I'm living in my parents' home again, and they have enough of a yard that I can plant a real garden.  The soil here is terrible (they call it "gumbo" and it's a heavy clay, very sticky when wet, and rock-hard when dry) but I added some peat moss, and so far things are growing well.

This morning, I investigated my little garden and discovered that my tomatoes are officially in bloom:

When I was cropping this photo, I noticed the little green bug, just above the flower.  Can you see him?  He's the same color as the leaf.  What kind of bug is he?  A good bug or a bad bug?
EDIT: it's a bad guy!  See the comments section.

My tomatoes are looking happy.  Which makes me happy.  I need to get some cages around these things pretty soon. 

For comparison, here they are a couple of days after planting, on April 2nd.  I got them in the ground kind of late; hopefully I'll get a good crop of tomatoes before it gets too hot.

And my basil is sprouting!  I left the seed packet out in the rain and the seeds got moldy, so I wasn't sure if they would sprout.  But it looks like almost all have sprouted (I planted the basil in pots).  By the way, I ordered my seeds from this company: www.rareseeds.com and I would highly recommend them.  They sell only heirloom seeds, no hybrids or genetically modified stuff.  Their customer service was great and shipping was super fast.

I also have a bed of yellow bell peppers and jalapenos, which are looking great except for one plant which may or may not make it.  I still need to plant my okra and purple-hulled cowpeas.  It's getting pretty late to be planting things, but supposedly okra and cowpeas love the heat, so perhaps they will be okay.

On another "green" note, happy Earth Day. :)  I'm not sure how I feel about Earth Day.  On the one hand, I think it's wise to take a moment to thank the Lord for the resources He has blessed us with, and to think about how we can use those resources most wisely, and not be wasteful.

On the other hand, I know that a lot of people associate Earth Day with the more radical environmentalists--the sort who talk about Gaia and Mother Nature, and view humans as parasites on the earth.  And the people in Washington making a big hoopla about Earth Day, and advocating for environmental issues on a regular basis, are often the same people advocating for abortion rights and gay rights. 

But I worry that many Christians reject the "green" movement entirely because of those associated with it; when really, environmental issues are something that we ought to be concerned with for Biblical reasons.  Here's an excerpt of a statement by the Southern Baptist Convention about environmental issues.  Obligatory disclaimer: I don't support or agree with everything the SBC says or does.  I just thought the points listed below were well said.

• We must care about environmental and climate issues because of our love for God...through whom and for whom the creation was made. This is not our world, it is God’s. Therefore, any damage we do to this world is an offense against God Himself (Gen. 1; Ps. 24; Col. 1:16).

• We must care about environmental issues because of our commitment to God’s Holy and inerrant Word...Within these Scriptures we are reminded that when God made mankind, He commissioned us to exercise stewardship over the earth and its creatures (Gen. 1:26-28). Therefore, our motivation for facing failures to exercise proper stewardship is not primarily political, social or economic—it is primarily biblical.

• We must care about environmental and climate issues because we are called to love our neighbors, to do unto others as we would have them do unto us and to protect and care for the “least of these” (Mt. 22:34-40; Mt. 7:12; Mt. 25:31-46). The consequences of these problems will most likely hit the poor the hardest, in part because those areas likely to be significantly affected are in the world’s poorest regions. Poor nations and individuals have fewer resources available to cope with major challenges and threats. Therefore, “we should work to provide for the orphaned, the needy … [and] the helpless”... through proper stewardship.

If you visit the site, skip down to section 3, though I thought section 2, about the science behind climate change, was also pretty good. 

Another thing that we as Christians ought to have in common with the "environmentalist" movement is the rejection of materialism and consumerism--the "buy more stuff" mentality that seems so prevalent in our culture.  Matthew 6:24-34

Anyway, I might be in the minority here with my wacky "green" ideas, but it's my blog, not yours, and y'all think I'm nuts anyway, right?

Seems like I haven't been getting as many blog comments lately, though the conversation about women's dress continues behind the scenes.  Please feel free to comment even if--or dare I say, especially if--you disagree with me. :)

Smoothie Recipe

Here's a nice recipe that I just tried for the first time and thought I would share with y'all.

Here are the ingredients:
Three banana peels, with the woody stems cut off.
Three days' worth of used coffee grounds.  No need to be picky; a little mold is fine.
A few cups of water.  I used tap water, but mud-puddle water would do just as well.

Blend in the blender until well liquefied.  Voila!  Doesn't it look great?

Okay, now take this delicious concoction and share it with...

...your plants!  You didn't think I expected you to drink it, did you?  Please tell me you haven't tried it yet.

Why it works: the banana peels are loaded with potassium, just as the bananas inside them are.  Rosebushes and tomatoes (I have both) like a little extra potassium.  And the coffee grounds are a treat for the worms, who supposedly love them.  Worms are good for your soil (they aerate it, and their castings are very fertile) so it's not a bad idea to keep them happy. :)

Of course, you don't actually have to make a smoothie out of these ingredients; you can "plant" banana peels beneath your tomatoes or rosebushes, or just toss them on the ground around the plants.  But my planting is done already, and I was afraid that banana peels lying around would be too smelly and attractive to varmints.  So I chose this slightly more labor-intensive method. 

Coffee grounds are also good for lawns, so if you don't have a garden, you can still put those grounds to use (or save them for me!)

Wildflowers, I mean, Weeds

This house is only a couple of years old.  It was built on what had been a wild and scrubby lot, and was only roughly graded before my parents moved in.  Mom did a lot of work to get the yard level and get a lawn started.  The yard, however, still thinks it is part of the wilderness, and sprouts thistles and weeds as soon as we turn our backs.

Today I spent a good part of my day rescuing the grass from those thistles and weeds.  I also did other yardwork, like chopping up an old stump in the back yard.  Half of the stump was soft and squeaky like styrofoam, and full of fire ants (I escaped with only one bite).  The other half, however, remains, as it is quite solid.  I have this idea that I can hasten its decay by drilling it full of holes with a power drill and spade bit.  What do you think?  Would that work?

The bulk of my time outdoors, however, was spent on the weed-pulling.  Pulling weeds is very therapeutic work.  The sun was shining and the breeze was warm and the air smelled sweet, like clover, and strains of music were coming through the air from somewhere...okay, that part was kind of eerie.  The boys were playing happily in the driveway with their bikes and with sidewalk chalk.  I would have been happy to keep going for hours more, but my bending-over muscles were getting tired.  However, I'm happy to say that there are plenty of weeds left, and more sprouting every day, so I will have many opportunities to enjoy the task again.

By weeds, I mean wildflowers, really.  Only they were growing in the lawn, which makes them weeds.

 
Yes, these were all really blooming in our weed lot yard today, and half-a-dozen other varieties, too.  Aren't they lovely?  I don't know what they all are (Mom??).  I felt a little guilty about pulling them.  But I had to, or the grass wouldn't stand a fighting chance.  At least they can thrive along the roadsides, as in Texas, they don't mow along the country roads until wildflower season is over. :)  Have I mentioned that Texas is growing on me?

(I just discovered that I can make collages with Picasa--I love this feature!  Picasa is a free photo-editing program that I like a lot and use regularly.)