What are you eating from your garden today?

Our son-in-law gave us a bear roast today. I stuffed it with garlic, mixed up a red wine sauce, and harvested the rest of my carrots and parsnip and the result was very nummy! We still have some 'greens' under my dome but most of the garden was hit by our mid-20 degree temps last night. Garden 2012 is nearly done...

Oh, Darci, I've not had ursine roast since leaving Alaska 40 years ago. Lucky you and lucky hunter who bagged it. Black bear, I'd assume, notarious for raiding garbage cans. So, it's only fair: we feed them, they should feed us, right? Nonna

I harvested and filled my weekly salad container yesterday with all these fixin's and am eating a salad from it right now as i type.



YUM!!! And so healthy!
CC

o.o fresh homegrown pinto beans. Taste like garlic when they fresh from the pod. In another week or two, we'll have fresh large cherry tomatoes and jalapenos. Can't wait!

Tonight's evening meal was home prepared slow cooked well peppered beef in knife & fork gravy out the vac packed freezer bag , home grown :- carrots, Romanesc cauliflower , marrow that grew from the last courgettes done as lightly pan fried in a smidgeon of butter then sort of poached in a few spoons of added water in the same pan but with the glass lid now on till it was soft and the last of the potatoes for Alison & Holly .... I had three cold 2 inch boiled soft beetroots from a batch of a few days ago ....to keep the old carbohydrates down .

Of course we also had some reasonably warming creamed horse radish sauce on the beef as well .

Home made soup with homegrown leeks, potatoes, thyme. It smells divine!

camprn wrote:Home made soup with homegrown leeks, potatoes, thyme. It smells divine!

Post your snat nav co-ords , " Drool " ......I'm coming over for a bowl full

plantoid wrote:

camprn wrote:Home made soup with homegrown leeks, potatoes, thyme. It smells divine!

Post your snat nav co-ords , " Drool " ......I'm coming over for a bowl full

it was really, really, reallyyummy!

lonewolfrissy wrote:o.o fresh homegrown pinto beans. Taste like garlic when they fresh from the pod. In another week or two, we'll have fresh large cherry tomatoes and jalapenos. Can't wait!

You grow pinto beans? Do you cook them 'fresh' or do you dry them first? I do know that baby lima beans are sure much better than the dry limas. What do you think of the pintos? Do you cook them the same way? I might try my hand with a few next yr.
Jo

I am so jealous (but happy for what others have harvested) of all of the crops harvested! It has been such a hard past three months, some good times, some not good at all. I just hadn't had time to spend in my garden much the last two months, hardly much time to water. I did pull tomato plants out to hang them upside down in the garage a week ago. I didn't get much tomato harvest even though I had eight plants but did get some cherry tomatoes. Those are what are hanging upside down and are ripening nicely in my garage. They taste great!

I bought a black kril tomato plant and only one grew on the plant. With my neglect it didn't do too well. I am thinking of harvesting the seeds though. Hope that will be possible.

I did plant peas, three different lettuces, spinach, and carrots. The ferrel cats dug up most of the seeds and plants and left their droppings. I trapped nine in my garden months ago and animal control took them. There may be just one or two that get in my garden now, I think, but they just destroy it. I am now thinking of an electric fence but not sure how to do it. I've tried everything else. So that was another frustration in having a fall garden. It was like the last straw. I'm gonna take the rest of Fall and Winter off and plan on a better next year.

Tricia
I got me a roll of bird netting, cut to size of beds and just laid it on top of the beds where the seeds were planted. The cats left it alone, guess it made for hard digging. Then I pulled it up after the plants got up a couple inches. They didn't bother where there was plants. I tried the forks in the bed, heck, they just plowed them under.
Jo

I have spinach galore! It's WONDERFUL! This is my first fall/winter garden and I love the results. I never would have thought to try it without reading this forum. I'm keeping my fingers crossed and hope to keep it going a few more weeks - or longer even

Plan to season my steak with basil leaves and coriander seed grown straight from the garden.

Spinach??? Frack!!! I still can't get it to grow and I have hundreds of 5 different kinds of seeds planted in a few different boxes, with 3 different batches of MM, some under tulle, some not. Something must be missing in my MM.

Any ideas?

CC

CapeCoddess wrote:Spinach??? Frack!!! I still can't get it to grow and I have hundreds of 5 different kinds of seeds planted in a few different boxes, with 3 different batches of MM, some under tulle, some not. Something must be missing in my MM.

Any ideas?

CC

Wait until spring.

The book, Winter Gardening, by Binda Colebrook, though aimed primarily at gardners in the Pacific Northwest, says about spinach: "...provide rich soil with a fairly high pH....If sown in late July to mid-August, it will yield a fine fall crop...til about Christmas" (in the PNW). She also suggests covering it with row covers, and even a blanket on very cold days.

Unfortunately, I bought the book too late to take her advice, so have no personal experience. Next year, though. Nonna

Nonna, does high pH mean alkaline??? I have neutral to acid soil. I would need to amend the carrot bed if that's the case.

CC

Cape Coddess,

Most plants grow well in soil with a pH between 6.0 and 7.0. A good Mel's Mix typically comes out around 6.8 - 7.0. If your soil pH is below 6.5, you might want to double-check your MM and/or amend [i]slightly.

I agree that you might want to wait until spring to plant more spinach.

Thanks, Donna. My pH hangs out right around 7 without any help, but if carrots need more alkaline, I'd need to amend a special bed just for them.

Do you think high pH means more alkaline?

CC

Yes, higher pH means more alkaline.

I just Googled carrot pH, and the recommendations are all over the map, from 5.5-7.5. It could be that your issue isn't pH at all!

I've found that root crops generally do a bit better with some bone meal added.

I found a chart:
http://www.frostproof.com/phchart1.html

Bonemeal, huh? THanks! What does that do? Is there something that does the same as bonemeal that a vegetarian can use?

CC

I'll have to read "Winter Gardening" a bit more carefully. Though Ms. Colebrook says spinach needs a higher pH (alkaline) soil, she does not specify how much higher it should be (that may be in a part of the book I've not yet read...should take it with me this weekend). Nonna

CapeCoddess wrote:I found a chart:
http://www.frostproof.com/phchart1.html

Bonemeal, huh? THanks! What does that do? Is there something that does the same as bonemeal that a vegetarian can use?

CC

R

Re Bone meal use .
That depends onn your sensitivities ..it is classed as an organic plant food , it is a source of Phosphorous . It is usually ground up bones from slaughtered for food animals .
You are strongly advised to only use sterilized stuff and keep it dry stored in an air tight container for it becomes rotting ground up bones fairly quickly when damp . Never ever use any that has not been heat treated /sterilized for ground up bones untreated can carry /cause ANTHRAX .

It is use mainly as a phosphate source sprinkled around for perennial shrubs trees and plants where you don't want to feed the thing but not disturb the roots ( use rubber gloves and wash yourself after use etc.etc. )

It is some times used as an additive / addition /amendment where the soil is very sandy and does not retain much nutrients long term .

Blood , fish & bone meal ...
In my opinion dried blood ,. dried fish scraps & ground bone ... heat treated again , is a better product for SFG'ers & is still classed as a totally organic product .

" Comfrey .. Bocking 14 " is a plant that can give you a fantastic fertilizer/ ammendment , so long as you have space , soil and conditions to grow it .

There is a good book on Kindle by Lawrence D Hills , called " Comfrey past , present & future " it is a well researched plant that has been logically investigated ..

It's a bit heavy going , till you decide it's going to help you get better crops and from then on it is a breeze . I've read my Kindle copy five times , just so I got fixed in my silly head the benefits of using it .

I now have 13 plants at their fifth cropping this year.

I always add bone meal to the growing medium for root crops. I think it really helps a lot.
Comfry is one of the gardeners best friends. A truly amazing plant.

CapeCodess, Unlike us, plants are neither vegans nor vegetarians. They source their nutrients from whatever is available. Remember your history lessons: the Native Americans buried left-over parts of their fish dinner (or even the whole fish) in each hole prepared for their corn seed. Even, try as we may, we will be unable to provide a truly vegan/vegetarian source of nutrients for our plants. For instance: I used plant debris from an abandoned wood ant nest in two of my new 4-square beds. Within this debris was the exoskeletans of many, many ants, plus dissicated remains of larvae, and remains of other insects the ants had dragged back to the nest. Also, I see no problem with adding the combed-out hair from our cats and the neighbor's dog to our compost heap. Whatever there is that is in ant bodies and dog hair makes the plants happy! The woods behind us give another lesson: where a large animal has died, the plant growth is more verdant. It's called The Circle of Life. And when I die, I hope my ashes are sprinkled in a garden so I can spend the next century pushing up tomatoes. Nonna