New England August 2014

cpl100 wrote:Do you have a preferred variety or one that has been the best producer?  If softneck grows in NH, it must grow in MA!

I have had it so long I've lost track. I call it a California white soft neck, but I'm not sure why I call it that...

GardenGroupie wrote:

camprn wrote:Yes, mine is really softneck garlic. I plant it at Halloween and harvest the beginning of July. I lift it, cure it and braid it then it goes into the pantry and lasts me all year.

That's beautiful Camprn! I'm going to make some changes to my raised beds, so I thought I'd try growing some garlic in smartpots. They're definitely deep enough. Once the winter sets in with snow up to our eyeballs, do you pay them any special attention? I understand they need constant moisture. ...

I add as much compost as will fit in the bed and I only plant the cloves thumb deep. Give them water every week, if it doesn't rain, until frost, then they are on their own. That's it.

I did add compost when I planted but this year I will follow your advice and add much, much more!

Do you mulch them at all, camprn?

Marc Iverson wrote:Do you mulch them at all, camprn?

no not always. I count on the snow cover for insulation mostly. If I get too much foliage for my comfort I may mulch.

What a perfect day!

These radishes were going into overtime so I pulled them along with zucchini number 2. And we  harvested a couple of peaches today! They were so delicious and juicy that I almost forgot to take a photo before we scarfed them all.


Heading out with seeds to fill in some blanks spots in the carrot and spinach squares.

CC

Oh Cape, you are so lucky to have peaches this year.  Mine last year were so good I couldn't believe their flavor compared to store bought.  Too bad this year I didn't get any blossoms at all.  The weather was to blame I'm told. 
Thankfully I'm getting my Fuji apples at least.

I need apple trees, too. I have one growing from seed but I hear tell it won't grow true and will also be huge and take years to produce fruit.

Ok, check out this experiment:
The left two tomatoes are Boxcar Willie, the right two tomatoes are Romas.  The top two tomatoes were grown in the SFG. The bottom two tomatoes are grown in dirt, compost and covered with wood chips.

Even the colors are different.
the Roma outside the box will be giving me over a dozen tomatoes. The SFG Roma only has this one tomato. Same with the box car Willie s, except the SFG box car is now dead.
(the cherries are for scale)

CC

Nice, CC! I forget, was this your peach tree's first year?

Yesterday I took apart the zucchini plant and found a big fat SVB in there. I gave it to the chickens. I haven't gone thru any other squash plants yet.

Also I set out 8 mousetraps last night. Most of them had the peanut butter licked clean this morning with no meeces or moles, except for one. When we went to set the traps out, one mole scurried in front of us ONCE AGAIN, but it wasn't what was caught. The caught one looked more like a jumping mouse because it had a long tail. I'm hoping it wasn't more of a rat, but it was mouse sized. BTW, we heard 2 or 3 owls outside last night. I was hoping they would do something about the mole, etc. population but then the dog took it upon herself to free us of the evil owls and went barking after them. Maybe they'll come back tonight.

Has anyone grown daikon radishes?

NHGardener wrote:Nice, CC! I forget, was this your peach tree's first year?

Has anyone grown daikon radishes?

Yes & yes.  
I grow daikon in the spring for the pods. They are delicious and crunchy. I grow daikon in the fall for the roots.

Owls are not evil.

camprn wrote:Owls are not evil.

I know. I was speaking from the dog's perspective.

CapeCoddess wrote:

NHGardener wrote:Nice, CC! I forget, was this your peach tree's first year?

Has anyone grown daikon radishes?

Yes & yes.  
I grow daikon in the spring for the pods. They are delicious and crunchy. I grow daikon in the fall for the roots.

Yikes, well shame on my peach trees then!

And daikon radishes have been referenced in a (Japanese) book I'm reading as a good green manure. I was wondering how they tasted. According to what I read on Johnny's Seeds, they are peppery, and they store for only about 2 months?

When you say pods, do you mean sprouts?

CapeCoddess wrote:I grow daikon in the spring for the pods. They are delicious and crunchy. I grow daikon in the fall for the roots.

That sounds like a good plan. My warm season weather here in the PNW can be so volatile that there's an excellent chance anything prone to bolt will in fact do so. My daikon certainly bolted last year. But the pods were great! And incredibly plentiful. They make a good snack to go with dips. This year I'm going to be planting them in my best soil, for the fall, in hopes of getting actual roots.

NHG, the daikon seed pods are like picking and eating green beans but smaller, fatter and with a bit of a bite. Daikon is a radish and has a bite like a radish, its also a diuretic. I put the leaves in my smoothies sometimes when they have overgrown their Square.

Marc, I plant a lot of daikon in the fall and can usually get one or two large roots and then three or so small ones. The rest just make lots of leaves for my salad box or smoothies.

CC, two questions:

1. Considering foliage spread etc., what do you find a good spacing for your daikon?

2. Any idea why sometimes you're getting roots and sometimes not? Something I could keep in mind and try to do/not do?

1 - when I first planted daikon I thought I could plant them like carrots. But then found that the foliage is much broader and is huge. So now I plant them at 13 per square, 3.2.3.2.3.
But let me go get a photo after I post this so you can see how it's a bit overgrown still. 3.3.3 may be better.

2 - I have pretty bad luck with root veggies. This spring I found that if I added organic fertilizer, I used Plant Tone, then I was able to grow carrots. The box I planted my daikon in a few weeks ago is the same box I added Plant Tone in back in the spring. I'm hoping there's still some left to help the daikon roots grow. So my suggestion is to add some fertilizer if you have problems growing root veggies. I think I've read that the camp uses bone meal for good root veggies. I have not tried that but may in the near future.

Good things to know about daikon, which I had never even heard of until I read this book. Do you cook the pods or eat them raw?

Are all radishes diuretics?

Thanks, CC.

Re radishes being diuretics, I've never had that problem, but I can see how people with more sensitive stomachs might.

Veggies seem to effect people so individually, too. I'm often surprised, for instance, both at the veggies some people say give them gas and when people tell me that the ones that give me gas -- like beans and garlic especially -- aren't a problem for them at all.

I eat the pods right off the plant but I don't see why I couldn't put them in a stir fry. Trader Joe's has daikon seeds in one of their rice mixes. It's delicious but it makes me pee.

Mark, the diuretic reference comes from the cooking show Christina Cooks. She calls daikon a woman's best friend when talking about reversing the effects of hormone imbalance thru diet. So maybe it's only the females that get diuretic effect, and then only if they are bloated.
 

Well I'll keep it in mind. I've got a really slow digestive system, so I could often use a little help. Drinking a lot of coffee helps, but sometimes I wouldn't mind even more help! Maybe some day when I'm feeling bloated I'll remember what you've said about radishes and give it a try, thanks!

NHGardener wrote:

Are all radishes diuretics?

not to my knowledge, I've only heard that daikon were.

Tri colored summer squash for dinner tonight...

  

Yellow & zuke grown in big black pots of straight compost.  SVB hit both plants.

Light green Lebonese grown in ground behind the asparagus.  No SVB, which makes me wonder if it has something to do with the asparagus.
  



CC

Any hints on what you're going to do with those, CC? I'm running out of ideas.   

I've been shredding them and putting 3 cups in each baggie and then 5 or 6 baggies in a gallon size freezer bag. They take up less room that way and they'll blend well in sauces, etc. I really need to learn about food preservation tho. Canning is a little scary (like for green beans) (and peaches).

Oh yeah...I know exactly what I'm going to do with them!  They are heading for a stir frying tonite with some shrooms & Dr Braggs amino acids.  Yum!  Any raw leftovers will be included in smoothies instead of cukes.