Volunteer Squash and Effective Microorganisms

Though it’s a beautiful, sunny, mild morning, June, overall, has been cool and drizzly.  The cabbage, beets, peas, onions, leeks, and carrots have loved it.  The tomatillos, squash, and peppers, not so much.  The tomatoes are keeping a stiff upper lip but are hoping for consistently warmer and sunnier weather soon.

On the upside, we haven’t had to do much watering in recent weeks.

Our kitties enjoy sunbathing in the garlic patch, where they think nobody can see them.  Here is Little Lou at the edge of the garlic patch (North garden).  Cabbage is under floating row cover, more to protect it from deer than cabbage moths.

 

 

 'Green Beauty' snow peas at the edge of the South garden.

 

An Anaheim pepper, trying its best!

 

 

 Kale seedlings (I believe this is 'Frilly' kale, probably from Annapolis Seeds).

 

Batch of EM-1's ('Effective Microorganisms') mixed in April and allowed to ferment.  The garden will be watered with a diluted version of it in the next week or so.  

 

The recipe I used for the EM-1 mixture (written version at the end of this blog post) is from this video:

 

 

 

Early this week, R. discovered one of the tomato plants ('Kim’s Civil War Oxheart') in the East garden – the garden closest to the street – had the top bitten off.  That is a new one for us.  It must have been one of the young deer passing through with its mother.  It was one of three varieties I’d agreed to grow out for a tomato seed bank, so I will do what I can to nurture those plants through the summer.  We covered those tomatoes with floating row cover and trellised the other tomatoes in that garden (a shorter, determinate variety) with enough twine to hopefully discourage any further midnight snacking.

 

 

The winter squash transplants ('North Georgia Candy Roaster' and 'Burpee’s Butterbush') have been planted in raised beds.  Watermelon ('Blacktail Mountain') were planted in the middle of the East garden.  We’ll see how the watermelon fares; it will need more heat than we’ve been getting, and the transplants have remained quite small.

North Georgia Candy Roaster, with a few sunflowers coming up along the edge: 

 

Bachelor Buttons have begun to bloom, as have the few purple irises in the bathtub flowerbed.  

 

 

Bachelor Button

 

Two of the green zucchini ('Fordhook') have FINALLY germinated and shown themselves.  Still waiting on three others.  Older seed + cool temperatures = zucchini seeds giving me the plant kingdom’s version of the middle finger. The yellow zucchini ('Saffron', from Le Potager Ornementale de Catherine) germinated within days of being sown and the plants are going strong.

Most of the dry bush beans, the romano pole beans ('Early Riser' – also called, 'Nor’Easter' or 'Northeaster'), and snap beans have begun to sprout.  On a whim, I decided to plant a variety of bush bean I’d never grown before called 'Woods Mountain Crazy'.  It was older seed I’d received in a trade in 2016 or 2017.  I planted the beans in a window box.  I wasn't sure they would germinate but knew it would allow me to grow out the variety if even one plant matured.  To my surprise, all of them germinated.  A nice surprise.

The dry pole bean variety I planted ('Good Mother Stallard') was also older seed.  Unfortunately, none of that germinated, so I replanted with 'Dolloff', an heirloom variety descending from the classic Horticultural Lima bean.  I last grew it in 2019 and hope it is still viable enough to grow out this summer.  Originally purchased through Heritage Harvest Seed.

I planted beets on a whim and sowed them thickly, thinking the seed was too old to germinate.  Wrong!  The beets, kale, and other greens have had to be covered with netting to keep the sparrows from picking the leaves to pieces.  I don’t know if they actually eat the bits of leaves and petals they clip off, or if they’re just doing this for their own amusement.

 

 

The skirret is coming along nicely.  I am surprised the deer and sparrows have left it alone (*touch wood*…).

 

The potatoes are all up and looking good.

 

 

Three volunteer squash plants are going strong in one of the compost bins.  We are just going to let them grow.  Frankly, they look healthier and stronger than the ones I started from seed and planted in a raised bed.   Chances are, they are either Lower Salmon River or Galeux D’Eysines.

 

 

Several of the tomato plants have already started to grow little tomatoes:  Scotia, Amber, Favourie de Bretagne, Japanese Black Trifele, Javelin, and Katja.

 

Favorie de Bretagne

 

Katja

 

Japanese Black Trifele

 

Javelin

 

The summer savoury germinated really well this year (woohoo!) and bits have been transplanted into several raised beds.  I love the scent of it, and love the clouds of tiny pink flowers it produces towards the end of the season.   The marjoram did not germinate well this year, so I only have a few sprigs growing in a yogurt container for now.  It’s a fragile herb, so I’ve never put much effort into preserving it.  I do love the scent, though, and pinching off bits to add to salads.

 

Summer Savoury

 

Chives

 

Pineapple Sage

 

Sage in the corner, Jacob's Cattle beans coming up to the right.

Marjoram

Helpers

 

 

 

 

North garden (garlic patch, Katja tomatoes, Copenhagen cabbage, Fordhook zucchini, Queen of Malinalco tomatillos). 

 

 

 

Bags and pots: EM-Champion tomatoes, Scotia tomato, feverfew, carrots, potatoes. 

 

 

 

More pots, window boxes, and containers: dry bush beans (assorted varieties), romano pole bean ('Early Riser'), potatoes, and tomatoes ('Amber').

 

 

 

Pots along the north fence - tomatoes, Faux tomatoes, a few Anaheim peppers, Swedish Red cooking peas, and a zinnia or two.

 

 

 

 

EM-1 (Effective Microorganisms) Recipe

 

INGREDIENTS

 

A

 

·       1 L unsulphured/blackstrap molasses

·       1 L purified water (no chlorine – can be bottled water, rain water, etc.)

·       1 L Greek yogurt (live cultures, no additives)

·       3 egg whites

·       2 Tbsp dry yeast (mixed in some warm water to dissolve/activate)

 

B

 

·       1 gallon (4 L) purified water

·       2 cups fertile soil from your area/garden

 

EQUIPMENT

 

·       2 large glass or heavy plastic bottles/jars with lids (e.g., ~ 3L capacity each)

·       Fine sieve

·       Round coffee filters

·       Large, clean plastic bucket

·       Several plastic water jugs (4L capacity) and/or pop bottles (2L capacity)

·       2 or 3 large brown paper bags

 

PROCEDURE

 

1.     Combine base inoculant ingredients “A”.

2.     In a separate container, combine ingredients “B”.  Mix thoroughly and let settle for 2-3 hours.  Strain liquid and then add this liquid to the containers that are already holding the “A” mixture.

3.     Let combined mixture sit in a dark place for 1 month.  (Can cover jars with heavy grade brown paper bags to help keep out light.)

4.     Burp containers daily to prevent gas build-up.

5.     At the 1 month mark, mixture should smell sweet/sour.

6.     Pour mixture into several plastic water jugs or pop bottles, filling to ~1-2 inches from the top.  Store in a cool, dark place.  Burp every day or two to prevent gas build-up.

 

This mixture can be diluted and applied to the garden or houseplants.  (Different dilution rates for different purposes.  Check online for recommendations.

 

 

Leisurely Harvest and Honey Garlic

    Harvesting has taken place at a leisurely pace, compared to past years.  Here it is, September 20th, and we still have not had an overnight frost!  When I began gardening, I found myself on more than one occasion madly running around the yard in freezing rain - sometimes at the end of August! - picking green tomatoes and boxing them to ripen in the kitchen.  Still green dry-variety bush bean plants were often pulled and hung in the house to finish drying.  

   I have been covering the tomato plants at night for weeks, not because of frost risk (which would be the norm), but to protect them from hungry deer.  There are still dry bush bean plants maturing and tomato plants outside.  The leeks and carrots (particularly the Red Chantenay) are doing well.  Most of the herbs (except dill) are still growing, the Bachelor Buttons and Cosmos are still blooming (much to the bees' delight), and the 10+ foot sunflowers have been left untouched.

   Winners (i.e., good producers/performers) in the garden this year were cabbage, zucchini, leeks, cooking peas, and dill.  Underperformers were peppers, snap beans and, surprisingly, the winter squash.  Middle-of-the-road were the carrots, lettuce, and snow peas.  Tomato production was all over the place; some varieties produced buckets and buckets of nearly perfect tomatoes while others produced two or three good tomatoes and dozens ruined by blossom end rot.

   A fairly new experience for us is having so many tomatoes either ripen on the plants or ripen quickly once indoors.  It's nicer than having to wait for weeks for green tomatoes to ripen, but it also means there is pressure to get them processed (canned, frozen, or dehydrated) in a hurry.   So far, I've dehydrated two large (liter) jars of tomatoes and have canned 17.5 L of tomato sauce.  I'll make notes about which varieties were the standouts for production this year in my "Tomato Round-Up" post.

 

   Another advantage to having so many tomatoes ripen early is that seed-saving could be wrapped up before the end of September.  At the moment, there are little saucers of tomato seeds on coffee filters stationed all over the kitchen.  They should be dry and ready to package in a week or so.

 

 

   Last year, we decided to try honey-fermented garlic.  I made a small jar, unsure of how it would turn out or whether we would like it.  It was delicious, so we made plans to buy a bucket of raw honey once the garlic bulbs were cured this year and make a larger batch.  I love how quickly the cloves turn golden yellow and how the honey thins, fizzes, and froths like pop once it starts fermenting in earnest.  In total, we have about 2 pints on the go.  Once the garlic patch has been planted and we know how much extra garlic there is to work with, we might make some more.