Beginning Fall Plantings, Harvest, Audrey 3 Flowered

I made it out to the plot this morning before the family started running around for the day.  As is typical, the first thing I did was to harvest stuff (no picture).

• 1 lb 0.5 oz beans
• 15.2 oz tomatoes
• 2.4 oz cayenne peppers
• ~30 ground cherries

The primary intent was to water since it's been dry.  That was accomplished after I turned over the garlic box (minus what I think is 2-3 garlic cloves) and planted two rows of snow peas and a few rows of Henderson's Black Seeded Simpson Lettuce that I had purchased a few years ago.  No idea if it'll germinate, but I figured it was worth a shot to have something to harvest in the fall.  I also planted a few rows of radishes between two marigolds in one of the failed cucumber boxes.

I was also happy to see that "Audrey 3" is flowering!  We had no idea what it was given I had a few leftover packets of mixed flower seeds leftover from a few years previous.  Turns out "she's" a Moonflower with blue variegations in the flower petals.  Very pretty.

Below is another example of the random mix of flowers that went into that box.

Bag-ripened tomatoes, Part 2

Back on July 27, I picked a bunch of tomatoes figuring they wouldn't ripen and put them in a paper bag.  Today, I checked the bag and removed the rest that were all red.  They weighed 10.7 oz.

Sure, they turned red, but the innards were not quite ripe.  Moral of the story: only do this if they won't ripen on the vine.

Harvest today

The family made it to the plot this evening.  I'm sad to say that it looks like the tomatoes, beans, and ground cherries are winding down.  I shouldn't be surprised given it's almost September.  Still we had a nice haul.  It also has us thinking about potential Fall crops, cover crops, and has me kicking around what to put into a Monday Morning Quarterback-esque post on lessons learned for this year and ways to apply those lessons for the future.

 

The haul:

• 1 lb 10.8oz tomatoes
• 1 lb 9.3 oz beans
• 2.8 oz cayenne peppers
• 2 green peppers
• ~6 small carrots
• ~20 ground cherries

Harvest and flower pictures

So Wifey took The Boy to the plot to pick yesterday while I was putting The Girl to bed.  They harvested stuff and took a few pictures.  I especially like some pictures she took of flowers and a volunteer tomato that's between two bean boxes.

 

The haul:

• 1 lb 4.4 oz beans
• 1 lb 10.4 oz tomatoes
• 4.1 oz cayenne peppers

Harvest, weeding, a tomato trellis, and another toad?

I made it to the plot again.  Good thing, too, because it really seemed to need watering.

I spent a bit of time weeding outside the fence line as well as adjacent to some boxes.  I staked up a volunteer tomato plant that's in a snow pea box adjacent to the compost bin.  Very belated activity there.

I really tried to spend some time enjoying having success this year.  The beans are all doing well, as are the tomatoes and cayenne peppers.  The garlic did great.  The ground cherries  were a surprise.  All the flowers have thrived and there is a lot of wildlife in the plot including a toad that I saw adjacent to what had been the watermelon trellis and is now a tomato trellis for volunteers.  A good day at the plot.

The harvest (sorry, no picture) after I donated 8 cayenne peppers, a dozen ground cherries, and some tomatoes to a local homeless shelter:

• 3 lbs 1.3 oz tomatoes
• 12.5 oz beans

Tomatoes, Cayennes, Beans, Ground Cherries and a Toad

Today's harvest yielded some very nice crops.  

• 1 lb 8.4 oz tomatoes
• 1 lb 15.1 oz beans
• 2.3 oz cayennes

There was also a bunch of ground cherries.  I saw no point in weighing them.

While out at the plot, I took the time to do some weeding.  I also saw a few other things while out there, most notably a toad and what might be some more garlic in the box that had held the garlic previously.

It also occurred to me that I haven't uploaded any ground cherry pictures showing the mature plants.

Today's Harvest, Sunflowers, and a new Guest at the Plot

I went to dinner with my parents tonight and was able to show them the plot for the first time in a few years.  My mom remarked that it was the best (and most productive) she's seen it to date.  It's great to see that I'm not the only noticing that stuff.

It was also great to have my dad out there because he'd studied entomology years ago and identified a Hummingbird Moth right away.  I'd never seen one before as far as I'm aware.  I was surprised at how large it was -- probably a 6"-8" wingspan.  It was very interesting to watch it move about from one flower to another with no care that I was less than a foot away from it.  Unfortunately, the picture I took wasn't great -- my cell phone doesn't have a good camera.  Just wait until this fall, though!

That's it below with the yellow/orange spots on the side of the body and the blur (wings) on either side.

I also thought it was neat to see that the Sunflowers are finally flowering.  That wasn't the case the last time I made it out there (Sunday).

I was surprised to get a really good harvest today.  Surprising to me because Wifey took the kids out there along with her mom on Monday where they picked some beans and a few tomatoes.  Regardless, I picked a lot of tomatoes, beans, and cayenne peppers and a good number of ground cherries with mom and dad.

I weighed the beans, cayennes, and tomatoes we picked this evening.  The beans amounted to 1 lb 7.3 oz, the tomatoes were 3 lbs 3 oz, and the cayenne's were 9.7 oz.  Quite a nice haul!

Wifey's Drunken Noodle Recipe

Picture to come the next time she makes it for me.  :-)

Ingredients:

• 1 14-ounce packages 1/4-inch-wide flat rice noodles 
• 1/4 cup vegetable oil
• 12 garlic cloves, chopped
• 1/4 cup chopped Cayenne peppers
• 1 1/2 pounds ground chicken
• 1/4 cup fish sauce
• 1/4 cup soy sauce
• 1/4 cup light soy sauce
• 1 tablespoon sugar
• 1 1/4 cup San Marzano tomatoes cut into 6ths
• 1 large green bell pepper, cut into strips
• 1/4 cup fresh regular basil leaves

Preparation:

Cook noodles in large pot of boiling salted water until tender, stirring frequently. Drain.

Meanwhile, heat oil in heavy large pot over medium-high heat. Add garlic and cayenne peppers; sautée 30 seconds. Add chicken and next 4 ingredients and sautée until chicken is cooked through, about 4 minutes. Add noodles; stir very well to coat noodles in sauce.  Add tomatoes, and green peppers; toss to coat. Transfer to large platter, sprinkle with basil leaves, and serve.

Notes:

1. We often dehydrate our hot peppers to make for easier storage.  To achieve the measurement of cayenne peppers listed above, pull out the needed peppers and placed in a snack bag sealed to keep all air out.  Use the flat side of a meat mallet and pulverize.  Pour out into measuring cup.

2. This recipe is quite simple and forgiving.  Measurements can vary to taste, especially the qty and type of hot peppers for those who don't like things quite as hot.  Can be made relatively mild with more peppers added to individual servings.

3. Why's it called "Drunken Noodle" you may ask?  Because you may become inebriated from all the alcohol you drink trying to consume the fire in your mouth!

Recipe modified from this Epicurious original.

Today's Harvest

After a family trip to the National Aquarium, we decided to swing by the plot to do some picking.  We knew that since we hadn't been out in a few days, this trip was definitely due.

As you can see, there was a lot to pick.

The count: 23 San Marzano tomatoes, 3 Old Virginia tomatoes, 4 volunteer tomatoes from last year, 2 small green peppers, 9 Cayenne peppers, 3 small (and one midget) carrots, a good number of ground cherries, and a bunch of beans (9.9 oz).

Bag-ripened tomatoes

Back on July 27th, I picked a number of green tomatoes thinking that they'd never ripen on the vine.  I placed them in a paper bag along with an apple to ripen.  Gradually, they've been coming around.  While there are still a number to go, the majority are ripe now and available for canning or other uses.

 

Regularity in the harvest - tomatoes, beans, peppers, and ground cherries

After the kids were in bed, I headed out to the plot to harvest.  It'd been a few days and given the blush on tomatoes the last time I was there, I knew there'd be something to pick.

We ended up with 17 red tomatoes, 2 bell peppers, 7 cayenne peppers, a fair number of beans (enough to fill a sandwich bag 3/4), and a bunch of ground cherries.  The green tomatoes were found on the ground where a falling tomato plant (I need to find better ways to string them up) caused some to come off the vine.  The bell peppers are approx 2.5" across and 3" long.  Nothing large by grocery-store comparisons, but as I'd mentioned before, they're the largest we've managed since we first got a plot 5 years ago.

I need to water.  I would have done it last night, but there wasn't enough time by the time I got out there to do that and prevent fungus growth.  Having said that, it's been dry enough that that might not have been an issue.

A quick visit, a quick harvest

The family went to the plot this evening for a quick look-see at some of the tomatoes and beans that weren't quite ready for harvest on Sunday.  As I suspected, there were some tomatoes and beans to harvest.  Included in the tomatoes harvested are two volunteers from one of the plants in the watermelon box.  I'll have to research what those were for proper identification.  We got a few ground cherries and also saw that there are now two fully-red cayenne peppers and a few (3?) cayenne's that have a blush.

I can't possible reiterate how great it is to finally be able to harvest beans and tomatoes from the plot.  After having the beans wiped out last year -- 2 gallon bags of green beans from 7 boxes of green/red/lima beans -- and having no tomatoes ripen, it's sudden and glorious vindication.

Does gardening really pay off? Cost vs realized savings

I read a letter to the editors of Mother Earth News in a recent magazine I received that got me thinking.  Whomever wrote the letter said that their spouse used to rag on them that their gardening hobby was silly with the premise that "Harry Homeowner" can't possibly grow enough produce to offset the costs that go into the garden; just go to the grocery store.  This writer said that they'd tallied all their costs in a given year and compared those against their harvested produce at the going purchase prices.  They found that they had actually saved money.

That whole thing got me thinking about my garden and I wondered the same thing.  What would it take for me to actually break even in the garden?

Before I go on, let me make one thing abundantly clear: Even if I'm growing at a financial loss, the nutritional value I have of my non-GMO, largely organic produce (the "bug dust" I'm using to save my beans is, sadly, inorganic) is infinitely better for my family than something I purchase from someone else who uses an abundant variety of pesticides and herbicides using GMO seeds and who may harvest a week in advance and ship produce across the country using ethlyene gas to ripen those fruits and vegetables.

So, my comparison begins.

Costs:

$45 - plot rental for one year at Elkhorn Community Garden
$62 - seed costs
$25 - 5 containers of bug dust
$20 - 3 seed starting kits
$14 - 2 bags of bone meal
$25 - 40 lb bag of Garden Tone fertilizer (no, I won't be using it all in one year)
$0.50 - 18 seed shallots from farmer's market (purchased for fall planting) 

Total: $191.50

These obviously don't include any structural items I've put into the garden (trellises, etc) which do factor in, but which I haven't calculated out yet.

Savings:

Wifey weighed some tomatoes this morning while in the process of working making a small batch of sauce. She found that 9 San Marzano's and 2 of the Mystery Tomatoes picked yesterday weighed 14.2 oz or .8875 lbs.  Given that they're all approximately the same size, that means that each is approx 1.3 oz.  It also means that you need 13.2 tomatoes to give you 1 lb weight.

For comparison's sake:

• Roma tomatoes are selling for $3 a lb at the local Harris Teeter.  
• Bell peppers are also $1.80 each at HT presuming 3" across and 4" long.  
• Garlic is $0.50 per head at HT.  
• We have 33 heads drying in the garage and have used 4 other large heads  With a few being pretty small, I'll call it 32.  That amounts to $16.
• Basil is $3 per "unit" (HT price) which is a pack; I'll have to give some thought to what volume would constitute a "unit"
• Green Beans are $2 a lb at the local Harris Teeter.
• Note: Not organic beans.
• Wegmans has organic Sugar Snap Peas listed at $3.99 for 1 lb.  
• No idea how many sugar snap peas we picked this year, but with three boxes all producing pretty well, we got quite a few.

I'll try to see how things pan out at the end of the season.

Pretty pictures

Wifey took a few pictures while we were out at the plot.  Just goes to highlight our differences: I was focused on quantity of harvest, she was looking for beauty.  Judging by her pictures, she captured some.

 

The chair is back home, red cayenne peppers, finally harvested some beans and tomatoes

After entering the Adirondack Chair in the Howard County Fair (and winning 3rd prize!), I retrieved it today and returned it to its home under the Arbor.  While out at the plot, I watered everything, applied bug dust to deter Japanese beetles, and was thrilled to be able to harvest four San Marzano tomatoes, some green beans, and a few ground cherries.  A few more tomatoes that ripened since yesterday's brief visit.  There is also an additional red Cayenne pepper since yesterday.  It's great to finally be able to harvest some tomatoes and beans.  What a relief!

Finally! A good harvest!

The potassium (bone meal) treatments really seem to be working!  We weren't quite to the gate before we noticed some redness in our plot.  What a wonderful change of pace after feeling like the only guy at the dance with no date. 

We were able to pick one San Marzano (top right pic) that was actually more red than it appears in the picture.  There are also a few others with a healthy blush. 

On a pepper front, there's the lone red Cayenne (2nd down, right side) along with a few others with a slight blush.  Meanwhile some of the Bell peppers are slowly getting to a useable size.

There are an increasing number of runner beans in addition to the scarlet flowers.  We picked two and enjoyed those right there in the garden.  Wifey also found a healthy quantity of green beans hidden under some foliage on one of the trellises.  We'll need to figure out how we can get out there daily to pick all this stuff.

Lastly, we harvested a bunch of ground cherries along with the lone sizeable watermelon of the year.  I still can't figure out what wiped out all the watermelon plants a few weeks ago.  One day they were all doing great, then they were all done.

 

 

Bagged tomatoes starting to turn

A few weeks ago I harvested some green tomatoes to try to get them to ripen at home.  I put them in a large paper bag in the hopes that they wouldn't simply rot and make the kitchen stink.  We've checked off and on since then with Wifey discovering today that some are finally turning!

Tomatoes finally ripening, Beans getting flowers!

With nice weather, we went to the plot to check on progress.  Nothing worth picking, but it's nice to see that the tomatoes and Cayenne peppers are finally starting to turn, we're getting flowers on the green beans, and even the Scarlet Runner bean flowers are turning into beans!  Looks like Wifey may have been right!