Gardening: (2016– )

[Shelby]

14 minutes ago, KennethT said:

@Shelby What's the red chili in the first photo?

It's a very ripe banana pepper--not spicy at all, just good pepper flavor.

[Okanagancook]

@Shelby if you have never made Marcella Hazan's tomato sauce made with tomatoes, onion and butter it is really worth a try. I think Epicurious rates it as one of the top ten recipes ever.  https://www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/my-mothers-butter-tomato-and-onion-sauce-395730

[dcarch]

Relative humidity foretasted for the next 10 days in NY area will be 100%. In other words, air will be completely saturated with moisture.

 

Perfect weather to kill off tomato plants. Hot and humid, ideal for all kinds of fatal deceases. :-(

 

dcarch

 

[heidih]

1 hour ago, dcarch said:

Relative humidity foretasted for the next 10 days in NY area will be 100%. In other words, air will be completely saturated with moisture.

 

Perfect weather to kill off tomato plants. Hot and humid, ideal for all kinds of fatal deceases. 😞

 

dcarch

 

 

Ouch! Though they are not deceased yet, just prone to disease...;)

[JoNorvelleWalker]

8 hours ago, Okanagancook said:

@Shelby if you have never made Marcella Hazan's tomato sauce made with tomatoes, onion and butter it is really worth a try. I think Epicurious rates it as one of the top ten recipes ever.  https://www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/my-mothers-butter-tomato-and-onion-sauce-395730

 

I once tried Marcella's sauce and was not delighted by it.  Your mileage may vary.

 

[kayb]

7 hours ago, JoNorvelleWalker said:

 

I once tried Marcella's sauce and was not delighted by it.  Your mileage may vary.

 

Thank God. I'm not the only one.

 

At a minimum, it wants a big handful of fresh basil.

 

[Anna N]

8 hours ago, JoNorvelleWalker said:

I once tried Marcella's sauce and was not delighted by it.  Your mileage may vary.

 I, too, was underwhelmed. 

[Okanagancook]

Gotta have a really good homemade pasta with it.  It's different for sure.

[chromedome]

Finally got the opportunity to get back out and tend my garden a bit...had hoped/intended to do that on Monday, but life happens.

It ain't much, but my time for digging soil and removing stones is limited. The beds in the middle are from last year, the closest and further ones are from this spring.

 

A different angle:

 

 

As you can tell, there's plenty of (ahem) natural habitat between the beds. I plan to cover it with corrugated cardboard, held down by the plentiful stones, to keep the weeds in check. Those big ol' garlic plants are getting close to harvest. I took a couple today just to evaluate how much longer they need to stay in the ground.

 

Here are a couple of my itty-bitty okra plants. I didn't get really good germination from them, only about a half-dozen plants, but what the heck. This is my first time growing okra; until this past winter I hadn't realized it could be grown this far north.

 

 

...and, my first pickin's. Some baby lettuces, a half-dozen pods of peas, and a mess of mixed greens (mostly turnip, but also radish greens, baby kohlrabi that I was thinning, and plenty of dandelions).

 

 

My garden as a whole is heavy on the greens: I grow turnips and beets largely for the greens, and also have broccoli raab, collards, chard and lots of kale in there. I've got a few beans (most of my seedlings didn't make it, regrettably), some shell peas, a few kinds of carrots, some potatoes, red and green cabbages, broccoli, Brussels sprouts, cauliflower,  tomatoes, cucumbers, and doubtless a few other things that elude my recollection just at the moment.

 

[heidih]

Love the garden and selections @chromedome  I think based n my "professional" experiences that keeping naturalized plants between rows is the "new black". It encourages pollinators, good bugs, and good soil "bugs".  Carry on!!!

[chromedome]

Aside from all those considerations, it's also where I harvest my dandelions and sorrel.

[Okanagancook]

Kinda of in the garden.....I have a sink in my outdoor kitchen.  I often get mice in the cupboards in spring but this morning there in my big Kohler sink were two tiny little mouselets snuggled together trying to keep warm.  They had fallen into the sink which really has no way out for them.  I put some gloves on and shushed them into a pail.  I took them to a friendly part of my property and let them go.  I fear they are too small to survive but they deserve a chance.

Then I put out some traps for the parents. 

Hummmm.......😂

[lindag]

I get it, you do what you have to do.

Mice creep me out.

 

[chromedome]

I laughed out loud when the manager and board of my former farmer's market chose a cartoon mouse as the market's mascot. Because what could possibly represent agriculture in the abstract better than a pestilential, crop-defiling rodent?

[dcarch]

53 minutes ago, lindag said:

I get it, you do what you have to do.

Mice creep me out.

 

 

They also carry all kinds of diseases , including Lyme disease and ticks .

 

dcarch

[IowaDee]

Hantavirus is the real nasty  one rodents carry.  Former principal of our local

middle school caught and died of it while on vacation in the south west

several years ago.  He was a young healthy guy at the time tool

[Okanagancook]

Yes, all good reasons to rid your area of them.  I think the two little ones have probably dried up in the 36f temps out there today.  I will get the disinfectant out.  I usually trap five or six mice in the spring.

 

A teenager died of hantavirus a few years back after sweeping out the family basement and garage.  I lot of the original farm houses around here are infested.  Not healthy.

Thanks everyone.

[Okanagancook]

Pickage from the week.

 

The tomatillos have been made into 4 cups of Rick Bayless' salsa verde.

Most of cucumbers and tomatoes plus all the green peppers have been made into 14 cups of gazpacho soup.

The large tomatoes on the plate was eaten for lunch as part of a BLT, emphasis on the T.

The baby zucchini are going in a pasta dish for tonight.  Made the pasta earlier...a Food and Wine recipe here, https://www.foodandwine.com/recipes/friulian-pasta-zucchini-and-zucchini-flowers

The lovely red onions need a recipe.

The rest of the zucchini:  two packages for the freezer to make a soup and a pasta dish; the rest has been divided into two and will be made into two different curries BUT NOT TODAY.  I need a cocktail and it's only 2 pm 🤗

Edited July 30, 2018 by Okanagancook (log)

[suzilightning]

On ‎7‎/‎29‎/‎2018 at 4:07 PM, chromedome said:

I laughed out loud when the manager and board of my former farmer's market chose a cartoon mouse as the market's mascot. Because what could possibly represent agriculture in the abstract better than a pestilential, crop-defiling rodent?

Hey, dude...

where are your moose enclosures like we saw up north of you?  loved those small tended plots all along the highways.....

me?  I have a black thumb.....

[suzilightning]

On ‎7‎/‎29‎/‎2018 at 4:51 PM, IowaDee said:

Hantavirus is the real nasty  one rodents carry.  Former principal of our local

middle school caught and died of it while on vacation in the south west

several years ago.  He was a young healthy guy at the time tool

heck, a young guy died where I came from(east end of long island - shelter island) that he had contracted at his dad's warehouse in queens, ny.  unfortunately several of the rodents on the island had the virus as well....

[suzilightning]

23 hours ago, Okanagancook said:

Yes, all good reasons to rid your area of them.  I think the two little ones have probably dried up in the 36f temps out there today.  I will get the disinfectant out.  I usually trap five or six mice in the spring.

 

A teenager died of hantavirus a few years back after sweeping out the family basement and garage.  I lot of the original farm houses around here are infested.  Not healthy.

Thanks everyone.

NEVER EVER pick up any mouse droppings when dry.  ALWAYS spritz with a bleach solution just for this reason.

 

My brother-in-law is currently in the hospital with babesiosis, a type of lyme like disease spread by ticks.  I suspect he has had it for a while and it is just now presenting as it isn't common in the Hudson valley but is where I came from and where he used to vacation(Fire Island).  

[ChocoMom]

Picked about 10 quarts of blueberries at our friend's place yesterday.  Hubby was baling hay for them, and the wife always has me come over to pick berries. Because of the early, heavy rains we had, the berries are enormous.  More than 50% of them were nearly the size of grapes- huge, sweet and juicy.  Made two pies last evening using up a goodly amount.    The Genovese basil I grew from seed indoors.  Its gone into nearly every pasta sauce, and now the rest is getting dried and stored for later use.  There is another large container of Mammolo basil growing on the porch outside. Its flavor isn't as strong as the Genovese, but still delicious fresh or dried. 

 

 

[joiei]

Went to the garden after an intense rain storm just now and pulled an ear of corn.  Discovered that it was starting to smut.  Dang.  Now I'm afraid to pull any more ears in hopes that it does the magic huitlacoche dang.  

[ChocoMom]

Not actually from a "garden"....but scattered around the Keweenaw Peninsula are the wonderful little thimbleberries.  My oldest daughter and her boyfriend found a "secret place"  loaded with the bushes, and picked over 900 grams of these babies one afternoon. She asked me to make a puree for a PdF and use it in some sort of bon bon this winter. So, the puree is made and going into the freezer until I'm ready for it.  

[BeeZee]

@ChocoMom, they are like little jewels, so pretty. Do they taste similar to raspberries?