Gunplumber

I'm still getting it with Mozilla - talked to Darlene about it months ago. I'm still getting warnings.

Lots of flowers, but only 2 tiny green soon-to-be tomatoes. Put a bird net up. Hopefully, that will help.

Strategic use of walls for partial shade. Tomatoes get full sun sun from maybe 8-2. Took this pic at 7 AM and you can see they are still in full shade. Beans from 7-12. Potatoes from Noon to 5.

Zucchini is full sun, but seems to like it.

Also, I have everything on sprinklers - 10 different zones on timers, and individually adjustable heads, so i can be very specific about how much water for each and how often. At least until they grow taller than the sprinkler heads and disrupt my carefully calculated spray pattern.

I can also add an adapter between the riser and the sprinkler head, to run a drip line (or cap off the head to drip only) to get even more specific.

I've put a lot of time (and money!) into the infrastructure so I don't have to work as hard.

This year, I pulled out a lot of the original pipes that went across the beds. Now there are no pipes more than 4" from the planter side. It makes digging safer. I kept snapping pipes in the large bed when I'd step on them - hidden by weeds or plants.

My tomatoes aren't ready yet but I have been stealing new potatoes

Me Too! The plants are 3' tall and dense but I only saw the first flowers yesterday. I switched the tomatoes and beans from last year - this year the tomatoes face west and the beans face east. The beans at least seem to like that better. I am not exaggerating to say the pole beans are growing 4+ inches a day.

I pulled the first of the potatoes yesterday. And they are supposed to be the small ones. They were left over from a BBQ at the end of January, and by end of Feb had gotten a bit mushy. So I buried them. The leaves on a few plants were starting to brown and I'd read that was the sign they were ready, but it's still early. The skins were so fragile they came off with the hose. But it's the first time I've done potatoes. If I only knew the nightmare of irrigating that planter I'd not have done it! I'm all for over-engineering stuff, but the guy who built the 4' non-load-bearing decorative wall made a 2' x 2' foundation for it. And I had to bore under it to run an irrigation line to the planter. Took me all day. But it paid off!

The radish flood came and went. I've got about 20 plants going to seed. Just couldn't eat them fast enough. Planted a second batch, but smaller this time. I'll try to keep them in 3 week increments.

Zucchini is out of control. Giving it away and freezing it. It's growing about 2" a day.

repurpose.

Some recipes say to soak in lime water . What does this do?

I'm wondering the if the garlic is purely for flavor or if also an antibacterial?

So I have a bunch of peppers, and will have more cucumbers eventually. Some I'm drying, but I want to play with pickling.

I do not want to can them.

I do not have room in the fringe.

I don't want to freeze them.

I am not looking for best seasoning combinations, as I have a hundred recipes for that.

What I'm looking for is the bare minimum to salt and vinegar and whatever for the sole purpose of preserving a bunch of hot peppers.

What I'm having trouble doing with all the recipes is extracting the mechanical process from "this combination of dill/garlic/alum/etc. tastes best.

Maybe I don't understand what pickling is, but I thought it was a way of preserving without the regimented procedures for safe canning.

It is with regret I note that life done got in the way. I have a wonderful new air conditioner in the shop, which in AZ is not a luxury item, but bare necessity. But as a result, my savings and emergency fund are depleted, and I simply cannot afford to go this year. I'll miss seeing ya'll.

still don't know. Putting in an new A/C today has drained all the savings.

Will trade ammo for plane tickets . . . (grin).

best way to get someone to look is to tell them not to . .. . it's in our nature.

Oh, I thought it was the 101st Airborne birthday (grin).

By the way.... I am TIRED of cucumbers. I have been picking 20+ every other day for the past few weeks.

Amen! I've been feeding them to the horses. I can't eat this many. Maybe next year I'll stagger the planting in 2 week intervals.

My eggplants are really small

Is this normal?

Girl child is seeing what other squashes can be made to taste like pumpkin pie, with the addition of copious amounts of sugar/spice and pie crust.

Canning - not yet (dat's wimin's work!)

Did I mention that I'm getting bored with squash?

So how does one make cast iron function as an air conditioner?

You see the tiny ring of green in the rind?

 

Recipe for squash.....[like acorn or butternut]. Remove seeds so that a bowl is formed. Make an uncooked ball of sausage [spiced anyway you like it] to fit into the bowl. Put squash halves into a shallow baking dish with a half-inch or so of water. Bake uncovered in oven [probably 350 degrees] till sausage is cooked thru and squash is easily pierced with a fork. Depending on how much grease is produced by the sausage, either pour it off or mix it into the squash instead of butter. Anyone watching fats/oils intake....not a good way to cook squash....

The pic is off he web. Mine has a more distinct color line. Ill get a pic later.

That sounds awesome for a squash recipe - like stuffed bell peppers.

It sure grows well. I still can't see how anyone can have a "survival garden" that isn't at least an acre for a family of 4. I could eat all my lettuce in a week. Each large squash might feed one person for one day.

I cut a small piece off it and microwaved it 'till it was soft. It tasted kindof bland, but about what I'd expect from a squash consistency. I know what you mean by weird shapes - I have some of this growing too.

hubbard

So how will the maturity at picking affect reusing the seeds? I pulled the seeds from this one and about 75% were plump - like fat pumpin seeds. the other 25% were deformed or flattened and wrinkled.

The sharpie marker on plastic flags failed - the ink washed off. Which is weird, 'cause I can't get it off when I want to, but anyway, I now don't know what is what.

I have this thing. It's either a melon or a squash. I'm guessing from the seed size that it's a squash. Also, the melon leaves seem more like oak (fingers) and the other squash is more like a lily pad. I pushed on the belly-button and it was a little soft, so I figured it was ripe, and cut it. It is a little smaller than a bowling ball. It is white on the outside and very wrinkled. It is pale green around the rind, and more yellow by the seeds. Texture is like an unripe avocado.

I went back to seedsnow.com and couldn't find it, which means it may have come in a survivalessentials seed pack, which doesn't have images. Any idea what it is?

How do I know when squash is ripe?

I'm at my final stage of construction for the "garden" area, and was planning some sort of wash station/work station/tool storage. Not sure I need it covered, as the tools are weatherproof, but its an interesting idea and got me thinking. I was just going to put a bunch of cut pipes together like an organ for the tool handles to slide into. Maybe one weatherproof spot would be useful.

me like

So some of my radishes that have flowered, have really tiny bulbs. Foes the plant "empty" the energy stored in the bulb when it flowers?

Just like I seem to need one book for how to grow it, and another with how to eat it, I'm putting my adventures in eating in "In the Kitchen

http://mrssurvival.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=49857

This thread relates to this one. Growing in the desert Southwest. http://mrssurvival.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=49595

Starting to harvest. The radishes turned out pretty good. Lot of different flavors. The big white ones were pretty strong. Supposedly the hotness has to do with the amount of water. I eat jalepenos like candy, but the big white ones were too hot for me to enjoy. They had a residual complex flavor mildly reminiscent of horseradish/wasabi. The red and the red/white tasted like normal salad radish. Some of the plants had a huge stalk, flowers, and the bulb was tiny. Do they use up the energy stores of the root bulb when they flower?

We culled lettuce too. The book says to either pull the outer leaves or cut off the whole plant 1" above dirt and it will grow again.

Also doing well are the "greens." Mustard greens, and several kinds of Kale. Mustard greens actually have a very interesting flavor but it's very strong. Best I could describe it was a buttery hot and a little bitter mustard. Too strong to add to a salad, IMO. The Kale was large red leaf, and was bitter. So I made a unilateral decision that they ain't goin' in the salad.

So I go online and read a bit. It seems that they are closely related to broccoli and cauliflower, and should be cooked. Also says freezing kale makes it sweeter. So I read a bunch of recipes and decided on this amalgamation.

heat olive oil.

add minced garlic and minced onion

when garlic browns, throw in the chopped kale and mustard greens

add lemon and pepper (I used lemon-pepper, 'cause I had no lemons)

simmer until they soften - about 5 minutes

turn off heat, add red wine vinegar, toss and eat warm.

Actually turned okay, but it's only been an hour. If I keel over dead in the next few hours - that's why.

So what I get from it, is that the "greens" basically taste like **** when raw, but they are nutritious, so sauteing them and mixing with other stuff (potato, sausage, etc) is a good way to eat them without actually having to taste them. Like spinach, except I like spinach raw or wilted.

My question is - of all the garden stuff, are there any greens that will make me sick? This is an experiment toward survival gardening, so I am interested in nutritional value over taste. I know that tomato plants are poisonous (nightshade family). I'm reading about the radish leaves as edible as well. http://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/home/cooking-with-radish-leaves/2014/01/14/4f813ab0-7657-11e3-a647-a19deaf575b3_story.html

Any simple post-apocalypse recipes for greens?

yay!

 

It's also called a skill set [specific to your exact region] that can bring Food Security [Nutritional Security?]

This is my primary motivation. I want to see what will grow and where. What plants are one seed = one plant and which will spread out on their own. If I leave the radishes alone, will they send out runners? And if I'm going to plant green stuff for cosmetic appeal, why not make it edible green instead of just flowers? From a sustenance standpoint, I think one would need much more just to feed one family, but its still good info to file away. At some point I wonder if the labor involved in a small garden burns more calories than the garden provides. Anyway - "Proof of Concept"