October 24, 2010

I vote YES on trombetta squash

Posted by ramblinrobert under My garden, my life | Tags: , |
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With an election coming up, I’m being bombarded with sleazy election materials. So, voting must be on my mind. But, there is nothing sleazy about one of my favorites this year–a new squash I tried, the Italian heirloom trombetta summer squash. The fruit is long (about 15 inches), curvaceous and has a smooth, light green skin. When cooked, the squash maintains a very nice creamy and seedless texture, instead of cooking down like a Zucchini squash. I’ve probably used it most cooked, chilled and tossed into a salad.

It is also very productive–I’ve had about two dozen squash from one plant. Like all my squash, I let it sprawl across my mulched walkways between beds. But, it has a reputation for being a climber that can be trellised. I will definitely grow this again, so growing it vertically will be a fun experiment.

 

October 2, 2010

OMG, it’s tomato time

Posted by ramblinrobert under My garden, my life | Tags: , , |
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This shouldn’t be a surprise to me, but I’ve got a lot of tomatoes to deal with. Now that our cool summer has turned warm (even a month later than our usual late summer), my tomatoes are ripening. There are a few summer squash coming still, as the photo shows, but the tomatoes are now overwhelming me.  Since I put in about 15 plants and 12 varieties, I shouldn’t be surprised at the volume I’m getting now.  (more…)

 

September 8, 2010

My mobile food dehydrator

Posted by ramblinrobert under Food preservation, My garden, my life | Tags: , , |
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Suddenly, I have more tomatoes than I know what do to with. I knew this would happen, as I planted about 15 seedlings, but I haven’t had time to prepare. I’ve been wanting to buy or build a food dehydrator for some time, but simply haven’t had the time to do so yet. Someone recently suggested using the back of my car, since it gets lots of sun and gets hot on a sunny day. So, I washed an old window screen, elevated it on bricks over some newspapers and started laying out sliced tomatoes to dry. We’ll see how well it works. I think this is a great way to get sun-dried tomatoes for later use, if all goes according to plan. And it has lots of room for more tomatoes as they ripen!

 

August 6, 2010

This morning’s harvest and a bit of gardening philosophy

Posted by ramblinrobert under Agroecology, My garden, my life | Tags: , , , , , , , |
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I like to go out in the garden every morning and see what’s ready to harvest. I was out of town for a few days, so this morning’s harvest was a little larger than normal. But, it gives a good idea where I am in my summer crop cycle. Before I forget, I should add that the photo doesn’t include a handful of red raspberries and blueberries that made it into my belly instead of the photo. (As always, click on the picture to see a larger version.) So, what’s here? Roughly, from left to right: (more…)

 

July 27, 2010

The trend expands

Posted by ramblinrobert under Urban agriculture | Tags: |
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For anyone who has been paying attention the past few years, it’s clear that growing your own food is becoming popular again. Seed companies have seen sharp demands for their seed stocks and beekeeping and chicken husbandry classes are being offered in virtually every urban area. There are many reasons for this. Some people are concerned about food security. Some people want the better taste and variety of homegrown food. Whatever the reason, the trend is clear.

The New York Times has chronicled this change for the past several years and yesterday reported that the trend has even hit botanical gardens. Apparently, attendance is down and previous event sponsors are no longer supporting traditional events. So, the gardens are getting more creative on a variety of fronts. But, the primary change is captured in this single sentence, buried in the middle of the article:

Edible gardens are the fastest-growing trend at botanical gardens, consistently increasing attendance, experts say, along with cooking classes.

This is not only unsurprising, but good news. Edible gardening is also the primary trend in home gardens, resulting in higher food security and higher quality food.

 

July 20, 2010

Good news, bad news about my fig

Posted by ramblinrobert under My garden, my life | Tags: , |
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First, the good news. I’m harvesting figs now. Like most of my fruit, I’m letting them get super ripe, so they are deliciously soft, melt in your mouth good. I’ve had problems in the past with squirrels eating them before I can get to them, so I experimented with making plastic “cages” for them this year. This might have helped, because none of them were attacked by squirrels this year. However, there could be other reasons for this; (more…)

 

July 16, 2010

I’m thinking of adding a hive of livestock

Posted by ramblinrobert under Bees, Industrial agriculture, My garden, my life | Tags: , , |
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A friend of mine had trouble guessing what kind of livestock I was thinking of adding, even with lots of hints.  When she finally got to bees, she claimed they weren’t livestock. I’ll defer to the National Sustainable Agriculture Information Service on this. They consider bees as other livestock, so I’ll go along with that.

I’ve had an interest in bees for several years, (more…)

 

July 7, 2010

Hummingbird, Part 2

Posted by ramblinrobert under My garden, my life | Tags: |
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I checked this morning and there is one baby hummingbird in the nest in my front yard. Ain’t it a cutie? Thankfully, mama was no where in sight, as she doesn’t like it when I’m anywhere near the tree. (Click on image to see a larger version.)

 

July 2, 2010

SIPs, part 2

Posted by ramblinrobert under Land, My garden, my life, Urban agriculture, Water | Tags: , |
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Here are a few shots of the planters themselves, to show how they are constructed. The green planters were made following my friend’s instructions, by cutting out a section of the plastic tub’s lid the size and shape of the tub’s interior about five inches off the bottom (the height of the pond baskets that drop into the water reservoir). While this results in a large tub, it is very time-consuming to do this.

Me second approach (more…)

 

July 2, 2010

Another experiment–SIPs

Posted by ramblinrobert under Land, My garden, my life, Urban agriculture, Water | Tags: , |
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Last winter I took a series of gardening classes and one in particular intrigued me. The instructor, another Master Gardener in my county (in fact, she was the one that told me about the training program) taught one class on how to make self-irrigating planters. I love the acronym–SIPs–although I have to say these planters don’t really SIP. They use at least as much water as a regular planter, but more of that water is going into production because losses from soil evaporation are virtually nil.

In any case, a friend and I built a couple planters each one day. As I readied to plant them I realized (more…)

 

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