Autumn Asks: Do You Can?

The Canning Queen of the Desert from Etsy on Vimeo.

Can I just say that I want to squeeze her??? Can you imagine if more of the empty lots in large cities were utilized for food growing? Give the teens and older kids something to tend to and get their hands dirty in? We would see sure a revival in young people learning to cook. (There is alot of this going on all over the states and if you Google the subject you will meet some amazing people.)

Since my garden has been a success this year canning has been on my mind. But. Always the but. We are also looking a move in the face so its just not a good ideal to be storing food when we should be depleting it. Trust me....pantry items weigh too much....and our household goods were over our allowable when we got here...so its downsize time.

(By the way...remember me making fun of my Charlie Brown tomatoes in the straw bale??? Well, all of a sudden they took off when it started cooling down this month and became a jungle. Now lets see if they will produce before it frosts.)

I did manage to do my peppers and jalapeno's.

Those will be gone before we move and I didn't plant enough of them to make much more than what you see here.

So I'm really, really, really looking forward to owning my own home and being able to actually have a real garden and get back to canning. So glad through the last few moves I did not get rid of all my stuff to do so.

So how about you? Do you can? Do you have a great canning recipe? I'd love for you to share if you do. Mostly I've just done salsa's and jalapeno's.  I wonder if I could can my green chiles instead of freezing them? Think I will check on that!

Autumn Asks: What Did You Plant This Year?

Now that we have passed May 15th, we are out of frost danger.  We can now plant.

We did fairly well with our container tomatoes last year so we thought we would try again. We did not like how small the tomatoes stayed so we looked around at other possibilities.  And this year I found Straw Bale Gardening.  Looked worth giving a try since its a larger medium and still keeps the plants out of the poisoned soil. We even went so far as to cover the bottoms with an old shower curtain (so they are diapered!) to ensure there is no contamination.

Mouse did talk me into a couple of flowers also. I find this a waste of time because you can't eat them. Why do I want to use water and time and energy on something I can't eat?  (You must understand I am highly allergic to just about everything that grows so flowers only hold pain...no pleasure.)

So I actually planted out these tomatoes a week ago. They came a little early....and I didn't read the directions that said to baby them indoors and then harden them off. Last years instructions didn't say that so I just planted them.  Plus it turned out that they sent me 2 orders of the yellow/orange tomatoes and left out the bush/container tomatoes. So I called them and they sent the others - leaving me with 3 extra tomato plants I wasn't planning on -- not that I'm complaining.

I did lose one, but a week later they have doubled in size. I'll let you know how this experiment goes as the season progresses.  They are supposed to need more water than a normal container. Also I will need to fertilize/feed them once a week.

And the cool thing? Living in military housing you have people moving out all the time and throwing things away.  The day I was outside planting a neighbor across the street set all 7 of these planters out in the trash by the road.  Score!! And they are the expensive ones! The couple bought a house so I have no idea why they would leave such nice planters behind....but I sure grabbed them and ran!!

And so my garden has enlarged even more.

The rest of the tomatoes are now in and line one side of the fence. I didn't plan to have this many...that's what the straw bales were supposed to be for...but hey, its all good! I can't believe how fast they are growing.

We also have several different pots/planters of lettuce. This is the most mature (bought that way) and others are started from seed.

There is also spinach....

and bib lettuce....

And yes we have already eaten many salads with fresh greens to round out the iceberg.

We also have cucumbers to trail on the fence...

Red and yellow bell peppers and even some jalapeño

Throw in some mint for my tea and some other cooking herbs and I'm calling it done.

Hope it all works out. Its always a risk when you know you are taking a family vacation during the hot part of summer and will have to find someone to take care of it all for you.  As a matter of fact I'm hoping to find a college student that would come in and stay at our place while we are gone to take care of the monster dog and the plants.  Wish me luck!

My Thumb Is Still Green

Amazingly, the tomatoes are still alive.

I thought I'd lose them when we went on a 12 day vacation. I paid a little neighbor girl to come water them and hoped for the best. They were a little pale when we returned but I think that was because they needed some fertilizing. And it rained alot while we were gone so maybe too much water?

Anyways. They are still alive. Some more than others.

And the first ones are ready to be pulled off! Or will be in a day or two.

Question is....who will get to them first? Me or hubs?

And will it come to blows?

LOL!
The tomatoes on this side of the patio are all doing well.
This side is sad. It has the stubby runt. The middle one has dying leaves with brown spots. Not sure what its problem is.

So our experiment with the patio tomatoes is going well, I'd say. The tomatoes and plants are smallish...but I guess they would be since there is only so much room for the roots.

So how about you guys? Did you try and grow any food this year? How is it going?

My Own Personal B Rate Horror Movie

So I'm not much of a gardener. I have very little experience.

I have lofty hopes and try. But not real hard. The whole allergy things pretty much beats it out of me. There's nothing like breaking out in rashes and hives when you brush up against or touch a plant on purpose.

In Nebraska I did grow some tomatoes. If you want to call it that. I literally pulled up some flower beds and put tomato plants from Lowe's in the ground...and walked away. We had automatic sprinklers so I didn't even have to water.

When the tomatoes were red...we picked them and ate them. And they were great.

So I'm a big time gardener this year. Two plus gardens. One in my yard, on my patio and then the big garden I'm helping with.

And all of a sudden my tomatoes are dying. What???? I could tell something was eating them...but it took a few days to figure out what.
See, there's this thing called a Tomato Hornworm.
And they can eat a plant overnight. Just when the tomatoes are beginning to turn. The are hungry!

I know I need to pick these things off. And the first 2 days it wasn't a big deal as they were small. Small enough that you didn't really see the horn part.
But now they are big enough that the horn is THE thing I see.

So I run to the internets to find out WHAT they are and what to do about them. You see, although I am not bug squeamish....anything that looks like a stinger gets immediate respect. It has to do with that epi-pen I have to carry. I will not willing grab anything that looks like it can sting.
Luckily...they sell caterpillar tongs to grab them with. Okay - so I'm too cheap to buy something like this, but at least it gave me an idea. Yep. Kabob sticks. The pointy ones. Why pinch a ugly green caterpillar when you can spear it. (I'll spare you a picture.)

How come I never saw these in Nebraska? Or maybe its that whole "everything is bigger is Texas" thing? Don't know.

What I do know is that for the first time in my life I am wishing for a backyard full of wasps. The kind that do this....
See, you don't even kill these ones. You let those wasp babies hatch and eat all those other nasty looking worms. HAH!! Take that!

Until that happens...I still have to hand pick. They are too big for the natural bacteria I could have used. And the whole point of growing our own (besides money) is to stay organic.

So now I obsessively sneak out back to check for the worms, several times a day.

Not an easy task. They hide underneath the leaves since they don't like the sun. And they are the same color as the plant.

Autumn the worm spearer. Yep. That's me.

Autumn Asks: So What Happened to My Garden Plans?

I started the spring out wanting to plant a garden. We have a very expensive tomato and pepper habit at my house. And in Nebraska we managed to grow a few tomato plants...and they were fantastic.

So I looked at seed catalogs and tried to talk hubs into gardening. He was all for it as long as there were tomatoes. So I told him I needed him to build me a raised bed. I was pretty intimidated by the thought and so was he....so it looked like it was all going to fall through.

About that time I decided maybe I could do a few plants in pots on the patio and see how that went. I knew it would take some care with the Texas sun and heat. Pots tend to dry out pretty fast around here. Still, it was worth a shot. So, with the help of my mother, I acquired a couple of half barrels and pots from a house that was abandoned 6 months prior, due to the whole mortgage mess. Very frugal. And we stuck some tomatoes and such in the pots.

Also, while talking to a friend (who lives on a little bit of land, not in a neighborhood) she told me how she loves to plant a garden, but they lose it every year when they go on vacation so it never really does them much good. After putting our heads together, we decided we could work together. So, they doubled their garden size, and we both bought plants/seeds and started working together. With lots of help from her husband, who grew up on a farm. He laughs at us. Alot. Because we are CLUELESS.

Then, I showed hubs a plan for a simple raised bed garden that I found in one of my magazines...and he says lets do it. Really? Well, I didn't give him time to change his mind. We went down to Lowes and purchased what we needed and came home and did it.

So I went from being intimidated and giving up to patio plants, a raised bed and part of a real garden just up the road.

That's about how my life rolls.

To date we have eaten several things from these two places. In the big garden we harvested the baby bok choy first. LOVED this. Will grow this from now on. I think I'll only plant about 3 at a time about a week apart for as long as I can. This was good not only in stir fries but also in salads as a lettuce.
My patio cucumbers are GOOD. Wish I'd planted more of these. Hubs and I fight over them. They are a smaller veggie for growing in pots. Love these.
One of the patio tomatoes. We are very impatient to get our hands on the ripe stuff. It takes too long!!!!!
The raised bed. Cucumbers, peppers, tomato, squash, beets, lettuce. This poor guy has a story. We planted it and it was doing so great. But our yard had some brown spots. I asked if hubs had fertilized in the fall. No? Well, that was probably the problem. So he goes and buys fertilizer and proceeds to broadcast it with a hand broadcaster. About two days later my tomatoes and peppers start to die. So I ask hubs EXACTLY what was in that fertilizer and did any get into the beds. Needless to say the plants and soil on the far end were replaced and we now have new tomato plants...which stinks as I already had tomatoes on the others. Lesson learned.

My miniture roses must love all the company because they have doubled in size and are beautiful this year. I have yellow, red and pink. I have a new one that is called plum but I'm not sure he is going to make it.
The big garden. Corn, beans, beets, bok choy, squash, peppers and tomatoes. And they are taking off! I went out today to check to see if it needed any weeding and came home with....
...to go with the other bag of beans from yesterday.

So the garden is a sucess. But. For those things we covet the most (tomatoes and peppers) -- we will probably miss out on most of that because of the move. Doesn't that just figure?

I wonder how hard it is to garden in Ohio?