Plans

Yesterdays meeting that Ms. Puddy and I attended with Andrea and Pete (the UVA landscape architecture students) about the garden plan went incredibly well. I'm fascinated by the process of putting this together. It's very much like the writing process we teach in school - brainstorming, first draft, editing, proofreading, more drafts, more editing and proofreading, etc. Ms. Jones has okayed the plan and will take care of the necessary paperwork. In the meantime, we can move forward. We've also been okayed for the party on September 18th. Huzzah!

Brainstorming

A rough plan of what the garden could be. Apples!

A Photoshop mock up of what the garden might look like and a calendar for what you might find over the year.

Another mock up of what the garden could look like.

Wednesday in the Garden

Finished weeding the onions this morning. I'm not sure if we're going to be able to salvage them, but it's worth a shot. Everything else is looking surprisingly good. Two beds are mulched now. That should really help with the weeds and keeping the ground wet.

Next week, there's going to be a group of volunteers helping out for a couple hours each day. Mostly they'll be doing some painting in the office and front hall of the school, but I'm hoping to pull a couple of them to help dig the blasted holes for our sign. There are just so many rocks in the field that I've been really discouraged trying to dig them by myself. After all, it took me two hours to plant a couple of roses. Having help will be wonderful.

Also, tomorrow afternoon I get to see the plan the our volunteer UVA A-School folks have drawn up for us. I'm very excited to see what they've come up with.

Anyway, here are some more pictures from this morning.

Here are the tops of the potato plants. They're buried under about 8 inches of straw.

Things are really doing a lot better now that we're getting some rain.

There are a couple of great things in this picture. The first thing is the watermelon is flowering. The second thing is that they're being pollinated. That needs to happen if we're going to be eating melon anytime soon.

Monday In The Garden

Fergie and I spent a couple hours in the garden yesterday morning. The potatoes are now living in a nice bed of straw and the zucchini/cucumber bed is mulched well. We were there for summer school recess so bunches of kids got to come hang out for a little while. They all wanted to know when the garden club would start up again. Well, every Wednesday morning I'm there from 9 to noon. Also, I'm happy to meet up at other times, just shoot me an email and I'll be there. Otherwise, I'm thinking the second week of school (which is coming far quicker than I thought it would) is a good time to aim for starting up the group again. Of course, I'll need to check in with Ms. Jones and some other folks on that. In the mean time, here are a couple pictures to keep you thinking about things.

The cherry tomatoes are coming in. I ate most of the ripe ones. Sorry, it was getting close to lunchtime and I was a bit hungry. The yellow pear tomatoes are starting to ripen as well, but I didn't take their picture.
We're starting to get quite a few zucchinis, too. I gave two of them away to an old student and took three home. There are about four more that will be ready in the next couple of days. Please help yourself.
The sunflowers are starting to bloom.

Fergie discovered that she likes to help with watering.
Well. . . she discovered she likes to run into the spray.

Dilly Bean Recipe for Janelle

Janelle asked for the recipe so. . .

Dilly beans are like pickles but with green beans instead of cucumbers. Plus, they're awesome. This is basically the same recipe I use for cucumbers. I got it from my grandmother.

For the brine combine 3 and 3/4 cups of water, 1 and 1/2 cups of cider vinegar and 1/4 of a cup of kosher salt. This is enough to make 6-8 pint jars of dilly beans.

Sterilize the jars and lids*.

Wash the beans. Trim the ends of the beans, if you like. . . or not. . . depends on how you feel about these things. Stuff pint jars with beans. Wedge in some seed heads or leaves of dill (about 2 tablespoons) as well as 2-4 cloves of garlic. . . again, depends on how you feel about these things. I like garlic so I put in 4.

Pour the brine into the filled jars to within 1/4 of an inch from the top.

Tighten the lids onto the jars and process* the jars in a canner for 15 minutes.

The dilly beans will have pretty good flavor after 24 hours in the jar, but it develops more the longer they're in there. If you can wait two weeks, I think that's the best time to eat them.

*Canning sounds harder than it is. I'm pretty sure Janelle knows how to do this, but here are the basics for those who haven't done it before. I'd suggest picking up a good book on food preservation and investing in a canning pot. They also make pressurized canning pots that you'll probably want if you get into doing this a lot.

To sterilize the jars and lids, put them in a pot of boiling water for about 10 minutes. You can just use a canning pot for this. Then put the jars mouth down on a clean towel to cool until you need them. Same with the lids. It's kind of important to not touch the inside or rim of the jars once they're sterilized. Your hands have all kinds of funky stuff living on them. However, when you're stuffing the jars it's next to impossible not to touch them. I don't worry too much about it as the processing will take care of it most of the time.

To process the dilly beans you need put the filled jars into a pot and cover the jars with water. Bring it to a boil and make sure it boils for 15 minutes. They make a really good tool called a jar gripper to take the jars out. Trust me you'll need it! Once the jars are out of the water bath, check the seal. If the seal is good store the jars in a cool, dry place out of direct light. If the jar didn't seal properly, you can keep them in the refrigerator for a couple of weeks. Jars with a proper seal will last a long time. If you find that one of your stored jars has a seal that failed, go ahead and dispose of it. You don't want to play around with food poisoning.

Some Potato Information, Weeding Thoughts & Other Stuff

I managed to remember to bring my camera this morning, but forgot to take pictures. Sorry about that. Okay, on with the news. . .

There's a lot here, but I'd encourage you to read the whole thing. There are some great opportunities coming up.

Potatoes

Well, I sure didn't need to water the garden this morning. That's great! The rain over the past couple of days is very welcome. As a result, I was able to spend this morning just weeding. I managed to clear out half of the potato/onion bed.

The potatoes are now a little mounded, that is there some soil piled up around the plant. You need to mound the potato plants to keep the potatoes themselves from turning green. Also, when you bury the stem, it promotes new root growth and leads to something we want. . . more potatoes.

I'm not sure if you're aware or not, but green potatoes contain solanine, a toxin found in the nightshade family, of which potatoes are a member. It's not very harmful in small quantities, but it can make you nauseous will give you a wicked headache. If you eat a lot of it, it's much worse. Check out the link to see the grim details. If you buy potatoes that have green spots generally it's best to cut those spots off or not use that potato (compost it). Anyway, by mounding up the soil around the potato plant you prevent the potatoes themselves from being exposed to the sun, which leads to increased solanine levels. Solanine is produced as an anti-fungal/anti-pest agent in the plant to kill off any fungus or bugs that might grow in the sunlight. Good for the plant, bad for us. That's probably way more than anyone wanted or needed to know.

Since our soil is pretty heavy, I'd like to try something I haven't done before. Next week, let's take a couple bales of straw and mound the potatoes in the straw. Apparently, the straw provides enough cover to keep the potatoes from turning green, plus it's so much easier to harvest the potatoes from straw. If anyone has a couple extra bales of straw they'd like to donate please let me know. Otherwise I'll pick some up on my way to the garden next week.

Weeding Thoughts

So, yeah, the weeds, mostly crab grass and bermuda grass, are out of control. Next year we can plan on doing some heavy mulching, but in the mean time, we've got to get them out of there. While, they were okay when I couldn't make it into the garden to water for the first few weeks of summer, they're going to rob our plants of the nutrients they need. Plus, the weeds are starting to go to seed, meaning they'll be back again and again and again.

Anytime anyone wants to head out and pull weeds would be greatly appreciated. I know some folks have been out there doing it, but we need more! It can actually be quite pleasant to do in the morning or late afternoon. It's quiet, there's often a nice breeze and is a good time to review your day. I was out for about three hours this morning and got half of a bed done. We really could knock this out with a couple people working for three or four hours. Only one of the beds is bad, the other three just need some maintenance weeding.

Other Stuff

1) We're hosting a group of volunteers during the last week of July. They should be with us for about four hours each day. Of course, I'l have them help out with the weeding, but this might also be a good time to build a shed. I've gotten an initial okay to getting some funds from the PTO, we just need a plan. I've looked around, but the plans I've found look like they'll be way over budget. Any ideas or thoughts on this would be great. I'm not looking for anything complicated, just a place to keep our hose reel, a wheel barrow and our tools.

2) Wendy Puddy, one of our Cale parents, has been working with some UVA students on a garden plan for us. We're going to meet up some time next week to take a look. I'm really looking forward to seeing what they've come up with.

3) Next year, we're going to be an official club!!! Fantastic! That should really open the group up to kids from all the classes. Of course, the down side is that I'm thinking we're going to end up with a huge club. If there are any teachers or parents that would like to make a commitment to a once a week afternoon garden club, again, please let me know. The more the merrier.

4) I think we need to have a garden harvest party. We're not getting a lot from the garden this year, but we've had a great start! We'll have enough for several batches of pesto, so zucchini bread, maybe some dilly beans and potato salad. How's September 18th sound for everyone? I'm thinking I'll get some musician friends, we'll grill, check out the garden, eat some stuff we've grown, and maybe have an epic game of Ultimate.

That's all for now. I hope to see everyone out in the garden soon.

It's not the heat. . . okay, yeah, it's the heat.

I spent a great three hours in the garden this morning. Everything was well watered when I left. In fact, there was a small lake surrounding the sunflowers and beans. They sure need it. This heat is great. . . for the weeds. Ms. Garza came by to help out and we managed to completely week the bed with the cucumbers and zucchini. Thanks!

The spots where the peas, spinach and lettuce were have pretty much run their course for now. They like cooler weather, so we can try them again in the fall. In the mean time, I'll bring the tiller in the morning and get ready to put something else in there for now? Any thoughts?

So while I was at Lowe's this afternoon, getting some concrete for our sign, I ran into one of our parents who generously (and anonymously) bought us a couple of rose bushes. They're the loose-petaled, slightly scented kind (I can't remember their name at the moment), not the tight-petaled kind that florists like so much (and I don't). I think they'll make a great disguise for one of our crooked fence posts.

Tomorrow I should be there a bit early, around 8:30 am. It's better to get some work done while it's still relatively cool. It's suppose to be a real scorcher, so I'll probably call it a day around 11:00. Come on out and lend a hand if you'd like.

Thai basil has a nice taste, a little cinnamon-y.


Cukes and Zukes


The Three Sisters


Beans and Tomatoes


That, my friends, is a baby pumpkin.

Gratuitous Cute Puppy and My Schedule This Week. . .

Hey again,

It's been a busy weekend what with the new puppy and the 4th. So, to make up for it, I'm going to be at school on Tuesday and Wednesday this week. Tuesday I'm just going to water and weed and meet the summer school kids that may or may not (depending on the heat, I'm thinking) come for a tour.

Wednesday, I'll dig the holes for the sign and see about getting that set up.

Come on out and help anytime!

Okay, just this once. . . here's Fergie. . .