More Uses for Old Materials

As the garden is just plugging along doing its late summer thing, there’s not much to write about. So, I’m going to go back in time almost a year and tell a tale of recycling.

It used to be a pool, now it’s an arbor.

As I’ve detailed in previous posts, my Shaker garden was created almost entirely with materials salvaged from an old pool that was in the backyard. The only things we had to purchase were plastic to line the plywood and soil for the raised bed. Extras like mesh netting to keep the rabbits out and all the nails, screws and other fasteners were repurposed from previous projects. There was quite a bit of wood left over from the pool after the garden was built.

Still some wood waiting for another project.

My husband was able to make work benches in the basement and the garage from pieces of the pool. He also made a wonderful grape arbor. Behind the garage there is a pair of grapevines. They were just growing on the ground and climbing the nearby trees when we first moved in. So last October he decided to make an arbor for them. He took some of the longer boards from the pool and made four uprights and a top frame. He then used his circular saw and a chisel to make notches for the crossbeams on the top of the arbor.

He then dug four holes at the back corner of our garage and we worked together to square the thing up. The vines themselves were more toward the center back of the garage so once the arbor was set he guided them to the nearest upright. Then we waited through the long winter until spring when the dormant vines woke up again. The vines must have liked the arbor. By the middle of June, they had crested the top and began winding their way through the crossbeams.

First grapevine buds of the spring.

Little leave and grapes in early May.

Look at those vines go!

We let the vines grow with little care. We tucked them up into the arbor occasionally but otherwise did nothing special to them. We found that Japanese beetles really liked the grape leaves. Since we had no plans for the vines and the beetles seemed content with the leaves rather than chewing up other plants around the place, we let them go. The leaves are a nice shape for dolmas, though. I’ll have to get on them next year before the insects do.

Japanese beetles are destructive but rather pretty.

The grapes themselves are nothing special. If we really wanted grapes to eat or make into jelly or whatnot, we would probably pull out the vines and plant different ones. As it is now, the vine is more of a decorative thing and I like it that way.

Past-ripe grapes.

A lovely sight from my back porch.

And the birds like it too!

Putting Up Our Harvest

Years ago, when we lived on the mountain, we had to buy a chest freezer to store all the extra produce from our garden. We have no plans on plugging that freezer in this year but we still have more vegetables from the garden than we can eat fresh. So, here are some of the things we did with the extra veggies.

So many tomatoes!

I intended to make a big batch of cucumber pickles when it wasn’t too hot out. Unfortunately, we had a very dry spell after a very wet spell and that stressed out the plants enough that the cucumbers went bitter. I felt really bad throwing dozens of cucumbers into the compost but they just weren’t edible. I did have a small heap of cucumbers from before the plants turned. There weren’t enough to warrant pulling out the water-bath canner so I made a small batch of freezer pickles instead.

I used the recipe for Freezer Dills in the book Farm Anatomy by Julia Rothman. (This is a great little book, by the way, with lots of basic information and beautiful illustrations.) The recipe is also available on Grit magazine’s website.  I have yet to try them but I’m sure they will be a wonderful treat when the snow starts flying.

Pickles in the freezer

I also decided to pickle turnips. I had not heard of pickled turnips before but the power of Google showed me that they were, indeed, a thing. So, I decided to give them a try. There are a bunch of recipes available online. I ended up using one from Eating Well. I filled two quart jars and look forward to trying them.

Turnip pickles

Back in June I made two jars of pak choi refrigerator pickles. We got into them last week. They are very vinegary (maybe a bit too vinegary for some people’s tastes) but they are really good on hotdogs. The white stem parts are nice and crunchy. I’m definitely going to plant more pak choi next year.

During the winter, I bring soup to work every day for lunch. During the summer, it feels odd to make soup but with all the wonderful fresh vegetables coming out of the garden I had to make a batch of minestrone soup. There are a lot of recipes out there for summer minestrone. The August issue of Cooking Light magazine has a good recipe and it happened into my mailbox just as I was wondering what to do with all my veggies. Homegrown carrots, green onions, tomatoes, squash, green beans and chard all went into my massive soup pot along with cannellini beans and ditalini pasta to make a wonderfully hearty soup. We ate some for dinner and I put the rest (three quart-bags full) into the freezer for later.

Bags of summer minestrone in the freezer

We are currently being inundated with tomatoes. I love fresh tomatoes on sandwiches and salads but it’s beginning to get out of hand. I don’t want to throw out any because I didn’t get to use them in time. So, today I made some tomato juice. I was going for tomato sauce but we didn’t grow sauce tomatoes so it was a bit more watery. No problem. The juice will be a great base for soups and sauces. All I did was cut up the tomatoes and simmer then for about 45 minutes. Then I pushed them through a sieve with a wooden spoon to get rid of the skins and seeds. (This is one time when I really miss my mom’s old food mill.) I then put the juice into zip-top sandwich bags in 1-cup servings. I laid them flat on a cookie sheet and put them in the freezer. Once they are frozen, I will transfer them to a gallon size freezer bag.

From tomatoes...

...to tomato juice ready for the freezer.

And since I was heating up the house to process the tomatoes anyway, I decided to make oatmeal chocolate chip cookies. And yes, I did put two dozen of them up in the freezer so we wouldn’t just eat them all!

Mmm...cookies!

And a cardinal, just because.

Overdue Updates

It’s only the middle of August but it feels like things are starting to wind down in the garden. Powdery mildew has settled on the pumpkin leaves but the pumpkin itself has already turned orange so I’m not worrying about it too much. I’ve started pulling out plants that have finished up for the season. The kale is gone as are the snap pea plants, the green onions (they never amounted to much), and the remaining arugula. I salvaged what I could of the chard and pulled the rest of the plants out. The garden peas are finished but the rattlesnake beans are woven into the vines so I’ll leave the plants for now. I still need to pull out the kohlrabi. Most of the plants decided not to bulb so there’s no reason to keep watering and feeding them. I’m also thinking about pulling out the green beans though they are starting to put on a second, spotty batch of blossoms.

Some things in the garden seem to just be starting up. The basil is finally about six inches tall with enough leaves to spare a few at a time. The egg plants are just putting on blossoms. I don’t think I’ll see any of their fruit this season. The peppers are also quite slow growers. There are only three or four peppers total on the half-dozen plants. The cantaloupes are taking their time, too, and the few, tiny melons that have set are oddly oblong in shape. I’ll just have to give all those late bloomers some time and hope for the best. 

Eggplant blossom...no fruit yet

This green pepper should be turning red soon

Tiny cantaloupe

 The zucchini plants have almost given up. The two or three small squash still in the garden are probably the last I will see this summer. I did get a half-dozen or so zucchini, though, so I’m content. The tomatoes are still going like gang-busters and look like they will be for some time. The Early Girls are a good all-around tomato; Juliets are great for salads, mixed with pasta or sliced on pizza; the beef steaks are fantastic sliced on sandwiches or atop fried eggs; and the pear tomatoes are tasty snacks by the handful. I’m glad we’re getting a good amount of each variety.

Beef steak tomatoes on the vine...

...and Juliet and pear tomatoes on the windowsill.

Since foiling the rabbits’ attempts at grazing the garden this spring, we haven’t had any mammalian problems in the garden (knock on wood). Bunny sightings have dropped of late but I still see one every once in a while. The deer are still enjoying the back yard, especially the apples that have started to fall from the tree. A couple of hummingbirds have re-discovered the feeder and butterflies have been enjoying our blossoming butterfly bush. I was raised in the county (mountain country, not farm country) and it’s so nice to have such a plethora of wildlife right out in my suburban backyard.

Oh deer!

Hummingbird

Butterfly on the butterfly bush. Makes sense.

What the?!? It's a baby cardinal!

So Much Veg!

Now that we’re deep into the summer, it seems like everything is coming ripe in the garden. This evening I picked tomatoes, cucumbers, garden peas, beans, zucchini and some chives. It had been two whole days since I picked anything so of course we had a pair of Moby Dills (aka overgrown cucumbers.)

Thar she blows!

Every day I can come from the garden with a handful of beans. I’ve started to plan meals around what is ready to pick. Tonight’s dinner was tuna sandwiches with fresh early girl tomato slices and green beans and pear tomatoes on the side. The other day I picked beans, tomatoes and tarragon for a nicoise salad. Lunches have been random mixtures of whatever veggies are on hand on top of lettuce or rice depending on if I feel like a hot or cold lunch. Snacks are snap peas and cucumber slices with hummus.

At the moment we are hovering on the edge of having more veg than I know what to do with. There are five zucchini in the fridge along with a quart bag of beans, another of snap peas, a bowl of shelled peas, large sacks of cucumbers, turnips and beets and a small bag of chard. The chard still in the garden is actually bouncing back from the fungal infection. I had to trim out a lot of infected leaves but those that are still standing look good. I would cut some more but there is still so much other greenery already picked that needs to be eaten.

The colors are so lovely!

I am hesitant to start freezing things for a couple of reasons. First of all it is in the high 80s this week. It doesn’t take that long to blanch some veggies but I cannot bring myself to heating up the house any more than I have to. Second, I really like the taste of fresh vegetables. Things like zucchini and snap peas freeze well enough but they are never quite the same when thawed. Green beans and greens like chard are just as good after freezing but, again, I don’t want to heat up the house getting them prepped for storage. And, of course, cucumbers can’t be frozen at all. I plan on making some pickles eventually when it cools down a bit. So, for the foreseeable future, every meal and snack will be filled with fresh veggies. That’s not so bad.

Other garden updates: the corn is tasseling out and the ground around the potatoes is pushing up and cracking. We pulled out all the kale. I tempted fate and didn’t bother with row covers so the cabbage worms got their fill. The fennel is starting to put on a good show. I don’t know if it’ll have time to bulk up though. The rattlesnake beans are going crazy. We’re going to use them as shell beans. The eggplant and peppers are finally starting to put on flowers and the strawberries are doing their best to fill their entire bed. So far, so good. I think my garden’s first year is well on its way to be called a success.

Rattlesnake beans

Tiny pepper

Tiny spider

Beefsteak tomatoes

Robins!

Strawberries ready to take over the world

Huh?

Rabbit family out for an evening bask

Rain, Rain Go Away!

The other night we got over two inches of rain in an hour or so. There were also heavy winds. The report from my husband that night was that the garden was flattened. I didn’t worry too much, though. I know that plants bounce back and they did for the most part. The beefsteak tomato plant had to be restaked and I had to move the zucchini off the eggplants. The potatoes looked like something had been laying on them but they have since perked up too.

Flattened potatoes

The rattlesnake beans have reached and exceeded the top of their trellis. The whole thing was a bit saggy after the storm but I think that was caused just as much by the weight of the plants as by the wind and heavy rain. I thought that next year I might make a taller trellis but I don’t want to have to bring a ladder into the garden to pick the beans.

Rattlesnake beans topping out their trellis

 The high amount of rain we’ve been getting this summer hasn’t been too bad for the garden in general. Drainage seems to be good and I haven’t had to water since probably May when I first planted. The chard, however, is suffering. It has been infected with cercospora leaf spot. The fungal disease attacks chard, spinach and beets. Favorable conditions are high heat, high humidity, and prolonged leaf wetness at night. It can survive in the soil for up to two years. Infected plants should be buried to keep it from spreading.

Chard infected with cercospora leaf spot

I’ve been able to salvage a few leaves of chard that hadn’t gotten any spots yet but I think the rest is a loss. I harvested the spinach before it became an issue and it hasn’t seemed to cause too much trouble with the beets. I don’t eat the beet greens, anyway, and we’re not in the business of selling beetroot by the pound. In severe cases, the fungus keeps the beetroot from growing to full size. So, I’ll bury the infected plants and choose another bed for the chard, beets and spinach next year. I’m certainly glad this is just a home hobby garden for me and not a commercial enterprise.

Here are a few more pictures from in and around the garden:

Two honeybees working in an acorn squash blossom

Redneck rabbit

Rattlesnake bean flower

Baby lettuce leaves

Mama deer

Lovely pink turnip