December 23, 2013

                          Time To Start Thinking Spring!

Hello again, everyone!  It's that time of the year again when we can begin to plan next year's spring garden.  It's only a little more than three months away, at least here in southeast Pennsylvania. The holiday season (except for the fact that Hanukkah was really, really early this year) is a great time to look at your leftover seeds to determine which are still viable for this year and which are more than two years old. Most seed packs have a use by date on the back of the pack. I honestly believe that you can use last year's seeds nearly 100% of the time.  The older ones (more than 2 years old) can be thrown away because they very well may no longer be viable and cause lots of disappointment.

                                   Some of the catalogs I've received recently!
 

I've found, over the years, that even if I had entered a time warp, I would always be able to tell when it was holiday season even if I had no calendar. All I would have to do was check my mail regularly. Suddenly, you get a first batch of gardening mail from garden/seed companies, usually before December 25. You'll get more as winter progresses, but the first batch is always the most enjoyable if only because it WAS the first!

 

Enjoy the holidays!  I'll be back in January &  I hope to see you then.

Chuck

The First Day of Winter, 2013, Lancaster, PA, USA. Bright sun and 63 degrees f. !

A Little Bit of Indoor Gardening

Hello again everyone!  It's nice to be back here.  Nearly every year for as long as I can remember, I've started a small indoor garden in the autumn of the year. I began this years garden in mid-October and our first batch of lettuce is maturing.  As the weather has cooled down, sometimes to below freezing, I've kept the container inside the house at a sunny window. If the weather moderates into the mid 40 degree range, the plants spend the day outdoors in the autumn sunshine. We'll start a planter of spinach next week.

Autumn Lettuce

 

Thanks for stopping. I hope to see you again soon. For those of you in the United States, Lois and I would like to wish you a very happy Thanksgiving!

 

Chuck      

                           

 

 

                                       The Garden Just Keeps on Giving!

Hello again!  What a wonderful week this has been here in Lancaster, PA!  The temperatures have been in the high 70's and low 80's daily with nightime temps in the mid to high 50's.  The garden has responded to all the sunshine and warmth. The plants we started on August 5 are thriving as if it were late spring. I normally think of the late crop of veggies as being smaller in both size and amount produced.  That's not the case this year.  Leaf lettuce, garden beans, zucchinis, butternut squash and bell peppers are all heading into our kitchen every three to five days. The highlight of the week was two pounds of  the garden beans.

                                                  
The green beans were quickly placed in the "crockpot cooker" and served that evening.

                            And one of the butternut squash soon became a pie.

 

 The bell peppers are soon to be picked and stuffed.

 

 

So, all-in-all, it's been a great week.  And I'm hoping for another one coming up!

 

 Chuck

9/26/13

The First Week of Autumn!

Welcome to autumn!  Thanks for stopping. Clearly, things have been slowing down in the garden.  The good news is that the garden is still productive. The seeds we planted on August 5 have matured and are producing a healthy amount of produce. In the past ten days we've picked more than 12 pounds of vegetables - peas, peppers, butternut squash, zucchinis and raspberries 

 

The raspberries remain productive

 

 It would appear that the plants will continue to be at least somewhat productive through mid October. At that point we will have had an active garden for nearly seven months. The lettuce below will become a crisp salad later this week and then we will have to rely on our local markets for that vegetarian staple until next spring.

 

                                                   Last of the late lettuce

 

Mother Nature continues an active role in the garden even as the season gets late. The autumn change of weather brings gardeners a wonderful bounty of future compost material as she sets the trees in motion to drop their leaves. Our city property has no trees so we will be raking leaves from our neighbor's yard. This is a help to both of us since they have no garden and they would have to be bag the leaves  for the city collection.  I really enjoy the synchronicity of the relationship. 

 

I'll be back from time-to-time over the fall and winter as topics come about that might be of interest to you.  If you have comments, ideas for new topics, etc., please use the link below to get in touch. 

 

Chuck

 

chuckscards42@hotmail.com

 

                                                      Summer's End!

Hello again! Thanks for stopping by.  You may remember that we put  zucchini, pea, and green bean seeds in the first week of August.  The beans are all now setting flowers and some beans are beginning to develop. The zucchini is developing fruit and we've already picked two that had reached a nice medium size. We should be able to pick the last of this year's vegetables in the next week or ten days. At that point, we will have reached roughly 200 pounds of produce from this year's garden.  That's down from 300 pounds we've had in past years, but we deliberately cut back on zucchini and cucumbers this year rather than growing enough for the neighborhood!

Lois made a zucchini pie. You're seeing it before it went into the oven.

 

The last of the green beans for this year!

 

We've had very few problems with local critters getting into the garden this year. This week, a hungry squirrel caused more damage in one feeding than we've had in total all summer. I suppose it was after the butternut seeds. But we have been extremely lucky! 

 

Hungry squirrel damage. Or maybe the possum?

 

And, finally, another sign that autumn is near...the chrysanthemums are in bloom.

 

Mums 

 

Misty watching me in the garden taking a picture of mums which are just below him. He's a stray that calls our garden area home.

 

Time to go back outside and put a fire in the fireplace which is one of the joys of fall!

 

Hello again!

Well, the Blogger site was down yesterday and most of today so I was unable to post on my usual schedule.  But chucksgardenspot is back and I'm happy to be here!

                                                            Weed killer

 

I was busy for a few days last week cleaning out a garage for a local charitable organization. It was very clear very early that no one had cleaned the place in many years, well before the current occupants ever took control of the property. Aside from junk lumber, assorted trash, and a few tools, there was a spray container of "weed killer".  An unopened small booklet was attached to the container.  The booklet, among other things, gives directions on what to do if it gets in eyes and also supplies "emergency medical information" and "hazards" to animals and humans.  As a side note, it is believed by many that the widespread use of "weed killers" on lawns, golf courses and many other places has been a major factor in the decline of the honey bee population. It instantly reminded me of how fortunate we are to be tending our small garden in an organic, environmentally sound manner.

 

 

Considering the fact that it's getting to be late in the gardening season, we were very pleased last week to have continued bringing in fresh vegetables.  The haul included bell peppers, lettuce, zucchini, and potatoes.  The peppers, zuke, and lettuce are in the garden proper. The potatoes were in a 5 gallon container.  We had planted them in early May and only one "eye" of a potato was placed in the soil filled bucket.  It yielded two pounds of "New" potatoes.  Yes, they are small, but it was rewarding just to have them as "parsely potatoes". And I honestly don't think I've ever had a potato that tasted as good as these fresh from the garden versions. Lois turned this batch of bell peppers into "stuffed peppers" the day the came into the kitchen.  Plus, we are still picking the second round of beautiful raspberries.  Delicious!

 

                                                         Fresh bell peppers

 

We will have more vegetables coming in from the garden for the next few weeks, but it's clear that the season is growing short!

 

Thanks for stopping by.  I hope to see you again next week!

 

Chuck

 

 

                                              The Three Season Year!

Happy Labor Day to all!  It seems incredible that we've moved from Memorial Day to Labor Day in what seems to be the blink of an eye. "Summer" as we think of it seems to be bracketed by these two holidays.  But the gardening season is not defined by the calendar in the same manner. We begin in late March as daylight grows longer and warmer. It then proceeds through much of September as the last crops mature in waning light. The absolute peak in our garden production this year was a 10 day period from July 21 to 31 when we brought in 50 pounds of fresh vegetables. Somehow, I've defined our year as having three seasons...autumn, winter, and gardening season! 

Our second crop of raspberries has begun ripening.  They are delicious but not nearly as plentiful as the first crop, but that's to be expected. The bell peppers have begun maturing. We brought in the first batch today.  The leaf lettuce planted in early August is doing well, as is the zucchini.

                                                    Just picked bell peppers
                                                    
We also have three rows of green beans and three rows of peas coming along. They were planted on August 5. We're hoping they mature by mid/late September.

                                    Peas and green beans - one of three rows

Some of you may know that we had a cherry tree until recently. Unfortunately, it wasn't doing well and we took it down in late spring.  I cut the trunk into small pieces and let them dry a bit over the summer. A few weeks ago I drilled and chipped out holes in some of  them and made "candle holders"!  This idea came from an article Lois read earlier this month. Looks like I need to shim up the one on top of the box!

                                         The cherry tree lives on in new role

 Lois made up  batch of "butternut" ravioli this week. She has a ravioli "press" and fills them with mashed butternut squash. Vegetarians are soooo creative! 

One final note for all the bibliophiles out there. The Lancaster County Library is holding its annual book sale on September 13, 2013. They will feature thousands of books, including lots of gardening titles at very low prices. Our Rodale "Encyclopedia of Organic Gardening" was a $2 item I bought there some years ago.

Thanks for stopping by. I hope to see you again next week!

Chuck

August 24, 2013
                                                         Dog Days!

Hello again. Whew! It's late August already.  One of my early memories of the middle and late days of month of August were that they were often referred to the as the "dog days". Typically, "dog days" were those hot, humid, sultry days in mid to late summer when we slept with the windows open...those days before we had air conditioners.  The cicadas would start a loud clamor in the trees at dusk and continue until nearly dawn, or so it seemed.  I haven't seen or heard as much from them recently as I remember in the past, but I did notice this one. It seems a little confused....quietly resting in the sun on a zinnia rather than singing in a tree after sunset!  Dog days also refer to the "dog star" Sirius, the brightest star in our night sky.

My pal Cyril Cicada

 



 The garden is thriving. The second planting of six rows of green beans and peas are growing quickly. A separate row of green beans planted earlier (mid July) are already producing. We picked the first of them today.  We're also hoping for success with a zucchini that looks to be doing very well near the house. The butternuts and spaghetti squash are still in the ripening stage and look strong. The bell peppers are mature and we're bringing them in.

                                    One of the rows of green beans and peas

And even the raspberries have joined the parade.  We picked several pounds in July and we're now seeing the "late" crop getting ripe.  It wont be as productive as the early crop, but it's always nice to have some ripe fruit with breakfast or on ice cream!

                                       Round 2 of raspberries begin to ripen!

I'm not one to give up much emotion, but I have to admit that I'm pretty darned happy with the way our second plantings are thriving!  Thanks for stopping by. Hope to see you again next week.

Chuck

Happy 115th Birthday J.I. ! 

 That's right!  Today (August 16) is the one hundred and fifteenth birthday of the founder of "organic" gardening, J.I Rodale. While gardening had been organic since the Garden of Eden, Rodale popularized the term "organic" and founded Rodale Institute in 1930.  The institute's stated mission is "through organic leadership we improve the health and well being of people and the planet" The Institute can be found just a few miles south of Allentown, PA.

Rodale published the Encyclopedia of Organic Gardening in 1961. It has had numerous printings, my copy being the 14th printing. It's a hefty book of 1,145 pages covering nearly any garden creature or problem you can imagine. I have referred to it on numerous occasions.  One example: you may remember in a recent post I mentioned that we have had no Japanese beetles in our garden this year.   That is due to the fact that Rodale recommended using "milky spore" to control Japanese beetle grubs.  I can attest to the fact that milky spore works!  Rodale also mentions controlling beetles using traps filled with geranium oil. As a side note, I purchased my copy at the Lancaster County Book Sale for princely sum of $2.00.

               J.I.'s book surrounded by organic spaghetti squash and green beans

It's been another good week in our garden. While some things have ended, new starts have taken hold. We have six rows of peas and green beans coming along. My scrap pile of lumber keeps the squirrel damage to a minimum. It may not be pretty but, for the most part, it works!

                                          4 of the 6 rows of peas and beans

 The butternuts and spaghetti squash are beginning to ripen. We've already brought in several of the spaghetti squash. The butternut will take a good bit longer to ripen.

 

 

Thanks for stopping by. I hope to see you again next week!

Chuck

 

New Gardening Season

                                                       New Garden Season!

That's right! A new season has begun in our garden.  The spring plantings have pretty much worn themselves out. The big producers were the Jet Star tomatoes (4 plants) at 57 pounds, zucchini at 34 pounds and cucumbers at 22 pounds. The peas, green beans, and much more also produced far more than we expected! While we've cooked down much of the excess in tomatoes for sauce and frozen many pounds of peas, green beans, strawberries, etc., we also had more than enough, along with the cucumbers and squash, to share with friends, neighbors, and even strangers passing by our front porch "Free" box.  For a small garden, we couldn't have asked for more!

And now the second act begins.  Our compost heap has yielded nearly 100 pounds of garden gold.  We're turning the soil and spreading the compost in preparation for the "fall" plantings. The number of earthworms that inhabit the compost pile is truly amazing!

No endorsement intended. It's just what we have right now.

 

We had a nice rain last night, so we will delay new planting until tomorrow.  We'll be putting in green beans and peas, as well as lettuce and spinach. The seeds we will be using are those that have a shorter "days to maturity" number (see picture above) on the package front and/or back to try to insure that we don't run into an early frost problem.  Hopefully, late summer will be as kind to us as the past several months have been.

 On the odds-and-ends side, the squirrels continue to be pests. If we turn over even one spade full of soil, a squirrel will surely stop by the next morning to dig holes in it. We recently bought some "bird netting"  which we typically use to cover berry plants, and plastic mesh. We placed it on the ground over the area where the new pea and bean seeds have been planted in hopes of discouraging the little varmints.

 

 

The corn plants are out on the ground to dry before chopping them up for the compost heap.  The butternut squash and spaghetti squash are beginning to ripen.

 

Butternut

 

The new season has begun! We can only hope it will be as good as the spring/summer season has been. 

 

Hope to see you again soon!  Your comments are always welcome.

 

Chuck

 

 

 

                                                    Flibbertigibbets!

The gardening season has peaked here in Lancaster, PA and  it's been an excellent year for us. Planted in late April, the vegetables are winding down now but continue to produce.  Our freezer is well stocked with a variety of vegetables...green beans, zucchini and tomatoes leading the way in addition to the snap peas, and other spring vegetables.  The corn was excellent but we had room for only 15 plants. We took care of that pretty quickly...and it was delicious! The first picking of carrots was a big hit with Lois..she loves them! We'll be getting another picking of them next week.

                                 Peppers, tomatoes, carrots & zucchinis July 26

 

   Tomatoes peaked last week. We turned this 6 pounds into sauce

 

.

Some of the tomatoes we've bagged, sealed and frozen recently.

 

Spaghetti Squash

 

The weather has been very kind to us and all local gardeners and Lancaster farmers.   High temperatures have been in the mid-80's and we've had showers from time-time.

 

No Flibbertigibbet Photo Available

?

 

We've also been very fortunate that we've had practically no garden problems this season. In years past we've been afflicted with flibbertigibbets, those unseen garden gremlins that create havoc at night digging in the soil, chewing on leaves, and other horrors. They've been known since the early 1500's. William Shakespeare mentions them in King Lear in 1605 as those miscreants responsible for damaging the "white wheat". I've looked for them after dark, but never seem to be able to spot one. I'll just have to keep trying. What's just as incredible is that we've had no insect problems.  I've seen exactly one Japanese beetle and one squash bug ALL season!  Can that possibly happen again next year??  We sure hope so! 

Thanks for stopping by.  Hope to see you again next week!

Chuck

                                             Lots of Weather & A Cat Tale

The past week has had a wide variety of summer temperatures with a high of 100 f  on the 16th and then backing down slowly to the mid 80's f. by Sunday.  Although the county had a number of showers and storms, most skirted around the City of Lancaster except for this past Tuesday. As a result, nearly daily watering has been a necessity. 

We picked our first corn (we only have 15 plants) on the 19th, 5 nice ears weighing 3 pounds. The tomatoes have come to a peak this week. They've amounted to a total of 19 pounds as of today.  We've been eating the corn regularly, but a large portion of the tomatoes have become sauce which we've frozen in vacuum sealed bags.  As the tomatoes end in a few weeks, we will be preparing the area for some fall plantings in mid-August. And, of course, the cucumbers and zucchini have been a fruitful as ever.  All in all, the total harvest for the week came to thirty-one pounds for which we are very grateful!

And going back to the corn for a moment, we recently had a few ears of corn on the kitchen table. Our little female cat, Jingle, decided to get on a chair and check out the corn.  I was just a few feet away when she began to nibble at the corn silk. For reasons unknown to me, I immediately thought this might not be a good idea. I took the corn away and put it out of her reach. Later, out of sheer curiosity, I searched cats/corn silk on our computer. As it turns out, corn silk is quite harmful to cats. It tends to not digest well and gets lodged in their intestinal tract. The painful results can be deadly to the cat. Just a little something for gardening cat owners to be aware of.

                                     Jingle - Alive, well & napping as usual!


Thanks for stopping by. I hope to see you next week!

Chuck





31 pound week

                                     Triple "H" With Intermittent Showers

Well, summer has definitely arrived here in Lancaster, PA.  This past week's weather featured a steady dose of "hazy, hot and humid".  We've had daily clouds and showers, with some heavy downpours and some just drizzle. And while the garden area benefited from the soaking, the containers and baskets still needed a nearly daily watering. Then, beginning yesterday, we've been in the mid to high nineties so it's no longer "nearly" daily, but a "must" for the watering.

                                  A  Summer Sunset Over Our Urban Garden

The garden continues to produce. The first planting of green beans is finished with a healthy total of seven pounds of fresh beans.  We've been having them regularly with meals and the balance has been sealed frozen in vacuum packages with each weighing 6 to 8 ounces - enough for single servings for just the two of us. We've also put in a second planting of beans.

                                                 1 1/2 Pounds of Green Beans

We've also been bringing in cucumbers and squash - 10 lbs of cukes and 17 lbs of squash as of late last week. The first picking of carrots came to 3 lbs. The raspberries finished their first season with just over 4 lbs. A smaller second picking of berries will come in late August.

The overflow of cucumbers and squash has led us to offer the extras in a box on the front stairs to the porch. Neighbors or just passers-by have been taking them very quickly which makes us happy!

                                        Some of the Overflow for Neighbors

Lois is a master at finding recipes for using the squash! One of our favorites is "Poor Man's Crab Cakes" (also called Zucchini Crab Cakes).  We've been having some with meals and freezing the rest. We will probably put enough in the freezer to have them weekly for most of the winter.

                                                Poor Man's Crab Cakes

You can get the recipe for them online. There are several variations. The one we like best uses just one egg with the ingredients, rather than the two egg versions.

Thanks for stopping by. Hope to see you again next week!

Chuck

 

monsoon

                                                 Monsoons & Mold

Well, we can't say that we haven't gotten our fair share of rain along the east coast over the past 10 days! It's pretty much resembled the famous drenching monsoon rains that occur in the fall of the year in southern Asia. And now, of course, we have entered a heatwave period which requires daily garden watering. The expression "feast or famine" seems to fit.

One of the common outcomes of so much rain is the appearance of mold growth in the garden.  The white mold shown in the picture below is the type of mold we recently found along the edge of the lumber in an area where we have butternut squash growing. Molds aren't necessarily pretty, but neither are they harmful. In fact, molds like this one actually do a very nice job of breaking down your rough compost into a soft and attractive soil amendment.

                                   A white mold similar to one in our garden

The end of June and early July have been very good in the garden  in spite of the  rainy spell we've had. We've been regularly picking green beans, tomatoes, zucchini and  cucumbers.

 

                                              1 1/2 Pounds Green Beans

 

We picked the first raspberries June 28 and continue to pick more every 2 or 3 days.

 

 

The corn is coming along nicely and should be ripe by the end of July. The old Maryland expression regarding corn - "Knee high by the Fourth of July" - is a bit outdated these days. Our corn was about four feet high by the 4th of July. And, although they remain underground and unseen, the carrots seem to be doing very well if the carrot tops are any indication. All-in-all, we brought in over 26 pounds of veggies in the ten day period.

 

 

In addition to the veggies, we also have lots of flowers, mainly petunias. They have required "deadheading" every few days. On one particular day, always being one to automatically "quantify" nearly anything (yes, I am crazy!), we picked off over 400 spent petunia blossoms throughout the garden area!

 

And one final "quantification" - Raspberries at our local markets are priced at $5 for a six ounce box. At that rate, the raspberries we've picked to date have a value of $45.00!

Garden Goldmine!

 

How hot is it today?  Ask this squirrel - she had to take a rest break just 2 feet away from the feeder!

Hope to see you all again soon!

Chuck

                                               "It's Like A Heat Wave!"
                                                                         Martha & The Vandellas

Hello again!  Well, after a calm and mild spring, summer arrived last week ushering in an East Coast "heat wave". Daily temperatures have been in the high 80's and low 90's which is a significant change from just a few weeks ago.  The good news is that the humidity has remained relatively low making it a bit more bearable. That may not seem so bad to readers in the American southwest where temperatures are scorching hot. But, of course, the high temperatures here have put a good deal of stress on the garden as mid-day heat quickly dries out the soil.  Ideally, then, we put out the soaker hoses and sprinklers in the morning hours before the sun begins to reach it's peak. (The soaker hoses are particulary useful with the zucchini plants whose  large leaves tend to shed water away from the plant center.)  This allows the plants to soak up much of the water before the sun has a chance to cook it off. If morning watering isn't possible, a good alternative is late afternoon/early evening before the sun sets. Nightime watering is not recommended due to the possibility of fostering fungi and other problems.

  Mini Hollyhocks

 

All of our vegetables and flowers are doing well. We have been very fortunate not to have suffered any meaningful invasions of aphids, stink bugs, beetles or the like. We harvested our first cucumbers, zucchinis, raspberries, tomatoes, and green beans in the past week. The harvest of veggies will last much of the summer for the tomatoes, zukes and cukes, but not the raspberries which will soon be done for the year and green beans which will do well with a new planting when this batch is spent.

                                                         Cucumbers!

The cucumbers and butternut are coming along nicely, as is the corn.  We can probably pick corn end of July, but the butternut, a "winter" vegetable will not be ready until Fall.

                                                     A baby Spaghetti Squash!

I remember, from my long ago childhood, that Maryland folks used an expression to describe the progress that the corn crop was making. They often referred to corn being "knee high by the Fourth of July". Time and agricultural advances have made that reference a bit outdated. Our corn is a bit over four feet tall today (June 26). Corn on the cob by the end of July?

                                            A few feet of our corn "crop"

And, in case you're interested, our strawberry harvest yielded 13 pounds of berries while the sugar snap peas came to 4 pounds. 

Thanks for stopping by. I hope to see you again next week!

Chuck