Pumpkin, peppers and tomatoes

We have been using basil throughout the summer, but it was finally time to pick it all. Well, half of it. The other half ended up being lemon basil which isn’t what I wanted for pesto.

Basil!

I picked all the leaves off and blended them with a little bit of olive oil and a little bit of salt. It’s delicious! We didn’t add the garlic or pine nuts yet, since it was headed for the freezer and the nuts supposedly don’t freeze well.

Almost Pesto!

For a while we’d pick about this many tomatoes twice a week. We only got one ear of corn.

Tomatoes and our single corn

The garden is now all but done. There are some big fat mortgage lifter tomatoes still green on the vine but it’s anyone’s guess if they’ll ripen before the frost gets them.

Mostly I’ve just been studying and working. I did take two days last week and went duck hunting for the first time ever. I didn’t get any ducks, but I had a nice time. I went up to the Carlos Avery wetlands management area near Wyoming, MN. Duck season re-opens next week, hopefully I’ll get a chance to go out again and actually get something.

Duck Hunting

Both the big garden in the back of the yard, and this small garden are all out of sorts. I have taken on a couple of extra consulting jobs to save a little extra money before school starts, and the garden got the short end of the stick.

This morning I started working on catching up. Here’s the small garden as of this morning. The grass in the front-right is where Sophie threw a handfull of grass seed into the carrot plot.  The bare spot front-left is where the onions were supposed to be growing.

Small garden before

We have been eating carrots for the last two weeks and they don’t seem to be growing any more, so I decided to pick them all, clean out the weeds, and plant a new crop of spinach.

Here’s the carrots, we also found a few tiny onions that were struggling to live.

Bowl full of carrots

Small bowl of small onions

Our initial crop of spinach went to seed really quickly, probably because of how hot it was earlier in the summer. We only got a couple of small salads out of it. I cut some of the dried seed stalks and put them in the basement near the dehumidifier where it would be relatively cool and relatively dry.

Today when I went to use them they were nice and crispy. It was and simple task to rub them off the stalks into a bowl.

Dried Spinach Seeds

I rubbed them off into a bowl, winnowed them a little bit so that it was mostly seeds, then planted them. I also planted a new crop of lettuce and swiss chard (someone gave me the seeds) along the path to the spigot.

Spinach seeds ready to be winnowed

The little garden looks pretty respectable again.

Small garden all cleaned up

Other Harvests

Despite the lack of attention, the garden has been doing pretty well. We have been eating as many beets as our kids can stand — about once a week. Here’s the final harvest. There’s no more in the big garden now.

The final beets

We have had a couple small bowls of green beans (and purple beans), but today was the first big harvest.

First big bowl of green beans

We have been picking the cherry tomatoes every 3 or 4 days for the last two weeks and end up with a bowl about this full each time.

Cherry tomatoes

The two big sunflower in our garden were volunteers, and they were doing great at first — they grew to about 8 feet tall. The minute the seeds got ripe enough for birds to eat, the birds attacked them, and now they look like this.

The birds ate all the sunflower seeds

I’ve still got a little bit of extra contract work to finish up next week, so I won’t even pretend that I’ll have lots of garden news. After those two gigs are done, I should have a short reprieve before school starts in September.

Happy gardening!

Beets are ready! We’ve had beets with two meals now. The first time I broiled them with crushed garlic and olive oil. The second time Caroline made glazed beets.

We’ve been picking only as many beets as we were ready to eat, in hopes that the remaining beets will grow larger.

Cutting off beet tops

Sweet Carrots!

The carrots are doing very well this year. I think it’s because 1) I tilled the ground as deep as possible and 2) we watered them regularly. Only a few of the carrots have peaked above the soil, so I think they’ll probably keep growing.

Fresh carrots are so much sweeter and good smelling than store bought carrots, the kids love them.

Calvin cutting off carrot tips

Evil Japanese Beetles

Japanese beetles have been attacking some of my plants. They’ve done minor damage do our wild strawberries, but what they seem to like best is the Catawba grape plant. They have left the Concord and Valiant grapes nearly untouched.

Here’s one of the worst Catawba leaves.

Leaf Skeletonized By Japanese Beetles

The presence of Leaf Galls seems to indicate that we’ve got Phylloxera too.

Leaf Galls

Between the Phylloxera, Japanese Beetles and black rot I feel very fortunate to be able to post a picture like this.

Small bunch of ripening grapes

They’re not ripe yet, but they’re getting close. They’re sweet enough to eat if you don’t mind puckering up a little bit. I suspect they’ll be better next week.

Happy Gardening!

The Melnor 3010 Water Timer

I bought two Melnor 3010 Water Timers for about $14 each at Home Depot.

When I went to install one on the front spigot I realized that I had never fixed the leaky handle. It only leaked when the water was on, so it wasn’t a big deal, but since the water is always on when you’ve got a timer installed, it was time to fix the spigot. After running back to home depot for a new washer for the spigot I was back on track.

Melnor 3010 Water Timer

What I like:

• It works
• It can water for up to two hours, and has a fixed on and off position.
• It’s mechanical so I won’t have to buy batteries
• It has an always-on setting for when the kids are playing in the sprinklers etc.

Concerns:

I dislike hose and garden tools made from plastic. Plastic tools aren’t necessarily bad and metal ones aren’t necessarily good, but I think in general metal tools are better made and last longer.

I looked all over for a timer with metal connectors, but I couldn’t find one, so I ended up with plastic.

You’ll note in the photo above that I added a short spring-loaded leader to the timer. This is on the backyard hose where the kids occasionally pull the hose around. I think that the plastic construction would not be strong enough to stand up to being tugged on.

Eventually I’d like to get a drip system with automatic timers; hopefully this will last until that happens.

Soaker Hose

I bought a new soaker hose to go with the water timers. The soaker hose lets water seep out through the sides of the hose. With the sprinkler it was difficult to water my gardens that run along the fences in my yard. The neighbors have never complained, but they’ve got a daycare and I feel bad getting their backyard play area wet so I don’t always water when it would be most convenient for me.  With the soaker hose I can just lay it down the length of the fence and let it run.

Using a soaker hose also means the water is all going to the roots instead of sprinkling on the leaves. This may should help prevent the black rot on the grapes and prevent bottom rot on the tomatoes as well as reduce how much water is needed.

A Soaker Hose in Action

Happy Gardening!

Our Apple Trees have been growing quickly and their thin branches have been slowly flopping over.

Our Floppy Apple Tree

I bought some 6 foot T-bars from Home Depot, cut some hose segments and gave the trees some support. Now they stand up nice and straight.

Apple Tree with T-bar support

I also did some heavy pruning of some of the herbs in the garden. This basil was crowding out the mint plants, so I cut about half of it down. Here’s the after picture.

Oregano on the left, mint on the right

I also did some weeding and mowing. The big job I have been tackling is trying to save my grape plants from black rot (Guignardia bidwelii). I’ll have a separate post on that process soon.

As part of getting back on top of my gardening, I took a tour of the garden tonight and looked closely at how everything is doing. Despite my neglect, some things are doing pretty well. Here’s the rundown.

• Apples: The bagged apples that didn’t fall of are doing well. Looking nice and bug-free and growing well.
• Basil: The basil didn’t sprout after planting the first time, but the second round of planting has sprouted strong
• Beans: The pole beans I originally planted are doing great, and the bush beans planted recently have sprouted too
• Squash: I hadn’t intended to plant any squash this year, but ended up with several volunteers from the compost. They appear to be doing well, and have no signs of vine borers yet.
• Beets: I’m nearly positive that the beets have grown since we thinned them. They seem to be happy about the new space
• Blackberries: We don’t have a lot of blackberry blossoms, but the bushes have grown a lot this year and the blossoms that did appear have large green berries in them.
• Carrots: The carrots are doing OK since being thinned.
• Horseradish: The horseradish is thriving. I look forward to making homemade horseradish sauce next year.
• Marigolds: Planting marigolds instead of strawberries was a good choice for the driveway strip was a good choice. They’re hearty and don’t mind little feet and bikes running over them
• Onions: Adequate growth
• Peas: We’ve been eating peas as fast as we can. The new peas we planted after weeding have sprouted.
• Radishes: The seeds for these radishes came from an emergency seed pack from 1996. They were packed in an airtight #10 can. Someone gave them to us when they cleaned out their basement.
• Raspberries: It looks like this will be a banner year for the raspberries. Hooray!
• Tomatoes: The tomatoes seem happy to be out of their starting cups and into the dirt.
• Peppers: (No picture) Caroline and I planted the peppers outside last night.
• Wildflowers: Many of them are blossoming. The ones that haven’t blossomed might be weeds. I can’t tell.

The Bad Stuff

Every year of gardening has taught me about one more type of bug or pest that will undo my hard work. Here’s what’s been a problem so far this year.

Black Rot on Our Grapes

Our grapes are looking sick. About 1/3 of the bunches look like this.

Turns out that it’s Grape Black Rot (Guignardia bidwelii). The fruit rots and turns into hard shriveled black things called mummies. According to this PDF from OSU if I trim the bad bunches from the vine, that will reduce the spread. The UMN says “Many organic growers utilize fixed copper or sulfur products to control black rot. Chemical methods include ferbam, mancozeb, captan, or nova.” with notes that the organic methods are much less effective.

I’ll head to Bachman’s tomorrow and see what they have and recommend.

Sad Spinach

The spinach isn’t as good as it was last year. There are lots of yellow leaves, and it has gone to seed already. The leaves still taste good, but there aren’t nearly as many as there were last year.

Sad Spinach

Strawberries Under Attack

Something has been eating our strawberry plants. Google suggests that it might be slugs or snails. I’ll probably pick up some slug/snail killer when I go to Bachman’s tomorrow.

Something Has Been Eating Our Strawberry Leaves

And with that, I think I’m back on top of what’s going on in my garden. There’s lots to do (more weeding, for instance), but at least I know what’s going on, and knowing is half the battle.

Before weeding

Here’s the weeding pile part way through. It ended up about twice this size. For the most part we did manage to get the weeds out before they went to seed, so that’s a good thing at least.

As we pulled the weeds out, here’s what I discovered:

1. The corn never came up, except a few stocks. We pulled those out and planted beans.
2. The peas are doing pretty well. There were some bare patches, so we planted another round of peas in those bare patches.
3. The beets needed thinning, but were holding their own against the weeds
4. The spinach never really got leafy, but already went to seed. Too much heat? Too much sun? I don’t know.
5. The half of the garden which hadn’t been planted has many fewer weeds than the side where I had dug up the ground to plant.

Some of the weeds from weeding…

Excuses Why I Haven’t Been Writing

Life has been pretty busy. Work has been busy. We had graduations to go to up in Michigan, Ryan’s softball practice and games, fishing and camping trips. Leaving my camera up in Michigan made it less fun to post, and the embarrassing state of my garden hasn’t been very motivating either.

We have done some fun stuff though!

Calvin got a model rocket for his birthday, which we built together and launched. Ryan got to launch his again too. We launched each one twice. Ryan’s got stuck in a tree on the second launch.

Calvin’s Model Rocket

The boys and I went on our annual Father and Sons camping trip. We borrowed a canoe from a friend and had a great time. I think we need to get or make a canoe soon.

Canoing with the boys

This post is fairly pathetic, but I have my camera again, the garden is looking a little better, and I’m back on top of work responsibilities, so I promise to start posting again more frequently!

Warning: This is my first time making an axe handle. You’re responsible for your own safety when using your repaired axe. Use caution and appropriate protective gear.

Removing The Old Handle

I started by removing the head from the old handle. I used a screwdriver to pry out the pieces of the wedge which secured the head to the handle. Once that was out it just took a few gentle taps with a hammer for the axe head to slide off.

Prying out the axe wedge. I used a screwdriver.

The next step was to go to  Home Depot to buy an axe handle. You’ll spend way more time making an axe handle than you’ll ever save in terms of money.

Unfortunately, Home Depot didn’t have an axe handle for my axe. My axe is small camping axe. With a 2.5 lb head, and a 28 inch handle, it’s barely bigger than a hatchet. Home Depot and Menards only had 36 inch handles, and the eye was too big for my axe head.

Instead of ordering one from the internet, or trying Fleet Farm or somewhere else, I decided I’d try making one.

Finding Some Wood

I had two choices in my yard. I had several mulberry logs, and several birch logs. I opted for the mulberry since it’s been sitting for a year. I chose a straight log which had a fork at the very bottom. You can’t really see the fork in the picture, but it’s about 5 inches from the bottom.

You want to choose an uncracked piece of wood with the heartwood intact. The heartwood is stronger than the white wood near the outside edges. The log I chose had some small cracks on the end that appeared to be superficial. I used a saw to cut an inch off the top of the log to see if they went down that far. If they had, I would’ve switched to a different log.

If you have more options for wood, or if you’re buying, you might choose hickory, ash or another hard wood. I don’t know how good mulberry is, and I might end up needing to replace the handle again sooner than if I had bought some hickory. Time will tell.

A mullbery log, and future axe handle

Cut it down to size

I used a hatchet and small sledge hammer to break down the log. I stopped when it was 3  inches square all the way down. When I got to the fork, I followed the dominant branch, so I had a slightly curved roughly square 3×3 block to work with.

Splitting the sides off the log

Shaping the Handle

I used the bandsaw for some of the shaping, but the easiest tool ended up being the hatchet. I had it sharpened very sharp, so it could easily bite into the wood even when striking at a very shallow angle.  It’s starting to take shape.

Rough hewn shape

Other than a3x3 block a little taller than the axe head, which I left untouched, I continued removing material with the hatchet until it felt comfortable in my hands. At this point it’s a good size, but slightly lumpy. I used my pocket knife to carve off the prominent lumps which got me to bumpy.

With a right-sized handle which was smooth-ish, but bumpy, I got out the belt sander and used an 80 grit belt. It leveled the bumps down quickly and I was left with a handle that was good enough to hold and do work with. Now, if it only had an axe head on it…

Creating the Axe Eye

Create the eye for the axe is the trickiest part. I clamped the handle to my workbench, and used a chisel to slowly remove material from the end of the axe until the head fit on. I flipped the handle over every few minutes to give myself a better chance at getting both sides even. Once the head would fit over the end, I extended that profile down so that about 1/2 inch stuck out past the head of the axe, and so that the head had a smooth shoulder to rest on.

Working on the axe eye

Once the eye was carved, I used the bandsaw to cut a line right down the middle of it for the wedge.

Attaching the Head to the New Handle

It was a tight fit to get the head on, but with a bit of coaxing and a rubber mallet, it went into place. I cut a wedge from the leftover pieces of mulberry trunk and tapped it firmly into place, first with the rubber mallet, then with a metal hammer.

I used the bandsaw to cut off the excess wood sticking above the axe head, then tapped the wedge with the hammer some more, to make sure it was in tight.

The top of the axe, with a wedge driven in

Finishing Steps

I still need to do some finishing of the handle. There’s a little square area below the axe shoulder which I hadn’t cut in case I needed it, and the handle was only sanded with 80 grit sandpaper. I’ll carve down the square area and sand the whole thing with 120 grit sandpaper, then I’ll treat the wood with linseed oil to help preserve it.

Holding my new axe

I’m ready to start chopping again!

After discovering the red banded leaf rollers in our apple trees, Caroline and I when and picked as many rolled up leaves as we could, and threw them away. Then we bagged the apple buds. There are lots of bagging options out there from traditional Japanese waxed paper, to paper lunch sacks to ziploc bags.

I decided that we would go the ziploc bag route after reading that with ziploc I wouldn’t need to staple the bags. I’m not 100% sure that these bags will stay on through some of the summer wind storms, but I figure it’s worth a shot.

Ziploc keeps your apples fresh!

After cutting the corners off the bags, we zipped them up around the apple buds. Where there were more than one bud coming out of the same place we pinched off all but one or two of the buds. We left one on branch tips and smaller branches, and two on the thicker branches.

The idea behind bagging apples is to protect them from bugs without the need for pesticides. If it works, I’ll probably keep bagging until our tree is too big to bag easily.

Apple buds bagged and bug free (I hope)

Exploding Pressure Cooker

I’ve been a huge fan of pressure cookers since I was an exchange student in Brazil in 1998/99. They use them every day there to cook beans for lunch and dinner, and I’ve never seen one explode. My host mom had to tell me not to play with the pressure regulator a few times and told me about how if a pressure cooker exploded it could break a hole in the cement ceilings.

Tonight Caroline had put on some black beans and I was working in the living room. All of a sudden there was a loud pop and a wet whooshing hissing noise. That noise was immediately followed by dripping sounds, kids yelling (WHAT WAS THAT. IS THERE A FIRE?!) and a surprised sound from Caroline.

Somehow the emergency release valve on the pressure cooker had blown.

Pressure Cooker Release Valve Explosion

I think that the valve is just getting old. It’s a little loose in the lid, and not as squishy as it used to be. No one was hurt, and dinner turned out OK, but there were little purple droplets of bean juice everywhere. Especially the ceiling.

I have a replacement valve in my Amazon.com shopping cart right now.

Weeding

This corner that has been used for pole beans the last few years is now home to horseradish (in the corner). Tonight we weeded the rest of this patch to plant some Oregano and Star of Bethlehem flowers.

Weeding for Star of Bethlehem and Oregano

There are lots of good weeds to hate, but tonight I’m going to hate grass. not the nice smooth grass that grows gently across the lawn between the dandelions, but the stuff that grows in clumps and pops up everywhere it shouldn’t.

I hate this grass mostly because it’s hard to get it all out. Here’s my big catch of the night. This was the only clump of grass within several feet. The root is a little longer than 3 feet long. It ran in a straight line along the fence and then ducked under the fence  into the neighbors yard, so I couldn’t actually see how long the full root was.

When you’re weeding grass, you never know which way the root is going to go, and you have to just hope that it doesn’t tangle with the roots of something you don’t want to disturb.

That’s why I’m hating grass tonight.

Very long grass root

Planting Star of Bethlehem Flowers and Oregano

In the patch of dirt we weeded above, the horseradish lives in the corner. To the right I planted oregano. To the left we planted some Star of Bethlehem flowers.

An excellent gardener and friend of ours divided her peonies for us this year, which we planted a few weeks ago. This last Sunday she surprised us at Church with this bag of Star of Bethlehem bulbs.

Star of Bethlehem (Ornithogalum arabicum) bulbs

Here’s what they should look like. It’s a photo of a print out of a scan of a photo that she took in 2007, so sorry about the quality.

Star of Bethlehem (Ornithogalum arabicum)

The bulbs are only hardy to -10* F, so we’ll need to dig them up each fall. This is the first time I’ve dealt with flowers with bulbs, and the first time I’ve had planted something that needed that sort of overwintering care. If our flowers turn out as nice as hers, it will be worth it.

Horseradish Root

I love horseradish sauce on my meat sandwiches, and decided that it would be a good perennial addition to the garden. Caroline picked up a horseradish root at the grocery store, and the boys helped me plant it in the garden the next day.  I forgot to take pictures before and during planting. The root was about 1 foot tall and already had some small green buds on top. as can be seen in the picture.

Horseradish Root

Beans

We planted the same Purple King pole beans as in previous years. The boys helped me take back the bean patch from the creeping charlie and cover that had popped up this spring. We only finished planting this one little strip so far. I’ll get to the rest this week.

One patch of pole beans

Garlic

The garlic I planted last week is now 3 or 4 inches tall. Hopefully it will get along well with the rhubarb.

Garlic Sprouts

Sunflowers

These sunflowers sprouted from the seeds I collected from the sunflowers we grew last year. The seeds seemed so small I wasn’t sure if I had collected them too soon, so I planted extras in hopes that some would sprout. I’ll need to thin these out this week so they’re not competing with each other.

Sunflowers to be thinned

Spinach and Peas

The spinach and peas are both coming along. The spinach is coming in nice and thick.

Spinach Growing

Not all of the peas sprouted (possibly due to squirrels?) so I’ll sow some more pea seeds in the bare spots this week.

Growing Peas

Flowering Rhubarb

One of our rhubarb plants is flowering. This fall I’ll collect its seeds and start them inside next spring. Most rhubarb related websites seem to discourage planting rhubarb from seed saying that most rhubarb these days are hybrids and that the seeds won’t be true to type. That may be the case but I’m willing to see what will sprout.  I’m not picky about the color or size of the rhubarb, as long as it tastes good. This rhubarb plant was grown from seed and the stalks are good. Hopefully its seeds will also produce something good.

If your rhubarb is flowering and you aren’t collecting seeds, you should cut the flowering stalk so that it doesn’t waste energy on flowers and seeds. Cutting the flowering stalk will give you more edible stalks.

For the curious, the rhubarb flowers smell like some kind of unpleasant industrial soap.

Flowering Rhubarb

Tomatoes and Peppers

The tomatoes and peppers are still under lights in the basement. The tomatoes are starting to reach the lights.  I need to start hardening them off so they can live outside, or raise the lights some more. 4 of the 18 tomatoes didn’t sprout.

Tomatoes under lights

6 of the 18 peppers are coming up. This week I will replant in the cups where they didn’t come up yet.

Peppers