[gardeners] my veggie garden

Margaret Lauterbach (gardeners@globalgarden.com)
Tue, 14 Jul 1998 08:35:17 -0600 

We dug up all but two hills of a 20-foot row of Yukon Gold spuds yesterday.
 Left the two hills because the vines weren't quite dead.  Have an
overflowing liquor box of nice-sized taters, most of a size for baking.
Yum!  They were planted St. Patrick's Day, and I bought seed potatoes
locally.  Yukon golds have few eyes, so you have to plant the whole potato,
usually.  That gets expensive when you also have to pay shipping.  Local
garden stores have started carrying more and more seed potato varieties,
fortunately.  I've got to work on them to get them to carry Green Mountain
and/or Butte.  Friends swear by Butte, and say microwaved Buttes taste just
like baked potatoes, but I get poor production out of them, and none of
baking size.  Green Mountain are good, however.  

I have Kennebec and Red Pontiac taters still in the ground.  Nowhere near
ready to pick.  Pulled some nice-sized beets yesterday, and see I have my
favorite green beans are ready for picking: Contenders.  I pressure cook
them with diced bacon, and nothing is better anywhere.  People who don't
like green beans love Contenders.  They don't freeze well, but for eating
fresh they can't be beat.  In fact I planted a second row of Contenders in
the now-vacated tater row.  45 days to maturity.  Few seed companies carry
this old variety anymore, but they should.  

I'm growing Sugar Buns early SE corn, and it has tasseled, two ears per
stalk.  At least it doesn't have kernels on the tassels like Precocious
did.  Seeds were available locally, and a friend always grows this,
followed by Incredible.  I did too.  But having read Tom Clothier's review
of Bodacious, I regret not having planted that instead.  Maybe next year.
Tassels on Incredible (another SE corn) are "in the boot," as Kay says.  I
can look down into the stalk and see the tassels.  

I didn't plant a single lettuce seed this year.  Two raised beds are still
empty, but my chiles are looking guuuud.  Brent Thompson, on Chile-Heads,
said he grew chiles in practically straight steer manure, and they grew
strong and vigorous.  Steer manure doesn't really have much in the way of
nutrients, but Brent knows more about growing chiles (and propagating them)
than anyone I know, so I added a strong mixture of steer manure and alfalfa
meal (whose fertilizing qualities have been extolled on one list or
another), and my chiles are looking dark green, sturdy, and generally
excellent.  Finally got them all free from @#$%^ crabgrass that got a
foothold when the garden was too soggy to walk in.  

I've been paying 49 cents a pound for baking size potatoes.  Now I have a
big batch of better baking potatoes, right out of me garden.  Hurray!!!
Margaret