[gardeners] Saturday in the garden
George Shirley (gardeners@globalgarden.com)
Sat, 07 Jun 2003 12:51:54 -0500
Put up a couple of quarts of green beans this morning. Picked them
yesterday, snapped them, blanched them and chilled in ice water this
morning. Dried them off with the salad slinger and then sealed them in
vacuum bags. Haven't tried this before so am doing it as an experiment
but expect them to be good when I thaw and cook them. I've done it with
greens, tomatoes, and other things so it should work. Birdseye does it
so I reckon I can too.
Tilled up the front of the herb garden and planted basil, little late
getting it in but what the heck. Tiller fired on the first pull and
worked well, even if it hasn't been run in a couple of months. Yanked
out enough oregano to supply an Italian restaurant for a year. All of it
going to the trash dump, maybe it will beautify the landfill. Anyone
looking for a ground cover I can heartily recommend Spanish oregano,
spreads well, stays green, hardy to about 30F or a little lower and
stands up to humidity and heat.
Miz Anne weeded her corn patch and then helped me get all the little
weeds out of the tilled herb garden. I pruned the rootstock growths on
the Bruce plum and the Kieffer pear. Both of those have such hardy
rootstock the roots keep trying to grow another tree.
Counted the Fuyu persimmons and looks like we've got about a dozen left,
no rain for three months didn't hurt it that bad. Since the tree is
only about eight feet tall I don't expect a big crop yet.
Harvested three Ichiban eggplant and about a quart of mild chiles
yesterday in addition to the green beans. We've been planting this
variety of green bean for three or four years now, a Kentucky Wonder
variant that is a bush bean versus a pole one. Due to no rain we had to
replant over half the row but there were four plants that survived the
first planting. Those plants are producing about 1.5 to 2 quarts of
beans every other day and the beans are up to ten inches long and very
tender. I guess we got the right amount of rain and fertilizer all
together for the first time. The whole garden is growing so well it's
scary. We're picking a small handful of Jelly Bean grape tomatoes nearly
every day and the big maters are growing well but not ready yet. The
Louisiana Long Green eggplant, from seed Margaret Lauterbach sent me a
few years ago, are lush and loaded with fruit as are the Ichiban. If the
bug population doesn't explode on us we should have an excellent harvest
this year.
Life is good.
George