Getting the Garden Ready!
In The Garden
Now that the Garden season is in full swing and everybody is enjoying it’s bounty, there
are a few maintenance duties and tips that make it come full circle.
One of small problems Cindy and I came upon was dry powdery mildew on the soil, usually powdery mildew is on the plant. The only explanation we came up with is the ph in the soil was too high. Besides using a 3–in one fungicide, insecticide and miticide, baking soda makes an inexpensive fungicide. Mostly used as a preventative offering only minimal benefits after your plants have become infective, weekly spraying during humid or damp weather can greatly reduce the mildew. Use 1 tablespoon of baking soda, ½ tsp of liquid soap and 1 gallon of water. It’s important to remember that the watering in your garden be consistent, so to keep your melons from cracking (this happens because of over watering) cut back on the water cycle as long as you keep the schedule the same. When you are ready to harvest your melons, stop watering for about a week, this allows the melon to ripen inside and insures a sweet and juicy fruit. Corn likes lots of food and water, hopefully you have the soil that will ensure good drainage. Another garden maintenance harvesting tip we did was to cut the leaf lettuce we planted as soon as the outer leaves grew to 4-6 inches in height. Cutting these outer leaves allow the center leaves to continue to grow. This is called “cut and come again” because it tends to shock the plant preventing it from thinking it has matured and go to seed. We then place the cold washed leaves in a plastic container that keeps it crisp for 3 weeks. We are now into our second planting of leaf lettuce we planted a month after the initial planting. Planting your lettuce next to taller plants like tomatoes will provide full sun in the spring while the tomatoes are still short but will offer relief from the intense summer sun, as they grow taller. When the growing season is just about over and your tomato plants still have a crop of green tomatoes on them, you can encourage them on your vines to ripen by removing any remaining flowers. The flowers won’t have time to mature into fruits thus signaling the plant to finish setting seed by ripening the existing tomatoes. With cold weather coming at the end of the growing season, you should be thinking about storing or preserving your harvest by canning, drying, and freezing. Every year Cindy and I can cucumbers into dill, sweet and bread & butter pickles for gifts and our own use throughout the year. Tomatoes can keep for a long while by handling them gently because any cuts or bruises will cause them to spoil quickly. Tomatoes that are close to ripe can be left on your kitchen counter, out of direct sunlight, and will ripen in just a few days. Your root crops will stay fresh and sweet for months if you harvest them with roots intact and pack them in wet sawdust. Remember, cold temperatures are essential for good long-term storage of vegetables, but don’t let them freeze. There are many different ways to store many different vegetables, but that would be in a book that I’d write later. Here’s a nice garden recipe you can try, Enjoy!:
Baja Salad
1 32oz can Black Beans
1 small green bell peppers minced
1 small red bell peppers diced smaller
2 ea fresh corn / cooked and off the cob
½ c fresh chopped cilantro
2 c cucumber / peeled and diced
2 c tomatoes / diced
1 c yellow squash / diced
Dressing
½ c lime juice
1t Dijon mustard
1T cumin
Salt & white pepper to taste
¾ c olive oil
¾ c vegetable oil
Remember if you would like the Restaurant to come to you, I put on “Private Dinner Parties” in your home with your very own personal Chef. For more information, please contact me at 852-2728 or chefbillmitchell@yahoo.com thank you! Chef Bill
Thanx, Chef Bill!
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