Garden Post-mortem 2012

The year 2012 was a challenging year for gardening in New England and most of the country. It was hot and humid for months and we were plagued with disease and insects. Diseases that normally overwinter in the South and move north in the summer showed up earlier than ever. We had a number of new insect pests invade the gardens, such as the tortoise beetle pictured below and the green stink bug. Add to that hurricane Sandy and I have no doubt that we are dealing with significant climate change. If we are going to garden and try to grow our own vegetables, we will just have to work with what we are given. This post starts a review of what worked and did not work in my square foot garden in 2012, in roughly alphabetical order.

 

Basil

Besides my usual planting of generic basil, this year I also planted Siam Queen Thai basil and Spicy Globe (or Greek) basil. All the basils did well once the weather warmed up and  the varietal basils were exotically fragrant and welcome in cooking.

Beans

I planted both bush and pole beans this year and all did well. In place of Jade I tried E-Z Pick, supposedly an improved Jade that is easier to pick. Jade does have stems that are hard to sever with a thumbnail, almost requiring scissors to harvest. But I much prefer the appearance and quality of Jade and that’s what I will plant next year. Provider was good as usual and gets planted again. And I really liked the Fortex pole beans, which produce abundant, very-long round beans. I also want to try the Trionfo Violetto pole bean next year.

BEETS

I planted two types of beets this year. Bulls Blood seems to be popular, mostly for it greens. For me, it did poorly, with spotty germination and very slow growth. Greens never got large enough to pick and beets were about thumb size. Red Ace did better for me and I got two meals out of two squares. Some of the problems with the beets may have been that they were crowded and shaded by the peas in the same box. Next year I will put them in a sunnier spot, but I don’t see myself trying Bulls Blood again.

Broccoli

I didn’t have a lot of luck with broccoli this year, but a lot of that was my own doing. I purchased seeds for De Cicco, an heirloom variety, and started them indoors in early spring but had problems. So I purchased a pack of Blue Wind plants, a fast growing variety. I had them under row cover to ward off the cabbage moths. When I removed the row cover I found that all the plants had bolted. My poorly grown De Cicco plants eventually yielded a few small heads by late summer, but neither variety produced an abundance of side shoots. I definitely need to choose my varieties carefully and attend to the plants better.

Brussels Sprouts

Brussels sprouts are an iffy thing for me. For years I planted them and never got sprouts. Then two years ago I got a great crop of them, I have no idea why. Last year all of the sprouts opened (is this how they bolt?) and I got nothing. This year they matured early and I got a generous cutting off the bottom. Then the cabbage caterpillars and yes, even European corn borer larvae, decimated them. If I had been more watchful and ready with the bT I might have got a larger harvest. Of course, my wife was happy with that outcome.

Cilantro/DILL

I direct seeded both cilantro and dill this year and had modest success, despite the fact they were shaded by the neighboring lettuces and eventually the basil. Next year I need to get them a spot with more sun and seed them more thickly. I also need to learn what you do with green coriander seeds.

Collards

This year I planted collards Georgia, which were fairly slow growing. I don’t like this variety’s tendency to spread out and flop. I think next year I will go back to a Vates type of collard, which has a more compact growth so you get more leaf for a given area. This is an important consideration for gardening in raised beds.

Cucumbers

It was a good year for cucumbers for me, despite all the mildew and bugs. I planted varieties, Diva and Summer Dance, that were said to be mildew resistant and that was generally the case. I also had little problem with cucumber beetles and bacterial wilt, although wilt did eventually knock off the pickler and Diva vines, but later than usual. The Jackson Classic pickler got off to an earlier start and produced an abundance of 5-6 inch fruit. I really liked this one and will plant again. Diva was late in germinating and producing and I got very few fruit from it, but they were of good eating quality. I may give it another chance next year.

The outstanding variety was undoubtedly Summer Dance, a Japanese-style cucumber that was a heavy producer (picking 2-5 a day) of long, slender, dark green fruits that were sweet and crisp with a tender skin and small seed cavity. The cucumbers hold well on the vine and simply grow longer if overlooked, sometimes well over 12 inches long. They continually produce side branches so most production takes place on the bottom 3 feet of the trellis. When cleaning the dead vines off the trellis in early fall, I found a couple of cucumbers I had missed and they were still in good condition, a nice treat. I highly recommend Summer Dance cucumber.

Eggplant

Well, eggplant was a complete failure again this year, partly due to flea beetles. I did battle by picking beetles, then spraying the plants with a pyrethrin spray and a pepper-garlic spray. I can’t camp out in the garden, however, so despite my efforts eventually the plants started to decline. I did use row cover on the plants I started from seed but left the purchased plants uncovered.  I don’t know if I will grow eggplant again, too much valuable space wasted in the raised beds for no yield. Maybe I will try a few oriental types like Ping Tung since I observed they seem to be less bothered by the beetles. And I will definitely have to cover them with row cover.

Endive and Escarole

I planted both of these bitter greens this year from plants I started and they did very well. They form large dense heads that contact the ground so you do have to do slug control or they will chew up the heads. I planted varieties from Johnny’s (Dubuisson and Natacha) and both were excellent. I am definitely planting these again next year.

Stewed Beans and Tomato

I have mentioned several times one of my favorite uses for green beans is stewed beans and tomatoes (or as Perla Meyers might call it, fricassee of green beans with tomato fondue LOL). The dish is easy to make, uses lots of beans and tomatoes, is good left over, and it freezes well. I like to make it in large batches for left overs and freezing.

My first attempt at making this dish was inspired by a recipe in Madhur Jaffrey’s Cookbook. The following is my adaptation of the recipe. This is a great recipe that uses large amounts of produce from the garden that is often in abundance: green beans, tomatoes, chilies and cilantro. It is a great use for beans that have gotten a little too large and are kind of stringy. Just increase the cooking time. It can be prepared ahead and kept warm. It is great left-over and reheated. And it freezes well, making it a great way to conveniently save some of the summer harvest for the colder months.

Stewed Green Beans and Tomato

Adapted from a recipe in Madhur Jaffrey’s highly-recommended book: Madhur Jaffrey’s Cookbook: Easy East/West Menus for Family and Friends.

•    3 Tbsp. Olive oil
•    I small green chili, chopped
•    4 cloves of garlic, minced
•    1 medium onion, halved and sliced into thin half-rings
•    1 lb. peeled ripe tomatoes, coarsely chopped (or use canned plum tomatoes if fresh are not available)
•    1 1/2 lb. green beans, trimmed and cut into 2” lengths
•    Salt
•    Fresh ground black pepper
•    4 Tbsp. chopped cilantro (optional)

1.    Heat oil in wide sauce pot over medium heat, add chili, onion and garlic and fry until onion and garlic just start to brown.
2.    Add tomatoes, green beans and the rest of the ingredients. Add a little water if needed. Bring the mixture to a slow simmer, cover, lower heat and cook at a low simmer for 20-30 minutes, until beans are tender. During cooking, check to make sure the mixture is not too dry and add water if needed
3.    Remove lid and raise heat. Reduce liquid to a thick sauce. Taste seasoning and correct if needed.
4.    Serve warm.

Serves 6

Harvest Monday–30 July 2012

Not much to show this week. Tuesday was busy and by Wednesday I had some stomach bug that put me out of action for three days. First got to the garden on Saturday and found a few things overgrown, but everything is edible assuming my appetite comes back. We also have said several days of rain so I did not have to worry about watering.

I picked two pounds of beans, some of them a little large. Actually I welcome larger beans because it is a reason to make stewed beans with tomatoes. That’s comfort food to me and they freeze well, so a good way to use up the older beans and excess tomatoes.

An assortment of small tomatoes, Juliet, Sun Gold, and Black Cherry. The cherries are very tasty but I’m not sure I like Juliet. Kind of tough and dry, not very flavorful. Fortunately none of the tomatoes split from the sudden rainstorms. I left a medium sized Cherokee Purple on the vine to sun-ripen for a few more days. Hope it’s still there. Yesterday I got an email from a fellow gardener who had surprised a poacher at the garden. This person drove their minivan right up to the gate of the community garden, got out with a shopping bag, and proceeded to do her produce shopping among the various plots. Most items I have plenty of at this point, but I have special plans for that tomato.

Some of the squash got away, which happens. They are actually larger than they look in this photo. I think these two types of squash are still edible when fairly large, but I really did not need more squash right now. I think I might try stuffing the zucchini and turning it into a main dish. The cucumbers are two pickling cukes.

I got some bad news while picking the beans. I noticed some small discolorations on some of the beans, like a wet spot. As I got down the bed, I found the reason. In the picture below you can see black lesions on the beans, sure sign of halo bean blight, a bacterial bean disease from infected seed (see an earlier post). The wet looking spots are the early stage of the infection. As it progresses, a lesion appears with a cream-colored center. You can see that on the bottom bean on the right. As the infection proceeds, you get the sunken lesions you see on the top, which turn black from secondary infection. I was surprised because usually the leaves are affected first, with brown lesions surrounded by a yellow halo, but this hit the beans first.

This is a bit disappointing. I cleaned up the garden debris last year and the disease is not supposed to overwinter in New England. I rotated the beds and made sure I had seed from reputable sources. And it is supposed to be less likely to infect bush beans. All I can do is remove infected plants and hope it doesn’t spread further (wet, windy weather like we had the past few days will do it).

That is all from here. To see what other gardeners around the world are harvesting from their gardens, head to Daphne’s Dandelions and join the fun.

Harvest Monday-23 July 2012

The summer crops are coming in now: beans, squash, tomatoes and cucumbers.The summer squash are looking good so far. I have been using trap boards in the garden to catch squash bugs and then stomping them. They haven’t done a lot of visible damage yet and I have been hand-picking the egg clusters.
The Sunburst squash is still cranking out fruit. As others have commented, true to name it seems to produce a burst of fruit at the beginning and then takes a break for awhile. So far the fruit has been produced around the base of the plant near ground level. As the plant grows, it lies close to the ground and spreads outward from the center.



The Costata Romanesco, however, seems to grow skyward, Someone tried to describe its growth habit to me as enthusiastically upward, but I couldn’t quite imagine it. Now I’m seeing what they meant. The first fruit were produced at the base of the plant ground level, similar to a regular zucchini, as pictured below.



Now that those fruits have been produced and picked, flowering and fruit production is growing upward, several inches off the ground. You can see that below and notice that another cluster of flower buds is forming about 6 inches further up the plant. I might have to stake this one to keep it from collapsing if it sets multiple fruit at once.

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Half the bean patch is now being picked. Below is a photo of Provider, which produces about a week before Fresh Pick. I usually plant a 4x4 bed with bush beans, half Provider and half Jade (or this year, Fresh Pick, a new bean developed by Dr. Calvin Lamborn, the breeder who developed Jade). Unfortunately, I miscalculated the number of beans I would need and soaked and inoculated only enough seed to plant 4 squares of each. So I decided I would plant the second half two weeks later. That way I would have four consecutive weeks with a quarter of the bed coming into production. Seemed like a good idea at the time. What I found was the first half of the bed grew rapidly and after a few weeks started flopping over onto the younger bean plants. I think it is still a good idea but next year I need to run a low fence down the middle of the bed to keep the two halves out of each others way.



Here is a side-by-side comparison of Provider (on the left) and Fresh Pick. I wish I had also grown Jade so I could compare it to Fresh Pick. Compared to Fresh Pick, Provider is shorter, a lighter green color, thicker, easier to pick and about a week earlier. Despite its looks, it is a tender bean with good beany flavor. I like to use this one for dilly beans. Provider has dark colored seeds so it germinates better in cooler soils than Jade or Fresh Pick, which have white seeds with a greenish cast.



Fresh Pick is a darker green, long and slender. It seems a little easier to pick than Jade, which had very tough stems that sometimes required a scissors. Johnny’s describes Fresh Pick as being plumper and darker than Jade, with more disease resistance. Both beans tolerate hot weather and produce over a long period. I plant once and as long as I keep them picked, they produce well into cold weather in September.
This is an early picking of Provider, just a few beans to try them out.



This is a second picking of Provider, about a pound of beans. I also picked my first Jalapenos and an Aruba sweet pepper, plus a couple of Juliet tomatoes.



This is the first large picking of beans, each pile about a pound. That’s Provider on the left and Fresh Pick on the right.



The Jackson Classic pickling cuke is doing well and starting to climb the trellis. I wish the slicers would be a little more enthusiastic, they were all planted at the same time.



I already have two pickling cucumbers that will be eaten fresh. Tomatoes included Juliet and Sungold cherries.



I have also gotten a handful of tomatoes from my Black Cherry plant. They are large fruits, about an inch in diameter, with purplish shoulders, and are very tasty. I am also looking forward to sampling the Matt’s Wild Cherry, shown below. The plant is doing pretty good compared to what it looked like when I transplanted it. The clusters of fruit shown are actually smaller than they appear in the photo, maybe the size of the nail on my small finger.



The other tomato I am excited to try is Big Rainbow. The plant below has four large fruit set.



The tomato below is Cherokee Purple and it has two medium sized tomatoes set. The one at the top is now starting to color so I may get a tomato next week. Unfortunately, this plant is showing signs of being infected with late blight, so I may not get more than these two. Too bad because it is one of my favorites and makes a great slicer.



That’s what is happening in my garden. To see what other gardeners around the world are harvesting from their gardens, head over to Daphne’s Dandelions.

South African Green Beans and Peppadew

I recently went looking for Pickapeppa sauce, sort of a Jamaican spicy A-1 sauce. The store didn’t carry it but I discovered they carried a number of South African condiments, including Peri-Peri sauce (a hot sauce made from the African Birdseye pepper and used in the famous Nando’s Peri-Peri chicken) and Peppadew seasoning. I did a little research and found that the Peppadew pepper is a sport discovered in South Africa. The pepper is round and red like a cherry and has a sweet flavor with a slightly hot or piquant bite to it. The Peppadew company grows and bottles these peppers in South Africa under the Peppadew trademark. They try to keep a lock on the market by tightly controlling their growers to make sure seeds do not get out, but there are numerous people on the internet claiming to have seeds for sale. This would be an interesting pepper to grow.

The bottled peppers were not available so I bought a bottle of a dried Peppadew seasoning. The variety I purchased was their Pepper & Cilantro blend, with dried bell pepper, Peppadew, garlic, onion, parsley, lemon zest, and cilantro. The blend also has salt and black pepper so it makes a good seasoning by itself. I have used it on my morning eggs, on tomatoes, chicken salad, grilled fish and chicken breast, wherever I want to add a little different taste. All this got me curious about South African food and I found a recipe I really like, details below.