Purples after the rain

Tags

purple, vegetables

Though I was highly tempted to entitle this post Purple Rain, it’s really not about purple rain. It’s really about purple things in the garden after the rain. Hence, the more appropriate title.

We awoke at about three this morning to torrential rain. My first thought? Oh good, I won’t have to water tomorrow! My second thought? Yikes! I left my (so many things) outside! Then, I missed the cat. Poor kitty was outside in the terrible downpour. Good thing he LOVES being towel-dried. About thirty minutes later, completely soaked, we’re ready for bed again. This morning, despite the occasional drip, the world is new. And what do we see in the garden?

HOT little pepper!

Purple Pepper

We had a garden day with some of the kids several months ago. They were part of a group that needed to earn a gardening/outdoors badge. So, they came to BrightHaven to learn a few things. One of our projects was to plant these bell peppers. Great job, everybody!

Castor Bean

Though I’ve been wanting a castor bean, I can’t say that I wanted one right here. I’m not sure where it came from. I’ve never had the seeds that I can remember!

Black eyed peas

I don’t suppose these really count as purple but this is such a pretty bush I wanted to show it off. It’s now sending off runners, the healthy thing. I initially planted this pea from a bag of black eyed peas I was cooking.

???

Who knows what this flower is? (Hint: the leaf below comes from the same plant!)

Massive leaf

Just to give you an idea of how large this leaf is, I placed my hand in the middle.

Any guesses as to what it is?

Wordless Wednesday: Glimp Beans

Tags

beans, glimp beans, hollis baker, seeds, unique seeds, wordless wednesday

Glimp Beans

Glimp Bean row

Seeds courtesy of Mr. Hollis and Mrs. Alice

Sign posts for the garden

Tags

garden, hand, made from scratch, signs

Fence

What James made: adorable pointing hands that can either show the way or answer the question. Can’t you just picture these friendly hands with cute or silly words printed on them? These guys point the way to the woodshed for wayward children, to the outhouse for unfortunate guests and to the front door for good friends! Think of the whimsical things to which they can point: tree, sky, ground…use your imagination and have fun!

Ground

They can point up or down or remain stationary.

We were cleaning up in the back and I was tossing bits of wood that were too far gone even for us when I came across a scrap of wood that looked like a rudimentary hand. About an hour later, James had fashioned this handiwork!

Up

Late Blight Warning–courtesy of Silence!

Tags

canning tomatoes, food warning, late blight, preserving tomatoes, tomato disease

If you’ve been reading LGB for an amount of time, you will have heard me mention some gardeners I highly respect. One of these fine folks is Silence DoGood and in a recent blog post at Poor Richard’s Almanac, she had some words of wisdom concerning Late Blight and canning tomatoes. Now, I’m not sure if this is something we’re facing along the Gulf Coast, but I certainly wanted to get the information out to those of you who may not have read her original article.

Late Blight Warning

Silence Dogood here. It’s bad enough to be living in Pennsylvania in the midst of a late blight epidemic, which is wreaking havoc with tomato crops across the Northeast this year thanks to a cool, wet spring and summer that’s encouraged the spread of this destructive fungal disease. But today’s local paper carried a front-page warning that was so serious I felt I needed to share it with you all right away. Food specialists are telling people not to can tomatoes from plants infected with late blight. Some say you shouldn’t even eat them fresh. Yikes!!!

It’s apparently fine to eat a tomato from a blight-infected plant as long as the tomato shows no signs of blight (typically first manifested on fruit as brown spots near the stem end, which subsequently spread over the fruit). According to one expert, Margaret McGrath, a plant pathologist at Cornell University, you can choose to cut away blighted parts of infected tomatoes and eat the unmarked flesh fresh, but, she points out, even that part will have an off-flavor. Luke LaBorde, a Penn State professor of food science, doesn’t think you should eat blight-infected tomatoes at all.

Both LaBorde and McGrath are adamant that you shouldn’t can or freeze tomatoes from blighted plants. That’s because fighting the infection lowers the fruits’ pH and increases the risk of botulism developing after processing.

It’s not worth risking death or paralysis to can these tomatoes, folks. I’d advise simply cutting your losses: Don’t eat them, don’t compost them (which could spread the disease in your garden next year), just put a plastic garbage bag over each infected plant, cut the plant off at the base, seal the bag, and toss it in the trash. That’s apparently the best way to contain the fungal spores that spread late blight.

In case you’re not sure if your plants have late blight, here’s what to look for. I quote: “large, circular to irregular greasy grayish areas [on the tomato leaves]. Humidity may cause a whitish mold on the undersurface of the leaves. Late blight on fruit results in extensive superficial brownish areas.”

After reading this, I think I’ll skip my typical summer tomato canning this year just to be safe. Thank goodness I still have home-canned tomato sauce and salsas from last year!

‘Til next time,

Silence

Interested in a seed swap?

Tags

gulf coast seed swap, seed swap

I would love to do a seed swap this year.  I participated in one last year and had a blast!  The only problem I found was that by the time I received my seed packet, most of the seeds were too late to plant on the Gulf Coast.  So, perhaps we should have a lower US seed swap.

Anyone interested?

If you are, be sure to comment on this post, leaving an email and we’ll get something pulled together!

Beans are coming along nicely

Tags

beans, fall planting, plumgrannies, pocket melons

Black eyed peas

So far, the black-eyed peas are proving themselves to be the stars of the garden.  I believe every seed I planted popped right up.  I’ll have to get busy thinning and transplanting those little beauties as I want every black eyed pea I can get!  That’s a speckled butter bean seedling that you see to the right of the black eyed peas.  They grew really well for me the first year.  Not doing so great this year, for some reason…

Glimp beans

The other front runners are the glimp beans that I received from Mr. Hollis.  They have proved quite vigorous, almost springing from the ground.  They would probably be great for a child’s garden as they sprouted within two days.  Of course, the greenhouse weather and the tropical storms that came through last week could certainly have helped their cause!

Milkweed just waiting for monarchs!

Couldn’t resist showing you all the beautiful milkweed that has naturalized (but not taken over) in our yard.  The swallowtails are finally coming around, hummingbirds are back in our yard.  Now we’re waiting for these guys…

Pocket melon

And the second pocket melon.  I say it is the second but there were actually many others between this one and our first harvested fruit.  Some crazy bug attacked the vines and killed the whole thing!  I’m guessing it’s some type of squash vine borer.  Did not make me happy at all!  Not content with boring into the vines, the larvae also bored into the fruit and ate it up from the inside.  In retribution, I fed every single one of them to the fishies!

And, for those of you who may be wondering, the scent is wonderful!  Almost too sweet for me but definitely present and pleasant.  Smells a good bit like a very ripe cantaloupe and keeps for a long time.  The seeds are easy to harvest and I’m also hoping for some volunteers next season!

Black eyed peas are up!

Tags

beans, claudette, tropical storm

Yay!  Asparagus beans are starting to poke out of the ground as well.  I’m thinking that TS Claudette may be just right for all those new seeds in the ground.  Hope so anyway…

reBlog from Bilbo Baggins: A Walk In The Shire

I found this fascinating quote today:

If you have a “recipe” for home made insecticides or fungicides, please email us so we can share it with others and do our part for the environment!Bilbo Baggins, A Walk In The Shire, May 2009

You should read the whole article.

Bean planting photos

Tags

beans, garlic, keyhole gardening, mustard greens

Keyhole planting area

Bob, when we saw your layout, we knew we had to get ours done as well!  We’ve been wanting to try this design for a while but you really motivated us to get it done.  When this all fills in, won’t it be lovely?

Keyhole area

The keyhole design is great for using as much space as possible.  More gardening area is accessible because the middle is basically cut out of the bed.  The gardener can work further inside the bed, around and at all sides.  Should be pretty nifty if it all works out right.

On another note, we are aspiring permaculture gardeners as well.  In true permaculture, the plants reseed themselves and come up at the appropriate times.  Last year, we had volunteer lettuce plants.  This year, we have mustard greens, garlic and hollyhocks!

Bean planting day

Tags

beans, fall planting, peas

Today was bean planting day here at BrightHaven.  Of course, I’m planning to get some more seeds in the ground tomorrow as well, but I definitely got a good start today.  Now, when I make this list of seeds that I’ve planted, don’t  think that I’ve planted large areas of garden.  I figure if I plant a wide variety and lots of it, I have a better chance of getting enough beans for us!

So, what did I plant?

1. asparagus beans (from Aunt Debbi)
2. red noodle asparagus beans (same as above)
3. speckled butter beans
4. black eyed peas
5. yellow wax beans

Tomorrow, I hope to plant some more of the speckled butter beans and some of the glimp beans I received from Mr. Hollis Baker.  I also have some McCaslin pole beans and fordhook limas that I should try as well.  Next, I need some lovely flowers to put in amongst the food.  I have snapdragons and marigolds.  I even have a lemon-scented marigold I’ve been anxious to try.  Maybe I’ll put a bit of that in there as well.

Hope to get an update and some photos for you by tomorrow.  Until then, happy gardening!