Cantaloupe & Watermelon & Strawberry

They are easy and are a sweet bounty. These are the easiest fruits you can grow.

Strawberry. In Georgia, they suggest you either plant these in two rows,with a ditch between to rip up their runners, or plant them with space around them and let their runners develop into new plants, I really don't get why it is one way or another, I guess they just want you to stay organized?
The only issue I had was that in early spring, they are the only food out so the birds nest I made around my garden (although they did eat bugs) had a strawberry dessert! In late spring they found other things to eat, and I could beat them to it! Me and jesse joked that they just sat their in their littl house all day, and as soon as a berry turned red, they pounced. Next year I am going to get a fake snake ( you can also net them) and see if that helps.


Cantaloupe & Watermelons
I planted these on the edge of my garden because they are vines and they get messy. They are placed in what's called a hill. I used a mound of dirt (with a drip line trough it) and covered in in black plastic. Plastic is essential to melons because it wants a long growing season, but also warm soil. Also, when that watermelon develop, they need to not be touching the dirt, so the plastic protects then from rotting, Hills are about 6 feet apart.



I planted a few from seed, and a few from transplants (at least 3 each hill). We had two waves of crops, so trying to eat 11 cantaloupe at a time was funny, good thing Soren liked them!
When to harvest: Cantaloupe come of the vine really easy when they are done, get them or they'll split. Watermelon was a bit of a guess, sometimes they were just small, one of the babies, we gave to soren and he plays with it like a ball.

UGA recommended varieties:
Watermelon: baby doll crimson sweet, icebox, imagination, jade star
Cantaloupe: Athena, Ambrosia Saticoy Early

They are on the edge closest to patio, and the opposite edge. I did not used raiesd bed, the hill system works great.

Pumpkin disclaimer: pumpkins are similar to melons, my pumpkins died out this year, vine borers and the shade caused by the tree above did them in, i got two baby pumpkins, both rotted on the vine, Next year i will be victorious!

Successful Tomatoes

sorry for the delay! I have had some computer issues and been working full time for the last 2 months, it will be over soon! The garden has been great, so i have alot of crops to catch up on, so we will start with tomatoes.

Tomatoes are a crowd pleaser, and no one can deny how wonderful homegrown tomatoes taste. I had great production in tomatoes this year. People say their easy to grow, but if okra was a 1 (easy) and peach trees a 10 (hard). I would give tomatoes a 5. They are reasonably drout tolerant, but if they get dried out. They will succumb to blossom end rot, once thats set in, the plant will not give many if any good tomatoes. So constant moisture to the roots is your best way to care for tomatoes (used plasticulture-see march blog). This is difficult to do with container gardening. They need at lest 8 hours of full sun. I did not fertalize past my initial soil enrichments.They are one of the most diseased edibles in Georgia, they have an early and a late blight, and they can have pollination issues.

The best advice is ...
1. use good varieties
2. Mulch and water propperly (use drip irrigation and plasticulture)- dont overwater either, give them a good soak every 5 days.(with the use of plastic mulch this should be enough.
3. Use fungicide - i use daconill dilluted with water- see instructions. You just gotta with tomatoes

I planted 18 transplants (6 Beefmaster 6 Better Boy, 6 Celebrities). Tomatoes come in determinate and indeterminate varieties. Determinate varieties like Better Boy and Celebrity tomatoes stop growing at a determined point, although they can still be pruned, they don't need it as much as indeterminate varieties like Goliath that just keep growing.

Pruning- some people prune their plants, I did a little, it is supposed to insure that you get larger fruits rather than tiny ones. When the plant is around 3-4 feet you will see that a branch has to stems coming out together, the bottom fork called a sucker can be pulled off at the node.

Harvesting- although vine ripened tomatoes sounds great, it is actually better for my garden to pull them a few days early. The redness attracts the bugs, and if it rains your tomatoes will split and may begin to rot within a day. I pull them off in their orange/red phase. Just put them on the counter (a sunny window is unnecessary-its better if their in a cool location) This diminishes none of the flavor loss you experience with store bought tomatoes.

Using the little red boogers- Tomatoes have unlimited uses- spaghetti, pizza, pesto, salsa, tacos, burritos, omelette's, sandwiches, and I just eat them raw. Since I had so many, I started processing sauces and freezing and canning. You can also refrigerate them one ripe so they will last longer. More on preserving and freezing later.

Mad Sientist Me- making my own baby food

I have decided to finally post about making baby food. I don't like the idea of making this a baby crazed blog, but on my path to self sufficiency, this is definitely a necessary and fun step. I also do this because my kid eats like a monster, and I pains me think that many 'money conscious' (poor) mothers are paying .75 cents to 1.50 a meal for their kids when making baby food is easy, more nutritious, cheap and fun. Plus people have asked me to blog about it, and what am if not obliging?



So I decided to make my own because I did it once, and I was sold. I was using the Dr. Denmark model of a protein, fruit, veggies and such everyday. Also she recommends putting bananas in everything because it is the perfect baby food. Soren would not even eat processed baby food veggies, so her banana recommendation was both welcomed by me and him :). This also gave me the opportunity to use fresh veggies from my garden, since everything gets purred and stewed anyways, a spot of blemish, or a 4 day old okra pod was no big deal.

I will give yall the Dr. Denmark detailed link, but basically you make sure you start with a banana base, then you get a protein (I use beans cause its cheap) a fruit, and a veggie at least once a day. I use an of brand magic bullet, then mix the contents together in a big blender. At first I mixed it all together, but since I make 30 servings at a time (that 3 blender fulls!) I separate it out into fruits, protiens, and veggies. http://friendsofdenmark.wordpress.com/2008/09/03/making-baby-food-part-2/



Examples
Blender 1
- 6 bananas, blueberries, fresh peached, (I got 5 fresh peaches donated to me by a grower who could not sell them) and some cantaloupe, with some yogurt of cottage cheese. This makes 12 servings of an 8 oz. breakfast for about (5.00) -equivalent to 24 baby food jars that would have cost $12.00.
Blender 2
- 6 Bananas, 6 peeled fresh sweet potatoes, a can of pumpkin and some beans (cook beans ahead of time- so cheap and so nutritious, go ahead and have Mexican for dinner too:) Makes 14 8 oz servings for 5.00 = to 28 baby food jars which is $14.00.
Blender 3
-6 bananas (1.20), 1 bag of frozen peas (.79 cents at ALDI), and whatever veggies I have, but are not using- zucchini, okra, squash etc. Makes 12 8 oz. Serving for 2.00 = 24 baby food jars at $12.00

Storage-
I see a lot of people storing and freeze in ice cubes, I think this is INSANE! Why would I do this when Soren eats like a whole cube tray a meal? Anyways, I simply store them in Tupperware, you can use take and toss (at baby section), or regular old plastic containers from the dollar store (.25 a piece). Then put everything in the freezer, I can either transfer a few at a time to the fridge, of just defrost them in the microwave as I go. When me and Jesse Go hiking or for a long day trip, I just take a frozen container with us, if defrost in 4 or 5 hours so is perfect by his next meal time!

I do this twice a month = I pay $24.00 rather than 6 jars a day at .50 sale price = 90.00/month. My record time is 40 minuets for cooking storing and cleaning up after myself. So I save 66 dollars for an hour and a half of work a month. Not bad, and it is super fun!

IMPORTANT TIPS
If your mixture is runny when you defrost it. Just use some rice or oatmeal cereal to thicken it up.
whenever you use canned stuff make sure you get low sodium, and light syrup,then drained and rinse the contents

Why not Gerber?
I am not an alarmist, and I believe on doing things because you love them, not because you are afraid of doing something else. With store bought baby food, there are a few things to consider. First, corporate America does not care about your child's health, I am not saying the food is not safe and FDA approved, but we have created a culture that wants the most for the least amount of money, we did this, and now we live enslaved to groady products and we wonder why. It's the down side of capitalism. We get cheap, convenient, preservative filled container called “garden vegetables' so we thinks it's wonderful. I'd rather know exactly whats in my baby food:). Thats just me, I love knowing where my food comes from. Secondly, in my journey to become self-sufficient, I cannot pay $1 a cup for mushed up food. It's just backwards!
http://freshbaby.com/healthy_eating/benefits.cfm

My Monster

Silly Named Squash:Crookneck-Zucchini-Patty Pan

There are two types of squash: Summer and Winter. I am only growing summer squash this year and there are like a hundred different kinds. I'm just doing straightneck, Zucchini, and Patty Pan (all bush so they will fit neatly in my raised beds). I did half my squash from seed, and half from transplants set out after the last April 20th.
Zucchini is called the scourge of the summer! It is so easy to grow it make everyone feel like an seasoned farmer.

A small green tube can grow into a 2lb Zucchini in2 days. As you guys know I only consider my garden sucessful, if the food actually gets on my table for dinner, and tastes good! Zucchini is as easy to use as the other types of squash (crookneck and patty-pan), It is a filler for any pasta dish, it can also be used in fried rice. Squash casserole is easy and yummy (basically add onions, butter and egg, and cheese and top with Ritz crackers). If all else fails, I just stew a huge pot and make into Soren's baby food.


My favorite new discovery is using zucchini in bread. I love it!
Today I made Zucchini Bites: a savory appetizer made with onion and breadcrumbs, I also got to try using parsley on the top of the bites to make a pretty leaf silhouette. http://www.thenaptimechef.com/2010/07/summer-zucchini-bites-webisode-22/


I also love spiced Zucchini muffins, you can put vanilla chi (substituted for a portion of sugar) powder in it, and it rocks! Here is the basic recipe, I didn't use cranberries and the other frilly stuff, but I did add chocolate chips. http://simplyrecipes.com/recipes/zucchini_muffins/

Dre- How I've Grown.

people are by far the hardest crop. Did you know that it is estimated that 80% of people do not emotionally mature after the age of 20. That means most of us are college sophomores walking around, raising kids, and doing who knows what else.

Along with that, I bet most Christians do not Spiritually grow after an age of a year. Everyone know the excitement of a new believer. But if we are infinity unlike God, why aren't we infinity excited to grow and change to be more like Him?

What crappy plants we are. Since Gardening, all the 'plant parables' are making much more sense.

So lately, I've been thinking...
Me and my husband are in process to going to the overseas to ministry in 1-2 years. So this adventure getting closer, has caused some self examination. I certainly don't 'feel' like a missionary. Who cares how I feel, do I act like a missionary? I don't mean this in a legalistic way, although I love me some missionary skirts, I mean when you are in another country and your soul occupation is yo show other Christ's love, what would you do?
Then I was like, well my soul occupation on this earth is to show others God's love. What do I do?
Hmmm.
The Reminder. Why we are here. To know God and to make him known. All the rest is scenery, my job, laundry, cooking, clothes, even my garden if not put towards that end is scenery.
So obviously the past couple weeks I have been thinking on this. What does it mean to love others like Christ? A few things came to mind, one of which is God made our problem his problem. He was in perfect heaven, but thirsted for a relationship with us. He made our problem his problem. Just because someones problem isn't directly effecting you, doesn't mean it's not your problem. As children of God, pretty much it's ours. The word 'problem' may discourage some, but being a very task driven problem solving person, this idea appeals so me.
The 'Garden' aspect of this is coming, keep reading.
So all that being said, I was thinking about this and driving in Atlanta, and I see a homeless guy. Thinking thinking, not my job to ponder if he is a good for nothing drunk or lying, it is my job to love him, to see his problem as my problem, to 'give to whoever asks'. I don't have any cash. Someone gives him a granola bar, and he thanks them and tears into it. I look at my passenger seat thinking, what can I give this guy? I do have a basket of fresh produce I was going to give to a friend. She'll live. So I roll down the window and ask “could you have any use for these” holding up a variety of okra, beans, tomatoes, cucumbers, zucchini, and squash. He answer “honey, I don't have anywhere to cook it or store it, it would just get stolen or rot”.Sad. The light turns red, I say I'm sorry I don't have cash, and the light turns green.

Sad. My eyes start to water. Food security. It's a crazy thing. Not only do I have LOADS of food given to me by God's earth, and this man has nothing. He doesn't even have the opportunity to eat fresh food. An alarming reality.

Plant a Row for the Hungry or P.A.R. Is a cool thing that our Master Gardener in Fayette County do. It's donating a row of crop to a food shelter. They took it a step furthure and have a community Garden and donate the whole lot to charity! Over 25,000 lb a year!
Video and Story
http://www.11alive.com/news/local/story.aspx?catid=40&storyid=150660
Newspaper
http://volunteerpublishing.net/harvest-of-hope-group-raises-28000-pounds-of-produce-for-needy
Fayette County 4-H and Master Gardener Website
http://www.ugaextension.com/fayette/mg/MGProjects.html

Mr. Bray at the P.A.R. Garden -

taught me everything i know about gardening

Herbs- heal.spice.soothe.

herbs are the bomb diggity, they have the power to heal, spice, or soothe. I am crazy about herbs.
If you want to start a small garden, I don't think you can go wrong with herbs. I am a little basil crazy so I probably use fresh herbs about 4 times a week. They are too simple. I got them at Home Dept for 2.50 a pint. (each pint had 3 or 4 plants (seeds are cheap, so why not put many in one to ensure the customer gets a live specimen) I only picked pints that had three or four healthy plants, when I transplanted them, I separated them out, and they have basically explode! Look at my before after. After that they will seed and re-propogate themselves for next year.

With Herbs the only bad thing you can do is water them too much, their basically weeds, so let them be. Also, dont be shy about harvesting them, the more you pick off, the more they produce, and if they flower, be sure to snap the flower heads of to ensure your plant will continue to grow fragrant leaves. Allow them to flower at the end of the season so they will seed for next year.

HEALI absolutely love picking fresh herbs while I have simmering pot on the stove, especially when it raining. Recently I got another sinus infection, and Herbs soup really helps. Chicken broth, thyme, chives, parsley, cilantro, mint, lemon, and garlic clear out my sinuses good, help me sleep and has gotten me better on many occasions. Some herbs you can eat straight up, but some like rosemary, I use an tea infuser because the leaves themselves are brittle and uncomfortable to eat.

SPICE. you can use basil, oregano, chives, cilantro, and thyme in a variety of foods, omletts, pizza, seafood. Lemon, ment, rosmary, catnip, and lavendar are a lttle less used but really hit the spot in some dishes. Once you go fresh, those little spinny shelves of pre-packaged herbs stored fresh in God only knows what year seem like a sick joke.

SOOTHE. I can get a sprig of rosmary and put in my tea, or put a some lavendar blooms in my bath, it's amazing how wonderfullly potent a fresh herb can be.

My Pick of Peppers

Peppers are usually planted from transplants started from seed indoors. They are medium feeders that require little fertalizer, thier main disease issue is blossom end rot. This disease is caused by lack of calcium to the friut, people try to spay calcium on this disease, but once it starts, it is very difficult to get rid of. The real culprit is lack of consistent water. Since i do plasticulture ( a plastic sheet much with drip irrigation under it) i don't have this problem. I did last year when i was container gardening.

The most cost-effective thing I have grown has definitely been peppers. They run a buck a piece even at aldi prices. My only problem this year was trying to figure out what I was growing. I bit into one because i was stupid, and got a spicy suprise. I knew i had a green Bell, One yellow bell (that has refused to yield a single pepper), and orange bell, then I figured my forth plant was a cyanne, that turn red if left on the plant, then I have a long waxy green pepper thats too spicy to be a chili, and too long to me a jalapeño, we think its a Serrano pepper, so whatever it is, its good. I wish I could tell you this guessing game has lead to me wanting to be more organizednext year, but the guessing has been fun.
Peppers are not overabundant, I use what I grow, and freezing them is relatively easy.
While were on the topic of unidentified veggies. We finally figured out that my cucumber plant that was bearing yellow cuces, was doing so because it cross-pollinated with my straight neck squash. So I now have squashcumbers!