Mavis Garden Blog – Tomato Blight

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I feel like a total slacker lately.  My kitchen looks like a bomb went off, the laundry is stacking up, and the HH is freaking out because the 2 of the 4 wheels fell off the dishwasher this morning.  There are just not enough hours in the day to get everything done.  If I could stop time and have 24 hours totally to myself, I think I could get caught up.  But fat chance that’s going to happen anytime soon, so for now, I’ll just deal with it as best I can.  One mini project at a time.

Yesterday, I finally got around to whipping the garden back into shape. There were a few casualties.

Especially in the tomato department.

I heaved 2 tomato plants out of the greenhouse and into the back woods, and then tried my best to prune the remaining heirlooms.  I think the most important lesson I have learned this summer {garden wise} is that I should never, ever plant 20+ tomato plants in a greenhouse.  It was a recipe for disaster, just waiting to happen.

Maybe I was doomed from the beginning because I didn’t do enough research, {okay, hardly any at all} about growing food in a greenhouse before I went all out and all those plants in there. Or perhaps it’s just not the year of the tomato.

But one thing is for certain.  Tomato bight sucks.  Anyway you look at it.

Am I the only one out there with a bunch of rotten tomatoes this year?

Please tell me I’m not the only one.

~ Mavis

 



Mavis Garden Blog – Planting a Fall Garden

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10 days ago I planted 2 seed trays with beet, broccoli, artichoke, cauliflower, bok choy, kale, and lettuce seeds.  The plan is, after I clean up the garden a bit, I am going to plant the young seedlings in a few of the raised garden beds for a late fall harvest.

I’m not too enthusiastic about having to rip out Brussels Sprouts that went to seed, or the pulling up the remaining carrots this afternoon and trying to figure out what to do with them, but I need to get a move on.

I need to get a few more crops into the ground if I’m going to be able to reach my goal of growing 2,000 pounds of veggies this year.

If all goes well, hopefully later this afternoon I’ll be planting these Patty Pan Squash starts in one of the old carrot beds.

And the red acre cabbage?

I already planted 10 starts down the center of the former English pea bed.

Yep, it’s all work and no play around here.  Sheesh.  It might just be time for a vacation.

Have YOU started thinking about your fall garden yet?

Peach Out, I’m off to play in the dirt.

 Mavis

How To Grow Your Own Food – Mavis’ Vegetable Garden Tour

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I have mixed feelings about the garden right now.

Some parts of the garden are doing really, really well.  Like this bean teepee you see above.  The beans are faithfully climbing up the wooden poles and the hubbard squash below is spreading like wild fire.  I’m super excited to see what it’s going to look like in another month or so when the squash are a bit larger and the ground is completely covered in vines.

Then, there are a few garden boxes that look like total crap.  Like this one for instance, it has celery, onions, and acorn squash starts in it.

Here’s another mis-matched raised garden bed.  This one has tomatoes, rainbow Swiss chard, kale, a few onions and even more squash starts.  Did I mention I have ocd?  Yeah, well, sloppy garden beds make me crazy.  Just looking at the plants make me itch.  I need the vegetables to line up, in perfect rows, and to ripen at the same time, or I start to break out in hives.

This heirloom tomato and onion bed isn’t so bad.

Oh, and look at this.  Guess who’s not getting any freakin’ Brussel sprouts?

Oh. The. Horror.

But then again, there are a lot of things going well in the garden right now as well…

Please tell me I’m not the only one who feels this way.

How is YOUR garden growing?

Do you feel like you are in the ugly ducking stage too?

How to Grow Your Own Food – Weigh In Wednesday

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This year my goal is to grow 2,000 pounds of fresh fruits and vegetables. I think I can do it. With 16 raised garden beds, a greenhouse, a raspberry patch and a few more planting beds sprinkled throughout our property, I believe growing 2,000 pounds of food is an attainable goal. Even if I do live right in the middle of high maintenance suburbia, and my neighbors think I’m nuts. ~Mavis

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This past week I was able to harvest over 78pounds of fruits and vegetables from our backyard garden. We pulled up just over 46 pounds of carrots and were able to give some away, sell some to neighbors and enjoy some for ourselves.  What a crazy week it’s been.

I’ve been working on planting new seeds for fall, trimming back plants and just trying hard to keep everything well watered, especially the pumpkins.  Trying to grow 2,000 pounds of food is proving to be a little harder than I thought, but with a little luck, I think I’ll get there.  One vegetable at a time.

Here is what I have harvested so far:

Basil 1 lb 14 oz {how to make pesto}

Beets 39 lb 50z {how to can beets}

Blueberries 4 oz {mixed berry pie recipe}

Broccoli 4lb 14 oz {pasta salad with broccoli, carrots, and sun dried tomatoes}

Broccoli Rabb 1lb 6 oz {chickpeas with broccoli raab and bacon}

Cabbage 25lb 7 oz {how to make sauerkraut}

Carrots 81 lbs 14 oz {carrot cake recipe}

Cauliflower 2lbs 3 oz {cauliflower hummus rocks!}

Chives 15 oz {chalkboard painted herb pots}

Kale 1 lb 4 oz {how to make kale chips}

Lettuce 14 lb 0 oz {bbq chicken salad}

Mint 2 lbs 9 oz {Fresh Pea Salad with Spinach, Feta and Mint}

Onions 5 lbs 9 oz {Kentucky Fried Chicken Cole Slaw}

Oregano 2 lbs 7 oz

Mushrooms 9.25 oz {read more about how I grew mushrooms}

Peas 34 lb11 oz {fresh peas and bacon recipe}

Peppers 7 oz

Potatoes 5lb 8 oz {potato soup recipe}

Radish 15lb  12 oz {how I bartered radishes for avocados}

Raspberries  11 oz {how to make a raspberry buckle}

Spinach 2lb 5 oz {garlic spinach dip recipe}

Sprouts 10 oz {how to grow sprouts}

Strawberries 6lb 6 oz {dehydrated strawberries are awesome}

Swiss Chard 24 lb 5 oz {rainbow Swiss chard recipe}

Tomatoes 3 oz {roasted corn salad with tomatoes and feta}

Zucchini 4 lb 9 oz {how to make zucchini relish}

Miscellaneous 8lb 2 oz {This means we let someone come and pick vegetables, or did not get a chance to weigh them individually, and this was the total weight of all the vegetables combined}

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So that’s what I’ve grown so far this year… How about YOU?

How is YOUR garden doing?

Total Food Harvested in 2012: 300 lbs 4.25 oz

I have spent a total of $484.86 on seeds, soil, plants and supplies for this year.


Looking for a new kitchen scale? Amazon currently has the Ozeri Digital Multifunction Kitchen and Food Scale, on sale for $16.25.  This scale comes in severeal different colors and have great ratings.

Mavis Garden Blog – Grow Baby Grow!

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Just a few short weeks ago this area was just plain old dirt.  Well get a look at it now.  Wahoooo!

This is going to be the best flippin’ pumpkin patch ever!

Grow Baby Grow!

Mavis Garden Blog – Purple Potatoes

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This morning as I was pulling up a part of the English pea patch, I spotted a  few volunteer purple potato plants growing in between the pea vines.

I don’t remember planting purple potatoes last year, so I think this batch was actaully left over from 2010.  Holy cow!  Who knew potatoes could hide that long underground?  I had no clue.

After digging around in the dirt for a good 10 minutes, I ended up with 5 lbs, 8 oz of purple potatoes.

How exciting!  I can’t wait to make these for dinner tonight.  The Girl Who Thinks She’s a Bird is going to FLIP OUT when she sees these.

Have YOU ever grown purple potatoes before?

Do you think your kiddos would want to eat them right up, or would they be freaked out?

Okay, gotta go.  Lot’s to do today!

Peace Out Girl Scouts {and Mike too!}

♥ Mavis

The Complete Book of Potatoes ~ Amazon 

Mavis Garden Blog – Earning Back My Seed Money, One Dollar at a Time

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So far this year I have spent a whopping $484.46 on seeds, soil, Tagro, and garden tools.  My original goal was to keep my expenses under $600 and to try to earn back my “seed money” via selling extra vegetables at the end of our driveway.

But giving away my beloved vegetables and donating them has been really fun too, and even though in a way it is costing me money, I’m not going to stop doing it.  So hopefully, somehow, I’ll be able to find a happy medium and still be able to recoup my expenses.

On one recent afternoon the kids set up shop.  The picture you see above is what was left over at the end of the afternoon right before they hauled everything back in.

Rather than offering bunches of vegetables for a higher price, the kids decided to price the vegetables at $1/5 items.  I’m not really sure what their logic was, but it seems to be working.

So far, they have collected $23, which I think is pretty good considering the selection is minimal right now.  But hopefully, as the season progresses, we will be able to re-coup a little more money.

And if not, who cares, gardening is still about the coolest hobby out there.

Peace Out Girl Scouts,  I’m off to cause some trouble.

♥ Mavis


Bormioli Rocco Fido 3-Piece Set ~ Amazon

Mavis Garden Blog – Basil and Heirloom Tomatoes

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Check out this bouquet of basil I picked this morning, isn’t it lovely? Now comes the hard part, trying to figure out what to make with it. I already have a boatload of pesto in the freezer, so I’m trying to come up with a salad or a dish worthy of it.  I don’t know about you, but sometimes there are just so many good recipes out there it’s really hard to decide what to make.

I’m not sure what the weather has been like in your neck of the woods, but here  in the greater Seattle/Tacoma area it’s been wacky.  One minute there are thunder storms and lighting and the next minute, sunshine. Luckily today there is sun, and I can’t wait to get my boots on and start playing in the dirt.

I snapped a few photos of my heirloom tomatoes this morning as I was opening up the greenhouse doors.

Luckily, no tomato blight has been spotted in the greenhouse, so that makes me happy!

Wahoo! I can hardly wait for these babies to ripen.

So excited!!

So what’s on your list today?

Staying in?  Going somewhere exciting?  Chores?

Mavis wants to know!

How to Grow Heart Shaped Cucumbers – Say What?

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Wahooo….

Let the fun begin!  I headed out to the greenhouse tonight to snap a few pictures when I noticed my first English cucumber growing from the gutters.  I was so excited that I tripped and totally ate dirt as I ran back to the house to grab my heart shaped cucumber mold.

I cannot even believe how freakin’ excited I am about this.  How long do you think it will take until it has filled the cavity and is ready to harvest?

I’m guessing 5 days.  At that rate, I could charge my neighbors $5 a cucumber and with 2 molds, I could possibly make my money back by the end of the season.

Oh this is going to be fun!

Peace Out Girl Scouts.  I hope your weekend rocks!

Mavis

Update – It worked!

Mavis Garden Blog – What’s Wrong with My Tomato Plant?

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I hope you know, I do not consider myself to be a “gardening expert.”  I have no formal training, and I did not grow up in a household full of gardeners.  I grew up in suburbia, and we had a gardener who cut our lawn, trimmed the hedges, and occasionally planted flowers for us.

Although I do remember going with my mother to the local nurseries from time to time to pick out flowers, we never bought seeds or vegetable starts. Growing up, my only real experience with gardening was watching my mother fill the large pots that sat next to our front door with hot pink, purple and white annuals.

This whole “love of vegetable gardening” happened quite by accident.

Which leads me to today’s topic “What’s wrong with my tomato plant?

Yesterday, as I was cleaning up the garden beds I finally made the decision to pull up about 10 diseased tomato plants.  With the exception of 2 doses of Miracle Grow each summer, I don’t like to use chemicals in my garden.  Now, I don’t want to sound like a garden snob, but the only time I have had problems with tomato plants has been when I purchased the plants from a store, farmer’s market, or some other type of plant sale.

And although I planted over 120 heirloom tomato plants in my garden this year {started from seed}, I was forced to buy a bunch of new plants because the Handsome Husband killed half my crop while The Girl and I took a mini vacation.

So, in a nut shell, I don’t have a whole lot of experience with diseased plants, and I need your help.

Can you tell by the photographs above what was wrong with these tomato plants?

I would really appreciate any suggestions you might have, just in case more of them start to go downhill.

Thanks in advance,

Mavis

Recipes Garden Frugal Canning Chickens Travel