The Victory Garden??!!! We Surrender!

Okay, first off, for those new followers who are expecting Disney stuff (I'm still absolutely floored at the numbers from those voting in the poll...over 440 visits and 865 page views from Monday-Wednesday), never fear! You're still at the right place. This blog is about 75% Disney-related, but I do post family/home updates on occasion. If you're looking for the poll on Disney Podcasts or information on them, look to the right-hand side of the page (the actual blog), and you'll see both a link for the initial post as well as the actual list of podcasts.








Okay, with that disclaimer out of the way, I've given up. The garden wins. Hands down.





First off, as you can see above, the garden is now in cahoots with the lawn. We've gotten tons of rain to go along with a fairly cool summer to get this stuff growing like there's no tomorrow. This garden alone should have reduced the greenhouse effect around the globe by somewhere around 46%.


The primary offensive weapon of choice for this beast is the squash. We probably have 8-10 spaghetti squash...all around 5-6 lbs, and the same number of acorn squash that are a good 2-3 lbs.:




We successfully intercepted and destroyed one of the spaghetti squash this week (tasted awesome, and this is coming from a non-squash eater). While we duck and cover as the garden lobs spaghetti and acorn squash at us, it's the zucchini that we are most worried about. As you will see below, from only 3 plants, we're getting tons of baseball bat-sized squash (okay, not that big, but I think that I could get one about that size if I don't harvest it).



The squash, however, isn't the only assault that we have been fighting off. In the picture below, you will see just some of what we've harvested over the span of 4 days:






Now, this is AFTER we've given over a gallon of green beans to neighbors/friends/family. We've also been giving away onions and a LOT of zucchini. Sheri's been coming up with ideas to try to use all the zucchini...she's made bread, a cake, fried squash, baked with tomatoes and cheese, etc...I think she might be toying with the idea of creating zucchini cereal, sandwiches, and milkshakes.


As for the tomatoes...all those cherry tomatoes are coming from one single Super-sweet 100 plant. Every day, I can easily pull off ten more ripe ones (and I usually eat 5 of them in the garden, which may explain why it's at war with us). This definitely means that we've gotten far more than 100 tomatoes from this plant (I think I have a good case for false advertising). Most of the tomatoes are indeterminate. For those not attuned to gardening vernacular, indeterminate tomato plants produce plants over a wide span of time, having only a couple ripe at any one time. This also means that they just keep on growing. If you look back at the first picture, you'll see that the tomato plants have essentially devoured the cages that were put around them for support. Note: I've been moderately pruning these plants every few days to keep them from growing too much...it didn't matter as the winds have pushed over the cages. Determinate tomatoes, on the other hand, have much smaller plants and set all their fruit at the same time. This is good for those who are into canning. Now, quiz time. We have tons of tomatoes, as shown above. The plants are indeterminate. What's going on here?

The indeterminates are producing an amazing amount of tomatoes!!!! Is it enough to can, though? Nope (I think I hear the garden laughing at us).


We've also probably picked over 3 gallons of green beans...big deal you might say, but this is all coming from 2 seven-foot rows. While I think we've finally beaten down the green beans, I think that, in doing so, we've stirred up the ire of their cousins...the lima beans:






If you look closely, you'll see that there's going to be a lot of shelling of bean pods in our near future. I think this will be a good year to show the boys how to do it! Hey, they loved snapping the ends off of the green beans (at least they did for the first 5 minutes). Residents of Downs, please check your church bulletin for the date and time of the shelling party (zucchini milkshakes will be served for refreshments).


I think the beans (and squash) have also signed a defensive pact with the bees. For those who know me, I used to be a sprinter, but I can't run long-distances for anything (I consider anything over 400 yards to be appropriate for the use of a bike or car). When it comes to bees, however, I can run a 4-minute mile if I see one chasing me. Ask my father - he will attest to this. With all the vegetable vegetation, the bees are loving me. If you look at the center of the pic below, you may be able to see a bumble bee, upside-down, pollinating a cluster of lima blossoms.



Photo taken at 500 yards with maximum zoom



Okay, I'm getting better with bees. That actually was taken at just a couple of feet. Zoomed in for a better look:







It's those @%$^@#%@#$% wasps and hornets that I still do the 4-minute miles with. Luckily there aren't too many of those around here. Bumble bees and honey bees...well, that's a different story as there are usually at least 5 of them in the limas at any given moment. Considering there again are only 2 seven-foot rows, they're going to be close wherever I'm trying to pick. The boys liked picking the green beans (at least they did for the first 5 minutes), but they were freaking out at the occasional Japanese beetle that flew by. With bees, I don't think they'll be in the garden much more until the blossoms are all gone and the pods are set.



I doubt we'll ever have this much success again, so we're enjoying it. Come on over...you'll have to promise to take a zucchini and tomato before you leave!

The Victory Garden (?) Mid-July

Okay, okay, okay...so I haven't been updating like I thought I would be. It's still there, and it's actually producing some stuff. There were some minor snafus with my first try doing intercropping...mostly that the onions are thriving and going crazy. I switched hybrids...I had been planting the Stuttgarter variety for years and had marginal results...only green onions from sets, and about 50% success in getting them to actually grow. I can't remember what type these are, but I know where I got them...they ALL emerged from the ground, and they're bulbing beautifully.


The main problem with that, however, is that I had intended on having them out of the ground already to make room between two rows of green beans. It's crowded!





You can kind of see them just above the center...the row goes left. I've been pulling them for spacing and telling my neighbors to take whatever they need as we still have tons left.




Because of the onions still taking up room, I decided not to put in the basil that I had planned on the other side of the beans (where the onions are in front of)...I knew it was going to be a really tight fit with the broccoli.




Oh...the broccoli....the @#$($^!@#@$%#$@ broccoli. I might be dining on some hasenpfeffer in the near future because the damn rabbits mowed down the broccoli plants (not counting the 2 that got trampled on by the boys). They had spinach. They had lettuce. Do they go for that?


NO!


They decide to go for the cole crops!




After they leveled the broccoli, they started turning to the cabbage. I actually watched this tiny bunny eat about twice his weight when he attacked one of the base leaves on the cabbage. I actually let him take that one out as it was getting in the way of the tomatoes. Hey, with the broccoli gone, we bought a basil plant from the local farmer's market and planted it in the broccoli row. It's not taking too well...I'm still trying to decide if I want to sow some basil now or not...it will be pushing it to get a lot of leaves by late summer.


Speaking of getting in the way...HOLY COW the squash got big!






I'm going to put in a disclaimer here that I have used fertilizer VERY sparingly. We've had some good rain at the right time, and the summer has been fairly mild. I was hoping the sun would reflect off the house, and it looks like that's exactly what's happening. I had planted one hill of acorn squash, one hill of spaghetti squash, and two hills of zucchini. One of the zucchini hills didn't germinate, so, when I thinned out the other hills (2 plants per hill), I attempted to transplant into the bare hill. Miraculously, both plants took, and all 4 hills are going crazy. The runner vines on the spaghetti squash are constantly being moved by me to fit where I want them to fit (the runners are winning). We've harvested all but one cabbage plant, which is still developing the head (in a bit more shade, near the deck).


...and then there are the tomatoes.




Again, I'm not using much fertilizer at all. There must be a lot of nitrogen in the soil because I feel like I'm in a Jurassic Park setting sometimes when I'm working in the garden. The tomato plants are so big that a rain will put too much weight on the cages, and they topple over. The scary thing is that I'm pruning the plants like crazy to reduce the chances of this happening. There are hundreds of tomatoes growing...Sheri is considering an attempt at canning them if we get a good enough crop.



Soooooo....are we actually getting anything from the garden, or just a pretty show? I'll let you decide:






To give you a little perspective...that long zucchini is over 13 inches long. That head of cabbage easily tops 4 lbs in weight. The Zatarain's...well, we don't grow rice in central Illinois. We're pulling onions like that almost every day, and the zucchini is starting its offensive. We should be able to provide cole slaw for the neighborhood for a month with that head of cabbage. We're getting green beans now in the first planting, and both plantings of limas are starting to blossom. I was so proud of the fact that we had green beans already...that is, until we went to the farmer's market and found that three of the stalls also had beans (grrrrr...way to burst my bubble). We're starting to get cherry tomatoes, and we're about a week or two from the onset of the regular tomatoes. The acorn squash is progressing nicely, but, being a winter squash, it has a while to mature yet. The spaghetti squash, however, apparently didn't get the message that it's also a winter variety, because there are 3 or 4 that look to be full-size already. I'm resisting the temptation to pick one. Sufficed to say, I think we're going to be very busy in about 10 days.



As the harvest really takes off (like it hasn't already), we'll provide some more updates.

The Victory Garden (?), May 31st

For those Disney fans out there, you'll have to hold on to your horses for a bit as we're doing a little family updates today. You'll be back reading the insanity of the Mushfam at Disney World in no time flat.

Well, it's been a while since I've let my hordes of fans know how the garden does grow. (and, yes, it pained me to write it that sarcastically)

Anyways...a lot has changed in the garden, with several new additions and a few departures (in a good way!). With not a lot of ground to work with, I'm doing a lot of intercropping, with rows REALLY close together. For example, look below:

From Mush's Blog

Closing in a little on the left side, we get:

From Mush's Blog

There's a total of 21 inches between the radishes and the onions, and I'm sneaking in a row of bush green-beans in between them. As I'm writing this, the beans are actually sprouting there. It works because, as you can see, this planting of radishes is 80% out, and we've had a MONSTER harvest.

From Mush's Blog

I've pulled probably 4 groups of this over the past week. We're not huge radish eaters...I like to pull one out, shake off the dirt, and pop one in my mouth just to see how they taste, but nobody in this household really eats them very much. The boys like planting them and harvesting them, and we know people who love them. We sent a good quart-sized Baggie full with Sheri to work for a friend/co-worker who I think tries to survive on radishes alone. We gave some to our neighbors to our south, who, in turn, gave us some of their overflowing harvest of just-picked strawberries (I think we won that tradeoff...those berries were AWESOME). Our neighbors to the north always give us some stuff from their little plot (rhubarb, bell peppers, etc.). This time, it was our turn to give them the radishes.

We're also starting to pull up the onions for recipes that call for 'em green. As the radishes and onions vacate the premises, the green bean plants will have room to flourish, though my first row (behind the onions) was really spotty.

It's hard to see, but there are several broccoli plants started from seed really close to the lettuce and spinach in the above picture. They germinated well, but I'm starting to wonder if they're going to make it. One set of plants got trampled by the boys when they wanted to taste the spinach, and the other sets aren't holding up well with the weight of the plants. I may have to replant and set the seeds a little deeper in the ground.

Oh, and on the side of the house, you'll see the asparagus ferning out. I'm not quite sure why, but apparently the Lodge ladies hold asparagus in high regard, based on other things I've seen online. I'm scared to ask. Also, you can't see it, but there's also some new rhubarb planted behind the asparagus.


Over on the other side:

From Mush's Blog

...the cabbage is growing like a weed. Wait...strike that...well, you know what I mean. It's interesting to see that the cabbage on the left is fairly large, and the plants get progressively smaller as you move right. That almost has to be because of the amount of sun they're getting. I inadvertently created a succession planting with this. Kewl! You'll also see that the second planting of lettuce and spinach is quite a bit smaller than the first planting (on the left). I'll have to remember this next year and tweak the planting a little.

The second planting of radishes is starting to get pulled out, mainly because it's in between 4 hills of squash that you can see sprouting. 3 of the 4 hills have several plants that made it, but one decided not to germinate. I'd replant, but I can't remember which type of squash I put in there. There were 2 zucchini hills, a spaghetti hill, and an acorn hill, and I'll be darned if I can't figure out which one is which this early on (all squashes sprout the same leave shapes). That may become our composting area.


Everything's in with the exception of basil, which will go in between the broccoli and the first planting of green beans. We got a really good rain last night, so that should help the beans poke through easier.

I'm getting a little scared about the tomato plants. They're loving that location by the house, and many of them are already flowering. I've started pruning them a little so they don't weigh down and ruin the cages (as they always do). Sacrificing a little quantity for quality (at least that's what I'm telling myself).

My guess is that the plot will have an entirely different look in the next couple of weeks. Stay tuned!

The Victory Garden (?), May 2nd

Well, here we are again, a couple of weeks into the season:

From Mush's Blog

As you can see below, the radishes and onions are growing well, and, though it's hard to see, in front of the tomato cages are lettuce (on the right) and spinach (really sparse to the left). Believe it or not, I'm going to throw a row of green beans between the radishes and onions (that's the fun part of intercropping).

From Mush's Blog

In case you're trying to count, there are 8 tomato plants in that back row...we should be able to supply the county with tomatoes if it all works out well. Since they're so close, I'll be doing a lot of pruning, going with the "sacrifice quantity for quality" approach. Also, the darker soil you see is a combination of compost and top soil worked into the ground. Those two patches of darker soil on the right of the first picture are going to be where squash is going to be planted. In between that darker soil is a hidden row of just-planted radishes.


In the picture below, there is a row of lettuce/spinach in front of these tomatoes (planted over a week later than the first planting) Also, you can see the cabbage coming along nicely. It's amazing what Miracle-Gro can do for you as I planted cabbage just 2 weeks ago!!!

From Mush's Blog

Okay, the seeds I planted didn't germinate too well. 2 of the 4 seed areas germinated, and those 2 didn't make it, so I went out and bought some transplants.

We're expecting radishes in a couple of weeks, and the onions can be used not long afterwards. Broccoli and beans will be going in soon, followed by the squash. So far, so good!

The Victory Garden (?), April 25

Well, we're a week past the first round of planting, and, despite my best efforts, it looks like things are growing, other than rocks and weeds! We get a good amount of wind between the houses, so I planted the seeds a bit lower than usual in an effort to keep the seeds in the ground. I was afraid that I had planted them too deeply, because nothing germinated in the first 6 days (I'm impatient). We got a lot of continuous rain for several days, starting the evening I planted everything, so I was also worried a bit about the seeds rotting.

Things are looking good. The radishes have germinated and are showing me just how un-straight my row is. The lettuce and spinach are a bit spotty, but this is expected, as the planting depth is a little more varied, but they are pushing through. I fully expected the onions to pop up within 3-4 days, but I'm using a different variety this year for the first time, and it might take a bit longer. I examined the soil and found the vast majority are growing...they're right at the top of the soil and starting to push through. The only thing that hasn't popped through yet is the cabbage.

No picture this week and no planting...I had hoped to get another row of spinach/lettuce out, but it can wait a couple more days.

The "Victory" Garden (?), 04/17/09

I pretend to be a gardener sometime..it's in my genes. I have to thank my grandfather for this as he was known for, among many other things, an avid gardener. To give you an idea, here's a photo from '74, when I was just 2:





that would be my father and my grandfather in there. I'll forgive them for what they made me wear...it was the 70s. The garden extends a good 20 feet to the left and at least 100 more feet to the right of the picture. To give you a feel for the depth, the corn in the background...those rows went back a good 100 feet. If I had to guess, I'd say it was around 150 feet wide and over 250 feet deep.

I've got the green thumb from him...it's probably a good thing, because Sheri has a black thumb (every plant she touches tends to die...at least it includes weeds that she just reminded me that she pulls). The houseplants think she's a stranger most of the time. So, when we bought our first house, I immediately bought a sod cutter and made a tiny little garden to sow my seeds (groan). Since there was no room for anything, I did raised beds, made tripods, and had moderate success.

We moved from the first place, where I have a little more room. No, it's nothing like what my grandfather had - I think our entire town could have fit in his garden (there are only 600 people in our town, so it's not that far of a stretch). I've got a 14X17 plot...have tiller, will plant!

Since today was our first really nice day where the soil was relatively dry, I decided to get started. I'm switching gears and am going to attempt to do a lot of inter-cropping this year, which means placement and timing are going to be extremely important. This could be a major disaster (and it almost was...I very nearly threw a rake and a hoe across the yard today), but we're going to see how the garden grows.

So, here we are...Friday, April 17th:







The plot is tilled, and I have the early crops put in (onions, cabbage, lettuce, spinach, and radishes). More goes in next week, so I'll try to update this every Friday or so.



With my luck, we'll get a hard freeze next Thursday, accompanied by 2 feet of snow, just as the veggies emerge.