The Cheap Vegetable Gardener

Picking wild blackberries – the sequel

16.7 years ago blackberries

I enjoyed the blackberry pie so much I decided we needed some blackberry jam as well. I picked so sparsely at my first public berry picking location that I could have gone back and easily found enough berries to make jam, but it was a nice day and decided to take a walk in the woods with my youngest daughter. After exploring (getting lost for two hours) and picking various species of blackberries, I finally found civilization and called my wife to pick us, since walking along a busy road with no shoulder with a jogging stroller didn’t seem like a good idea (and I was tired).

I picked enough berries during our adventure for my wife to make 8 jars of jam (7 put in jars, 1 put in Tupperware for immediate consumption) I would provide our secret jam recipe but the nice people already put it on the package of SURE-JELL pectin.

Tags: cheap, led, vegetables

Picking wild blackberries (Blackberry pie recipe)

16.7 years ago blackberries

Given the price of produce these days and how blackberries cannot be killed here in the Pacific Northwest there are not too many trails that don’t have these bushes attempting to overtake them I decided to take my 4-year old with me blackberry picking. In just about 15 minutes (also length of time 4-year old has for blackberry picking) we were able to pick exactly 4 cups of blackberries. Since my 4-year old wants to “grow up to be baker like daddy” (obviously has no idea what I do for a living) we decided to use our fresh berries to make a blackberry pie.

Blackberry pie recipe

• 4 cups fresh blackberries
• 1/2 cup white sugar
• 1/2 cup flour
• 2 frozen pie crusts
• 1 tsp lemon juice
• Egg wash (1 egg + 1 tsp water)

Directions: Take 3-1/2 cups of blackberries and add with 1/2 cup of sugar, 1/2 cup flour, and 1/2 tsp of lemon juice and mix. Pour contents of bowl into pie crust and top with remaining 1/2 cup of blackberries.

Cover with top crust and pinch edges closed. Brush the top with egg wash and sprinkle with a few pinches of white sugar. Bake at 425 degrees F for 15 minutes, then at 375 degrees F for 20 minutes or until crust is golden brown.

Tags: cheap, led, vegetables

Propagation of strawberry plants

16.7 years ago strawberries

My strawberries have stopped producing berries and now have started send runners all over the place. During the berry growing season I would pinch them off to let the plants use their energy creating delicious berries. Now those runners are not really doing any harm I have decided to let some of them live and propagate them into some small plant trays.

I grow my strawberries in the open end of cinder blocks and the rest of my vegetable garden is surrounded by gravel so not really any place for them to go, with the exception of taking over my vegetable garden. Given they will not grow in gravel and I like vegetables in my vegetable garden I have redirected them into some plant trays (ironically the same ones I brought the plants parents home in) filled with potting mix. All you do is simply put the end of the runner in the soil and it will do the rest. To keep the runner from popping out of the soil, the normal convention is to create a U-shape with a paperclip to hold the runner in place underground, for whatever strange reason I couldn’t find any of these anywhere in my house I opted for bent bamboo skewers. After about a week you should have your very own baby strawberry plants at this time you can cut the “umbilical” cord from the mother plant. Now the next question is where I am going to put these new plants…guess I need to make a new garden bed or find some friends that want some strawberries next year.

Tags: led, outdoor plants, strawberry plants, vegetables

Propagating peppermint and lemon verbena

16.8 years ago lemon verbena, peppermint, strawberries

Starting next week I will have an office at work with a window so of course I have to start thinking about what sort of vegetation I can put on that ledge. The first thing that came to mind was peppermint and lemon verbena seemed like a good choice since they provide an excellent fragrance and I can eat/drink them if I have to stay late and get tired of free soda. They can also be neglected for a weekend or brief vacation without relying on someone else to take care of them.

Unless this is the first post of mine you have never read or didn’t look at the title of this blog, I am cheap. I could have easily just payed $4-5 for a couple plants but I wanted to do this for free. First I prepared two terracotta pots with a mixture of potting soil and perlite and got the mixture about as wet as possible and set them aside.

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For the peppermint, the process to propagate is pretty simple. The stuff is tough and most talented people can not successfully kill the stuff if they try, so dig around in your existing peppermint until you find a good bunch of roots. Now the tricky part pull/cut/tear/scream whatever it takes to separate that clump of peppermint from the rest. Very obvious why this stuff can take over a bed. Take that clump of roots with hopefully some of the peppermint plant still surviving the extraction ordeal and place in a pre-dug hole and cover up with potting mix.

The lemon verbena is a little calmer process, to propagate this you use a process of taking a softwood cutting, which includes simply cutting a stem in which shows some decent life (green) in it. You want to make sure that your cut does not crush the stem so a sharp knife my work better than shears/scissors but that depends completely on the quality and sharpness of your equipment. Cut off any leaves on the bottom one third of the plant and place in potting mix leafing the remaining two thirds above the soil line.

Both of these plants currently have a pretty fragile root system at the moment so keeping their roots (or soon to be generated roots) moist is very important. To help with this I have covered both plants with plastic, if all goes well I will not kill these things and will have a nice addition to my new office come Monday.

Tags: cheap, led, outdoor plants, pepper plants, peppermint plant

First tomato of the season

16.8 years ago tomato

Well it is official I have my first official red tomato of the season this morning while watering. It was from a hanging basket my dad gave to me for Father’s day called "Tom’s Tumbler" which should cascade over providing lots of cherry tomatoes.

I also noticed some of my "Early Girls" were also starting to produce so fresh garden salsa should be coming soon.

Tags: led, salsa garden, tomato plants

How to water your garden

16.8 years ago water

Many people may look at the topic of this post and think how basic a topic this is. The reality is proper watering is the most difficult part of growing a garden. The challenge ensures in the fact that roots need to stay moist, but not too moist since roots do not grow in the soil but in the space (air) between it so with too much water your can actually drown your plants. What makes this even more complicated is the visual signs of overwatering are the exact same as under watering with wilted leaves and yellowish color. Your immediate reaction is, “I am not watering enough” so you water more drowning the plants even more and eventually leading to their demise. Even if your plants look ok you still could be affecting your harvest. For example, if you overwater your tomatoes they will be green enjoying the perfect environment and never get around to creating some blossoms which will result delicious fruit. At the same time under watering your leafy plants can result in bitter tasting lettuce or even worse make them go right to seed and get very little or no harvest in plants like cilantro and spinach.

How do I know how much I need to water? Unfortunately the answer to this questions is “It depends” first you need to determine the structure of your soil (sandy, loam, or clay) If you do not know the structure of your soil you can to a simple glass jar soil test Sandy soils allow water to drain very quickly so you will need to water about three times as often as clay soil and about twice as much as loamy soil. If you live in a dry climate or just have a couple really hot weeks in your not so dry climate you will probably need to water at least every day to keep your plants healthy regardless of your soil structure.

The next factor is how deep do you want the water? It is important to make sure water actually gets to where the roots are, which has been the demise of my first years of tomato plants. Where I watered the surface but the soil was bone dry a several inches below the surface which I realized once I pulled out the dead plants. So first know your plants root system if you are growing deep root plants such as tomatoes, corn, cucumbers, peppers, beans, squash, eggplant, or melons you will need to water longer to ensure that the water makes it down to their deep root system but you can water less often since you will not lose as much to evaporation. If you are growing lettuce, spinach, carrots, radishes, peas, garlic, onions, cabbage, cilantro, or broccoli you need to water less but more frequent to ensure the soil stays most.

Now hopefully you have a better idea when and how much to water, here are some tips from Mel Bartholomew from “Square Foot Gardening” books/videos/PBS series. His first tip is “Don’t water from overhead” since first you waste water due to evaporation but you also get you leaves wet which can lead to disease and frying your plants. If you must water from above if you have a very large garden or if you are away from your garden and need to automate the process, he insists this is done first thing in the morning. If you are like me and enjoy sleeping at dawn you may want to look into his cup and bucket watering method where you fill up a couple of 5 gallon buckets and let them sit out in a sunny spot. You get the benefit of the sun warming the water to prevent shocking the plants with cold tap water especially on a streak of hot summer days. Another benefit is gives time for the tap water to purify itself a little before applying to plants. Once you have your bucket of water the concept is pretty simply just find a nice container (I normally raid my recycling bin) and scoop water out of the bucket and pour it directly under the leaves of the plant with little water waste and the delicate leaves remaining completely dry. This is also helps you measure exactly how much water you are giving to each plant which you can adjust as needed. You can also get some of the same benefits by using a trickler hose of a bubbler attachment if your back can not take the weight of packing around 5 gallon buckets full of water.

Now if after all of this explanation I haven’t scared you too much in fear of not watering too little or too much here are a couple more tips to make your watering more successful.

• Order on a consistent schedule: It is easy to forget the last time you water and watering a few days late or early can have significant effects on your harvest.
• Have a test hole: Normally there is somewhere in your garden where something is not currently growing after doing you normal watering dig into that hole and see how deep your watering is actually getting.
• Finger test: By sticking your finger into your soil if it comes back dry you probably need to water
• Get a water meter: If you want something a little more scientific you can always pick up a cheap water meter for less than $10 which can give you a measurement several inches underground

Tags: cheap, cilantro, garden seeds, garlic bulbs, led, outdoor plants, pepper plants, tomato plants