Gardening Update Ate-Ate 2011

[robby]

The protective shading of the second avocado has helped, and new leaf clusters have sprouted. Most of the lavender cuttings have expired, but I still have a couple that are green, so I'm golden.

One little insight about gardening: With harvesting and preparing produce for storage, when it's time -you have to just do it. You can't get lazy or put if off, you're subject to nature's schedule, not your own.

I've picked ten eggplant so far, and there have to be forty more developing.
Ive decided to freeze eggplant, squash, and beans, can tomatoes, and freeze dry the hot peppers. Last year, I freeze-dried the squash, but I wasn't able to reconstitute them properly, and that limited how I used them.

Comments

[sammason.livejournal.com]

I totally agree about the harvesting and storing. It's too easy to forget about those tasks and this is probably why, on allotment sites such as the one where I garden, masses of good crops go to waste. In theory I suppose that harvest time sounds like a highlight but for me, it's a time of chores. Worth it, though, when the stored food gets onto my plate for months afterwards! I hope your harvest is going well this year.

[robby.livejournal.com]

Soon the first course of bean plants will be past bearing. If I don't want to replant that area, should I just leave them be, cut off the tops, or pull them out entirely?

[sammason.livejournal.com]

In my climate, I'd leave them until ready to fork over the soil and plant the next crop. Allegedly the root nodules release their fixed N when allowed to rot in situ, and the tops could be a mulch.

[robby.livejournal.com]

There are still small beans developing on that first course, but few flowers. I do have about 3 months until first frost, so if I were clever, I could get another crop. Some people grow okra in late summer, but I have so much to do already, and it might be good for the soil to just leave the beans, as you said.

[mallorys-camera.livejournal.com]

Didn't know you could freeze eggplant. Huh!

[robby.livejournal.com]

You peel, slice, and blanch them first, then pack them into those vacuum freezer bags for a long winter's nap. I have four plants of the long, skinny ichiban variety this year, and might be able to put away ten pounds or so.

[sammason.livejournal.com]

Don't you like the skins left on?

[robby.livejournal.com]

No, I always peel them.