It has been a crazy gardening season. For us, that means hot and dry. My brassicas look terrible and something is wrong with my Kentucky Wonder beans. The French Filets are fine. My beets have been fabulous and my garlic only so-so. Onions look good as do the tomatoes although not as many as I had hoped. Peppers are good and the peas were as well. The Turnips are amazing and the carrots seem to be fine. It’s too early to tell about the potatoes. I spent yesterday looking over my seed inventory. As I had just pulled the garlic, I added a couple of inches of compost and put more beets in one end and readied the other for another stab at brassicas. I plan to replant the beans too. We had picked up some fabric covers to keep the birds and Japanese beetles off the berries and I will repurpose them for floating row covers if frost threatens early.
When you are gardening as a hobby, you can afford to lose a crop of beans but if you plan to eat out of your garden, a crop failure is devastating. It’s another reason to have seeds stored. The selection is mighty sparse right now and I had a hard time finding enough beets to replant. The Farmer’s Co-op still had seed and I am making a trip up there to pick up chicken feed this week so I will bring some of my stashed case and stock up.As you know, I have no faith in a just-in-time delivery system and I love processing food. If I can’t rescue the broccoli, I will make my way to the valley and buy from the local farmers to insure I have a supply in my freezer.
I won’t have time today but I hope to make some turnip kraut in the next few days. It is just shredded turnip layered with salt, just as you would with cabbage. I hope this works well as we have more turnips than my kids will eat which is to say more than one. It’s one of the few foods they really don’t care for unless tiny and just picked.
I forgot to mention corn. It looks like the best crop ever. I am so excited to try one of the heirloom, painted varieties. I am also excited about saving the seed.
If you are just getting started on long-term food storage, I might suggest that now is a good time to buy wheat. There is some concern about harvest and the price will probably go higher. Only do this if you have way to grind it or plan to eat it sprouted. Otherwise, it’s a waste of money.
July 21, 2010 at 7:24 am
Watch the wheat if you buy it locally! Here in Ohio, the wheat has been affected by a fungus that creates a toxin that is poisonous to humans. The Ag person said 1ppm is enough to cause problems in humans; the Ohio crop is running around 6ppm. Just thought I’d pass along the info……….
July 21, 2010 at 7:29 am
Can you give us any more info on that? How would we know? I just ordered wheat from Montana. I just gat an email saying that we have confirmed late blight here in Massachusetts. I am going to treat this time. The seeds you sent have produced the most glorious crop of tomatoes ever and I can’t bear to lose them.
July 21, 2010 at 7:47 am
I’m curious about the wheat fungus, too. I just bought 300 lbs. of local wheat and will be devastated if we can’t actually use it!
July 21, 2010 at 8:06 am
another year with tomato problems?? This is bad. I haven’t seen ANY sign so far. I did notice that the guy down the road planted his potatoes in the same spot AGAIN after getting blight last year. I notice some of the rows are dying now.
I’m not a huge turnip fan, my brother used to eat them raw alone and with dip, and I have to admit that I enjoy chips made of turnip. A lady posted a recipe for turnip using bacon in it and it sounded so good that I’m getting a couple to try and get my family to enjoy them. We’ll see how that goes.
The wheat fungus is spotty from what I hear, the montana wheat should be fine.
July 21, 2010 at 8:16 am
We had an exceptionally wet June here and they think that all that warm, rainy weather set up the fungus. I’m 99% sure that any wheat for human/animal consumption HAS to be tested for pathogens (like vomitoxin), so if you’re buying it from a commercial source, it has most likely been tested and should be fine. I didn’t want to worry you, just wanted to pass along the information I learned the hard way. Investigate BEFORE you buy the wheat.
So glad to hear your tomatoes are doing well. What are you planning on treating them with? So far, July has been hot and dry, so hopefully we won’t have blight like last year.
July 21, 2010 at 10:39 am
PS-
I hope I don’t seem like an agitator. I just learned the hard way to investigate before you buy or you’ll end up with 200 lbs of wheat in the trunk of your car that you’re afraid to eat, that you can’t feed to animals, that you can’t throw into the compost pile. Live and learn.
And like HP said, it’s a regional thing with problems here and there but not everywhere. I’m sure what you bought from Montana is fine.
July 21, 2010 at 11:47 am
Isn’t surprize the best part of gardening? You can never predict how your crops will do….even with the best of care our tomatoes just can set tomatoes when our temps have been in the 90′s for weeks. Bugs took the first cabbage so the new is under remay. For some ODD reason we are growing squash this year without any sign of bugs? We haven’t had a home grown zucchini or squash in years. I’m thinking we were so pokey getting them in that the bugs were all done. Well, it’s a theory!
People who aren’t gardeners just don’t understand that you really prefer your own canned beans to store. I never liked saurkraut until I made my own…wow, moved on to kimchi and other fermented goodies.
Glad we have a huge supply of wheat put by. Feel there will be more and more problems with our food supply. Most don’t know how much of our food is imported. Do applaud the labeling requirment for country of origin which we now have but still have to consider that other countries may or may not have the same standards for pesticide use. DEE
July 22, 2010 at 8:28 am
Kathy, you’re words about a crop failure being devastating hit quite close to home last night. We had a band of really strong storms come through CT and the hail was the largest I have ever witnessed, probably grape sized. And the wind was whipping through our property. The trees were bending like palm trees! Our first tomatoes are just ready for picking and thank goodness, everything is ok, as far as we can tell.
As soon as we could get outside, we worked on any plants that had blown over. Most are quite well staked and taped and my husband’s trellises saved the day. He made V shaped and arbor shaped trellises for the vines and those held up really well. Only a few tomato branches broke off and all of the other plants looked surprisingly well.
All I kept thinking was that if we had to totally rely on our garden, we are at the mercy of Mother Nature. This has been the best year in quite a few for us, but could have easily ended this early growing cycle. The next town over (only a couple of miles from us) may have had a tornado. Thankfully, there were no injuries.
It jsut reminds me how precarious growing food really is.
July 22, 2010 at 8:33 am
So, so true!!!
July 22, 2010 at 7:26 pm
Thanks for the insperation your blog gives us all. I spent the morning puting in a second round of plants to see if maybe I can get a little more put back for our family this winter. I hope someday to grow up to be just like you!!
July 22, 2010 at 8:14 pm
Oh no! A middle-aged soccer mom with a mini-van and visions of being Helen Nearing?
July 23, 2010 at 8:11 am
Ha, and a touch of Ermma Bombeck and Mother Teresa mixed in, perfect combo
July 23, 2010 at 12:14 pm
Hi Kathy! Haven’t seen you around LATOC lately, so thought I’d say hello here. Sounds like you are busy
as always! My son and I just moved from Oregon to Colorado a week ago, so we have been busy too! My container garden was reduced to twelve plants that could fit in the U-Haul. So much for my garden, lol, and now we are looking for a place to live. Kinda scary, but Boulder sure is gorgeous!
Keep well,
Kerry aka madison
August 1, 2010 at 2:45 pm
One thing we did when we were farming full time and absolutely dependant on growing our own was to can and freeze 2 years worth of everything that grew well that year. If it grew well again the next year we put up one year’s worth, if not, we still had enough to make it until the next harvest.
I am planning to go back to that system this year after going without cucumbers this last year. The children REALLY missed the 100 quarts of dill pickles they usually eat, and I missed all the relish and sweet pickles. Thankfully we had a good tomato crop! And as our green peppers didn’t grow well this year at all I am thankfull that we froze far too many last year!