Thursday, September 16, 2010

Life's a garden...dig it!

We built a little raised bed garden last year for this years growing season. This is our first garden but our families have had gardens in the past so it's something we are used to. I wanted the kids to understand where the vegetables they refuse to eat come from. Last year we did a few maters and jalapenos...
...in containers and that worked fairly well, but there is only so much you can do. I got some free landscape blocks from my sister-in-law and built this little beauty right here. My yard has no topsoil. The lawn grows right on the clay. Some things grow well in clay but for a garden that I'm working by hand I wanted a little better soil. I traded in some scrap I'd been scrounging for the dirt money and all in all it's been almost free. I started from seeds they only cost me (literally) a few bucks. The only real outlay in cash was for the fence. You see I have neighbors just past the garden and if I missed or had a ricochet they would be upset. So rather than shoot the rabbits, I put up a fence.

It worked pretty good, too. The only critters I had to invade the garden were of the bacterial size. You see my corn turned to Huitlocoche. In Mexico, Huitlocoche is a delicacy. In my backyard it is mold, and nasty, and I pulled it all up. It's called corn smut. You can read all about it but it makes me gag thinking about it.
I did photograph it, however. The kernels get enlarged and turn grey. They fry the stuff up and eat it on tortillas. Sort of like mushrooms. Yeah....anyway I planted from tall to short to maximize the sun exposure which was not a bad deal. It goes corn, maters, five kinds of hot peppers, bell peppers, carrots, and onions. I planted some cilantro in a pot out there but it went to seed and I couldn't save it after that. The big problem I had was trying to cram too much into that little space. It took forever to get any yield. The other issue is that nice topsoil sitting on the clay. The carrots pretty much stopped when they hit that concrete-like clay. It was a nice experience and I didn't even mind all the weeding. I am going to either expand this one or build a second one for next year. I need to do a little reading on soil types and what have you. It was a good deal and even though the kids wouldn't eat anything I think they learned a little bit.

The wife wanted to do some canning this year and got all geared up. I had a nice bunch of jalapenos come in all at the same time so I decided to pickle some carrots, onions, and jalapenos which I did. Zanahorias en Escabeche. This gave us our first foray into canning as well. I have not tried the carrots yet as I want to let them steep a bit. My Mom saved our butts on the canning. We had no clue and were missing part of the gear. She stopped by with the missing pieces, her expertise, and moral support. Thanks Mom. That too will make next year go better.
We chose some Burpee mixed color carrots when we (my son) picked out seeds. They all are pretty much just carrots except for the white ones. They don't have much flavor and are a bit woody. The yellow and orange ones taste great and the purple ones look cool. The odd thing is, the purple is only on the surface. It pretty much comes off when you scrub the dirt off. They are just orange on the inside and taste like...well, they taste like carrots. They seem to grow bigger then the rest too. I got some monsters.
I've got a million maters that are still coming in. Not real big but tasty. The onions are the same deal. I got alot of em but they are all small. The bell peppers are good and I've got five kinds of hot peppers. I'm not sure what I'm going to do with all the peppers. I'll eat the jalapenos and the Hungarian wax peppers but I've got little use for large hot cherry and cayenne. Anyway, that's the garden post. I had a nice time with the kids doing it and look forward to next years crop. I'll probably get into some viney stuff next year. We'll see.

3 comments:

tvi said...

HI SURLY, I'VE NEVER BEEN ABLE TO GROW CARROTS. I'VE TRIED FOR YEARS. TRY PULLING THE HOT PEPPER PLANTS WHOLE AND HANG THEM UPSIDE DOWN FOR AWHILE UNTIL THEY DRY. GRIND THEM UP AND YOU'LL HAVE THE PEPPER FLAKES AT PIZZA HUT. MIGHTY TASTY!

TVI

Grumpyunk said...

Looks great!! Much better than my garden. No rain here in over 2 months.

Surly said...

Beginners luck maybe. The soil I bought was an awesome loamy mix with tons of manure in it. I think that helped. I might try drying the cayennes. I don't really have any other plans for them.