Weekly Gardening Outlook

This will be a continuing series. Each Monday we will look ahead at the coming week in gardening for the Northwest Arkansas area.

     Wilting spaghetti squash vine


The heat and lack of rain continue to be the big story.  Cooler nights arrive this week.  With this drop in overnight temperatures will come increased garden production and harvest.  Be ready to eat or put up the produce.  Until then, keep things well-watered and think about learning to do a proper rain dance.

Spaghetti Squash / Squash Vine Borer Update:

We stopped by to check on the spaghetti squash vines and the pest insects have found them.  When we say found, we mean savaged.  Squash vine borer?  Check.  Squash bugs?  Check.  Bacterial wilt carrying cucumber beetles?  Striped AND Spotted.  Check.  Aphids?  Check.  We went on a squash bug, cucumber beetle, aphid, squash vine borer killing spree.  Our shorts, hands, arms, and even cheeks were splatted with insects guts.  We must have killed over 150 squash bugs alone and our thumbs and forefingers are still stained yellow from their innards.  It was bad.  So bad that we are stepping up to pyrethrin spray.  Pyrethrin is a natural compound extracted from chrysanthemums and is approved for use in organic gardens.  Beware that pyrethrum and permethrin are not approved for organic gardens.  We will be mixing neem oil and pyrethrin into one spray.  The pyrethrin provides immediate kill and the neem provides some residual protection.  This can be bought as a premix under the trade name NeemII.  We will keep you updated.

Things to be on the lookout for:

     Adult squash vine borer (SVB) moth

Apparently these are still active.  This picture was taken late last week and the spaghetti squash vines are showing signs of SVB activity.  Sigh...

     Squash bug nymphs on spaghetti squash vine

     Frass (aka bug poop) on a watermelon

This is a sure sign of insect activity.  If found, take a closer look.  Hint:  Look above the deposits.  See the leaffooted bugs?

     Leaffooted bug nymph on a pepper plant

     Spotted cucumber beetle on a spaghetti squash vine

     Two striped cucumber beetles breeding

     Aphids and ants on a spaghetti squash vine

If your plants are inexplicably covered in ants, take a closer look.  Some ants, such as these odoriferous house ants (aka sugar ants), will "farm" aphids.  Aphids suck juices from your plants and produce a sugary substance called honeydew from their anuses.  The ants eat this and in exchange, protect the aphids.  Aphids are not very mobile and a sharp stream of water will blast them off of the plants and out of your hair.

Weather outlook:
-Mid 80s to low 90s all week, with a very slight chance of rain
-Ten day forecast

What's being harvested:
-Peppers

-Chard 

-Tomatoes
-Cucumbers
-Celeriac leaves, basil, mint, and other herbs

-Apples

Reaping the Harvest (A Backyard Omelet)

Combine 3 eggs fresh from the nest, a homegrown onion from the pantry, a Roma tomato fresh off the vine, and a jalapeño pepper straight from the bush.  Season with salt and pepper.  Cook over medium heat in a cast iron skillet with a touch of olive oil.  Saturday morning breakfast!  

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A Tale of Two Gardens (Watermelons)

     A customer's watermelon patch a couple of weeks ago

     Our watermelon patch a couple of weeks ago

Our customer's watermelons are going gangbusters, producing a steady stream of 8" personal sized melons.  In our garden, we got an initial flush of melons and then some kind of fungal infection moved in.  We have not been able to determine what it is, but it is not powdery mildew, downy mildew, or gummy stem blight.  We started treating with Serenade and the vines have since started to make a recovery.

     Stunted melon (4-5" across) that predated the fungus

     New leaf growth and baby melons

Plum Jelly

The sand plum tree in our front yard is loaded with plums.  This is a native tree and the plums don't have a thick flesh like the commercial plums at the store.  They have a large pit surrounded by about 1/4" of flesh.  While not ideal for fresh eating, they are great for making jelly.  If you have a yard, give thought to planting a fruit tree.  They look good in the landscape and provide a fresh, wholesome crop for you and your family.

All of the items needed for jelly-making can be purchased at WalMart and probably at your local grocery store.  Once you have the basic concept of jelly-making, you can make jelly out of anything.  There are recipes for mint jelly, jalapeño jelly, elderberry jelly, dandelion jelly, etc.  Give it a shot!

Harvesting:

When ripe, plums pull from the tree with little effort.  We have found that shaking the tree drops all mature fruit allowing us to just pick it up off of the ground.  This would probably damage larger plums with more flesh on them, but it saves a lot of time and effort with the smaller fruits of a sand plum tree.






Making Jelly:

Before we get started, this post is intended to give the reader a basic understanding of how jelly is made.  It is not intended to be a direct recipe or instruction manual.  We recommend purchasing a good book on food preservation and following it.  The Ball blue book is the gold standard and is cheap at twice the price.

HINT: To really hit the easy button on your first attempt, skip the fruit cooking, and use store bought juice. Frozen grape or apple juice concentrate works well. Just dilute to taste.

Items needed:

Large pot
Large bowl
Mesh strainer
Cheese cloth
Sugar
Pectin (optional)
Chickens (optional, but recommended)

Rinse plums thoroughly under cold water.  Barely cover fruit with water and bring to a boil.

Reduce heat to low and simmer until soft (~15 minutes).

For crystal clear jelly, do not mash or squeeze the pulp as that will result in cloudy jelly.  We want as much jelly as possible and aren't turned off by a cloudy appearance, so we mash the fruit while boiling to release as much juice as possible.

Strain the pulp through a mesh strainer to remove 99% of the pulp.

Restrain it through four layers of fine cheesecloth to remove the rest.

After it has cooled, we let our chickens have a go at the pulp.

Put the juice into a pot that is at least three times too large for the amount of juice.  It will foam a lot and you don't want it overflowing.  Measure juice volume and then stir in one cup of sugar for every cup of juice.

Before we go any further, we need to understand why jelly becomes jelly.  Many fruits, plums included, contain a large amount of pectin.  When the sugar and pectin are heated to a certain point, they react together and form a gel.  Knowing this, we boil the fruit juice and sugar mixture hard while stirring until it passes the jellying test (~10 minutes).

To conduct the jellying test, dip a cool spoon into the jelly.  Remove the spoon and hold it sideways.  If the mixture drips off it isn't ready yet.  If it congeals, it's ready to can.  Sometimes fruits do not have enough pectin in them to create firm jelly.  If it fails the jellying test after 20 minutes, add commercial pectin per the label.








Canning the Jelly:

Items needed:

Pot large enough to immerse jars
Canning lids, jars, and rings
Jar grabber
Canning funnel (optional)
Lid magnet (optional)

Sterilize jars and canning funnel by boiling them in water for 10 minutes.  Boil new canning lids for 5 minutes to soften their gasket material.  Leave them in the hot water until ready to use.  Skim foam off the top of the jelly and discard.  Fill hot jars with hot jelly, leaving a 1" head space.  Screw hot lids in place and process in a boiling water bath as directed by your canning manual.

Remove jars from canner with the jar grabber and allow them to cool and set up over night.  Store at room temperature until opened, then refrigerate.

Voila!  Homemade jelly!

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Weekly Gardening Outlook

This will be a continuing series. Each Monday we will look ahead at the coming week in gardening for the Northwest Arkansas area.

It has been so hot and dry that even the sun loving cucumbers are moving into the shade!  Amazingly, they were able to span the two foot gap between the top of our eight foot tall trellis and the branch of a neighboring silver maple.  We will leave them alone for now as they aren't hurting anything.

Spaghetti Squash / Squash Vine Borer Update:

The vines grew about a foot in the last week.  They are thriving in this hot weather.  The package says they take 100 days from seed to harvest.  We are giving them about 107 days unless we have an early frost.  Actual days to maturity is variable depending on growing conditions (temperature, sun exposure, moisture, etc.).  We feel good about getting a harvest from these late planted vines.  We'll continue to keep you updated.

Things to be on the lookout for:

Leafhoppers come in a variety of colors and are usually very brightly colored as seen here on a sweet potato vine.  Adults are about 3/8" long and jump away with a strong, quick motion when disturbed.  They suck juice from leaves and can cause leaf spots and wilting.  Of more concern is their ability to transmit viral diseases.  We've always had a few around the garden without a problem, but they can build up to point where they need to be treated for.  If they do, handpicking or vacuuming is difficult due to their quickness.  Use insecticidal soap or diatomaceous earth, but as always treat late in the day and do not get it on flowers to avoid killing bees. 

Weather outlook:
-Low 90s all week, with a very slight chance of rain
-Ten day forecast

What's being harvested:
-Peppers

-Watermelons

-Chard 

-Tomatoes
-Cucumbers
-Celeriac leaves, basil, mint, and other herbs

Saving Seeds (Spring Radishes)

Saving seeds is simple for some plants and somewhat complex for others.  In this post, we focus on spring radish seeds which are quite simple to save.  We will look at more complex seed-saving processes for other crops in future posts.

Why save seeds?  Saving seeds is free to do and quite easy for most plants.  Not doing it is throwing money out the window.  More importantly, saving seeds allows you to select the best of the best plants each and every year.  Over the years, this will develop a genetic line that is adapted to your area and it's specific growing conditions.  Certain traits can be selected, such as: early production, disease resitance, pest resistance, flavor, color, texture, etc.  Whatever traits you most cherish can be enhanced through seed saving.

Some quick terminology: 

Variety - plants of the same species, but with different traits.

Open pollinated plants - produce offspring that are identical to the parents.

Hybrids - a cross of two different varieties.  Hybrid offspring will not be identical to the parents.

Cross pollination - pollen from one plant fertilizing another.

Saving Spring Radish Seeds:

Start with one open pollinated variety.  It is very important to only have one variety flowering at any one time to avoid cross pollination between varieties resulting in hybrid seeds.  We prefer Pink Beauty for it's thin skin and mild flavor.  Plant them in the early spring 4 to 6 weeks before the last frost (mid-March in Northwest Arkansas).

Allow 5 to 10 of the best radishes to go to seed.  They will send up a tall, central stalk with pale flowers.  Butterflies LOVE these flowers.

The flowers will form green seed pods.  Leave the plants in place until these pods have turned brown and dried completely.

Once they have dried, pull the plant and pluck off the seed pods.

With your fingers, split these pods to remove the small, brown seeds.

Label and store them in a cool, dry place until next year.

Further Reading:

Here's an excellent, free resource for saving seeds of the most popular crops.

Seed Savers Exchange's forums are a great place to get ideas and ask questions.

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