Think spring...

 With the weather still warm during the days it's hard to think of autumn coming let alone doing a fast-foward to spring.  If you are a gardener who likes to have the spring bulbs showing up when the snow melts, then now is the time to think spring.  Most of your bulbs or spring flowering perennials need to go in the ground in the fall or be lifted and divided at this time.  I pulled up my iris at the beginning of August to relocate them and eliminate the rhizomes that had iris borers in them.  I let them dry a bit and am ready to find a new spot for them in spring.  Remember when it comes to iris, shallow is best.  You should be able to see the rhizomes laying right at the soil surface.  If you plant them too deep you may be disappointed by the lack of flowers. 

  If this is the case, and you don't want to move or divide them, simply take a garden fork and slide it under the plant to raise them.  Add some soil underneath and then gently water them, washing the excess soil off the top as you go to expose the rhizomes.  If the center of your iris is a tangle of rhizomes with no foliage, it is time to divide them.  

Spring flowering perennials are best divided now.  My primrose bloomed beautifully this year until we removed a tree in the front of our house.  One clump was not happy with the extra sun it was getting and I had to move it then.  When that happens there is lots of TLC that goes into making sure these plants make it.  I was on constant water watch to make sure I did not lose this clump.  It is always best to move plants when they are putting on very little growth and not in bloom.

The spring flower bulbs are now starting to make their way into the stores.  Ordering from catalogs or on-line may still be possible but might be limited, whereas getting out to the store to purchase bulbs from the store is optimum earlier in the fall.  If the weather holds out with the warmer temperatures, it is best to wait for cooler days and nights, say mid to late October to start putting them in.  Picking up bulbs now just means storing them in a consistently cool, dry location until planting time.

 Selecting bulbs is the fun part.  Keep in mind bloom times for early, mid, and late spring.  The grape hyacinths that are in the photo above are different then most spring bulbs in that you will find their foliage at this time of the year also.  The are great indicators for the rest of your spring bulbs if you plant a few with your tulips or daffodils.  Speaking of tulips and daffodils, if you know where those groups are that need moving and have them marked, it is a good time to dig them up and separate them.  
Smaller bulbs will not bloom the first year, but may grow into a 

bulb worth keeping in the future.  Use bone meal or bulb fertilizer when planting to give them the extra boost they need when putting down new roots.
The blue squills in this photo started out as 20 bulbs and I now have them in several areas of my yard.  They are cute and small and they reproduce at a good pace, not overwhelmingly prolific.  They are small enough to have in areas where you have annuals or great for under a low ground cover to pop out between the leaves.  I just love the blue color that stands out even in the shadier parts of my yard.


Know your enemies.  If rabbits are prolific in your yard, tulips will be a buffet for them.  All parts of the bulb are edible, which is why during war food shortages, the Dutch were eating them.  Daffodils are great if you have the rabbit and deer issues as all parts are toxic and they won't touch them.  There are so many new varieties with different colors adding to the familiar yellows. Some of the new daffodils are multiple branched giving them a little different look.  Squirrels are also curious on lookers when you are planting bulbs.  If you have plenty in your neck of the woods, it is best to put down some deterrent to keep them from getting dug up.  You can use sprays and treat the bulbs before planting.  Another way to stop squirrels is to add some stone chips over the top of each bulb before covering them with dirt.  They may dig down for either of these but the bulb tends to stay where you put it.  You can also cover the area with chicken wire or hardware cloth to keep them from digging at all.  This does not have to stay down very long. Usually once the dirt settles they have lost interest in the planting bed.  


Remember that fall is also the time to get in your garlic.  Pick up some bulbs at the farm market now for planting later.  I will just refer you back to my previous blog on garlic instead of going into detail here.


Do a little research and then get out to the garden center to get your bulbs.  Look for good quality bulbs that are not damaged or have mold on them.  They should be firm and rounded.  Shriveled bulbs are not going to be a good choice.  When it comes to bulbs, size does matter.  Bigger bulbs (relative to their species) means bigger flowers.  Have fun and join those who know that sometimes patience is a virtue, especially when it pays off with the first flowers of spring.

The tomato harvest!

When I snapped this picture of my tomatoes a few weeks ago, I was still eagerly awaiting the first red tomato for the first official BLT of summer.  Say what you want about bacon, summer is the time of year when we eat it most often and it tasted soooo good!
The first tomatoes to ripen were the Sungold cherry tomatoes.  The plant is now over 6' tall and greets the mailman each day.  It continues to put on height and produces clusters of golden-orange tomatoes that are so sweet.  I take a quart bowl of them to work and set them on the corner of my desk.
My coworkers were a bit puzzled by their color at first, but by the end of the day the tomato bowl was empty and they were looking for more.  I have another ready for the ride in tomorrow for a Friday treat.  They are almost as sweet as candy but so much better for you.

Patience may be a virtue, but trying something new is even better.  Inspired by a facebook posting of one of my old high-school friends, I plucked a couple large green tomatoes off the vine and made fried green tomatoes.  I followed her directions, but put them through a process I use for eggplant first.  After slicing the fruit, lay it on a cooling rack and sprinkle with Kosher flake salt, flip and salt the other side.  Let is set for about half an hour over the sink to drip out the excess water.  The removal of the moisture helps produce a crispier end product after frying or oven browning.  I dredged them in a bit of flour, salt and pepper and then browned them on my griddle with a bit of butter and canola oil.  After all these years of watching the movie and wondering what they taste like, I now know that although they were good, I prefer to have my zuchinni as my fried vegetable.

The next variety to ripen was the Roma tomatoes.  Although they are a paste tomato and not as juicy as the Celebrity variety, the bacon had been in the frig for a week and was calling my name.  The Romas also make a great addition to salsa and sauces as they are very meaty and keep the consistency not as watery.  They were not a disappointment to have for a BLT.  As most home gardeners know, a home-grown tomato's flavor far out shines any store bought one.  I am looking forward to tonight's BLT featuring a Celebrity as the crowning glory.  I only wish the heat hadn't caused the whole lettuce crop to bolt and the next crop isn't even close.

Last week the real harvest finally started. Our cooler weather of early summer held things back a bit.  All our rain was followed by so much heat that the plants really stretched out and loaded on the fruit.  The only addition I made to my tomato bed was compost and grass clippings.  It seems to be what they needed.  All three varieties are ripening in fair amounts.  I have processed a full pail and then some for chili and spaghetti sauce.  I had my eye on canning salsa, but decided some immediate gratification was in order.

I was also processing two gallon pails of beans a few nights ago, so blanching the tomatoes to remove the skins was just one more thing to quickly do.  I cut up the whole pail of red tomatoes and put them in the frig until the next morning.  We had a 90 degree day in the forecast, so I put the cut up tomatoes into a slow cooker on low for the day.  A couple minutes with the immersion blender (yes, I do have a lot of kitchen toys) and the addition of some tomato paste and I had my base.  I ladled half of it out for the sauce and added the necessary ingredients to each half to make two meals in one night.  Spaghetti sauce is always better the second day, so that went into the frig for Wednesday night's supper.  Sitting in the frig did what a slow simmer would do on a regular day and that was to blend all the flavors into the sauce. 

One more summer time favorite awaits me and that will require a trip to the store for some fresh mozzarella cheese.  The basil is waiting to be married to some tomatoes, cheese and balsamic vinegar for a fresh salad.  Caprese  salad is a new summer love, but I do believe it is here to stay.  Google a recipe for yourself and give it a try if you have never tasted this before.  Nothing ventured, nothing gained.
I have to wait for my daughter to get home to make supper, so this is a great opportunity to walk up to the store for a few ingredients.  Enjoy your summer time favorites and share them with a friend.


P.S.  KEEP YOUR TOMATOES OUT OF THE FRIG AND ON THE COUNTER.  THE TASTE WILL BE BETTER AND THEY WILL HOLD FOR DAYS LIKE THIS.  THEY KEEP RIPENING SO EVEN GREEN ONES MAY HAVE A CHANCE IF THEY DROP OFF THE VINE TOO EARLY.

Edible flowers

Many people are surprised when I serve up a salad or other cold dish in the summer garnished with nasturtium blooms.  When they are convinced to eat the bloom instead of setting it aside they are delighted by the peppery burst of flavor in their mouth.

I like growing nasturtiums as they come in many shade of colors as well as variegated leaves.  Some of the varieties mound while others climb or cascade.  I can start them a few weeks ahead of plant date indoors (peat pots are the best but they do ok in cell packs).  They can be started directly in the ground but I like to know where my plants are when I start digging around my beds in spring.  The most important thing to do when seeding nasturtiums is to soak the seed for 24 hours before transplanting into your mix.

Besides using the blooms, nasturtiums also form a peppery little seed pod that if harvested when green can be used as a substitute to capers.  There are many recipes on line for pickling them so I will not duplicate their effort.

You can see the seed inside the fading bloom.  Harvest the green seed pods before they yellow and preserve them for use as capers.

Besides nasturtiums there are other uses of flowers that I have tried.  I have picked violets in the spring time and painted them with thin egg whites and tossed them in fine sugar for candied violets to put on cupcakes.  Pansy flowers will work just as well.  Store in the refrigerator if you make them ahead for best quality.

I have also batter-fried day lily blossoms when they were still green and closed.  I thought they tasted very much like okra.  Since I am not an okra fan, I have only done this once and have just enjoyed the blooms on the plants since.

I wished I would have tried the cream cheese filled squash blossoms, which are also dipped and fried had I known that the many blooms I had before our heat wave were just going to fall off with no fruit to claim later.

Flowers can add a bit of novelty to otherwise basic dishes.  I plan on doing a little more research this winter to see what other blooms I can add to the edible menu.  

Just the other day, my sister told me that she picked up flowers for her daughter to give to twin friends for their birthday.  When she got her daughter from home to take to the party she had pick a nasturtium for each girl to give to them also.  When she saw the store bought blooms she asked her mom, "What should I do with these? Eat them?"  Where do kids get those crazy ideas from?

Why do people garden?

I have been getting on the bike and riding into work again now that our hottest weather is over.  As I rode through the neighborhoods I have chosen as my route to and from work, I admire the work that different people have put into their yards.  I started thinking about all the reason why people garden.  
As satisfying as I find my hobby, I also know it is a lot of work.  There are people who don't do any gardening because of that reason.  During my ride in I came up with various reasons why we find ourselves outside digging in the dirt.


I enjoy being outside and gardening takes me out of doors to work and to enjoy the work I have done.  I have a little bit of heaven right out my door where I can go to sip my coffee, read a book, watch the birds, or take a nap.  I don't have to drive anywhere or share that space with people I may not enjoy being around.  I can visit over the fence or across the table with my neighbors or host a party which brings a crowd into our yard, if our extended families are a part of that.  We garden for ourselves and we garden for others to enjoy with us.

Another reason for my obsession is to watch the changing of the seasons and to enjoy wildlife.  These two pictures show the same garden just a month apart this spring, but show that the color and texture vary greatly depending on what part of the year we are in.  Today I look out my window and see another garden different from these two.  I can tell what month it is by the lilacs and forsythia blooms along the hedge row.  I have watched birds sing their territorial songs, nest, and move on.  I hear the cranes, geese, herons, and other birds migrate overhead in spring and fall.  At night and in the dead of winter, the great horned and screech owls call out from the wooded park next door.  Hawks soar overhead and sometimes make a meal of something smaller at my backyard feeder.  I have stood in the same spot where I took this picture and have watched deer cross our city street and walk down the neighbor's lawns.  Fox have stood and watched me watching them on more than one morning before work.  Coyotes have peered at us through the bushes in the dark of night and the light of day.  Our first spring we had a pheasant male who squawked around for over a month before moving on to find better mating territory.  This all in the middle of an urban area.  It wouldn't be quite so ideal if it wasn't for the public green spaces and the efforts of all the private gardeners that surround us.

Gardeners don't just do it for themselves.  If you've ever watched someone spend a spring day planting until they couldn't stand straight, the first thing most gardeners do is take their tired bodies out of their yard and look in.  We care about how it looks to those passing by.  How it looks from my front door comes second to how it looks walking by.  The efforts of all those people along my bike route are what take me on a path that winds through a variety of streets and schools rather than taking the straightest route down a busy, noisy street.  I savor the moments of quiet and beauty as I pedal along.  A smiling face and a cheerful "Good morning" are the icing on the cake.  Gardening is a community activity that shows you care about the other people you share your part of the globe with.  I know my grandmother enjoyed her flowers, but she also enjoyed the pleasure that it brought to others who looked into her backyard with her.

One of the last, but certainly not least, reason people garden is to have fresh foods to eat that are readily available and economical to produce.  Some do it on a larger scale where others can come in and pick or buy from their crops.  One of my fondest memories of "getting out of town" involved my first trip to Door County to pick cherries with my family.  We didn't go many places and taking a car trip to pick one of my favorite fruits ranks high on my list.  Even as a pre-teenager, gardening was in my blood.


I still look back at these pictures and remember the day we spent in the cherry orchard.  I know now that most people go to Door County to relax and shop, but to me that trip to the cherry orchard to "pick our own" was an exotic destination.  Even all the hours pitting and canning the cherries the next day did not diminish the experience for me.  It was great fun being with my mom and all the rest for the day of picking and picnicking.  





The first large garden we ever had was the year my dad was diagnosed with cancer.  He thought the back pain he got was from roto-tilling the large plot our elderly neighbors were letting us use that summer.  It was my first experience with planting potatoes and corn.  We never had the rows of vegetables to tend in our own small yard so this was a project I enjoyed doing as a family.  It got to be more of a burden as summer wore on and doctor visits put more of the gardening onto us kids, but it didn't turn me off to gardening.  I still remember digging those first potatoes out of the ground.  It was just amazing that a little cut up potato could do all that!  Mom shared with us memories of growing up on the farm as we weeded and picked in the garden that summer.  I don't think I would have learned nearly as much about my grandparents and mother as I did that summer over rows of beans and Swiss chard. (By the way, there is such a thing as too much Swiss chard.)


After we lost Dad, we put in another plot behind my sister's house.  The former owners had a large plot turned and she had no interest in using it.  We put in the seeds and then spent the summer making the short bike ride down to take care of the plants.  There was something wonderful about watching the plants and fruits come from those tiny seeds.  We dealt with the disappointment of losing some things to the wild creatures that lived in the nearby woods, but we still had plenty left and some to share.  Mom was working full-time now, so the gardening was less memorable for lack of the company and her available time.  Even though my sister still lived in the house, we never used the garden to the large extent that we did that first year.

I still put in my own vegetables each year after moving out.  My husband and I put a vegetable garden in half of an elderly neighbor's plot in our first apartment together while I finished off earning my degree. Not only did we have plenty of produce on a budget, but we talked over plants with the widower who needed company more than vegetables.  We also learned that five hills of zuchinni are four too many for a young couple.  Our first apartment in the city gave us less garden space but still a place to grow a few tomatoes and other vegetables as well as a few flowers that I got with my employee discount from the garden center I worked at.  Our third apartment attracted me not only because it was our first apartment on the lower level, (I had been hauling car seats and diaper bags up to a second floor for two years.) but it also had a nice wide, empty garden border that let me vegetable garden on an even larger scale.  There were even two apple trees in the back yard that not only gave fruit but were the right distance apart for a large hammock and swing. The landlord also let me dig up some more lawn to put in a perennial border along the fence when he saw that I was not the kind of tenant to do things half way.  Even after we moved out, he kept up the perennial garden because it made that duplex in his row of buildings, look much more distinctive over the others.  I had even put in a maple tree before we moved where our compost bin stood knowing that the apple trees were on their way out.  The tree is now providing shade for two different families that rent that space now.

We moved out of the apartments and finally had a space that didn't require someone else's permission to plant.  It has evolved and changed over the years.  The swimming pool that came with the house was used and loved until it needed more help than we wanted to give it.  I finally got my raised vegetable beds in the coveted, sunny part of the yard.  My husband even left an extra tier open for addition of a third board when I am ready to bend a little less.  You can see in this photo my neighbor's large vegetable plot and fruit trees in the background.  We exchange ideas and vegetables over the fence.  The girls remember how in early summer, he would throw strawberries up out of the patch and into the pool while they were swimming.  


Gardening is not just about the plants.  It is about the community that it builds.  It gives people a place to relax and share with each other.  Some people garden and put up walls and hedges to close others out.  Some open up their yards to let others in.  It is a chance to learn from others and share what you have learned along the way.  Like my retired neighbor says when he gets an answer to a question he asks me, "My pa always said, 'You can never tell who you'll learn something from.' "

Onions

I start my onion plants from seed in February under lights.  They are planted in flats or cell packs with multiple seeds per cell. Cut the plants back to 3" whenever they get up to 6" high. I harden them off starting in mid to late March by placing them outdoors for short periods on "warmer" days, slowly lengthening the time out until they are out day and night.You may find onion plants at your local garden center in the early part of the season for planting seed onions without starting them yourself.  I plant them in mid April on 3" centers in a grid pattern.  This makes it easy so when the onions reach this size you can remove every other one to use as green onions.  They are just small seedlings about 1/8" in diameter but extremely hardy.  I got a little snow and hail on my seedlings this year.  I do use a light weight row cover to protect them a little while they are setting root.  You can also use onion sets to start a crop in April.  push them into loosened soil with just the very tip sticking out.  The top is the pointed end of the onion set.  If you want to harvest some as green onions you need to dig them in 3-4" into the soil.  It is important to keep track of which sets are which as the deeper planted ones will not bulb out as well as the shallow ones, and the shallow ones will not have that nice white bulb and blanched stem as the deep ones will for green onions.  The picture above is from mid June when I thinned out the onions to leave them with a 6" spacing for the rest of the summer.  You can see that I pulled every other plant out and staggered the rows.  They are starting to bulb out at this point and not really wonderful for green onions anymore.  I have about 100 bulbs still left in the ground in this picture so you can see it doesn't take a lot of space to grow them.  Keep them weeded and watered. Onions need consistent moisture but do not like to have wet feet for long periods.  The bulbs will rot if in this condition.

 Onion plants in mid August (above) have about 50% of the tops have fallen over on their own.  At this point you should push the rest of the tops over (see below) and let them continue to die back until the tops are all brown.  At this point you will "lift" the onions out of the soil, remove most of the top by cutting it off and most of the roots the same way.  Just do not damage the onion bulb when doing this.

Onions need to cure so they store well.  Set your onions out in a single layer, planting trays work well for this, on sunny days.  Bring them in at night to a sheltered area to keep them from getting wet or dewy.  The idea is to dry them and moisture will set back this process and cause a shortened shelf life.  If done right, you can be eating your own home grown onions well into spring.

The type of onion does matter.  Short day onions are for winter season in southern areas or other parts of the world with mild winters.  Long day onions are for our Midwestern summers.  Red and white onions tend to not store as long as yellow onions (such as Sweet Spanish or Walla Walla) but are nice to use fresh and for some cold storage period into winter.  Do not store onions and apples in the same area unless you like your apples to have an onion flavor.  Yellow onions store quite well in a basement where it is cool and dark to help prevent premature sprouting.  Once they start sprouting, it is best to cut them up and freeze them for use as the middles of the onions are lost if left to sprout.  I just hang mine from a nail in the basement in a mesh bag.

If you like to use green onions in your cooking, you can start bunching onions from seed directly in the garden.  Early spring works for this.  I was a little late getting mine in the soil in June so I will have a later fall crop rather than a summer crop.

The onions pictured here look bigger than they are as they are just about 1/4" now or less.  I will not worry about thinning these but will pull the larger ones as I want to use them.  If I end up with onions more than I can use fresh,  I can wash and slice them into smaller pieces and dehydrate them.  They work great in cooking and retain a nice green color for the dishes I use them in.
Onions are a fairly carefree crop.  Keep them weeded and water during dry periods.  There are some insect and disease problems but they are minimal. Try different varieties and see what your favorites are.

Sitting in the Garden

Whatever it is you do in your garden always remember that it isn't always about work.  Take time for yourself and others to enjoy the space that you have created.  Create spaces that encourage you to do that.

Peppers

Chili Peppers

Peppers (also known as Capsicum if you are reading some cookbooks) have been an easy crop for me ever since I starting sticking them in the ground.  Even in soil that has seen tomatoes go brown and curl up, the peppers have managed to thrive.  I have a neighbor just over a back fence with a large garden that grows wonderful tomatoes but can't grow a pepper to save his life.  Even plants that I have shared with him, curl up and produces hard, deformed, miniature models of green peppers.  His wife loves peppers, so when mine start coming in, some of my peppers make it over the fence in exchange for the space loving veggies like zucchinni which he has no trouble growing in his ample garden space.

I have been starting my own peppers for many years from seed.  I give them a six week head start indoors before moving them out to the garden the first week of June.  It is best to wait for the warmer nights before setting plants in the ground.  You can grow or buy your peppers early to make sure you get the varieties you want, just put them indoors or undercover at night.  

This year I chose five peppers to grow.  Four are pictured above.  In addition to the Big Bertha, Big Red, Ancho and chili peppers, I also have jalepeno peppers.  The first two are mild, green peppers and the last three are various levels of hot.  Big Bertha and Big Red are both green to start but will age to a red pepper if left on the plant long enough.  Red peppers tend to be sweeter and are a beautiful addition to your cooking.  It is the extra time on the plant that makes red, yellow, and orange peppers more expensive at the market.  All three start out as some type of green pepper but different varieties need to be planted if you want the different colors.

Ancho chili peppers are mild in their heat intensity.  The seed catalog recommended them for making chili rellenos as they are not overpowering and are large enough to stuff with cheese.  I have used them diced in recipes and they have been a good pepper for adding a little heat to a dish.  The jalepenos are a hotter pepper.  Not the hottest but definitely use care when cutting and seeding these.  If your skin is sensitive or even average, a pair of plastic gloves is in order.   Make sure you do not touch your face or skin with the gloves while handing the peppers.  Contrary to popular belief, it is the white membrane inside the pepper, not the seeds that holds the most of the heat.  The heat comes from a compound called capsicum.  Milk is a good neutralizer for capsicum, both oral and dermal.  The hottest pepper in my garden is the chilies.  I grew these for ornamental reasons but also am interested in making my own chili powder.  I've heard many theories about what affects the heat in peppers from year to year (the hot peppers all have a range that they will fall into), but the most recent study has found that wind exposure will boost up the heat in peppers more so than water amounts or temperature.

Peppers, tomatoes and potatoes are in the same family and should be rotated with other crops to minimize disease in your vegetable plots.  It is recommended that you put these crops in the same soil only once every three years.  Depending on your space, you will have to decide if you can do it and how.

Those last days before the first frost are always a time of anticipation for me and how many peppers can I really bring to maturity at the end.  It is recommended that you remove the smallest peppers near the end of summer and allow the rest to grow to size, the theory being that the effort the plant makes will be going into these last, largest peppers.  I just can't do it!  

About eight years ago I was working in the garden and making supper on the grill when it hit me what to do with those last peppers.  I brought a bucket of water right down to the garden and picked every last, small pepper that was left on the plants, washed them, and put them right on the grill to blister and brown into a wonderfully roasted pepper.  I removed the stems and seeds and cut up the green peppers.  I just removed the stems on the hot peppers before putting all of them in my food dehydrator (in the garage, this was a pretty fragrant batch) until they were completely dried.  The pieces of green pepper went in a jar on the shelf for sprinkling in dishes for that a smokey, peppery flavor.  The jalepenos without their stems, went into my food processor and were ground into a somewhat course powder.  BE CAREFUL HANDLING HOT PEPPER POWDERS!  I have had rave reviews from friends and families about the uses of this powder in cooking anything that begs for some heat with that side light of smokey flavor.  It can be stored right in the cupboard and takes up very little space.  A food dehydrator is great for people who don't have all the freezer or cupboard space.  Go in half and half with a friend if you don't think you will use it enough to justify buying one for yourself.

Of course, eating fresh peppers are one of the best ways to enjoy them.  It always amazed my that my daughter who is a bit more picky in her eating has always enjoyed peppers.  I think taking fresh ingredients out of the garden is one of the best ways to teach kids to try new foods.  It doesn't work for everything, but it sure helps when they know where it comes from.

Big Bertha, Big Red, Ancho, Jalepeno, Chili

Soybeans (aka edamame)

Soybeans are relatively new to the home gardener's planting list.  McDonald's made them more popular with their Asian salads as one of the toppings.  My first exposure to them was several Christmas' ago.  My sister had a foreign exchange student from Japan.  Coming from a large family means we do not have a sit-down dinner but a potluck.  Our Japanese visitor brought some things that her mother had sent from home to share.  Wasabi peas was one (the beer drinkers enjoyed those) and edamame was the other.  They looked like hairy pea pods with just a couple lima bean shaped seeds inside.  The outsides of the pods were salted so as you popped the inside of the beans in your mouth, the salt on your fingers seasoned the bite.  They were also wonderful with beer.
Three years ago or so, Pine Tree Gardens made these available to the home grower in the Asian vegetables section and called them Beer lover's soybeans.  I planted them and had great success.  It was a small row which provided about two good pickings.  I advise using all your bean seeds in one year as the germination rate fell noticeably on my hold overs.  The next year I planted them I did them in a larger row and harvested a small handful of beans as something else harvested them the day before I was ready to pick them.  Very disappointing to find small, empty stems waiting.  Year three I planted one row 8' long followed by a second row two weeks later.  I was able to track the timing of the invaders which turned out to be many small field mice.  I won't disclose how I found out, but they were dispatched without poison and the owl found many of them before the night was over and fed himself on a field mouse buffet.  Ah, the circle of life!  I did much better with my harvest and the owl has continued to stay close to the garden.
This year I went back to a single row and have just harvested the first batch.  I have acquired a few field mice before the harvest so I think we have cut them off at the pass this year.  I picked a gallon pail of them which are simmering on the stove top as I write.
The soybeans are cooked in the pods until the color starts to change to a slightly duller green.  This will only take about 10-15 minutes of simmering once you get it up to temperature.  Drain and cool them rapidly, using ice water is a good idea.  Drain again and salt the pods with a course sea salt or Kosher flake salt.  Pop them open and deposit them right in your mouth.  Enjoying a beer on the side is optional but recommended.
The year of my crop failure (aka the year the mouse ate my beans) I inquired with the Hmong farmers at my local market if they sold them.  They only offered them as dried beans in the fall.  I didn't check the grocery stores but did find them last fall in the frozen food section.  They were in the pod so I was able to enjoy them in their closest to fresh form as possible.  They can also be used on salads, entrees, and many other dishes in between.
Soy has been put into many things which has caused allergy problems for some people and you will see them on the list of allergy items on food labels.  It is recommended that you limit the amount of soy young people consume for this reason.  Soy is a natural sort of estrogen replacement for women of a certain age.  I do fall into this group so find that adding a few to my diet is probably a good thing as I haven't done the soy thing to death this far in my life.  Enjoy soy no matter what your gender and I do recommend that you wash them down with a beer.

Soy bean plants

Raw soy beans

Soybeans cooked, chilled, and salted with my favorite summer side.  Shameless promotion for Leinenkugel's Summer Shandy...

Tomato Troubles

I am happy to report that for my own garden tomatoes they are in healthy shape and the best I have ever had.  They just aren't ripe yet.

Others, however, have been asking me "What's wrong with my tomatoes?  They are rotting on the bottom."  This is affecting many varieties of tomatoes and it is because of the crazy weather we have been having.  Milwaukee has felt more like New Orleans with an extend stretch of very hot AND humid weather.  We go through dry spells and then we get buckets of rain followed by more hot and humid weather.  Blossom end rot is affecting many gardens this year.

My tomatoes are fairing better because of their unique location.  Being close to the house on the south side has kept them in a very protected state of moisture control.  The rain typically does not land heavily here so my water with the soaker hose is carefully regulating the moisture balance.  No big swings back and forth.  If they were out in the open garden or my raised beds, I would be singing the blues with you.

Short of controlling the weather you can do some things to help out the tomatoes.  When we hit those dry patches give your tomatoes as slow soaking so it may not swing so drastically if we do get a heavy downpour.  Deeper watering makes deeper roots.  See previous post on watering.  Mulch the soil to hold in the moisture during the dry periods.  Avoid bark mulch as it is a nitrogen robber and your plants may start getting yellow leaves as a result.  Grass clippings (if you don't treat your lawn with herbicides), newspaper, and the new red plastic sheets designed to help tomotoes do their best (anyone try that yet?) are good options.  Calcium may be lacking in the plants but without having a soil test, it is never a good idea to start adding fertilizers.  Romas and other paste tomatoes may be more affected than other varieties and the cherry tomatoes are rarely bothered.

Another problem higher temperatures can bring on is lack of blossom set.  You get the flowers but they just fall off without growing fruit.  Be patient.  Time will be on your side if you just wait.  If the hot weather continues and we get lots of rain with it the ripening fruits may crack.  Mulching can help but the best you can do is eat those as they crack as they will start to show decay at that point.

Pick more disease tolerant varieties if you have more disease problems than you can handle.  Rotate crops so you do not plant tomatoes, peppers, or potatoes in the same spot for 3 years between crops.  If you don't have the space, you do the best you can.  I have had success with peppers in the same gardens that the tomatoes do terribly in so there must be some exceptions to the rules. 

I am still waiting for that BLT with the first tomato off the vine.  Cherry tomatoes are coming in now to hold me in the mean time.  I think we will also give fried green tomatoes a try if I can't wait for the ripe one.