Feeling dehydrated

I have a lot of zucchini. A lot of LARGE zucchini. I’ve made enormous loaves of zucchini bread, sauted it, baked it, you name it. But I still have a lot of zucchini. A good friend of mine suggested that I buy a dehydrator because they’re a lot of fun in general, and they do make lots of zucchini go away in the form of zucchini chips. So I looked at the reviews, and I bit. Based on the reviews I bought a Nesco FD-60 SnackMaster (at Overstock, way cheaper). I figured if it lay legitimate claim to the SnackMaster title, I’d be happy.

It comes with 4 trays and a fruit roll-up maker insert for one tray. But if I’m in dehydrator heaven I can buy additional trays up to a total of 12 and more roll-up inserts. Many people say it’s cheaper to just go ahead and buy a second dehydrator rather than the extra trays, but I don’t want to give up the counter space nor run two heaters when I really only need to run one. Seems like you save up front but lose later.

It arrived today. I’m pretty handy, but still, I’d never laid eyes on a dehydrator before. Omigosh, just thinking of any of my female relatives even considering the notion gives me the giggles. And my local friends? Much the same. Well, maybe Miriam might. Anyway, I wasn’t sure what to do with it, so I looked through the packet that came with it. Seems pretty straightforward - use the fruit roll tray for pureed fruit combos to make roll-ups. Use a special screen (purchased separately) to make some of the stickier dried fruits. And for everything else, just lay slices on the trays that come with the dehydrator. Cleanup in the sink or dishwasher. Some vegetables the pamphlet recommended blanching, and others peeling. I don’t remember which at the moment, but the online recommendation list is at this link.

I thought the recommendations for zucchini chips were kind of lack luster. So I looked elsewhere online specifically for recipes. I found this recipe for zucchini chips and it really appealed to me, so decided to go with that. The entire set-up, start to finish, took 10 minutes. If they come out at all decent, I could get into this. It’s like the crockpot - you do a little hand waving and 6 hours later (or in this case, more likely 12) you get a lot of magic.

I found that the 4 trays took one larger zucchini sliced thin (about 1/8”) with very little space to spare. That amount of zucchini would make 3 - 4 mid-sized loaves of zucchini bread. So this is definitely more efficient. I sliced the big guy up, threw it into a large metal bowl and mixed it with an indeterminate but fairly scanty amount of champagne wine vinegar and extra virgin olive oil. I lay the zucchini in the tray one-layer deep, no overlap, and put the laden tray on top of the cutting boards so that the seasoning didn’t get all over the place. I used garlic salt and onion powder. Based on info from another website elsewhere I went fairly light on the seasoning - that website mentioned that all dehydrated items shrink, therefore concentrating the flavors. I thought about adding other flavors but decided to go simple for the first time. I stacked the trays up on the base, put the top on, plugged it all in and set the heat to 135°F. I mean really? Slice, mix, dump, season. I almost feel guilty because it was so easy and fast. Maybe it’ll taste terrible and I won’t feel so guilty.

I live in a humid climate, so I expect it to take the maximum amount of time. If all goes well, tomorrow morning ought to be zucchini chips time. And in the meantime, my whole house smells glorious. I may need to dry roses in this thing.

Sunflowering

So I read the “Sunflower” chapter in the Burpee Complete Vegetable & Herb Gardener book and it said to cut the flower head leaving a two-foot stalk attached once the back of the flower starts to turn brown. I was supposed to hang it up in a dry airy place until the seeds were completely dry. But when I got that monstrous head down, I realized that 1) bugs were making nests in the dying leaves, 2) a patch of the seeds looked decidedly moldy, and 3) the seeds were falling out with a simple shake or touch. So instead, I took out all the seeds that were not moldy and put them in a colander. I left the rest of the head and seeds outside - maybe the birds will want them. If not, I’ll chuck it. I brought the colander inside and carefully picked though the seeds, removing all remains of the flower petals. I spread them in a lipped tray and put it next to a sunny window to dry out thoroughly. I hope to eat some and save some seeds for next year. What a lot of seeds a single large sunflower head can produce! The colander was 2/3rds of the way full.

I also want to mark this day on my calendar because I took most of the garlic bulblets I dried over the summer and put it in the refrigerator. In two weeks I can plant that out. I have more than I need, so if anyone local would like some garlic for planting please let me know. Speaking of extras for give away, I inadvertently bought two packets of Black Spanish Round Radish so if anyone wants to try out some of those seeds, let me know. Both garlic and radish can be grown in containers, so if you only have a small space, these are actually good ones to try.

And in the final note about extras... that tip on knocking off the flowers from pollinated zucchini has resulted in a ridiculous bumper crop of zucchini. It’s so out of control that I bought a dehydrator to make zucchini chips, and I am seriously thinking about buying this book: 101 Things To Do With Zucchini. I have an uncle who would say that title sounds porn-y.

Notes - preparing for fall

I had to throw sluggo on the ground as the kale, spinach and broccoli are being eaten to bits.

I’m now surfing the Burpee website for some new seeds for fall/winter crops. But I keep running into interesting things I’d like to plant next year. Among them:

• The Marina di Chioggia squash which looks positively demented, but is evidently good eating. Both plusses in my book.
• The Orn Large Bottle Gourd which would be mature next fall, just in time for my bird-obsessed son to make birdhouses. Perhaps that could be a birthday party idea for him.
• The Uchiki Kuri Organic Pumpkin, just because.

Meanwhile, I think I will order the following:

• Spanish Black Radish it looks interesting and is a good winter crop.
• Picklebush Cucumbers because I just might be able to get one more crop in, and then I have to talk Uncle Yak into pickling them. He’s very good at pickling, and he has my grandfather’s old pickle crocks.
• Golden Beets because I much prefer working with golden beets since I don’t have to wear gloves. It’s what I wanted to plant last spring, but Mr. Yak wanted red ones.
• Chioggia Beets because I’m a sucker for anything with stripes. I suspect they will bleed everything to red though when cooked. Only one way to find out!

I will probably plant more favas, and I may give peas a chance, too, just because.

Moving on

I’ve been getting organized for the academic year, and realized that with 3 kids in elementary school I will be living in my car every afternoon weekday until 6 pm until next June. Between that and work, I will have to be very much on top of things to pull off a fall/winter garden. And I’d like to, if only because I can’t bear the thought of a garden full of weeds. But this means I must catch up, and catch up quickly.

Which leads me to my confession. Remember those nematodes? I never put them out. I just let the garden maggots do their thing for much of the summer while I did mine. However I did store the nematodes properly in my refrigerator and they will keep that way for several months, so they ought to still be viable. (But yes, local friends, if you have been over and served food at my house, those asparagus and mushrooms were cheek by jowl with the sealed nematode container. You’re still here, reading this, so you don’t need to worry.) Today, I mixed them up according to the package directions, which involved 5 quarts of vermiculate and 2 quarts of water, and distributed them throughout my garden. I was able to be much more thorough in some areas and not so thorough in others, but I am hoping that since they are alive and in the animal kingdom they will distribute themselves as they see fit. Each bed got at least a few dollops of nematode mix, most got quite a bit and nicely distributed. While I was delivering nematodes I discovered that I do have one rather disheveled looking eggplant attempting to make a go of life.

But it is not all good news, of course. You get the down low here, not some sanitized version of my life that is designed to make you feel inadequate. I noted that there are a large number of unripe tomatoes. This sounds good, but I know I’ve had a large number of unripe tomatoes for some time, and I never get any ripe ones. I suspect they are getting eaten. Eaten by some diabolical creature on a personal mission to make my gardening life miserable. And the hollyhocks that I planted are infested. It looks pathognomonic for... something. The sort of situation where someone with more experience than I would look at the photo and say, “Ahhh, of course! You have X!” All I have to say for myself is that I’m learning to take some very atmospheric glamor shots of vermin.

I also went to Pacifica Garden’s Veggie Starts Sale. I bought some dino kale, spinach and broccoli seedlings. These are a good deal, because each 4” container contains multiple seedlings, which you can plant out individually. I got an entire row of spinach from one 4” pot, and 5 kale and 5 broccoli from each of their respective pots. For locals, there is one more day for the sale next Saturday 10 - 2, but they are starting to run out of some things. Not only did I buy some seedlings, I got some valuable information.

• The only beans that will grow over winter here are favas. I can try others, but they were doubtful of much success.
• It’s a good idea to grow favas on any area I’m not planting a harvestable crop. They keep the weed population down, and they are good for the soil.
• It’s also a poor prognosis for peas or carrots over winter, despite what the USDA agricultural zone says.
• The problem I was having with pumpkins and zucchini and end-rot is NOT a calcium deficiency. We live in such a humid climate that the fading flowers necrose and the dying tissue rots and the bacteria and fungus involved in the breakdown process spreads. The solution is to plant farther apart to promote air flow and to knock off all flowers once it is clear that a fruit is forming.
• Things that are good to grow in winter here: beets, radishes, kale, broccoli, lettuces, collard greens, bunching onions, garlic, spinach, chard. And favas of course.

I ripped out the last of the straggling peas and collected a small handful of the very last pods of the year, and planted the kale and the broccoli in its place (Bed H). I thought about digging under the pea plant carcasses, but frankly I was too tired to do any such thing. So it went into the compost. I put the spinach in the bed where the fava beans had been (Bed G). While I was at it, I harvested a couple more cucumbers and 3 decent zucchini. I put down a thin layer of redwood compost as mulch, with the intention to do something more robust later. While I was doing all this, I had an epiphany. The paper mulch I tried earlier in the year would probably work much better as a weed barrier if I put another conventional mulch on top of it, like bark or redwood compost, etc. I felt like an idiot standing there realizing the obvious and feeling that most days I have more hair than wit.

The aftermath

This has not been an easy summer. I was on antibiotics for 6 weeks, and they were the sort of antibiotics that precluded sun exposure. I even got sunburned through my clothing. And my dog died. The last thing on my mind was the garden, and it showed. Today Mr. Yak and I deforested the place. I'm afraid I needed a permit to pull some of those weeds out of the bean bed, they were that big. I had to remove all of the fava beans as well.

I made a note that I fed the zucchini, eggplant and cucumbers on July 10th. Sometime between then and the end of the month, I went outside and found that every single fava bean had been surgically removed from its pod. Every single one, and there had been thousands. We’d had a huge crop, and that was after I’d successfully dealt with the aphids with a concoction made up of diluted dish soap, olive oil, cayenne pepper and crushed garlic (strained through cheesecloth - otherwise it clogs the nozzle of the sprayer, ask me how I know). I’m guessing the culprits were birds. I was seriously bummed.

We got a nice crop out of the shelling peas, but they’ve kind of spent their wad and I pulled up nearly 2/3rds of them that were mostly dead. A few are still eking out a living at the tips of their vines, but I’m not sure they’ll produce anything substantial. It’s probably time to replant a new crop. And about that person who printed on the package that the peas don’t need support? That person’s nuts. I’m glad we had the pea fences up - the ones on the ground rotted and generally got into trouble and made nuisances of themselves.

The favas probably could have used a different type of support than I had. They were so overwhelmingly huge that the pea fences did little for them. I think poles with ties would have been better, since favas don’t have tendrils to hook themselves up into things. Now that the favas are gone, I am wondering if the other beans that were shadowed by them will grow bigger - the Italian rose beans are actually producing, but the plants are too small to amount to much.

I’ve got tomatoes, but they’re rotting before they ripen. I am not sure if it’s due to predation, disease or malnutrition. I’ve been too overwhelmed to investigate. The zucchini and pumpkins are putting out enormous quantities of fruits that rot before the ripen, from the flower end back. I read that this means calcium deficiency somewhere. Tomorrow I will go to the hardware store to see if I can buy a soil amender for it.

It’s not all bad news, though. I pulled up the rest of the carrots I had planted. The purple dragon carrots were an unqualified success. The beets are also doing well, although I only pulled up a few of these. And the surprise of the garden is the cucumbers... The plants are not growing huge, but they sure are putting out some huge cucumbers. I pulled 6 large fellows off today, and I guess we’re just going to eat them sliced. They’re kind of too huge to pickle.

And then, there are the things I just don’t know how to evaluate. The eggplants are small and shrubby looking, but suddenly a few of them are full of flowers. And the big russian sunflowers that I planted just for fun, well, one enormous flower has bloomed and gone, it’s ponderous head drooping down to face the ground. The birds seem to be leaving it alone. Do I just leave it like that and hope that I can get the seeds when it’s well and truly spent?

Overall, I planted too closely. And I wasn’t able to pay attention to problems from early summer onward, so I haven’t been able to troubleshoot the zucchini, pumpkins and tomatoes. I think the fava business happened overnight - I’m not sure I’d have been able to prevent that even had I been on top of it. I am guessing I need bird netting - I may try that on a small section next time around.

I think I will let the beds I cleared lie fallow for a month or two, make the attempt to fix the zucchini/pumpkin problem and the tomato problem, harvest what I can from what I’ve got already in the ground, mulch like crazy and then go with a sparse planting of winter crops.

At the end of the day, the prettiest butterfly landed on the lounge chair. I took it as a good omen, and a reminder that my troubles are minor in the grand scheme of things.

All heck breaks loose

I haven’t been in the garden for health reasons. Long story short, I got a MRSA skin infection on my face. My guess is that I followed my allergist’s/hematologist’s advice too excessively when they told me to use Neosporin when I have nosebleeds. Since my worst allergy season is now and I’m a bleeder, I’ve been using it a lot. That and the fact that I’ve run myself into the ground has resulted in a prime breeding ground for Methicillin Resistant Staph Aureus. It’s been scary, but I think I’m on the mend. I know I need some R&R, so this morning I headed back into the garden. I didn’t entirely like what I’ve seen.

1. My fava beans are enormous and have taken over their bed. I have hundreds, maybe thousands, of pods. That is good. What isn’t good is what I found on the tips of a few of the bean plants. So far, it appears isolated. I sprayed it with a bit of diluted dish soap, but I’m not sure what else to do. My husband says “It can’t be aphids! They’re the wrong color!” But I say they are. There’s even a ladybug prowling about. Any ideas what to do? And want to settle the dispute while you’re at it? At the moment the problem seems isolated to a few tips.
   
   
   
   
   
2. My pumpkins are also taking over. That is good. But when I picked up the leaves to look at the baby pumpkins that had been there, most of them are rotted, eaten down to the stem. Is that insect damage? Gastropod damage? Mammalian damage? And will the pumpkins that are now off the bed and forming in the rocks fare better than those that were formed on bare dirt?
   
   
3. One of the sunflowers has a flower forming on it. No caveats, that is good.

4. We ate carrots and shelling peas from the garden while I was sick, and despite our earlier experience with woody carrots, these were sweet and crunchy, if not as beautiful as they show in the seed catalog. That too has no caveats. That is good.
   
   
   
   
   
   

But what to do about the first two? I have no idea. I would welcome your thoughts.

The key to everything

I started out the year right even if plenty is going wrong. I made up a diagram in Adobe Illustrator that laid out the garden beds, and assigned labels to them. Then I made a Microsoft Word document that was the precursor to this blog. In that document I have a table that lists what went where in that diagram:

- A: Mammoth Organic Sunflowers
- B: Pumpkin - Big Max and Golden Mammoth
- C: Strawberries
- D: Black Beauty Eggplants
- E: Organic Sweet California Wonder Bell Peppers
- F: Black Krim Organic and Mortgage Lifter Tomatoes
- G: Italian Rose Beans
- H: Burpeeana Early Peas
- I: Purple Dragon Carrots
- J: Banana Cantaloupe Melon/Sweet N Early Cantaloupe hybrid
- K: Garlic
- L: Zucchini

Well. A lot has changed since then. In fact, D, F, G, H, I, J, K and L are not as listed. Most of those changes are because things didn’t work out as planned.

D: Well, I planted Black Beauty eggplants in peat pots. They sprouted, but I probably needed to water them twice a day to keep them as wet as they needed to be to be strong. Then I planted them out too early and the hail and slugs nixed the 3 that were left. I wound up buying a 6 pack from OSH and planting those instead. And the bed is half inhabited by onions planted by the people who owned the house before me. I am not sure what to do with them... I will let them flower and die down, I guess. Then I’ll pull ‘em. I may try to save seed just for the halibut.

F: Tomatoes. Well it’s been a wheelin’ and dealin’ time in the tomato patch. I can’t even remember what I planted from my own seed vs. what I bought and put in the ground. I do know what Dave gave me because I labeled them clearly. The things that Dave didn’t give me are all either Mortgage Lifter or Black Krim varieties. Mortgage Lifter is resistant to both Verticulum and Fusarium wilt, Black Krim is only resistant to Fusarium. I am hoping this is totally irrelevant information despite the fact that one tomato plant just up and died, totally wilted to the ground for no obvious reason, and two more look a bit wilty despite adequate watering. It would really bum me out given the number of solanaceous crops I’ve got growing. At the far end of this bed I also planted the two spinaches from Dave.

G: Well, I did a whole lot more than just Italian Rose Beans. Baby Yak brought home kidney bean seedlings from school and I felt like I had to plant them out. And I planted an entire mess of fava beans that I grew from seed. The last have entirely dominated the area. I also planted two broccolis from Dave at the far end. And there’s a load of parsley from the previous owners. I transplanted some of that to just outside my kitchen door, but I don’t have the heart to rip out what’s left just yet. Maybe after the kitchen parsley area is better established I’ll feel differently.

H: The Burpeeana Early peas I grew from seed did well, but it seemed like a pretty meager number, so I bought a dozen Caseload seedlings to supplement. They are now all growing vigorously, and I don’t really know where the Burpeeana ends and the Caseloads begin. I also planted the lettuce from Dave down by the end, and two hollyhocks, just because I love them.

I: Purple Dragon carrots are indeed planted in this bed, but about half the bed is also Bulls Blood beets. I’m terrified to pull these up despite the fact that I think they’re ready. I’m hoping to dress the soil tomorrow with nematodes so that I don’t have to do the horrified maggot dance.

J: The cantaloupe did miserably - actually all but one died. That one is eking out a living in the corner, and I just decided to supplement with a Jenny Lind variety. The rest of the bed is planted with Burpless cukes, but they’re not much better off than the dead cantaloupes.

K: Garlic was an honest appellation for this bed up until last week. It had all died down, and now it’s time to plant something new since I pulled the garlic. I decided on two different varieties of blueberry on the suggestion of my friend Miyuki. The two varieties idea was given to me by the guy at Sloat Gardens... he said you need two to get a better yield due to cross-pollination.

L: This bed is mostly zucchini, but I had forgotten about a bunch of carrot seedlings I had started in seed pots so I squeezed them in here. I put those in the ground along the edge of this bed closest to K. I now think the direct sown carrots do better, but I didn’t know what the heck I was doing so I was experimenting with both transplanted and direct sown to see which fared better. Radishes are being grown (with maggots) in a triangular bed that is right up against this bed but separated by a row of bricks.

So that’s a fairly comprehensive State of the Garden.