Finally

We planted the garden pretty late.



So all we're getting now, in the way of vegetables, are long, skinny things.



Japanese Eggplant, Zephyr Squash, Cucumbers. No tomatoes yet.



The little cucumber that could. We bought what turned out to be an amazingly good plant, I think from the local Ace Hardware. Never bitter, despite my horribly uneven watering. And really, really prolific! This amount is from one day. (One plant.) I see cucumber-pushing in my future.

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Don't forget the Friday Ark.

How to make it rain

Install drip irrigation.

Squash update

Man oh man are Zephyrs good! I had a little slice raw and thought "ok". But the flavor really comes out with cooking. Mmmm. Here's the recipe I used:

Cut the tip ends off, and boil the squash or zucchini until the skin pierces easily with a fork. Slice in half lengthwise, and make a few light cross-cuts on the open faces. Spread with melted butter or squeeze margarine. Sprinkle with seasoned salt and a little Parmesan cheese. Broil until the cheese is browned, about 5 minutes.

I wrote about this recipe once before - click there if you want to see a picture of the finished product.

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I worked the garden hotline last week, and one of the calls was about problems with squash. The caller asked if she should put Sevin dust (Carbaryl) on the leaves. A lot of people don't realize that Sevin is extremely toxic to bees. And bees pollinate squash. So no, I wouldn't recommend it! The bees seem to be having a hard enough time lately as it is.

If you must use an insecticide on your squash, apply it at dusk, when it will probably harm beneficial insects the least.


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There is an interesting Cucurbit Disease key by Vegetable MD online (from Cornell).

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The other squash in the picture is a pattypan or scallop type squash, Flying Saucer. Haven't eaten it yet - review on that one later!

Zephyr squash

Our first Zephyr squash. Should be ready to eat tonight!

I may have mentioned before that it's an experimentation year for squash. I planted eight different varieties, plus had one come up volunteer in the compost pile.

That volunteer squash turned out to be an acorn squash, sort of. It's either a not-true-from-seed hybrid or it's from the seed of a cross-pollinated one, because it was white-fleshed and not tasty at all. It was a pseudo-vegetable.

I have high hopes for my Zephyrs though. I'll let you know how it goes!

(As you can probably see in the picture, the grass in the garden really took off with the recent rain.)

I know what you did last summer

Nasturtium.

I've mentioned before that we grew some edible flowers, Sakata Sweet melons, and Tigger melons last year.

Here are a few of the other things we tried for the first time.


Plum Granny.
Supposed to be an heirloom "pocket" melon. (Somewhere between the size of a golf ball and a clementine.) I read that they were grown primarily for scent. They're so bland as to be inedible. They did smell great, but weren't as strong as I'd hoped. Nothing approaching the scent level of daffodils, say. It may vary with growing conditions but I doubt I'll try them again. Some little critters definitely like to eat them -- I think it was the most munched-on thing in the garden.


Japanese eggplant.
We liked these much better than traditional eggplants. They seemed less likely to grow bitter, and were more versatile for cooking just because of their size. We'll definitely grow these again.


Triamble squash.
A winter squash. I ordered these seeds purely based on the look of the pictures, which were idealized to say the least. Still, it's an interesting looking vegetable. But hard, hard, hard to cut. It tastes good, and keeps forever, but I really should have realized that ten-pound squashes were a little much for two people.


Top view.


Profile view.
These were really picked too soon. (The stem should be dry first.)

I couldn't find a picture, but we also grew lemon cucumbers. I was under the impression that they had a lemony taste, but the name just refers to the size (and color, somewhat). They tasted good enough, but did get bitter sometimes. Plus they have tiny hairs or spines that were difficult to rub off. And they didn't keep well at all -- one day, tops. So, back to white cucumbers for me.

If last year was the year of melon experimentation, this will be the year of the squash! More on that later.

Dilbert okra

I think this pod has been reading the funny pages.

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Edited to add:

The Gallery of Suggestive Vegetables:
Dave's
Ron's

The post that started the whole thing:
Robin Andrea's

The original NPR story here.

Asian Melons

Gardening is not very interesting if I'm not trying something different.

I'm one of those people who ends up wanting everything marked "new" in the seed catalog, but I managed to restrain myself this year and only ordered five unusual melons. (That may sound like a lot, but the catalog had 16 varieties of Eastern and Asian melons that I'd never heard of before.)



This turned out to be my favorite. It's called Sakata's Sweet, and it originated in Japan. The description of fragrant, sweet, and crunchy was too good to pass up. And you can eat the peel!



Never having grown it before, I didn't really know what "ripe" looked like. I think it's actually a bit past this point - they get a yellowish tinge if you leave them longer. But it doesn't seem to matter much to the taste or texture.



One description said that they reach the size of a baseball, but they evidently grow about 50% larger than that in the Alabama heat.



They're green inside, and man oh man are they good. The taste is somewhat like a honeydew melon, only much sweeter, and very crisp.

The only problem we encountered was an extremely low germination rate. Out of about 21 seeds planted at three different times, we got one plant. (Still, it did better than the "Golden Sweet" melon, which produced no plants from the same number of seeds.)

Reading about another Asian variety, I was dismayed to learn that it only produces six - eight melons per plant. I hope that is not true of this type too, or else I've only got a couple more to look forward to.

The seeds came from Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds, a nice company who offered to refund the money for seeds that didn't germinate.

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I almost forgot to mention, if any part of the melon seems a little bitter, a day or two in the fridge (after cutting it open) will cure that.

Vegetable graffiti

My tomato greets you.


(Just in case you didn't catch that.)


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Updated! Check out the eerie coincidence that Maktaaq reported.

Tomato hornworm

1.

2.

3.

Expletive deleted.

Technically this is a Tobacco Hornworm (Manduca sexta) instead of a Tomato Hornworm (Manduca quinquemaculata). But people tend to call them all Tomato Hornworms. The distinction is in the number of stripes and the color of the "horn". Damage to tomato and pepper plants is the same. My poor litle Sungolds.

Veggie dinner

It won't stop raining. Our garden is a mess.

So we shopped the local the farmer's market.



We had one sad little tomato from our garden. It was only partially pink, and had a mushy spot on one side and a brown spot on the other. What leaves the bugs and rabbits had left were wilting and turning yellow. (I guess I should have sprayed. It was an heirloom tomato, not resistant to much of anything.) It tasted wonderful, though.

The tomatoes in this picture looked wonderful on the back of that pickup at the farmer's market, but ended up a big disappointment. They were ripe red and beautiful, but just like grocery store tomatoes, had no taste. Next time I'm buying the ugliest ones I see.

Everything else was good though.

Young Yukon Gold potatoes, mmm. Cut up, mixed with a little olive oil and herbs, then roasted at 350°F (177°C) for about 45 minutes. I used McCormick's Italian Herb Seasoning Grinder because I was in a rush. But just plain thyme or rosemary with a little salt and pepper is good too. (Stir 3 or 4 times during cooking.)

Eggplants, mmm. I like the smaller ones. Slice and marinate in Italian dressing for about 30 minutes. (I like Newman's. All his stuff is great and is made with fresh ingredients.) Then coat with a mixture of corn meal, parmesan cheese, and salt & pepper. Bake at 350°F (177°C) until browned on top. (This will vary depending on how thick your slices are. But in general it takes 15 - 20 minutes.) Normally I like real shredded parmesan cheese instead of the powdery stuff in a can, but the powdery stuff actually mixes better with the corn meal.