Mid-Summer Garden Update

Fruits of our labor...ok, veggies...but you
get the point. Watermelon, squash & cucumbers.

I can empathize with the heat wave moving across the country this summer. We have a "heat wave" every year here in the Arizona desert. Temperatures of 109 degrees settle in for many weeks and it is just considered the norm around here.

I didn't expect much of the garden to last through the heat and since we're still relatively new to gardening, I was curious to see how the different crops fared. The corn has been picked over and is already dried up, withered and brown. I'll be pulling it out of the ground in the next few weeks.

I'm leaving the potatoes in for a little while longer. I'm not sure when they come are ready to harvest but I've read that I should leave them until the part above ground withers and looks to be near dead.  I pulled some a week or so ago and they were little golf ball size potatoes. About eight of them were dangling from one root.  I microwaved them for about five minutes and served 'em up with butter, cheese and salt. They were tasty and I was now sure that in times of need I could grow potatoes for food.  I'm hoping that they grow much larger as I leave them in the ground to grow.

The butternut squash and cucumbers are producing nicely.  Wifey has learned how to bake the squash into what I'll call long squash fries.  They are quite delicious with a little butter and salt, similar to a mashed potato consistency or maybe a baked yam. We've had one sitting on the kitchen counter for a few weeks now and it doesn't show any signs of going bad yet. We're still learning the shelf life of different organic items. Wifey's homemade bread starts to mold in under two weeks. She made a batch of eight loaves a few weeks ago so some actually sat around for a bit as opposed to her usual four loaf batch that gets eaten in four days.

The cucumbers are growing great but I don't really have a taste for them. Never have. That is, not until we recently started to juice produce.  Now, for breakfast, Wifey goes out to the garden and picks a fresh cucumber and tosses it into the juicer with apples, plums, kale and broccoli or celery and I'm able to enjoy a smorgasbord or fruits and veggies in a refreshing morning beverage. I'm thankful for finding the joy of juicing as it allows me to consume the things I normally found unpalatable but yet wanted to grow in my garden.

Growing fewer than I thought based on
all the vines & smaller than I expected too.

The watermelon and pumpkin are growing but don't produce as much as I thought they would. I mean, these things vine out all over the place. You'd think I'd be able to feed half of our block with the amount of leaves and running vines that are busting out of our gardening area and running onto sidewalks and non-garden areas.  But it seems they are producing few and far between.  We got ahead of ourselves and picked a watermelon that we THOUGHT was ripe.  Turns out...not so ripe. A little bite indicated it was certainly sweet enough but the pinkish color just hadn't quite settled in yet.

We only have a few pumpkins that are in the grapefruit size range.  The rest a just little golf ball sized fellas.  I was hoping that my Halloween we'd be up to our knees in pumpkins and each child would be able to carve their own as well as having plenty for pie making.  Not so sure it's going to work out that way. We'll have to wait and see I guess. At least they're growing. I'm happy about that.

Strawberries have made it this far so they should continue to grow. They sprout out a little red gem every now and then.  I pick them whenever I see one in hope that the plant can focus it's energy on growing stronger for next season, as some have suggested.  Out of five strawberry plants purchased from home depot, three remain and one had a runner creating a daughter plant. So I still have four plants growing. I'm happy with that ratio too.

This watermelon wasn't quite ready yet :-(

Grandpa Neff's Beans are flourishing wildly but no bean pods yet.  The French horticulture beans looks like the took a beating from something. Either they went without water unknowingly or the sudden heat blast that is our desert summer was too much for them.  I've lost an estimated 70% of that raised garden bed.  Some are still struggling though. So we'll be waiting a little longer on any bean harvesting.  I should note that my Neff beans are right next to a sheet metal storage shed. At the beginning of our hot summer I noticed they were taking a turn for the worse.  Gardening neighbors advised us to put up a trellis with a vine type plant to help absorb heat radiated from the shed.  I draped a blue tarp down the side of the shed and the Neff beans made a terrific comeback.

All in all, our gardening experiment is proving to be a success.  We've learned the beginning stages of what it takes to grow our own food (tilling, planting, watering, hand pollinating, pruning, predator proofing, heat shielding) and found it to be both entertaining and enjoyable.  The children ask to be involved and have picked their own corn and planted seeds. We set out to add self sustaining skills to our knowledge base this year and gardening certainly leads the pack in usefulness. Now if I could just find some affordable farm land.

How much land do you think is enough to support your family's gardening needs?

~OJD

SeedForSecurity Indian Corn: Quick Update

Saving kernels from Indian Corn

Part of growing your own food in your garden includes harvesting seeds for the next season. It is perpetual self sufficiency. Grow it, harvest some for food and some for seed, start over next season. I sat down this weekend and picked ONE corn cob apart.

I wondered how many kernels I would yield from one cob (or ear, which is it?) So, I counted the kernels. From one cob I harvested 243 kernels. Keep in mind that EACH corn stalk provides anywhere from 2-6 ears (in my short-lived experience.)

In my late night estimation, I bet I used around 50 kernels for my garden this season. I planted around five rows with ten seeds per row.  So with one ear of corn, I am able to quintuple the stock of corn seed from which I started my season. We've already eaten 16 ears with dinner. Another four or five were lost from drying experimentation.  There's still several out in the garden.  Not bad for 50 seeds.

Piles of 10, one ear of corn netted 243 kernels for next season.
How's THAT for an ROI (return on investment)!

Speaking of which, you must wait until the corn is matured before you should harvest for seed. . After you pick the corn from the stalk and shuck it, you have to let it sit out and dry (if you are saving the kernels for seed.) Beware not to dry it in temperatures over 100 degrees or you will damage the seeds (read Anne's comment below this post).   The stalks should be brown. Any trace of green and you need to leave it a bit longer. Often, ears that are ready to be picked will turn upside down.

 I can tell when it is done drying by how easily (or not) it is to pick one kernel from the cob. If it sort of tears where the kernel meets the cob, leaving a small portion on the cob, then it is not quite dry enough. When it is properly dried, I can pry a kernel away from the cob and the whole kernel will "pop" off the cob leaving no parts behind.

It is exciting to think we can grow our OWN food and collect MORE seed than we had to start.  This gardening thing has turned out to be a great experiment! You should try it. I recommend starting your seed collection from Seed For Security, like I did.  OBTW, here is how Seed For Security harvests this same corn.

Don't forget to check out our contest starting July 1st. One of the prizes is a complete seed kit from Seed For Security! A $75 value. It is the one we bought last year to start our garden.

Share YOUR knowledge of corn in the comment section below.

~OJD

How to Hand Pollinate Corn - Prevent Kernal Gap

The dreaded "kernal gap" on my unpollinated corn.

I got anxious enough to pick an ear of corn today. Not good. It appears I have unpollinated corn as indicated by the bare patches on the cob (kernal-gap.)  I've researched some hand pollination techniques. Some gardeners on GardenWeb say just to walk around and shake the stalks, allowing pollen to flow from the tassels down to the silks. They mention to do this when the plants are dry. If they are wet, the pollen may clump or the silks may stick together which might cause a problem.

Once the pollen gets on the silks, it travels down the hairs into the cob and completes the job. I won't get into all the specifics of cell biology. I will say though that you can self pollinate (tassel and silk on SAME plant) or cross pollinate (tassel on plant A pollinates silk on plant B). Either way works but some university papers I read said that you don't want to self pollinate too much (kinda like inbreeding.)

Cross pollinating courtesy of UofN.

One gardener named Chaman said the following: "You can hand pick tassels and gently rub on the silk.  Morning time around 10 A.M. is good for hand pollination. In half an hour or so you will see silk changing color to brown, sign of successful pollination.You may repeat the process for few days. Tassels remain usable for about 4 to 5 days.  In case if needed, you may pick up the tassels from any plant to use on the plant that has no tassels available.  This way corn-cobs get fully filled with kernels."

I'm not sure WHY my corn didn't self pollinate. It could be that we don't get much wind in my part of the Arizona desert. It could also be that I put a bird netting over my corn to keep critters out. I'm hypothesizing that the net keeps the stalks from swaying in whatever little wind we DO get. No swaying, no pollen sprinkling the silks.

Corn anatomy

So, what I haven't figured out yet is how long do I have to pollinate? Like the cob I imaged above with kernal gap. Could it have been saved if I had left it on the plant and pollinated it? Or can you only pollinate right when the silks emerge from the husk or what?

Wifey and I will be trying our skills at hand pollinating first thing in the morning. Wish us luck!

Oh, there's a chance of worm infestion. We saw a few last season. They lay their eggs on the silks and the little boogers travel down into the corn and feed there so you may not see them from outside the husk. There's a good article on using vegetable or mineral oil on the silks to rid your corn of worms. Sounds easy enough.

I keep telling myself this is a learning process. It is our second season at trying our hand at gardening. Last season we planted the corn too late and frost got our immature corn. This season we're learning to pollinate. By 2015, we might actually be able to grow some edible corn!

Have YOU had success growing corn?

Seed For Security: Corn and Squash Update

Indian Corn from SeedForSecurity.com

I'm happy to report that our seeds purchased from SeedForSecurity.com are growing very well. This is our second time to plant the Indian Corn and it has done superb. Last season we planted it a little late and didn't get the joy of seeing it reach full size before the winter frost set in. We also discovered little grubs had eaten into the cobs once the ears were peeled back. The grubs didn't matter much since our corn hadn't been planted early enough to mature before the frost (there just wasn't much corn ON the cob yet.)

Needless to say, Wifey and I have pulled a few ears here and there and they look terrific. The SFS website says to harvest when the ears turn brown and/or start to flip upside down. I pulled one yesterday and tasted it raw. It was sweet and yummy. I can't wait until they are fully grown. I'm guessing about one more month. We've planted several rows, around seven or so. Each row has around 10 stalks. Each stalk looks to be growing anywhere from 2-5 ears of corn. We should have a terrific feast ahead of us!

Butternut Squash from SeedForSecurity.com

Second on the list is our Butternut Squash. Not to be confused with Buttercup Squash. Very distinguishable once you see the difference. We planted one little row of squash as a test crop.  We have one seed that has gone berserk and it is growing all over the place. The rest are growing too but this one appears to be on steroids. I don't think it is coincidence that it is positioned closest to the water source. I've counted three squash coming off the monster stalk so far. I'm not sure I've ever tried squash before but if I'm going to take the time to grow it, you can be darn sure I'm going to try to eat it.

Lettuce, Mushrooms and Corn...Oh My!

Baby lettuce growing between the mature heads.

The stuff we planted in late March is coming along nicely. The lettuce was planted last season and we decided to let it stay. It has continued to bloom and provide well for our meals (condiment on hamburgers and salads mostly). We've planted newer crops between  the old ones and they are sprouting up nicely too.

The corn, as it did last season, it blazing a trail towards the sun. It is by far the fastest growing crop I've ever seen (and I've been gardening TWO whole seasons!) It has done so well that we will be buying more seed from the same company just to store it away (haven't learned how to save seeds yet).

Peas from last season on the left (producing nicely too).

The only problems we had last season with the corn was little larvae looking worms inside the ears. You couldn't really see where they had dug in from but once you peeled away all the layers, you could see the little boogers lounging in a dark whole on the ear.

Still not seeing much action on the potatoes and carrots. There is a possible sprout of potato but were not sure. I'll take a picture of it and post it. Maybe someone can identify it for us. Half of the block wall garden is stocked with potatoes, the other half is corn. We left two little pea plants from last season to see what they'd do (they're doing better now than last season).

The carrots are sprouting up but only ONE stem in each of the TWO 3x3' raised-box gardens dedicated entirely to carrots. Pretty disappointing. I still have hope that they're just still below the surface but I've seen plenty of cat pawing in the same boxes. I also wonder if seeds were washed away since they're planted just under the soil surface. I planted purple carrots and traditional orange from seed.


The third raised-box is nursing wounded strawberries. I planted five transplants from Home Depot. They were sporting berries when I bought them. I got them planted in the boxes and sure enough, the kids ate the berries within days. The berries were barely bigger than a chocolate chip! Argh!



"We're here for your water!"

 You can see in the picture how they are turning brown. There are some new buds coming out though so we'll keep our fingers crossed.  My gardening neighbor told me he planted the same thing and all the original leaves turned brown and fell off but were soon followed by healthy green ones.

I pulled some mushrooms up from the carrot beds. I was told it was possibly a sign that I was watering too much.