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Weight Loss Forum / Low Carb / March 2004Vegetable Gardening
I got space to garden, like vegetable gardening. A decent area too. I always loved gardening. Every year, I do more, add more. I am starting to make plans now, seeing the season is coming around now. I plan on planting tomatoes, cabbage, green beans, broccoli, cauliflower, lettuce, radishes, peppers, cucumbers. I have never tried herb gardening. Or other things come to mind too, like spagetti squash, brussel sprouts. Even garlic too. I would love to try snow peas, but not sure if the climate is good for that, it should be? In Ohio here. Anyone else here garden? Any tips, on the things I mentioned. What good herbs are easy to grow? How do you store them, dry them out? Also thinking on starting some of the seeds indoors, in small greenhouses. So to transplant when the season comes around. I have never tried that either. The sqirrels like to eat some of the seeds when I plant them. So hoping some greenhouses and transplanting them will help. Also, gardening is good exercise. >I got space to garden, like vegetable gardening. A decent area too. I >always loved gardening. Every year, I do more, add more. [quoted text clipped - 18 lines] > >Also, gardening is good exercise. This is my second year gardening and i'm expanding it this year. Most of what you mention I'll be growing. Snow peas are very doable. Had some success last year but wet cold spring hit them with mold. Garlic & onions can be long harvests. You get better sizeable bulbs if you plant in fall and harvest next summmer. Planting around now is good, but people have complained about the size of the bulbs with just five months growing. Onion and garlic will survive NY winters--OHIO should be fine. I didn't try drying any herbs last year--too much to learn and just didn't focus on that. THis year I'd like to. This year i'll be attempting cumin again-starting inside. Coriander/Cilantro(new), oregano again(easy, plant it in a separate pot...it is a weed that will infest through microbes in the soil). A lot more dill this year--just ordered a short version(Fernleaf). Dill is about 3' tall, this one 18". Flat parsley, plenty of basil, chives. Parsley and dill are mainstays of Black Swallowtail butterflies. I plant extra and let them eat some. Some of these herbs you can pull in and overwinter indoors. However a number of them are biennials. They flower and produce seeds the second year--and some then die. Chives, onions, parsley and i maybe garlic will all go to seed end of 2nd year. I haved decide if I'm going to do chile peppers again. If I do it will be for grinding them to seasoning. Thyme is also easy to grow. Regarding squirrel or birds eating seeds. You could try one of the garden fabrics-white thing cloth. Water passes through along with about 80% of sunlight. put weight on the edges or use earth staples to fasten to the ground with some slack. It lets the seedlings get started without being eaten. My backyard has about 15 birds every day and six squirrels live in the front yard tree. I didn't have any problem with seeds being eaten. It can also depend upon hardness of winter and how hungry they are. Tomatoes & peppers (and possibly eggplant) need too long a growing season so you need to start growing them indoors now or buy transplants when weather is ready. I've already started seedlings indoors just in the last few days--some are a little late I think. I think broccoli & cauliflower need to be seeded now. I will be growing a lot more jalapenos this year and some anaheim chiles. Less bell pepper. Greens (including spinach) like cool weather and can go out here (zone 6b/7, north of N.Y.City along the shore) defintiely by late march assuming no late bad freezes. This year I'm gong to try and do successive plantings, staggering them a week at a time so the harvest spreads out better. I'm looking at 3-4 different greens. I'm actually a little behind. I should have started my seedlings before March 1st. DiGiTAL_ViNYL (no email) 350/318/Mar-315/200 Atkins since Jan 12, 2004 I'm in Ohio (southwestern) and am an avid veg gardener. Two items I'd add to your list that do very well here -- eggplant and spaghetti squash. Eggplant is difficult to freeze, can or store, so you don't want more than you can eat. But Spaghetti squash stores beautifully -- I still have two in my basement from last summer and they're as solid as the day I brought them in. Up until this year, I've done 25 tomato plants (including cherry and roma), 10 green pepper, onions (as many as can fit around the perimeter of the tomatoes), 5 eggplants, 2 zucchini, 2 summer squash, and 2 spaghetti squash. I also do several variety of beans for drying (for soups in the winter). This year I'm going to cut back tomatoes to 5-10 plants. I also have several raspberry bushes and 4 concord grape vines (very productive!). For herbs, I do oregano, dill, thyme, lemon verbena, and sage. I dry them by simply tying the stalks together with a rubber band and hanging them upside down in my kitchen window until dry, then either leave them like that until I need them, or pull off the leaves and put in any jar or freeze. I make some flavored vinegars by simply putting a handful of any herb in a bottle, adding vinegar (sometimes garlic), let it sit in storage for 2 months or so. Yummy. I made a cold frame out of an old window, and plan on putting in lettuce and spinach seeds some time this week. Summer time is too hot for these veg's here. If you've not checked it out, go to your local library and get a book called LASAGNA GARDENING. Unbelievably helpful book on how to start new garden areas. My tomato plants were 5' tall and heavy with tomatoes because of this book's methods!!! Very economical too! If you have southern Ohio's heavy clay soil, this book is a must. If you're in northern Ohio brocolli, cauliflower, brussel sprouts and cabbage may do well. They don't do well down here because our Spring season is too short -- we move from winter to summer, it seems. Those veg's don't like hot weather at all. You may be able to wait until mid-summer to plant them, then they'll have the cool Fall weather to mature. Good luck! Joan J > I got space to garden, like vegetable gardening. A decent area too. I > always loved gardening. Every year, I do more, add more. [quoted text clipped - 18 lines] > > Also, gardening is good exercise. > I'm in Ohio (southwestern) and am an avid veg gardener. > [quoted text clipped - 36 lines] > Good luck! > Joan J I'm in Central Ohio. Within the city. My grandparents lived in southeastern Ohio, used to go there in the summers to help with the farm. Thats where I get the want to vegetable garden. Must run in the genes. You gave some wonderful ideas and tips. They are so much appreciated. I enjoyed everyones input. It will help out alot. Was reading earlier about rotatating the garden to get the best out of it? I love to garden as well. I'm in Poland. We have space for a large garden. I haven't been online for several days now. I have been planting seeds and dh has been revamping my computer. Snow peas should do fine in OH. They like cool weather. I hope to grow just about everything except potatoes. I want to try for a wider range of veggies this year as I've been eating a lot of veggies since I started Atkins. Way more than before. I'd like to expand my tastebuds to include eggplant and kohlrabi, etc. I'll probably be looking for more salad dressings that are good to make as well. Does anyone know what herbs and spices are great on zucchini? We've gone to TGIFs and been served zucchini and other summer squash. My dh admitted grudgingly that they weren't "half bad" when he was given them. Any ideas? Zucchini grows like a weed. Becky P. www.family.solidrockpl.org Hi Becky, I too have been eating a more than usual amount of veggies since starting Atkins. I am on my 5th day and have lost lbs.. so far! I feel much more energetic too. I checked your website out and looked around - I hope you don't mind. I looked at your diet page pictures and your weight loss is an inspiration. I hope to have my some pictures put on a web site of my low carb progress soon. By the way, I'm not sure what herbs would be good on zucchini. I am a big fan of curry, but I have never tried it on zucchini - so you're on your with it. Or perhaps something more mild like parsley or basil. If you find a good combination please share it with the group Thanks and God Bless, -The Dude aka Phil 220/215/170 Atkins since 3/10/04 > I love to garden as well. I'm in Poland. We have space for a large garden. I haven't been online for several days now. I have been planting seeds and dh has been revamping my computer. > Snow peas should do fine in OH. They like cool weather. > > I hope to grow just about everything except potatoes. I want to try for a wider range of veggies this year as I've been eating a lot of veggies since I started Atkins. Way more than before. I'd like to expand my tastebuds to include eggplant and kohlrabi, etc. I'll probably be looking for more salad dressings that are good to make as well. > Does anyone know what herbs and spices are great on zucchini? We've gone to TGIFs and been served zucchini and other summer squash. My dh admitted grudgingly that they weren't "half bad" when he was given them. Any ideas? Zucchini grows like a weed. > Becky P. > www.family.solidrockpl.org A long-time pre-Atkins family favorite: Place just a small amount of water in bottom of saucepan (2-3 tbsp? - enough to just cover bottom). Place your sliced zucchini in pan, along with 1 tbsp butter and oregano (probably 1/2 tsp dried? or to taste). Cover and let gently boil (just above a simmer). Gently stir occassionally.When zucchini is cooked to your liking, drain and sprinkle lightly with parmesian cheese. YUM! Also, if you're growing zucchini, don't forget to grate some, place in plastic bags and freeze! I do it in 2 cup measurements. Take it out of freezer, defrost, drain well (I squeeze the water out in a towel), add an egg, small amount of diced onion, salt & pepper, some parmesian cheese or grated cheddar, and fry up in little pancakes. Nice side dish for breakfast or dinner! Joan J > Hi Becky, > I too have been eating a more than usual amount of veggies since starting [quoted text clipped - 36 lines] > > Becky P. > > www.family.solidrockpl.org Also, zucchini can be eaten raw, as a snack. I do that personally. i > A long-time pre-Atkins family favorite: Place just a small amount of water > in bottom of saucepan (2-3 tbsp? - enough to just cover bottom). Place your [quoted text clipped - 59 lines] >> > Becky P. >> > www.family.solidrockpl.org > Does anyone know what herbs and spices are great on zucchini? We've > gone to TGIFs and been served zucchini and other summer squash. My dh > admitted grudgingly that they weren't "half bad" when he was given > them. Any ideas? Zucchini grows like a weed. I use a commercially available mix from Penzey's spices that contains the following: chives, dill weed, basil, tarragon, chervil and white pepper. It's marvelous on zucchini and other green vegetables. There's no sugar in the mix, but it gives a slightly sweet, aromatic flavor. Cate Zucchini is very good with basil. In news:195d0e36d9016bdbdb29f0f5fbda3c89@localhost.talkaboutsupport.com, curious <curious@noemailshown> stated | I love to garden as well. I'm in Poland. We have space for a large | garden. I haven't been online for several days now. I have been [quoted text clipped - 16 lines] | Becky P. | www.family.solidrockpl.org > I got space to garden, like vegetable gardening. A decent area too. I > always loved gardening. Every year, I do more, add more. > > Anyone else here garden? Any tips, on the things I mentioned. What > good herbs are easy to grow? How do you store them, dry them out? I'm in a similar position, have been in our house for a year now and starting to get an interest in gardening, which I know almost nothing about! I want to grow some vegies and herbs too - so far I have thyme and garlic chives in my herb garden and no vegie garden yet (trying to figure out where to put it - I'm thinking a long, narrow trough along a sunny strip would be ideal but need to knock up the trough somehow, preferably raised as my back's knackered so bending to weed's no good. cheers Rachel (New Zealand) > > I got space to garden, like vegetable gardening. A decent area too. I > > always loved gardening. Every year, I do more, add more. [quoted text clipped - 14 lines] > Rachel > (New Zealand) I would recommend putting herbs into pots as they tend to spread, a lot. you can put them in pots, put the pots in the ground if you like. i grow onions, zucchini, summer squash, cucumber, bell peppers of various colors (brown is cool), hot peppers of various varieties, tomatoes and carrots. i also do a lot of flowers. 1/2 of my backyard is garden and gets direct sunlight most of the day. all the above do very well in a lot of sun. sue k >> I got space to garden, like vegetable gardening. A decent area too. I >> always loved gardening. Every year, I do more, add more. [quoted text clipped - 14 lines] >Rachel >(New Zealand) I considered container gardening a few years ago, but got busy with life and forgot about it. We have 2 raised beds in our yard that haven't been used since we have lived here. Maybe I'll get up enough nerve to get some good soil and plant something next year. Our back yard gets strong afternoon sun all year. -- Jean M. New food of the week: jalapeño peppers. Do away with flipfloping to e-mail. Jean M. New food of the week: jalape?o peppers. You can grow those easy. Hey- ever sliced a jalape?o in half lengthwise, take the seeds out and stuff with cream cheese- tex mex appetizer  SignatureDiane Atkins since 12/4/2003 234/208/150 5"8 > > >> I got space to garden, like vegetable gardening. A decent area too. I [quoted text clipped - 21 lines] > nerve to get some good soil and plant something next year. Our back > yard gets strong afternoon sun all year. >Jean M. New food of the week: jalapeño peppers. You can grow those easy. >Hey- ever sliced a jalapeño in half lengthwise, take the seeds out and stuff >with cream cheese- tex mex appetizer That sounds great. I've always liked spicy foods. The peppers I used this week were sliced and in a jar. They'd been opened awhile back. Man, talk about hot. I'm either becoming a wimp or they got hotter while sitting in the fridge. -- Jean M. New food of the week: Ice water. Lots of it. (The jalapeño peppers are very hot!) Do away with flipfloping to e-mail. Basil, oregano, dill, parsley are all fairly easy to grow and worth the garden space. Adding fresh herbs to a dish is a big improvement, and expletive to buy in the produce section of the store. Fresh dill, there is no substitute- its great. Cut the leaves before they flower, this pruning will help the plant get fuller anyway. wash and use or freeze in a zip lock bag- crush when frozen- Fresh Basil in a Thai Panang stir-fry sauce is wonderful, full of flavor and low carb. I belonged to a garden news group long before this one. My weather here in New England though makes for a very short cool growing season. What are your growing conditions? Most of my gardening here is now indoors- Orchids keep me busy. I joined the local orchid club society for something to do and meet people. Everyone was more interested in what blooms were brought onto the meeting than what was on the refreshment table! I enjoy a trip to a garden shop, sometimes more than a restaurant, as far as an outing goes. SignatureDiane Atkins since 12/4/2003 234/208/150 5"8 > > I got space to garden, like vegetable gardening. A decent area too. I > > always loved gardening. Every year, I do more, add more. [quoted text clipped - 14 lines] > Rachel > (New Zealand) "Lasagna Gardening" is an OK book, but never saw the point of buying the book itself. I've got it from the libarary a few times. Basically based on Ruth Stout's methods. The books I consider indispensable are "Square Foot Gardening" and "Four Season Harvest" - these I have to have as references and use regularly. I started gardening a few years ago in pots on my second-floor balcony. Had to haul all the dirt insde and bought a hose-adaptor to water from my sink. I had about 40 pots. I moved to a place with a postage-stamp backyard and expanded tremendously. A couple years ago, we moved to the country and haven't looked back. When we moved here, we began with a lasagna-like building of square foot beds. We built 8 4 by 4 wooden squares, set them in the yard, and filled them with the flattened moving boxes. We moved in June/July and we dumped everything compostable in those squares until fall and planted in them in spring. The next year, we built a bigger bed. We had our neighbor bring over composted cow manure using his cat and cover a 10 by 40 foot area with it. We covered that with straw and made it a second bed. I planted this last year too. Then last fall, when we cleaned out the chicken coop, we put all that bedding on the large bed too. The regular compost (now in a compost pile) went on the 8 squares. Then we mulched all the beds with clean straw to hold the soil over winter. Wehn we clean out the coop again in spring, I'll compost it before adding to the beds. I built a couple cold frams out of straw bales and lights last fall and kept mache and carrots alive through the winter. And interesitng experiemnt, but the idea of using bales as structures was not good, too many holes and such. I am going to try a temporary greenhouse like in "Four Season Harvest" this fall. I have chosen to stick primairly to heirloom and other open-pollinated (op) versions this year. This is my most ambitious garden yet as I am attempting to make sure we can grow most of our own food before we move out to the middle of nowhere when it will actually be necessary. There's few fruits as we're not here long-term, so doesn't seem worth it to do them. Also, while it looks like an incredibly long list, there's few of each plant planted... we're going for variety rather than volume here. This is what I'm planting: honeydew melon (honeyrock) - only op variety I could find cantalope (Sweet Granite) mid-corn (Golden Bantam) shoepeg corn (Country Gentleman) savoy cabbage (Savoy Chieftian) napa cabbage (Market Pride) pak choy storage cabbage (Danish Ballhead) leeks (Tadorna) yellow storage onion (New York Early) bunching onion (Evergreen Hardy) yellow multiplier onions (sets)- will plant in fall for the following year shallot (sets) garlic (forget which variety) - planted last fall butterhead lettuce (Nancy) mache (VIT) tetragonia kale (Toscano) radicchio (Chioggia) swiss chard (Bright Lights) beets (Bull's Blood) summer squash (yellow crookneck) zucchini (Costata Romanesco) winter squash (Neck Pumpkin) - this is an ancestor to the butternut squash and is sold around here in stores as a pie pumpkin, awesome pole beans (Kentucky Blue) pinto beans great northern beans peas (Sugar snap) storage potatoes (Kennebec seed potatoes) bell pepper (Purple Beauty) - only heirloom *purple* pepper I could find bell peppers (Yankee Bell) - op red pepper paste tomato (Debarao) tomato (Brandywine) eggplant (Imperial Black Beauty) carrots (Rumba) Greek oregano Italian basil chives (Staro) German chamomile Italian flat-leaf parsely mint plants - applemint, spearmint and peppermint comfrey - already planted last year and used largely as a green for the chickens over winter sunflower (mammoth) My house is filled with seedlings right now, covering every windowsill as well as the plant stand with built-in lights. There's snow on the ground, but lots of stuff growing in the house! >Subject: Re: Vegetable Gardening >From: jpatti@ccil.org (jpatti) [quoted text clipped - 97 lines] >as well as the plant stand with built-in lights. There's snow on the >ground, but lots of stuff growing in the house! An emmense amount of work, but so worth it.. Sounds great.. Best of luck.. As always YMMV and this is JMO Jeanne Type 2 Diagnosed 05/28/02 194/164/120 > The next year, we built a bigger bed. We had our neighbor bring over > composted cow manure using his cat and cover a 10 by 40 foot area with Am I the only one who initially envisioned a panting, sweating, belabored kitty hooked up to a harness and hauling loads of manure, straining with every tiny step as the neighbor stood over it, arms crossed and whip at the ready while the dog beat out a slow, steady rhythm on a drum with his tail? Wow, stern (and REALLY lazy) taskmasters :-) (Yes, I quickly realized she was talking about a tractor) SignatureSaffire 205/165/125 - 5'2.5" Atkins since 6/14/03 Progress photo: http://photos.yahoo.com/saffire333 > > The next year, we built a bigger bed. We had our neighbor bring over > > composted cow manure using his cat and cover a 10 by 40 foot area with [quoted text clipped - 6 lines] > > (Yes, I quickly realized she was talking about a tractor) ;) Yes, a little baby tractor. Still way easier than hauling with wheelbarrows, which is what we'd have to do since we don't have a cat or any other sort of tractor. Hubby traded the guy for bringing this over in exchange for helping him make hay a few times, which was much less work than hauling that manure would've been. Hubby also traded work for straw... we got 100 bales of straw in exchange for hubby walking the electric fence with a weed-eater to keep it from shorting out. Saved us a couple hundred bucks. We built an insulating wall around the chicken coop for winter. We use it as bedding for the chickens, and later compost it for the garden. I built my cold frames out of bales. And we still have a good 50 bales left. As for the work of gardening itself, there's not much really. The biggest amount of work was the above bartering stuff which we did cause we're too cheap to pay. And also cause we needed to learn some stuff - we are programmers and not very country-savvy yet. I have a "big" gardening session once a week, varies from 2-4 hours or so. Once the garden is active, it's a half hour or so every day, watering as needed and some light weeding. I just do a bit at a time, not the whole thing. It's not really much more work than hauling purchased dirt up the stairs to my apartment and attaching the hose to the sink and running it out to the balcony was when I lived in the city. And frankly, it doesn't count as work to me since gardening is recreation - rather than poorly-paid work, it is "free" recreation. And free therapy too. I started gardening on my porch in pots during a stressful time of my life, it's very therapeutic. It feels good to make things grow and make an area look pretty. Now putting stuff up... that is work. I like cooking, but don't find making and canning jar after jar of spaghetti sauce to be particularly recreational, nor peeling and chopping celery to dehydrate to be therapeutic, etc. Harvesting is fun, but saving the harvest is work. |
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