Fava Bean Followup

Dear Gentle Reader,

I have to tell you how great the service is at Territorial Seed Co.  It is Fabulous!  Yesterday morning, I e-mailed them about the chocolate spot on my Fava beans, since I wasn’t sure what to do with it or if it was safe to eat them.  I got an answer later that very same day, from a nice person named Lori!  I was really surprised.  I hadn’t expected to hear back for at least a week.  Lori said that I need to remove and destroy the diseased plants, and that you can spray the remaining plants with carbendazim, which is a broad spectrum fungicide.  Unfortunately, all of my plants are diseased, so I need to get rid of them all.  I think I will put the plants in a clear plastic bag, in the sun, for about a week or so, to kill the fungus before I compost them. 

To prevent future outbreaks of chocolate spot, Lori recommended to fertilize before planting, don’t plant too closely together, keep the leaves dry, and practice a 4-year crop rotation.   Well, I planted the plants too closely together, since I have been doing the square-foot gardening, and the leaves have been wet quite a bit, due to the constant rain and/or my watering.   BTW, I also read up on Fava beans, and apparently they stop forming beans when it gets too hot (e.g., about 70-degrees).  No wonder they stopped making beans.  It has been very hot here the last several weeks.  I should have planted them as soon as the ground was workable (e.g., February).  Live and learn.

So, I am going to pull the plants out and replace them with zinnias.  They will grow well  during the summer, and at least I will have some flowers to cut.

Next year, I am going to try out a smaller/shorter version of Fava beans, and plant much earlier, in the next garden box over.  I will give them more room, and maybe spray them with copper on a weekly basis.  Also, I will do some more reading up on them before then.

Update 7-1-10: The Fava beans got torn out.  Still need to plant.

By, By Favas. You were fun while you lasted.

 

Chocolate Fava Beans?

Dear Gentle Reader,

I haven’t been able to do much gardening lately, as I am still having back problems.  Anything requiring bending over is difficult.  I’m hoping that I overcome this problem soon.

I went out to check the garden this morning, and noticed that some of the bean pods have black spots on them.  In some cases, it is very severe.

It is very hard.  Not slimy.  I did a little searching on the web, and found that it is called Chocolate Spot (Botrytis fabae).  But I haven’t found any information about what to do about it.  Any suggestions?

 

Ellie, Ellie Quite Contrelli, How Does Your Garden Grow?

Dear Gentle Reader,

I checked out my garden this evening, after I got home from work.  It rained once again.  So it’s hot and humid.  It looks like there is a lawn in the back yard, but it is a trick.  When you walk around, your shoes squelch in the mud, leaving sloppy foot prints.  Hippy Skippy.

The leeks are growing well.  I should have harvested them a couple of months ago, but they started making scapes, and that was interesting.  So I left them, and now some of them are 3-4 feet tall.  The flower buds are huge and starting to open.

 

 

 

 

The fava beans are coming along.  Some are getting pretty big.

 

The tomatoes are even making tiny little fruits.

 

And the corn is standing tall.

 

Independence Days- Update #9

Dear Gentle Reader,

1. Plant Something:  It has been raining at least every other day.  On top of that, it has been in the upper ’80s.  So, I haven’t gotten to do too much in the way of planting.  I did do a lot of weeding.  And every time we had a big storm, the winds knocked everything down, and I tied it back up.  So, the fava beans have been tied up several times.  Saturday I staked off the corn.  Yesterday I staked up the cherry tomatoes.  This morning I staked up the slicer tomatoes. 

I planted four pots of H-19 Little Leaf Cukes (from Highmowing Seeds).  They are pickling cucumbers.  I picked them because they are resistant to Angular Leaf Spot, Anthracnose, Cucumber Mosaic Virus, Downy Mildew, Powdery Mildew, and Scab.  I am hoping that they do well, but I have only one in the garden.  I planted some others, but they got eaten by Bambi.  I also transplanted a Mexican Sour gherkin into a large pot.  I found that you can get all kinds of FREE growers pots at the nursery.  They have a huge bin where people drop their used pots off for recycling.  So, I picked up a bunch on Sunday.  Yay!

2. Harvest Something:  Garlic scapes.  A bunch of mint and a bunch of thyme.  It was great on pan-seared lamb chops.

3. Preserve Something:  nothing

4. Waste Not: Picked up growers pots for free from recycling at my local nursery.

5. Want Not: Still working on my sourdough bread baking skills.  I started adapting the sourdough recipe to oatmeal.  The first try was ok, but it needs work.

6. Build Community Food Systems:  Investigated which orchards and farms are actually near me (within the surrounding counties).  I e-mailed an orchard not too far away from here, and they still have PYO cherries for only $2.50/lb.  Is that a good price?  I’m not sure.  They also have apples, blueberries, raspberries, and asian pears.  So, I need to get my family geared up for some picking.

7. Eat the Food:  More sourdough bread; mint and thyme

 

Got Scapes?

Dear Gentle Reader, 

Finally, I harvested something today… garlic scapes!   Check out this cool bouquet! 

2010 Garlic Scape Harvest

 

An entire 1-pound and 1.25-ounces worth.   You probably already know that only hardneck garlic makes the scapes.  I planted two kinds last fall (I forget which ones).  I got them from Seeds of Change.   To get good hardneck garlic heads, you remove the scapes.  Otherwise, the garlic puts it energy into making a flower.  The flower makes baby garlic cloves that fall to the ground and grow to a new head (in two hears).   There is a lot of wild garlic all over the place here.  I have been told that this area used to grow a lot of the garlic for the US in the 1800′s.  I’m not sure if that is true or not.  Couldn’t find anything on the internet about it.  But it is everywhere.  So, I picked all of the scapes from the wild garlic on our yard, in addition to the scapes from the garlic that I planted. 

So, what the heck do you do with all of that?  A quick check of the web produced recipies for various dishes with scapes instead of garlic bulbs.  I could even make pickled scapes.  Apparently, the most tender part is the stem.  The flower part isn’t so great.  The most popular use is in pesto.  So, maybe I’ll make that tomorrow.  Also, I will chop up what I don’t use for pesto and put it in the freezer for later.  Maybe next year I’ll try out the pickles. 

What do you do with your scapes?

 

Flood Much?

Dear Gentle Reader,

Sorry that I haven’t posted much in the last several days.  I strained my back in my ZUMBA class.  So, I have been resting, using the heating pad intermittently, and taking Tylenol.  Ibuprophen would be better, but I am allergic to it now. 

It has been flooding a lot in the last two weeks, due to the heavy rains we keep having.  It poured last night, so much that Indian Creek, which is 1/2 block from us, flooded.  A couple of miles East of us, its level increased 12-feet in 3-hours!  Fortunately, it didn’t do that where we are.  Several roads around town are flooded.  One is even blocked by a mud slide.

We have heavy soil here.  It is totally saturated.  Our basement is flooding.  It sounds like a river is flowing through the basement, to the sump pump.  Thank the Lord above that we bought a new sump pump last week.  The old one died late at night, so we had to have the plumber come in the dark and put a new sump pump in.  It cost a fortune, with the emergency call and all, but I am really glad that we did it.  My DH was up most of the night moving things around in our over-stuffed basement, to keep them out of the way of the streams of water as they flowed from the walls and/or windows to the sump pump.  DH is getting some well-earned sleep this morning.

The back yard is a sloppy mud pit.  Plus it is HOT!  Feels like a sauna, it is so humid.  The mosquitoes are out in force.  Hope no one gets West Nile or Equine encephalitis from that.  I really need to put out some Bt, but it rains almost every day.  So it isn’t really worth it.  I did put some Slugo down in the gardens.  The slugs are everywhere, but the Slugo will hold up to the rain.  But that is really all that I have been able to do lately.

I hope things dry up soon!

 

Farmgirl Fare Bread-Yum!

Dear Gentle Reader,

I tried out a new (for me) bread recipe from Farmgirl Fare, for Susan’s Oatmeal Toasting Bread, and boy was it GOOD!   I am definately going to make it many more times.   Please go to the link above, for the basic recipe.  Susan likes to use old dough in her recipe, but since I had my sourdough starter I used about a cup of that instead.  The bread did not have a sourdough flavor, since it included regular yeast too.  The regular yeast made the dough rise very fast.  It seemed like in only about an hour or so, the dough was overflowing the bowl it was it (the first rise).

Looking pretty good here.  After I punched the dough down, I divided it into three pieces.   Since I have two small and one large pan, one of the pieces was a little larger than the others.  Next, I kneeded and shaped the dough into logs that fit the pans.  The dough was a little sticky, which probably meant it could have used a little more flour, but it was such a large amount (during the first kneading) that I got as much flour as I could into the dough, but had to stop because I was getting too tired.  Oh well.  After shaping, I placed each log in its respective pan, sprayed it lightly with canola oil spray, and loosely covered it with plastic wrap.  It rose until it looked like this.

The middle small loaf was starting to sag over its sides, so I thought I ought to get them into the oven.  This is how they turned out.

Look at that beautiful crust.  It had a great crust, with a soft, moist crumb. 

Most of the first loaf disappeared the first day, everyone liked it so much.  I had some for breakfast, this morning.  And it toasted up beautifully. 

So, what are some changes I might make.   First, I need to shorten my baking time, or oven temperature, or turn of the convection feature of my oven.  It was a tiny bit overdone.  Second, I used Smart Balance Spread, instead of butter.  I avoid butter, due to a milk fat allergy.  Also, it is good for people who have cholesterol difficulties, like the adults in our family.  Finally, I am going to experiment with using only my sourdough starter to leven this bread.  It will take longer, but it will be a great flavor and texture.

All in all, I recommend that you put Susan’s Oatmeal Toasting Bread on your To-Do list.

 

Lasagna Garden Update

Dear Gentle Reader,

This evening, I went outside to water and check my gardens.  The mosquitoes were out in force!  I have been watering my lasagna garden at least every other day, but usually every day.  It has settled by about 1/2 of its original height, which was expected.   It looks mostly like a pile of leaves.  However, there are little bean sprouts all over it. Horray!  

Royal Velvet Bush Beans

That little yellow ball is one of the immature peaches that fell off of the diseased/infested peach tree we have.  All of the peaches will fall off and rot.  None of them will mature, due to the disease/bugs.  They are all over my raised beds.   

In any case, since this lasagna garden is heavy on the browns (carbon), I plan to chop up the bean plants (after harvest) and fork them back into the  pile.  If I could have, I would have used grass clippings, in addition to the leaves and straw, to build this, but I don’t have any.   This seemed like a good solution, at least partially.  Next year, I will add some balanced, slow release fertilizer.   

Have you tried lasagna gardening?  How did it work out for you? 

Update 6-14-10: Bambi (or maybe Thumper) ate the tops off of all of the plants.  Some of them seem to be getting new leaves, but moste are forlorn looking purple stems.

 

Independence Days- Update #8

Dear Gentle Reader,

This past weekend was shamefully slow, on the independence days front, at least compared to last week.  Most of our Saturday afternoon was spent at Golden Heartland Alpacas.   It’s about an hour’s drive from here.  My DH had heard from a friend that they were having an open house, and we decided it would be fun.  And it was.   Here are some of the boys we saw.

1. Plant Something: I didn’t actually get to plant anything this week.  But I did spend a bit of time taking care of everything.  The tomatoes are all blooming now.  I am looking forward to eating them.  I really need to harvest the leeks.  They are very over grown, all with skapes.  The hard neck garlic is putting out skapes too.  So, I really need to cut them off.  I keep thinking that I will cook something with them, like pickle them.  Since I am short on time, maybe the best thing to do would be to simply saute them.  I could freeze some of what I saute, in useful amounts, for future use.
2. Harvest Something: nothing
3. Preserve Something: nothing
4. Waste Not: nothing
5. Want Not: I tried out a new bread recipe from Farmgirl Fare.  It was for oatmeal tosting bread.  It is really delicious, and does make great toast.  This recipe uses “old dough,” so I just used some of my sourdough starter.  Since the recipe also uses regular yeast, it rises very quickly (as compared with just the sourdough starter, which contains a slow-growing yeast), and I was able to make the bread in only a few hours.  It made three lovely loaves.  But, since I have a 30-year old Kitchen Aid mixer (my mom’s), I need to reduce the recipe to only two loaves.  The old Kitchen Aids have bowls that can handle only two loaves-worth of dough.  You can do enough dough for three loaves, but it crawls over the top of the dough hook and gets on the rotary mechanics.  I am definately going to make this again.  I am going to experiment with making it only with sourdough starter.  Since the starter is very slow-rising, I might use 4-cups of it (as opposed to 1-cup), to speed things up.
6. Build Community Food Systems: nothing
7. Eat the Food: nothing

 

Urban Agriculture Controversy in KCMO?

Dear Gentle Reader,

This morning’s local news had an interesting story…some possibe controversy over home gardens, urban agriculture, and where you can grow it, and where and what you can sell.  Although I am rather new to both gardening and the KC area, I was aware that there had been some controversy over these issues, especially with relation to Badseed Farm and Market, a local urban farm.  It seems that some of their neighbors didn’t like them and they had to change some of their practices, including where they sell their crops and getting rid of their chickens.

In any case, it looks like these new city ordinances are going to be generally good for the home gardener, urban agriculture, AND CSAs.  See below for some excerpts and explanations I pinched from a factsheet.

88-372-02 Urban Agriculture  The Urban Agriculture section is new, as are the categories of Home Garden, Community Garden, and Community Supported Agriculture (CSA).

88-372-02-A. Home Garden  A garden maintained by one or more individuals who reside in a dwelling unit located on the subject property. Food and horticultural products grown in the home garden may be used for personal consumption or for donation or sale on-site. A home garden is an accessory use to a principal residential use.   Home Garden is included to acknowledge the home garden and clarify that although not previously codified, a home garden has always been permitted in Kansas City. Ordinances do not dictate placement of the garden, whether front, side, or rear yards. However, some neighborhoods and homes associations may have restrictions and covenants pertaining to home gardens.

88-372-02-B. Community Garden  An area of land managed and maintained by a group of individuals to grow and harvest food and horticultural products for personal or group consumption or for sale or donation. A community garden area may be divided into separate garden plots for cultivation by one or more individuals or may be farmed collectively by members of the group. A community garden may include common areas (e.g., hand tool storage sheds) maintained and used by the group. Community garden group members may or may not reside on the subject property. Sales and donation of food and horticultural products grown in the community garden may occur on-site. A community garden may be a principal or accessory use.   Community Garden also has not previously been codified, but has been a permitted use in Kansas City. There are many community gardens throughout the city.

88-372-02-C. Community Supported Agriculture (CSA)  An area of land managed and maintained by an individual or group of individuals to grow and harvest food and horticultural products for shareholder consumption or for sale or donation.  Under the CSA model, shareholders may arrange to work on the farm in exchange for a share of the crops and/or pay for a portion of the crop in advance. A CSA may be a principal or accessory use.   Community Supported Agriculture also has not previously been codified. There are a few CSAs in Kansas City. They may have operated legally under the “Agriculture, Crop” category as long as they did not have employees (including shareholders) and did not distribute produce or sell from the site. The proposed ordinance will allow a CSA to be a principal or accessory use of the land. In addition, shareholders may work and pick up produce on the farm. If a CSA desires to sell from the site, a special use permit is required for farms located in single-family residential districts, and a temporary use permit is required for those in other residential districts.

So, this looks like a really good thing.  Finally, some important issues are going to be codified in the city code, thereby making these activities easier and better for all.

I wonder how this will affect gardeners as The Slow Decline continues to progress?