Cleaning up Summer

Over Veteran's Day my wife lovingly provided me with the time to clean up my summer garden and harvest my sweet potatoes. The crop experienced a light frost a couple days beforehand and I reasoned that I would not have any time between then and when a hard frost came to spend cleaning up my summer garden.



My Summer Garden Back in August



A light frost and time off provides clean-up opportunities



My 2012 Summer Garden has come to an end

Due to the extent of the vine growth, most of my time was spent cutting back Purple Hyacinth Bean and Sweet Potato foliage.



A few of the composted vines - my wife humored me in taking this picture


It is difficult to see the end of a season, though, especially in warmer climates – the death of plants in one season means the life of plants in the new season.

~With this thought I say goodbye to summer and hello to winter!~

A Trip to Apple Annie's

When Tucson Unified School District changed the school calendar, we received an added “Fall break” in October – so decided to spend some quality family time together. After packing our children up, we drove over to Apple Annie’s, a Orchard and Farm located in Wilcox, Arizona. Among the activities we participated in included using clues to help guide us through the corn maze, harvesting apples from an orchard, harvesting tomatoes from a small tomato patch, and picking out a pumpkin to use for Halloween. 


Corn Maze at Apple Annie's



Red Delicious Apples at Apple Annie's



Harvesting Tomatoes with the Family



Amazingly, the pumpkin did last until Halloween – though I didn’t save any of the seeds. We really enjoy salted and baked pumpkin seeds.

My family removing seeds for Carving a Pumpkin



So what does this have to do with scientific gardening? While we were at Apple Annie's I was able to harvest some Milo to try as a cover crop next summer. Additionally, I called and inquired about the bush bean cultivar that Apple Annie’s farm was growing so well in the heat. The flowers looked like tepary bean flowers, though the beans remained tender until a large size. Despite inquiries, no one from Apple Annie’s has returned my phone calls. I suppose I’ll have to keep working on my search for a tender, nearly heat-proof English-type bean cultivar to grow in my garden.

Defining a Weed

As I visited a local garden I noticed some plants that were not producing the way they should. In the past, I have noticed plants like these in my garden. Although unproductive plants are not necessarily weeds, it is noteworthy to recognize plants that fit the mould of a weed. When these plants are left in the garden to take up space, they extract the garden’s resources without giving the gardener the pleasure of a “good” crop.

According to Merrium Webster, a weed is a wild plant growing where it is not wanted and in competition with cultivated plants. For me, a weed can be a cultivated plant that is “not wanted” or a plant that as takes up space (and light) that could be better used for productive plants.

Though it sounds cruel, there are many good reasons to pull up or cut down a weedy garden plant. Here are a few:

1. If a plant dithers.

A Watermelon vine that is just not growing well

2. If a plant does not produce well.

Many of my peppers didn't get posted about because of poor production

3. If a whole plant becomes diseased.

Some kind of mosiac or curly top virus on a tomato plant

4. If a plant grows too large, without producing much.

Tomatoes are great - except if you have a huge plant with no tomatoes on it

5. If my family doesn’t like the veggies I produce.

My family doesn't care much for Brussel Sprouts

With my garden consisting of a small plot, it is important for me to cut down or remove ineffective plants that shade out useful plants. Though any cultivated plant may be fun to grow for some people, productive and useful plants are those that bring me the most joy.



Cooking Purple Hyacinth Beans

Though my family has enjoyed the bountiful harvest of Purple Hyacinth Beans I have stir-fried, they really prefer the English beans (Phaseolus vulgaris) such as “Blue Lake” that you buy fresh, frozen, or canned from the store. The cooking method to make the Purple Hyacinth Bean (Lablab purpureus) taste like an English-type bean is the same as the method I use for Chinese Long Beans, though the Hyacinth beans must be cooked for a shorter amount of time. In short, I blanch them.



Purple Hyacinth Beans Ready to Cook



Blanching requires bringing a pot of water to a rolling boil and making the water very briny with a generous amount of salt (at least ¼ cup of salt per 2 quarts of water).  



Add plenty of salt to the boiling water



Once you have the beans ready and the water boiling, set the timer for 3 minutes and dump in the beans.

Stir the beans after 2 minutes just to make sure both sides of all beans are blanched.

Beans should turn a green color, as shown below.

Most - but not all - beans will turn some shade of green

Finally out the beans using a colander and serve with butter or eat plain.



Not so purple Hyacinth Beans ready to eat



While some people may scoff at the idea of losing so many minerals in the water or having to prepare so much to blanch the beans, I feel blanching the beans is time well spent to have my children enjoy eating their veggies.

Garden Maintenance and Carosello Thoughts

When I began vegetable gardening in Tucson I quickly discovered that I was investing way too much time for what little produce my garden produced. Sure – Brussel Sprouts and Broccoli are nice vegetables, but the amount of maintenance required for the meager reward was not worth the effort. With time and experience I learned which plants required a high amount of maintenance and which plants required very little maintenance. I decided that I would have a mixture of crops that required both large and small demands on my time.

Carosello Pollisello Cucumber-Melon Blossom

I wonder why this flower has not been pollinated yet?

With this maintenance scheme in mind I have recently decided that my favorite kind of vegetable is the kind that has a lower maintenance in some areas and higher maintenance in other areas. I strive to grow vegetables that require lower maintenance and greater disease resistance and tolerance to environmental conditions while requiring higher maintenance in relation to needing to be harvested. That is really what has drawn me towards the cucumber-melons. For the hot southern states where heat and disease is a real problem, cucumber-melons (including the Carosello) are great.



A flower is becoming a cucumber! (=

Some dark Carosello Polisello Growing



A tasty dark Carosello Polisello

Some kind of Mandurian Round carosello I grew this summer

My experience with the Carosello cucumber-melons has been wonderful so far. They are vigorous, heat-loving plants that demand fertile soil. The more fertile and composted the soil, the better the plants grow. Their growth pattern is very predictable, and it is always fun to watch the fruit grow. The amount of fruit they produce is relatively high and the colors and patterns the fruit can be bred to produce make the cucumber a beautiful treat.

Some of the Carosello Fruit I harvested this summer

Carosello Polisello harvested for seed

Inside of Carosello Fruit

Carosello Seed and Pulp

Cleaning Seed from Pulp

Cleaned Carosello Seed

Though harvesting seed from the fruit is relatively easy, figuring out how long to wait until picking the fruit and determining how long to leave the fruit in storage before harvesting the seed are still aspects of the growing process I have not yet learned.. Mature carosello fruit do have a slight swetness immediately after the fruit is cut open though the fruit quickly loses its sweetness thereafter. Though the flesh of the mature fruit does have the texture and appearance of sweeter melons the taste can be described as bland at best.

Light colored Carosello

The flesh of this Carosello is very similar to honeydew