2018-2019 Winter Garden

For those of you living in a wet moderate climate, this post is for you. Back in late 2017 to early 2018 I was struggling and fighting to try to grow vegetables in my garden. I had to constantly fight slugs and snails. Because tender winter vegetables are easily prey for slimy creatures, I decided to just grow a hardy cover crop during over the winter.

This has proved to be a very good policy. I would highly recommend tall growing vegetables for anyone wanting to fight slug/snail attacks who lives in wet moderate climates. As slugs and snails are practically unavoidable at ground level, it is best to just grow things that they prefer not to consume. By doing this, in addition to caring for the local ground beetles (which prey on slugs) I have drastically decreased the slug pressure in my garden in the summer months.

Favas have also done wonders for my soil. The nitrogen they provide really feeds my vegetable beds. In the spring, I cut all the fava bean plants to the ground, but do not pull up the roots. Though it takes a little more planning to transplant my spring vegetables around the fava stump, the results are well worth it.

With all this being said, I couldn't help but purchase a 6 pack of lettuce starts at the local big box store. Though this lettuce looked delcious, it tasted worse and turned bitter much faster than the lettuce I grew by seed. In addition, I had to keep up with removing slugs and cabbage loopers in order to ensure I recieved my fair share of the garden's bounty.

What's ahead for 2020

Dearest Friends and Readers,

While I really enjoy blogging a lot, sometimes life gets in the way. Over the last couple years I have blogged less based on my family situation. This does not mean I have gardened less or taken less pictures. In fact, over the last several months, I have invested the time and energy to begin catching up to what is currently going on in each of the gardens I work with.

By looking back over my experiences the last couple years, I have been able to catch up enough to ensure that I can post on a weekly basis. Although some content will be more recent and some will be older, you can continue to anticipate quality information. Altogether, I hope that you find my experience with vegetable gardening helpful in providing perspective in your gardening endevours. If not, at least you can recieve some good entertainment from both my successes and blunders.

Yours Truly,

-Jay

December Garden Beneficials

As you enjoy your holidays, I thought I would share a little of what those of us in the moderate part of California can find in our garden in December. While adult mantids are most often seen between August and September in the northern hemisphere, females can often live longer in moderate climates. I found this girl on a bush in the courtyard of a school that I work at.

 Mantids often find both food and refuge on bushes with flowers. This is because the bushes provide cover from predators while flowers attract the mantid's prey. Additionally, depending upon the mantis and their preference for egg laying surfaces, a bush can provide a perfect place for a female to lay her egg case or ootheca.

Mantids live much of their lives upside down

Here is a little video of my December mantis experience

Taste Comparison of the Striped Carosello Leccese Cucumber with the Carosello Spuredda Tarantino

It can be difficult for me to fully compare two of my cucumber-melon varieties. Each variety has its own unique qualities - its benefits and drawbacks. One variety may keep critters away better and not taste as well while another variety may taste incredibly good but have critter problems. One variety of cucumber-melon could be very fast but more prone to disease while a slower variety could be incredibly disease resistant. So in short: Here are a few things I discovered that distinguish the Striped Carosello Leccese from the Carosello Spuredda (or half-long) of Tarantino:

Striped Leccese on the left compared with younger Carosello Tarantino

1. The Striped Leccese begin light in color while the Spuredda Tarantino begin dark.

2. As they grow, the striped Leccese develop dark stripes on its ridges while the Spuredda Tarantino develops light bands between the ridge grooves.

3. The Striped Leccese has a mildly bumpy tender skin while the Spuredda Tarantino has a smooth slightly more firm skin.

4. The Striped Leccese has consistent high water content as soon as the fruit become over an inch wide while the water content of the Spuredda Tarantino is a little more variable.

5. The Striped Leccese grow out their foliage quickly and their fruit at a moderate pace while the Spuredda Tarantino produce a heavy crop from early to late.

6. The Striped Leccese has an extraordinarily smooth flesh texture while the Carosello Tarantino has a regular cucumber-melon flesh texture. 

7. The Striped Leccese produces almost no when mature while the Carosello Tarantino smells a lot like Mango when growing to seed.

If I think of anything else that distinguishes these two carosello varieties from each other, I'll be sure to add it to the list. Until then, I hope you enjoy my little video on the differences between these two carosello cucumber varieties:

Mostly Dark Leccese

What is sometimes advertised, but I have yet to grow myself, is a completely dark Carosello Leccese. As a side note: Spuredda means the same thing as Carosello, so what I the seed companies basically say is that it is a "Carosello Carosello" Leccese. I have worked to grow this variety out and I am still working on finding a completely purely dark line. When I planted out my seed at the chicken garden, I was expecting a lot more completely dark Carosello Leccese than not. The variety shown in this post is from the seed source that I am currently using for my Carosello Leccese dark seed for CucumberShop.

The mostly dark splotched Carosello Leccese

The completely dark Leccese are on the bottom right

 

August 11th, 2018.

August 14th

August 14th

When harvesting this variety, I found the flesh to be slightly crunchy (not too stiff) and the flesh to have adequate water content.

 

The plants were put into the ground somewhere before July 11th, 2018 and grew them out until somewhere around September 8th. Much of the fruit grew slowly – mainly due to the poor fertility of the rocky soil.

August 23rd

August 30th

September 8th

My mostly dark Carosello Leccese is definitely a variety worth either saving or finding a better seed source for (to find a more truly dark color) so that I can continue to grow it out in the future.

The mostly dark Carosello Spuredda Leccese