Tag: vegetables

March 4, 2025 – Maybe This is the Trick?

March 4, 2025 /

I finally got my seeds started. Once again, this is another year of experimentation so I wouldn’t be surprised to get very mixed results. I am thinking that I should probably put more effort into grouping seeds by preferred environment rather than trying to ‘fill up my tray’. The last time I did this, I only got half a tray of germination because I think some seeds sprouted before others. and not everything got ideal circumstances.

One of the reasons I was dragging my feet this year was that I wanted to mark the individual cell. I also wanted my efforts to be cheap or preferably free. In the past I have used tape on the row but then I am afraid to break-up the cells for fear of losing track of what plant is what. I believe that once germinated, I will need to transplant into larger vessels to get these plants to thrive. Do you see the method to my madness?

What I came up with this year was to use some plastic drinking straws that have been around forever. Since I am not selling the straws on eBay, I might as well get some use from them as I have been handling them so long. If I really had my stuff together, I would take advantage of the color code to do something. But in this case, I simply grouped different seeds by color.

What I am ultimately hoping for is a couple plants for each row. I don’t have the space for five tomato plants anyway. If I am lucky and get everything to germinate, then I will attempt to give the plants away. Using that logic, I only planted smaller numbers of certain things like peppers because five habenero plants is too much for anybody. I am pretty sure that I can get my dad to take whatever I don’t want. If nobody wants them then I will still be money ahead than buying starts anyway.

Basically what I started were mostly hot house vegetables. Tomato, bell pepper, jalapeno and habanero. I planted cabbage and collards as well. For herbs, I planted thyme and basil. I picked two tobacco varieties just to see what happens and the rest is purple coneflower or echinacea. I am really hoping that the flowers make it because they will be perennial and I would like to do some mass planting.

This whole effort of starting from seeds was really an attempt to experiment with succession planting. That is to get a second garden going as the season wore on. My problem is that the summer season seems so long and endless that I actually lose interest during the dog days of summer. This is all been an attempt to skillfully growing food in case I ever needed the production.

It is easy to keep focus on the tray when the weather is bad and the daylight is low. As time moves on, there is the feeling that I can start seeds later, I can water the cells later, I am busy with this project or that one. It becomes out of sight, out of mind. This is the whole reason I didn’t even attempt to start seeds last year. I already know my tendency to ignore the garden. As it turns out, there is no way I would have kept one alive when I wasn’t even pretending to try.

There is no doubt that my most successful year gardening was my first. I was coming off of a brutal year on the road and just wanted to be home. My second best year was potentially going to be 2020 when I was home and got plants in the ground but spent all my time remodeling the apartment. For that reason, I don’t believe that successful gardening is as much skill as it is being present.

End Your Programming Routine: I am not holding my breath that this year will be any different than recent years past. That being said, you don’t learn if you don’t try. I am happy that I got started and I am pleased with my markers. If I can manage to be present enough, then maybe I will be on my way to a bumper crop.

May 7, 2024 – Will It Juice?

May 7, 2024 /

When you start to get some age on you, unfortunately some people we once new are no longer with us. Also some people that we know are also survivors. In this case, one of my wife’s friends is a cancer survivor and she said that juicing was a key part of her treatment process. The first couple of weeks she brought some juice by and then she bought my wife her own juicer.

This is a nice piece of equipment. It is Breville which means that it is pretty high dollar (and well made). My first thought is where is this going to be stored? Then looking at it a little more, how much of a pain in the butt is this going to be to clean? It is my opinion that a healthy life tips the balance more towards a diet of whole foods. I think juicing is a short cut in a sense, but it certainly must be better drinking things that came from a can or bottle.

Putting my reservations aside, my wife wanted to use it so I set out to find some recipes to try. I found two that were advertised as ‘Energy’ and ‘Anti-Cancer’ so that is what I set about to do. Will it juice?

These recipes are for one batch which seems to produce about a cup worth of juice. The first one is Energy.

  • 1 stalk celery
  • 1 apple
  • 1 lemon
  • 4 leaves of kale
  • 1/2 cucumber
  • 1 inch of peeled ginger

The second one is cancer fighting.

  • 2 carrots
  • 4 stalks celery
  • 1 lemon
  • 1/4 head of cabbage

This is the output of the second one. Once everything is stirred together it is a very vibrant orange. Left to its own devices, it will separate again in about a day. It appears that a very fine degree of solids is allowed to pass through the screen and those solids float to the top.

I tasted both of them. Neither were bad. I have to say that the green grass taste of the ‘Energy’ was less appealing, but not horrible. I could see having a glass of this every breakfast or something like that. I would probably want to try some other recipes to find what I really like. There were some recipes that contained rhubarb and that stuff grows like a weed from my plants. It seems like a good strategy when gardens start to become prolific.

I made a couple of batches with the thought that they might last the week. I have to say committing to this uses a lot of produce. That isn’t necessarily a bad thing. Some might say it is the point of juicing. Just be prepared that finding a steady stream of vegetables are going to have a financial impact.

After trying things, there are still two downsides. The first is to find a home for this machine. I don’t want it living on the counter for the rest of my life. The second is cleaning. The catch barely holds a double batch and there are a lot of parts to wash. The filter screen has to be scrubbed because the fine fiber tends to plug the screen with each use. It definitely takes more time to clean than to use. Not ideal. There is a fair amount of waste generated. This makes excellent compost fodder or even chicken food. Since I have neither at the moment, I feel bad about throwing it out. But beware, you will have to deal with that as well.

End Your Programming Routine: Will I ever become a juicer? Probably not. I could definitely see making some custom Bloody Mary mix though. Think about it, the possibilities are almost endless. I am committed to making juice while my wife goes through treatment. I am going to sneak in a few things that I want to try while I am going through the effort to do this. I have to say that it is kind of fun and amazing to see the amount of water in celery.

August 2, 2022 – Pasta Sauce From A Jar?

August 2, 2022 /

I know, this is one of those convenience things. Real sauce takes some time. But I will give a secret, I almost always doctor sauce from a jar in this way as well. So, I really don’t have anything to gain from using jarred sauce.

First, lets talk about jarred sauce. I find it to be lifeless and bland lacking the zest of herbs, the sweetness of vine ripened tomatoes, the tang of garlic, that is a surface issue. To go deeper, we will look at the ingredient list, why is corn syrup part of the recipe? Then we have the alphabet soup of preservatives. The only thing redeeming is the price point, hence we get what we pay for.

What is the purpose of sugar with tomatoes? This technique helps mellow the acidity of the tomato which balances the overall flavor profile. I typically use a teaspoon to a half tablespoon of brown sugar for an entire batch of sauce, say enough for four people.

Have you ever bought the ‘garden’ variety of sauce? I think there are a dozen mushroom slices and green peppers in the jar. I certainly taste no difference. I like a generous amount of onion, half a green pepper, four mushrooms, three cloves of garlic and probably a tablespoon of basil and salt to taste. With this proportion, I would add one or two cans of plain tomato sauce. This is a good place to throw in leftover pizza sliced or taco diced tomatoes as well (I used hamburger sliced tomatoes from my sons birthday in the picture above).

That is just as fast as doctoring jarred sauce. Instead of sauce, you could start with crushed, diced or even whole tomatoes. When using those types of ingredients, start with reducing the tomatoes first and add the vegetables to the sauce rather than the other way around.

End Your Programming Routine: I don’t always add this many vegetables. In fact, we do not eat that much pasta, I don’t care for it much. But, I promised my son that I would make vegan spaghetti and we would use his plant based meatballs. By the way, those things are disgusting, also not real food. Despite that, I remain open minded and inclusive of his choice. So, skip the prepared sauce and do it yourself. It can literally be done while the water is heating up to boil the pasta.

September 2, 2020 – Lessons learned on the Victory Garden

September 2, 2020 /

I believe in transparency, especially in a forum such as this. Not everything can be bang on successful. Not only that, I believe in mistakes are our teachers. In the software industry we used to call project wrap up ‘lesson’s learned’ or using a fancier term ‘plus delta’.

So, look at the picture closely. The first thing you probably see is my dog digging a hole in the bed. Then you might see the bathroom addition that I just finished. Right next to the bathroom, there is a big pile of dirt (it is actually two piles, but the contrast in the picture is not clear).

What kind of plants did I end up with? Good question, I am still not totally sure because my kids planted the seeds in the tray. One of the tray’s was labelled ‘Rainbow’ which they explained to me was all of the leftover seeds mixed into one tray. I noticed that the cabbage tray was growing tomatoes, no peppers actually sprouted. From what I can tell, I ended up with two tomato plants and what I think are two brussel sprout plants.

There are two volunteer tomato plants that I let grow and they are the only thing that is currently producing. The brussel sprouts may have enough time to produce. I don’t think the proper tomato plants will yield anything because it is getting too late in the season. I had some volunteer dill come up as well. This is not exactly the bounty of a Victory Garden.

It is going to be pretty easy to talk about the things that didn’t go well, so let us start with what did.

  • I got seeds started and sprouted
  • I kept the seedlings alive from about mid-April until mid-June before I got them in the ground
  • Most of what got planted is still alive and if the weather holds out, may still produce
  • I got my kids involved in the process

That is pretty much the positives, now for some constructive analysis

  • I went from three beds to one, cutting the opportunity for productivity significantly
  • Because my construction project dominated my life for months, the plants stayed in the trays six weeks too long reducing their vigor and potential for yield
  • I needed to pay more attention to my kids technique when initially planting the seeds
  • The bed location is getting less full sun exposure each year. This year particularly also had construction debris all around, materials dragged over the plants and in general in the way of everything.
  • Some of my seeds are getting long in the tooth. In the past, I was able to get seeds from the library for free and I got kind caught flat footed with COVID and all of the shut downs, including the library

Despite my many issues, and what I consider a nearly wasted effort, I revealed my plans to come back stronger and better. I suppose the good news is that this effort cost nearly nothing. I spent a few dollars to retrofit my irrigation manifold so I could have all soaker lines in the bed.

The other good news is that my dad grows a giant garden and we got broccoli, cucumbers, corn, beets and swiss chard. Sometimes it is better to know a gardener than to be one.