Grow So Easy Organic: Battling Bugs That Bug Potatoes

Posted on February 2, 2013 | Leave a comment

My first crop of potatoes was growing beautifully in my trenches.  The dark green tops of the plants were clearly visible from my kitchen window.
Then, one morning, while sipping my tea, I realized that those tall, beautiful plants weren’t there!

I raced out the door and up the hill to my garden and could not believe my eyes.  My two trenches of potato plants looked like they had been crocheted instead of grown – leaves lacy and brown, stems slowly bending toward the ground.

My plants were being eaten, and fast.

The Colorado Potato Beetle had found my plants.  I mashed, crushed, trapped, drowned and killed as many as I could but about 1/3rd of the plants were beyond help.  I pulled them up and disposed of them and kept battling the beetles and started covering my potato plants with a light cover.

When the survivors  flowered, I thought, yes….now I’ll get some potatoes.  And I did…get some potatoes but not a whole lot.  Why?

The main reason was the potatoes didn’t get enough food.  Apparently they don’t respond well to being put on a diet.  They are heavy feeders and require regular infusions of a rich organic fertilizer like fish meal.

I was disappointed by my yield; I was also disappointed by how many of my potatoes were just not edible.  Most of the potatoes I harvested had holes drilled into them with most of the flesh ruined.

This was my introduction to one more potato enemy.   It’s called the wire worm – the larva of the common click beetle.  Click beetles do little harm but the wire worm is a nemesis of potatoes and about as bad and as prevalent a pest as the potato beetle.

And organic control of wireworms is not easy.  Here are a few techniques you can try to limit their destructiveness.

  1. If you till, do it in May and June when wireworms hatch.  This exposes them to hungry birds.
  2. You can set up decoy traps using chunks of potatoes from the store.  Stab a piece of raw potato and bury it near the problem area making sure the skewer is above ground so you can find it again.  Wait about a week and pull up the potato.
    Check for wireworms and then make sure you dispose of the potato piece with all of the wireworms.  By the way, Do NOT put it in your compost bin.
  3. Always remove and dispose of infected plants after harvesting, to limit overwintering of the blasted wireworms.
  4. Buy and apply the nematode Heterorhabditis megadis.  It attacks wireworms but you need to apply it every year in May when the wireworms are hatching

So, growing potatoes is not nearly as easy as it looks but it is worth it.  Just be prepared to take some special measures to ensure your potato seeds like the home you build for them to grow and live in.

And protect the plants from the two most prominent predators – Colorado Potato Beetles and the larval click beetles – the Wireworm.

Then sit back and enjoy.

Recipes
I married an Italian but my maiden name was Duffy.  If I know anything, I know potatoes!  And I love them.  The recipes below are ones I make often and love serving.

The Fish Chowder is rich, tasty and based on a Bon Appetit recipe.  The Cauliflash is all mine and is a healthy and tasty alternative to a big bowl of mashed potatoes.

Fish Chowder

INGREDIENTS:
2 boneless fish fillets
2 thick cut bacon slices
2 T butter
1 leek, minced
1 stalk celery, minced
½ tsp dry mustard
1 lb potatoes, peeled & cubed
4 sprigs thyme
¼ c heavy cream
1 T minced chives

DIRECTIONS:
Place fish fillets and bacon slices in large pot and cover with 4 cups cold water.

Bring to simmer over medium high heat then reduce heat to medium and simmer for 5 minutes or until fish is cooked.

Transfer fish to plate and let it cool then remove skin and flake into large pieces.

Continue to simmer bacon in broth until stock is reduced by half (2 cups).

Strain, discard bacon, add 2 to 3 cups of water and reserve poaching liquid.

Melt butter in large pot, add leeks and celery and cook 15 minutes until translucent.

Stir in dry mustard and reserved liquid, potatoes and thyme and increase heat to high.  Simmer until potatoes are cooked – 12 minutes or so.

Remove pot from heat and use a slotted spoon to remove half of the potatoes and mash with a fork.

Return to pot, stir in fish, cream and chives and serve

Cauliflash

INGREDIENTS:

1 large head of fresh cauliflower
1 to 2 medium-sized potatoes
Butter to taste
Milk to taste
Salt to taste

DIRECTIONS:
Wash the potatoes.

Use a fork to poke a few holes in the potatoes then put in microwave and cook until soft.

While the potatoes cook, start working on the cauliflower.

Remove stalk and outer leaves from cauliflower.

Wash then cut into florets.

Microwave the florets until they are soft/crisp.  It usually takes between 7 and 9 minutes on high.

Put half the florets into a food processor and pulse.  Add and pulse the remaining florets until all are chopped small.  NOTE:  Depending on how big/powerful your processor is, you may have to stream a bit of milk in to keep the florets turning.

Once all the cauliflower is processed, put the butter in the processor on top of the cauliflower and pulse once or twice.

Cube the potatoes and add to food processor, put the lid on and turn the processor on.

Stream milk into the food processor until you reach the consistency you like.

Add a little salt and process for about 30 seconds more.

Serve!

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Grow So Easy Organic: How To Grow Potatoes…Sort of

Posted on January 26, 2013 | 6 comments

You can learn a lot about life just by planting a garden.  It doesn’t matter whether you grow flowers or vegetables, the lessons are the same.  For one thing, you learn that everything you do is not always going to be successful no matter how hard you work at it or how well you research it.

I learned that lesson the hard way, the first year I planted potatoes.

I read magazines, books and pamphlets about planting, growing and harvesting potatoes.  I wrote down everything — potatoes don’t like heavy soil, trench them but don’t bury them.  Try using pine needles instead of dirt as the growing medium.  Plant them eye side up.  Potatoes don’t like heat so plant in the fall to harvest early in the spring.  Plant them in the spring, as soon as you can work the soil, but early enough so you can harvest when it’s still cool.

Once the research was done, I ventured out to talk to some people I thought would know.

I drove to the local feed store and talked to the man behind the counter. He’s lived in the country all his life and spends 6 days a week selling tools, ointments, salves and seeds to the people who make up our small town.   He said, “It’s all in the seed potato you pick.  Gotta’ make sure you get one that has been grown just to be planted again.”

I walked across the road and trudged up the long, steep driveway to my neighbor’s house.  He’s a farmer and he harvests acres of potatoes every year.   “It’s in the soil,” he said, “If you’ve got the right mix of nutrients, you can’t miss.  Till in some cow manure in the fall and your potatoes will grow themselves.”

I talked to my Mom.  She’d had a garden for as long as I can remember.  The last year she was alive, her garden was 5 times the size of mine.  (The fact that she was 82 at the time and couldn’t wait for spring thaw so she can get out there and grow again is another lesson for another time.) 

Mom said, “Plant them at the top of the garden, on the slope.  Cover them with mulch until they flower.  Then leave them alone till the tops fall over.”

I added this advice to all the other tips I had written in my gardening journal.  Then, because old habits die hard, I organized it like I was going to deliver a presentation then wrote my executive summary for the best approach to growing potatoes:

  1. Till cow manure into the soil at least one season before you want to plant.
  2. Buy seed potatoes grown just for planting.
  3. Time the planting so you can harvest before it gets too hot.
  4. Plant where the soil is well-drained – potatoes don’t like wet feet.
  5. Trench potatoes, don’t bury them.
  6. Use pine needles or mulch to cover them, not soil.
  7. Plant them eye side up so they see the sun and grow up.
  8. Wait for the tops to fall and then harvest.

This seemed pretty easy.  Only 8 steps and a few seed potatoes and I would have 50 pounds of homegrown potatoes.  I had the plan now all I had to do was execute it.  Cow manure had been spread and tilled in last fall.   That meant I could plant in March and harvest in June.  There was only one thing missing — pine needles.

My husband joined me in a clandestine raid on a large stand of pine trees at a nearby church.  We bagged eight 20 gallon sacks of needles to toss under and over the potato seeds and made a successful getaway.  I was ready and so was my garden.

The big day came.  It was time to pick the seed.  My friendly hardware man was

1 and a half russet potato with sprouts. Slice...

Untreated potatoes with eyes open…all ready for the ground.

there to help me.  We picked Pontiac Red Bliss and Yukon Gold.  I drove home with my treasures and jumped out of the car and headed for the back yard, ready to plant.

Two trenches cut across the top of my garden.  I made them about 14 inches deep, mounding the dirt from each trench in the space between the rows.  A bed of pine needles, 3 inches deep, was waiting for my potato seeds.

Taking out my husband’s 25 foot tape measure, I pulled the tab and laid it alongside the first trench.  Every 6 inches, one potato seed was carefully placed in the trench, eye up.  When I finished with the Red Bliss, I moved to the second trench to measure, mark and place the Yukon Gold potato seeds.

When the last seed went into the trench, I stood up to admire my work.  Perfect, all the eyes up, all in a row.  All that was left was to cover both rows with a bit of dirt and a blob of pine needles and wait for the seeds to sprout.

When Potatoes Go Awry
If you’ve ever tasted home-grown potatoes, fresh out of the garden, you know that there aren’t many other taste sensations that come close to that of a freshly steamed baby potato drowning in real butter.

Potatoes are so flavorful and seem so easy to grow.  And they really are easy to grow.  But, there are one or two things you have to know to prevent the disaster I experienced in my first foray into raising spuds.

Yes, all of my seed potatoes sprouted.  Yes, the greenery shot up and I kept covering it, rejoicing in how easy it was going to be to get organically grown potatoes for so little effort.  Then the leaves started getting lacy and going brown and dropping to the ground.  An old friend was in the house!

Next week…bugs that bug potatoes or how my hatred for the Colorado Potato Beetles just keeps growing and growing.

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Grow So Easy Organic – Bugs That Bug Summer Squash

Posted on January 19, 2013 | 2 comments

I should just make a “most-wanted” poster for the beetles that invade my garden (and probably yours).  When it comes to squash, you just need to look for the usual suspects — squash bugs, squash vine borers and cucumber beetles.

The easiest way to protect your squash from these marauders is to put row covers over the transplants as soon as you put them in the ground and keep them there until the plants begin to flower.  The bigger and healthier you can make your plants, the better the chance they will survive being attacked. 

If these marauders do show up in your garden, I use all the other organic methods you use for other garden residents including, picking, drowning and squashing!

As with other insect pests, the first line of defense is to find the eggs and squash them.  It is much, much easier to limit the invasion.  Limit is the right word because no matter how hard I try, by the end of the growing season, there are always a lot more of them than there are of me. 

But because my garden is weedless, I can spend all the time normally spent dueling with weeds to find and kill insect pests!  So every morning and every afternoon, I spend about 30 minutes in the garden…just hunting bugs.

Undersides of leaves are prime egg-laying real estate.  Squash leaves are broad and numerous so I systematically turn over each leaf, check it, crush what I find and move to the next.  Some might think this is tedious but I actually find it relaxing. 

By the way, if you see frass around the base of your vines — yellow, moist, piles of chewed stem – you’ve got squash vine borers.

july09 008

Squash vine borers dig into the stems of your plants and kill them from the inside out.

Try to get the eggs of these pests, too.  But if you miss them, you can slit open the stem, near the frass, and find the little worm that is boring into your plant.

Once you find and kill the worm, just pile soil on top of the slit in the stem of the plant.  The squash plant should make a full recovery and you will keep other insect pests from invading the stem of the injured plant.

Now, some people might be thinking, “Who wants to go to all the work of finding, squashing, smashing these pests?  Why bother?”

I will answer with a question or two of my own.

First of all, what could be nicer?  I’m in fresh air, surrounded by life, listening to the song of the birds and enjoying the company of my West Highland terriers and their new buddy, a rescued Jack Russell terrier.  Even killing bugs in the garden gives me moments away from the grind.  With my bare feet planted firmly on the soil, the garden is the place I feel most grounded, literally.

Secondly, why would you trust your health to someone else’s garden?  Growing your own, practicing organic techniques ensures that your family and you will be eating healthy — you will be controlling what they eat!

So you can look at bug control as a chore or you can look at it as an excuse to feel the sun on your face and to experience the sweet song of nature in your hands, your feet and your heart.

An Easy, Organic Cure for Powdery Mildew
Powdery mildew is a scourge of cucurbits of any kind.  But it’s a late summer disease that can be controlled by proper planting and, if your plants do get it, by using an every day, household staple.

The first tip to preventing powdery mildew is to select seed and plants that are resistant.  Next, pay attention to spacing plants properly so they have sufficient air flow and are not draping over each other and getting tangled.  (Spacing helps with bug control, too.)  Planting them where they get lots of sunshine and regular breezes can help prevent powdery mildew, too.  But if you find yourself looking at a white powder on the leaves of your squash plants, you’re probably looking

Powdery mildew of zucchini

You can’t miss powdery mildew when it settles in on your zucchini.

at powdery mildew.  It’s a fast-moving disease but there is an easy, cheap and organic way to get control it and maybe even get rid of it.

Mix 1 part milk – that’s right regular, old whole milk – and 9 parts water.  Spray the affected plants. It’s easy, fast and cheap and backed by science.

This backyard gardening technique was developed specifically for zucchini by a Brazilian scientist named Wagner Bettiol, the brains behind this “solution”.  Bettiol’s research triggered an organic gardener and vintner, David Bruer to try the milk mixture on his vineyards.  And guess what?  It worked there, too!

So, even though this is a very dilute solution made with a very common ingredient, it is effective and it’s non-toxic.  Spraying in full sun works the best.   Spray once a week but don’t spray more often than that because it can cause another kind of mold to grow on your plants. 

Try to start spraying as soon as you even suspect that powdery mildew is invading your space.   And if you want to try to prevent powdery mildew from ever getting started, spray your plants before you see it and keep spraying every week or so.

By the way, most of the advice for growing summer squash applies to its cousin, winter squash.  I just don’t usually raise the winter ones because I don’t have the room for both. 

Harvesting and Storage
Squash are a bit like eggplant in that they are tough to pull off the plant with your hands.  In fact, you’ll damage the plant if you try to pull them off and you’ll open the door for the squash borer to head on into the vine.  So use a knife to harvest your squash and cut about an inch from the top of the fruit. 

If your vines are happy, they should be producing enough squash for you to be harvesting twice a week.  I pick squash small.  Larger squash have more seeds, are stringier and don’t have that lovely, delicate taste that only a baby squash can bring to the frying pan or a salad.

Wash the squash off when you bring them in and either serve them that day or store them in the fridge for a couple of days.  If you are getting too many squash to eat or store, peel them, shred them, toss them in a freezer bag and freeze them for use during the winter. 

Recipes
I love squash and use it fresh in everything from salads to stir fry to grilled vegetables.  I also shred it and freeze it then add it to a whole host of dishes that I serve in the fall and winter.  But one of my favorite ways to serve squash is marinated and grilled to a golden brown.

Here are a couple of my favorite recipes for using fresh and frozen summer squash.

Master Recipe for Garlic & Herb Marinade Ingredients

Marinades are fast and easy and add just a touch of flavor to grilled veggies.  This master marinade and the three variations are courtesy of Cook’s Illustrated Magazine.

Master or Base Marinade
½ c olive oil
6 small minced garlic cloves
¼ c snipped chives, fresh basil, parsley or tarragon
or
2 T minced rosemary or fresh thyme       Salt & pepper to taste

Caribbean Marinade
Make the master marinade using fresh parsley only and adding:
1 tsp cumin
1 tsp chili powder
1/2 tsp allspice
¼ tsp cinnamon

Southwestern Marinade
Make the master marinade using fresh minced cilantro and:
Decrease salt to ½ tsp
1 tsp cumin
½ tsp chili powder
1 tsp turmeric
1 medium chile seeded & minced

Asian Marinade
6 T vegetable oil
2 T Asian sesame oil
¼ c soy sauce
6 small minced garlic cloves
¼ c minced fresh cilantro
1 piece minced ginger root – 1T
2 medium scallions sliced thin

DIRECTIONS for all:  Whisk ingredients together.

Mom’s Gingerbread
Shredded zucchini and summer squash make absolutely wonderful additions to meat loaf, soup and breads.  The squash is a great extender that adds flavor and moisture to all three without adding any calories or carbohydrates like bread crumbs so.  But here’s my favorite way to use shredded, frozen squash – my Mom’s gingerbread. 

Ingredients:
½  C butter or canola oil
½  C sugar
1 Egg, beaten
2 ½ C flour
1 ½ tsp baking soda
1 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp ginger
½ tsp cloves
½ tsp salt
1 C black strap molasses
1 C hot water
1 c shredded, drained zucchini

DIRECTIONS:
Sift dry ingredients together and put in mixer bowl.

Add sugar and shortening or oil and mix then add eggs.

Mix hot water with molasses then pour into mixing bowl. 

Add shredded zucchini or summer squash and mix in thoroughly.

Bake in 8 or 9 inch pan(s) at 350º for about 45 minutes but make sure you check to keep it from over-baking. 

Serve warm or cold with whipped cream or plain.

By the way, I think my second, favorite way to bring a bit of summer to my winter menu is to  add shredded zucchini to your favorite meat loaf recipe.  It extends the amount of meat loaf you make and makes the meat loaf juicier!

Next week….some hard-earned lessons on growing potatoes.

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Grow So Easy Organic – How To Grow Summer Squash

Posted on January 12, 2013 | 3 comments

If you’re new to gardening and want to expand beyond tomatoes and cucumbers, I would take a look at raising some summer squash.  I always have yellow squash and zucchini tucked into opposite corners of my garden and I’m always rewarded with lots of wonderful, sweet, tender veggies.

USDA summer squash

Two favorite summer squash – zucchini & yellow. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Easy to start from seed, easy to transplant, fast growing and very productive, summer squash grow in such a wide range of climates and soils that just about anyone, in any zone can get them to produce. 

In fact, once you know a few basic rules of the road for raising squash, you’ll quickly learn that this vining vegetable plant just seems to be one of those that can take care of itself once you put it in the ground – my kind of plant!

How To Grow Summer Squash
Some people like to direct sow their squash.  I tend to start seeds indoors to give my plants a jump-start on the growing season.  However, because squash germinate so easily and grow so fast, I don’t start these seeds until 4 weeks before my last frost.  In Zone 6a, that means I start them in early to mid-April.

My squash seeds are started in 4 inch peat pots, not in cells and not in smaller peat pots.  Again, if you give the seeds the right conditions, water, heat and light, they are going to crack right open and start growing in just a few days.

If you put them in cells or 2 inch peat pots, they will outgrow the space so quickly that you won’t be able to keep them going until it’s time to transplant them outside.  So start with large peat pots that will give the squash plants plenty of room to set roots in and grow.

A week before transplanting the squash, make sure you start to harden them off.  It’s the same process for all transplants started in doors – a couple of hours outside the first day.  A couple more hours the next day and so on until, by day 5, the plants have been out all day long.  Day 5 or 6, your transplants should stay out all night.

NOTE:  Use common sense about hardening off.  If it’s been raining for 4 days, definitely don’t leave the plants out to drown.  If the wind is very high or it’s going to be down in the high 40s or low 50s, don’t leave these warm weather babies out overnight, either. 

The objective of hardening off plants is to prepare them for living outdoors, 24 hours a day.  But if the conditions are not conducive to keeping the plants healthy, don’t stick to your schedule.  You’ll kill the plants or slow production down so much that you won’t get a lot of squash for a while or even at all.

When & Where to Plant Summer Squash
Figuring out when to transplant squash isn’t rocket science.

As I’ve mentioned, summer squash are warm weather babies.  Bring your transplants out, harden them off and put them in the ground after all danger of frost is gone.  If you prefer direct seeding, you can sow summer squash seeds in prepared beds or hills at the same time. 

And if you want to have squash all season long, plan on a bit of succession planting 2 to 3 weeks after you put your seedlings in the ground.

Putting squash plants into the ground isn’t rocket science, either.  Dig a hole, pop the plant and peat pot in and press the dirt around the base.  But….and it’s a big but…there are a couple of things you really need to know before you plant them.

Where you plant your squash depends on three factors — space, proximity and wind direction. 

I learned about these three the hard way…by killing or crossing various types of squash.

Space:  Unless you buy squash that was bred to be bushy, make sure you give each plant enough real estate to roam.  Zucchini and Summer squash need about a 4 foot square to grow in.  That’s why I don’t grow a ton of squash in my garden. 

It’s also why I say I tuck them into the corners.  I have been very successful with squash when I plant them near the fence line in the blueberry patch.  One or two of the same type go into the 3 areas that are not packed with blueberries. 

Space is one thing squash need.  Their own area in the garden is another.  This is the proximity factor.  Never plant two different types of squash near each other.  Never plant squash near cucumbers.  Bees will pollinate and cross-pollinate and you could end up with cuchinni or zuchsumbers.  I have raised crosses of all three.   They look beautiful but they tasted terrible.

So I use odd and unused corners in my yard for squash.  I even put one variety in one of my compost bins.  And I make sure my squash plants are not sheltered from wind.  Why not?

I’ve found that the nice gentle breeze that comes up the hill and crosses our backyard helps to keep my squash from getting powdery mildew which can kill vines almost as fast as squash beetles.

Next week…bugs and diseases that can attack your zucchini and yellow squash.

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Grow So Easy Organic – Eggplant

Posted on January 5, 2013 | Leave a comment

When you think of the most popular vegetables to grow in the back yard, you probably don’t come up with eggplant.  In fact, when Mother Earth News did a survey of who was planting what, the most popular homegrown vegetable was the tomato followed by peppers, green beans, cucumbers, onions, lettuce, summer squash, carrots, radishes, and sweet corn.  Eggplant didn’t even make the list!

Eggplant

The bigger the eggplant, the bigger the bitter.   (Photo credit: Asian Lifestyle Design)

Okay, so eggplant is not a favorite with a lot of gardeners but the reason just may be that most gardeners have never had young, sweet flavorful eggplants plucked off their own plants.   Instead they’ve tried those large, purple cylinders they buy in the grocery store.  I was the same way until I grew a few plants and discovered there is no comparison.

There are three tricks to getting full-flavored fruit from an eggplant; buy the right seeds, start the plants early and harvest the eggplant when they’re small.

My favorite eggplant is the round, striated one called Bianca Rosa from High Mowing Organic Seeds.   This is a Sicilian eggplant with light pink fruits that are streaked with white and violet. The flavor is mild and creamy with no bitterness and a low number of seeds.

How To Grow Eggplant
Growing eggplant is a bit like growing peppers – both like warm summer days.  In fact, I think eggplant is even more cold-sensitive.  To get eggplant to flower and set fruit, you need warm soil and a long, warm growing season – from 100 to 140 days with temperatures consistently between 70° and 90°.

I always start eggplant from seed.  And I always start them early – at least 10 weeks before my last frost date.  Like all my seeds, I start them in cells.  I don’t soak them overnight before putting them in the cell but you can to shorten the time to sprouting.

Once the eggplant seedlings get their second set of leaves, I transplant them into 2 inch peat pots, raise the tray up off the heating mat (I use two bricks – not high-tech but cheap and easy) but keep them there so they can have the warmth they need to thrive.  When they get to between 4 and 5 inches high, I transplant them again, this time into 4 inch peat pots.

Why not go directly from cell to the 4 inch peat pot?  Remember, eggplant like warm soil.  Take them from warm, moist soil and stick them in cold dirt and they get shocky – I know, I tried.  All my eggplant were stunted and fruit came late in the season.

So unless I plan far enough ahead to prepare the 4 inch pots and put them over the heat map to warm the soil (that’s unlikely), I just go from cell to 2 inch then 4 inch peat pot.

Once they have settled into the new pots and are thriving, I move the trays off the heat mats and onto my lighted plant stand (which I bought used almost 20 years ago and am still using).

When To Transplant Eggplant
Eggplant have the same needs as those of bell peppers.  Transplants should only be set in the garden after all danger of frost is past.  Remember, warm soil, warm air and warm days, lots and lots of all three are what eggplant need to thrive.

If your eggplant are happy, they will need more space than you might anticipate.  Eggplant should be spaced about 2 feet apart.  I don’t plant them in rows, I zigzag them.  Like pepper plants, eggplant can be pulled over by the size and weight of their own fruit so I use tomato cages for support.  I have also planted them along a fence line so I can tie the plants up once they reach maturity.

Space plants 18 to 24 inches apart in the row and stagger them so you can get 6 to 8 plants in less space.   Make sure you leave about 2 to 2/12 feet between rows, especially if you are planting in raised beds so you can get to the plants and the fruit, easily.

Care
Once in the ground, give the transplants a good watering to settle them into the ground.  I always mulch eggplant but before I do, I put a ring of composted soil around each plant to feed it.  Then I mulch with straw or grass clippings or both to keep the weeds down.

You can also use a nitrogen fertilizer if you don’t have any composted soil, feeding the plants when they are half-grown and right after you harvest the first fruits. But being a lazy gardener, I prefer using composted soil.

Once the plants are established, eggplant love the heat of the summer.  You only have to water if you are in a persistent dry period then wait for those lovely, sweet eggplant to start emerging from each lavender flower.

Oh, and keep an eye out for one pest that just loves eggplant – the Colorado Potato Beetle.

Bugs That Bug Eggplant
When you read up on eggplant pests, the one you will read about the most is the flea beetle.   Flea beetles chew tons of tiny holes in leaves.  If plants are older and stronger, the flea beetles will be more of an annoyance than a true threat to your eggplant.  And you can hand-pick and crush these little devils easily.

But if your plants are younger and tender, flea beetles can actually cause real problems.  To avoid this problem, keep plants indoors until early summer, as advised and once you transplant them, cover outdoor plants with floating row covers to keep the flea beetles at bay until the plants get older and tougher.

Some gardeners think flea beets are an eggplant’s worst pest.  I save that title for the Colorado Potato Beetle…on my Top 10 Bugs list for a reason.

This image was selected as a picture of the we...

The Colorado Potato Beetle will eat anything, even eggplant.   (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

The good news is that the eggs, larvae and the adult beetles are easy to spot and even easier to crush.

The eggs, orange-yellow in color, can be found in clusters of about 20 on the undersides of leaves.  Finding and killing them before they hatch helps decrease the odds of an infestation.

Just crush them gently (sounds like an oxymoron but necessary advice) with your fingers, trying not to damage the leaf they are laid on.

If the eggs hatch, the larvae are red to orange soft grubs about 1/2 inch long when mature. Larvae have black heads, little black legs and, as they grow, will have two rows of black spots on each side of the body. If you see holes in the leaves, check the underside for these babies.

When they reach maturity, the beetle phase, you will be able to recognize the adult Colorado Beetle easily.  The body is domed with distinctive yellow and black stripes running along the length of the wing covers.

These beetles are easy to hand-pick and crush.  I keep two small, flat stones in the garden by the eggplant to do just that.

The most common eggplant disease is Verticillium wilt which causes yellowing, wilting and death of the plants.  If you plant resistant cultivars and rotate crops – never planting eggplant where tomatoes or potatoes have grown the year before, you should be able to avoid this disease.

Harvesting Eggplant
Eggplant is one vegetable where size does matter – and it should be small.

If you harvest eggplant when they are young, you will be sure to get sweet flesh with none of the bitterness that larger eggplant bring to the table.

To find out if an eggplant is ready to be picked, hold the eggplant in your palm and gently press it with your thumb. If the flesh presses in but bounces back, it is ready for harvesting. If the flesh is hard and does not give, the eggplant is immature and too young to harvest.

Eggplant bruise easily so harvest gently. Don’t try to pull eggplant off the plant.  You will damage the plant and probably not win the tug of war with the stem.

You might even get stabbed by one of the spines on the stem.  So carry a sharp knife with you and cut the stem of the eggplant about an inch away from the top or cap of the fruit.  That method protects you, the plant and the fruit from damage.

I harvest all season long.  I love eggplant marinated and grilled.  And when I get too many or get just a bit tired of marinating them, I simply slice them, grill them dry (no oil) on the Foreman Grill and freeze them.  During the cold days of winter, I use the frozen slices to make wonderful Eggplant Parmigiana.

Eggplants don’t store well but you don’t want to leave them on the plants too long, either. Either harvest and use immediately for the best flavor or process them for the freezer.

No recipes for eggplant (other than marinated or in parmigiana) but a tip a chef shared with me.  When making Eggplant Parmigiana, mix the ricotta cheese, eggs, cooked and crumbled ground beef and tomato sauce together.

This way, you only have to layer once.  All 4 fillings are more evenly distributed and the finished dish has a creamier, richer flavor.  This tip works for lasagna, too!

Next week, zucchini and summer squash and everything you need to know to enjoy both, all summer long.

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Happy Holidays from Grow So Easy Organic

Posted on December 22, 2012 | 2 comments

No post on veggies today, no new tales of woe, just my sincere wish that you, your loved ones, your families and friends have a wonderful holiday.  And a wish that you have a wonderful and very happy new year…in 2013.

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Grow So Easy Organic: Recipes for Using The Sweetest Peppers

Posted on December 15, 2012 | 1 comment

Bugs That Bug Peppers
Apparently, there are quite a few insects that can do damage to peppers.  In my zone, I haven’t had any problems with insect damage on my peppers until this year.

Brown Marmorated Stink Bug, Halyomorpha halys ...

Stink bugs come in a lot of flavors but this is the one I battle – the Brown Marmorated Stink Bug, Halyomorpha halys (Stal) (Photo credit: Armed Forces Pest Management Board)

Because stink bugs have become so prolific, I have started having damage on all my vegetable plants, including peppers.  As with all insect pests, I use as many organic methods as possible to control them.

Tachinid wasps help.  Hand picking and crushing work, too.  But the key to controlling insects on peppers is the same as it is on most other garden pests.  You have to get ahead of the bug population by spotting and crushing the eggs before they hatch into nymphs.

One tip if you’re working with stink bugs (or any beetles) – go out early in the morning to catch and kill. Spread a white pillow case or piece of fabric under the each plant and shake the pepper plant.  The stink bugs will drop onto the fabric and you can crush them or scoop them up and drop them into soapy dishwater.

Stink bugs aren’t the only bugs that bug peppers.  Other pests include the European corn borer, pepper maggot, aphids, thrips, spider mites and even the cucumber beetle.

The University of Florida provides a comprehensive list of pepper pests including illustrations.  Although this list is specific to Florida, the same bugs have been slowly wending their way up the East coast so they are probably either  in your garden already or going to make an appearance, soon.

Pepper Diseases
I also haven’t had many problems with diseases in my peppers.  But there are a handful of diseases that can affect these sun-loving plants.  Many of them are common to tomatoes, which is not surprising because peppers and tomatoes are related – both are members of the Solanaceae family.

Diseases include bacterial leaf spot, phytophthora blight, anthracnose and viruses. It helps to try to choose resistant varieties of peppers, which agricultural experts say is the most effective management strategy for controlling diseases.

Like tomatoes, blossom end rot is a common affliction in sweet peppers and it’s directly correlated to a calcium deficiency. This disease can be made even more deadly if your pepper plants experience long dry periods because calcium uptake only occurs via osmosis.

Blossom end rot starts as a water-soaked lesion on the bottom (blossom end) or side of the pepper fruit wall. Eventually the lesion becomes discolored and papery dry, making the fruit vulnerable to insects and inedible.

Recipes
Stuffed peppers never made my list of favorites and I hadn’t really thought of any way to cook and serve peppers until I married into an Italian family.  Over the last 30 years I have been perfecting my pepper recipes and want to share a two of my favorites.

RECIPE:  Scalloppine Sauce
No need to crack open a cook book or worry about how hard it will be to make this dish.  This is the easiest, fastest and tastiest way I know to let the flavor of your vegetables speak for you (and use up the last of the tomatoes and sweet peppers hanging out in your kitchen).  If this Irish woman married to an Italian man can do it, so can you.

INGREDIENTS
Chop about 30 peppers into large pieces.  NOTE:  I do not peel my peppers but you can if you don’t want strands of pepper skin in your Scalloppine.
Cut 6 to 8 cups of onions into rough pieces.
Dice up 30 to 40 tomatoes.
Mince 4 big cloves of garlic.

DIRECTIONS:
Dump all the ingredients into a large pot.
Add a dollop (make that a cup) of olive oil.
Put the whole concoction on the stove to simmer on a very low flame.
Let this brew/cook down for 14 to 16 hours.

The vegetables should reduce by about 1/3 rd while cooking down.  If your batch is still a little loose, just let it cook for another 4 to 6 hours. When the sauce is as thick as you’d like it to be, you can start canning.
Ladle it into quart jars.
Use a non reactive tool to remove any air bubbles.
Process quarts for 25 minutes.
Turn off heat, remove canner lid and let jars rest in water for 5 minutes.
Remove, cool for 24 hours.  Remove rims, label and store.

I usually get about 8 quarts of fabulous sauce.  You can fry up sausage and add the sauce to it for a fast and fabulous Italian dinner.

RECIPE:  Hot & Sweet Italian Pepper Relish
I created this recipe myself and have to say it is really tasty – great flavors from all the veggies and just the right kick of heat from the peppers.

INGREDIENTS:
13 or 14 Italian sweet peppers
3 to 4 large sweet onions
1 c cider vinegar
1 c olive oil
½ c sugar
1 T mustard seed
1 tsp salt
2 tsp celery seed
1 T oregano
2 clove garlic – minced
1 T basil
1 tsp red pepper flakes

DIRECTIONS:
Core and seed peppers.
Chop onions and peppers into ¼ to ½ inch pieces – use a food processor to make this easier and faster.
Put onions and peppers into large, non reactive pot.
Pour in vinegar and oil and bring mixture to a simmer.
Slowly stir in sugar, mustard and celery seed, oregano, basil, salt and red pepper flakes.
Continue to cook on a very low flame for 1 ½ to 2 hours stirring every 15 or 20 minutes.
When the relish is thick, ladle into jars.  Use a non reactive tool to remove any air bubbles.
Process pints for 20 minutes.
Turn off heat, remove canner lid and let jars rest in water for 5 minutes.
Remove, cool for 24 hours.  Remove rims, label and store.

Both of these recipes beat Stuffed Peppers by a mile in the taste department and you can use them all winter long to spice up your sauces, soups and stews.

If you like your peppers hot…check out Jovina Cooks Italian for some great information and some more recipes!

Next week, another perennial garden favorite — Zucchini and other summer squash!

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Grow So Easy Organic: How To Grow The Sweetest Peppers

Posted on December 8, 2012 | 3 comments

The only pepper I saw in my mother’s garden was the green, bell pepper.  And I never liked them.  The taste was too strong, bitter, almost biting.  So I never planted peppers until I found red and yellow bells.

Assorted bell pepper fruits from Mexico

Discovering peppers of color led to what is now my favorite pepper of all time, the Italian sweet pepper.  Italian sweet peppers are at the heart of any great sausage and pepper sandwich you’ve ever had.  And they are the key ingredient in my scallopini.

Italian Sweet peppers have a rich green color that gradually turns brilliant red.  The flesh of the pepper is medium thick and the fruit is slightly curved, tapering to a pointed end.

These peppers can grow as long as 12 inches but are usually between 7 and 8 inches long.  Raw, they are sweet all on their own or as an addition to a salad.  Cook Italian sweet peppers and add a sweetness, richness and flavor to just about any dish.

So, even though I still raise red and yellow bell peppers, I make a lot of space in my garden for the Italian sweet pepper also known as (aka) the frying pepper.

Starting From Seed
Peppers are a warm weather plant so, like tomatoes and eggplant, I always start them from seed.  And I always start peppers 2 to 3 weeks earlier than the date specified on the seed packets.  Why?

In my zone, peppers that are started 8 weeks before my last frost (around May 15th) just aren’t big enough or strong enough to set fruit before the middle to end of July.  As a result, if I started plant when the seed packet said to, I’d only get a few peppers from each one. If I start the plants indoors and early, I get a glorious crop from all my plants!

I use 24-cell APS starter kits from Gardener’s Supply and I highly recommend them.  Funny thing is, I’ve been using cells for seed starting for years and now, recent research revealed that growing peppers in larger tray cell sizes or containers will produce larger transplants.

There are a couple of other reasons I use these kits.

For one thing, I’ve had the same kits for more than 15 years and they still work for me.  For another, the kits ensure that your seeds and seedlings get just the right amount of water while sprouting and growing.  Not too much – not too little — because they use capillary mats in the cell system and take advantage of osmosis.  Because of the system design, I never have to contend with damping off when using these kits.

I fill the cells with Gardener’s Supply germinating mix, place 4 seeds in each cell…two in opposite corners.  Then I cover each cell with a bit of sphagnum moss, put on the plastic top and set the tray on my heat mats. I fill the tray with water and then check in 4 or 5 days to see if the seeds have sprouted.

NOTE:  You have to check your seed trays every day to make sure there is enough water in them.  Because I sit them directly on the heat mat, the water evaporates pretty fast.  If the seeds dry out at any time during the sprouting or early growing stages, the plants will either die, outright, or just malinger – no grow very much at all.

As soon as the seeds sprout, I lift off the clear cover and drop the light to within 2 inches of the cells.  As the plants grow, I keep the trays watered and I keep the light as close to the seedlings as I can without touching them.  If the light touches them, even a fluorescent light, it will burn the baby’s leaves and slow its growth.

When the seedlings have two full sets of leaves, I give the plants a very mild fertilizer called Plant Health Care for Seedlings, also from Gardener’s Supply,

Once the plants are 3 to 4 weeks old, I transplant them into 2 inch peat pots.  NOTE:  If all the seeds sprout, either separate the seedlings and put one in each peat pot or clip the smaller of the seedlings off with nail scissors so the remaining seedling has more room to grow.

Transplanting Peppers
Before you put your pepper plants in the ground, make sure you are NOT planting them in the same area where you had tomatoes, eggplant or potatoes last year.

Peppers are in the Solanaceae plant family and are botanically related to these popular garden vegetables.  Because they are related, peppers can share the same spectrum of pest problems and should not be rotated into soil recently lived in by their kissing cousins.

Also, whether you’re growing from seed or using transplants (unless they were outside when you bought them), you have to “harden off” your plants before you stick them in the garden.

Hardening off does NOT involve tools or torture.  It just means that you have to introduce your transplants to the outdoors, gradually.

Five or six days before you want to put them in the garden, start setting them outside for a couple of hours the first 2 days and keep an eye on them.  Make sure they have water and are not staked out in high sun or high wind.  Then leave them out all day for 2 days then overnight for one night.

NOTE:  also, when hardening off, stop fertilizing.  If the plants have small flowers or fruit on them, pinch both off.  You want to help the transplant direct all of its energy to rooting in the soil before it tries to set flowers or fruit.

Remember, peppers like warm earth and warm air – even warmer than tomatoes.  So the optimal temperature for them to go into the ground is 75 to 85 degrees. Peppers are typically transplanted about two weeks later than tomatoes, for me that’s early June.

Peppers can be planted in single rows or twin (double) rows on a raised bed. Space the pepper plants 12 to 24 inches apart and space rows about 4 feet apart. If you decide to use a double row, make the rows about 18 inches apart on the bed and put the plants in the ground in a zigzag pattern.

By the way, peppers and tomatoes don’t work and play well together so don’t plant tomatoes on one side of your trellis or fence and peppers on the other.  The pepper plants will grow but their growth will be stunted.  And the peppers themselves will be small and prone to rotting.

Feeding The Peppers
If you don’t want to use fertilizer on your transplants, here’s a little trick I learned from a farmer friend.  Crush up eggshells and put about ½ of a cup of them in the bottom of the hole. Toss a bit of soil on top of the crushed shells before you put the pepper plant in so the baby roots (cilia) are not cut.

Crushed egg shells are slow to break down but will feed the plants.  And they are free so I love using them as my fertilizer.  By the way, you can also use crushed egg shells to stop slugs…just by sprinkling them around the base of your plants.

Peppers have shallow roots so water them when they need it and don’t hoe too close.  Also, stake peppers so that when fruit loads are heavy, the plants don’t topple from weight or high winds.  I use old, inverted tomato cages.  That sounds odd but the cages work better than anything else I have tried.

I put the tomato cage over the plant with the wide ring on the ground and fasten the ring down with ground staples.  Then I gather up the tips of the cage and secure them with a wire tie.  The pepper plant stays inside the cage, grows up straight and is supported even in the heaviest wind or thunderstorm.  And I don’t have to tie the pepper plants up.

Next week, bugs that bug peppers….and some fabulous recipes for all those luscious, red peppers you are going to harvest.

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Grow So Easy Organic – How To Grow Dried Beans

Posted on December 1, 2012 | Leave a comment

Most people think of dried beans and come up with the familiar four – kidney, navy, pinto and black.

Diversity in dry common beans

There’s a lot of diversity in dry common beans (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

But there are a whole lot more varieties of dried beans and some of them have spectacular flavors and very high nutritional value.

For my money, Rancho Gordo sells some of the best dried beans available on the market.

I don’t normally recommend buying something if I can grow it in my backyard but…there are a couple of reasons I strongly endorse Rancho Gordo.

First of all, organically raised, heirlooms like Mayacoba and Good Mother Stollard beans are just a click away from arriving at your front door.  Secondly, Rancho Gordo is a small company in California started and run by Steve Sando, a man who knows a whole lot about organic and beans.

Another reason I LOVE Rancho Gordo is that Sando’s bean seeds are organically sourced and he works with Seed Savers Exchange.  Then there’s the fact that the beans he bags and ships are fresh and so flavorful they actually stand on their own as a main course.

Those are all really great reasons to like and recommend a product but here’s one of the strongest reasons of all.  The first time I had a problem (the disaster referenced below), I emailed Steve and he actually, personally emailed me back with advice and ideas.

The “disaster” started because of one of my growing philosophies.  In this age of saving money and eating locally, I decided to try sprouting some of Steve’s lovely beans and growing my own.

Disaster!

Starting Dried Beans Indoors
I made a decision to start my bean plants indoors, from beans I bought from Rancho Gordo.  My last frost date is May 15th so I put the seeds in the pots the last week of April – first mistake.

The seeds were incredibly quick to break open and start growing.  Within 5 days of sprouting, they were a foot tall.  It literally took less than a week for the beans to outreach my highest grow light.  Here comes the second mistake.

I thought about what I should do for a couple of days but when I went back into the basement to check the little dears, I realized I had no choice. I was raising two trays of Seymours from Little Shop of Horrors!

I had to transplant them!  The third and final mistake.

A bit too early and a bit too cool, but I put the small trellis in the soil and put the bean plants in the ground.  The next morning, I walked out to the garden to see how they were doing.  All but 3 of my 48 bean plants were flat on the ground.  Within 24 hours, most of them promptly fell over and died.

It was a full-blown,  growing disaster so I moved to Plan B.

Direct Seeding Dried Beans
Okay, so starting seeds indoors and transplanting them was an unmitigated disaster.  But I don’t give up easily.  And since the seeds were so ready to sprout and grow, I thought, why not direct seed?

So, I put beans in the ground, watered them and watched them sprout quickly and reach for the netting.  They were beautiful plants, sleek, green, growing straight up the supports.  Then they were dying.

I think they literally drowned.  It rained for 5 weeks straight here in Eastern Pennsylvania – way too much water for this crop.

When the bean plants that survived the flood (no I did not put them on the Ark and drive them around until the waters receded) finally did dry out, they really tried to finish their jobs and produce beans.

The plants set flowers. I got bean pods.  But with all the moisture in the air and the soil, the pods promptly got moldy!

In desperation, I emailed Steve Sando and asked him if I could still harvest the bean pods if the outsides were speckled and turning black.  This wonderful master of all things bean actually emailed me back.

Yes, I could but…isn’t there always a but?  If the beans themselves were discolored or speckled (unless that’s the way they were born), I had to toss them.

Bottom line, I grew more than 100 bean plants; I harvested 1 quart jar of dried beans.  And now I just buy my beans at Rancho Gordo because it is a heck of a lot cheaper than trying to raise them!

Despite my bean disasters, I did learn a lot about how to plant and grow beans.  That’s up, next week.

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Grow So Easy Organic – Bugs That Bug Green Beans

Posted on November 24, 2012 | 2 comments

I used to ask myself, “What’s a Mexican Bean Beetle?”

Now, every summer, I ask myself, “Of all the bugs in all the world, why does the Mexican Bean Beetle have to find my garden?”

The Mexican Bean Beetle is the worst of the worst when it comes to green beans.  One day there is nothing there.  The next day there are one or two Mexican Bean Beetles.  Once you see the beetles, it’s almost too late to save your crop.

Mexican Bean Beetles are members of the lady beetle family.  But they aren’t the Lady Beetle relatives you want in your garden.  Copper-colored, about 6 mm

Pesky bean beetle

Tiny & destructive (Photo credit: Michael Bok)

(1/4 inch) long and 5 mm (1/5 inch) wide, with 8 small black spots on each wing, the adults resemble large lady beetles but they’re really wholesale destruction machines.  And they come in force.

How do they find your garden and your bean plants so quickly?

Chances are they never left when the winter came; they simply tucked in to the ground in leaf litter and other sheltered areas in fence rows of your garden plot and waited out the freezing temperatures and the snow.

Adults begin emerging from these protected areas when beans begin sprouting and continue to emerge for up to two months. The adults feed for approximately two weeks before depositing their eggs on the underside of leaves.  And when I say feed, I mean ravage.

Nasty beetles eating everything.

Mexican Bean Beetles eat the life out of the bean plants. (Photo credit: Jason Riedy)

Yellow eggs 1 mm (1/20 inch) in length are laid in groups of 40-60 on the lower leaf surfaces.  Females may deposit an egg-mass every two to three days. Eggs hatch in 5-24 days.  Immature larvae are yellow and are covered with large spines.  Larvae feed for two to five weeks before pupation.

You have 3 chances to kill these beetles off – crush the eggs, crush the larvae and crush the mature beetles.  The first two are the easiest but you can catch and kill the beetles too.  You just have to be persistent.  If you can make it through July and August, when the greatest amount of injury occurs and the adults begin to disappear, you might save some of your bean harvest.

Green Bean Diseases
Green beans can fall victim to some of the typical, soil and air borne diseases like bacterial spot, bacterial blight, Anthracnose and powdery mildew and a few I never heard of like Cercospora leaf spot.

Bottom line, I have not experienced one of these diseases in my garden.  Maybe I’ve been lucky.  Maybe I rotate my crops properly and buy seed that is resistant to bacterial infections.  And just maybe, my climate helps me along.

In any case, if you want to know all about raising green beans and managing the multiple diseases that might just affect your plants, check out the 12 diseases that are included in one of the most comprehensive guides to growing green beans I have ever read.

Then take a chance and plant some beans.  They grow fast.  They set tons of beans.  If you plant them properly, train them right (if they’re pole beans) and aggressively crush all variations of the Mexican Bean Beetle, you will be able to harvest and enjoy green beans all summer long.

My Harvest Trick
I said I had one and I do.  I plant enough green beans in my garden to satisfy the need for fresh green beans on the table all summer long.  But I’m a pragmatist with a limited amount of growing space.

So, when I’m ready to can green beans for the winter, I visit my favorite Amish farmer and buy as bushel and a half of beans and start cleaning, trimming, packing and pressure cooking green beans.

NOTE:  You MUST pressure cook green beans to preserve them.  You CANNOT simply water bath them.  Why not?

Green beans are not acidic.

According to the USDA’s Complete Guide to Home Canning and Preserving,  (my favorite guide), green beans must be heated, under 10 pounds of pressure for 25 minutes (for quarts) to make sure you kill all bacteria including Clostridium botulinium, the cause of botulism, a life-threatening disease.

Fresh or canned, I love green beans and I love everything about growing them except the Mexican Bean Beetles.

RECIPE:  Roasted Green Beans

INGREDIENTS:
1 pound green beans, ends snapped off
1 tablespoon olive oil
Kosher or large grain salt to taste
Fresh ground pepper to taste

DIRECTIONS:
Preheat oven to 450 degrees.  This is the most important step.
Line baking sheet with aluminum foil or parchment paper.
Spread beans on baking sheet and drizzle with oil.
Toss with both hands to coat beans with oil, evenly.
Sprinkle lightly with  salt and pepper.
Roast for 10 minutes.  Remove baking sheet from the oven and flip beans over.
Roast for another 10 to 15 minutes.
Serve.

Next week, I’ll share my own experience with trying to grow dried beans and  what I discovered about growing, harvesting and eating dried beans.

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