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U Pick Veggies
We have a variety of vegetables growing in the garden including Brussels sprouts, cabbage, broccoli, eggplant, giant kohlrabi, zucchini, summer squash, tomatoes (wide variety: Agriset (Grape), Amish Paste, Bi Beef Beefsteak, Legend Red Meaty, New Yorker, Opalka, Supersteak, ultimate opener, Wayahead) talk more about those later), and peppers! A wide variety of peppers are growing and Diane did a really nice job of labeling each variety out in the garden for you. Painted stakes with the name of the pepper variety envelope the area in which those peppers are growing. I have a few pictures shown but you’ll understand better once you’re out there.
Here’s a little guide to the peppers you can find (I didn’t know this when I first read the veggie guide, but Scoville Units = Units of hotness…the higher the number, the hotter the pepper):
Variety: Big Chili
Hotness: Moderate (1,000 to 5,000 Scoville Units)
Uses: Fresh for salsa’s or salads, frying, drying, pickling
Variety: Gentle Giant Goliath
Hotness: Sweet (0 Scoville Units)
Uses: grilling, frying, or stuffing
Variety: Mucho Nacho
Hotness: HOT (5,000 to 30,000 Scoville Units)
Uses: fresh (salsa, salads), stuffing, drying, pickling
Variety: Banana Bill
Hotness: Sweet (0 Scoville Units)
Uses: fresh (salsa, salads), frying, roasting, pickling
Bell Boy – Sweet (0 Scoville Units), fresh (salsa, salads), stuffing, pickling 
Variety: Fooled You (looks just like a jalapeño but doesn’t have the same bite)
Hotness: Mild (1 to 1,000 Scoville Units)
Uses: fresh (salsa, salads), stuffing, pickling
Hotness: Extremely Hot (above 30,000 Scoville Units)
Uses: fresh (salsa, salads), drying, pickling
On a side note: One time a little girl grabbed a habanero from a our veggie table and bit into it like an apple…not good. She was fine after she ate an apple to calm the hotness down. Since that time, we have moved our pre-picked peppers to a higher shelf.
Variety: Sweet Havana
Hotness: Mild (1 to 1,000 Scoville Units)
Uses: fresh (salsa, salads) frying, stuffing, roasting
We’re really excited to hear what everyone thinks of the pick-your-own garden that we’re offering this year!
An Experiment with Pumpkins
This year, we were dreaming about the benefits of the plastic in a field high up on the hill where water is not easily accessible. I suggested we try laying the plastic in rows close together and plant between them. That way the water would run off the plastic and onto the plants between rows. It sounded like a good idea and I have pumpkin plants popping through in the greenhouse, so Friday afternoon we thought we'd take a try at prepping the field.
We put the first row down, then tried to decide how close we could put the next one without pulling the first row of plastic back up. It took a little playing, but I think it turned out pretty well.
This is how the prepped field looks. That really wide space in the center is so we can still drive through after the vines are full size. It gets to be a really long way to haul pumpkins to the edge otherwise.
We'll be putting the plants in later this week. After some discussion, we decided that we'll plant in every row, but at twice the usual spacing between plants.
You may be wondering why we're starting pumpkins in the greenhouse instead of just putting seeds in the ground. We thought that setting plants would give them a faster start before the weeds have a chance to get going. We first tried it last year and were pleased with the results. With this layout, the vines should fill the open areas fairly fast and the plastic will keep the weeds down on the rest of it until the vines grow to full size. The plastic mulch is photo degradable, so by fall it will be quite brittle and tear as we walk on it and harvest the pumpkins (also gourds and some extra squash, I think). But by then it will have done its job.
It all sounds like a good plan, but it is an experiment, so we'll see what we think by fall.
Greenhouses and Vegetables
The other greenhouse is almost full of flats. Vegetables and flowers. Hope to get out to transplant some of them today.
Opening Day
I've also added some of my own homegrown vegetables. Tomatoes, cukes, peppers, summer squash, and cabbage for right now.
I'm also still working on the washout from that dyeing session. My clothesline is full of colorful garments and I have a load of hoodies in the washer. The goal is to get all that excess dye washed away. When the water runs clear, I give them one more washing to be sure they don't bleed when you take them home. Then I hang them up to dry and run them through once more. Time consuming, but worth it.
I need to go out to pick the blueberries and green beans today, too, and work some more on getting everything in place in the store. And I need to get the info to my sister Barb for the registration packets for her quilting retreat held in Wisconsin Dells in November. I teach there and packets need to go out soon. http://www.quiltsbybarb.com/quiltretreats.htm
So, I guess I'd better get at it. Hope to see you at the orchard.
Labels:
apples,
blueberries,
cabbage,
cucumber,
cukes,
dyeing,
green beans,
paulared,
pepper,
summer squash,
tomatoes,
vegetables,
viking,
washout,
William's pride
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