Thursday, August 13, 2026

Recent VEGarden Posts

16 Mar 2007
1

This Year’s Garden Plot

Jessi had this cool idea to plant a bunch of Sunflowers where our garden was last year. Then I was all, “Ok then where are we going to grow our vegetables?” Then she was all, “I emailed you a picture from Google Earth.” Google Earth is really cool. I would sit on there and travel around the globe all day if I could.
15 Mar 2007
0

Big News Soon!

That is an illustration of the kind of delicious organic produce Easy Bean Farm can provide to you every week. We’ll do an official post about our upcoming business venture soon. In the meantime please visit Easy Bean Farm’s new website and consider signing up for a share while there is still time! Tell them we sent you.
12 Mar 2007
1

Another new year

Seedlings planted March 5th: Tomato, Jahrdale blue pumpkin, and Brussels Sprouts It’s that time again! I’m excited about this year’s garden. We saved a lot of seeds from last year – various chili peppers, amana orange tomatoes, and jahrdale blue pumpkin seeds (from my uncle’s pumpkins). We also ordered some seeds from Amish Land Seeds, which arrived last week. We planted them yesterday: Great White Tomato, Pineapple Bi-Color Tomato, and Heirloom Eggplant Mix. … Tomorrow afternoon Chris and I have a meeting which may lead to an incredible change in our gardening this summer. I am both excited and nervous, but will have to wait to post more details later.
24 Feb 2007
0

winter…

So my plans for experimenting with cold frames in the cold fell through, but I got a job doing research for a winter CSA on campus. I’ve also been trying out sprouting stuff lately. No pictures right now, but so far I’ve sprouted peanuts, lentils, garbanzo beans and the green alfalfa type sprouts you can buy at the grocery store (see www.sproutpeople.com). Its been fun and delicious though Jessi is allergic to many raw foods. Earlier tonight I planted some lettuce in a green planter we used for herbs last year. We’ll see if I can get lettuce to grow amongst the papayas. I want to get an earlier start on the garden this year and maybe have some stuff...
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17 Feb 2007
0

Growing plants in Minnesota that aren’t supposed to grow in Minnesota

The papayas are very upset. As you can see, they aren’t looking as great as they did last summer, and I’m slowly losing them. I’m hoping that a couple will survive and come back this summer, but I saved a bunch of the seeds and I just put them in dirt on a heating pad – so maybe I can start again. The biggest mistake was waiting until the end of summer to put the papayas in gallon pots. They’re herbaceous, so they would have filled up the pots quickly had I put them there in the first place. So maybe this year’s seedlings will grow faster, and have a better chance of surviving next winter on account of them...
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30 Dec 2006
0

Some Carrots

The whole “Winter Gardening” idea didn’t really fly this year. Oh well. Anyway, these are some carrots that we pulled out of the garden the other week. They’re perfectly fine, though it was a bit of a chore because the ground is mostly frozen. Now it’s time to start thinking about what to plant this summer…
20 Oct 2006
0

Empty Garden (well, almost)

The season is over, and now we need to do some gardening clean-up. After scooping the composting manure out of the back of my truck, we’re going to have to do some serioius truck clean-up as well. Just like last year, the onions just don’t want to die. The funny thing is, their green tops died more than a month ago, and now they’re pushing to come back again. The onions from last summer didn’t amount to anything this summer, so I think pulling them up and starting fresh next year is probably the best idea.
17 Oct 2006
0

Three little pumpkins

After the squash borers, the poor soil, and the giant silver maple shading out our garden, we got three little sugar pumpkins this year! One is still green – though I guess a lot of people grow pumpkins just to eat them green. The green ones don’t keep as long, but we’ll eat it anyway!
16 Oct 2006
0

Dead Eggplants

… and this is what happens when you let it snow before pulling your eggplants out of the ground (or, rather, out of their pots). The original idea was to move the eggplants to a warmer location once it got cold, and hope to extend their production a bit. But, alas, they didn’t produce as much as I had hoped and prolonging their lives just seemed futile.
14 Oct 2006
1

10 quarts of salsa!

Remember the giant amount of tomatoes that I picked the other day? Well, about half of them started to ripen already! So the counter was filled with red, orange, and green tomatoes; I decided to make some red, orange, and green salsas. They are pretty simple; just tomatoes, onions, and chile peppers – also, I added xanthan gum which gave them a much better consistency than last year (this time they aren’t watery). I also made two green tomatoe pies for my dad, who was here today to install a new window in my house.
13 Oct 2006
0

13 quarts of pickles

I drastically reduced the number of vegetables hanging out on the counter and in baskets in the basement by slicing them up and pickling them. I really, really hope that we like pickled green tomatoes! I found tons of recipes for them, so I know that someone likes them. Some of the pickles include cucumbers, carrots, onions, and hot peppers. I also made a few pints of sliced green tomato “chips,” which apparently are a delicious replacement for sliced pickled cucumbers. I ditched the sugar in half of the things I canned this year and went with agave nectar instead. We’ll see how that turns out – most of the pickles aren’t ready to eat yet, but the agave-sweetened refrigerator...
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12 Oct 2006
0

The Season Begins

We woke up yesterday morning to a dusting of snow on the ground, which melted and returned throughout the day. The snowfall is pretty light, but it’s been steady since at least 7:00 last night, and doesn’t look like it’s going to let up any time soon! Chris got all of the tomatoes out of the ground, along with the cucumbers and beans. The eggplants are slowly dying in the cold. The only thing left is the pumpkins, which are mostly orange now. The carrots are still in the ground, but they’ll stay there for a while longer. I’m not sure how the kale and lettuce Chris planted is doing – the newer bunch of carrots are coming up nicely,...
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10 Oct 2006
0

Green Tomatoes

Niko checked out one of the multiple baskets full of tomatoes this afternoon. With snow in the forecast, it’s time to get these guys off the vines. Surprisingly, there were a lot more than I expected! I made a green tomato and apple chutney earlier this year, which turned out really good! The next few days are going to be spent dealing with this lot. We have about a half paper grocery bag full of cherry and smaller-sized green tomatoes – I think I’ll try slicing them in half and pickling them. Should be interesting! My guess would be somewhere around 60 pounds, but we didn’t actually weigh them. The basket handles started to break off on the last load,...
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09 Oct 2006
0

Snow in the forecast

I raided the tomato plants in the front yard, filling up my entire stovetop with green and pink tomatoes this afternoon. Tomorrow it’s the back yard. I smell indian dishes and green tomato pie in the forecast… The weather man says that we may get snow on Tuesday night, and that Wednesday will be in the 30s. Alas, it’s time to start taking apart the garden. I pulled some tomato plants out today, and the eggplants, beans, cukes, etc. are still to come. Tip for next year: Wear gloves when pulling out tomato plants, as your hands turn yellow and stain everything you touch yellow as well!
07 Oct 2006
0

No longer a mystery!

Sweet Dumpling Squash Pictured, left to right: a sweet dumpling squash from our Easy Bean CSA, our random squash that popped up in the garden, and a sweet dumpling squash from our Easy Bean CSA. Hah! I now recall getting one of these in our food share last year, but couldn’t remember earlier this year. So, that’s where the seeds came from, and the mystery is now solved. Maybe if we save the seeds from the squash we grew, more than one will grow on the vine this year. Of course, that would be assuming that the fruit was pollinated by flowers from its own plant – if not, then we may have a new, interesting variety to show off...
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06 Oct 2006
0

Dying tomatoes and a mishap with the beans!

The tomatoes are starting to come to the end of their season. The temperature has dropped below 40 a couple of times now, and all gardens must come to an end some time. Strangely, one of the volunteers at the food co-op told me the other day that her garden is still flourishing – she even said that the eggplants and okra are still doing well! Our okra never amounted to much, and the eggplants surely look like they’re done for the season. Aside from the cooler weather, it has been very windy recently (in Morris, it’s always pretty windy, though). The bean trellis finally decided that it wasn’t going to take it any more, and landed on the cucumbers...
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05 Oct 2006
0

End of the sunflowers

Well, the sunflower seeds that I got from my food co-op made for beautiful flowers all summer long. We’re going to plant more next year, and maybe even buy another variety. We’re going to look into some native sunflowers, and I really want to get some of those giant sunflowers that are good for seed-eating. I’ve also seen sunflowers with jet black petals – kind of neat, but haven’t found seeds for them anywhere. I don’t think these sunflowers will have seeds that we can eat, but I won’t pull them out for a few weeks anyway, just in case.
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