|
showbiz_liz posted:I've never made them myself but this looks about right. Although that recipe actually uses "regular" green beans. They wind up almost along the lines of fried shishito peppers, with the blistered skin. You can get it at most nicer Chinese restaurants, and I also ordered it all the time when I studied abroad in China. I never actually realized until this thread that it wasn't traditionally made with French-style green beans, but on reflection I always thought they were a bit different from the green beans I was familiar with. Don't skip the sui mi ya cai no matter what the recipes say you can skip. I'd skip the pork before that if you want to make it vegetarian, but not the preserved mustard or chiles. I have a variety of those purple longbeans that I tried last summer, and while they were good, I much preferred the green for both flavor, texture, and volume of production. The vines grow 8-10' long easily enough too, so be prepared for big plants and you won't be disappointed. Be prepared to have a lot and be picking them regularly. They don't last very long once picked, and they will go woody if you leave them on the vine too long too. I'd plant at least one plant per person who's eating them, and you can fit them pretty close together for trellising. So very good, I wish I'd have been able to grow them this year, but next year they will and I know exactly where they're going. Hexigrammus posted:Since this is Zone 8 Maritime the shitshow never ends! Finishing up planting the winter vegetables, including collards (no idea, never tasted them) and this Japanese leaf brassica called Mizuna. It's supposed to be quite mild and good in salads. Hopefully it goes well with the corn salad/sorrel/arugula/kale weed salad we make in the winter. Do you (or anyone) have any good resources for this climate? I can manage summer still no issues, but the fall-spring growing is going to be new to me. I'm looking at the stuff from the Ag-extensions, but a lot of it is for growing on the east side of the Cascades, so not really useful for me. I think the thing I worry most about is hours of sunlight, so it'll be greens of course and nothing that needs to flower or fruit extensively. Also, your collards probably won't grow very well when it gets cold, but I'd be happy to see them prosper anyway. They really do like the hot part of summer, and are delicious.
|
#
?
Sep 11, 2020 18:32
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 29, 2024 22:32 |
|
|
Jhet posted:Do you (or anyone) have any good resources for this climate? I can manage summer still no issues, but the fall-spring growing is going to be new to me. I'm looking at the stuff from the Ag-extensions, but a lot of it is for growing on the east side of the Cascades, so not really useful for me. I think the thing I worry most about is hours of sunlight, so it'll be greens of course and nothing that needs to flower or fruit extensively. I refer to the West Coast Seeds catalog and fall/winter calendar a lot and Linda Gilkeson's books. She also sends out regular updates on her email list. Very handy if you aren't paying attention to the weather forecast and need a reminder to cover your crops because a cold front is coming in. "Winter Gardening in the Maritime Northwest" by Binda Colebrook is the classic for our area. It's been a while since I read it though and it's probably getting a bit dated. Not sure if it's even in print anymore. On YouTube Charles Dowding grows over winter in a similar climate. The collards I planted are supposed to be a winter-hardy variety called Champion. From the description I think the strategy is the same as for brussel sprouts - grow them as big as you can without bolting by the end of October, then graze off them as they idle through the coldest part of the winter. We'll see. I think some of the winter crops are more sensitive to local microclimate conditions than summer crops.
|
|
#
?
Sep 11, 2020 23:40
|
|
|
Jhet posted:Don't skip the sui mi ya cai no matter what the recipes say you can skip. I'd skip the pork before that if you want to make it vegetarian, but not the preserved mustard or chiles. I also use a lot of long beans along with whatever other bits of garden and CSA veg I have on hand in dry pot, which is a bit of a food fad but owns. I'd plant more than one longbean vine per person though. Or at least I always plant a shitload more than that--for two I plant two 4' rows with about a 4" seed spacing. That's so I get enough beans to use at once for stuff like 干煸四季豆, plus some extra for when I just want a couple long beans to throw in with something else. I also like pickling them. But yeah, they're productive as hell, but the window where they're fresh is pretty small, and they don't keep in the fridge very well, so I feel like you need a lot of plants if you want to keep getting meals out of them. Anyway, another bitter melon update. Here's that over-ripe bitter melon I posted earlier. This is right before dropping seeds, looking even more like something from a survival horror game:  ...but after a week or so of temperatures up around 110 F/43 C it's cooled off a bit and the bitter melons seem to be producing fruit that aren't immediately getting over-ripe:  They're the most productive thing in the garden at the moment. Eggplant plant is still doing fine, but it hasn't produced good eggplants in a couple weeks. Tomato plants are fine and have a couple tomatoes developing, but they dropped a lot of flowers when the temperature got over a hundred and they haven't started putting out new buds yet. The long beans are mostly done in. I think I might have one or two left that still look viable, but most of them look like they gave up in the heat. Cukes really haven't been looking great all season and now they're looking terrible, might get one or two Japanese cukes off one of the plants, otherwise I think they're done. The habs look like they might be ready to start producing but the plants haven't gotten that big or bushy this year, for whatever reason. Thai birds are producing peppers but a lot more slowly that I normally expect...like each plant only has maybe a dozen peppers growing on it at a time, when I normally get several times that. On the other hand all of the alliums look fine, at least as far as the greens go. Epazote got leggy as hell but seems to have propagated itself, which it likes to do. And the ground cherries are really taking off. Have a couple that I planted back in the spring that are producing a couple dozen fruit a week. Also have a couple volunteers coming up in the bed they were planted in last year, and they're already making wee paper lanterns so that's cool. I've also got some ginger that I put in some soil on a whim and it's putting out shoots like a motherfucker, but no idea how much rhizome it's actually growing down there.
|
|
#
?
Sep 12, 2020 03:06
|
|
|
Hexigrammus posted:I refer to the West Coast Seeds catalog and fall/winter calendar a lot and Linda Gilkeson's books. She also sends out regular updates on her email list. Very handy if you aren't paying attention to the weather forecast and need a reminder to cover your crops because a cold front is coming in. My mother has been talking about Charles Dowding all summer. I keep reminding her she’s in the northern Midwest and can’t grow things like she’s in England. But I suppose that I probably can. Similar light and weather in a lot of ways. I ordered a used copy of the Colebrook book, I didn’t see it new anywhere local at least. I’ll have to see what I can manage this fall, I have plenty of seeds and a small area with okay soil. I don’t want to try to fix the dirt into soil here as we want to manage one last move to a house somewhere hopefully in the next couple years. At least we’re closer to where we want to be. SubG posted:But yeah, they're productive as hell, but the window where they're fresh is pretty small, and they don't keep in the fridge very well, so I feel like you need a lot of plants if you want to keep getting meals out of them. I plant about 6-7 bean plants per person in my house, but no everyone will eat all those. We eat a lot of green beans the way it is. It’s nice having green veggies that the kid will just devour most days. Also, that bitter melon monster is one of the coolest things I’ve seen this summer.
|
|
#
?
Sep 12, 2020 05:13
|
|
|
Somehow my zucchini and pumpkins all ended up with poo poo loads of end of season powdery mildew as the garden is winding down
|
|
#
?
Sep 12, 2020 16:22
|
|
|
CommonShore posted:Somehow my zucchini and pumpkins all ended up with poo poo loads of end of season powdery mildew as the garden is winding down Got a bunch on my yellow squash, too.
|
|
#
?
Sep 12, 2020 18:01
|
|
|
In NC anyway that's not uncommon. Once the plants stay wet pretty regularly, especially with squash, it's very hard to prevent. Good plant spacing and keeping weeds down helps but isn't always possible. I've had some success with sulfur based treatments, copper based is also an option but a little less optimal. I usually just yank the whole plant when that poo poo shows up.
|
|
#
?
Sep 12, 2020 18:09
|
|
|
Bloody Cat Farm posted:Got a bunch on my yellow squash, too. It's really strange. They're all basically harvested at this point and I thought that the discoloration was just from frost but my buddy was like "holy poo poo"
|
|
#
?
Sep 12, 2020 18:10
|
|
|
Jhet posted:My mother has been talking about Charles Dowding all summer. I keep reminding her she’s in the northern Midwest and can’t grow things like she’s in England. She might be interested in Patrick Dolan's OYR Frugal Gardening channel. He does winter gardening in Zone 5 (Michigan?) and otherwise grows stuff in a very challenging back yard. Inspiring, even if our main problem out here is things rotting, not having to chip them out of the frozen snow. CommonShore posted:Somehow my zucchini and pumpkins all ended up with poo poo loads of end of season powdery mildew as the garden is winding down Same here. We didn't see it when it should normally shows up near the beginning of the summer hot spell. My understanding is that it propagates during hot dry weather, which seems a bit counter intuitive for mildew. That's certainly when we see it hitting the broad leafed maples. We've had a cool, damp summer and unusually hot, dry September so I guess it was just waiting in the wings. I use Bordeaux mix copper spray when it appears. The spray doesn't rid the infected leaves of mildew but it does keep the mildew from spreading so the remaining leaves can keep photosynthesizing. I don't think I'm going to bother spraying the pumpkins at this point, the fruit is fine. Finally remembered to eat the last two vegetable spaghetti squash in storage from last year. They lasted 11 months in room temperature. Other than the seeds starting to turn brown and sprout there was no change in the flesh. Impressive. Wish I liked spaghetti squash more.
|
|
#
?
Sep 12, 2020 19:09
|
|
|
Hexigrammus posted:She might be interested in Patrick Dolan's OYR Frugal Gardening channel. He does winter gardening in Zone 5 (Michigan?) and otherwise grows stuff in a very challenging back yard. Inspiring, even if our main problem out here is things rotting, not having to chip them out of the frozen snow. Ours was the reverse - we had a mostly hot dry summer with a few big torrential rains, and I was mostly watering underneath the leaves with eavestroughs, and then September cooled off and got a bit damp. We've had two nights of frost already, actually, and the powdery poo poo showed up after that. I'm not worried too much about them. I'm about to do my final harvest in the next few days and then tear the whole thing down. But today I planted 9 trees/shrubs: A pollinating trio of a zone 3 apple (red sparkle?) a zone 2 apple (scarlet something?) and a zone 3 crabapple (bombadillo?) A pollinating pair of two different zone 3 plums (Tako? and Pembina.) A valentine cherry, which is zone 3 and can apparently pollinate from my... 2 Pincherries... and 1 Saskatoon (which joins another saskatoon which I transplanted from my old house and hopefully two more which I'm trying to propagate from cuttings) I followed the goon advice of spreading them out (10 feet between each) and making sure that they're easy to mow around (straight line about 5 feet from the fence). I added compost and lots of water to the holes as I filled them in and I used the sod I tore up as insulating mulch on top. So provided I haven't hosed up too much so far, what can I do between now and snow time (8-10 weeks) to increase the odds of survival? Right now my plan is to water them daily and put a deep layer of wood chips on top to further insulate them.
|
|
#
?
Sep 12, 2020 23:09
|
|
|
Hexigrammus posted:She might be interested in Patrick Dolan's OYR Frugal Gardening channel. He does winter gardening in Zone 5 (Michigan?) and otherwise grows stuff in a very challenging back yard. Inspiring, even if our main problem out here is things rotting, not having to chip them out of the frozen snow. I’ll send it to her, but I think the main draw for Dowding is listening to him talk. She’s in education and has a lot less time over cold months for her garden, but she’s giving a short 9’ polytunnel a try for some fall stuff this year. She also has a solarium that keeps enough of her plants above freezing in the winter so that works. Myself, I’m going to try 1-2 rounds of radishes and I have fall mustards already growing. I have a fall/winter choy too, but I don’t know if I’ll like it yet. Then there’s the peppers in the basement starting to put out fruit. I need to raise the lights again too. Should be a good attempt at winter gardening.
|
|
#
?
Sep 13, 2020 00:11
|
|
|
CommonShore posted:Ours was the reverse - we had a mostly hot dry summer with a few big torrential rains, and I was mostly watering underneath the leaves with eavestroughs, and then Good advice. We've got a Saskatoon and a couple of Haskaps against the back garden fence. "Vigorous" doesn't do them justice when they get going. They'll have to move when they go dormant this winter. Assuming the Haskaps with their Siberian heritage bother with dormancy in this wimpy climate. Depending on your soil type you might need to be careful about waterlogging the roots with too much watering. If the trees are changing colour and losing leaves they won't have much of a need for water anyway, beyond the "evenly moist" conditions to encourage new root growth and mulch goes a long way to creating those conditions. Waterlogging is impossible in our gravel pit of a yard but in high clay soils excess water sits and becomes stagnant, rotting the roots. Mulch is good, just make sure it doesn't extend up the trunk past the root graft, assuming the tree has one. Unless you want to bypass the graft for some reason. Last year one of our suppliers put out a notice that the rootstock he used on his medlars was failing, so we should mound up soil and mulch above the graft to encourage the scion to develop its own roots. Kind of weird to do that deliberately, but whatever. We'll probably end up with a much bigger tree but medlars and yogurt are divine, so more is better. Jhet posted:I’ll send it to her, but I think the main draw for Dowding is listening to him talk. She’s in education and has a lot less time over cold months for her garden, but she’s giving a short 9’ polytunnel a try for some fall stuff this year. She also has a solarium that keeps enough of her plants above freezing in the winter so that works. There is something about Dowding's presentation, for sure. And a polytunnel like that should be enough to try things out for a winter. I've never had much luck with the various choys, no matter what the season. They either grow too slow and the cabbage loopers get them or bolt when they're still tiny. Taiwanese cabbage grows well but everything goes to town on it and then the earwigs move into what's left. Just found out BTk has an eight month shelf life, my bottle is a year old, and there's a problem with the Canadian supplier so we have a shortage atm.  my winter brassicas, unless I start spending my evenings hunting by flashlight. Cold does not discourage cabbage loopers.
|
|
#
?
Sep 13, 2020 00:49
|
|
|
Bit of a crosspost here, I'm looking to identify a bunch of garden shrubs/trees over here: https://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3543738&pagenumber=160#post508036207
|
|
#
?
Sep 13, 2020 17:20
|
|
|
Sprue posted:Thanks for sharing! I love having this little pocket of the internet where I get to talk about gardening cuz I don't have that much irl either. I try to cut myself off before I go on too much and bore my partner, but it's hard to stop when something new just emerged that I thought didn't make it thru the winter or the phlox in the shade garden set some really nice blossoms or etc Thanks for thanking me! It's unfortunate your partner doesn't get excited that you're excited, but I can empathize as neither does mine. Sorry to hear your caterpillar disappeared. I haven't seen mine in days so I'll assume dead. But that's the way of the world. In garden news Friday I spent a bunch of money at Menards for cedar wood. Today I finished building the new boxes and placing them. All together about $700 and eight hours of work. My yard is sloped pretty heavy so I have super tall boxes (~22") and for boxes that are 3' wide the upper end of the slope is about 8-10" shorter than the lower end. I now have all of my main boxes built and placed. Five boxes - three 3'x5'x22", one 3'x6'x22", one 3'x7'x22" - should be enough to get quite a few of the items we are hoping to grow. Things left to do, two espalier trees, raspberry bushes, blueberry bushes, two trellises for clematis. Then inside the fence will be done.
|
|
#
?
Sep 13, 2020 22:20
|
|
|
How plain should my cardboard be for doing no dig under layers? I know glossy poo poo is out, but how about things with some printed logos/info on it eg a home depot moving box?  Or say banana/produce boxes which are non-glossy cardboard but largely white with some colour kinda like 
|
|
#
?
Sep 14, 2020 04:16
|
|
|
CommonShore posted:How plain should my cardboard be for doing no dig under layers? Assuming you're not using old cardboard, the only thing you really need to worry about is tape or other stuff that won't biodegrade. Really old cardboard/newspaper/etc. might contain ink that has heavy metals in it, but the newer stuff is usually intentionally biodegradable.
|
|
#
?
Sep 14, 2020 04:25
|
|
|
Produce boxes can be covered in a waxy coating probably rule them out. Banana boxes are usually not coated but the top and bottom are open so they don't have as much cardboard as a normal box with top and bottom flaps.
|
|
#
?
Sep 14, 2020 04:31
|
|
|
I've been curious about that - in this district our waxed milk cartons go into the green composting bin. Do they get shredded on the way to the composter and do they actually disappear or get screened out later? I've been thinking about throwing some in the shredder and seeing what happens when they're added to our compost. Can't be any worse than that package of Lipton tea bags someone gave my wife a few years ago. Why would anyone make plastic tea bags?? We're still picking the drat things out of the garden. Maybe instead of killing the next wax moth larvae I find on my bee equipment I'll throw them into a bin with some shredded milk cartons.
|
|
#
?
Sep 14, 2020 04:54
|
|
|
I think a lot of what can be thrown into those green bins are compostable on an industrial scale but not in your traditional backyard compost piles.
|
|
#
?
Sep 14, 2020 05:31
|
|
|
Thanks yeah this is all new uncoated cardboard. I don't know exactly what was in the produce boxes but they're not waxed. I have a framing shop giving me big sheets of unmarked cardboard too  October is going to be fun!
|
|
#
?
Sep 14, 2020 14:59
|
|
|
Also I have like 20 pounds of cooked beef bones is it worth the effort to make my own bone meal
|
|
#
?
Sep 14, 2020 16:07
|
|
|
CommonShore posted:Also I have like 20 pounds of cooked beef bones is it worth the effort to make my own bone meal Probably not. Do you have a high quality grinder that can deal with the pieces? I wouldn’t want to do this myself unless I had something that was intended for it as bone is hard enough that I wouldn’t want to be replacing equipment. Then again, if I had a big heavy grinder, I might try it once, but probably not. I don’t think you gain anything by doing it yourself.
|
|
#
?
Sep 14, 2020 16:53
|
|
|
You could make a delicious broth to warm you on the cold gardening days ahead, though
|
|
#
?
Sep 14, 2020 17:25
|
|
|
The bones are leftover from making the broth! I got fixated on the idea and I've started working on it. I put the cleaned and stripped bones in the BBQ on low for about an hour to dry them out and get any remaining meaty fatty bits out and I'm going to crush them in a scrap plywood mortar with a sledgehammer pestle later this week.
|
|
#
?
Sep 14, 2020 18:19
|
|
|
 The poo poo show that wouldn't let itself be shelved. It's almost insulting when they thrive in your prolonged absence.
|
|
#
?
Sep 16, 2020 23:00
|
|
|
We were given a couple orphaned tomato plants like two months ago and none of the tomatoes on them have ripened yet, so today I just took the clippers to them and got rid of as many excess stems and leaves as I could, plus any flowers or baby tomatoes. I maybe should have been doing that all along! They were almost definitely planted too late anyway (not sure when), so if I get anything at all out of them I'll be happy.
|
|
#
?
Sep 16, 2020 23:27
|
|
|
showbiz_liz posted:We were given a couple orphaned tomato plants like two months ago and none of the tomatoes on them have ripened yet, so today I just took the clippers to them and got rid of as many excess stems and leaves as I could, plus any flowers or baby tomatoes. I maybe should have been doing that all along! They were almost definitely planted too late anyway (not sure when), so if I get anything at all out of them I'll be happy. I'm a broken record on this - green tomatoes jalapenos and onions make a nice salsa
|
|
#
?
Sep 16, 2020 23:29
|
|
|
Flipperwaldt posted:The poo poo show that wouldn't let itself be shelved. It's almost insulting when they thrive in your prolonged absence. lolol, nice. That's what I'm down to as well and they're still producing despite benign neglect.
|
|
#
?
Sep 16, 2020 23:38
|
|
|
I used to be limited to a small number of small containers and I was always happier with the handfuls I got from that. Now that I'm spoiled with kilos of fruit, I'm more concerned with not turning this into, you know, work.
|
|
#
?
Sep 16, 2020 23:41
|
|
|
Flipperwaldt posted:I used to be limited to a small number of small containers and I was always happier with the handfuls I got from that. Now that I'm spoiled with kilos of fruit, I'm more concerned with not turning this into, you know, work. I sometimes have to remind myself that the compost pile is a perfectly acceptable place to put things when i don't have the time, space or mental energy to deal with things coming out of the garden.
|
|
#
?
Sep 17, 2020 00:50
|
|
|
Fatali something, 7 pot primo, chocolate scotch bonnet. These are the first of dozens and dozens close to ripe.
|
|
#
?
Sep 17, 2020 00:55
|
|
|
Those Primos are beautiful. That's one of my favorite plants - good heat, good flavor, and heavy yield.
|
|
#
?
Sep 17, 2020 16:12
|
|
|
mischief posted:Those Primos are beautiful. That's one of my favorite plants - good heat, good flavor, and heavy yield. I tasted a tiny sliver, hottest thing I've ever experienced. I'll have to try some more when I'm ready.
|
|
#
?
Sep 17, 2020 18:02
|
|
|
mischief posted:Those Primos are beautiful. That's one of my favorite plants - good heat, good flavor, and heavy yield. I already have two varieties of 7pot, do they stand up to the others for heat and flavor too? Those are just really pretty and a great size that I'm considering making it 3 varieties of 7pot for next summer.
|
|
#
?
Sep 17, 2020 18:08
|
|
|
They're the hottest I've tasted of the 7 pots. I believe the Douglah may have tested hotter but I've never grown one that hot. The Primo is good in a Reaper way - hot but you can definitely still taste the actual pepper flavor as well. "Hellfire" "Reapercussion" and "Exhorresco" are all great hot sauces built around them.
|
|
#
?
Sep 17, 2020 18:36
|
|
|
My scorpions are starting to ripen. I need to decide what to do with them. Last year I just dried and crushed my ultra hots.
|
|
#
?
Sep 17, 2020 18:43
|
|
|
mischief posted:They're the hottest I've tasted of the 7 pots. I believe the Douglah may have tested hotter but I've never grown one that hot. I do need to acquire some new sauces, I'm almost out. I keep skipping Exhorresco because I wasn't sure if it was just hype from Hot Ones making people like it or if it was actually good. CommonShore posted:My scorpions are starting to ripen. I need to decide what to do with them. Last year I just dried and crushed my ultra hots. Might I suggest dicing them up finely and putting them on food? You could also make a jerk rub with them, or make some super chutney. I could see making scorpion mango preserves and being really tasty.
|
|
#
?
Sep 17, 2020 18:59
|
|
|
I'm taking the hot peppers I don't know what to do with and just slicing them into a jar full of vinegar in the fridge. I've mostly been using them on nachos and beans. I don't have any ultrahots though.
|
|
#
?
Sep 17, 2020 19:03
|
|
|
Jhet posted:I do need to acquire some new sauces, I'm almost out. I keep skipping Exhorresco because I wasn't sure if it was just hype from Hot Ones making people like it or if it was actually good. I get nervous about putting them on food because I get worried that nobody else will be able to eat what I made 
|
|
#
?
Sep 17, 2020 19:03
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 29, 2024 22:32 |
|
|
Jhet posted:I do need to acquire some new sauces, I'm almost out. I keep skipping Exhorresco because I wasn't sure if it was just hype from Hot Ones making people like it or if it was actually good. I broke down and signed up for the Heatonist monthly deal. I have a mini fridge in our laundry room that is literally running out of room full of sauce. It's an affliction. - I try to keep reviews in the hot sauce thread but if you're curious about any particular sauce it's highly likely that I or my pepper loving friend have tried it. I wish the woozy wasn't the standard size - smaller bottles would make a ton of sense in my book. I also usually dry and crush my end of season peppers all together and just see what happens. This year I was wearing a mask when I crushed them and it still literally stole my breath for a second or two.
|
|
#
?
Sep 17, 2020 19:20
|
|