Here's to Mothers!

 

We had a big weekend!  We topped it off with a big celebration for Mother's Day today.  And you know what?  We were so busy visiting and eating, that not a single picture was taken.  I'm so disappointed!  How can this be?  Anyway, on Friday, we took photos that include two very important mothers in my life: my Mom (on right) and the Mother of my children (on the left).  Not pictured in my Mother-in-law, who is in Corpus Christi, Texas. 

As I sit and think about it, what in the world would I do without those women?  My mom raised me and my two siblings and put up with a lot of craziness from us.  I count myself to be so blessed and fortunate to have been reared in a two parent, loving, supportive home.  I cannot begin to imagine the sacrifices that mom made and continues to make for me.  There is no way to adequately thank her for it.  I love you, Mom!

And Tricia, the mother of my children.  I'm so blessed by God to have a spouse like her.  She has given so much to me and the kids.  She works tirelessly to give us her very best in all she does.  She is a Proverbs 31 woman.  I am also so fortunate to have a loving, supportive mother-in-law.  

Image Credit

I love you, Mom!  I love you, Tricia!  I love you, Mrs. Garcia!

About Time for Corn!

I have a row of corn that's planted densely.  I planted them twice as close as recommended.  The reason I did that was an experiment of sorts.  In some past years, when I would harvest the corn, there would be "blanks" in the kernels.  The somewhat empty heads were caused by poor pollination.  To try to mitigate that, I planted them very close, hoping that with more pollen in a smaller area, there would be a better likelihood of fertilization.  We'll see.  

There are two varieties of sweet corn planted on the 15 foot row.  One is Stowell's Evergreen Sweet Corn and the other, I think (I neglected to write it down), was Country Gentleman Corn.  As you can see, the corn is tasseling.

The corn tassel is the male reproductive organ of the corn.  You might remember this lesson from the movie, "Grease."  The pollen dangles from the tassel and the pollen falls down onto the silk of the ear.

Here is the silk.  When the pollen falls on the silk, the ear is fertilized.  Each strand of silk will produce a kernel of corn, if fertilized.  What you have to worry about is sometimes the corn will tassel before the silk is present.  Sometimes wind or weather affects pollination.  Some people, in order to ensure pollination, will cut the tassel off with scissors and will manually pollinate the ear, by rubbing the two together.   My garden is small enough to do that, but I figure the corn can do that on its own without me intervening.

Here are the tassels of another variety:

The silk on this variety is RED!

I wanted to show you something a little strange I saw in the corn patch.  Can you see the kernels of corn growing on the tassel itself?:

The phenomenon where the tassel and ear is on the same structure is called "tassel ear corn".  There are several reasons this happens: it can happen on the suckers when the growing point is damaged, or where there is low plant density (we know it's not this), or where the soil is compacted or too wet.

We will be watching for the tassels to turn brown.  At that point we will harvest and do our normal celebratory tradition of shucking and eating the first corn raw, standing in the corn row.

From Asparagus to Zucchini

While picking snap beans the other day, I looked down and saw the last of the asparagus coming up.  Most of it matures quickly now as it's warming up.  It's easy to miss.  But I got the asparagus, snapped it off, and ate it raw, right there in the snap bean row.

I finished the beans and remembered that I needed to check the squash.  They're growing ever so fast as well.

I had planned on weighing the garden produce this year, just to start tracking that, but, to be honest, it's too much work, ha ha.  Here's a big basket of nothing but zucchini I picked.  There will be more coming in tomorrow.  Tricia kind of gave me "the stink eye" when I came in with this.  "What are we going to do with all this," she said.  "We're gonna eat it," I replied.

We also give it away.  Today we walked some over to one of our neighbors.  Tricia also made Zucchini Fritters tonight.  We ate an entire zucchini squash, I'm not ashamed to say.  Zucchini Fritters are like crab cakes, without the crab.  You grate zucchini, put it in a colander, salt it, and let the water drain off.  Then you add flour, cheese, eggs, garlic and seasoning and stir.  Then make little patties and fry them.  My wife made a sour cream ranch dressing that we dipped them into.  Very good!

Since we've been using the dehydrator to preserve a lot of the fresh produce coming in, we decided to dehydrate some zucchini.  The zucchini was cut into slices like you see in the measuring cup below and were blanched according to the time instructed.

Blanching aids in protecting flavor, color, texture in the vegetables.  It inactivates enzymes that cause vegetables to deteriorate.  Although the vegetables don't stay in the water for long, we were wondering if you lose water soluble vitamins during blanching?  The answer is yes.  Although it takes a little longer, the next time we blanch, we'll try steam blanching.  Steam blanching allows the vegetables to retain vitamins otherwise lost in water blanching.

After removing and putting in ice water to immediately stop the cooking process, the blanched zucchini is drained and placed on the trays of the dehydrator.  I don't know how this is going to work out.  Zucchini has a very high water content.  It seems to me this process is akin to dehydrating ice cubes.

Twelve hours later, the dehydrated zucchini is done.

Wowzers!  There's nothing left.  If I still read newspapers, I could read one through the zucchini.  It is transparent and thin.  There's nothing left to it.

Five full trays of cut up zucchini yielded a PINT of dried zucchini.

Good for adding to soups and stews, I imagine, and it'll keep.

300 Onions

In the very center of the garden, we have 300 onions planted on 3 1/2 rows.  It is a mix of White Onions, Texas 1015 Sweet Onions, Red Creole Onions and Yellow Granex Onions.  We ordered the onion sets from Dixondale Farms in Carizzo Springs, Texas and planted them in early January, following the planting, fertilizing, and watering instructions recommended by Dixondale.  The onions have enjoyed perfect growing conditions and have grown steadily since planting.

The onions will tell you when they are ready to be pulled.  You just have to listen.  When the onion plant bends over at a 90 degree angle at the neck (like the white onion in the center of the photo below), it's time to pull them.

The onions were planted four inches apart and over the last 4 or so months, they've grown, filling in the space between plants such that the onion bulb of each plant almost touches one another.

The size of this year's crop is nice.  Not overwhelmingly large, but not small by any measure.  The onion fills the palm of your hand easily.

The yellow onions are a nice size as well.

The red creole onions are always a little smaller than the other two.

As I pull up the onions that have fallen over, I brush the dirt out of the roots and place them in a big basket that I use when harvesting.

Then I carry them to an open spot in the garden between the onions and the okra.  The onions are laid out in a staggered arrangement.  This starts the curing process.  I'll talk more about that in a post later on.

Needless to say, we've stopped purchasing onions from the grocery store!  The onions aren't cured yet, and that's an important process.  Last year we had great success in having our onion crop store for months and months.  We're hoping for similar success in 2023.

The Charm of a Swarm at the Farm

My Dad called me the other afternoon.  I had just finished work and was about to go feed the chickens and gather eggs.  I could sense a tone of excitement in his voice.  He told me that he was going to change the oil in the John Deere irrigation well engine at the farm.  As he was about to start, he noticed something flying around his head.  He looked around and there was a swarm of honeybees on the air breather.

He asked me if I wanted it.  I told him "Yes!"  I told him we would gather all of our bee equipment and make the 30 mile drive north in the pickup truck and see if we could be successful in collecting this swarm.  We are relative novices to beekeeping and this was the first swarm that we would "solo."  We quickly got Tricia's bee suit and my veil, the bottom board, bee box with frames (one with drawn out comb), bee brush, and the top.  For good measure, we brought an epi-pen in the event things went badly.  Best to be prepared, right?

When we arrived, this is what we saw:  Can you see the swarm?  This well engine has an interesting story behind it.  About 24 years ago, I was at the farm headquarters on top of the rice storage bins, about to climb in and take some samples to test moisture.  Roger, our crop duster pilot, flew his plane right over the bin and shook his wings at me.  I thought he was waving, so I waved.  He flew back over real close and he motioned to me to follow him, pointing his finger north and west.

I jumped in my truck, got in touch with Dad, and we followed him to this well engine.  Some how or another, the coolant and water had leaked out and the engine was smoking and running hot.  We quickly shut it down, fixed the leak, refilled and cranked it again.  The well engine was not damaged, but would have been, had not the pilot notified us.  Twenty four years later, the engine is still running!  Today perhaps, the engine would give us some bees.

Here is an up-close shot of the swarm.  There were many bees flying around, joining up with the swarm on the air breather.

We decided that we should get started.  We suited up.  Here's my lovely wife in her bee suit:

We made a plan.  What we'd do is this.  Tricia would hold the box directly under the swarm.  I would scoop a handful of bees and gently drop them in the box, hoping they would walk on down the frames.  I would continue that until they were mostly in the box.  Then, we would put the top on the box, set it down on the ground and wait.  Bees don't fly after dark.  They would smell the queen pheromone, if we were successful in getting her in the box, and all of the remaining bees still flying would eventually follow her into the box.  Once they stopped flying at dark, we would duct tape up the entrance, put the box of bees in the truck and drive 30 miles south, set the bee box by our existing box, pull off the tape, and, in the morning, the bees would be able to venture out and explore their new home.

We decided it was time to set the plan into action.

I stuck my gloved hands into the midst of the swarm.  I could feel a vibrating sensation in my hands.  It was almost electrical.  I moved slowly with the bunch of bees and poured them into the box.  A bunch of them stuck to my hand.  A bunch flew in a thick fog around our heads.  But as I moved more and more into the box, we were feeling pretty good about it.  There were so many bees, we didn't have a chance to spot the queen.  However, we knew that if we had her in the box, the swarm would stay with her.  If not, they'd fly off.

Before we knew it, there were only a few bees left on the air breather.  Previously, it was COVERED with bees.  We gently grabbed the remaining bees and put them in the box.

Once that was done, we put the telescoping lid on the box.  Remaining bees flying around and not already in the box, would smell the queen and fly in the entrance to the hive at the bottom.  Then we waited.  As the sun slowly sunk toward the horizon, the bees flying around diminished.  Finally, all of the bees were in the box.

We taped up the entrance and carefully put the box of bees in the back of the truck and drove them home.  We set them right by our other hive.  The brick on top of what we call Hive 1 (the first swarm we caught) signifies that there is a laying queen.  Once we saw eggs, we positioned the brick.

The next day the bees were flying around Hive 2, checking out their new surroundings.  We will get inside it in a few days to see if they are drawing out comb and if the queen has started to lay any eggs.  This swarm was a bigger swarm than the first one we caught.  Hopefully, we'll be successful in keeping Hive 2.  We will keep you posted!

Potato Trouble!

Have you ever done something that you really regret?  Something that you messed up on and you can't fix it?  There's a saying that goes, "You can't un-ring a bell."  Well, the bell has rung and it's a sad note.  The 2023 potato crop is probably going to be a total crop failure.  Was it due to the weather?  Nope.  Was it because of pest problems?  Nope.

It was because of me.  I planted 122 seed potatoes in the ground in the garden in the side yard.  I dug a hole, put a handful of composed chicken litter in the bottom of the hole,  filled the hole with rich compost and then planted the seed potato and covered it with composted wood chips - a nice medium for potatoes to thrive in.

And thrive, they did.  We achieved a 100% germination rate.  The potato plants grew with vigor for about three weeks.  And then...

They took on this sickly, yellowish hue.  All growth stopped.  Some of the potatoes withered and died.  I hate to even look at what's left of them.  When I walk out that way to check on the bees, I avert my eyes.

Here is a potato plant on the end of the row.  It's unscathed.  It looks lush and green like they are supposed to look.

A Post-mortem:  So what happened?  Here are the unsavory details the best I can figure it.  I got the composted chicken litter from the hen house beneath the roost.  It's good fertilizer, but it's "hot."  You must let it cool down some before using.  That's why I remove the top layer and get the chicken litter that's the oldest.  I put it it a big tub for further composting.  

For whatever reason, I must have picked up some chicken litter that was too hot.  I placed it in the bottom of the hole and then put soil on top and then planted the potato in the soil.  All was good for a while... Until the roots from the potato hit the chicken litter.  What should have caused them to jump up with vigor and turn and blue-green, healthy color, instead was too strong.  Much too strong.  It burned the plant, essentially cooking it.

I'll still dig them up and see what we have.  I was looking so forward to eating fresh Irish potatoes with snap beans.  It's one of my favorite garden duos.  I thought we were going to be harvesting a bumper crop of potatoes and I'd be able to use our new drying wagon to cure them.  I realized the truth to the adage, "Don't count your chickens before they hatch."  The Bible says it even better:

Proverbs 27:1 Do not boast about tomorrow, For you do not know what a day may bring.

Oh well, there's always next year's crop!

Snap Beans - Four Ways!

The Spring harvest is on!  Tricia picked up a nifty basket from her mom that is coming in useful.  We filled it with zucchini, yellow crookneck and yellow straightneck squash.

But it's not just the squash coming in.  Our snap bean crop looks to be a bumper crop.  We've never picked this many on the first picking.  Tricia gave me "the look" when I started carrying all this in.  Harvesting is not the end of the work.  While they're fresh, we have to preserve the harvest.

Below you'll see Blue Lake Bush beans, Contender beans, Italian Roma beans and Purple TeePee beans.

We eat a bunch of them fresh.  So good. We like to cook them with new potatoes and butter.  Lately, we've been cooking them with tasso and that adds great smoky, seasoned flavor.

We also snap them and pressure can a number of pints.  The pressure cooker holds 10 quart jars at a time, so we try to do them in 10 pint batches.

With some of the straightest of the Blue Lake Bush beans, we pickled them in a vinegar solution with dill and red pepper flakes and garlic.  Crispy pickled green beans.  Yum!!

Then we blanched and froze six additional quart bags of Contenders.

The water bath canner holds 7 pints, so we have 7 pints of pickled beans.  In the pressure canner, we snapped and canned 10 pints of contenders/blue lake bush beans and 10 pints Italian Roma beans.

Tricia labeled them with dates and they're ready to go in the pantry.

Then for the fourth preservation method, we're trying something we've never done.  We are dehydrating some snap beans.  First we snapped them.

Then we blanched them.  They come out such a bright, healthy color.

Then we line the dehydrator trays (all 7 of them) with beans.  Here's the contenders:

Here are the Italian Romas:

After about 10-12 hours of drying, here's what they look like:

Seven trays made 2 quart jars of dried snap beans.

While we have fresh, we're eating fresh picked beans.  But in the late summer and winter, we'll try putting the dried beans in soups and stews and see how they turn out once they're rehydrated.  I ate a few of them plain.  They had a snap to them like potato chips.  They needed some salt, though!  Always looking for new ways to preserve the harvest.