Sprouting Onions, Shallots, and Bunching Onions

It's a beautifully sunny 75 degree day (24 degree Celsius). The snow has melted in the yard and the onions are soaking it all up on the back step.

There is an assortment of Australian Brown onion, Bronze D'Amposta onion, Zebrune shallot onion, Chinese leek chive, Four Seasons bunching onion, Red Beard bunching onion, and Evergreen Long White bunchinq onion all started on February 28th. The only no show was the American Flag leek, which was replanted on the March 14th.

Western Kentucky Changing from Zone 6B to 7A

Well the USDA has gone and done it again. We are now officially zone 7A and our last frost date has been moved up to April 10th versus April 21st. Wow. Almost a 2 weeks difference, in a life of garden that is a big deal.

I usually plant my tomatoes out the last week of April, and the peppers and eggplants a week later. So this could potentially move up the tomato plantings to the first week of April. I usually seed the summer squash and zucchini about the same time the tomatoes are planted outside. That's a lot of moving up of the planting dates, which means the indoor seed starting will need to be done a month ahead.

And the onions have yet to be started. Ugh. So the planting schedule is already a month behind. That is not such a big deal because we have such a long growing season and I would rather have the onions ripen later in the season to lengthen winter keeping. But the peppers and tomatoes really need to be started soon.

Thinking Towards a 2015 Garden

This past year in 2014 I had to forgo a garden. Too many things going on. But next year I have plans within plans.

The main focus of the 2015 garden will be growing vegetables for making baby food.

I've decided to grow vegetables that are unavailable or expensive in this area. Popular squashes like butternut and acorn are available at $0.99 a piece in the fall, and winter greens like mustard, kale, cabbages, and bok choy are inexpensive. Even semi-popular root vegetables like carrot, turnip, and rutabaga are fairly inexpensive.

Surprisingly, potatoes, sweet potatoes, onions, and garlic are expensive in this area of Kentucky. It gets hot here, so potatoes need to be planted early in February or March. But if a heat wave hits of 95 degrees Fahrenheit or more before potatoes have formed, then the potatoes may fail to produce or only produce minimal amounts.

Sweet potatoes on the other hand, love the long hot humid summers Kentucky is famous for. If you let your sweet potato vines ramble they may produce potatoes in odd spots depending on where they take root. I like to put a shovel full of soil here and there along the vines to encourage extra root formation, which makes the plants stronger even if they don't  produce sweet potatoes in those spots. They also make a nice living mulch under pepper and tomato plants, although I wouldn't grow them in the same beds because that could reduce yields as they compete for nutrients, but instead I sometimes let the vines ramble into neighboring beds.

So for the coming 2015 year the plan is potatoes, sweet potatoes, green beans, lima beans, Pink Eye Purple Hull peas, zucchini, summer squash, cucumber, winter melon, bitter melon, angled and smooth loofa, bunching green onion, Chinese chive, leek, kohlrabi, sprouting broccoli or gai lan, bulb fennel, and spinach. There will be just a few tomatoes and peppers for fresh eating, nothing like previous years since I won't be canning salsa. And a few eggplants since they did so well in 2013, after I figured out how to get rid of flea beetles with the use of diatomaceous earth.

I found seeds for bitter melon that are supposedly barely bitter which will hopefully be a good way to introduce it to uninitiated family members. Mmmm, bitter melon stuffed with ground pork, mushrooms, and cellophane noodles.

I have to tell you. I found a vegetable that is utterly delicious. Angled loofa simply prepared by stir frying with garlic and then seasoned with just salt and pepper, it is just so flavorful it's indescribably delectable. The juiciness with a beautiful dense texture that is also tender, just everything about it is perfect. Most people prepare the angled luffa by peeling just the ridged edges off which leaves thin ribbons of skin and supposedly gives it a bit of a crunch, but the first time I prepared it from fruits my father brought with him from Virginia I had peeled all the skin. It was still scrumptious.

Growing Peppers in the Vegetable Garden

12 pounds of peppers harvested on July 13th, 2013. Dark green jalapeno, chartreuse Hungarian hot wax, and almost white Santa Fe peppers.

June 2013 pepper bed. Mix of sweet bell, cayenne, jalapeno, Hungarian hot wax, and Santa Fe peppers.

Santa Fe hot chili pepper

Jalapeno hot chili pepper

I mainly grow 3 types of hot peppers for use in a cooked salsa that is easy to can with the hot pack method. Jalapeno peppers have a pungent spiciness but the flavor is hard to describe, it tastes green like the way fresh cut grass smells. Serrano is what adds the heat to my salsa, much more spicy than the jalapeno it just takes a handful in a pot of salsa to add some nice heat and they have a delicious vinegary flavor. Anaheim is much milder in comparison, more pungent than spicy with a fruity mildly spicy flavor. Last year I was unable to get any of the anaheim and serrano seeds to germinate. So I replaced them with Hungarian Hot Wax and Santa Fe peppers, which I had never grown nor tasted before. Hungarian hot wax grew to be very hot in my garden much hotter than the jalapeno. The Santa Fe peppers were even hotter still, I would say quite a bit spicier than a serrano. Serrano and anaheim peppers are sometimes available in the grocery store during the summers.

Pepper seeds require warmth to germinate. I usually sprout them 6-8 weeks before planting time and put the seed starting tray on top of the fridge which is a fairly warm area in our home. It can take a couple of weeks for the seeds to sprout. Once sprouted I put the plants out in the garage under lights that are on 24 hours a day to speed vegetative growth. The lights are suspended close to the plants but without touching them, so the young seedlings stay short and bushy instead of long and leggy as they try to reach the light. The cold garage probably also helps the plants stay short and stout.

I plant peppers in the garden once there is no chance of frost, they are very sensitive to freezing temperatures. Last year I used floating row covers, also known as garden fleece, in the early spring which can protect against fluctuating temperatures depending on the grade of fleece, while still allowing sunlight to penetrate. The garden fleece increased the daytime temperatures and seemed to minimize planting shock. Once the weather is consistently warm, the fleece should be removed.

A nice thick layer of mulch around the plants will minimize weeding, and the weeds that do make it through are thin and spindly and easily pulled. Last year I also used soaker hoses throughout the garden,  which meant no more overhead watering and no more mildew and no more burnt leaves.

The stems of pepper plants can be very brittle, especially the taller varieties like anaheims whose branches can snap under torrential downpours. So staking the taller peppers that are heavily laden with fruit is probably a good idea if your area gets heavy rainfall.

Most hot peppers are harvested when they are still green which is the usual color of their immature fruit. When allowed to ripen on the plants most hot varieties will change colors as they ripen, and the more ripe the peppers get, the hotter they become. Removing the seeds and the membrane the seeds are attached to will get rid of some of the heat without sacrificing flavor. Be sure to wear rubber gloves when removing seeds and membranes from peppers, the juices can be very irritating to the eyes and skin. I use a food processor to chop large amounts of peppers. One year my rubber gloves must have had holes in them because I went to bed with very warm tingly hands.

For some varieties of peppers heat can sterilize the pollen, so you might find the blossoms aborting without setting fruit during the hottest parts of the summer. This is the reason I gamble and plant peppers fairly early under protection because it allows the plants to set fruit in early summer before the sweltering heat stops pepper production, but either way the cooler end of summer months will bring a return of peppers.

Harvest Monday, 8/5/13

Tuesday's harvest: Eggplant, zucchini, and summer squash are really starting to coming in and we are still getting a few cucumbers although the plants look like they are on the downward slide into oblivion.

This is from the same Tuesday picking, more summer squash and zucchini. Look how the overgrown squash on the right look like shmoos, those wonderful mythical beings who love to be eaten (they were not counted in this weeks weigh in).

Friday and Saturday's harvest: Tomatoes were picked along with fresh hot peppers which were canned into 16 jars of salsa on Saturday, the jars are 3/4 of a quart so about 12 quarts total. Plus the 2 quart jars in the fridge were refilled for cooking and immediate consumption.

Sunday's harvest: A handful of Red Noodle yard long pole beans, okra, a single cucumber, and all manner of eggplants. The little round eggplants are a bit different then normal eggplant, they have a firmer texture perfect for soups and simmered coconut curries.

The garden is looking very overgrown and crazy messy. Pictures will be shared later this week. Shield shaped squash bugs are all over the eggplants, tomatoes, and pole beans. There are swarms of flea beetles amongst the eggplants. And vine borers have decimated a few winter squash vines. It has been raining too regularly for me to dust the plants with diatomaceous earth but something will have to be done soon.

I have been thinking about a fall garden in an abstract way, I don't know if I'm up for it. Maybe if the garden was flagging but there is so much canning and processing to be done. Pickled okra and hot peppers, dried eggplant, and maybe some tomato sauce are planned for the future.

This week's harvest:
17.89 pounds tomato
13.07 pounds eggplant
6.90 pounds zucchini
3.66 pounds summer squash
3.57 pounds cucumber
2.47 pounds hot pepper
0.79 pound okra

Totals: 48.35 pounds vegetables

Please join us for Harvest Monday hosted by Daphne's Dandelions.