Gardening in WET Weather

Gardening in Wet Weather

 It's rained here in East Tennessee every day for the past couple of weeks. The gardens are looking lush...too lush for damp days. What do we do when the ground is saturated, the sun only periodically peeks out but not long enough to dry out? Here is the list that ran through my mind as I worked amidst the raindrops yesterday.

Look closely at the water droplets on these leek seed heads, bowed over from the storms.

I went through three skirts
yesterday with all the mud
I kneeled in!

1. No excuses, put on your gardening hat and muck boots and visit your garden daily. If you're like me you get "cabin fever" during rainy spells, so when the rain slacks suit up and head out.

 The rain produces hefty harvests in our garden, so if I miss a day of harvest I soon have large squash and EVEN LARGER zucchini! I need to harvest daily, rain or shine. As I harvest I continue to pull weeds that are growing equally as quick as the soil is "sweet" and they are much easier to pull now.

These paths are mulched with commercial landscape fabric.

2. Mulch the paths. This is easiest done in the spring when you lay out your garden, but if need be, do it now. We've experimented with heavy duty landscape fabric on the paths in some of our garden that will last several years. We also use hay under the plants and in some paths. This allows me to walk in my garden without sinking up to my ankles! (It really helps to keep the weeds down in your path, saving a lot of time and energy. This is the no-till section of our large garden, so the weed seeds won't be tilled in.) So far I'm LOVING IT as I don't spend hours weeding there!

After we hill the potatoes (to the left) we mulch heavily with hay, straw, or oak leaves. With a thick layer of mulch, there is very little work to do till you start digging your potatoes.

3. Mulch around your plants when planting, or once they are established. Again I use shredded oak leaves mixed with hay under my plants. There are many benefits to this, but in rainy weather it prevents the mud splashing up on your plants causing disease. It also will hold in the excess moisture, for the pattern for us is there will be weeks of dry weather in August. 

4. Remove the lower leaves on your most susceptable plants when planting your garden. The first "seed leaves" only wither and drop eventually as the true leaves appear. But the yellow leaves, leaves in the mud, and bug eaten leaves are all signs of plant stress. I carry a harvest knife with me in the garden and use it to easily remove leaves. Then the plant can put all its energy into fruit production rather than healing the damaged leaves.

These Rutabaga leaves are showing stress, so I pulled off the outer leaves as I worked my way through the muddy garden.

I have to keep up with my squash and zucchini maintenance, but the benefits are well worth it!

Zucchini & Squash- As you pick your squash, remove the older leaves behind the new blooms and ripening vegetables. Because fungus can take a plant down quickly, we usually planted 3 to 4 batches of squash for a continual harvest here on the farm. With this method of cutting/pulling off the older leaves though I was able to harvest from the same planting well up into fall last year! Always leave the leaves by the blooms and vegetables until you harvest them. The "bush" plant continues to grow outwardly, so leave a wide path on either side to use this method. By doing this, there is plenty of air flow allowing the plant to dry out between showers IF the sun decides to peak out for a spell.

I lost two squash plants and a few of these 8-Ball Zucchini to the weather. But if you keep up with trimming the older leaves (and a few of the thicker new leaves) you'll create an open stem that can dry out. Air flow is KEY. 

There are too many leaves on this zucchini plant. 

I hope you can see where I've cut the thicker stems off on the "stem" of the plant as it produces. It continues to grow out, so there is an "ugly" stem...but it gives a much longer harvest.

This is the trimmed plant when done. You don't need allllllllllllll those leaves, but leave enough so the plant can capture the sun's rays. 

The same principle works with cucumbers. Thin the lower leaves especially, but ultimately all the way up the vine. Leave the newer, healthier leaves.

Cucumbers- Grow vertically....period. Left to wander in the garden they sit in the mud day after day where bugs and disease will overtake them. 

Next, I recommend thinning leaves to allow air to circulate. The plant doesn't need all those lush leaves to produce. Again, look for the yellow, bug eaten leaves to remove first. Keep an eye out for a white dusty coating or even white or yellow patches. These are the first signs of fungal disease. I snip these off too as lately it's been toooo wet to take other measures. This is a great time to harvest as you'll find them easier now. Wash your knife between plants to ward off spreading any disease. 

5. Provide support for your plants. If you've been reading carefully you'll see the running thread of air circulation. Plants that are supported won't be laying  on the ground rotting or disease ridden. The vegetables or fruit will also be cleaner to handle. We tie our tomatoes and peppers using the Florida Method. (Google it.) We add additional support as the plants grow above the strings. We also use hog panels (or cattle panels found at Tractor Supply or a Co-Op) to create arbors for our cucumbers to climb on in our cottage kitchen garden. 

This is an example of support I use in my cottage kitchen garden. A leftover piece of hog pannel is attached to the top of t-posts with tomato twine below. I have cucumbers planted in this bed with the supports all ready to go! This is the second crop in this bed this year. Earlier this season this bed held our snap peas. The supports will last throughout the season. 

These tomatoes are growing on a raised bed and are supported with tomato twine. 
The peppers below are enjoying the same environment and support. They are thriving with lush foliage and fruiting in abundance. 

The next point is elevating your beds. The last two pictures are examples of our raised beds in our canning garden.

6. Elevate your growing beds to protect from the inevitable storms. We have several kinds of beds this year to try out different growing methods. (These were my choice:) We're supposed to wait till the end of the growing season to evaluate, but I can already tell there are benefits to the raised beds. 

We have two kinds of raised beds. One type is simply a layered bed in our canning garden. We sandwiched layers of leaves with compost, dry grass and a natural chicken manured based fertilizer to create a raised bed that has taken minimal weeding/upkeep. On either side of these beds I have industrial grade landscape cloth. It took a bit more time (it was fun though!) to create initially, but the labor savings FAR OUTWEIGH the effort. These beds are taking the rain without missing a beat! We have onions, squash, peppers, and tomatoes growing in these beds. The tomatoes even look healthy! (We had MASSIVE disease issues last year as the field used to grow tomatoes commercially.)

The other raised beds are found in my cottage kitchen garden and are made of wood. We used a mixture of compost, garden soil, coarse grade vermiculite, and peat moss to fill them. Here I grow by the Square Foot Method (we have used this mehod for over 25 years). During rainy weather intensive growing can be more susceptible to disease...again because of a lack of air flow. So don't crowd spring plantings when rain is most often a problem. 

2'X8'

4'X8'
The cucumber in this picture is being trained up the hog panel arbor with Dollar Tree tie supports. You cut it to the length you need. When I don't need it I simply twist it around the arbor and know right where to get it when I do.

My rainy day "lawn mower".

7. Keep the grass clipped up next to your verticle supports. In the cottage garden I keep the grass clipped alongside the beds. BUT we've been unable to fully mow when we needed to last week...and now this week it's a regular meadow out there! Now I love Red Clover, Wild Carrot, and even flowering prickly Wild Lettuce, but I'm ready for the mower to take it all down! Yesterday I had to take steps beneath the cucumber arbors to cut the grass by hand with my harvest knife. The lower cucumber vines couldn't dry out unless I did. So keep an eye out for grass or other plants crowding each other so they can't dry out.

8. Rejuvinate with a folier spray. What?! All that means is get some seaweed/fish emulsion from the garden store or gardening center of your hardware store and mix it in a cheap one gallon sprayer. Lastly spray your plants. This is a quicker way to give your plants a quick "pick-me-up" rather than fertilizing through the rain soaked roots. The leaves absorb the essential minerals through the their pores (called the stomata),especially from the underside, so spray from all angles first thing in the morning. 

This is the mulched half of the garden so far. Our later planting of canning tomatoes, a second planting of corn, winter squash and sweet potatoes were well weeded today  as the sun came out for a couple of days! This side of the garden will soon have a layer of mulch on it. It REALLY TAKES THE HARD WORK OUT OF GARDENING!

9. Do only essential work in the garden when you have a period of rain. Our eagerness to get the plants or seed into the ground often further compacts the soil as we wade through the garden to plant. Eagerly walking through the garden compacts the soil which won't allow the air and water to penetrate properly even after it dries out. That is why I highly recommend mulching the pathways in your garden. You can replant, weed, and pick produce without compacting the soil. 

10. Choose NOT TO GIVE UP! When the rain comes, the weeds grow tall, our plants lay over in the mud, we all lose heart. But make it only a temporary set back. 

Vent your discouragment in your garden journal, then list what you'd do differently from this post to remind you before you plant next spring. 

While it's still raining visit your garden center and get plant supports, folier spray and a one gallon sprayer. Then once the sun comes out and the plants have dried a bit, get out there with your muck boots on and help things stand up, pick the vegetables, prune lower leaves, pull the weeds you can reach from your path, and then give the plants a good "pick-me-up"with a folier spray. Watch God heal your plants....or not. It's a learning journey!

If you've read all 10 tips, take one minute more to think about the benefits of the stormy days that the Lord allows in your life. What do you do to weather the storm and come out stronger than before?

1. Like visiting your garden daily, cultivate a daily prayer time. This storm may simply be in your life to turn your eyes to Jesus Christ.

2. I can look up a lot of garden wisdom in books from our personal library. When the winds blow in your life don't be distracted with what your friend says, or the answer you found on Google! All the wisdom we need comes from Him who controls the winds! Jesus Christ left us a book of wisdom. Read your Bible daily!

3. In the midst of a storm, lighten your load. In the garden I cut off lower leaves, but in my life there are often extra activities, to-do lists, entertainment, and other's expectations that I need to remove from my life...to focus myself on Christ's all sufficiency in the midst of my storm.

4. Pull the weeds! Storms often reveal an area(s) where I am not pleasing the Lord. My sin weighs me down so I feel like I'm wilting. 

Turning to my Burden Bearer (Psalms 55:22), climbing my High Tower (Psalms 18:2), or even snuggling "under His wing" (Psalms 91:4) after a good heartfelt confession often hides me from the storm till I'm strong enough to stand in the winds and cry, "I have nothing to fear, for the God I serve controls this storm!" .

All the vegetables and flowers in this blog were picked in a rain shower.

Abundant Blessings,
The Farmer's Wife,
Val

Freezing Beets & Their Greens

Freezing Beets
is easy peasy, and you end up with "two vegetables" to freeze, as the greens a cinch to freeze too! They make a great spinach substitute.

 I've had some helpful "criticism" lately...where is the "Farmer's Wife"? Well, I'm here still. Since we've stopped commercially farming, I've not considered my readers as interested in the farm, so I've been writing about other things. Your letters are asking about the farm, vegetable recipes, and canning advice. So, today I'll bring you alongside the Farmer's Wife and give you a glimps into my day. Prayerfully you'll be encouraged and possiblly even challenged to try something new. 

"The Lord shall open unto thee His good treasure, the heaven to give the rain unto thy land in His season, and to bless all the work of thine hand: and thou shalt lend unto many nations..."
Deuteronomy 28:12

Spring gardens are now behind me, and I have the summer garden "laid by" as the mountain women used to say. I just planted my second batch of yellow squash, zucchini, and cucumber seedlings. I find succession planting these protects me from the grumblies when my first planting succumbs to the latest blight. My first

plantings do taper off, so these will pick up the slack in about a a month. I'm always thinking ahead.

(As you look at the amounts I grow and the size of my family now, don't think we're gluttens! ha ha! We still supply several families with their weekly vegetables.)

A majority of my days are spent outside in one of the gardens. I still have the canning garden, cottage kitchen garden where I plant the faster growing vegetables like beets, lettuce, peas, cucumbers and green onions in a smaller amount that I can quickly pick for our meals. Then I have a flower and herb gardens. We can't get away from the farming life.

I've harvested my spring beets, planted a few more, and am eager to plant our fall ones come mid August. My children love them as they are like serving candy for supper!

 I froze what we didn't eat or share since we goofed on making our kitchen cabinets too low over the stove. The new microwave that proudly hangs there without taking up counter space (I thought this would be a plus.) is too low for my pressure canners and larger waterbath canner....so before long we'll be moving it! 

These are Detroit Dark Red and  Golden Beets.

Beets are a great vegetable to eat fresh. I grew up with canned beets that were definitely not my favorite vegetable to get when sent to the cellar. These are more like serving candy to my children! They loved them and even ate the leftovers cold for snacks.

Beets are a double win vegetable. You can can/dry/freeze the beet itself and also do the same with the greens. 

Beet Root
 Instant Pot: Manuel 15 minutes with about a cup of water. Fill with beet root up to the full line. Set a timer for about 25 minutes and then I went outside to work on the greens. I kept going back inside to
pour off the steaming hot water carefully and dump the beets into a dish pan/sink of ice cold water. 

Then slip the skin off. Sometimes you'll have to cut a line in your beet to help the skin come off. These came off real simply! :)

Not all my beets were big beauties, but these smaller ones were just as tastey. I remember serving this size to my toddlers as they made for great finger food.

Some beets have "dents" and other imperfections. I know you don't see beets oddly shaped at the market, but these are just fine to eat. I just made a diagonal cut into the beet to cut any imperfection away. 

Next, simply slice the larger beets and lay them in a single layer on a baking sheet covered with parchment if you have it. 

Lay your trays in your freezer until well frozen. I kept mine in here overnight. The next day I pulled the parchement up and slid the beets into half gallon freezer bags. Now I can pull out just what we need for a meal instead of having a big frozen clump.

Beet Greens

I have an "unothredox" method that really saves time when blanching greens. I use two old pillow cases as blanching bags. This saves chasing chopped greens around in your blanching pot. Here I just took thumb tacks/push pins and tacked it down to my garden table. I then set my cutting board  on top of the edge.

 

Since I have two different kinds of beets, my greens will vary in color and texture.

Not all the beet greens are good for eating though. The Detroit Dark greens on the left are deep green. The second one from the left is a healthy Golden Beet top. But you can see the lighter greens and even the bug eaten green to the right were discarded. You can tell the health of your plants by the leaf color and quality...as I worked my greens I discarded any unhealthy ones to the compost bucket.


Chop your greens acrose the leaf, working your way toward the stems. Since I'll be using these greens in recipes that traditionally call for frozen spinach this year, I cut the long stems off and composted them. 

Next, make a  lengthwise cut or two. Then I scraped them into my blanching bag. 

When I had all my greens chopped and in the bags I headed inside to blanch them and finish up the slicing of the beets.

I poured the greens from one bag into a large dishpan and left only enough that would fit with "wiggle room" into my smaller waterbath canner. Using a wooden spoon, I made sure the greens were under the water and separated a bit.

For safety sake, TUCK THE END OF YOUR BLANCHING BAG (PILLOW CASE) INTO THE HANDLE OF THE POT SO IT DOESN'T CATCH ON FIRE.

I set my timer for three minutes. (Yes, I know that you "should" start timing when the water boils again, but I find that it overcooks the vegetables. This timing has worked for years with alllll kinds of vegetables and I still retain the highest level of vitamins.)

Canning/freezing doesn't have to be a big mess. Use the spare moments you have to either continue the process (I was freezing the beets too.) or clean up equipment. (Okay Cerina...IF you are canning/freezing a LARGE amount, plan for it to get MESSY. As you repeat the process OVER AND OVER for your larger family the floor wiiillll get gross. Put old towels on the "path" you take from the stove to the sink to keep things safe. Hint: Ask a friend to come and help as it's better to laugh over the mountains of greens rather than cry...and maybe she'll do the dishes!:)

A peek inside the pot.

When the 3 minute timer goes off, hold the blanching bag up above the boiling water. Let it drip a bit, and then place it on the underneath side of the lid to the pot. This will slow the drips down as you take it to the sink. 

Place the blanching bag into a dishpan/clean sink filled with ice cold water. Swirl the greens with you spoon again allowing them to cool.

I then place the dripping blanching bag into my dish rack to finish dripping. I can actually press on the bag to remove the water QUICKLY from the greens. Then I put the next batch in with the other bag. While that bag blanches, I can bag these!

Looking at these pictures now a couple of weeks later, I see I really had spinach greens on my mind! I labeled the bags that way!

Get as much air out of the bags as possible...no you don't NEED a vacuume sealer. It may be better, but you don't have to spend a lot to put up a harvest. Remember those folks selling all the latest (now the freeze driers) are making their living that way and are selling you  something. (One of my favorite bloggers is really having fun with her freeze drier and is pushing them. But SHE DIDN'T SPEND A COUPLE OF THOUSAND DOLLARS ON HERS!)

Lay your bags flat on a cookie sheet or other flat frozen item so they will save space in your freezer this winter. (If it looks like it's going to slide...it WILL! So secure your stack.)

Aren't my lil' bags cute? This is our first year to use quart bags. I've been using gallon or even two gallon bags with our large family for so long! 


So, the Farmer's Wife has shared how to put up the harvest....now to share a recipe that didn't go so well to show you EVERYBODY has some recipes that just don't "hit a home run".

My yellow squash is coming in "hot and heavy" so I'm always looking for a creative way to use what God puts in my hands. 

A Google article raved over the "golden way" to use summer squash that everyone was raving about. (That should have been a warning to me right there!) Squash Butter! Supposedly the famed late Julia Child (the Public TV chef of my childhood) had made something similar...yahhh. 

I don't do anything small so I jumped in and made a 4X batch to begin with...The first batch came out brown instead of golden. I was having fun though and wasn't going to let Google snooker me! 

Our German Giant garlic harvest was huge and is a dream to work with.

By this time the house was smelling WONDERFUL with our freshly pulled Walla Walla onions and green garlic sauteing in the cast iron pan. (They reccommended a non-stick pan. My cast iron pans are non-stick if I heat it well.)

I sauted the onions and garlic till the house smelled DEVINE
before adding the grated squash.

My first batch yeilded a measly 3 half pints and was a disagreeable looking brown. 
(I'm saving peanut butter and Parmesan cheese lids now to use to freeze to save my precious canning flats!)

Not to be bested by Google, I set my sights on a beautiful golden Squash Butter that the article had inspired. I put on my thinking cap and geared up for SUCCESS! I set out with a heafty 5X batch, and I stood over the pans stirring/scraping OFTEN. I used large pizza pans as lids to help steam the squash rather than "fry it" as the recipe described. Then I used an immersion blender to get the smooth paste before cooking it down a bit more. It was MUCH better looking and tasting, but it was still....just ok for all that work. (The Farmer said it just tasted like garlicy squash...with "that look" on his face.)  I think the whole family liked the smell of the house more than the little bits of artisan bread with Squash Butter on it. I'll use it in an artisan bread this winter, but I'll not make another batch. Lesson learned...CANNER BEWARE of Internet recipes. 

My second batch wasn't much better...but it was yellow!

So as you can see I too am learning after 40 years of canning. But....it is fun to try something new! 

Abundant Blessings,

The Farmer's Wife

Val

P.S. If you've gotten this far, I assume you are interested in this blog. Nowadays blogs are connected to social media. I am not on any social media, so I'm counting on ya'll to pass on the information for others to connect with me. We've always believed word of mouth advertising is the best advertising. So you have my permission to use the photos in the blog to link with my address. Blogger is an "antique" so to speak and the email notifications and tec support are now gone. Thank you!