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My Spring Hill Garden
By Stephen L. Stringham
Although we do not grow peaches, we like to eat them, and the local inland harvest is now available. We are buying cases and bottling them at our household. You can buy them at local grocers or travel inland to pick your own.
Near Clanton, in Chilton County, Alabama, north of our coastal zone, many farmers offer pick-your-own-peaches by the pound. I know many people who have gone to pick and then bottle their own fruit in this way. I have also traveled north to purchase peaches and to bring the produce home.
To bottle peaches. Wash the peaches in cold water to remove any dirt or debris. Put one layer of peaches into a large, low pot of boiling water on a stove top near a sink of cold water. When the first peach skin splits open (fifteen to sixty seconds later), remove all of the peaches with a slotted spoon into the cold water in the sink. A double sink, where the water in one side can overflow into the other side as peaches are added, is perfect.
Next, slip the skins off of each peach. Discard the skins. Slice the peach in half with a paring knife. If the peach does not cling to the pit, it is very easy to separate the fruit from the pit. If the peach is the clinging type, sliced peaches instead of halves are obtained. Discard the pits.
Put the peach halves or slices into steamed quart jars and cover with a sugar syrup solution to one-fourth inch from the top of the jar. Light syrup is made with one cup of sugar dissolved into one quart of water. Medium syrup solutions are two or three cups of sugar dissolved into one quart of water. Heavy syrup is made with four cups of sugar dissolved into one quart of water. The sugar is dissolved by heating the water and sugar together in a pot prior to adding the syrup to the peaches in the jars. We prefer light syrup for most applications.
Wipe the jar mouths clean and place warm lids with rings on top. Process in a boiling water bath for thirty minutes for quarts, twenty-five minutes for pints.
To make peach jam. After removing the skins and pits as described above, measure the cups of cut up peaches into a large, tall pot. In a separate large bowl, measure sugar equal to one half of the number of cups of peaches plus one cup. Set the sugar aside.
Heat the peaches rapidly in the large, tall pot while constantly stirring to clear the bottom from sticking. If the peaches are very wet and ripe, they will melt in the heat without sticking to the pot. If the peaches were picked a little green, and then ripened while shipping, they may be a little more starchy and inclined to stick to the bottom of the pot while heating. Turn down the heat if necessary to prevent sticking and burning.
Once the peaches have come to a boil, add additional pectin if you like to speed the jelling of the jam, and continue to boil the mixture for another minute or so. Then add the sugar previously measured and stir the mixture to dissolve the sugar. Bring the solution again to a boil.
Generally for me, the jam is finished at this point and ready for bottling. If your jam is too runny, turn the heat to low and continue to stir to prevent sticking. When the volume has reduced to your liking, pour the jam with a cup and bottle funnel into pint jars, wipe the jar mouths clean, secure warm lids, and process in a water bath for ten minutes to seal the jars.
For recipes and gardening tips, visit our website at www.MySpringHillGarden.com. Copyright 2011 by Stephen L. Stringham. All rights reserved.
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My Spring Hill Garden
By Stephen L. Stringham
Wow, what an interesting hot and dry spring we have endured! Now that it is officially summer as of June 21st, we are left to wonder if we haven’t endured two months of summer already.
Everyone has marveled at the almost absence of garden pests and bugs. Oh, there are mosquitos and stink bugs to be found, but many local gardeners are amazed that the drought and heat have also devastated the pests. Perhaps this is what gardening in Arizona is like!
Nevertheless, everyone’s tomatoes have been wonderful. As I write this, my wife is cooking in a water bath another seven quarts of bottled tomatoes. Last week, she canned 163 quart jars. So far this year, we have harvested about 800 pounds from a 120 foot row with a variety of tomatoes.
The true yellow tomato is delicious and tastes unexpectedly like a red tomato. These make very colorful bottled tomatoes. We’ll bring some to the Pearl River County Fair in September so you can see them for yourself.
Our heritage purple tomatoes have not faired as well in the heat, but the small grape tomatoes have done so well that they really look like small Roma tomatoes instead of grape size.
One of our friends reported this week that the abundance of tomatoes in her garden motivated her to bottle 90 quarts of tomatoes, a skill she hasn’t used for some years.
It’s easy to process tomatoes into canned tomatoes. Gently plop your fresh tomatoes into a large pot of boiling water for 30 to 60 seconds, and then remove them with a large slotted spoon into a sink of cold water. When they have cooled for a minute, core the stems from the tomato with a paring knife, then slip the outer skin off of the tomato. Put the peeled tomatoes into hot, steamy jars.
The mason jars are prepared by turning them upside down in a saucepan full of boiling water to sanitize the clean jars. Using a kitchen mitt, remove the jars and turn them right side up on the counter. A bottle funnel helps to slip the tomatoes into the jar. If the tomato is too large for the mouth of the jar, cut the tomato so that it fits through the funnel.
Add two tablespoons of lemon juice to increase the acidity of each quart jar of tomatoes, and fill the jar to within one half inch of the top rim. Wipe the rims with a wet, clean wash cloth. Then remove the mason jar lids from the hot water where they were warmed on the stove, place the lids on top of the rims, and secure each lid with mason jar ring.
Tomatoes are cooked in a hot water bath which covers the sealed jars with two inches of boiling water for 45 minutes from the start of a vigorous boil. Turn the heat down once that boiling temperature is reached to maintain the low to medium boil. When completed, turn the heat off and let the jars cool in the canner for a few minutes. Then remove the jars from the water bath to cool on a counter top away from drafts to prevent breakage.
Hours later when completely cooled, the rings are removed and any tomato residue is removed by washing rings and sealed bottles in a sink of soapy water and rinsing. After drying, the bottles lids are labeled with a magic marker giving the date and batch number, and the protective rings are reunited with the jars.
It is not necessary to put salt into the tomatoes to preserve them. The flavor and usability is better without the salt.
If you have trellised your tomatoes they may be over seven feet tall like mine, and ready to go over the top and grow down the other side. The tomato leaves near the ground faded earlier this year than last, but the tops are leafy, green and full of flowers to make new tomatoes.
Tomato flowers, and hence the fruit, will only form where the vine can cool to 70 to 75 degrees F. at night. Near the ground many vines will not cool sufficiently to make flowers in our heat.
Another way to make more tomatoes is to use heat resistant varieties. If your plants didn’t make it through our hot spring weather, then plant Heat Wave, Solar Set, or Bella Rosa heat resistant varieties now to produce tomatoes later in August and the fall.
For recipes and gardening tips, visit our website at www.MySpringHillGarden.com. Copyright 2011 by Stephen L. Stringham. All rights reserved.
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My Spring Hill Garden
By Stephen L. Stringham
With so much economic hardship on beef and dairy producers caused by the high price of fuel and fertilizer, two special forage and pasture field days on Saturday, May 14th and Wednesday, May 18th, may help local producers lower the cost of forage this year.
On Saturday, May 14th, starting at 9:00 am, the Mississippi State University Extension Service will sponsor a MS/LA Beef and Forage Field Day by leaving from the Livestock Producer’s Sale Barn, Hwy 98 East, Tylertown, MS, to visit the Smutgrass Herbicide Demonstration Control Plots where side by side applications of Velpar and glyphosate were applied. Eliminating smutgrass through herbicide spraying can be very expensive. The control plots could be the key to cost effective weed control in local pastures.
Then, the participants will return to the Sale Barn to view five fall varieties and twelve spring planted varieties of Alfalfa developed for use in Southern Mississippi. Alfalfa, the highest quality animal forage, has traditionally been grown only in northern climates. One or more of these new varieties may be the first to be successfully grown along the Gulf Coast.
A Trichomoniasis update and herd bull selection discussion precede the sponsored meal and the viewing of bulls from the South Mississippi Gain on Forage Bull Test. The Forage Bull Test was the talk of last autumn’s extension service Beef Day. See the test bulls for yourself.
Featured speakers, Dr. Lisa Ann Kriese-Anderson, Dr. Jim Watson, Dr. Rocky Lemus and Dr. James Devillier will address these topics in Tylerville. Call 601-876-4021 to register.
Then on Wednesday, May 18th, starting at 9:30 am, the Louisiana State University AgCenter’s Southeast Research Station (SERS) Soil and Fertility/Pasture Renovation Field Day will be held at SERS, Hwy 16 West, Franklinton, LA, a ninety minute drive west of Poplarville. Whole-farm nutrient management, fertilizing pastures and hayfields, organic versus conventional fertilizer research at SERS, and soil compaction will be discussed.
A demonstration of the characteristics before and after renovation on SERS fields will be toured before a sponsored lunch. Afterward, equipment venders will square off with demonstrations of pasture renovators, fertilizer spreaders and other useful field management equipment.
Featured speakers, Dr. Mike McCormick, Dr. Vinicius Moreira, Dr. Ed Tidwell, Dr. Kun Jun Han, Dr. J. Stevens and Dr. Ronnie Bardwell will address the attendees in Franklinton, LA.
Local vendor Poplarville Sales and Equipment is one of the sponsors and a demonstrator at the SERS event.
For recipes and gardening tips, visit our website at www.MySpringHillGarden.com. Copyright 2011 by Stephen L. Stringham. All rights reserved.
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My Spring Hill Garden
By Stephen L. Stringham
On April 19th, the Mississippi State University Extension Service held their annual Baleage, Hay and Forage Field Day at Costal Farms, located immediately west of the White Sand Beef Unit on Highway 26 ten miles west of Poplarville. My two daughters, aspiring cowgirls in the fourth and fifth grades, attended this event to learn how to make the best feed for their cattle and to see side-by-side demonstrations of equipment for managing feed crops.
Costal Farms, a beautiful 882 acre private cattle ranch owned by Mr. C.N. Williams and his brother, kindly hosted the lectures and exhibits, as well as the equipment demonstrations running through their fields. Dr. Daniel Rivera, director of the neighboring White Sands Experimental Station, and Mr. Bruce Roberts, who manages Costal Farms, spoke first to welcome us and to describe the day’s events.
Sitting under a metal building with open sides, the eighty participants enjoyed a cool and pleasant morning while listening to the speakers. First, Dr. Michael McCormick of the LSU Ag Center in Franklinton, LA, spoke about the challenge of rising limestone and nitrogen costs and the difficulties ranchers face to make and store nutritious feed for their herd. Gulf Coast cattle need stored feed about ninety days a year when sufficient grass is not available for grazing.
Dr. McCormick advocated the advantages of bale silage (baled grass in airtight plastic wrap) versus hay because of lower field losses, less tedding required, lower storage losses, timely harvesting of grass, higher quality of forage, less equipment used, high consumption by cattle, reduced grain feeding required, and improved animal performance.
He described the disadvantages of bale silage as the costs of bale movers, baleage kits and silage balers, plastic wrapper costs, increased labor costs (up to $1 per bale), plastic disposal, short shelf life after opening package (36 hours), and ensiling failures (must be tight or oxygen will get in).
Essentially, silage is organic matter that is denied oxygen thus allowing only anaerobic bacteria to live inside the silage. The anaerobic bacteria lower the pH of the organic matter to 4.0 to 4.5 for grass, and 3.5 to 4.5 for corn silage, thus preserving the silage like vinegar preserves a pickle. When the pH of the silage falls below 4.5, mold and fungi are unable to grow.
Dr. McCormick also described the effect of ryegrass stage of maturity on bale weight, percent dry matter, and quality. Ryegrass harvested at boot stage produces bales weighing 1798 pounds with 46.4% dry matter and 16.5% protein. Harvested two weeks later, 70% headed ryegrass bales weigh 1292 pounds with 60.6% dry matter and 12.5% protein. Harvested four weeks from boot stage, bloom stage ryegrass bales weigh 905 pounds with 74.6% dry matter and 10.6% protein. Cattle feeding on boot stage ryegrass can gain 2 pounds a day, while cattle feeding on bloom stage ryegrass will barely maintain their weight.
He concluded by comparing forage from nine popular crops, highlighting the benefits of using sorghum annuals with the BMR gene. BMR stands for Brown Mid-Rift, a brown stripe down the middle of the grass leaf, that holds more sugar and less fiber than standard sorghum. He distributed a twelve point checklist for producing high quality ryegrass baleage.
Next, Dr. Kun Jan Han from LSU Ag Center described the average feed values of annual ryegrass for pasture, baleage and hay feed analysis in terms of acid detergent fiber (ADF), neutral detergent fiber (NDF), crude protein (CP) and total digested nutrition (TDN), to demonstrate that baleage ryegrass is more nutritious than hay.
At the break, I discovered that other attendees commonly attend this field day every five or six years. Two of them commented that techniques improve so dramatically that they must attend often just to keep up.
Next, Mr. Randy Smith, MSU ES agent and pesticide specialist, gave nine key points to using pesticides on fields and described the special features of eight classes of pesticides. He recommended everyone obtain the 2011 Weed Control Guide for Mississippi for $10.
Mr. Randy Coker, MSU ES Research Associate, described a free internet based Market Maker program where food producers can register their agricultural businesses and products for consumers and buyers. (http://ms.marketmaker.uiuc.edu/)
Mr. Mike Keene, MSU ES Livestock/Forage Agent from Hattiesburg, spoke. He helps local cattle producers grade cattle into congruent selling groups to receive higher prices at market (by reducing buyer risk). He also sells the 3500 cattle brought to market each year in the MSU system that are produced in the process of conducting scientific research on dairy and beef cattle.
After a delicious barbecue lunch, the real fun began as we moved from the shade of the building to the shade of an oak tree to watch the demonstrations (or should we say competitions) between various equipment vendors play out in an open field of previously cut grass.
First, three tedders (machines pulled behind a tractor that fluff the grass to lift and dry it) squared off. It was amazing the difference in quality of the tedded grass between machines. One created a great deal of air-born dust, while another created nothing but fluffy grass.
Next, the rakes came to compete in making the best windrows of grass readied for the balers. Participants walked out to see the windrows. Some rakes worked better than others.
Two of the drivers, a confident young man from Kentucky and a heavier-set middle-aged man from a another manufacturer made the events more fun by their antics and the speed of their machines. As both of them and others were driving their tractors with rakes in tow, I thought there was no way my father would have let me drive a tractor that fast.
When the balers passed over the windrows, the grass was swept clean into the mammoth rolls. Looking over the field, we were amazed at how completely the mowed grass was cleared by the balers. The cylinder-shaped bales, weighing about a ton each, are tight like a brick with a light plastic mesh on the round surface but uncovered on the flat ends.
Moving to the adjacent uncut field, it was time to demonstrate the various grass cutters, some of which could operate at full tractor throttle, and would wait for their slower exhibitors to clear ahead before racing through the field cutting the grass at more than twenty miles an hour.
Finally, the baleage wrapping machines were brought into play. My girls squealed with delight. First, a single bale wrapper scooped up a one ton bale and spun it as gracefully as a spider wraps a bug for later consumption. Two metal arms slide under the bale, lift and roll it onto a spinning plate that balances and spins the one ton behemoth while slightly tilting it to a new angle for wrapping as it rotates. The roll of plastic wrap is stationary while the bale pitches about as it spins. How does it do that without the two thousand pound bale falling off?
Last, a continuous long silage bale was created with a machine that loads one bale after another, wrapping only the outside of what looks like a very big sausage full of grass bales. Tractors with forks bring the bales from the field to the edge of the field where the long silage bale is created. After the last demonstration, my girls said, “Oh, Daddy, let’s not leave now, this is too much fun to watch.” It really was a great day. Our thanks to all who worked so hard to make it a wonderful day for two young cowgirls dreaming of running their own herds some day.
For recipes and gardening tips, visit our website at www.MySpringHillGarden.com. Copyright 2011 by Stephen L. Stringham. All rights reserved.
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My Spring Hill Garden
By Stephen L. Stringham
Every spring many people make a decision about planting a kitchen garden. For us, the decision was made long ago, and there is no retreat, because our kitchen garden is not only a spring garden, but a continuous year round garden. One delicious food is harvested and then replaced by another vegetable coming into season.
As we contemplate the renewal experienced at Easter this past weekend, many people are deciding whether to make a garden this year, which means to most people, planting warm weather vegetables like tomato, green peppers, eggplant, green beans and corn.
Planting warm weather crops will bring a large basket of food to a summer kitchen, but starting a spring kitchen garden could also be the beginning of a garden that would benefit your family year round.
Our kitchen garden has grown over the years to be 33 by 200 feet long. This is separate from the orchard on the hills, the corn and pumpkin patch in the meadow, and the two stands of blueberries, although there are also twenty-six blueberry bushes in the kitchen garden. Just outside the back door, our kitchen garden is a ready supply of food that doesn’t require a trip to the supermarket.
The kitchen garden started small when we moved into our new home. The first year it was only 10 by 30 feet located at the back of the now completed garden. With the plan to build the garden from that point on the edge of the forest to the house, the garden has expanded each year to reach the kitchen’s back door. Starting small and slowly expanding helps keep the garden size manageable.
This Easter week green peas have come to their end for the year. With no new flowers, and pods full of peas, it is time for the pea plants to go. The green beans are now four feet tall, and ready to bear. So with each crop, one is decreasing while another is increasing. This is the continuous process in a kitchen garden: constant replacement of one crop with another.
Planted in October, the pea crop retired this week was a ninety foot row to test a new variety called Wando. It performed well, but the vines did not grow as large as nor produce as many pods as Thomas Laxton, my favorite variety for its large vines and prodigious output. Wando has a pea in size comparable to Thomas Laxton though Wando has a greater variability in the size of the peas: some are smaller and some larger with up to nine peas per pod.
Year by year, our kitchen garden is a place to try new crops and grow what we like best. Our lettuce is still available for a salad with those shelled peas. When my wife needs onions or garlic, she sends a child to bring her some from the garden.
Spices like bay leaf, chive, shallots, rosemary, oregano and parsley are continuously available. With the warmth, the basil, fennel and cilantro-coriander are back and growing.
The broccoli, turnip and greens of all kinds are now replaced by green beans and zucchini and yellow summer squash. As the carrots and lettuce finish their cycle, they are replaced by tomato and eggplant.
Ironically, the warm weather crops that everyone associates with a garden are the most labor intensive. The cool weather garden is the easiest to maintain and harvest. Each spot in the garden is dug up, and the ground prepared twice a year as crops rotate between cool and warm weather crops. Crops don’t grow in the same spot each year. The trellises, except where the blackberries and the raspberries grow, are rotated each year between tomato, green beans, cucumber and peas.
Several people have expressed their concerns over the past four weeks regarding the cost to water a garden as local prices for water have dramatically risen. Some have complained to me that water used for a garden is double billed in their sewer bills as the utilities assume that all water entering a home must go down a sewer for processing. Many have wondered if they should be planting a garden at all.
We have tracked the water usage for our kitchen garden and know what it costs. The cool weather garden from October to February has essentially no cost. March uses about twenty dollars of water, April about $40 of water, May through August about $50 per month, and September about $20 of water. Our yearly cost to water a 6000 square foot garden is about $280. The annual savings in harvested food is many thousands of dollars, plus the benefit of eating fresh. In the renewal of spring, everyone should consider their own needs and have the faith to move forward to bring a better quality of life for their family.
For recipes and gardening tips, visit our website at www.MySpringHillGarden.com. Copyright 2011 by Stephen L. Stringham. All rights reserved.
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My Spring Hill Garden
By Stephen L. Stringham
My seven youngest children gathered with other children this weekend to find their share of more than three thousand plastic Easter eggs at our friend’s home. After a pot-luck dinner, the Easter Bunnies (we fathers) hid the eggs in an intentionally unmowed lawn and among the low lying branches of trees for the eager egg hunters while the mothers readied the anxious children. Armed with wicker baskets, the children were allowed to enter the area by age, youngest first to oldest.
The most common complaint was “my basket is too full, the eggs keep falling out.” It’s a difficult life. Now with two days of conspicuous chocolate consumption, the little bunnies are bouncing off of the walls, each other, and running around the property to burn off the extra calories.
Along with chocolate Easter eggs, this is the time for harvesting fresh carrots for this Easter Bunny. Fresh and cooked carrots are the only known antidotes for that much excess candied decadence.
Planted in August and September, our carrots have been steadily growing all winter long. With the warmth of spring, the last surge in their growth is complete and we are getting about 15 pounds of carrots per six feet of row. The carrots, half Dantes, are about nine to eleven inches long and about an inch and a half in diameter.
Their bright yellow orange to dark orange color dramatically contrasts with the shades of green foliage as they are lifted from the ground. The recent rains have made lifting them easy, and the dirt is removed by rubbing two handfuls of carrots, root against root.
Breaking off the tops, greens are piled at the back of my wheelbarrow while a pile of orange roots fills in the front. On the way to the faucet, the pretty greens go to the compost, and then the roots are washed in the wheelbarrow, used like a sink, and lifted into a five gallon bucket. Six feet of row will fill the bucket.
If the carrots are left another two weeks, they will start to turn woody and make great stalks of white umbrella-shaped inflorescences. By letting these flowers turn to seed and dry, great quantities of seed may be harvested in early June.
We save some of our carrots for inclusion into the End-of-the-Garden Pickles that in the southern climate are made in the spring instead of the autumn (see my article Carrots and the End-of-the-Garden Pickles) after the bell and hot peppers start producing in four weeks.
But most of them are either eaten fresh, cooked or canned in carrot juice in the following recipe. We make and use about 80 to 90 quarts of these bottled carrots per year in our family. These taste much better than store bought canned carrots, which tend to be watery and too salty. Your own canned carrots can be wonderful, if you can them in carrot juice instead of water and salt.
We have a peeling contest with our children to see how many pounds they can peel in a certain amount of time. On a good Saturday, we can bottle 120 pounds at 2.2 pounds per quart.
Any funny looking or curved carrots should be cut into half-inch slices, and put into a pot with just enough water to cover them and boil. In a high speed blender, blend these cooked carrots with their cooking water, and add a little more water if needed, to make the paste into a flowing carrot juice.
Now put the whole, peeled, raw carrots into quart wide mouth jars, carrot tops down at first, and afterward carrots going the opposite direction wedged in to fill up the jars. Fill with the prepared carrot juice, leaving a one-inch space at top. Process at ten pounds pressure for 30 minutes. It is just carrots in sweet carrot juice, no salt added. When using, pour off the carrot juice first and use it in a soup, or mix the carrot juice with a half gallon of apple juice.
The carrot juice mixed with apple juice is really delicious. Over the past several years, so-called fusion drinks have been marketed that are similar to this home made treat. It is the perfect antidote for too much chocolate for the Easter bunnies.
For recipes and gardening tips, visit our website at www.MySpringHillGarden.com. Copyright 2011 by Stephen L. Stringham. All rights reserved.
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My Spring Hill Garden
By Stephen L. Stringham
Tomatoes are warm weather vines that only make flowers (and hence, fruit) when the temperature of the vine goes below 70 to 75 degrees F at night. They don’t tolerate hot weather, although there is a way to get them happily through the heat of the summer from April to November or December.
Let’s consider the DO’s and DON’Ts of what must be done to enjoy tomatoes throughout the long season. My thanks to everyone who has been thronging me with tomato disaster stories, comments and questions over the last two weeks.
DO prepare the soil by turning it over with a shovel or rotor tiller. Mix in calcium in the form of limestone or dolomite, and fertilize with a triple number fertilizer like 8-8-8. DON’T use cement heating compound to increase the calcium content or any other calcium or fertilizer substitute unless you are a certified soil chemist. Keep raw tobacco away from tomatoes.
DO mix into the soil some composted mulch and sand especially if the soil is hard with clay. DON’T mix into the soil any so-called mulching materials like leaves, bark, twigs or raw manure. These items and all other mulching materials are not mulch, but toxic litter, until time and insects, arthropods and earthworms have digested them for a year or two into tender mulch.
DO place tomato sets deep enough to cover the first two leaves closest to the roots with soil. Roots will grow from the place where the leaves are and give the plant a quicker, and more heat and drought resistant, start for growing. DON’T forget to water the hole before placing the tomato set into it. The roots coming out of their plastic tray or pot are used to having a wet surface next to them. They will dry out and die on the edges if placed in dry soil.
DO water them after planting once a day for a few days to get them established, followed by every other day for a week, and then every third day for the next week. Once established and thriving, tomatoes need one inch of water per week. If they don’t receive that amount in rainfall, more water needs to be given. Keep a five-gallon bucket in your garden away from interference to measure the rainfall, then you’ll know how much more water is needed each week.
If you want your tomatoes all at once, buy determinate variety sets. They produce a large crop quickly and die. If you want tomatoes all season long until November, buy indeterminate varieties and plant them next to a trellis or tomato rack that can lift the vines above thirty inches from the ground. (See my website www.myspringhillgarden.com for a list of all local determinate and indeterminate tomato varieties, along with their disease resistant qualities.)
There are several reasons why it is important that tomato vines be tied up off of the ground. First of all, our moist climate will rot tomatoes touching the ground. We get a wonderful amount of dew almost every night, and during the warm growing season, our humidity is very high. The tomato fruit is vulnerable to attack by molds and bacteria if always wet.
Secondly, our friendly unwanted neighbors, the rodents and insects who live all around us, will devour any tomatoes that are within 18 inches of the ground. Countless are the stories of leaving that prize winning tomato hanging too close to the ground for one more night before picking, and discovering the next day that our friendly tomato thieves had a party during the night.
Third, the vines need to be vertical for insecticide coverage. There is no place for pests to hide when the vines are off of the ground. Look for two kinds of perennial insect pests: caterpillars and stink bugs. Carbonyl is a white powder that can be sprinkled from a small tin can with nail holes in the bottom of one end, preferably with a plastic cover on the other end. After each rainstorm, when the vines have dried, gently shake Carbonyl on the vines and tomatoes. Spray insecticides are also effective, especially when the plants are open and high.
Finally, the last reason to tie the tomato vines high off the ground is that the hot temperature gradient near the ground in the summer will kill the tomato plants if they are not raised above it. The heat of the ground and the air near the ground is considerably hotter than the air two and a half feet above the ground. To prevent the death of the tomato vine, much of the vine needs to be at least 30 inches above the ground by the first of July.
The part of the vine over thirty inches above the ground will be cooler and still producing flowers (and hence, fruit) through the summer after the lower limbs have ceased production because of the heat. The vines that extend from the ground to 30 inches above the ground then lose their leaves and thicken to become just connecting stalks to the thriving vines tied higher on the tomato rack as the summer heat continues. My tomato vines climb seven feet high and over the rack to reach the ground again by season’s end in November.
For recipes and gardening tips, visit our website at www.MySpringHillGarden.com. Copyright 2011 by Stephen L. Stringham. All rights reserved.
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My Spring Hill Garden
By Stephen L. Stringham
On February 17th, Wayne Porter, Ph.D., Area Horticulture Agent for the Mississippi State University Extension Service, gave a state wide video conference lecture on “Every Thing You Ever Wanted to Know About Tomatoes” which was well attended in the Poplarville office.
The overflowing crowd was told that the most pressing problem for state tomato growers is the presence of Tomato Spotted Wilt Virus to damage tomato crops.
In addition to the commercial BHN 444 and Amelia varieties, Dr. Porter reported that Bella Rosa, Crista and Talladega varieties have also been shown to be TSWV resistant.
Tomato spotted wilt virus (TSWV) is a tospovirus that causes yellow or brown blotches in patterns that spread from the stem toward the flower end. The leaves turn yellow with black spots. TSWV is spread by specific thrips species that carry the virus. Thrips (a both plural and singular word like sheep) are small 1 to 1.4mm long, red to yellow to brown, elongated, four-winged insects that reproduce by parthenogenesis. Thrips nymphs have yellow bodies with red eyes. Thrips are small eating machines that damage tomatoes on their own, but the TSWV damage is greater.
Of the three thrips species that carry TSWV: Frankliniella occidentalis (Western flower thrips), F. schultzei and F. fusca (Tobacco thrips) and Thrips tabaci (Onion thrips), only the western flower thrips attack tomatoes. To eliminate TSWV, control thrips by spraying, or use TSWV resistant varieties.
To read more about diseases that attack gulf coast tomato varieties, see Disease Resistant Tomato Vines, my April 22, 2010 article published in this paper last year, which can be found on-line at www.myspringhillgarden.com.
Dr. Porter made many recommendations for various types of tomato varieties based on the desired outcome: early producing varieties, main crop varieties, hot temperature sun series, paste varieties, small fruit varieties, colored fruit varieties, pink fruit varieties and heirloom varieties. Early varieties typically have smaller plants and smaller fruits, yet produce tomatoes in only 55 to 70 days. Early varieties that produce well here are: Early Girl, Siberia, Early Pick, Legend (small fruit), Applause (large fruit) and Oregon Spring (not many seeds).
Main crop varieties has the widest selection and produce in 70 to 100 days: Better Boy, Beefsteak, Celebrity, Amelia, Bella Rosa, Crista, Telladega, BHN types, Goliath (nine varieties use this name), ISI Husky Gold and Husky Red, and the Mountain series: Mountain Fresh and Mountain Gold.
Sun Series tomatoes are designed to produce fall crops and to be heat resistant or tolerant of 95 degree F temperatures: Solar Flare, Talladega and Bella Rosa.
Paste tomatoes used to make sauces have a medium sized fruit (2 to 4 oz.) and produce in 65 to 75 days: Roma VF, Italian Gold, MiRoma, Super Marzano, and BHN 410.
Small Fruit varieties are cherry or grape sized tomatoes that bear in 60 to 75 days: Yellow Pear, Pixie, Small Fry, Tiny Tim, Sweet 100, Mini-Charm, Cherry Grande and Jolly Elf. A variety called Julliet makes currant-sized tomatoes and is very tasty, Dr. Porter said. Small Fruit varieties will also set fruit under high temperatures.
Colored Fruit varieties make tomatoes that are yellow, gold, orange, green striped, purple or white: Golden Boy, Golden Girl, Lemon Boy, Husky Gold, Sungold, Yellow Plum, Black Brandywine, Black Krim, Green Zebra, White Wonder, White Potato Leaf and Pineapple.
Pink Fruit tomatoes have a translucent skin and a red interior: Arkansas Traveler (also indeterminate) and Pink Wrap.
Heirloom tomato varieties have four origins according to Dr. Porter. Family Heirloom tomatoes are seeds that have been passed down for several generations through a family. Commercial Heirlooms are open-pollinate varieties introduced before 1940. Created Heirlooms are varieties with two know parents for which the resulting seeds are dehybridized. And Mystery Heirlooms are varieties that are a product of natural cross-pollination of other heirloom varieties.
Heirloom varieties have more lobed and undulated fruit, are open pollinated, more prone to diseases and fruit cracking, and mature in 75 to 110 days: Brandywine (red, yellow), Aunt Ginny, Boondocks, Prudens Purple, Striped German, Old German, Amish Paste, Mr. Stripey, Cherokee Purple, Mortgage Lifter, Radiator Charlie and Riesetomate (which is a lobed traveling tomato). Traveling tomatoes have many separate lobes that can be pealed off without draining the rest of the tomato. With so many successful varieties, go find some joy to plant in your garden!
For recipes and gardening tips, visit our website at www.MySpringHillGarden.com. Copyright 2011 by Stephen L. Stringham. All rights reserved.
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My Spring Hill Garden
By Stephen L. Stringham
Before the new warm weather plants can be planted, many of the cool weather crops need to be harvested. With the warm weather approaching, the cool weather garden will be devastated with the warmth and the arrival of thousands of plant eating insects, bugs and arthropods.
Enjoying the absence of pests, cool weather crops have been producing abundant broccoli, beets, turnip greens, collards, turnip root, kohlrabi, arugula, endive, onion, garlic, chive, shallots, radish, fennel, mint, parsley, rosemary, oregano, bay leaf, green peas and carrot in our winter garden this year. But the paradise for cool weather crops is ending as the warm weather arrives.
The mint, parsley, rosemary, bay leaf, chive and oregano are producing year round in our garden and survive in both the cool and warm weather garden for continuous use. The fennel disappeared in late December and January and reappeared the first of February.
But turnip roots need to be harvested the first half of March while perfectly fresh and whole. If one waits until the last of March, the turnips will start to be ruined by worms and caterpillars of every kind. We are digging a basket full every other day now to get them up. Beet roots are also better when harvested before April.
The last cutting of broccoli was cut this week also (the tenth cutting). Not only are the broccoli desperate to make seed, with the warming of the weather slightly, the thick heavy heads are being replaced by thin smaller ones, reducing the value of the cuttings as the warm weather arrives. Soon the broccoli will be covered with hungry pests. To avoid this eventuality, it is time to clear out the broccoli unless you are letting some of it grow into seed for next autumn. The same pattern follows for cauliflower.
If you raise many different kinds of greens, you have probably noticed that there is a dying order in the spring of the various kinds of greens. Turnip greens are the first to fail, followed by beet greens, mustard greens, endive, arugula and collards. This is helpful information at the end of the cool weather season so that the plants most stressed by the change in season can be harvested first and used in an orderly fashion during the transition to the warm weather season.
The kohlrabi and cabbage need to be harvested next while fresh and clean before pests drill holes into their interiors. They are best harvested in March, but can go as late as the first week of April if you watch them closely for pests.
The English, or green, peas have been setting for a few weeks and are now starting to really grow with the warming weather. Planted late October to early December, the peas sprouted and then have grown slowing through the winter. In late January they set on flowers and with the March warming trend have really grown. They usually reach more than eight feet tall on our trellises by the end of May when their season ends. Keep picking the fresh pods and they will make more flowers and new pods.
The garlic guarding the green peas signals when it’s time to harvest by a slight yellowing or drying of the outer leaves. Although very resistant to pests, the garlic will rot in the ground in the heat, so they must be pulled out by the first of May. After shaking the dirt from the heads, keep all of the leaves. Then French braid the leaves together in giant garland chains and hang them up in the garage to dry for later use. As long as they are out of the weather they will dry wonderfully, even in our high humidity.
After the garlic dry in a few weeks, break the cloves out of the protective leaf covers as needed for use. In the autumn, take the garlic bulbs out of the garlands, compost the leaves and plant the separate garlic cloves, four inches apart, again near your green peas to protect them from rabbits, deer and other rodents all winter long. They’ll be ready again next spring.
Onions, which were planted in September, have been harvested and eaten all winter long. But now that the weather is warming, other pests will soon notice the fresh food. Our warm weather heat is also the enemy of onions which must be harvested no later than the end of April, or the May heat will rot every one starting in the center growing area.
The carrots are the last to complete their growth. Planted in August-September, they are still small, though tasty, when the warmer weather comes in March. March is when they really put on their mass and grow to maturity. Yet they must be pulled the first part of April before they decide to make seed in late April or early May. At that point, the tender crunchy and very fragrant fresh carrot turns into a woody stick and use all of their stored food energy to make seed.
Since cool weather crop seed is only available for sale in the spring, now is the time to purchase seeds for planting next autumn’s cool weather garden.
For recipes and gardening tips, visit our website at www.MySpringHillGarden.com. Copyright 2011 by Stephen L. Stringham. All rights reserved.
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My Spring Hill Garden
By Stephen L. Stringham
The week after New Year’s Day, a friend of mine said, “We’re going to plant our garden on Saturday.” “Great,” I replied. “What are you going to be planting?”
I listened as he described the various crops he had planned for his garden. I ventured, “It may be too cold to plant those yet; you may want to wait until after the last frost night mid-March.”
Our Gulf Coast growing season is complicated, and different from anywhere else in the country. Our weather allows us to have continuous gardens year round, but with different kinds of crops that are planted in two great, but different, overlapping seasons.
When and what to plant is the number one question I am asked as a master gardener from people interested in gardening. The second most asked questions are about problems that result from planting crops at the wrong time for our special seasons.
In November, I was asked how to solve a gardener’s problem of bugs eating her collard greens. “Tell me more,” I said. (I thought my collards were doing fine.) She replied, “Every summer bugs of all kinds eat my collard greens, and I don’t know how to spray or get rid of them.” She was growing collard greens at the most difficult time of the year to grow a cool weather crop. Collards grow well in the autumn, the winter and spring, but they are a bug magnet in the summer.
Most places in our country have one growing season where cool weather crops are planted early in the season and warm weather crops are planted later. When the winter comes, the garden is over until the next year. Our weather is not like this.
Instead we have two long overlapping seasons. In mid-March, the last frost day signals the complete entry into warm weather crops that should all be planted immediately. Warm weather crops need to be sown and harvested before insects, crop eating pests of all kinds, and molds and fungi overwhelm them, and the intense heat of summer finishes their growth cycle.
The warm weather crop season is really like two warm weather crop seasons back to back with a very hot, dry divide in July. The early warm weather season from March to July has more flexibility (when pest levels are lower) than the late warm weather season from July to November (October to December, depending on freeze occurrences) when pests can overwhelm some warm weather crops.
Warm weather crops include corn, squash, tomatoes, peppers, melons, cucumbers, blackberry, raspberry, blueberry, huckleberry, kiwi fruit (gooseberry), muscadine, summer peas (black-eyed peas, pink peas, etc.), beans, green beans, okra, sweet potato and pumpkin. Also harvested from trees in the warm season are apple, plum, pear, fig, peach and pomegranate.
Unless special provision is made, most warm weather crops come to a dried up conclusion in the super summer heat at the end of July. Just as winter is the end of the gardening season for our northern cousins, July is the end of our gardening season along the Gulf Coast for most crops.
Although most mature warm weather crops are eliminated in the heat of July, July can be the start of some new warm weather crops, especially if well watered and bug resistant, to grow during the second half of the warm weather season into the fall.
There are also a few exceptional plants that can survive the intense summer heat of July into the autumn warm weather season. For example, by providing seven foot trellises for tomato vines, trained to climb above thirty inches from the hot ground, tomato plants can be nursed through the summer heat into the autumn. The leaves below thirty inches will fall off from the heat, but the vines above will continue to produce until a hard frost finishes them in late October to early December. Peppers of all kinds will survive the summer heat if watered and also will produce until frost ends their season.
Hence, the warm weather season lasts from mid-March until October to December, depending on frosts, though many crops must be planted early because they cannot handle the heat or onslaught of hungry predators in the middle to end of the warm weather season.
The cool weather garden season begins in August and continues through May. Cool weather crops include English peas, cabbage, cauliflower, greens of all kinds, radish, beet, turnip, rutabaga, kohlrabi, onion, garlic, Irish potato and broccoli. Most of these like to sprout when it’s warm and grow when it’s cool. Also harvested from trees in the cool season are lemon, grapefruit, satsuma orange and satsuma tangerine.
If planted in August, English, or green, peas will make four foot vines with a small crop before hard freezes take the mature plant in December or January. If planted in February, peas make four foot plants with a small crop in spring before the heat at the end of May finishes them. But if planted in late October through November and allowed to grow during the winter, English peas will grow over eight feet tall and produce an abundance of peas in several crops until May.
Many cool weather crops like radish and greens of all kinds can be planted multiple times during the autumn for spaced harvests throughout the cool weather season. Broccoli should be planted in August and harvested again and again until it goes to seed in the spring.
Two great seasons, warm weather gardens March to December and cool weather gardens August to May, overlap for a continuous supply of produce for the Gulf Coast home gardener.
For recipes and gardening tips, visit our website at www.MySpringHillGarden.com. Copyright 2011 by Stephen L. Stringham. All rights reserved.
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