All the Dirt on Gardening

This is the year for basil in our garden. Each year it's something else. The eggplant year, the cucumber variety year - well, it's enough to say that every year we have a big mess of something to deal with. We donate any vegetables that become too abundant for us to use. Back to Basil - I planted 3 seed varieties with the goal of having enough to make plenty of pesto plus a winter's worth to dry in the dehydrator. We have enough to do it all. Here's the post about the Basil varieties I planted this year. http://allthedirtongardening.blogspot.com/2015/05/globe-basil-is-ocimum-basilicum.html There are four rows of plants in three locations around the place. So far, we've made one batch of pesto and filled the dehydrator once. Then, I watered and lightly fertilized the bottom halves of the plants with seaweed/fish fertilizer and continued to water the plants regularly. Now, as you can see, it's time to harvest again. This winter we will have enough of...

The garlic planted last October was harvested over the past couple of weeks and it's now hung in the garden shed to dry. Much of what we planted came from our own seed which is simply cloves of garlic that we harvested a year ago. We decided that any variety that lasted from one harvest to the next planting deserved to get another run. In addition, we purchased some garlic heads from a mail order source that we have found to be reliable. The winter was wetter than it has been for a few years and the spring was cooler so it took a week or two longer for the garlic to mature into cloves.. The first time I planted garlic was after a how-to workshop with Tulsa's garlic man, Darrell Merrill. When I tried to harvest that first planting, I went into a panic because the head looked like an onion not garlic with cloves. Darrell was very patient with me and explained that it just needed to stay in the ground another couple of weeks. If you haven't discovered how easy it i...

It was either 103 or 106 today, depending on the thermometer we consulted. This summer will break some records for temperatures and water usage. Here's some of what's growing on at our place. It's blackberry time. We cleaned out the bed last year, removing all the sucker plants (100 of them!) so this year's harvest will be considerably smaller but still enough for us. This smart box turtle comes to the front door every morning to chow down on the insects that were attracted to the porch light overnight. There is a turtle at the front door EVERY morning. Same one? Who knows? Our garden isn't large enough to put in very many cabbage family plants but I try a few every year. The cabbage was a success. I bought 4 seedlings and got 4 heads - a much better return than the Brussels sprouts. I grow a few eggplants every year, mostly to make eggplant caviar to can. Now that it's ready to put into jars we can eat the rest of the crop in other dishes. We put in...