Raised Bed Gardens

Good evening and come on in for it is awfully hot outside and the humidity level is quite high. Thank goodness we have been getting some rain late in the afternoons for 3 days straight and it is wonderful. Our ponds are up about a foot and look much clearer and the fish have water, not mud to swim in.

The picture above is one of our raised beds for our vegetable garden this summer. In the past we have planted large gardens but due to health problems and only 2 of us here, we decided to do a couple of raised beds. We bought 4 - 4x8 beds at SAMS and made 2 beds 4x16 and stacked them 24 inches deep. i have them bordering the patio so it is really handy to take care of them.

The picture at the top are the tomato plants. I planted several cherry tomatoes and several Better Boy for larger ones. As you can see from the pictures, they are hanging in clusters and are so good. I like the sweetness of the cherry tomatoes and plant to roast some to put in the freezer for they are delicious in soups and sauces. The roasting concentrates the sugar in them and makes intensifies their flavor.

I also thought about cooking some down and straining the juice for it would have to be delicious. I don't know if you can freeze the juice but I am going to try it and see how it tastes when I cook with it. The larger ones I may try to peel and freeze them whole and I will let you know how this all turns out. Eating them picked off the bushes is almost good as candy and I do that also.





As you can see from this cluster I am having an abundant crop.



The following picture is of my one eggplant plant. I like the Japanese eggplant for it grows straight and the slices are all the same diameter. We slice them into about 1 inch slices, coat them with olive oil mixed with chopped fresh basil and rosemary with a little oregano, place them in 1 layer on a parchment paper lined baking sheet, sprinkle with salt and pepper. Place them in a preheated 350 degree oven and roast for about 30 minutes or until baked through and slightly caramelized. You can also add sliced yellow and zuchinni squash to the mixture. Sprinkle with freshly grated Parmesan cheese when you take it out of the oven and it is delicious.

This little banana pepper is hiding but as soon as it turns yellow I will pick it and probably add it to my salad.

I have cucumber plants climbing fence at the rear of one of the beds, a huge plant of basil, and green beans scattered throughout the beds. My squash didn't do well for the squash beetles destroyed them. I put sevin dust all over the bed where they were and some fresh potting soil and will try again.

The 2 potato plants which have grown from a couple of potatoes which had sprouted have little potatoes hiding in the ground. I check them today and they are about as big as a cherry tomato so I covered them back up so they can grow a little more. There probably won't be a whole lot of them but who knows, I planted 1/2 of a potato so even 2 or 3 doubles or triples my yield. I just hated to toss them and thought I would try it.

My lettuces I planted became bitter and peppery as the weather got hot so I had to pull them up but they were good in the early spring. The bed had about 4 different varieties and it was great to clip the fresh, little leaves and toss a salad. I will plant some more this fall when it grows cool but for now I am going to put green beans in this spot.

I am amazed at how much food a little space can produce and it is being fun to see what will grow best. The plants are crowded for I have inter planted them but with plenty of fertilizer and water, they will be fine.

That is about it for today but will let you know how my garden grows and why don't you try it. I am surprised at how well it does and it is much easier for I don't even have to bend over much - great for the back.

Ya'll come back to see me and be careful going home.

Nuff said,

The Georgia Peach

Saturday's Musings

Good afternoon, come on in and sit a spell and let's talk. I so enjoy our chats together and you could talk back to me by scrolling to the bottom of the postings and dropping me a line. That would be great, for then I wouldn't think I am talking to myself. You know that is dangerous only if you start answering yourself but sometimes, I catch myself doing that also. I am older, however, so lots of things than can be excused as old age, right?

My garden was planted yesterday! At least what passes for a garden here at our house for I do container gardening at this stage of my life. I have large black plastic buckets and a couple of large plastic storage bins filled with potting soil in which I plant tomatoes, peppers, cucumbers and squash or squishes as we used to call them. It is much easier to water and fertilize in containers and surely much easier to pull the weeds, if any there are any.

I also planted a long plastic planter, which is about 6 inches deep, with a variety of lettuces and 1 package of spinach seed. This is going to be my salad bar. We haven't done this before, so it will be interesting to see if it grows us a salad. If it does well, I hope to continue to plant this particular planter all summer, for I have it in the shade on the patio for lettuce doesn't like the hot sun.

Maybe it will all do well for I waited until 2 days before Easter to plant for daddy says until after Easter, you will have cold spells. Also, the pecan trees are leafing out and they are usually a great sign of "true" spring. They don't leaf out until it is going to stay warm according to the "old timers."

Now our grandmother always planted by the Farmer's Almanac. Her tried and true formula was plant vegetables which bear above ground in the rising moon and plants like potatoes which bear under ground, by the waning of the moon. Daddy with his Mississippi State degree in Agriculture used to laugh at her doing this, but even though her plants may not be as big as his, they would have as much or more produce. Maybe a big degree is not as good as watching the moon! She had a green thumb and everything would grow for her.

Around the front porch were always the most beautiful flowers and petunias grew everywhere. Her begonias were her pride and joy and the leaves would be as large as dinner plates. Now her secret was in the fertilizer. She had a big barrel under the drain spout to collect rain water and she would take chicken manure, put it in a crocker sack, tie a string around the top and drop it in the barrel to soak. She called it chicken tea and she fertilized all her house plants with it and they would grow extremely well. It's a wonder they didn't cluck and crow with pride in how pretty they were.

They fertilized the garden and the yard with cow, mule, horse and chicken manure and if you want to grow really pretty plants, try it. It will be a lush green and have lots of flowers or vegetables. Just be sure it is dried out and not "green" or fresh for it will burn your plants up. It doesn't smell as badly when dry unless you like the pungent aroma of fresh manure. If you do, you may need to check with the local "head doctor" for you may be slightly "teched."

I will post pictures of my "garden" as it grows and I encourage you to at least try some tomatoes in containers and bell or hot pepper do well also. In fact, the pepper plants are pretty in you flower beds but then most vegetable plants are pretty so why not inter-plant with you flowers?

Happy gardening and nuff said,

The Georgia Peach

Saturday's Thoughts

Ya'll come on in for a cup of coffee, still hot but need to make a fresh pot. I have had several, many, a lot - in other words, I am on a caffeine high. It was great but do I really need that much hype, yep, you bet I do. Lots to do today.

I plan to start my garden today! Now our gardening is done mostly in containers because we are old and plowing, bending over and weeding is a pain in the back. We had a pretty good supply of fresh vegetable last year, so will try it again this time. We are using large black containers which they use to pick vegetables and when they drop of the trucks, we pick them up. Remember I am Scotch and frugal or Southern and know how to stretch a dollar. I also have a some 5 gallon buckets and these work pretty well also along with some large, rectangular plastic storage bins. You have to sure and drill some drainage holes in the bottom.

Last year we had tomatoes, cucumbers, squash and peppers in containers and they did well. Learned that green beans didn't like it so will try something different for them. We discovered that the large plant nursery containers used for trees and shrubbery also do well. If you see any by the side of the road, pick them up for us.

We are going to try the hanging upside down way of growing tomatoes. This seems to work well and you don't have to bend over or weed if you grow them this way. Now it looks a little strange to see tomatoes hanging by their roots, but if it works, who cares how it looks. Anyway if I can plant not to have to bend over, I'm for it.

I need good tomatoes for this is one of my favorite foods in the summer. If I have tomatoes, cucumbers, squash, peas, and cornbread, I can be a vegetarian. There is nothing better than a big plate of sliced tomatoes, cukes and vidalia onions with fresh cornbread. 'Mater sandwiches are the best. Mater sammiches is the Southern way of saying Tomato Sandwiches and they are good with lots of mayonnaise and fresh lettuce or you can leave of the lettuce and add a big slice of onion. It makes me drool to think about it.

Now these so-called tomatoes you can buy in the fall and winter are pitiful substitutes for the home grown, summer ones. They have no taste and are plumb pitiful and please don't use one for a sammich for you will be woefully disappointed. I will use them in a pinch for salads, but rather not have any than these poor substitutes.

Daddy used to grow tomatoes so large that 1 slice would cover a piece of bread! We got a whole lot of sandwiches from 1 tomato. Mama would make homemade mayonnaise and talk about good? It was plumb heavenly and was our summer supper many nights. Add some fresh onions and cold, sweet milk and it was like nectar from heaven.

In case you don't know what "sweet" milk might be, it is the opposite of buttermilk or sour milk. This is the fresh milk daddy would get from our cows and mama would strain it with clean cheesecloth into our quart or 1/2 gallon jars. The cream would rise to the top and we would pour that off until we had enough to churn for butter, shake the bottle to mix the rest of the cream throughout the milk and pour a big glass. We had fresh milk at all 3 meals and in between if we wanted some.

We had iced tea sometimes but not soft drinks or Kool-Aid. Mama would make lemonade from scratch sometimes and we would have iced tea on Sunday and for company. We could pour in some chocolate syrup, which mama made, to the milk or make milkshakes with sugar and vanilla, but milk was on the table every day for all 3 meals. It took me a spell to appreciate the bought milk we had to drink at school for it tasted "funny."

I sure would like to have a big, fresh, ripe tomato right now, but I guess I will just have to plant some and wait and wait and wait.

Nuff said,

The Georgia Peach

Friday's Memories

Good morning and I pray you are having a great day. I have my coffee and have had my smoothie for breakfast and ready to talk to ya'll. I hope it rains today for our farmers are needing some water. They are getting ready for spring planting and the plowing has begun. We rode over to Nashville, GA yesterday and saw fresh plowed ground and tractors plowing. It is so dry that a cloud of dust was all around the tractor. Now I sure would hate to see them when they got off that tractor with all that dust on them. All you would be able to see was teeth and eyeballs as mama used to say.

We were with daddy a while yesterday and even with his dementia he was wanting to plant potatoes. If you have had this wonderful experience, I know you are just waiting to do it again. Daddy would buy a big brown sack of "seed potatoes" to plant. You couldn't eat these for they were treated with a chemical powder to keep them pest free, mainly ants, I think. We would cut them into chunks making sure there were 1 or 2 eyes on each chunk. Bet you didn't know that "taters" had eyes did you? This is where Lewis Grizzard got the name of his book about not bending over in the garden for them taters have eyes. The eye is the spot where the potato will sprout and grow another plant. These are the little things that sprout if you keep them too long and if they actually sprout and you don't cut them off before cooking, they are poisonous if eaten. Of course, any sane person would cut these off anyway, I would think. I do realize there are some not-sane people walking around, bless their hearts.

While you were cutting these potatoes, you would get slightly dirty, but as you planted them and covered them with dirt, you got a lot dirty. We didn't really mind though for it is about this time of the year when we could begin to go bare footed and wear shorts. That cool, fresh-plowed ground would feel so good under our feet and even though it would turn quite cool at night, we loved wearing the shorts. Now for Arvin and Sam, this also meant going without a shirt for they were little "almost nudist" and didn't like to wear a lot of clothes. You remember that they didn't wear shoes year around except to church and special occasions so the bare foot deal wasn't that important to them. It was to me who loved to kick off the shoes and feel the bare dirt with my toes.

These potatoes would taste so good when we dug the first little ones and mama would cook them with milk gravy or in with the fresh English peas. That was "slap yo mama" for another helping good. Now you know for sure this is just an expression, for if we had every followed through with this action, we would have no behind left to sit on. Just say it was delicious and we would partake heartily. Mama was a GOOD cook and we enjoyed sitting down at that table. Daddy was a great gardener and mama was a great cook and we were great eaters!

By this time of the year we would also have fresh English peas, radishes, turnip greens and mustard. We always had beef we had raised, chickens, lots of eggs and milk so we ate like queens and kings or good Southern farmers. We always liked it when we had too many eggs and mama would make egg custard pies. These were scrumptious and we could finish one off at dinner. Remember, dinner was lunch and then we had supper at night. I just have to keep educating you folks about the South, but that's alright. I feel it's my privilege to help you become more cultured and Southern, which by the way, are the same, right?

Spring also meant planting lots of other seeds, including mama's flowers. She always started from seeds and we would have petunias, marigolds, snapdragons, and many others. Daddy left the flowers to mama for he would say, "It you can't eat it, why plant it." It is amazing that he could grow all this food, mama would cook it, he would eat like a horse, and still be thin. Meanwhile mama could look at it and gain 10 pounds. Now I'm like that and it just isn't fair. Could be he worked it off planting all that good food. He still eats like a horse and doesn't gain any weight. Where are those genes when I need them?

I hope you are enjoying the beauty of a plowed field if you live in the country. There are beautiful patterns in a plowed field and a multitude of shades of brown, red, black and tan colors. Remember this is God's gift to us and it is fertile and ready to plant with seeds that will grow and feed us and the world. It takes lots of hard work but I am so thankful there are men and women who love to farm. Love them and support them for we would be hungry without them.

Nuff said,

The Georgia Peach