pH Saves the Pumpkin

Just like Charlie Brown, I have been waiting all summer for the Great Pumpkin to arrive. However, a few weeks ago some white patches appeared on the leaves of my pumpkin plants. Overnight it spread and now has jumped over to the zucchini and squash plants. The original pumpkin plant has a ripe orange pumpkin at its base but the stem and adjacent leaves are all brown. Some nearby pumpkin plants still have green leaves but the white spots are spreading fast.

Not wanting to loose the plants that I nurtured all summer, I looked up some info online and found some possible answers. When I Googled the question, I got some info from Yahoo Q/A. Some contributors described the similar white patches that I saw. Those that answered said it was a white powdery mildew fungus which could be killed by either raising the pH or adding a competing bacteria. There are several spray-on commercial products to treat the white powdery mildew by raising the pH like Serenade, Safer Fungicide and Safer Three in One. However, a homemade solution can be made with one table spoon baking soda and a few squirts of liquid detergent mixed with one gallon of water.

Selecting the homemade recipe, I quickly made up a (baking soda-liquid detergent) solution in a two gallon watering can and sprinkled it all over the plants. To cover all the plants in the 20x35 foot garden, I made up the solution about twelve times. As soon as I sprinkled the solution on the leaves the powdery mildew dissolved and the leaves regained some of their green color. I’ll have to watch the plants over the next few days to see if this really works. You can see photos at the link ………………
http://picasaweb.google.com/markryan312/PumpkinMildew81708

The baking soda (sodium bicarbonate) is an antacid that neutralizes the acidic pH and kills the fungus. The liquid detergent helps the water solution stick to the leaves without washing off. Hooray for pH (the power of hydrogen). A pH scale 1 - 7 - 14 is used to measure the amount of hydrogen ions. Values closer to (1) are more acidic (have more hydrogen) where pH values closer to (14) are more alkaline. Sometimes soils are more acidic because of certain minerals in the soil but also due to high amounts of acid rain. You can neutralize the acidic soil by adding lime and some fertilizers.

Looking further online for info related to powdery mildew, I came across a commercial product called GreenCure. It’s environmentally friendly and non-toxic. Its active ingredient is potassium bicarbonate and has a surfactant that helps stick to leaves and plants. This sounds a lot like the home ready described above (baking soda-liquid detergent) which costs a lot less. Click on the link below for more info on GreenCure ……. http://www.megagro.com/greencure.htm?source=Y-greencure

Edible Flowers

Many flowers are edible and can be used as garnish, in salads or as the main course. When doing an online search I found the following link …. http://homecooking.about.com/library/weekly/blflowers.htm
which lists about 65 edible flowers and also ones to be avoided. Some edible flowers and fruits can also be seen in my garden at the link … http://picasaweb.google.com/markryan312/EdibleFlowers72808

Among the edibles are the squash family (zucchini, summer squash, melon and cucumber) with its big yellow flowers. You use the male flowers for cooking and cut off the inside stamens and green bottoms. You then dip them separately in a bowl of egg batter and bread crumbs and then fry them in a pan with olive oil for about ten minutes. Scoop them out with a spatula and drain on paper towels. Serve them in a dish with light seasoning and you have delicious flower chips. Another Italian recipe that my neighbor told me about is to stuff the yellow flowers with mozzarella cheese and anchovy paste. Then fry them as above. Other stuffing can also be used such as ground pork, mushrooms and other cheeses.

You may have already eaten flowers in foods such as cauliflower, broccoli, or capers. Other flowers and their tastes are basil (lemon, mint), arugula (nutty), carnation (peppery), chives (garlic, onion), cornflower (sweet clove), dandelion (mushroom), fennel (sweet licorice), pansy (sweet to tart), or rose (sweet aromatic). Some flowers may be allergens so check first.

Most flowers on a squash plant are the male flowers. There are about ten male flowers to one female. The males have the stamens with the pollen and the female has a swollen bottom like a pickle that becomes the squash after it is fertilized. Bees, birds and wind help spread the pollen from male to female plants. Some varieties of squash have only female plants which develop into seedless fruits and increase the harvest.

Addendum.......................

As an addendum to my blog on Edible Flowers, I decided to add some email suggestions that I got from some friends. See one below ….

“Mark…..Few know how delicious zucchini blossoms can be. In my family we also stuff the blossom end with and Italian hamburg mixture for added delight. Nasturium blossoms are also edible and make a dramatic presentation on a composed salad (slightly peppery in flavor.) Of course marigold blossoms are edible and so are rose petals! …Joe L.” ……

So I fried up some zucchini flowers stuffed with hamburg and dipped in egg and bread crumbs. What a delight and worth the effort. See photos of the flower picking and cooking process at the link…. http://picasaweb.google.com/markryan312/FriedZucchiniFlowers73008

Comments and suggestions are always welcome. Do you have any flower recipes?

The Harvest

Planting a garden is certainly hard work. You till the soil, make a design, arrange the plantings, water, feed and weed. Then one day the fruits arrive and you gather the harvest. And so life goes. We all have high hopes that the seeds we sow will someday bear fruit. Click on the link below to see pics of the garden ……
http://picasaweb.google.com/markryan312/Garden71208


The garden is coming along pretty well this year. There has been plenty of rain with warm days and cool nights. I planted an assortment of vegetables and expanded the garden with another 10 x 8 feet section. It now measures 20 x 35 ft. I also installed another rain barrel collection area to serve a new garden section. With a 50 square foot roof rain collection system, I can fill a 28 gallon rain barrel with one inch of rain per week. This is just enough water to keep the plants in my garden healthy. With the current rainy weather, the garden has been watered naturally and I haven’t had to use the rain barrel system much. However, I do make sure that the plants are watered at least once per week and more in hot and dry weather.

Although I tilled the soil in the garden and added compost to start, I do fertilize the plants every few weeks with Miracle Grow. One tablespoon of fertilizer added to one gallon of water. I then use a watering can to soak the ground beneath each plant. I can generally fertilize 10 plants with one gallon of fertilizer solution.

This year, I planted tomatoes, zucchini, butternut squash, watermelon, cucumber, potato, eggplant, bush beans, peppers, corn, and a few herbs. I generally planted them about three feet apart and placed wood stakes and wire baskets on the tomatoes. I also put a 3 foot fence around the garden to keep out the animals (rabbits, squirrels chipmunks, ground hog, and birds.

I put in three types of tomatoes (9-big boys, 9-early girls and 9-cherry. All the plants now have green fruit. The big boys and early girls will be ready to pick in a couple of weeks. The cherry tomatoes are already turning red and I have gotten about two dozen fruits in the last week.

The 9-zucchini plants have done well also and have produced about 15 big fruits. I have given several away to neighbors who have used them to make zucchini bread, casseroles and just plain boiled served with butter. My wife has made several casseroles where she slices the zucchini, dips the slices in egg and bread crumbs and layers in a baking dish. She adds layers of cheese and stewed tomatoes and then bakes it in the oven at 350 degrees for about 30 minutes. Delicious.

The 9-pepper plants and 9-egg plant have fruit about half size and should be ready in a few weeks. The 2-butternut squash plants and 2-watermelon plants have fruit also about half size. The 2-cucumber plants have been producing several good size cukes during the last few weeks.

I planted 10-potatoe plants that I grew from a potato with eyes and then cut into two inch size cubes. I planted each in a cup and grew them for about two weeks until the plants were 6 inches high and then transplanted to the garden. The plants are now 12 inches tall and should have small potato tubers. I will pick them in a few weeks when they are a little bigger.

The 3-bush bean plants have done pretty well. However, they have produced about 10 beans per bush which are quite hard fresh off the plant. You need to cut them and boil them to make them soft enough. I sprinkle a few on salads for additional garnish. I think you need a lot more plants to get a good harvest.

Only 4-corn plants have survived from the six original. I tried one of the cobs today. I wrapped it in wax paper and cooked it in the microwave for 5-7 minutes. With a little butter and salt it wasn’t bad. I think I need to wait a couple of weeks for bigger cobs and bigger kernels with more of a sweet taste.

I did plant 10-lettuce plants after Memorial Day and they were all nibbled to the ground in a few days. A fond memory of Memorial Day. It must be the bunny rabbits. However, I don’t know how they are getting over or under the fence. They must have their own key. Ha Ha Ha. If you are lucky, I may share my harvest with you. See you around the garden.

Cloud Shapes

Is That A Dog ?

Recently, my wife and I were on a car trip traveling on route 93N to NH. The sky was a beautiful blue and big puffy white clouds rolled by as they formed a variety of shapes. Look over there I said, is that a lion, a dog, or a butterfly?

Our two hour trip flew by quickly as we looked at one cloud shape after another and took over one hundred photos with our digital camera. Later, I cropped the pictures to take out all the roads, cars and man made objects. You can see some of the photos at the link …. http://picasaweb.google.com/markryan312/CloudPhotosCropped



I also remember watching clouds at other times of my life and thinking about how vast the sky is and how small we our in this colorful earth-sky landscape. In my minds eye, I can see those bygone clouds while looking out the window of a plane on a long trip, lying on a beach, or looking at dark clouds on a moonlit night.

Using an internet search engine like Google, I looked up information about clouds and found the links below to be quite interesting. Hope you enjoy the experience. I welcome any comments or corrections.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-481306/From-pig-legs-Starship-Enterprise--amazing-shapes-people-clouds.html
six leg pig shape and others

http://www.brucevanpatter.com/cloudshapes.html
cloud shapes – creative school programs

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cloud
cloud descriptions and color

http://www.weatherwizkids.com/cloud.htm
cloud facts

http://www.wxdude.com/page9.html
cloud weather clues

Anniversary Garden Room

One way to landscape a house lot is to arrange plantings in different areas to highlight a specific feature or purpose. Some landscapers call these garden areas “rooms” where you can sit and dream and watch the clouds roll by. The garden room can be under a shade tree or near a bird bath or special shrub or even a vegetable garden.

This being my 45th wedding anniversary, I wanted to set aside a special place to share with my wife on those long summer days in the shade. Previously I had built a garden trellis and planted rose bushes along the sides. After a few years of watering, fertilizing and tying the branches to the trellis, the roses look pretty good this year. Using this as a base, I drew a design with some plantings and sitting chairs to enhance the area.

I first cut out the lawn along the garden edge near the rose trellis into a semicircle. I think curved garden edges are more attractive then straight lines. You can follow the description below with photos found at the link …..

http://picasaweb.google.com/markryan312/AnnivGarden61908

I then selected some annuals and perennials and Adirondack chairs to place in the area for best effect. I arranged them along the left and right of the trellis archway facing out into the center of the yard. I found that plantings look best when placed in bunches rather than separating them into single plants.

In addition, perennials can be divided and transplanted when they start to over grow an area. One of the perennials that I have plenty of is called tick weed or “coreopsis” which grow in bunches and have small yellow flowers. When transplanting keep the plants in a bucket of water as you move them from one place to another.

Hope you like the garden room. Maybe it will give you an idea to construct your own so you can watch the clouds roll by. "Look, that cloud has the shape of a puppy dog”.

Garden Stakes and Wire Baskets

The plants have now grown for a couple weeks since first planting on the last week of May. I have watered them regularly, alternating with water from the rain barrel and house water.

Water from the rain barrel is limited by the amount of rain fall and the size of the collection system. My small sytem only provides about a barrel of water per week if it rains. During drier periods, I have to supplement watering my garden plants with house water.

The vegetable plant roots are well established and the plant stalks now need stakes for support and wire baskets for spreading branches. I have a supply of stakes and wire baskets that I reuse each year and have placed them on the garden fence as seen in the photos. The wire baskets are placed over each tomato plant and a wood stake is added to the side for additional support. See link for additional photos ...... http://picasaweb.google.com/markryan312/GardenStakes61408

The garden needs to be weeded every few weeks. I use a hoe with a five foot handle to and scrap the weed seedlings off the top soil. Deeper rooted weeds need to be pulled out.

Although there is a garden fence, some small animals (chipmonks, rabbits, birds) have gotten into the garden and nibble away at tender leaves. One way to protect vulnerable plants is to place neeting over them. However, the bunny rabbits were quicker this year add ate all my lettuce plants down to the ground as well as the strawberries that were just ready to turn red. Next year I will have to be a little quicker with the net.

Rain Barrel Project (Water for the Garden)

Rain barrels have been used for hundreds of years to collect rain water and use it for a variety of domestic purposes. In the US, this source of water is used mostly to water landscape and garden plants. However, rain water can also be used for drinking purposes if it is first filtered and treated to get rid of solid debris and biological contaminants. A good source of information about rain water and the use of Rain Barrels can be found at the web link http://www.rainbarrelguide.com/ . Although the article shows the approximate amount of rainfall collected on a roof, you can get better estimates at the following web link http://www.greenbuilder.com/sourcebook/RainwaterGuide2.html#TABLE3.0 .
From Table 3 of this article, it has been calculated that one inch of rain falling on a 1000 square foot roof area will capture 562 gallons of water. That would be about 28 gallons of water per inch of rain for the 50 square foot roof and rain barrel project described below.

The average rainfall for Wilmington,MA is about 48 inches and evenly distributed over 12 months or about 4 inches per month. See link for average rainfalls http://www.idcide.com/weather/ma/wilmington.htm Since one inch of rain from the 50 sf. roof system described below will almost fill a rain barrel, this would produce about 4 rain barrels full of water per month or about one per week. With some conservation measures this amount of water is enough to irrigate a small 20’x30’ garden. Most plants only need about one cup of water per week.

Rain barrels can be purchased online and shipped to your home with most costing about $100 and up. You then have to buy a hose kit that attaches to a catchment system that funnels the water off a roof into the barrel. Some rain barrel types and costs can be seen at the web link http://www.cleanairgardening.com/rainbarrels.html .

However, you can build a simple rain barrel system with supplies found at the local hardware store or other retailers such as Lowes ( http://lowes.com/) . A list of the needed items is found below and can be purchased for about $50 including rain barrel and catchment system.

Items Needed: (Item and Model Numbers From Lowes.Com Online Source)
1- Corrugated Hose (Universal Sump Pump Drain Kit, (Item #: 189255, Model: 56171-LWS1, 8.97), 1- Vinyl Trash Can, 32 Gallon,(Item #: 227199, Model: 3405152BL, $12.74), 5 - Gutter Brackets, (Item #: 13777, Model: AW106, $2.38 = $11.90) , Left Gutter End Cap White, Item # 12496, Model # AW201A, $2.04, Right Gutter End Cap White, Item # 161550, Model # AW102Z, $2.04 , 1- Vinyl Gutter, 10 ft., (Item #: 13720, Model: AW100, $5.86), and Latex Adhesive Caulk, Item # 219873, Model # 11530, $2.24

Photos of the completed Rain Barrel System attached to a small yard shed (8 x 12 ft) can be seen at the web link http://picasaweb.google.com/markryan312/RainBarrels6108 .

Instructions:
1. Attach gutter brackets to face board on the eave of a shed roof. The brackets need to be spaced a couple feet apart to support the gutter. Each bracket has to be a quarter inch lower as it nears the down spout end so that the rain water will run along the gutter to that end.
2. Using a saw hole bit, drill a 1 ¼ in hole in the vinyl gutter about 4 inches from the end.
3. From the sump pump hose kit, find the smaller threaded hose attachment and screw the threaded end into the gutter 1 ¼ inch hole. (The corrugated hose will be attached here later.)
4. Slide the gutter into the attached brackets along the roof eave. Catch the front and back of each bracket with the gutter.
5. Attach the left and right gutter end caps.
6. Drill a 1 ¼ inch hole in the middle of the barrel cover.
7. Measure the distance from the gutter to the barrel and cut the corrugated hose to approximately this length at the nearest joint.
8. Attach one end of hose to the gutter down spout and secure it with a water hose clamp from the kit.
9. Attach the other end of the hose to the barrel cover by using the other larger threaded hose attachment inside the barrel cover.
10. Take up any slack in the hose by turning it in an (S) shape and tying it with plastic ties along its length. (See photos for visual illustration.) You can also cut hose to exact length.
11. Use silicone caulking at the gutter end caps and the down spout hole to prevent water leaks.
12. Test the system by pouring some water into the gutter to see that it runs to the hole end and down the hose to the barrel. Use a watering can to scoop water out of the rain barrel and water plants.