Do you want to grow beautiful orange pumpkins for Halloween? But, after years of seeing your crop succumb to disease you have become discouraged. And, after learning that most of the pumpkins you see for sale at church pumpkin patches are grown in New Mexico (think LOW humidity), you have given up. Well, I have great news for you!
University of Georgia researchers have developed and released a new pumpkin variety bred especially to handle Georgia’s summer climate. Orange Bulldog was developed by UGA researchers from germplasm collected in South America. It shows greater resistance to viruses than conventional pumpkins. The vines show resistance to powdery mildew and downy mildew. This is really great news for Georgia gardeners!
Orange Bulldog Pumpkin. Photo credit: UGA
The pumpkins average about 10 pounds. Most have an internal cavity which is perfect for carving. The color ranges from a salmon color to a burnt orange. And, seeds were readily available for 2016 and should be for 2017.
Many community gardeners don’t take advantage of our Georgia winters and finish their garden as the temperatures get cool. As you get ready for the garden break, don’t leave a weedy mess!
A garden plot left full of weeds is not just an eyesore that is unfair to your fellow community gardeners, it can be detrimental to your future crops.
The Weed Seed Bank – don’t make deposits
Weed scientists have a saying:
One year’s seeding means ten years weeding!
If a weed is allowed to produce seed those seeds will happily deposit in your plot to germinate at another time. In weed science terms, you have added to the dreaded weed seed bank. Plant seeds are tough and are a plant’s mechanism for long-term survival.
Some seeds from a legume collected beneath permafrost in the Yukon germinated. The estimated age of those seeds? 10,000 years old!
A sample of seeds dated 237 years old from a British museum herbarium germinated.
Garden Debris Can Create a Welcome Over-Wintering Spot for Pests
Pests like Mexican bean beetles can overwinter in garden debris waiting for your spring planting of bush beans. Don’t give them that extra edge.
What are some alternatives? If you aren’t growing cool-season vegetables, try growing a cover crop. Or, cover your plot with plastic and do some winter solarization. At the very least, clean your plot and add a cover of mulch.
Give next year’s warm-season crops a good start while being a good community garden neighbor.
Choose the mild weather during this period to plant or transplant the following: beets, broccoli, cabbage, carrots, collards, lettuce, mustard, onions, radishes, spinach and turnips. Plant your second planting of fall crops such as collards, turnips, cabbage, mustard and kale. For variety recommendations see the Vegetable Planting Chart.
There is still time to plant lettuce and other cool-season greens.
2. Refurbish mulch to control weeds, and start adding leaves and other materials for the compost pile. Store your manure under cover to prevent leaching of nutrients.
3. Water deeply and thoroughly to prevent drought stress. Pay special attention to new transplants.
Seedlings will probably need supplemental water during October, which is usually one of our driest months.
4. Harvest mature green peppers and tomatoes before frost gets them — it may not come until November, but be ready.
5. Harvest herbs and dry them in a cool, dry place.
This week we are excited to have award winning pastry chef Gracie Atsma joining us to discuss one of my favorite topics – peanuts! It is peanut harvesting time all across Georgia.
It is peanut harvesting time in Georgia.
Many school and community gardeners are also pulling up peanuts. What to do with the harvest? Chef Atsma shares a possibility with us!
Gracie’s Peanut Brittle
Sugar: 4 1/2 cups
Corn syrup: 2 1/4 (ish) cups
Water: 1 1/2 cups
Raw peanuts: 4 1/2 cups
Butter: 3 tablespoons
Vanilla Extract: 2 tsp
Salt: 1 tsp
Baking soda: 2 tsp
Dark Chocolate: a bit (optional)
Start with mixing together and dissolving the sugar, corn syrup, and water in a large saucepan over heat. Bring to a boil and keep a candy thermometer handy to make sure the mixture reaches 250ºF (121ºC). Be careful here; don’t get burned.
Once that reaches temp, add the butter and Peanuts, and continue boiling until it reaches 312ºF (155ºC). Be sure to be stirring constantly otherwise the bottom will burn!
Once it reaches 312ºF, remove from heat and keep stirring as you carefully add the Vanilla, salt, and baking soda. It will foam up a bit, so add slowly.
Have a nonstick pan ready and pour the hot mixture over it as soon as the last three ingredients are combined. Use a greased metal spatula to spread it out evenly, quickly though because it’ll get hard fast!
There you go! Once it hardens you can break it up into edible brittle pieces. Personally, while its cooling, I like to melt a bit of dark chocolate and pour it over top and put the whole thing in the fridge to cool. When it comes out you have a salty sweet treat just in time for fall!
Chef Gracie Atsma at work
You can find Pastry Chef Atsma at Ike and Jane in Athens, Georgia. Gracie started as a home cook and has always appreciated locally grown foods. As a teenager she had a garden of her own. She says “there is no down side for using locally grown, fresh food.”
On September 9th the Georgia Environmental Protection Division declared a Level 1 drought for 53 Georgia counties. This includes the Northwest part of Georgia which is experiencing severe and extreme drought conditions.
A Level 1 Drought Response declaration means you will be hearing more from your local water authority about water conservation.
What does this mean to community and school gardens?
At this point, not much. As always, we need to use best management practices in watering our gardens. According to the Georgia Water Stewardship Act of 2010 irrigation of personal food gardens is allowed at anytime. It allows daily outdoor watering for “purposes of planting, growing, managing, or maintaining ground cover, trees, shrubs, or other plants only between the hours of 4 p.m. and 10 a.m. by anyone whose water is supplied by a water system permitted by the Environmental Protection Division.”
You may want to make sure your irrigation system, hoses, and faucets are not leaking. Does your garden have a rain barrel? Find additional watering tips below:
It is the time of year when Georgia gardeners think about their Fall, cool-season gardens. Leafy greens like spinach, leaf lettuce, and kale are all popular cool-season crops. They don’t require the time necessary to make a “head”, you can eat the thinnings, and the varieties available are endless.
Lettuce in the Trustees Garden Savannah, Georgia
Often at the beginning of cool-season planting time, germination rates can be an issue. “I have purchased new spinach seed and my germination rate is only about 50%.” Or, “My arugula just did not come up at all.” The problem might not be the seed quality but the soil temperatures, especially in a hot summer like we have been experiencing. Seeds require a specific range of soil temperatures for best germination.
If soil temperatures are close to the range extremes, the germination rate will definitely be affected. These temperatures not only affect the germination rate but how quickly the seeds emerge. For example, at 50°F spinach seed can take as much as three weeks to emerge. At 70°F you could see emergence in just days.
Plant the following no later than the dates given:
—August 18: Snap beans and Irish potatoes (seed can be sprouted two to three weeks before planting).
—August 31: Cucumbers and squash; plant varieties resistant to downy mildew.
In order to calculate the planting date, determine the frost date and count back the number of days to maturity plus 18 days for harvest of the crop. If snap beans mature in 55 days and your frost date is November 15, you should plant on or before September 3.
Chamblee Senior Center Garden
Start plants for broccoli, cabbage, cauliflower, collards, kale and onions in a half-shaded area for setting out in September.
Prepare soil for September to October plantings of “cool-season” crops. Apply fertilizer and prepare seeded so rains will settle the rows and make it easier to get seeds to germinate when they are planted.
If watering is necessary to get a stand, open the furrow for seed, pour in water, plant seed and cover. Use starter solution on the transplanted crops.
Water the garden as needed to prevent drought stress.
We cannot learn enough about the usefulness of cover crops in your community or school garden. This week we are fortunate to have UGA Cherokee County Extension Agent Josh Fuder as a guest writer. He is teaching us about using Buckwheat as a summer cover crop. Josh writes:
Each year I start my garden with grand visions of endless bounty. Something happens around the first part of July though. I’ve gotten full of squash and cucumbers even had a few choice tomatoes; basically I get too full to keep up with the invading army of weeds and pests. The spring veggies are petering out as well as some of those early squash and cucumbers. Then there is the stifling heat and humidity that makes going out in the garden almost impossible before 7 p.m.
Well this year I have a plan keep those garden beds from turning into pasture. No, it’s not mountains of mulch or more hours with the hoe and tiller. Enter Buckwheat (Fagopyrum esculentum), buckwheat is an unusually fast-growing plant grown for its grain like seeds in commercial agriculture. In the home garden it is one of the best summer cover/green manure crops available.
The strip on the far left was outside of my garden prior to this year and was just grass, clover and weeds. It was tilled and seed was broadcast on April 17th, 2016.
George Washington and Thomas Jefferson were some of the first American farmers to grow buckwheat as they recognized its benefit in a healthy crop rotation. Native to Russia the flexibility and adaptability led it to be grown on more than a million acres in the U.S. in the late 1800’s. The grain is ground into flour and used in a variety of foods from noodles in Japan to breakfast staples like cereal and pancakes in the U.S. I even had pillows made from buckwheat hulls when I lived in the tropical Pacific. The pillows are meant to be cooler on your head because of the increased space for air. I never got over the crinkling noise each time I would move however.
Planting Buckwheat
Buckwheat is easy to grow by simply broadcasting seeds and lightly raking them in. A pound of seed is recommended per 500 square feet of garden space or 3 ounces per 100 square feet. You can’t really put too much seed down and since you will usually have to buy it in bulk from a local feed store; better to err on the side of too much. Buckwheat does not require highly fertile soils but will benefit from modest levels of nitrogen. Its many fine roots are well adapted at finding lower levels of Phosphorous and when crop residues are returned to the soil it becomes more available for other plants.
Germination begins in about 3-4 days and within 10-14 days the ground should be fully covered with emerging leaves. This quick leaf cover will protect your soil from erosion, retain moisture and shade out those dastardly weed seeds. Now just sit back, drink some iced tea and wait for the best part which is the floral display that begins 3-4 weeks after planting. A large dense planting will literally stop traffic; my neighbors and passersby in my neighborhood have told me they always slow down to admire the five by hundred foot strip that I have along the road.
Same view on May 18th, 2016. Note the road on the left side of photo where neighbors slow down to take in the view.
Buckwheat Care
Resulting honey is dark colored and distinctly different in taste from clover or wildflower honey. The timing of flowering is also very beneficial to bees because the mid-summer is usually when there is less native forage available for bees.
Just remember that those prolific flowers that the bees are pollinating each turn into a seed if allowed to develop and dry on the plant. So if you do not want buckwheat carrying over into your next planting it is best to cut the plants or till them under 2-3 weeks after flowering. Some growers will cut it and leave the plant residue on the surface as mulch providing a pre-mulched area for new transplants.
Thank you Josh, for the information and photographs of your garden.
As gardeners we know that fresh is best. Not much beats a fresh tomato picked right from the garden. Chef Michael Bologna would agree with us. His restaurant, Vingenzo’s in Woodstock, Georgia, is based on freshness. And, he loves a really ripe, fresh tomato.
Chef Michael Bologna leading a cooking class.
Located in downtown Woodstock Vingenzo’s has won many, many awards including one of Atlanta’s Top 50 restaurants (Atlanta Magazine 2012). The restaurant features traditional Southern Italian fare. Sausage, mozzarella, pasta, sauces, and desserts are made fresh on-site.
Chef Bologna comes from an Italian family and he is very, very passionate about food. He truly delights in seeing people enjoy his cooking. He also enjoys teaching others how to prepare wonderful, fresh meals.
Chef Bologna giving me a cooking lesson.
Chef Bologna has been invited and cooked at the famed James Beard house – twice! Happily, he has agreed to share one of his favorite recipes with us. It features garden ripe tomatoes, something we all have a surplus of right now.
Chef Bologna’s Fresh Tomato Sauce
2 T olive oil
4 cloves garlic, sliced thin
1 pint cherry tomatoes, quartered or 4 roma tomatoes, diced
4oz olive oil
salt & pepper to taste
5 fresh basil leaves
1. Heat 2T oil up until almost smoking.
2. Add garlic and stir.
3. When garlic just starts to show color add tomatoes and stir.
4. Simmer until juices are released from tomatoes and add 4oz olive oil.
5. Simmer for 10 minutes.
6. Remove from heat.
7. Season with salt and pepper and torn basil leaves.
8. Serve with spaghetti or angel hair pasta.
Delicious meals don’t need many complicated ingredients.
If you haven’t grown tomatoes before, this recipe alone should inspire you. You could try growing some late season tomatoes or visit your local farmer’s market.
Thank you, Chef Bologna, for sharing your talents with us. And just for you…
This week’s garden mission – eliminate squash bug eggs before they become squash bugs!
Scouting for pests in your garden on a regular basis is a MUST. Scouting alerts you to problems before they get out of hand. This time of the year as you scout among your squash plants you may see squash bug eggs. They are not too hard to spot and should be in a cluster:
Squash bug eggs appear in a cluster.
If you find an egg cluster congratulate yourself because you can now stop this pest cycle. There are several ways to do this. You could remove this leaf. Or, flick the eggs off the leaf with your fingernail but you run the risk of just moving a viable egg that could eventually become a squash bug. There is an easy way to get rid of these eggs and keep the squash leaf intact.
First, cut a short length of tape. Clear packing tape seems to work very well:
Clear packing tape works well.
Next, press the tape on top of the eggs. Press firmly and move the tape around a bit. The eggs stick to the tape:
Press firmly so the eggs attach to the tape.The tape lifts the eggs off of the plant while leaving the leaf intact.
Finally, remove the tape and fold it. Crush the eggs within the folded tape and your potential pest problem is removed. Notice the squash leaf is intact.
If you miss scouting and missed finding the squash eggs, the eggs hatch and these squash nymphs become squash bugs:
Eggs hatch into nymphs that are on their way to become squash bugs!
