Vegetable Gardener's Bible

The other day I ordered a book for myself from Amazon. I have been looking for a book that was similar to "Joy of Gardening," -- but for organic gardeners. I am hoping I have found it in this book.

It begins by giving a general guide for gardening. All of the tips and advice are from an organic gardener's perspective. At first I thought it might not be such a great buy because the author is from a northern part of the U.S. and we have a very different growing season in the south, but upon further reading I saw that even though some of his advice is geared toward colder climates, he does also include southern regions.

I think some of the information and sections are similar to other gardening books but the profile of individual vegetables make this book a worthwhile buy. I especially liked the quick facts listed after each vegetable and the individual recommendations for care and fertilizing. I think the more I read it, the more useful information I will discover.

Some of the techniques I liked were, wide row gardening, raised bed gardening and his tip to help keep weeds out of rows by putting down newspaper topped with straw. I will be trying that very soon.

Overall. Thumbs up.

The winner is ...

Congratulations Joanie. You are the winner of Tuesday's giveaway! Thank you for entering.

Next week I will be giving away a cookbook.

Gourds

About a month ago we planted some pumpkins and at the same time we planted bottle gourds. I love gourds and think we may have some before frost, if things go well. We haven't grown them before and we really don't know what to expect. I didn't expect these delicate flowers, but there are hundreds of them covering the gourd vines. The light green powder on the dark green leaves is garden dust to help keep the squash bugs away.

I also didn't expect to see white flowers.

The flowers are only blooming for one day. Some of the flowers are male and some are female. The male flowers tend to bloom at night. Underneath the female flowers, a bulb forms and this will be a gourd.

I know gourds are useful for many purposes and can be used for birdhouses, and for decorating. My father used them mainly to grow gourds to make birdhouses for Martins.

Indians used to grow them to make tools and utensils. They made bowls, containers, dippers and probably things I can't even imagine. The gourds harden and you have to saw them open to get the seeds out. I think small ones were used for baby rattles. I have also seen some beautiful art objects made from gourds and I would like to use them in that way, depending on the size and shape of our gourds and, of course, if we have any at all.

I remember, as a girl drinking cold water from a dipper made from a gourd. I thought it was great.

I also wanted to give an update on the floating row cover over my squash. The squash are really looking good and every day I like the row cover more. The plants are protected from bugs and I think the vines are growing faster under the row cover. I really like it!

Isn't it beautiful

Yesterday, my daughter sent me this photo of a dish she made to take to a party and in the text she wrote, "Isn't it beautiful?" I must agree it makes a beautiful dish. I think it would be perfect sitting next to a big bowl of corn chips to eat while watching a football game or for a tailgating party. It would also make a great spicy side dish with grilled wings, burgers or hot dogs. It is a colorful dish and SO easy -- full of tasty harvest vegetables.

Black Bean Salsa

3 cans black beans, drained and rinsed
2 cans diced tomatoes with green chilies, drained
1 can Mexican-style corn, drained
2 tomatoes, diced
1 bunch of green onions

Note: The diced tomatoes with chilies makes this a hot and spicy dish. If you don't like hot and spicy, you may want to cut down on some of the tomatoes with chilies.

Mix all ingredients together, refrigerate and let the flavors mix for 8 hours. I plan to make this soon and I will probably use some chopped cilantro in my salsa.

Celebrating school supplies with a giveaway

For the past couple of weeks I have been loading up on office supplies. I don't know why but I have never really shopped school supply sales, but this is the time of year to rack up on paper and office goods. I now have a bin filled with crayons. They were just twenty-five cents per 24 pack. I bought two packs of pens for only thirty-three cents per pack -- that is 20 pens for sixty-six cents! I have recently purchased composition books for 15 cents each, Sharpies for half price and sticky notes that are cheap, cheap, cheap. The sales have been great. I am glad I finally caught on to this and I plan to take advantage of school supply sales every year.

I also have found some useful and decorative supplies I have decided to give away to one person who comments on this blog post. You can see the free gift, pictured above. Just leave a comment below and I will randomly draw a name and post it on Friday. I will ask you to sent me an email so I can get your snail mail address. The free gift includes sticky notes, a set of matching pens, a clipboard and a small set of Thank you notes.

I bought these items for myself and I am really enjoying them. The sticky notes (in above photo, at left) I placed on the inside of my Day Book with double-sided tape. I can now use the notes to become a little more organized. The little clipboard is something I use to hold recycled note paper. Using a paper cutter, I cut paper that has been used on one side into 5 x 7 pieces and reuse it in my little clipboard -- a 5 x 7 pad would also work but I don't want to purchase one when I can use my leftover paper.

I look forward to hearing from you and I can't wait to select a winner!

The end of summer gardening

Our summer gardening is almost done. About the only thing that is really doing well is the okra. We have the tall rows (the tall plants to the left) that have been really bearing and the late okra (the plants in the center of the photo) that is now blooming. If things go well, the okra will bear until frost.

I do have some tomato plants that are looking a bit worn and frazzled but are blooming again and the peppers are looking better since the weather has cooled down a bit.

We did plant some collards and we will need to plant some greens for the fall. Today I bought seed for kale, a greens mixture and some lettuce seed on sale. If we plant the lettuce soon and use a row cover, we may have some lettuce for salads before Thanksgiving.

The "white" stuff on the collard plants and on the pumpkins is a product called Garden Dust by Bonide. It contains pyrethrins, rotenone, copper and sulfur. It is a natural product that was supposed to be green but it looks white to me -- maybe it is mint green. It's not very attractive but maybe it will help with the bugs and worms and plant diseases.

The pumpkins we planted are looking pretty good and I am hoping they bloom and produce before Halloween. We don't have blooms, yet, but the plants are looking good. You can see the collard plants behind the pumpkin vines.

We are hoping for a few more tomatoes, peppers and maybe even some eggplants. Our squash are under the row cover and looking good and it is hard to know if our cucumbers we planted will do anything. At this point, anything else we get will just be a blessing.

More about floating row cover

A number of days ago, I wrote about floating row cover but I didn't have a good photo of how it looks in the garden. I now have a photo of the cover and if you look closely, you can see the new squash plants coming up underneath. Actually, the squash coming up under the row cover is looking better than the late cucumber plants we didn't cover.

Underneath, the plants look healthy and seem to be getting plenty of sun and water. I know this is an experiment but so far I am pleased. I did notice that the grass and weeds are growing up under the cover. This is not a weed proof cover. It might even help with extreme heat or frost but if the plants do well, so will the weeds.  The goal is to keep harmful bugs out. It is growing nicely. I was concerned the plants wouldn't grow tall but they look great to me.

I have been looking for a supplier that carries this product in large rolls and I think I have found an online greenhouse supply company that carries rolls for a good price. The web address is www.greenhousemegastore.com. I just need to decide how much I will need if the experiment is successful. I also want to know how much the shipping will be. Sometimes I find great products and prices online, only to find that the shipping is more costly than the product. I also want to check with a local greenhouse to see if they would order the product for me. If they had it shipped with their regular products, the shipping costs might be reduced.

I am very encouraged. I don't think it makes the garden beautiful, but I don't care if it helps keep out the pests.