Last class...but not last harvest

We had our last gardening class today.  We took down all of our trellising materials and pulled all of the little stakes up.

I got to harvest lots of mature, green tomatoes!  I will put them in a bag with a piece of fruit to help them ripen.  I also harvested one eggplant, one cucumber, and two zucchini.

I'll be coming back, hopefully, to harvest my sunflowers, marigolds, snap peas, peppers, and other vegetables that might make their appearance or ripen, soon.

This class has definitely been so helpful and fun.  I wanted to learn how to garden better...to learn some tips and really experience what it was like to take care of a garden well.  What did it take to have a successful garden?!  I definitely have come away with a lot of experience and more knowledge in the arena of agriculture and gardening. 

I didn't realize that fertilizing was so helpful.  I also didn't realize that plant diseases could spread, like human diseases do.  I thought that all pesticide was really poisonous and harmful, but learned that BT and Neem weren't super harmful to humans.
When we talked about hybrid seeds I learned that you didn't want to harvest the seeds to plant in the future...something I never knew!
It was so interesting learning about the parts of the plants that we eat.
Onions and garlic are leaves!  And Potato is a stem!  

I also learned that when a label has "organic" on it, it doesn't necessarily mean that it is 100% organic.

So glad I took this class!  I am looking forward to having more successful gardens in the future!

Stir-Fry!

We only have one more gardening class.  I have had so much fun and have really enjoyed eating my veggies. 
In the garden this week I fertilized my peas and cabbages.  My sunflower just bloomed! 
Then I harvested more eggplant, zucchini, squash, and green pepper.  I also got to take home
some flowers in my waterbottle. 

I made stir-fry with my vegetables and had it with fish (cod). 

I sliced the vegetables and sauteed them on high with some vegetable oil. 
I like to have stir-fry with a Thai peanut sauce.

2 tablespoons creamy peanut butter
2 tablespoons rice wine vinegar
2 tablespoons soy sauce
1 tablespoon brown sugar
1 teaspoon garlic powder
1/8 teaspoon ground ginger
cayenne pepper

Directions:

1) Combine above ingredients and stir until creamy. (It helps to soften the peanut butter in the microwave.).
2) Add sauce to the stir-fry during the last minute of cooking, stirring to coat food evenly.

Read more at: http://www.food.com/recipe/thai-peanut-stir-fry-sauce-38444?oc=linkback

Yummy veggies!

We didn't have class on Monday because of the Veteran's Day holiday.  I went to my garden on Wednesday morning, though.  I weeded and harvested!

          I harvested 4 zucchini, 3 cucumber, 2 sunburst squash, 2 eggplant, and 1 greenpepper!

Because I'm on a food-rotation diet I can not have many recipes and have very simple meals.  I sauteed my green pepper and made a yummy omelet!  With my zucchini I sauteed them as well and ate them with some avocado.

There are so many green tomatoes right now.  The flowers are looking great!
My sunflower hasn't budded yet, but probably next week.

First Edible Harvest

Today I weeded, fertilized, sprayed BT and Neem, AND harvested vegetables that I will be able to eat! I brought home one zucchini, one cucumber, two eggplant, and lots of green beans.

Tonight I ate my zucchini for dinner.  I cut the zucchini into rounds and sprinkled them with sea salt and broiled them for about 10 minutes.  Yummy!

 

This week because of Daylight Savings, we started working in our gardens at 4pm.  Then at 5pm we had a discussion outside concerning organic food and sustainability.   

I have heard those terms thrown around numerous times, but it was good to hear some good discussion about both of them.  

I think that sustainable agriculture is agriculture that is economical and that is done in a very environmentally healthy way, as to be able to continue for many years to come.  (http://edis.ifas.ufl.edu/ae429)

Organic food does not use GMOs and are "produced without using most conventional pesticides, synthetic fertilizers, or sewage sludge, and they are processed without using ionizing

 radiation" (http://edis.ifas.ufl.edu/fe732).

Organic food have been given naturally derived pesticide, fungicide, and fertilizer.   You could use animal manure or fish emulsion instead of synthetic materials.  

Below are some of the standards that a farm has to abide to in order to be 

certified organic (http://edis.ifas.ufl.edu/fe732):

1. Prior to certification, the land must be free of prohibited substances for three years.
2. A certifying agency annually inspects farm/processor operations.
3. Farmers and processors must keep detailed records of organic practices.
4. All farmers and handlers are required to maintain a written organic management plan.

The reason "organic" came to be is because consumers demanded it.  

I am not one of the consumers that demanded it.  I choose not to eat organic foods most of the time because of the expense.  And, until today, I have been wary to trust the labels... not sure if the labels meant they were really 100% organic or not.   Apparently, not all labeled organic foods are 100% organic. For me, I think if I was going put forth the money to buy organic, I would only buy the 100% organic foods (I guess an all-or-nothing approach). 

Following below is a description of the four general categories of multi-ingredient packaged organic products (http://edis.ifas.ufl.edu/hs397) :

• 100% Organic = 100% of ingredients are certified organic, excluding salt and water.
• Certified Organic = 95% of ingredients are certified organic, excluding salt and water.
• Made with Organic Ingredients = At least 70% of ingredients are certified organic, excluding salt and water.
• No Label Claims = Less than 70% of ingredients are certified organic.
   
  
   

Garden pics collage

I did a picture scavenger hunt in the gardens to find several things related to our gardening adventure.  Below is the collage I made with the pictures I took.

Flowers and Trellises

      I saw flowers in bloom for the first time in my garden!  The peas and Tomatoes got trellises.

Today I sprayed Neem and BT early on and then weeded.  I put more stakes in the ground so that I could weave string around them for trellises for the peas and tomatoes.  Libby and Matt first did a demonstration on how to do the trellises, which was super helpful.  I went around the wooden stake three times with the string before threading it across.  Eventually I'll probably have to put another level of string higher up, as the plants grow. 

Our plants got sprayed last week, so we won't be able to eat anything from them until November.  Because some of the vegetables will be overripe by November, I ended up harvesting some vegetables that were about ready to harvest (one eggplant, zucchini, and squash and lots of green beans).  By doing this I am freeing up the plant to focus its energy on the new vegetables that I will be able to eat.

Here's a diagram of a basic plant structure
(http://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://www.phschool.com/science/biology_plac)

We learned that each of the vegetables we harvest is not necessary the "fruit" of the plant.
The following are the plants in my garden and what part of the plant we are actually eating/using:

Tomato: fruit
Pepper: fruit
Cabbage: bud
Eggplant: fruit
Squash flower: flower
Carrot:  root
Beet: root
Basil: leaf
Beans: fruit
Peas: fruit
Cucumber: fruit
Squash: fruit
Zucchini: fruit
Okra: fruit
Marigold and Zinnia Flowers: flower
Sunflower seed: seed

I see lots of veggies!

Today was nice and sunny!
I weeded, fertilized, put stakes in the ground for the tomatoes, sprayed with BT and Neem, and made sure the beds were built up. 
Almost everything had changed so much... I saw lots of little vegetables!
There were squash, zucchini, cucumber, beans, green pepper, eggplant, and more tomatoes.

 

I saw lots of caterpillars and leaves that did not look too good.  It is very evident that there are pests in my garden.  Insect pests such as whiteflies, aphids, caterpillars, grasshoppers, and leaf miners are in my garden. 

The caterpillars have chewed the leaves.  They are very clever; they chew a section that can then fold over like a little tent for them to keep them shaded and in a moist and safe place.  The white flies and aphids have sucked the nutrients out of the leaves.  Plant virus diseases are caused by the whiteflies and aphids.  They have tube shaped mouth parts that extend into the plant.The whiteflies have left my squash plants with silver leaves.  The leaf miners live in the tissue of the leaf and fruit flies cause damage by living inside crop leaves...the larvae feeds on the leaf.  

Thankfully we do have taken measures to reduce and eliminate the amount of pests in our gardens.  The gardens were plowed and we weed consistently.  We've also used insecticides, such as BT (Thuricide) and Neem.  The organic insecticides aren't as fast at killing the pests as the non-organic insecticides, such as Admire.  Admire Pro, a non-organic insecticide, was sprayed on our gardens yesterday.  

 

Cabbage and Beets!

 It started to rain while we were out in the garden...so we left a little early.  I didn't get everything done, but prioritized to plant my cabbage and beet transplants and fertilize them and most of my tomatoes.  

                 Cabbage and beet transplants!  

There were flowers on my tomato plants, eggplant, and bush bean plant.
I saw one little green tomato, too!

 All of my plants were much taller and the stems of my tomato, zucchini, squash, and cucumber
plants were noticeably more spread out.  I think the plants' diameters doubled since last week!

                         

My carrots are barely peaking through and I haven't seen my herbs yet.  Nothing has died, thankfully.

I'm excited to be able to soon have vegetables to take home and eat.  It will be so nice to be eating vegetables that were grown in my own garden :)
 

I eat pretty healthy; not much of my food is processed.  I got all my groceries at Winn-Dixie this week.  (The food from Winn-Dixie is distributed from the Winn-Dixie in Jacksonville, Florida.)   It's only about 1/2 mile from where I live, so I bike there if I can't get to Ward's, Publix, or Save-a-Lot. 

Some of my staple foods are: 
-Eggs
-Plain yogurt
-Oatmeal
-Carrots
-Rice
-Eggplant, grown in USA
-Bananas, grown in Honduras

It's looking very green :)

It was so exciting to see my garden today!  There was so much green!
I got down on my hands and knees and weeded...despite it now being fall, it was probably the hottest day yet out in the garden .  Then I took a hoe and loosened the soil in the walkways so that I could build up the beds of soil better.   I love how "tidy" it looks now!

Every other week I will fertilize the plants...did it last week!  I did apply Thuricide (BT) to the leaves of the eggplant, peppers, and beans to keep caterpillars away.  And I applied Neem to the leaves of cucumbers, zucchini, and tomatoes to keep small flies and aphids away.

The carrots are the only seeds that haven't germinated yet, so I replanted those.
The tomatoes are taller (maybe even 6 inches taller than last week!) and fuller.  They leaves are a dark green color, which I think means they are pretty healthy!  I saw a flower on one of the tomato plants!   

The pepper plants are taller and look healthier than last week.  The zucchini, squash, and cucumber are so much bigger; I'm glad I spaced them like I did and not any closer to each other!  They each have lots of big, healthy leaves.   My okra plants are above ground now; they each have  a little stem with two leaves.  You could see little green sugar snap pea plants peaking through the soil...next week I should be able to see the stems.  My bean plants are taller, fuller, and a rich green healthy-looking color.  They are pretty close together, so I might have to thin out that area.

The sunflower plants are huge!  No buds yet, but they look really healthy.  The marigolds and zinnias are growing at a slow and steady pace.  

We discussed  plant nutrients during lecture.  There are three different of categories of essential (we need ALL of them) nutients.
Environmental: Carbon, hydrogen, and oxygen (make up 95% of soil)
Macronutients: Nitrogen, potassium, phosphorus, magnesium, and sulfur
Micronutrients (just need small amounts): Iron, zinc, chlorine, copper, boron, maganase, sodium, nickel, molybdenum, and sulfur

There are different "hunger signs" that indicate that there is some lacking of a specific nutrient.
Some of my tomato plants had lower leaves that were yellow, which indicates a deficiency in nitrogen. 

The optimal pH for soil is 6.5.  Our soil is 7.5, which is still ok.
*An interesting concept I learned is that there isn't growth in a plant just because the nutrient content in soil is high...the nutrient content needs to be AVAILABLE in the soil!

                                                                          Eggplant

                                                                           Zucchini

                                                                         Zinnia Flowers

                                                                          Sunflowers

                                                                        Bush Beans

                                                                          Okra
                                             

                                                         Sugar Snap Peas (above and below)