Year of the rat

Sep18

This year I have had a rodent problem in the garden, two years ago it was an ant problem. Now the ants are under control but the mice and packrats are out of control even though I continue to trap them and I’ve gotten a lot of them. I’ve never had a problem like this before in my veggie garden but luckily I have had a super productive year.

Actually next year, 2021, is officially ‘The Year of the Rat’ in the Chinese Zodiac but it might as well be this year. The mice and rats have been eating holes in many of the veggies.

Rat damage on a Cherokee green tomato

Tomatoes-My tomatoes have been hit hard but thankfully I have lots of them. I think rats are destroying some of my tomatoes and on other tomatoes there are little bites so I think they are mice-either way I can’t sell them. I’d be thinking, “I will wait one more day to harvest some particular tomato”, and then the mice/rat gets it first so I’ve had to resort to taking them a few days early and let the tomatoes finish ripening inside the house. I have too many tomato plants to completely wrap each plant to keep them out. Very frustrating.

Pepper damage

Peppers- I have to cut out part of the peppers that has been eaten too. They eat a hole at the top of the pepper and get the seeds. They don’t seem to care if the peppers are still green or red. So I’ve resorted to tacking down the pepper bed with some hail netting and using 2″ x 4″ boards to keep the netting snug at the bottom on the ground so they can’t get under it. So far so good.

Butternut squash-Then there are the butternut winter squash. They are almost ready to harvest. I’m waiting for the skins to get that beautiful butterscotch color. Well some mouse has been attacking them too. They nibble small holes in some of them. So I’ve resorted to completely wrapping each butternut squash in pieces of row cover to keep them from getting them.

I have not been able to plant any lettuces in my lettuce shade garden this season either. They first ate all my Fava beans last spring and so I have had to forgo growing lettuces in that area. Instead I’m going to plant the lettuce that I’ve started this fall into my covered coldframe up by the house. In a few more weeks I’ll also plant lettuce in my greenhouse (it’s still to warm inside the greenhouse to put them there but I am ready when it cools down more).

So it looks like either trapping them or wrapping your plant up tight to keep them out works. I would never use poison as we have a cat that also hunts them and our neighbor’s dog too. They could die from eating a poisoned rodent. Plus birds of prey like hawks would die also.

I have heard from other gardeners in this area that they too have had rodent problems this year. How about you? Have you had problems with rodents in your veggie garden this year?

Snow!

Sep9

Here’s the garden this morning at 7 am. I wasn’t expecting snow but here it is! The row cover blew off the tomatoes in those 60+mph winds last nite but they are so big and dense, I think if I did sustain some freezing damage, it will only be on the edges-the interior tomatoes should be ok.

Some flowers, rhubarb got bit pretty hard but the row covers stayed on the squashes, beans and RASPBERRIES and they seem ok! The snow melted pretty quick as it wasn’t much but it did stay cold all day. Tonight is our first fire in the fireplace. The temperature last night broke a record for earliest freeze in Santa Fe! Hope it warms up by the weekend and we get an Indian summer until mid-October. Am I dreaming?!

Saving Seeds Yet?

Sep8

Ok I’ve been obsessed with harvesting the garden and getting ready for our first cold snap tonight. I think I’m ready for it. But now the weather people say it will be 38°F tonite which is still plenty cold for tomatoes but hopefully it won’t get down to freezing tonight in the garden and then the nighttime temperatures will go up into the 40’s. Definitely cooling off but I’m hoping we will get another 3-4 weeks without freezing weather to extend the season. I’m already FRIED with all the harvesting I’ve been doing but I always have the winter to recoup. rest. recharge-and dream of the next season.

So are you saving any vegetable seeds yet? Do you remember this past spring when COVID 19 first hit? I don’t know about you, but I remember a vegetable seed shortage not only locally at our nurseries but also many national seed companies ran out of seeds too. Plus many veggie starts were sold out right away in our local nurseries. And I heard it might happen again next spring. So with this in mind, I’m saving some of my seeds of my favorite crops so I will have some vegetable seeds for next year to grow.

I will save tomato, winter squash, lettuce, beans (both green beans and dry beans), summer squash, sweet Italian peppers and many different flower seeds. How do you save seeds? There are many online sources on how-to save seeds for you to investigate and I will have a mini-series on saving different seeds starting with tomato seeds by next week, once I film the whole process.

Besides saving seeds to replenish our supply of seeds, you can also save seeds of any unusual varieties or abnormalities within a variety that you grow. Look around your garden. Have you found anything unusual that you like?

Pink Glass Gem corn

For instance, I found 2 ears of glass gem corn I grew that were different shades of pink out of many rows of multiple color glass gem corn 5 years ago that I continue to grow to stabilize it. Now there are no other colors other than different shades of pinks. It is now an F5 (fifth generation) so it’s probably pretty stabilized. You can read about it here.

Santoro lettuce

I also save a particular open-pollinated lettuce seed that for the last couple of years I couldn’t find online anymore. It is called Santoro, a wonderful butter lettuce that melts in your mouth and produces large heads. My Santoro lettuce seed supply still germinates at 100% but I want to keep the supply fresh since I can’t find it anymore. You can read about it here.

Moby dwarf cherry tomato with anthocyanin on the shoulders

I’m currently doing a trial on a Craig Lehoullier dwarf yellow cherry tomato plant called Moby, where I’ve discovered 2 years ago some tomatoes that had a slight purple blush called anthocyanin on the shoulders and they are sweeter on the Brix scale than the regular yellow variety. This in the second year of growing it out.

I went to Italy 2 years ago and while there got some dry beans from the market in Florence that are not available here. This one is called Rossa de Lucca and comes from the Tuscany area. They are hard to find here in the states and so I did cook some up and saved some to grow out and now I have a steady supply of them.

So you can save seeds to not be caught shorthanded for next year (like we were this year) or for saving new possible varieties. Try it, it’s fun!

FREEZE ALERT!

Sep7

Tomorrow night a freeze warning has been issued for our area in Santa Fe.

It could get colder or it might miss your garden, but to be safe, I will be putting row cover over any veggies/fruits I still want to protect and harvest.

The weather people have been changing the forecast everyday and sometimes several times a day lately. They think it will be above just above freezing but the wind chill will drive down the temperature to feel below freezing and I’m not willing to take that chance after spending all these months growing veggies. If it does go down to freezing, my garden will be protected. I think it will be a new record low if it does hit 32°F as the previous record for our first freeze was in October, but never in September. What a weird year-record heat one day and threat of a freeze the next day!

Medium or heavy weight row cover will give your veggies protection to several degrees below freezing. The problem is, if you don’t protect them, and we get an Indian summer where it turns warm again for quite a while, then the crops could have the time they need to finish ripening before we get more cold weather.

Remember to remove the protection in the morning so the plants can get warmth and light from the sun. I have lost many crops by not protecting them during these early freezes. I will be prepared this time!

What have I been doing?

Sep3

Wow-it’s been almost a month since I last posted. How time flies! I go from posting a lot in July to not much at all in August. So what have I been doing in the last month?

Harvesting! Harvesting! Harvesting!!

TOMATOES
This year has been a great tomato year vs last year which sucked. When the harvesting starts in earnest, I become headless (but in a good way)! I can’t process the tomatoes into tomato sauce fast enough as it seems everyday was a new bumper crop that needed to be picked and eaten and dealt with (can’t let any of them go to waste)! Plus I’ve been selling some this year. I’ve really loved all those Caprese salads and know they will end in the not to far future.

CUCUMBERS
Most of the cucumbers have been harvested and preserved. I’ve made sweet pickle relish, Bread and butter pickles and cornichons. I tried to ferment some green DILL pickles but failed miserably (I’ll have to get my fermentation friends to help me). The dill pickles were too salty and not crisp like I had hoped. I think I left them in the crock too long and now the cukes are slowing down. Oh well, there is always next year.

BEANS
The green beans, Emerite are slowing down and the Zolphino dry bean pods are starting to dry out so I am harvesting them as the pods dry out and will shell them later this winter. I don’t wait till the end of the season but pick the dry pods as they are ready, otherwise the beans fall out of the shell if I wait too long. I’m so excited as I got them in Italy 2 years ago and last year when I planted them a gopher ate every plant and every plant I replanted. Of course the gopher had to eat my most expensive bean-it was 40 Euros/kilo (that is 47 dollars) over there as it is endangered in Italy and they are trying to bring it back. One thing is the gopher had good taste-it didn’t go after my less expensive beans.

CABBAGES
The Kalibos cabbages are ready for harvest too. All my fermenter friends will love getting one of these for sauerkraut or kimchi! I keep one too but they are so big, one does me just fine and will last for months in the refrigerator.

PEPPERS
The Corno de Horno peppers and Lava Red peppers are still green. I will wait till they turn red when they will be sweeter. There will be a bumper crop of both of these this year. Nice problem to have! I’ll have to figure out what to do with all of them! The Jimmy Nardello peppers are turning red (at a reasonable rate for harvesting). The Shishitos peppers have been kicking for a good month.

BERRIES/GRAPES
The grapes and blackberries are done but the raspberries are just starting to kick in and will be in full blast harvest mode soon. We are harvesting every 3 days now. It is a fall-bearing raspberry called Polana and it is the best producing raspberry ever for me at my garden.

SQUASH
My summer squash is still kicking and my winter squash, Butternuts, are starting to change color to tan and will be ready mid-end of September.

SHALLOTS
I harvested 2 beds of shallots which are now curing and will store these like onions for the winter. i love shallots over onions as they are sweeter and cost a lot more in the grocery stores.

CHARD/KALE
And of course, the chard and kale are loving the cooler weather and will go to frost. But they like it hot or cold weather wise. I have too much kale. Anyone want some?