Scenes From a Summer Garden

Cathi and some of the
vegetables harvested today.  

Enjoy scenes from Wednesday in the VegHeadz summer garden today.   There are still plenty of plants thriving and producing edibles.  

Pole beans

Squash, cucumbers and melons

Cathy and the squash beds

Peggy, Jeanne and Annie tied  up some of the 
Sunflowers.  Newly planted sweet potato
slips in foreground. 

Emma pruned and tied up
her container tomatoes

Mary picked beans
and planted cowpeas in
the forest garden

Peggy and Linda trimmed 
back the Loofah

Tithonia—Mexican sunflowers

Chamomile 

Thai Ginger—Galangal

Numerous varieties of
shallots and other 
perennial onions

One of our best corn crops in years.
This is Glenn’s heirloom variety—
Aunt Mary’s cultivated by
the Atkinson family since the 
1850s

Mexican Tarragon—a member of the
sunflower family perennial native of Mexico
and Southwest U.S.—substitutes for 
French Tarragon which 
does not grow well here

Lemon Grass in Louie’s
Herb beds

Country Gentleman Sweet Corn 
from the Leon County Seed Library
grown by Jeanne

Jelly Melon

Double fused
Blackeyed Susan

Feeding the wildlife—
A happy caterpillar
on/in a green bean

Wednesday in the Garden

Pole beans and Jelly melons

Despite a threatening sky and predictions of rain, quite a few gardeners spent the morning harvesting and weeding.  Nancy, Dave, Cathi and probably others were digging nutsedge (cyperus spp.) around the G beds (4 x 4 raised rotation beds).  A much larger patch beyond where they were working will probably get some herbicide. We only use herbicide when nothing else works, and nutsedge is definitely a case in point. Even then it only knocks this pest back for a season or a year, only to regain its former territory– so annoying.

The garden still looks good even though it’s June and it’s been hot, but not as intensive as it will be later in the summer. The tomatoes in bed A have been trashed.  Many of us were absent from the garden for several weeks leaving us vulnerable to summer invaders.  

The tomatoes were infested by what appears to be army worms, judging from the damage.  The entire plants were removed so they won’t infect the rest of the garden. Dave’s GMO tomatoes farther down in the garden have not suffered the same fate.  That’s gardening – random disasters, hoped for successes.

The major amount of work done in the Forest Garden by many prior to the open house is holding well, and the pathways are free of weeds and looking good. Next to be planted there are winged beans for the arbor and cowpeas and sweet potatoes in any open space.  The beans will add nitrogen to the soil and the sweet potatoes will deter weeds.  These reliable summer cover crops will also provide a late summer harvest.

It’s always a pleasure to spend time in the garden with friends, beautiful plants, interesting finds, and colorful vegetables and flowers. 

Yarrow

Pollinator plants to attract pollinators
and predators and feed the honey
bees nearby

Kiwano Jelly Melon growing on
the cattle panel arch pictured above.
A climbing cucumber relative. 
Can be eaten at any stage.  Seedy jelly-like 
Interior tastes like a combination of
banana, cucumber, and lime.  
Deters nematodes.

Early row covers and foil covered 
vines have increased our 
success with summer squash 

Sunflowers

An example of biodiversity— eggplants, peppers, basils, cosmos,
marigolds, maybe more.  Although this bed is immediately adjacent
to the worm-eaten tomatoes, there is very little damage
of any kind to these plants. Strongly scented plants and multiple
species and varieties helps to discourage marauding insects.

The terminal tomatoes

Tomato Insect Pest Management:  https://gardeningsolutions.ifas.ufl.edu/care/pests-and-diseases/pests/management/tomato-insect-pest-management/

Southern Army Worms:  https://edis.ifas.ufl.edu/publication/IN263

Tomato Hornworms:  https://edis.ifas.ufl.edu/publication/IN1206

The tomatoes full of blooms in early May. 
So sad to lose them.  

Soil Testing Guide

Check out the new soil testing guide video from Leon County UF/IFAS. The short eight minute video tells you all you need to know about why to do a soil test, how to do it, and what you will learn. It’s available at the link below and in the left sidebar under Gardening Resources.

Video:  https://youtu.be/22_eqTWmsqc?si=h4my45ONjLBvdgLD

More Info:  https://sfyl.ifas.ufl.edu/agriculture/soil-testing/

Cover Crops—Transitioning into Summer

Crimson Clover

Within the next month or so, many of our spring/summer crops will be finished   Tomatoes won’t bloom and set fruit when it’s over 90 degrees   The green beans are pretty much done   It’s too hot to plant most new crops—they will succumb to the heat and humidity.

It’s a good idea to drop green beans in place, leaving the roots in the ground   Let them decompose in place to nourish the next crop and add organic matter to your soil.   Cut tomatoes at ground level and throw them away   They’re too likely to harbor pests and diseases that may live in the soil   Compost healthy squash leaves and vines   Do this before fading crops attract more bugs and diseases.

What to plant now?  Okra works,  and field peas and sweet potatoes act as cover crops and produce a harvest of delicious and nutritious fall edibles.   

Front, field peas; middle, sweet potatoes; rear, okra—mid July

Fall crops may not take as much space so fall cover crops are a good option for any open beds   The recent article about research being done in West Florida on fall cover crops was written for farmers, but is just as interesting and advantageous for gardeners  What are we but farmers, just on a smaller scale   Read the article and begin now to plan your fall/winter cover crops   

Cover Crops and Soil Health: Building Resilience in Panhandle Crop Fields

Wednesday in the Garden

Althea or Rose of Sharon 
in the Forest Garden. 

Just a few folks showed up for Wednesday workday at the VegHeadz Garden for the past two weeks. We had spent many hours getting ready for the spring open house and all of us need a rest. Also, it’s hot, and we’ll be arriving at the garden earlier from now through the rest of summer.  Despite just a few of us being there this week, a lot was going on.

Dave’s GMO Purple Tomatoes are ripe and ready to eat. Most of us sampled them and provided our feedback on a rally sheet provided by Dave—taste, texture, etc.  They are really beautiful, firm and juicy.  Read more about them in this previous post.  Dave and Evelyn both spent some time pruning tomato plants throuout the garden to remove discolored leaves and to open up the plants so more air can flow through the beds. This helps prevent diseases which thrive on heat and humidity.  They also trimmed some branches to allow sun to reach interior tomatoes to promote ripening.

The Purple Tomato, the first 
GMO variety available to gardeners

In addition to the purple tomatoes, we had honey from the adjacent beehives to distribute. We still have some on hand to bring next week to share.  Read more about the honey in this previous post. 

We had several visitors in the garden — one relatively new resident of the area who took home a couple of small banana plants to try out in his new yard, a family took home a beautiful eggplant and some squash with plans to cook them for dinner, and a garden circle toured the garden. We love having visitors in the garden and providing any information they need.

Dave and Extension Agent Trevor Hylton
with Dave’s Purple Tomatoes

Squash and Eggplant—
Summer Garden Bounty

Champion Eggplant

VegHeadz Garden Honey

Apalachee Beekeepers Assn. bee yard adjacent to
VegHeadz demo vegetable garden
at Leon County UF/IFAS Extension

Hive with one brood box
and two supers

Adjacent to the VegHeadz garden is a fenced enclosure containing a number of beehives, which varies from season to season, currently seven hives.  At the recent Extension Open House the Apalachee Beekeepers Association (ABA), which owns and maintains the hives, was on hand to sell their honey. 

We were disappointed to learn that the honey on sale was not specifically from the hives adjacent to our garden.  The bees there pollinate our vegetables and fruit and gather nectar and pollen from our pollinator plants, cover crops, and fruit and vegetable blooms, along with pollen and nectar from plants within a two or three mile radius of the hives.  Instead the honey on sale was from hives maintained by the ABA in nearby Jefferson County. The honey marketed by ABA is usually from hives maintained at Leon, Wakulla, and Jefferson County Extension Offices, mixed together to provide a uniform product.  

This week we happened to be on hand when beekeeper Bob Livingston showed up to service the beehives housed next to our garden. This trip he was treating them for varroa mites, a routine and necessary preventive task. Seizing the opportunity, we asked Mr. Livingston if we could obtain honey from “our” hives. On a previous occasion several years ago, we had purchased from the ABA a unique and delicious very dark honey, which we felt had come from the buckwheat we grow as a cover crop in our garden.

A frame full of honey in the comb,  from
the hives adjacent to the VegHeadz garden.
Each cell is capped with wax.

When he had finished treating the bees, Mr. Livingston very kindly obliged us with a full, heavy frame of honey from the hives. The full frame weighed 4 lbs, 7 oz.  We divided the comb into 18 portions of just over 3 oz. each to share among anyone who showed up at our Wednesday morning workday.  The empty frame weighed just short of a pound, 15.9 oz.   Therefore we harvested about 3 1/2 lbs. of honey and comb from one frame.

Honey with comb
included

There are usually at least two layers of boxes in a bee hive—at least one larger bottom box known as the brood box or brood chamber.  There the queen lays her eggs and the worker bees tend her and her brood, feeding them with nectar and pollen or “bee bread”  that is stored there as the eggs develop into larva, pupa, and finally adult bees.  

Often there are also one or more smaller upper boxes known as “supers” where the bees store most of their honey.  Both types of boxes contain suspended wood or plastic frames like the one pictured here in which are inserted foundation sheets of plastic or wax. The bees build their comb on both sides of the foundation.   A panel called a queen excluder is inserted between the two types of boxes so the queen can’t lay eggs in the cells on the honey supers. 

Also, you will notice in the first picture above that there are more brood boxes than there are supers. The spring flowering season and honey flow have slowed and supers may have been removed to harvest the honey.  There may be an additional honey flow during fall blooming season depending on weather, and perhaps more supers will be added so the bees have room to store the honey they will be making to provide winter food.

Each super usually contains 10 frames, and can produce from 30 to 40 pounds of honey, depending on the season, weather, nectar available, etc. It may even be possible to harvest a super more than once a year, but it is advisable to leave 20 to 30 pounds of honey in each hive for the bees to over winter.   Mr. Livingston advised that “our” hives are their most productive ones, no doubt thanks to the many pollinator plants and cover crops blooming in our garden most of the year. 

Processed honey is spun to remove the honey from the comb by centrifugal force, filtered to remove bits of wax and pollen, and heated to 160° (pasteurized) to kill yeasts and enzymes which might degrade the honey during storage.  Sometimes the moisture content needs to be reduced if it isn’t low enough, for instance if the honey is harvested before the bees have reduced it to the desired hydration. The bees fan their wings over the open cells to increase air flow in the hive until the nectar in the cells is reduced to honey with 18% hydration.  They then cap the cells with more wax. This prevents fermentation of the honey and ensures its stability during storage.

There are several variations of unprocessed honey. Raw honey is unpasteurized and unfiltered, retaining natural elements like pollen, enzymes, and vitamins. Filtered or processed honey undergoes heating and filtration, resulting in a clearer, more stable product but with fewer nutrients and a less robust flavor. Unprocessed honey is a broader term that can include raw honey but also encompasses honey that has been minimally processed, like straining to remove large debris.

Comb honey goes one step further, as it is always raw honey.  Producing comb honey with the comb intact requires special techniques and equipment.  The advantage of honeycomb is not just the raw honey in the comb, but the actual comb itself. The wax cells are not only edible, they are more nutritious than the honey, containing a natural antibiotic, and varying amounts of propolis and pollen, even some residual royal jelly. Comb honey can be eaten either by chewing and swallowing the honey and the wax, or chewing the wax like gum to extract all the honey, and then spitting out the wax. 

Comb honey is a great addition to a cheese or charcuterie board.  Spread it on toast, or add chunks to a kale, spinach or arugula salad.  Fun Fact:  After we harvested the honey and comb from the frame, we placed the frame back inside the fenced enclosure with the beehives where the bees will clean up the frame and scavenge any remaining honey.

More about Bob Livingston, a well-known area beekeeper.   More about bees, beekeeping and honey from the UF/IFAS Honey Bee Research and Extension Lab.     

  

Recipes from the VegHeadz Open House

We had many requests for recipes for the samples we furnished at the open house on Saturday. We are glad to share.

PEPPER JELLY

This super easy hot pepper jelly recipe makes use of both sweet and hot peppers for a colorful, confetti-like look and and an intense spicy kick. Source: The View from Great Island. https://search.app/vECJLVzM3G1Cm2Fy5

8 Jalapeño peppers
12 oz. assorted colorful, bell peppers, weighed after trimming
2 cups white or cider vinegar
3 cups sugar
1.75 oz. Box no sugar needed pectin

Wash the jalapenos and trim the stem end off. Remove the seeds if you want a milder jelly. Give them a rough chop and then pulse them in the food processor until they are finely minced. Be careful, the fumes will be strong, and make sure to wash your hands well after working with hot peppers. Put the peppers into a heavy bottomed pot.

Wash and trim the bell peppers, and remove the inner ribs and seeds. Give them a rough chop and pulse them in a food processor until finely minced. You may want to do this in batches, because I find you get a more even chop if you don’t crowd the bowl. Add the bell peppers to the pot with the jalapenos.

Add the vinegar and sugar to the pot and stir to combine. Bring the pot up to a boil, and then add the pectin. Boil, stirring, for one minute. Ladle the hot liquid into clean jars and set aside to cool before capping and refrigerating. If your pepper bits float to the top, you can give the jelly an occasional stir as it cools to distribute them more evenly. When the jelly is cool, cap and refrigerate the jars. They will thicken as they cool, and even more as they chill. Serve with plenty of creamy goat or cream cheese, and crackers or grilled slices of baguette.

NOTES

This recipe has not been formulated or tested for water bath canning. It will last up to 2 weeks in the refrigerator. For longer storage it can be frozen.  


DILLY BEANS

This easy recipe for refrigerator pickled beans involves zero canning and will help you "put up" the summer bounty in a delicious and snackable way. From Sustainable Cooks.com with a few alterations. https://www.sustainablecooks.com/refrigerated-dilly-beans/

2 pounds green beans, washed and trimmed.  
1 cup white vinegar
1 cup apple cider vinegar
2 cups water
1/4 cup sugar
4 cloves garlic, peeled and halved

1 Tbsp. pickling spices
1 1/2 tsp. Kosher salt
1/2 cup minced onion
4 sprigs fresh dill (dried dill or dill weed will not work)
1/2 tsp black peppercorns
1/2 tsp dried red pepper flakes
2 small chilies {optional}

MAKE THE BRINE:  In a saucepan, bring water, vinegars, salt, sugar, pickling spices, and garlic to a boil. Once the mixture has boiled and the sugar has dissolved, remove from heat, set aside and allow it to come to room temperature.

BLANCH THE GREEN BEANS:  Bring 2 quarts of water to a boil in a medium saucepan.
Add the green beans and allow them to cook for 1 minute.  Drain green beans and immediately put in a bowl of ice water for 5 minutes. Drain the beans again and set aside.

ASSEMBLE THE DILLY BEANS:  Equally divide onions, peppercorns, red pepper flakes, and optional chilies in the bottom of clean jars (2 quart jars or 4 pint jars). Add beans to the jars. Tuck some of the dill amongst the beans.  Pour the brine over the beans, put a lid on the jars and keep them on the counter for 12 hours.  After 12 hours, transfer the jars to the fridge. Allow them to sit in the fridge for 2 days before consuming.

NOTES:  Use the freshest beans you can find.  The fresher the beans, the crispier the finished product.
Beans no bigger than a pencil are best, but not tiny haricot vert.  This recipe is not safe for canning,  but they will keep in the refrigerator for 3 to 6 months.

ROSELLE TEA AND OTHER ROSELLE RECIPES

Find recipes for Roselle tea, Roselle jelly, Roselle sauce, etc., here::

https://northfloridavegheadz.blogspot.com/2019/10/more-about-roselle-and-couple-of-great.html

ZUCCHINI  BREAD

This easy zucchini bread recipe is moist, perfectly sweet, and lightly scented with cinnamon. It is a quick and convenient grab-and-go morning treat or afternoon snack. Plus, it's freezer-friendly!  https://preppykitchen.com/maple-walnut-zucchini-bread/

3 cups all purpose flour (360 g)

1 tsp. baking soda

1 tsp. baking powder

1 tsp. salt

2 tsp. cinnamon

3 large eggs

1 cup packed dark brown sugar (220g)

1/2 cup granulated sugar (100g)

1 cup vegetable oil

4 tsp. vanilla extract

3 cups grated zucchini (390g)

1 1/2 cups chopped walnuts ((180g)

Sprinkle of turbinado sugar (optional)

Preheat oven to 350°F. Line two 8×4-inch loaf pans with parchment paper or spray them with nonstick baking spray.  In a large bowl, whisk to combine the flour, salt, baking soda, baking powder, and cinnamon.

In a medium bowl, beat the eggs and both sugars until smooth and lightened in color. Add the oil and vanilla and whisk to combine. Fold in the grated zucchini.  Pour the wet mixture into the dry, then stir until only a few dry streaks of flour remain. Add the chopped walnuts and stir gently just until no dry streaks of flour remain.

Divide the batter evenly between the two loaf pans and spread it into an even layer. Sprinkle the top of each with turbinado sugar for added sparkle if you wish.  Bake for 55 to 60 minutes, or until a skewer inserted into the center of each loaf comes out clean.  Let the loaves cool in the pan for 5 to 10 minutes. Then, turn them out onto a cooling rack to cool completely.

Demo Garden Open House

It was a beautiful day in the garden at the Leon County UF/IFAS Open House and plant sale. Despite dire predictions of rain and thunderstorms, we squeezed between two systems and managed to have no rain and even a little bit of sunshine. Folks were out in droves and we had many visitors in the VegHeadz garden who enjoyed seeing all that we have accomplished.  We gave away a lot of seeds.  The visitors also enjoyed sampling Roselle tea, dilly beans, pepper jelly, bruschetta, and zucchini bread . Recipes are coming soon as we had many requests. Another favorite activity was harvesting carrots and beets. We’ll let the pictures do the talking.