Garden Progress

The garden is booming and plants are growing! We've had several struggles and many successes. About 40% of the carrots we planted did not grow, so we tried to replant them. Hardly any of our lettuce sprouted and we planted them twice. 

Madeleine's Bok Choi from her personal plot

salvaged baby lettuce

hot peppers

 Our squash has (most likely) been attacked by nasty root borers. Root borers are what happens when certain moths lay their eggs by the stem of a squash plant. The larvae will hatch and borough their way into the stem, eating their way up the inside of the plant, and eventually (most likely) kill it. But that's not all! Once they've finished snacking on our squash, their borough into the ground, hibernate throughout winter, only to hatch as moths the next spring and start the whole process again! We don't recommend planting squash next year.

the stem of this squash plant has been split open and turned grey. the green parts are still healthy and haven't been infected

We especially don't recommend planting squash next to cucumber like we did. Cucumbers often attract the cucumber beetles, which carry a contagious fungus that looks like a white haze when it spreads on the cucumber leaves. This also affects the leaves of the squash plants. Yay.

affected squash leaves

Despite these difficulties, our baby tomatoes are swelling up and we've had our first harvests of cucumbers and beans.

first bean!

We had so many cucumbers one day that we had to pickle some!

Ingredients:

• 2 ½ cups distilled white vinegar
• 2 cups water
• 1/8^th cup kosher salt (its very important to use kosher or pickling salt. Regular table salt has iodine in it which will mess up the pickling process)
• fresh dill (2-3 sprigs per jar)
• celery seeds
• 3-4 cloves chopped garlic (fresh from the South Hadley community garden!)
• our delicious cucumbers! (we cut them into quarters. About 30 small pickling cucumbers fit into 8 pint-sized jars)
• jars, rings, and lids (we used pint-sized jars)

our cucumber harvest

pretty exciting fresh garlic

chopping the cucumbers

THIS GARLIC IS SO EXCITING IT'S PURPLE!

So first we boiled some water to sterilize the jars, lids, and rings

then we mixed the vinegar, salt, and water to create the brine. (pictured above next to the pot with all the jars)

We remove one jar from the boiling water, stuff it with cucumbers (make sure that they're packed tight! We don't want them moving around at all or floating in the brine), add 2-3 sprigs of dill, 2 pinches of chopped garlic, and 1 pinch of celery seeds. This all needs to be done while the jars are hot so that way we reduce the risk of the glass cracking when the boiling brine is added.

Once all the ingredients are together in the jar, we pour the brine over the cucumbers leaving about a half an inch of space at the top.Next, we take a lid and a ring from the boiling water, screw it on the jar that's ready (tight, but not too tight!) and then put it back in the boiling water. This heats up the contents of the container, including the air inside, such that it expands and escapes. We left the jars in there for about 10 minutes.

After they're removed, they are dried off and left to cool. The air contracts as it cools so it seals the container such that the lid is unable to make the usual “popping” noise. The pickles should be undisturbed for 1-2 weeks (to soak in the ingredients) and then the jars are good for about a year (or until they're opened, and then a few months in the fridge). If the jars don’t seal properly, put them directly in the fridge.  

That was from our first big harvest of cucumbers and I foresee us making many jars of pickles in the future! I hope to be selling them at the farmer's market when they're ready.

-Kayla