Beets – 6/7/2025

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I harvested enough beets to can 7 pints today. Planted: https://gallistead.com/2025/02/06/carrots-radish-lettuce-and-beets-planted-2-6-2025/

The recipe was pretty simple:

  • Place beets in a large stockpot with water to cover. Bring to a boil, and cook until tender, about 15 minutes.
  • Drain beets, reserving 2 cups of beet water. When beets are cool enough to handle, peel and discard skins. Fill each sterilized jar with beets.
  • Combine 2 cups of sugar, 2 cups of beet water, 1 quart of white vinegar, and 1 tablespoon of salt in a large saucepan; bring to a rapid boil.
  • Pour the hot brine over the beets in the jars, and seal the lids.
  • Place a rack in the bottom of a large stockpot and fill halfway with water. Bring to a boil over high heat, then carefully lower the jars into the pot using a holder. Leave a 2-inch space between the jars. Pour in more boiling water if necessary until the water level is at least 1 inch above the tops of the jars. Bring the water to a full boil, cover the pot, and process for 10 minutes.

92 melons planted – 5/18/2025

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The initial cantaloupes I planted 6 days ago have sprouted. See https://gallistead.com/2025/05/12/melons-planted-5-12-2025/ for list of the 15 varieties of cantaloupe, muskmelon, and honeydew melon I planted. Over the weekend, I also planted watermelon and added drip tape to the area too. I have 92 sites where I planted 3 to 5 seeds each. Once the plants are growing for a few weeks, I’ll remove all but 2 vines at each site.

Ten Varieties of Watermelon

  • Jubilee
  • Jubimax
  • Legacy
  • Callifornia Sweet Bush
  • Orange Glo
  • Tendersweet Orange
  • Ali Baba
  • Sugar Baby
  • Crimson Sweet
  • Willhite’s Sweetheart

I like to use a handful of moist potting soil that way when they sprout I know for sure that it’s the seeds I planted not weeds.

Peppers and Eggplant Transplanted – 4/14/2025

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These poor pepper plants have lived a rough life indoors recently. They have been infested with aphids. I’ve tortured them / washed them multiple times, sprayed with alcohol solution, but haven’t been able to get it under control. It finally warmed up enough for me to set them outdoors, and that seems to have attracted enough predator insects to put the problem in control. This afternoon, I planted 20 of them in my the space I had in my front-yard raised beds. Varieties of pepper are: mild jalapeño, TAM jalapeño, standard jalepeno, Red Corno Di Toro, and a sweet bell pepper mix. The eggplant is black beauty. The tomatoes that I transplanted on 2/22 are huge now and have fruit on them.

Comparison of new soil with old soil

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I started off this year with an experiment of 2 identical raised beds. In one, I moved in garden soil from an established raised bed, and in the other, I filled with brand new soil mix from Living Earth. I planted 2 different varieties of onion on 2/2 and planted carrots, radish, lettuce, and beets on 2/6. We had pretty bad freezing weather for multiple days that killed a lot of the seedlings and about half of the onions. You can see in the picture how much better the oil soil performs. The new soil has a lot of wood bark in it, and that wood is tying up all the nitrogen while decomposing. I’ve added blood meal to help, but you can see what a difference in growth is between the two.

Goji Berry Transplanted, Red Mulberry – 3/16/2025

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I decided I didn’t like where I planted the 2 goji berry plants. They are in the way of the in-ground garden and one of them was growing so big it was getting into the lawn mower storage area. I dug them up and transplanted them to the area where the chicken pen will be located.

The root system was huge and I was able to separate off multiple rootings that were sizeable. I planted 11 of them around the perimeter of the new chicken pen. My plan is to let the chickens graze on the fruit when it is ripe. The fruit is hard to harvest because it is so tiny… it takes a lot of effort and each fruit is about the size of a raisin, so it is not worth the time, but the chickens are very good at harvesting and they love it too.

I while back, I ordered some trees from cold stream farm. The 2 red mulberry plants are planted on the west border of the new chicken pen. These trees should grow pretty fast and will provide shade that the chickens appreciate. Mulberry trees are messy, their fruit drops and stains the ground wherever they land. But this seems like a good tree to have hanging over a chicken pen… the chickens will clean up any fruit!

17 tomatoes planted – 3/15/2025

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First I rolled the back garden and hilled it in rows. 

Within 3 hours of Aiden’s help, we had the valleys filled with wood chips

Next I trimmed off all the lower branches, dug shallow trenches and laid the tall tomato seedlings in the trenches.

It was a fairly windy day, and none of these plants were properly hardened off, so I hope they turn out ok.

6 tomatoes planted in ground – 2/22/2025

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The day after freezing weather I decided to rush it and go ahead and put a few plants in the ground.  I used some walls of water — these covers create a microclimate that lets you plant outdoors earlier than normal.  They are a thermal mass that heats during the day and then return that heat to the plant at night.  They also protect from direct sun and wind.  I didn’t harden these plants off at all, went directly from the warm cozy house and grow lights to directly outside.  We’ll see how it works out!

It got down to 33° last night and the plants look happy this morning no problems detected.

I didn’t take a picture of the 4 additional tomatoes I planted in the raised bed in front of the house.

Tomato and pepper seedlings – 2/17/2025

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All my seedlings seem to be doing great.  I have 2 grow lights and 2 shelves of plants.

The tomato plants I started 5 weeks ago are bigger than what I normally buy in a store.  I seeded them too early.  Now I have to deal with these plants that are too big and take up too much space.

I moved all the seedlings I planted 3 weeks ago to bigger pots.  They should be about the right size when I’m ready to put them outside.