End of an Era

Hello all!

So we're going to be having our last work party Tuesday, November 8th. Funny how two months pass by so quickly...

I haven't been posting mostly because this semester has been so dense with work. Also, my laptop has been dead for about a month and I've been waiting for it to come back for forever. For now, I will study Anatomy & Physiology and look forward to finishing up this semester of the Garden!

~ jesusnunezx

Connecticut Food Pantry & Hurricane Irene

Hello all!

It's been a rough week.

Most of my time recently was really spent cleaning my room so that my roommate is only put-off by my personality and not the smell of garlic and chives decomposing in the trashcan. Thankfully, Hurricane Irene came along and was a real blessing in at least one sense: Classes and move-in were pushed back a week, meaning I had plenty of time to throw away the 3-day-old tabbouleh in the fridge, get my textbooks and art supplies off my roommate's bed, and Febreeze and Lysol everything to near sterilization before his arrival.

The hurricane wasn't all flying puppies and rainbows, however. Classes and move-in were pushed back a week meaning that was another week of produce that didn't go to our main beneficiary- the cafeteria. There were quite a few harvests before Irene. Fortunately, we gladly donated all the produce that was ready to our local food bank.

Above, a picture of our produce given to the Connecticut Food Bank here in Fairfield. All in all, we harvested more than 90lbs of produce to the Food Bank. Thanks should go to Professor Olivia Harriot of the Biology Department who transported me to the Food Bank one rainy afternoon.

OH, and I also harvested lots of stuff the day before the hurricane because I figured it would all be wiped out. I gave most of it to my Area Coordinator, Greg, and kept some for me to eat during the storm.

As far as damage is concerned, it was surprisingly minimal. Campus wasn't hit nearly as hard as the surrounding areas. The squash were disheveled, and the sunflowers fell over, but nothing was un-salvageable. I imagined worse things would happen honestly. I sort of hoped the squash would just fly away, along with the vine borers, but what can you do?

.

We're alive, and that deserves celebration in and of itself!

~ jesusnunezx

Squash Vine Borer (SVB)

SVB larva!

Hello all!

So this little bug is what has been tormenting me this entire summer:

It flew by completely under our radar until we finally decided to pull out one of the clearly dead Winter Squashes from the ground. We look at the roots and noticed the sawdust-like material known as "frass" in some holes at the base. Frass is poop. This bug has been eating the inside of our Squash for months!

The symptoms that they are inside your plant: your Squash wilts, at first during strong sunlight, but then in the early mornings and evenings when it shouldn't be wilty! The holes and frass at the base and stems are other obvious symptoms. Umm... that's pretty much it! Unfortunately, once they are inside, your Squash is as good as dead.

Best way to manage this pest is through prevention. Below is a picture provided by the University of Minnesota of the adult moth these pests eventually become (1).



They look like wasps, so I guess a lot of people wouldn't thinking of harming them. However, I've never even seen these things! I would have definitely noticed something this colorful in my garden. Anyways, they lay small brown eggs on the stalks and vines of the Squash (2).

Management revolves mostly around prevention. One way to prevent it to plant cucurbitis that aren't typically attacked by SVB. Butternut (what we planted) is supposed to be resistant, but obviously this didn't work out so well for us (1). Cornell University suggests putting in row covers that are anchored down (so the moth won't crawl under) until flowers begin to bloom for pollination (3). A user named vaherbmom on gardenweb.com sugguested having a yellow plate filled with water will attract the moth and drown it - maybe mix the water with some pesticide for extra assurance (4). She also suggested having the stems either wrapped in aluminum foil or smeared with Vapo-Rub so that the moths don't lay eggs on it (4). I've also heard putting a pesticide like BT works as well.

However, we are obviously past the preventive stage of this dilemma. Though there's little chance of survival, the University of Minnesota offers (with little hope!) the suggestion to perform surgery on your plant with scissors or a blade to get the worm out (1). The plant, however, may die from the damage of that itself. Similar to this idea, Cornell says using a sharpened wire and putting in the hole where the borer dug in through can work (3). And finally, my boss said she once heard somewhere that people inject the plant with a pesticide, like bt or entomophagous nematodes, to kill the borer.

So far, we've just performed surgery. I'm not very hopeful for the Winter Squash - especially since the ones that didn't get the borers until later now have Powdery Mildew. I noticed some of our Summer Squash have the holes with frass as well. They've been producing so much though, we're hoping we can get a good amount of produce from them before they shut down.

La vie d'un agriculteur!

Sources:
(1) http://www.extension.umn.edu/distribution/horticulture/M1209.html
(2) http://www.ca.uky.edu/entomology/entfacts/ef314.asp
(3) http://www.cals.cornell.edu/cals/entomology/extension/idl/upload/Squash-Vine-Borer.pdf
(4) http://forums2.gardenweb.com/forums/load/cornucop/msg0614401930990.html

~ jesusnunezx

Recent Press!

Hi all!

Thanks to Margaret McCaffrey for writing this awesome press release for us. Meg has helped us tons throughout the Summer and previously helped us with the garlic harvest.

http://www.fairfield.edu/press/pr_index.html?id=3168

Oh, and freelance writer Eileen Weber wrote about us at Townvibe

http://www.townvibe.com/Blogs/Fairfield/Posts-2011/Another-Garden-in-Fairfield/

~ jesusnunezx

Powdery Mildew

Powdery Mildew

Hello all!

So our Winter Squash have yet another ailment! This time, the all-too-common powdery mildew. The signs and symptoms are pretty obvious. Powdery white stuff, which started off as spots but begin to infest the entire leaf, are seen on the tops and bottoms of leaves. I've also seen it spread to the stems as well, but not the actual fruit itself.

Cornell University says that the best conditions for powdery mildew to develop is when there is dense plant growth, low light intensity, and high relative humidity (1). I guess we are sort of guilty of the denseness of our plants, but we have a very sunny spot that gets dry rather easily. The drip irrigation system helps reduce the relative humidity, but maybe the sometimes disgusting amount of rain we get ruined it. Also, older plants are more susceptible - which makes sense because this is a fairly recent problem for our squash.

Besides looking super ugly, this fungus yellows and begins to kill the leaves. According to UC Davis, powdery mildew in severe cases decreased fruit yields, the harvest period of the plant, and makes for fruit that lacks flavor - possibly because they ripened immaturely or incompletely (2). Colorado State states that removing infected leaves and not composting them will help slow the spread of infection (3). Also, by selectively pruning some of the leaves from the plant, we can reduce the relative humidity so that less leaves get infected. In case we do get a ridiculous amount of Mildew, it is also suggested to use neem oil, or a solution of baking soda (4).

We haven't done anything to the plants, yet. We figured that the mildew won't affect the plant all that much. But I'm interested to see what the baking soda solution will do. It won't hurt to try. Especially since there's something far worse killing our plants at the moment...

Sources:
(1) http://vegetablemdonline.ppath.cornell.edu/factsheets/Cucurbits_PM.htm
(2) http://www.ipm.ucdavis.edu/PMG/PESTNOTES/pn7406.html
(3) http://www.ext.colostate.edu/pubs/garden/02902.html
(4) http://www.simplegiftsfarm.com/powdery-mildew.html

~ jesusnunezx

Why Does Everything I Touch Die?

Hello all!

Why are all of our Winter Butternut Squashes dying? We've had such bad luck with them this entire Summer and I'm just soooooo frustrated with it.

The first time we planted them, it was back in early June; we had a thing where we let kids from Orientation place Squash seeds inside Jiffy Pellets so that they can grow and we can transplant them later. Those died from over-watering. Squash seeds are prone to rotting before they even germinate and thus, why our seeds are covered by an anti-fungal powder. But the powder is no good when you have a disgusting amount of rain drenching the seeds. The very few that didn't rot (I accidently left those indoors, so they were protected from the rain) were quickly transplanted into their current position up on the hill. Here they are dying:

The Second time around, we tried planting the seeds directly to the ground. Of the 30+ or so of seeds we planted, precisely 2 actually germinated. We're not sure why the rest didn't germinate, I tend to think it's because I put them in too deep so they couldn't find their way to the surface and just rotted underground. However, my boss helped plant some seeds too and I know she's good at the whole depth thing, so that's most likely false. Essentially, we don't know why they died. Well, here they are dying:

Finally, we re-seeded everything on the second week of July with great success. Most all of the spots germinated - I was happy. Here they are doing wonderfully.

So, as you can plainly see, we have squashes that grew weeks apart. This is incredibly awkward when it comes to watering because I have some plants that want tons of water, while others don't necessarily need to be drenched. That's why, we think, the older plants are dying. Because they were so dry that they wilted down to a point where those leaves weren't going to bounce back to health. The older ones did recently go to flower, and some are actually making fruit:

But even those flowers are dying:

It could be that the flower wasn't pollinated, but I've seen so many pollinators in our garden, that I just can't believe that to be true. It could be too dry, but ever since we diagnosed the Squash problem, I've been wetting them like crazy. Maybe now they are too wet? I did actually cause some of our peppers to get root-rot from over-watering. I'm not sure anymore of anything anymore.

I normally don't like advertising all the bad that's going on in the Garden, but it's therapeutic. Fairfield loves reflection and the good it does. Maybe one day I will reflect on this issue and say: "wow, I put in so much work and they all ended up alive and well". OR, more likely, I will say: "wow, I put in so much work and they all shriveled up and died, mocking me for my efforts". Either way, I know this:

It's good to be a farmer.

~ jesusnunezx

Tomato Hornworm

Hello all!

So The Bosses and I found this thing when I was trying to figure out why my plum tomato plant looked so awful way back when.

At first we thought it was a disease that was killing the plant, but then we found the evidence below.

Their poop looks like little grenades. This guy had plenty of food to process too! He ate half a tomato and a very good amount of my plant. This is surprising to me because I've seen so many predatory wasps flying around who would otherwise parasitise this fat blob.

Below, a picture (provided by the University of Minesota) of what the caterpillar would look like if it was parasitised:

If you see the caterpillar like this, it is suggested you let it live! This way, the little wasps eat him alive and you have more of these beneficial insects to parasitise more hornworms. Furthermore, lady beetles and green lacewings love munching on their eggs - which are smooth, oval shaped light green eggs which (I've been told) are laid on the underside of tomato leaves.

I decided to keep this guy as a pet, by the way. He had an entire bucket and spare cherry tomato plant to himself (seen below).

However, the idiot ran away. He didn't know how good he had it. Boss told me when they do pupate, they burrow underground (which is a good reason why you should till your soil). However, when I completely dumped the bucket and sifted through the dirt, I found nothing! So he either ran away to a better host (as if one exists...) or was eaten by an eagle. I sincerely hope for the latter.

PS: I would also like to refer you to a post I made a long time ago when I freaked out about a moth that I thought was eating my plants, but was in fact just laying the seeds that would in fact grow fulfill my greatest fears. Below, what the moth actually looks like:

Source:

http://www.extension.umn.edu/distribution/horticulture/M1224.html

~ jesusnunezx

Cherry Tomato Trellis & Pruning

Hello all,

Due to a Google screw up, I haven't written here in a while because I couldn't log in and just got plain too frustrated with technology to deal with it until now. So much has happened since I last wrote - good and bad.

Let's start with the good: our cherry tomatoes are growing wonderfully. They have put on so much growth, we made a fancy string trellis system so that they could stand up nice and neat.

LOOK:

 

I also learned how to prune tomatoes:

Basically, keep the "sucker" that's below the first flower cluster and kill all others. This sucker will become bigger and will be the second "leader". So the entire plant will eventually become Y-shaped when that sucker is grown (it's way easier to prune at this point).

Pruning helps maximize yields of produce by being efficient on where the energy of the plant goes to and minimize the risk of catching diseases. It also makes the plants look neater, and I'm sure it's a lot easier to keep them supported as well. You can view how I learned how to do this and how we made the trellis system in the video by Johnny's Seeds here.

~jesusnunezx

Lunch in the Garden/Garlic Harvest

Hello all!

Here are some highlights from this afternoon:

Danielle Corea (back left), Melissa Quan (back right), Suzanne Klaf (middle right), and Margaret McCaffrey (front right) came for lunch. That's me, with my Home Depot fanny pack thing, eating a cherry on the left.

Suzanna shared some fancy foreign chocolates with us, while Melissa brought some yummy cherries.

Then we picked Garlic...

Biology professors Tod Osier and Jen Klug, my bosses, are seen loosening the soil with shovels.

To the right, you can see child labor at its best  Gus Osier picking up the garlic.

 That's a keeper!

Suzanne and Daniel tying up the garlic into bundles.

Wheelbarrow of yum, ready to be stored for the Fall.

To the right, the garlic is shown drying, a step in the storing process. Yay!











If you would like see all of the pictures from today, please visit our Garden Picassa Album.

~ jesusnunezx

"The Fairfield Experience"

Hello all!

Apparently, The Garden is included in it! I think this video was shown at Orientation to freshmen. Yay free publicity.



Skip to 2:20 to see us being mentioned. Jim Fitzpatrick & Jen Klug can be seen planting stuff. And I'm pretty sure our blue wheelbarrow is seen from a distance at 4:45. Why am I this obsessed?

~jesusnunezx

Super Quick Update!

Sad :(

Happy :)

Hello all!

Above is the difference between transplanting tomatoes at 12PM and 6PM!

Above, we have rows in; they have plastic mulch; tomatoes are in; summer squash are a go; winter squash finally live; zuchinni is growing as I write.

We have guests!

 YAY!

Lentil Poblano Soup

Hello all!

I finally decided to make a dish out of my harvests. I had harvested my poblano pepper a while back; meanwhile, I had lentils just sitting in my cupboard, perfectly neglected because my nights are more often spent eating lord knows what rather than devouring a wholesome meal. I decided that my kitchen, which is being better equipped with gadgets every week, needs to be put to use. And what better way than by cooking up some good'ol yummy soup!

The poblano added some nice heat to an otherwise mundane meal. Oh, and I used garlic from the garden too! Oh, and I could've used some herbs, like my cilantro that's bolting like crazy - but I keep forgetting to bring some home :P

This recipe was adapted from the back of a Goya Lentil bag. The original can be found here.

• 1 Chicken Breast
• 4 Cups of Water
• 2 Tbsp of Oil
• 1 small Onion, chopped
• 2 Cloves of Garlic, minced
• 1 Poblano, chopped
• 1/4 Pound of Lentils (The bag says 1/2 pound... that seemed a lot so I guesstimated 1/4 - didn't measure!)
• 1 handful of chopped Mushrooms (I carelessly through these in because they were getting old!)
• Salt and pepper to taste

1. Boil Chicken Breast in the 4 Cups of water to make some delicious broth for later.
2. Remove Chicken Breast and strip it of its flesh. Chop meat and have it aside for later.
3. In a different medium sized sauce pan, heat the Oil.
4. Stir in the Onion, Garlic, Chicken, Poblano, and Mushrooms and cook until tender.
5. Add broth to the pan and lentils.
6. Bring to a boil, then reduce heat, cover and simmer until the soup is thick and the lentils are tender.

Eat with buttered bread. Enjoy!

~ jesusnunezx

Caramelized Shallots with deglazed Mushrooms Taco

Hello all!

Never before have I been convinced that eating a dish would be considered a carnal sin until I stumbled upon this gem. Just smelling it gave me odd and awkward shivers. I am no cook, but I was so impressed with myself on this little meal, that I was honestly compelled to write at 12:30AM for no other reason than to share this delight tout le monde.

However, why I am so impressed by this recipe is more because of how cheap the ingredients were and how simple and approachable it is. Keep in mind, I am in college. And while I do have a wonderful job that pays... well, I'm not sure how much... for the most part, I'm broke! Namely, this is why the proportions for the ingredient list is so small. It's really meant for one person. I buy food as I need it. Also, it's why some the ingredients are different from the original source of this recipe. Obtaining good red wine is difficult when underaged, and I forgot to buy some things or didn't feel like getting them. So I just improvised - a lot.

Ultimately, after all the alterations, I made something beautiful. Dinner!

Ingredients:

Adapted from Smitten Kitchen who adapted it from Ina Garten

• 1 Tbs of Butter (I used SmartBalance spread-something-or-other... I was being a nutrition freak at the time)
• 1 Tbs of Oil (I used Vegetable, Olive would have been really nice though)
• 2 or 3 Shallots, peeled, with roots intact
• 1 Tbs of Honey
• 1 Tbs of Balsamic Vinegar
• 1/2 Cup of White Mushrooms
• 2 Small-ish tortillas 
• 1 Tbs or so of Garlic Scape Pesto, optional (but entirely necessary!)
• Cheese, optional (I used a 3 cheese Mexican Blend)
• 2 tbs of Cilantro (original recipe calls for Parsley, but I wanted it to be a little more Mexican-y)
• 1/2 tsp of Kosher Salt
• 1/2 tsp of freshly ground Black Pepper

Preheat oven to 400 degrees F.

1. In a saucepan at medium heat, insert oil and butter. Let butter melt completely.
2. Add shallots and toss it around a bit to coat in oil/butter. Let brown.
3. Add honey, salt, and pepper. Continue tossing shallots to further coat in yumminess.
4. Place pan in oven and roast for 15 - 25 minutes until tender.
5. Remove shallots from pan and place in tortilla, deglaze bottom of pan with vinegar
6. Place in white mushrooms and let cook for 5 - 10 minutes
7. Add mushrooms on tortilla with the shallots, put some of the sauce from the pan in taco
8. Put Pesto on taco and add cheese of your choice
9. Sprinkle Cilantro (or Parsley) onto taco
10. Salt and Pepper to taste

ENJOY

~ jesusnunezx

Lots of photos!

Baby Squash

Hello all!

I just wanted to share some photos of what we have so far in the garden, for those of you who haven't had the chance to stop by. First, above is a winter squash plant that is showing its first true leaves.

Here are rows of some shallots. I already have a recipe in mind for these yummy little things.

Hard-neck garlic, who's scapes made a delicious pesto

Sweet Basil to be sprinkled on delicious Italian food

My Roma plum tomato plant with a little baby tomato getting ready to be a nice fat juicy fruit for some tasty sauce.

The whole tomato plant, looking super green and lively!

Lima beans to sweeten up my salads!

Swissh Chard looking really pretty, although kinda bitter for my tastes

Above, a giant poblano. Soon enough, it will be stuffed with some rice and beans!

~jesusnunezx

The Garden has a new toy!

Hello all!

This Garden is more magical, or at the very least, far less deceptive than Santa Clause. I get new toys to play with!

A new house....

And a picnic table for tea time!!!!

Although the table on the right is missing an entire seat... I never said the Garden was thorough.

~ jesusnunezx