Kara's Garden

Hello again everyone!

Hello fellow gardeners! Sorry I haven't written in a while- I've been a busy bee at work! My poor garden has been sorely neglected, so we have moved to a fruit extravaganza with strawberries, blueberries, pineapples and an assortment of fruit trees instead of the constant maintenance of vegetables. I will try to post more updates soon!

Borrowing from Gardening Fool, I just had to repost this link.

www.whatsonyourfood.org

This site will tell you what pesticides are commonly found on different kinds of commercially available produce. It will definitely make you think about starting a veggie garden of your own...

I checked on the parsley today, and it is even more stubby than yesterday. These guys are making short work of my little herbs. I have both the large green spotted caterpillars, which are older, and the little black ones with a white stripe.

Here they are munching on my parsley.


When these caterpillars get upset (I don't know what upsets a caterpillar really, other than bugging it... get it? Ugh, that one was bad...) they put out these little orange 'horns' and excrete a musk that smells bad. I didn't smell anything, but this guy is obviously not a happy camper...

Today I was meandering through the garden, contemplating its destruction. I was thinking about what to pull out when, and feeling a little sad. Then I saw my flat leaf parsley plant! The day before yesterday, no lie, this guy was practically a bush. I checked my curly leaf parsley, same thing!
Get out the insecticide? NO WAY. These are Black Swallowtail caterpillars!I remember seeing one a week or so ago, floating around looking kind of droopy. She must have laid her eggs! Thank goodness I haven't had time to spray the garden (not that the parsley gets much spraying)! When these guys 'grow up,' they will look like this gorgeous butterfly (this picture is from www.butterflygardeningandconservation.com). I even pulled Carl up from the couch to check out our little chewers!

In Master Gardener training, I heard that these caterpillars can decimate a parsley plant in just a few days. I thought they were exaggerating, but they weren't! This plant was huge just a few days ago.

Black swallowtails like parsley and dill for their eggs. Other butterflies use different plants, for example the Monarch will only lay eggs on milkweed plants, because that is the only thing their caterpillars will eat. I had already removed my dill because it was running to seed- I should have kept it!

Butterflies and caterpillars are sort of like the 'canary in the coal mine' when it comes to ecological conservation. They are very sensitive to small environmental changes, so environmentalists use them as an example of what can happen because of global warming, pollution, and more. I sure hope I get to see all of these babies develop into pretty butterflies!

Well, I finally decided to give this whole canning thing a try!

Down here in Zone 10b, where the summer is so hot you can fry an egg on your FACE, my poor little vegetable garden is starting to die off. Since I can't look forward to fresh jalapenos, I'm going to 'put them up' so we can use them for 'deer nuggets.' I'll post the recipe when the first deer is killed this fall!

So, I read online all about canning, and then I found the instructions right on the back of the Ball jar container. Duh. But, Ball does have a nice website that has some great recipes for pickles and things. Looks like I'll have more to do this fall when I start the next garden!

Basically (it seems), you make a recipe for canning, put it in the jar, cook the full jars according to that recipe, take them out and TA DA! Canned food! Obviously, that is the condensed version (get it? HA! Sorry, I couldn't help myself).

I went all over the web trying to find a recipe for putting up jalapenos, but to no avail. Finally I came across how to preserve peperonchinis, which seem sorta like jalapenos, so I used that recipe. It was really, really simple- 2 cups water, 2 cups vinegar, and a little salt. Cook that just below boiling point, then fill hot jars with fresh jalapenos (I sliced mine in half, or you can slit them so the liquid can get inside the pepper), pour the hot vinegar mixture over the top leaving about 1/4 inch from the top of the jar. Put the lids on, then boil the jars for 15 minutes. Remove from heat, let them stand overnight (at least) without touching them, since the heat can make the glass fragile. And there you go!

Now, my first batch came out RIDICULOUSLY hot. I mean, fall on the floor and roll around spicy. Even Carl couldn't eat them. So I packed them up and gave them to my dad as an early father's day gift (love ya, Dad!). So, if you don't want fire engine hot, REMOVE THE SEEDS before you put up hot peppers!

I've been worried about this little guy. He hasn't been very happy since I got him, and I've been watching and waiting for some sign of life from the poor guy.

If you look at this photo, you'll see the sad old leaves that are cracking and just looking generally pathetic. But, if you look a little closer, you can see the new leaves starting to come out along the tops!
The instructions that were sent with this plant said not to repot it until there was new growth. I know it is time to move it, but it was so sickly for so long that I'm afraid to move it!

Miracle fruit, as I said in my previous post, is a small red berry that, after eating it, will make anything else you eat taste sweet for 15 minutes to an hour. It will take this little guy another year before it will produce any berries, but I feel much better about it now that the new leaves are coming out!