Vegetable Garden: Melons and Peppers

There really is more in my garden than tomatoes, really! I know, the one vegetable I talk about the most is the tomato but I do try to diversify my garden. I dabble with the herbs, I really dig ornamentals, but you might also say I like a mean melon. Unfortunately this year my melons haven't been as perfect as I had hoped. The perfect gardening season would provide my family with fruit for breakfast from spring through fall frost but either I've failed in my garden this year or the weather has failed me. Most likely it's a combination of events. Fortunately we still have plenty of time to make a few good melons.

Among the melons we are trying to grow this year are the Old Time Tennessee Melon - which I'm sure is very tasty (at least that's what the rabbit who ate this one would tell me.) Fortunately we have more coming that I'm planning on getting to before the rodents do.

We have this small baseball sized melon of some unknown variety. I honestly can't recall if I planted this one or if it grew from a previous melon planting. It's a little small to be much more than a snack but hey, a melon's  a melon!

What would a garden be without everyone's favorite? The Watermelon! This one is a 'Moon and Stars' heirloom watermelon like I grew last year. The outside rind of the melon has spots just like the foliage does.The fruit is very tasty!

Peppers grow here too. This one began as purple then gradually turned red. The taste is pretty good. My favorite way to prepare peppers is to saute them up with onions and add them into my omelets! (Along with a healthy* portion of mushrooms and cheese of course! And throw a little bacon or ham in there too if you have it.)

Let's not forget about the hot peppers either! These cayenne peppers are extremely hot. They burn my fingers just by touching them when dicing. My favorite use for hot cayenne peppers? Deer repellent! A little cayenne pepper tea spray every now and then on the deer's favorite delicacies of the garden works wonders.

That's the end of this quick update from the vegetable garden. Soon it will be time to get the fall garden going. The temperatures are a little more tolerable and the rains have been coming - welcome news for any gardener!

*Healthy describes a large amount of food in this case not necessarily something that is the epitome of health! ;)

'Old Time Tennessee' Melon

This was definitely the year for trying new melons, at least here at The Home Garden. Yesterday I showed you the 'Tigger' melon we grew and tasted, today let's welcome 'Old Time Tennessee' to the blog! Where the 'Tigger' melon is small, compact, and tasty 'Old Time Tennessee' is large, football shaped (perfect for football season), and tasty.  You will notice that both of these have one thing in common - tasty! 'Old Time Tennessee' is much more like the traditional musk melon (what most people call cantaloupe) in taste than little 'Tigger'.

'Old Time Tennessee' melon

 
The flesh is orange (also good for football time in Tennessee) and the rind is a soft brown color. Don't pick 'OTT' when green, it tastes like a cucumber (I accidentally did that, my eagerness got the best of me).  The rind is thin and easy to cut through which can be dangerous if you are competing with critters (like rabbits) for your garden produce. Frequent monitoring of the garden will result in a bounty of fruit. While I have one 'Old Time Tennessee' melon in my custody there are at least four others soon to be ripe on the vine.

As far as pests go, I did have trouble this year with the squash vine borer on my squash plants but they have completely avoided my 'Old Time Tennessee' melons. You can't count that as an official study in vine borer resistance for these melons but you can at least take comfort that if there are other things available for the borers to get maybe they will attack them first and spare the melons! I also planted zinnias and nasturtium as companion plants which may have had a significant impact. (Don't forget to consider companion planting when planning your vegetable garden.)

I'm saving seed for these melons too so those who wanted 'Tigger' melons will find themselves with bonus melon seeds in the mail!

'Tigger' Melon - Light and Sweet

Every year I try something new in the vegetable garden. When I was selecting seeds back in the dormant season I ran across this small melon called 'Tigger'.  Of course as a parent with three children anything with the name 'Tigger' catches my attention. The 'Tigger' melon was described in the Baker Creek catalog as "vibrant yellow with brilliant fire-red, zigzag stripes."  It's appearance is a little less fancy than hyped in the catalog but that could be due to different growing conditions or a variety of other factors. But it is an orange and yellowish (or maybe orange-yellow) striped melon.  According to the description the seed was found in an Armenian Market.  It's always neat to learn a little about the history around the seeds.

I have my 'Tigger' melons growing on one of our cucumber and melon trellises. When the fruit is ripe the melons simply drop from the vine into the raised bed below.  The small melons rapidly grow to form the green striped melon in the picture below.

After a few days the skin begins to change color into a ruddy orange-green color hinting at the final stages of the fruit.

And when it is ripe it falls to the ground ready to be eaten by a hungry family!  I put this melon in the refrigerator right away to begin chilling.

When sliced open it reveals a while flesh with a thin outer skin. The center has lots of seed perfect for saving (or sharing, more on that in a minute!) The melon's flesh has a light and sweet taste perfect for breakfast!  

I will definitely plant this melon in my garden again. It's flavor may not be the strongest but I kind of like the light sweetness of the fruit. It's not overpowering and would delicious to eat just about any time of the day.


Would you like some seeds?  If so comment below!  I'm sure I can have enough seed for 5 participants to win and maybe more, I'll see what I can do.  Comment by the end of the day on Monday August 8th if you want some 'Tigger' Melon seeds.

I wouldn't recommend that this 'Tigger' bounce!

Original Seeds were purchased from Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds and have been grown organically in my garden.

Weekend Garden Chore: The Vegetable Garden

Over the last two months life has thrown many curveballs that have beaned the batter on numerous occasions. You would think that I'd be making some runs here or there but unfortunately I seem to be getting out at third every time. What does this baseball analogy have to do with anything? Well sometimes we get taken away from what we'd like to to in order to see to things we have to do. Which means something gets neglected and much to my dismay lately it's been the vegetable garden. How bad is it you wonder? (Don't worry I can't read your mind, I'm just guessing that that is what you're thinking.) It's pretty bad.

Weeds are everywhere including the most vexing garden invader to inhabit the United States of America: Bermuda grass. This stuff is nothing short of pure evil when it gets into a garden. The runners go everywhere and every last piece of root has to be removed or else the grass from "you know where" goes "you know where" --- in the garden beds!

Gardener's Advice: NEVER PLANT BURMUDA GRASS INTENTIONALLY IF YOU WANT A GARDEN!

Yes there is a garden under that Bermuda grass!

It's enough to tempt a gardener to use some glyphosate. I'll refrain for now. I think I'll see what some good old fashioned hand weeding can do to this mess. 

'Tigger' Melons

The good news is that despite the tomatoes that desperately need tied up and the weed invasion - the garden is producing. We've harvested lots of orange 'Sungold' tomatoes that I got from Renee's Garden, which are one of the most delicious cherry tomatoes I've had. The melons are producing well too including 'Tigger', 'Old Time Tennessee', and 'Sierra Gold' cantaloupes. None of these are fit to harvest yet but if things go well I can see eating some delicious melons form the garden very, very soon.

The cucumbers are producing at an extremely alarming rate too - nothing wrong with that! Some are pickling cucumbers which were also from Renee's Garden and others are plain regular cucumbers from the Greenland Gardener Kit. I need to give you an update on that garden bed soon. 

The trellises I built for the cucumbers are doing fantastic! They are heavy enough to withstand the 50-60 mph winds like we had last night and perfect for climbing vine vegetables like cucumbers and melons.

One other issue with garden neglect is the monster cucumbers that continue to grow until someone gets out there to pick them!

Needless to say I have my work cut out for me this weekend, but all that really matters in the vegetable garden is what its produces in the end - yum!

'Red Zebra' tomato

Homemade Cucumber or Melon Trellises

I've been trying for several weeks now to get my garden trellises built for the vegetable garden. This weekend I finally managed to put two together, one for my cucumbers and one for my 'Tigger' melons. Building these two trellises can easily be done in just a few hours. I had to decide how high I wanted them to be and what kind of configuration I wanted. I was considering a simple 'A' frame design but instead went with this modified structure here:

The legs of the trellis are 5 feet long and the top horizontal bar is 24 inches. The base of the trellis stands at 45 inches and is 33 inches wide. The dimensions are designed to fit inside two 4'x3' raised beds. Making the first side was a little tricky but once I had spaced it out and screwed it together I used it as a template for the other three trellis sides I needed to make.

I opted to go with a homemade mesh made from garden twine or jute. Mostly because the price for simple garden twine is less than three dollars per roll and can be tossed into the compost bin at the end of the growing season. My first attempt (below) at weaving the mesh didn't look so hot but the second one turned out much better (above). I tied the vertical strings first then weaved the horizontal strings through so that each horizontal string wrapped tightly around each vertical string.

We had some extremely high winds this weekend after I built the trellises and they held up fine. These structures should last several seasons and can be covered with plastic in the winter time to extend the growing season as if they were small greenhouses. The total cost for both trellises was less than $35. Most of the wood was purchased for this project but a few pieces came from leftover scrap lumber used on previous projects.

What kind of garden trellis do you use?

An Afternoon in the Vegetable Garden

It's been a good while since I had a couple hours to "maintain" the vegetable garden. Ideally I would take 20 minutes each day to weed, search the garden for problems, weed, prune, weed, and tie up tomatoes. Yes you may have noticed quite a few weeds, let's just say so did I! Today I did a little bit of all that, not enough, but I've made headway into the realm of the tidy gardens.

We're beginning to see vegetables ready for harvesting.  The squash is now producing. We lost the zucchini during the three weeks without water that began the month of June. My irrigation wasn't set up to go to that bed and as the business of life took over the gardener with the garden hose wasn't as diligent. I may have to fire that gardener and get a new one, oh wait...

Today I pulled the first onion onion of the year. I love red onions! They are probably my favorite onion for cooking or grilling smothered in olive oil. Red onions seem to caramelize better than other onions and end up with a sweet and slightly tangy flavor. I planted it from small seed onions in the spring.

I pulled a few small carrots from one raised garden bed. They were planted in the same bed with some tomatoes because as that popular companion planting book says "Carrots Love Tomatoes"! My carrots were a combination of 'Nantes' and 'Cosmic Purple'. Purple carrots are really orange on the inside but the outside sure looks neat. Unfortunately I think a vole has taken a bite out of one carrot.

I found these little seed like eggs on our winter squash. Squash bugs. I found the nymphs on the undersides of the leaves and sprayed some insecticidal soap on them. Squash bugs love to suck the juices out of the leaves and fruits of the garden. I wrote a little more about them today at The Tennessee Gardener Magazine blog.

Here's what those eggs turn into (squash bug nymphs, don't they just make your skin crawl?):

On the same plant I've found squash vine borer damage. This squash won't be around much longer.








Not to be confused with piles of "weed", this pile of weeds came from various areas of the garden. The vegetable garden was definitely overdue for a good weeding.

My melon beds are lush and full of big green foliage. Something tells me I need more garden space!  These are also the raised beds with the onions in them. I'll leave the onions in the ground as long as I can and use them as I need them.

I planted some zinnias seed in the vegetable garden in a few places.  If you look close you'll notice some Japanese beetles and their damage on the zinnia - better the zinnias than my musk melons!

Our pickling cucumbers need trellising. Maybe this weekend I'll finally get an opportunity to do that. Last weekend I went to put the trellis together and rain came pouring down. We needed the rain but couldn't it have waited 30-45 minutes?




This small melon vine is called 'Tigger'. The bright red and orange fruit gets up to about a pound and is supposed to be very sweet. I can't wait to give them a try! No flowers yet but maybe soon.

What do you think, do Tiggers bounce?

5 Vegetables I Will Always Grow In My Garden! (The Friday Fives)

It probably seems early and with scattered snow it certain feels early but it's never too early to start thinking about the vegetable garden! Store bought vegetables just don't thrill me the way the fresh garden picked varieties do. It makes sense when you consider that garden grown vegetables don't have to be picked days before use just to be shipped across the country.  The other huge advantage is that you know exactly what chemicals have or have not been on your vegetables!  Peace of mind is priceless isn't it?  That's enough with why you should grow vegetables in the backyard, side yard or anywhere in your vicinity - at least for today (I sense another Friday Five post coming on that topic!)  Let's take a look at the five vegetables that I will always plant in our raised beds!

1. 

   Woodle Orange Tomato

   Let's start the list off right with my all item favorite - tomatoes!  If you consider the garden a meal, the tomatoes are the main course.  We use the tomatoes for pizza sauce, spaghetti sauce, and for canning but by far the most typical use for our tomatoes is between two slices of bread, slathered with mayo, a little bacon, and often a couple delicious slices of turkey!  Of course taking a slice of tomato with mozzarella cheese and dressing it with balsamic vinegar is a delicious appetizer that can run you upward of $8 at some restaurants.  We gardeners can do that much cheaper - and more deliciously!  There are some regular varieties we grow every year like Brandywine, Cherokee Purple, and now Woodle Orange but we always try to add a new variety or two each year.  I stopped planting cherry tomatoes with one exception: Sungold.  Sungolds are one of the tastiest cherry tomatoes around and they're orange too.  I've heard that orange is a popular color around here...



Rouge D'Hiver Romaine Lettuce

2. Another vegetable we grow every year is Romaine lettuce.  We like the Romaine lettuces as opposed to  head forming lettuces because of the ability to cut and come again!  With Romaines you can pull a few leaves from a few plants, make a salad, and come back a week later for more.  The variety I like the most is Rouge D'Hiver which actually comes back on its own if you let it go to seed, and you should!  The flowers are an attractive addition to the summer garden (so long as the deer don't eat them).  When sowing lettuce I typically scatter sow lettuce a cleared area rather than work in rows. Lettuce seeds are small and don't need much (if any) soil covering them to get growing.



Summer Squash

3. Yellow Summer Squash is another vegetable we try to grow every year.  We aren't always successful as the pests for cucurbit crops are numerous.   Curcurbits include many of the vining vegetables like cucumbers, squash, pumpkins, and melons.  The biggest pest for our squash is the vine borer.  To prevent them row covers are an option but the bees can't get into the plant area to pollinate them which becomes an issue.  Bt injections reportedly help once an infestation is present but I've never tried it.  Squash bugs are also an issue but can be removed by hand or crushed when you find clusters of eggs under the leaves.  Even with all the issues we still try to grow yellow squash because of its delicious buttery taste! Breaded squash medallions fried in olive oil and good but mostly we just grill them with a coating of olive oil sea salt and pepper.  Are you getting hungry yet?



Cantaloupe

4. Musk Melons!  That's right I said musk melons!  Otherwise known as cantaloupe, musk melons provide us with our morning fruitiness.  We strive to have some sort of fresh fruit with breakfast each day and during the summer cantaloupe gives us a replacement for store bought fruits (citrus) that we can't find locally.  While we are taking bites out of our cantaloupe, the cantaloupe is taking a bite out of our grocery bill! I always tell my wife that "We cant-a-loupe because we're already married!" Yes I know, that's a very cheesy joke, but that's what you get when you live around here.  Cantaloupes suffer from many of the same pests that the summer squash does so grow multiple plants to ensure a good crop. We grew Sierra Gold, Old Time Tennessee, and Jenny Lind last year.
5. While there are several other vegetables we grow yearly like spinach, radishes, beets, carrots, and others, slot number 5 belongs to the cucumber.  Cucumbers are yet another cucurbit for this list.  We use them mostly in fresh salads but I really want to try my hand at pickles.  I attempted refrigerator pickles once and they turned out good but I think it's time we made an attempt at some dill or sweet pickles. I grew a pickling cucumber last year but while weeding Bermuda grass accidentally pulled the shallow root system of the cucumber plant out!  I don't advise anyone to do the same.  Needless to say those pickling cucumbers were in a pickle!  I attempted to replace the roots back in the soil but the damage had been done. 

There you have another list for The Friday Fives!  Last week I mentioned the 5 Plants No Garden Should Be Without so go check that out if you haven't already.

What vegetables do you always grow every year?