Garys Garden Tips and more Blog

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Garden Supplies 

Time to plant onion seeds.

Patterson Hybrid Onion This yellow early onion keeps for a long time. Medium-large bulbs have straw-colored skin and small necks that dry quickly. Much less sulfur than other varieties, resulting in that coveted sweet-onion flavor. Excellent raw on burgers and in salsa, and makes a wonderful French onion soup. A long-day onion that matures in 105 days

Ailsa Craig Exhibition Sweet Onion
This popular heirloom onion is renowned for producing exhibition size 2 pound globe shaped onions even in areas with shorter, cooler growing seasons. The huge bulbs have straw-colored yellow skin and sweet, firm white flesh. . Not recommended for long storage. A long-day onion that matures in 95 days


I also planted pepper seeds to get a start on them.

The Big Red pepper popped right up. I grew these last year and they did the best.

A few of the Chinese Giant peppers are just starting to come up.

My friend gave me some pepper seeds to try and some seeds I have saved have not yet come up.

I hope you are getting a start on growing your food. You can read what I did last year by reading some of my posts below.

Thank you for stopping by.

Prune over grown fruit trees.

I can charge it up with my solar panel or gas generator. This saves me from using a lot of gas with the gas generator that can charge it up in about 2 hours if I need to.


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Micro Greens

After putting them under the grow light for 4 days they are ready to harvest.

Not a lot going on until the snow is gone and time to plant seedlings.

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I found that a lot of crypto exchanges will not let you trade if you live in NY. One of the many exchanges that will let you is Coinbase. But a lot of the smaller coins you can’t trade there. That might be a good thing as a lot of the smaller coins are more risky.

I will be back when I start gardening this year. You can check out what I have done the last 2 years by reading down my blog.

Have a great Day.

2025

This year I am going to focus on growing what I eat and what I can store for a longer time. I will check what seeds I have. I will also test the seeds I have collected to make sure they germinate. This will tell me if I need to order more seeds.

The blueberry plant I planted 2 years ago has made it so far. I found out you need to have at least 2 blueberry plants and it is even better if they are 2 different to get the best crop. I plan on getting another plant to add to my back yard.

This is also the time of year I grow sprouts and microgreens. I still have several vegetables to eat from last year’s growing season.

I hope you will try growing in 2025.

Now is the time to get started making this year a more prosperous 2025.

If you are new here,take the time to read what I have done over the last 2 years.

It might give you an idea where to start.

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Potatoes

I almost didn’t bother to dig them up. One day I had a little extra time so I went to check and see if I had any potatoes that got big enough to use. Here is what I dug up.

This was better than what I expected.

Have you had any luck growing potatoes this way?

Broccoli

After that I got several florets all summer long until I stopped picking and let them go to seed. In late October I went to cut the plants down and see if they had any seed pods.

The seed pods didn’t look that great but I did cut a few to see if I could get any seeds. The plants still were producing florets. I snacked on a few as I was cutting the plants down. Here are the seed pods along with a couple florets.

After I let the seeds pods I opened them up by rubbing them. I did see what looked like very small seeds but they should have been larger like the one I got out to show you the size they should have been. I circled the good seed I had from my seed stock.

I am sure they were no good so I just discarded them.

Broccoli is believed to be one of the healthiest vegetables because it is nutritionally rich in phytochemical compounds, fiber, antioxidants, and vitamins, There is several recipes for broccoli on the internet.

I always add it to my stew when I make it.

Beet greens

I washed the beet greens off put them in a pan of boiling water. When the leaves and stems get tender, they were done.

I just added a small amount of vinegar to them in a bowl to eat them.

Beets will take a hard frost and keep growing. Some of the plants had a small beet on them so I will let them grow and see how big they get.

Beet greens are the leaves that grow on beets. They packed with nutrition. The greens, stems and tiny beets have a mild, sweet, and slightly earthy flavor. They can be used in many of the same ways as kale, but they're sweeter.

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Sweet Potatoes

The 3 bigger one would be enough for one meal.

If I could plant them a bit earlier and had them in a spot where they would get better sun they would have done better. I might try growing some again because I would like a smaller Sweet Potatoes than the very large ones in my local store.

At least this shows you how to grow Sweet Potatoes if you read my earlier blog below.

Planting Garlic 24

I worked the worm casting in to the soil. I used the largest bulbs I have saved to plant. The best bulbs I had from this year were ones in my earlier blog that I showed you. Then I broke out the bulbs to separate the cloves of garlic.
I marked the rows about 6 inches apart and used a dibbler to make the holes for the garlic to be planted in about 3 inches deep. I off set each row to give them better spacing.

I covered the garlic clove with dirt about 1 inch deep. The last thing I need to do was put some mulch over the top to insulate it from the cold. You can use straw or leaves to do this. I had some pine shaving left over from when I had a few chickens. So I used the pine shavings putting them on about 4 inches deep. The shavings worked well last year. I only need to remember to remove them in June.

I wetted down the shavings and now till spring it will be up to GOD.

Hard neck garlic has a hard stem and is better for cold climates. Soft neck garlic is for warmer climates and is often braded and hung to dry.

WestNY

Honeynut Squash

This is what a honeynut should look like when it is ready to pick.

Honeynut is a lot like a butternut squash with a sweeter flavor. Another thing you will like about the honeynut is a finer texture than butternut and they're easy to cut in half in one quick slice.

You can roast them without peeling them I just scoop out the seeds place them in a cake tin skin side up and add a bit of water to keep them most.

I bake them for about 45 minutes at 350f and they are ready to eat. I just place a pad of butter in the spot where I took out the seeds and eat it that way.

Honeynut skin is more similar to a delicata squash and is totally edible and tasty.

I like the fact that they are small with half of one is a large portion for me.

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Frost

The root vegetables can still stay in the ground and some lettuce plants can take a frost. This is also the time to get your garlic planted if you have not done that yet.

So the next few days will be busy for me.

WestNY

Peppers

Zucchini

This plant will produce several fruits as long as you keep picking them between 6 and 10 inches long. They grow very fast when they have enough water. On one day you see one starting to develop and the next day or 2 it is ready to be picked. In just 3 or 4 days it is almost too big. If you want to catch them at about 8 inches long you may need to check the plants 2 times a day. Just 2 or 3 plants will grow all you will need if you are just going to use them fresh with some to give to your friends.

Last year I planted 5 plants and had plenty to eat and freeze even though the plants did poorly. I had some left over so I only planted 3 plants. One of the plants died but the other 2 did well. We had a dry spell and I was sure that these plants were done for the year. On 9/26/24 I went to the garden after we did get a little rain and found there was some new fruits growing even with some of the leafs already dyeing off.

This is a plant that may grow so many fruits that you find it hard to give the ones you do not need all away.

Garden fresh zucchini is truly versatile. There are several recipes where you can use Zucchini in.

I hope you will give growing zucchini a try.

What is your favorite way to use zucchini ?

Swiss Chard Seeds

I decided to pick them up and let them dry. After about a month I noticed they were good and dry.

I ran my hands up and down on the stem to break the seeds loose in a bucket. I picked the bigger branch and leaf parts out and dumped them in a container.

This should give me several seeds for the next few years. I will need to do a test to make sure they will germinate.

Wrong Time of Year

Sorry that the photo is blurry but you can see bees around the opening.

I would have been more excited if this happened in May or June. This is the wrong time of the year to get a swarm. The chances of get them to make it till spring is doubtful even if you feed them.

The plus is, it shows the swarm trap I made works.  ( You can see where I made this box earlier in my blog. )

The bees being in the box will help put the smell of bees in the box. This should help attract another swarm to move in next spring.

If my neighbor’s bee hive is week or loses the queen we could merge this bunch of bees to his hive.

I am quite sure they will not make it till spring. I have heard that some very small clusters of bees have survived the winter.

Only time will tell what I will do with them.

Become Self Sufficient on 1/2 Acre

Bluetti Power Sale

Garlic Cleaning

As I said earlier, some of the garlic didn’t do as well as I had hoped. That was because I didn’t get the wood chips off soon enough. They kept them too wet and the outside skin started to rot. The ones on the right with the circle are the bad ones. The 4 larger ones on the uper left side are the ones I will use for seeds. It will be time to plant them in a couple weeks.

Jet Star Tomatoes

As they get ripe they seem to fall off. I started taking them off the plant when I saw them starting to turn red. These tomatoes are a nice large size and are a great size to put a slice on you sandwich.

Jet Star tomato is a hybrid tomato that is disease and crack resistant and low-acid. They are an early season tomato and produce for a long time. This firm meaty tomato has a mild sweet taste.

If you don’t mind growing hybrid tomatoes it is a good choice.

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Eggplant

I don’t know much about eggplant because we never had them to eat when I grew up. I looked at the ones at a local store to see what they looked like. Two on my plants look the size they were selling at the store. I cut them off and took a photo of them here.

I found that a favorite recipe is eggplant parmesan but there are also a lot of other recipes for eggplant.

How do you like to eat eggplant?

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Jelly Bean Tomatoes

The Jelly Bean Tomato with its Grape-like fruits that has a tuff skin is sweet with an intense color. It produces heavy clusters of fruits that mature early on plants and are disease resistance.

Just one plant will produce more than I can eat just for a snack. I have been sharing them with some of my friends.

The Jelly Beans Hybrid Tomato keeps producing, so you'll enjoy fresh, sun-ripened grape tomatoes for months.

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Ground Cherry

Lambs quarters

This weed is related to spinach. The Leaves can be used in place of spinach.

Once you have this wild green weed in your garden, you may be with it forever. Food that grows fast and it is free. It may be hard to get it to stop grow in your area because it produces a lot of seeds. This is just one of the many so call weeds that grow in a lot of places.

You can also chewed the leaves into a green paste and apply it to insect bites, minor scrapes, or sunburn to get some relief.

Check out Purslane under salad below for another weed that you can eat.

Baby Steps to Gardening

Last year I planned on growing a lot of Cucumbers, Broccoli and Zucchini as some of the things I planted. All 3 of these failed to produce what I had expected. I planted the Cucumbers three times but no Cucumbers. The Broccoli grew for a while but just stopped growing and I don’t know why. The Zucchini only produced a couple and died. Right next to the Zucchini I had planted Butternut Squash and they grew fine and produced a record number of squash for me.

Something just happen and I don’t know why. Growing food is a lot of work. You need to tend to them often as they grow. Weeding and checking for pest is important. If you are new to gardening it is best to plant a small number of things to start with. Some people start with a large garden. They can soon find they are overwhelmed with weeds and pest problems. Take baby steps so you can learn before you jump in big.

Green beans, radish, swiss chard and leaf lettuce are a few easy things to start with. With the green beans you need to pick them at least every other day when they start having pods. If you let them get too big the plants can stop producing and die.

I am just starting to get some of the things that I had trouble with last year.
Here is what I picked on 7/24/24 from my garden this year.

It looks like I am off to a good start this year. A couple things I did different.

The Cucumbers I used the same batch of seeds I used last year. I planted them inside about 12 of them to see if they were going to germinate and they all did. I let them grow to about 2 inch high and planted the seedlings outside. So I know it was not the seeds last year. The problem may have been the birds were eating the seeds. Next year I will plant the seeds inside.

The Broccoli I used different batch of seeds. I am not sure if that was what made a difference or just the weather. As you can see I got one head of Broccoli so far and the rest of the plants are doing fine. Having a few heads I will harvest next week.

As far as the Zucchini goes I have no Idea what happened to that. It is too early to tell if that will happen again this Year.

I hope your garden is growing well. If you are not growing yet give it a try.
If you have had bad luck, don’t give up.
Your next try my bring in an abundance amount of food.

Become Self Sufficient on 1/2 Acre

Garlic

At this stage of growing you don’t want your garlic to get wet as the outer skin can start to rot. I would have liked to keep it in for another week or two. I will now put them in a dry place so they can dry. In a couple weeks I will clean them up some and cut the stems off. Then put them in a mesh bag and put them in a cool dry place to store them.

The pine chips I used last fall worked well. The only thing I learned was I need to remove them in the spring as the held a lot of moisture. Some of the plants started to show signs of rotting so I quickly removed the wood chips. I did lose a few plants that did rot.

We learn sometimes as we grow.

Bluetti Power Sale

Sweet Potato

I planted the slips in my new raised bed garden on June 21 2024 I am not sure they will grow but here we go.

We will have to see if I can get any sweet potatoes here in New York.

Potatoes

I got a late start planting the potatoes June 26th. I got a couple potatoes from a farmer that had sprouted and used them. This year I am going to use some fertilizer and try to give them more water.

I will let you know how they do this fall when I dig them up.

You can see how they did last year near the top of page 2

Become Self Sufficient on 1/2 Acre

Fresh Salad

As you can see it is growing quite well and needs a little thinning. I had been thinning the lettuce every morning this week giving it more room to grow bigger. I pick it in the cooler morning time. I rinse it off in cold water to get most of the dirt off. I put the lettuce in the refrigerator. I find that it is much more crisp by doing that.

I pulled a few radishes as they are just starting to get big enough. I like English breakfast Radishes

I will cut up a garlic scape in little chunks and add that to my salad. I cut up the tender part of the scape for my salad.

Here is what I am going to use tonight.

What was that weed growing in the onions? As you might have noticed, My onions next to the radishes had a weed growing between them.

That weed is Purslane. But that weed is also edible. It is a highly nutritious plant. Look it up and you will find it to be loaded with nutrients. There is several ways you can eat this plant. I plan I picking some Purslane for my next salad.

Just one note:Due its content of oxalic acid, purslane should not be consumed by people with kidney disease or that have high uric acid

Tomato Plants

I took 4 of the plants to replace the ones that got destroyed. Moving them in to my van and taking them out to plant broke the stems of the plants. Only 1 of the smaller plants made it without braking.

Because tomato plants are easy to root. I took the 3 plants I had left and cut out the top part of the plant where I marked it here. Where the arrow is a sucker stem should grow.

After I cut them off they had a nice long stem on the bottom.

I put the stems of the tomato plants in a cup of water.

After about 6 or 7 days they had grown some roots

I then put them in some potting soil because I knew it would be a few days until I would be able to plant them in the garden.

The tomato plants I used the top off can also be planted because the sucker branch will take off as the lead stem. Now I have 6 plants that I can use or give to someone.

Celery

I planted them outside in bunches as they came out of the tray. Celery has very small roots and I am sure they will not all live. I placed them in rows and watered them.

In a few weeks I will see how they are doing. If several in each bunch are growing, I will thin them out at that time.

I do not have much experience in growing celery. I hear you need to cover the stalks so the sun does not get to them a bit before harvest.

Peppers

Tomatoes

I drilled a hole about 8 inches deep, added about 1/8 cup Happy frog vegetable fertilizer and bone meal, and some copper fungicide in the hole.I took off the lower branches, dropped the plants in the hole and covered them with dirt. I used a zip tie to support them to the post, and gave them a bit of water to settle the dirt around the plant.

If they do well, it should give many tomatoes to eat and can.

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Eggplant

I decided to plant the larger size eggplants in the straw bales this year. I hope they do as well as the eggplants did last year in the straw.

By next year I will use the straw as mulch.

Onions

I dumped them out and separated them. They don’t look like much but the do have long thin roots. I placed them in a trench, covered the roots and gave them a bit of water. Only time will tell if they will survive.

Marigold

When you get old, things happen that keeps you from doing some of the things you should do. The last couple weeks were like that for me. I made sure I watered my plants but put off putting some in larger containers. That is what happened to my Marigold plants. A couple got so big they were against the grow light. That is why you see a cricked neck near the top of a couple of them.

I also had some celery seeds planted in that flat of plants. They are about the right size to plant outside. I will plant them in the next few days. Celery can take a light frost and survive.

You need to do the best you can. Things do not always go as planned. You will have better success when you keep trying and not give up. This fall when you get a harvest you will be happy you did.

Transplanting Tomato Seedlings

When digging the seedlings out of your starter container try and take as much soil with it as you can. Then transplant the tomato seedlings, planting the stem is as deep as you can. That is so the hair will turn in to roots, making the plants grow bigger and better.

Lightly pack the potting soil down and water the plants. You are on your way to having them grow into plants ready plant in your garden or container.

Do you already see having Juice Tasty Tomatoes

The fruits growing inside a papery husk called a calyx. But fruits mature to a golden orange colour and drop to the ground when ripe. The sweet little fruits will store for up to three months if kept in their husks. You will want to eat them faster than that or to make jams, fruit salads, and sauces.

Tomatoes for 2024

Amish Paste Tomatoes Amish Paste Tomatoes are bright red fruits grow to 8-12 ounces. This heirloom tomato has a juicy - meaty flesh, excellent for sauce or fresh eating. It is an indeterminate tomato. I planted 12 seeds of this type.

I planted the seeds in potting soil and covered with 1/4 inch topsoil.