Berries, Pea Nodules, and Late/Early Blight

3 Garbage Cans Full of some "Great Goat Manure" (I really call it GGS)

What an interesting week it's been. It's taken me all week to get caught up on getting the gardens to where they need to be. After a week away the gardens needed quite a bit of tending to when I returned. The number one job was weeding. Even with all my mulching, the weeds were almost out of control. I enjoy the task of weeding throughout the summer. But weeding like I had to do this past week I don't enjoy. The difference in these weeds is that they were huge, so many of them, and they made me not even want to walk near my garden never mind enter it. Then I read Andrew Sulliven's post on taming his garden jungle and that inspired me to roll my sleeves up and just do it. I weeded the pumpkin, potato, corn, garden first. What a mess! The next day I weeded my main veggie garden. While there I also ripped up the peas and replanted with cucumbers. After I pulled the peas I noticed something I've never noticed before. Look at these pea roots and tell me what you notice: Little white puffy things AKA Pea Root Nodules

According the the University of Minnesota Extension: "These nodules are formed when a beneficial soil-dwelling bacteria (Rhizobium) gets into the root cells of legumes like peas, beans, and peanuts. The bacteria lives in these nodules and fixes nitrogen. “Fixing” means that the bacteria actually changes the unusable form of nitrogen (N2) into the ammonia form of nitrogen (NH3) that the plant needs to grow and thrive." So these are wonderful things! Nitrogen is very important for gardens. It is important for plant growth and gets used up quickly by garden plants. Nitrogen is available in compost, manure, green cover crops and things such as blood meal and soybean meal. It needs to be replenished in the garden but be careful that you don't put too much especially to plants such as tomatoes where fruit is your primary concern as nitrogen is great for leaf and stem growth. But all plants need healthy leaf growth since the leaves are where photosynthesis occurs. And photosynthesis is how the plant makes its food. Important! Corn likes nitrogen too. If you're looking at a bag of fertilizer, hopefully organic!, Nitrogen (N) is the first element listed on the label. That number tells you the percentage of nitrogen in each pound of material. For example a bag that says 10-5-20 says that 10% of the fertilizer is nitrogen.

Back to the tending and weeding routine of the garden... I also pulled up bolted lettuce, spinach, radishes and replanted with more lettuce, carrots, radishes, swiss chard. I thinned out carrots and the leeks and found a mole happily nibbling on my beets! So you can see the garden plots are always changing. Lastly, yesterday I weeded my perennial flower garden. What a mess! Not only did I weed but I thinned out plants that just love to take over and become central focus even when I don't want them to. So I did a heavy yanking of things like lemon balm, purple bee balm, primroses and now we can see some of the other in full bloom flowers such as purple coneflowers.

As for the Late Blight scare, it's still an issue and concern. Especially since we've got rain today and tomorrow and I never got out to my tomato plants yesterday. I will have to wait until the rain stops before I go check them out. You should not be touching plants in the garden when they are all wet. That becomes an easy way to transfer spores from one plant to another. Not a good thing. I have decided to dig up all my potatoes before they become infected. I meant to do that yesterday too but didn't get to it. Hopefully I won't be too late. But I did find out that I have Early Blight and I was instructed by MOFGA pest expert to remove and destroy those leaves and keep my fingers crossed! So I did and they are.

Finally, it's been a crazy berry year! Holy cow do we have berries. I can't even begin to keep up with them. But I've been picking each morning until I can't stand it anymore and we've gotten some nice baked goods out of them, some jams, some frozen, and lots just eaten. After strawberries were done the red raspberries came in full force. Then before they were done (because they are still not done) the black raspberries came in and the high bush blueberries. We are still eating all three. Here's a favorite way that we enjoy our berries. On plain yogurt made from a lovely local cheesery, Kennebec Cheesery (see older post for more info on them), some maple syrup, homemade granola, and berries. Yum! Here's a pic and my recipe for our favorite granola. This batch barely lasts a week. Berries, Yogurt, Granola, Maple Syrup

**Mary's Homemade Granola-
Mix the following in a large bowl:
3 Cups of Oats
1 Cup of sliced almonds
1 Cup coconut
1/2 Cup sunflower seeds
1/2 Cup pumpkin seeds
Dash of cinnamon
(I buy the above ingredients in bulk at our local health food store. Better quality and much cheaper than grocery store)
In a small bowl mix the following:
1/4 Cup maple syrup
1/4 Cup honey - local (stuff in super markets is yucky)
1/8 Cup oil - I tend to use canola
Now mix the liquid into the dry ingredients and bake at 250 for 1 and 1/2 hours turning every 15 minutes
Let cool and add 1 Cup chopped raisins or dried cranberries.
Store in a sealed glass jar
NOTE: Try different ingredients such as different nuts, dried fruits, oils, sweetner combinations etc.
Enjoy by the handful, in yogurt, as cereal, in baked goods such as muffins or cookies.

Well, that's it for today! I'm off to check on my school garden and our community garden.
Happy Gardening and remember that gardening makes the world clean and fresh,
Mary

PS - It's January and we're suppose to get a "Nor'easter". :) I just found this recipe and will try it next year:

Flaugnarde Recipe
a flaugnarde of roasted berries, honey and cream
Flaugnarde Ingredients

* 2 pounds (1 kg) mixed fresh or frozen berries (strawberries, raspberries, blackberries, blueberries, etc.)
* 2 tablespoons (30 ml) frambroise or vanilla extract
* 1 whole egg
* 2 egg yolks
* 1/2 cup (120 ml) heavy cream, not ultrapasteurized (see sources)
* 1/2 cup (120 ml) honey
* 1 vanilla bean, optional

Method for Preparing Flaugnarde with Berries

1. Preheat the oven to 400 degrees Fahrenehit (205 Celsius).
2. Toss berries with frambroise or vanilla extract and spoon into a baking dish.
3. Roast the berries at 400 degrees Fahrenheit (205 Celsius) for twenty minutes or until they release the bulk of their juices, which not only improves the depth of flavor in the berries but also eliminates excess liquid which may cause the flaugnarde to be runny or to break easily.
4. Reduce the oven’s temperature to 350 degrees Fahrenheit (175 Celsius).
5. Remove the berries from the oven and strain through a fine mesh sieve, reserving juices for another use.
6. While the berries strain, beat whole egg, egg yolks, heavy cream and honey together until they produce a smooth and uniform batter.
7. Spoon strained berries back into the baking dish, add vanilla bean, if using, to the center of the berries and pour batter over the berries and bake at 350 degrees Fahrenheit (175 Celsius) for forty-five minutes or until the the flaugnarde browns, and the center trembles ever so slightly when touched.
8. Allow the flaugnarde to cool, but serve warm.

YIELD: about 6 servings.
TIME: about 1 hour.
Waste-not/want-not. Reserve the juices from the strained berries to flavor herbal teas, cream, yogurt, smoothies or to reduce to a fine syrup.
http://nourishedkitchen.com/flaugnarde-recipe/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+nourishedkitchen+(The+Nourished+Kitchen)