Ripen Green Tomatoes at the End of the Season

 Forgive the quality of the picture, but it's worth a thousand words.

To ripen green tomatoes at the end of the season, cut off the stems holding the green tomatoes, and hang them on a string in a warm place.  They will ripen on their own over a few weeks.

My very good mother did this in my storage room. She used a clothes line tacked into the wall studs. Then she draped the vines over the line, no clothes pins or clips or anything.

2 weeks later, ripe tomatoes were waiting for us! And I didn't have to lose the fruit to cold weather!

All the best!
-Summer

Gardening tools - Fix Up!

Ok,  my organizational skills need help.  

Well... my "putting it back" skills need help!

So these little beauties were left out in the elements too long.  I still liked how they worked, but did not like the splinters in my palm. (insert frowny face here).  What to do?   FIX IT!

garden tools - fix me

 

...get a little paint.

...dip the wooden end in the paint.

...let it do a little bit of drying.

















Tada.... these tools are ready for some real work.

Now, if I can just figure out how to get it to rain every other day or so, I would not have to invest in a sprinkler system.


(I know, all ya all are laughing because Arizona is the land of perpetual sunshine and rain is once every 90 days or so.  That equals withered, parched plants.  But gardening tools are so cute... I keep trying to grow a garden anyway!)

-Tara

Harvest Radish Seeds

Have you ever wanted to plant something, but did not have the seeds. Well, you can harvest your own seeds. Here are some steps to gathering radish seeds.


First: let the radish turn into pretty lil' white flowers












Next, the flowers will turn into green pods.
Leave these alone until they turn...











Crunchy. They will be a creamy white color.











Snap off the pods...













Take your thumb nail and slice into the toasted pod.












You will have several little brown seeds.












I like to store my seeds in glass jars with the most beautiful labels you have ever set eyes on.








Plant the seeds next season.

**Note** if the pods are green and the seeds are not a toasted almond color, they will most likely NOT produce anything next season.... so be patient and let them dry on the radish stock.

--TARA

Container garden-sort of

We recently moved into a rental house and I wanted a container garden for my backyard. I did not want anything too permanent because it is a "rental". So I went to the hardware store and got some cinder blocks, stacked them two high and viola-- instant garden space. Because of the shear weight of the blocks, it does not need any cement, grout, or glue to keep it together. Add dirt and you have a little container garden.

See how my garden grows! --Tara

Travel Size Garden

I thought I'd left my need for small container garden ideas back at college. Suddenly, I'm finding the need to rediscover them. I've lived in 7 different places in the last 4 years and I'm tired of leaving behind my veggies! So this season, my garden is in small, movable pots.

My larger fruits and vegetables are in the larger pots of course (like melon, squash, cucumbers and tomatoes). These larger pots are at least one and 1/2 feet in diameter and a foot or 2 deep. I planted strawberries and peppers in the medium pots (about 1 foot in diameter), and in the smaller containers (6-9 inches in diameter) are flower seeds to draw in the bees and helpful critters when the time comes for pollination.

I'm also trying a new plant - Nasturtium, pronounced nah-STUR-shum. It's an edible flower with a bit of a spice to it. The gardener at the nursery suggested I try them. He says his favorite way to use it is on a fresh garden salad. It looks beautiful and adds great flavor supposedly. Sounded like an adventurous thing to try, so here I go. :)

I planted my seeds not quite 2 weeks ago and the squash and 2 cucumbers plants have already sprouted! Yay!