Black Hills Local Foods

Around this time of year, folks who never lock their homes or cars carefully lock up because of the zucchini bandits. You know who you are. They’re more like bandits in reverse since they don’t steal summer’s most prolific vegetable, they deliver it. If people don’t lock their cars or houses, they’re bound to come home to a bag of green baseball bats.

All joking aside, August brings a bounty from the garden that can be shared with friends and neighbors without gardens. With the profusion of severe weather we’ve had, sharing your surplus with someone whose garden was lost to hail would make their day. My garden delivers an abundance of lettuce, spinach and chard which I share with my neighbors. Our weather is normally too cool to allow the zucchini to reach herioc proportions, so my neighbors are usually safe.

One suggestion for those bat-sized squash, give them to someone with chickens; they’ll devour them, and maybe you can get some eggs in return.

Now that the cool weather has passed, with the exception of the last couple of days, how is the garden coming? My plants still look pretty young, having not been planted until June, but they’re making headway. Happily, the peppers are blooming and setting on baby peppers; once again, the holy moles are the first ones to produce. The tomatoes are a bit slower, but have grown tremendously and should be blooming within the week. After weeks of seemingly being frozen in time, the eggplants show new growth. I’ll be picking baby spinach and lettuce this week, finally.

How are your plants growing? Was your corn knee-high by the 4th of July? Trouble with grasshoppers or other pests? Let’s hear how everyone’s gardens are growing!

Milk jugs work well as hot-caps

This is a very low-cost, low-tech way to protect tender vegetable plants early in the season. Just cut off the bottoms and push the jugs into the soil around the plant. Leave the caps off for air circulation, unless a frost is threatening, then screw the caps on for more protection. As the plants grow, cut the jugs back until they’re superfluous, then just slice them down the side and pull away from the plant. Not only do the jugs protect plants from frost, but also help retain heat, making the plants warmer at night, which helps them grow. This is especially beneficial at higher elevations where evenings are cool; we routinely drop into the 40s at night.

I was short a couple jugs short for my tomatoes. Turns out puppies like chewing on milk jugs, and since they’re cheaper than a couch, for example, I decided to sacrifice a couple. A few more bowls of cereal and those plants will have jugs too.