Fried Green Tomatoes at the Mog Cottage Cafe

The last of the tomatoes this year

In my estimation, the worse thing about planting tomatoes in the beginning of the season is cleaning them out of the beds at the end of the season. After trying to squeeze the last bit of redness out of this year's crop (as any good gardener in this area would do) the first frost last night prompted me to finally cave and I spent the morning cutting out vines and pulling up stakes. The clamps that were holding the stems up on the stakes were maxed out and difficult to remove. I saved all of the tomatoes worth keeping, red and green, and piled them in a large bucket. Not surprisingly, this load was probably my largest crop. Anyone who's tried to grow tomatoes in this region knows what I'm talking about. The carnage left behind looks rather disheartening though; many of the cherries and red zebras had ripened but split due to all the recent rain. There they lay all over the ground and the bed. Now I'll have to clean them up or I'll have rogue plants coming up next spring. In the mean time, squish, squish, squish getting around the beds.

Purple sprouting broccoli - it's baaaack.

The tomatoes that did the best this year were the red zebras, romas and cherries. The giant yellow brandywine suffered blossom end rot and languished, like giant tepid yellow blobs on the vines. Other self-planted crops came up among the masses including fennel, celery and surprise, surprise, purple sprouting broccoli. In fact it's doing rather well. I was planning to sow in garlic and onion in this bed, but now I have a personal bet as to how long I can keep this broccoli going. Two plants have survived and re-sprouted. The stupid stuff just won't die! I envision purple sprouting broccoli with trunks the size of sequoias in a few years. I guess this is the official brassica bed, crop rotation be damned!

I have several good recipes for fried green tomatoes and it's a darn good thing we both like them. I'm going to Google search for more recipes to use. I'm sure there are plenty and I'm sure a lot of them will be from the Pacific Northwest. If you have any green tomato recipes you'd like to share, pass them along...please!!!

The Halloween Hangover

Blueberry bed turned graveyard.

Halloween at Mog Cottage is always exciting. We decked the place out, converting our planting beds into makeshift graves with all the Styrofoam molded headstones, bones and ghouls we could manage to scrounge up at the Dollar Store and the Used Food Store (What Roland calls the Grocery Outlet). During Halloween night, we place lighted candles under each head stone and up the front steps to light the way. 

Enough trick-or-treaters flooded our doorway to scarf up most of the candy, but not before we managed to OD on the stuff ourselves. Although Roland and I are pretty fussy about our chosen sugar delivery systems, the problem is we buy what we like and a lot of it, in anticipation of the costumed hoards of rug rats. On top of that, we buy it well in advance of the day it goes out the door because we want to make sure that what we want will be on the store shelves. When it comes to certain candy, neither of us has a bit of will power. Deep down, we probably don't care. It's only once a year, right?

So, Roland and I scarf on sugar for a good week prior to Halloween,spend another week finishing off the leftovers, then another few days in withdrawal. Even our dog joins in, sneaking tootsie pops out of the bowl when we're not looking. We find sticky, artificially flavored corn syrup balls behind the sofa cushions among the stashed chewies. Yesterday, Roland discovered one of the confectioners thoroughly stuck to the side of our cat, Vinnie. He's now missing a sizable clump of fur trying to dislodge the thing.

Now, I could attribute the theory that these fall/winter holidays are timed right to a candy industry conspiracy when carbohydrate cravings in many of us escalate. These companies know that seasonal darkness and it's ensuing depressive state drives people to pump up the dopamine levels among their grey cells. What easier way to do that than with a culturally accepted legal drug of choice: sugar. So the Halloween holiday often becomes fast, cheap and out of control. In fact, I consider Halloween a kick-off to the confectioners binge that continues until after Easter. People don't need candy much after that because the sun is back and people see the light. The next food binge after October 31st, of course, is Turkey Day. At least we have 3 weeks to come down from this holiday before the food fest.

Front porch - pretty scary

In the meantime, it may take that long to take down all the decorations. Hmmmm. The hanging artificial spider webbing strung across the front porch rather suites the place, don't you think?

17 Pounds of Potatoes in a 50 Gallon Tub

This year I planted the potatoes a little differently than I did last year. They went into the claw foot tub as usual, but instead of just poking them down a few inches I dug out 2/3rd's of the soil and then planted the potatoes. I stored the excess soil in garbage cans to use later. When the potatoes sprouted their foliage several leaf layers above the soil, I added more soil up to just below the top leaves. When they grew more, I added more soil until they reached the top of the tub. I would then usually mulch with straw, but the foliage was so dense I couldn't adequately add it, so skipped that part this year. When the foliage died back I harvested.

I got quite a few potatoes this year, more red than whites. The main problem I'm facing when harvesting is damaging the potatoes with my shovel. Some of them got sliced in the process. When I use a fork, they got skewered. I attribute this problem to having to dig in close quarters. Of course, I also had some escapees in the process (pictured above). However, I received some great advice from a gardening cohort on how to grow potatoes when you don't have huge amounts of plantable area in the ground. Garbage cans. What a great solution; potatoes grown in a vertical garden!

Next year I'm procuring a classic style garbage can for each variety of potato I plan to plant. I'm using galvanized cans, not those flimsy plastic things made out of petroleum products. Some folk use old tires. Although it is seemingly a good way to re-purpose some of the zillions of old tires that pollute our environment, the thought of planting something I'm going to eat in a petroleum product that God knows has what nasty chemicals leaking out, doesn't sound that organically appealing.

To plant the cans, it's important to have good drainage. I'll be drilling 3-4 drain holes in the bottom of each can and then elevating them on some bricks. I'll start with a foot of soil on the bottom of each can and then plant the potatoes. As with the tubs, I'll add soil as the potatoes grow taller. You'll need to fill a couple of extra cans with soil to use later or have a tarp covered pile stashed somewhere. When the potatoes are ready to harvest, I'll simply push the cans over to spill onto tarps and pick out the potatoes. Skewering and slicing problem solved. Just you and a friend pick up the soil with the tarp and pore it back into storage.

I'm not using potting soil (way too expensive) but an organic planting mix with plenty of compost to keep it fluffy and to add nutrients. A good organic phosphorus based fertilizer mixed in such as, fish bone meal will help increase the yield.

One last tidbit of advice: urban gardeners, keep your cans well away from the sidewalk so dogs don't get tempted and pedestrians don't toss things into them you wouldn't want to eat. Even with the lids off, one never knows, as the cans will be fairly empty looking for awhile.

Come next spring's planting season, I'll let you know how this technique is working.

Garden Coaching: The Hybridization of Filers and Pilers

Since I've gotten into the horticulture game, I've been made aware of a fairly recent phenomenon; garden coaching. Now, the imagery that comes to mind are pot-bellied plant geeks with clip boards hovering over the gardener yelling encouragement over how to plant zinnias. Cheerleaders with giant dahlia-like pom-poms are doing their cheerleader thing on the sidelines. In reality, garden coaches are rather an outdoor version of indoor organization coaches; helping gardeners clear the clutter of their beds and come up with creative ways to use what they've got to work with. People pay big bucks for the advice.

Last year I wrote about the difference between filers and pilers in the garden world (http://mogcottageurbanfarm.blogspot.com/2010/07/crop-rotation-according-to-filers.html). I think a major amount of a garden coach's clientele are pilers. Filers may hire a coach as a desire to balance their lives with some piling attributes such as, lightening up about gardening. Pilers want to incorporate filer attributes such as, incorporating some order into a hodgepodge called a mixed border. The concept of mixed borders must have been invented by pilers.

Pilers often can't make up their minds because they want everything and are subject to impulse buys at the nursery. They just know that they can fit that fancy new cultivar somewhere. It's hard for pilers to edit out plants. They gravitate towards an Italian style that one of my hort. instructor calls "Oneofeachie."

Filers can't make up their minds in fear of making the wrong choices. They're often so worried about making the wrong choices, they often do, at least in their minds. I usually get free plants from filers. I only get free plants from pilers after they've seen a garden coach. I guess that makes me a piler. Guilty as charged.

Fiddling with Filderkraut

This year I was so intently focused on the fact that our tomatoes actually turned red, I rather neglected other crops in the garden. Almost daily, I zipped by the bed of brassicas as three cabbage plants got bigger and bigger. I had planted a variety of cabbage called Filderkraut last spring. The Territorial Seed package description states:

This arrow-shaped variety was bred for the cold regions of Europe so that self-reliant gardeners could make batches of sauerkraut for winter consumption.

I liked the idea of an "arrow-shaped" cabbage; the ones in the stores are mostly round with the exception of Napa cabbage. We are also rather self-reliant, I guess, even in an urban environment. We're probably more self-defiant than anything. We both have 'Kraut' genes, too. The problem is, neither of us eats that much sauerkraut, even though Roland is Swiss. In fact, he doesn't eat cheese, mustard, vinegar, mayo, or salad dressings either - but that's another post. In spite of these noble brassica's original purpose, I was thinking more along the line of making soups and stews.

By the time my focus shifted (when the weather turned colder - like it ever got hotter much this year), one of the heads was so heavy, it flopped over in the bed. To harvest the thing, it took some large loppers to cut through the 3" caliper stem. The leaves pretty much shaded out everything within a 5 mile radius and worst of all, this behemoth of a brassica became a snail and slug nursery! I spent the better part of harvesting this thing stripping off the layers of outer cabbagey leaves and disposing of the mollusks that hid deep down in the crevices near the base. After all, Roland doesn't eat escargot either. After that, I managed to wash off any goo residue and stored it in the refrigerator. Mr. Roland stood for a portrait of him and the cabbage for scale.

Growing monster vegetables serendipitously gives you a good excuse to have to clean out the refrigerator. Luckily, the fridge has heavy duty shelves as the thing must have weighed close to 10 pounds. Cabbages can be as dense as bowling balls.

The cabbage leaves have a rather peppery flavor. Even at this large size, it cooks up tender and goes great in soups and with pot roast. It's comfort food time, so I don't think I'll have much problem using it up, although it's taken us several weeks to eat down just this one cabbage. There are several more just like it still waiting their turn; however, they haven't flopped over yet, so I figure there's time. I wonder if they'll sweeten up like Brussels sprouts do after a frost. Oh, did I mention? Roland won't eat those either.

I may have to try my luck at making sauerkraut. After all, I seem to have good luck growing brassica crops. I remember Roland telling me that his dad scraped the mold off his batch every couple of days while it was doing it sauerkrautie thing. Luckily, Roland will eat it. Go figure.

Guerrilla Zucchini Distribution

It's been zucchini season and we've been swimming in them. With the last minute warm weather in September, the tiny little fruits exploded into footballs overnight. If you recall, this is the retaliatory zucc that I planted in the parking strip during our permit hassle. Roland attributes it's current size and the subsequent bumper crop to all the cow pucky we got from SDOT. People who walk by it stop and stare. Between the giant zucchini plant and the giant sunflower, our yard has become the neighborhood botanical freak show.


I looked up the record for the largest zucchini grown and the world record squash was grown by renown giant veg. grower, Bernard Lavery from England. It weighed in at 65 pounds. In moments of delusion, I like to think that I might have been able to at least match that record if I left all but that one squash on the plant and let it go nuts. Like the giant pumpkins it was probably inedible, but if it happened to be usable, it must have supplied a 5 gallon bucket of gratings. By the way, Mr. Lavery is the author of "How to Grow Giant Vegetables."


Dispersing zucchini can be tricky. Neighbors and friends either love it or run at the first sight of you walking towards them with the large green appendage shaped objects in your arms. Luckily, we've been promised ample supplies of zucchini bread from grateful recipients, and I look forward to it. I haven't had much time to bake myself, so having someone else do it and share is fine by me. At some point, you'll run out of people to disperse it to. I still have a shelf full of the prolific fruit in the fridge, so I'll either have to grate it and store it in the freezer, make copius amounts of soup or resort to covert, guerrilla operations.

Now putting zucchini's on the doorsteps of unsuspecting neighbors is rather tricky. It's important to avoid any neighbor on your block or even the next several blocks in a radius around your garden, because they'll probably know you're the source. So, here's how to do it. When walking the dog at night (an excuse to be out late), descretely disperse the zucc's on easily accessed front porches outside the designated radius zone. Think of it sort of like a stork delivering bundles of joy. At least zucchinis don't cry. There is the chance that the squash will get tossed into the compost or garbage. People may even mistake it for a bomb at first. You wouldn't want to be responsible for causing undue concern and authoritarian excess. Best to attach an anonymous note with each delivery. Chances are good that it wouldn't go under handwriting analysis. But, hopefully you live in a progressive, gardener infested non-paranoid neighborhood where folk understand how these things work and out of guilt, can't bare to waste perfectly good food. Of course, the zucchini could turn into a summer version of fruitcake and in a karmic sense, end up back on your front porch at some point, looking a little shop worn.

Fried Green Tomatoes Anyone?

Finally, the tomatoes have been ripening as of mid-September and have been on a role only to have the weather turn this week. I suppose I should be grateful for the two weeks of redness. I would've been really bummed if we had a total repeat of last year. It sure seemed that it was heading that way, only to turn around mid-late September. This region is known to get Indian summers and this year has proven that true. We actually had temperatures into the 80's, just in time for the first days of Fall. Oh, the irony of it all. A real Shakespeare comedy. I was hoping that if we got hot weather into October, this might turn out to be a descent tomato year.

The cherries tomatoes are the first to ripen. It's the larger varieties that hang on to their greeness longer. The next smaller size after cherries are the romas which have started turning red along with the Red Zebra, a pseudo heirloom variety. The Yellow Brandywines are sitting there and have even developed tomato blossom end rot as I neglected to supplement them with calcium when blooming. I finally fed them some Epsom salts solution in hopes to deter any future problems. Of course it helps to test your soil for magnesium and pH levels, something else I neglected to do this year. Epsom salts helps tomatoes take up calcium from the soil. The properties of the two key components of Epsom Salt: Magnesium and Sulfate is what helps. Dissolve a tablespoon into a gallon of water and water around the roots. I use about a 1/4 of the mixture for each plant. You can also mix in 1 cup per 100 sq. ft. of soil before you plant, according to a salt web site. Of course the site promotes Epsom salts as a wonder drug for all your plants.

We didn't bother with a cloche this year, and actually have a larger yield this year. I attribute that to planting the tomatoes in a more exposed bed, that gets more sun and heat, two components that are a must for tomatoes. Now that the weather has gone south, I'll be out there just before the first threat of frost to harvest all the green one's left on the plants. Fried green tomatoes anyone?

I like to can, but just don't have the time to do it this year. Luckily, I subscribe to "The Cheap Vegetable Garden" blog and recently read a really good idea for dealing with the bowl of tomatoes sitting in my fridge. Mr. Cheap cuts his tomatoes in half, scrapes out the seeds and hard core, then grates them. The gratings store in the freezer well to be used for sauces later. He doesn't do the boil thing to remove the skins. The skins peal off during the grating process. He takes the skins and puts them in a dehydrator or low temperature oven to completely dry out. He then crumbles them and stores them to add to dishes like an herb for an intense tomato flavor. Sounds like a plan to me. I'll let you know how it goes. If you'd like to read the complete instructions on the powder part, click here.