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Here are a few pictures from my 2018 Garden the first since moving into our house 2 years ago, I was tired of battling weeds in my previous gardens so I built garden boxes that are 4’x4’ by 18” deep filled them with 6” inches of gravel for drainage on the bottom then then 1/2 yard of top soil mixed with a 1/2 yard miracle grow garden soil in each box. My sprinklers water my garden daily and I flood my boxes 1 to 2 times a week with a garden hose. I had 14 tomato plants in one of my boxes and 8 zucchini plants in another you can see how productive they where I kept my household and all of my coworkers supplied with Tomato’s and zucchini all summer. My other boxes had carrots, radishes, string beans, and pumpkins, spaghetti squash, cucumbers, yellow squash which all produced especially the carrots which I pickled.
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Nice, looks like it worked out pretty good for you, did you have any problems with weeds this year? I think the biggest problem I had with weeds were coming from my secondary water. What kind of plant is that in the second to bottom pic? We get a bunch or carrots every year but I never thought about pickling them, how do they taste?
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2019 will be the second year for my garden boxes so we will see about weeds but I had very few in 2018. The picture your referring to is a mature radish plant. If you don’t harvest them they become a bush that produce bean pods and lots of blossoms that attract bees to the garden. The pickled carrots are the favorite thing I produce in my garden they are easy to make and people love them and anticipate them every year asking for them.
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I've seen radish plants when they grow beyond the eating stage but I guess I had never let them grow that big before, can those bean pods be used the following year to grow more radishes?
What ingredients do you use to pickle carrots?
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I don't know about planting the peas the next year,but they are edible and taste like green beans with a mild radish flavor. I attached my pickled carrot recipe.
[center]Pickled Carrots[/center]
[center]Wash and slice carrots into chips or spears, no need to peel[/center]
[center] [/center]
[center]Place fresh slightly crushed garlic cloves and fresh sprigs of dill[/center]
[center]Into clean jars[/center]
[center]Blanch Carrots for 90 seconds then rinse under cold water to stop them from cooking[/center]
[center] [/center]
[center]Pack carrot chips or spears tightly into jars leaving a half inch of head room[/center]
[center]In a sauce pan prepare pickling brine by combining 2 cups vinegar, ½ cup sugar, 2 table spoons pickling salt, 1 table spoon black pepper corns, 1 table spoon mustard seed. Bring to a boil, use a ladle to pour over carrots in the jars leaving a half inch of head space. Note that these proportion are enough for a about 1.5 lbs. of carrots, adjust accordantly [/center]
[center]Place sterile lids and rings on the jars and place in boiling water bath for 20 minutes. Pull jars from water bath let cool then check the lids for proper seal, these are shelf stable for well over a year[/center]
[center]Enjoy.[/center]
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Thanks for the carrot recipe, do you know if it will work, if your use a sugar substitute like Splenda?
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I did a search "Can i use Splenda in pickling brine" the consensus is yes you can substitute it for the sugar. If you try it let me know and I will pass it on to my diabetic friends.
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I'm going to try Stevia this season on my canning. I'll let you guys know how that works out.
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Thanks Gregg.
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Are you growing a garden this year? If so how's it looking?
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I do have a garden this year, but it is not producing nearly as well as last year, I am getting some zucchini but my plants just started producing a week ago and I have tomatoes, green beans and jalapeno peppers just not nearly as many this year, the exception is my carrots and beats are doing great and I should have a large crop to pickle this fall. I'm wondering if the difference has to do with the soil in my boxes, last year they where brand new and I put a number of bags of Miracle Grow garden soil in my boxes this year all I added was a couple bags of steer manure to each box and the soil seams a little more compacted. Next spring I plan on adding some peat moss and more Miracle Grow garden soil with the hope of loosening up the soil and adding more nutrients. Hows your garden doing this year?
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