Growing Dome- Fall 2014

It really is fall here, now, with the pretty aspen trees and last night's below freezing temperatures. In SoCal, there really aren't distinct seasons, but just hot and not so hot. Back in California, when it dipped into the 50's, I'd get out my long underwear and think I was really cold.

 But I didn't really know what cold was until I moved to Northern New Mexico. Heck, there's a small community around here whose nickname is Little Alaska, for heaven's sake!

But I am willing to put on my coat and longies for winter because it's a fine trade for wonderful, temperate summers. Months of over 100 degrees is not my thing, so I find the lightest weight, high performance warmies to wear during wintertime and deal with it.

One way I cope with colder weather is with my Growing Dome, where I have a chance to garden and to bask in the winter sun. Over 300 days of sunshine definitely hits the spot.

During winter I grow cool season crops like chard, kale, lettuce, and all that.

 During summer, I grow most of my tomatoes and all of my cucumbers inside the dome. Some friends grow tomatoes outdoors, but I seem to have bad luck with outdoor tomato plants. They give me a few and then it freezes. I know I could mess around with walls of water and little hoop houses, so maybe that's on the agenda for next year.

Right now my outdoor tomatoes are toast, but inside things are still perking along.

It's like a jungle sometimes/ Sometimes I wonder how I keep from going under (Sorry-Grandmaster Flash took over for a sec.)

In here it's usually about 20 degrees warmer. Temp outside was 29F last night, but all is well inside the dome.

Here's a pretty yellow tomato. I had some red ones, but a varmint climbed inside and chewed them down. We added some wire mesh to the side air vents, so maybe that will keep the little @#$@ out.

We still have plenty of green tomatoes, so if our days are in the 50's to 60's for a while longer,  they will ripen.

We have a load of cucumbers on the vines. Earlier in the summer there were juicy, tasty green straight eight's. Then a couple weeks ago the cucumbers started looking like this. I waited for them to turn green but they never did. They taste fine except for a little bitterness at the stem end (my fault for not being a consistent waterer). Earlier I replanted some varmint-ravaged plants, and maybe they were Poona Kheera seeds? It's a mystery.

Each time I visit the dome there is something to pick, which is totally cool. Earlier I had a bumper crop of Shishito peppers, but the aphids made them anemic, so I had to pull the plants. Those peppers were the best, though, just sauteed with a little salt and lime. Yum!

My fishies are doing well. Last year I was mystified to see strange little fish in the dome's water tank, then realized my original three goldfish had a menage a trois which resulted in fourteen goldfish babies! 

Not Koi, but plain old Wal-Mart goldfish, they recognize me when I lean over to visit, happy to eat their fish food pellets.  During winter they hunker down at the bottom of the tank and wait for spring.

So come on, winter! I'm ready for you. 

Well, kind of.

Late July Growing Dome Pics

Early dome photo. Love the blue sky.

The plants are growing like crazy in the dome and we are going to be having some major tomato harvests pretty soon. I have eleven tomato plants growing nicely and all but two have been setting fruit. The cherry tomatoes are starting to ripen and we get a handful every couple of days.

I spaced the tomatoes about two feet apart in places, and they have overgrown what was planted beneath them. I had to remove two zucchini plants because the tomatoes were crowding out the sun, and I'm removing some green beans, too, to give the tomatoes some more room.

This is the west side of the dome where we have tomatoes, cukes, some bell pepper plants and some beans that look like they are trying to escape from the tomatoes.

I have some tomato cages in there somewhere. I may go with some type of netting next year. The plant in the far corner is confined by some poly netting and it's behaving itself. Amazingly, I haven't fertilized for a month, but when I do, I use Miracle Grow liquid organic. It's made of beets, among other things.

These are the Poona Kheera cucumbers I can't stop talking about. White and mild inside, they are good in salads or just plain. The one on the left is almost ready to pick. I have the cucumbers trained to grow up along their curly trellises and regular old twine. They seem to like the arrangement and they provide shade from the afternoon sun.

Pretty soon I will start seeds for the winter veggies. 

End of June: Growing Dome Update

Ahhh! Summer is here and the garden is growing like a 12 year old boy and almost as unruly. Bring out the nets and the twine!

When I say garden, I am talking about the stuff I grow in the Growing Dome. So far we have picked yellow zucchini, green beans, six cherry tomatoes, kale, basil, rosemary, and lemon thyme. We have had some warm days here, in the upper 80's, so my work in the dome must be done early or late because it gets hot in there when the sun is overhead. We do have shade cloth over half the dome, because high altitude sun is fierce.

Here are my cucumbers, the Poona Kheera variety I wrote about here.

I just couldn't wait, so did a little internet perusing and many growers of this cucumber, which is native to India, said it was okay to pick when they had  turned from green to yellow. So I took a couple yellow cukes and one that was turning from yellow to brown.

These cukes were sweet with no bitterness or astringency at all,  white inside and at the yellow stage, small seeds. As the skin gets brown, they will continue to be sweet, but the seeds will be larger.

When I am in the dome I like to wear an apron to keep my clothes clean. (My childhood nickname was Susie Slop A** because let me loose and I would be dirty in a minute!) An apron is handy, too, to carry the stuff you picked into the house if you forgot a container.

Below is a pic of the green bean harvest yesterday morning. They were a tight squeeze in my apron's pocket.

This is just enough for the two of us for dinner, steamed for 5 minutes, finished with a little salt, pepper, and butter. As summer goes on, we will get fancier, but the first green beans get the simple treatment. Here's another green bean recipe for later, if you are ready to move beyond basic.

Yesterday, though, there was a surprise in the dome, and not a good one. Check out this kale plant!

Since I am not familiar with kale and how it looks when it's growing, I missed this at first, but realized yesterday that even kale called Dinosaur Kale shouldn't look like this. This was Lacy Kale, which sounds like a great name for a country singer, but not for the stuff I am growing!

Upon closer inspection on the undersides of the leaves, I found the problem: Little wormy fellows having a feast. Eww!

 

This is when I wish I had chickens, because they would be standing nearby in their pen, pacing back and forth, ready for me to share some of these rare and tasty delicacies. Instead, I moved the green wormsters down to the creek for the birds to find. Bon appetit!

Then I cut the damaged leaves off and we will see what happens. I'm giving the kale about a week to start growing anew. If it doesn't recover, I have some nice bell pepper plants looking for a home.