The Capital High School Horticulture Program has starter plants to donate to Community Gardeners, while supplies last. If you are interested contact Ray Wilmot at 854-4590 or ray.wilmot@boiseschools.org to arrange a pick up time. Or stop by the Capital High School greenhouse M-F 8:00am-1:30pm with verification that you represent a community garden. Plants include tomato, squash, peppers and cantaloupe.
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The Idaho Eastern Oregon Seed Association (IEOSA) is partnering with Idaho Community Gardens, a program of The Idaho Foodbank, to provide gardens seeds to those who grow food and feed the hungry in our state. If you are school or community garden in Idaho, you can get free seeds for your effort! Simply submit your request directly to Roger@amgidaho.com. Please include the amount and type of seeds you need for your garden, as well as the name of your organization, a contact name, your mailing address, phone number and email address.
Idaho’s seed industry ships to every continent except Antarctica, but our growers want to help their neighbors right here at home. One community garden at a time.
Finally, after being generally forgetful, I have some pictures of the root cellar to share. My housemate (who actually made it) took them.
Here’s a picture of the root cellar itself. The straw is cleared away from the top so we can see the lid. The trash can is buried in the dirt up to the lid.
Here’s a picture with the lid off. The food is stored inside the trash can, and the coolness of the soil around the trash can keeps it fresh.
Here are the vegetables from our garden that my roommate is storing in the root cellar. They’ve been in there for about two and a half weeks now, and they still look as fresh as the day they were picked.
Here are the vegetables in their temporary home. He used a milk crate and a strainer to store them. Air needs to circulate from the top to the bottom, so you don’t want to use storage containers without air space in them. Bushel baskets are what the article recommended, but we used what was on hand.
This is the first time we’ve ever done anything like this, so I’m not sure how it will turn out. This is the beauty of gardening (and life), however. You try something and if it doesn’t work, you don’t do it again. It’s all about experimentation.
In other news, I picked all of my green tomatoes and put them in a cardboard box in our den. This was about a week ago. Now, I’ve got a new ripe tomato every day! I’m looking forward to making some incredible spaghetti sauce in the very near future.
Stay tuned! Whether the root cellar is a success or a flop, I’ll post it here.
As I previously mentioned, my housemate grabbed this article on Saturday from the Seed Swap and was so inspired by it he made a root cellar in our yard. Turns out it’s fairly easy to do, and he told me it took him less than an hour. Granted, we had all the supplies on hand and he works as an archaeologist, which means he digs holes for a living. Still, the concept is very simple and the materials are not hard to come by. If you’re anything like me, having a visual aid definitely helps when learning something, so once I get home tonight I’ll take some pictures of it. I don’t have any pictures of the work-in-progress, but it’s pretty straightforward. I will also update throughout the winter.
Materials: trash can, shovel, tarp, straw, bushel baskets
1) Dig a hole slightly wider than your trash can, and dig it deep enough so the rim of the trash can sits on top of the dirt.
2) Put the trash can in the hole and tamp the dirt around the outside. (I don’t know about the rest of you, but I didn’t know what tamping was until pretty recently. All it means is that you pack in loose dirt with the handle of your shovel. VERY simple and VERY effective.)
3) Cover with about a foot of straw and cover the straw with a tarp.
4) Once you have your food, put it in bushel baskets and put the bushel baskets in the trash can underground. The dampness from the soil provides the humidity the food needs, and the warmth from the soil keeps the crops free from frost.
I’ll keep you updated once we start storing vegetables, and we’ll see how they last through the winter. If you can dig a hole (or have a friend who can dig you a hole), you can make a root cellar! If you have the space but your friends don’t, make one for yourself and one for them! Winter in Idaho doesn’t mean you can’t have garden produce all year long.
The second topic of this article is green tomatoes. I’ve heard almost everyone complain about the amount of green tomatoes they have because of our weather this year. Don’t despair!! There are a few things you can do with green tomatoes.
Eat them! This website is chock full of green tomato recipes, including well-known fried green tomatoes.
Pickle them! Here are some different methods to pickle and preserve your green tomatoes.
Or, if you prefer them red, this article from WikiHow tells you a few different methods on how to ripen them in your house. I’m planning to use the box method myself.
I’m going to add a little twist to this! Send me your green tomato stories. I’ll pick my favorite and the winner will get the book “Gardening for People (Who Think They Don’t Know How)” by Douglas Moon. I’ll accept answers for one week, until Wednesday, November 3rd at 5pm. Send those stories my way! bparham@idahofoodbank.org
