http://www.durgan.org/7%20September%202006%20Vegetarian%20Meal/HTML/ http://xrl.us/rmub 7 September 2006. Today I prepared a vegetarian meal from produce in my garden. The vegetables were picked and pulled, cooked and served. The pictures are annotated in the bottom left of the enlarged photograph. The drink was made by beating watermellon and frozen cranberies in the blender. The only food not produced from the garden was cranberries and corn on the cob. The only condiment used was a bit of butter. The parsnips were boiled then lightly buttered and browned under the broiler. Some were also just mashed. Durgan.
Durgan, that was such an impressive meal! And to think you grew it all. I also had a wonderful garden and we're still eating it cuz I froze the beans. What really impressed me about your pictures was the watermelon. I tried last summer but they took ages to come up and then I read how they don't like to be moved at all so thought they were too difficult to do. Which variety did you use and how did you do the transplanting? Thanks.
The watermellon was sugar baby. I bought four plants from a local nursury and planted them about 24 May in Zone 5. I had my own watermellon plants from seed but put them out without hardening off and they died. Starting indoors in peat pots so the roots aren't disturbed when planting oudoors works fine, but they must be carefully hardened off before putting in full sun or they simply swell up and die back. When transplanting the roots must not be disturbed, or growth is severely retarded. I had muskmellon, which were doing well except downy mildew got the plants. The same downy mildew did not attack the sugar baby which were in the same bed. So I imagine they are resistant to this disease. Durgan
Thanks for that, Durgan. I read somewhere that if you use the plastic containers that berries come in for starting seedlings then you can plant the whole container in the soil and the spaces between the container are larger enough for the roots to spread. I usually start my seedlings in styrofoam cups but am going to try the small plastic containers. I garden at U-Grow Organics out in Ft. langely area and a girl there started hers in regular pots and transplanted them successfully. She didn't know you had to be careful with the roots so I guess it all depends on the variety. Good luck next year.
