Fall Garden in Texas

Today is officially the start of fall.  There are still issues, but I am glad to report that our vegetable garden is finally beginning to look like a garden.  It was always intended to be a fall garden, but for many months through the summer it looked like there would be little or nothing there when fall arrived.
 

Garden on 9-20-16

There is still not much produce that will be available soon, but at least it looks better.  If the plants continue to grow, there may be plenty to harvest in October and on through to at least the first frost (approximately mid-November).  If we are lucky we might have fresh garden produce for Thanksgiving dinner.

From left to right in the foreground inside the cages: lettuce, broccoli, carrots, beets, and onions.  In the back: tomatoes, peppers, and beans.

Banana peppers.  Most notable among the successes is the banana pepper plant.  This was one of the first plants put into the garden way back on June 6.  For most of the summer it did essentially nothing except grow taller.  The plant now tops out above the six foot tall pole (11 inches of which is in the ground) that I recently added to help with any gusts of wind.   When a week long "cool" snap hit in mid August, with high temperatures only in the 80's instead of 100 or above, the plant immediately began to flower like crazy and set fruit.  Despite the return to warmer temps since then, the peppers have continued to grow.  I am not 100% sure when the peppers should be picked, but based on their yellow color I am presuming soon.   In the next week or so I hope to turn them into something like the pickled banana peppers they serve at Subway. 

Banana peppers

Continuing struggles.  Despite the success of the banana pepper plant, there have been more "learning experiences" than successes.  Why all of the problems?  1. We had no idea what we were doing...mostly we still don't.  2. There are more predators than I could have imagined.  They span the range from very small (an army of aphids) to moderately large (the neighborhood bunny).  They all view the garden as their personal smorgasbord.
 

Aphids and Lady Bugs.   Aphids love the cantaloupe leaves.  Due to the aphids, many of the cantaloupe leaves were badly distorted and the plant was struggling.  I used insecticidal soap to kill the aphids.  Unfortunately, I applied it incorrectly, did not rinse it off, or something.  In any case, the cantaloupe leaves ended up badly burned and I nearly killed the plant.  It does not look great now, but it has at least partially recovered and looks great compared to what it did. 

Since I thought I had killed the plant, I stop spraying and the aphids underwent a population explosion.  That is when several lady bugs, a natural predator of aphids, showed up. 

Lady bug on cantaloupe leaf (8/22/16)

I only saw a few lady bugs, but they were obviously crawling around eating aphids.

About a week later I noticed lots and lots of these strange looking bugs...almost like black and orange miniature crocodiles.  They are lady bug larvae and they, too, love to eat aphids.

The black and orange bugs are lady bug larvae.  The teeny tiny white things scattered across the leaf are aphids. (8/29/16)  Not sure, but the funny looking white thing on the left may be an aphid lion larva (sans dead aphid bodies, see below)

Fortunately I was able to identify these as good bugs before taking action to get rid of them.  There were lots and lots of them and they quickly spread throughout the garden.  They seem to be little eating machines.  Within a week or so they had taken care of the aphid problem.

It was at about that time that I started seeing these strange "growths" under the leaves, which I found out were lady bug pupae, i.e. little lady bug cocoons.

Lady bug pupae on green bean leaves

I never did see a lady bug emerge from one of these, but that must have been what was happening here since the wings are evident and it kind of looks like a lady bug.

Partially formed lady bug from the pupa (9/5/16)

Of course, these were not the only bugs in the garden.  I noticed this very strange black bug one day.  I took its picture in hopes of identifying it.  I still don't know what it is, whether it is friend or foe.  However, I did notice the white bug that was also in the picture.

Unidentified bug (black bug on the upper left) and a green lacewing larva more commonly known as an aphid lion (white thing on the right)

Aphid lion.  I had been focused on the larger black bug, but it was only after looking at the picture that I realized there was something else interesting in the frame, the white thing that looked like it was covered with small bugs.  It is apparently the larva of a green lacewing, another good bug since it eats aphids.  The dead aphids are what are covering its body.  According to this source, it uses these as camouflage against the ants (which protect the aphids) as it runs around eating aphids.

Now that I know what to look for, I did some exploring on the plants and found another one.  It is nearly impossible to see the individual aphid bodies in person, but they are readily apparent when blown up in the picture.  (Not bad for my cell phone camera!)

Close up of  what is apparently an aphid lion.  The individual white aphid bodies are visible.

Tomato ghosts.  While the aphids, lady bugs, and aphid lions were battling it out, there was even worse damage due to larger predators.  In an earlier post I had noted damage to low hanging peppers from night predators, presumably rats.  Soon after that they also took a bite out of a small green tomato. 

Predator damage to one of the green tomatoes

In addition to upping the war on the rats with the aid of our pest company, I added organza bags to the low lying tomatoes.  I think of these as tomato ghosts.  The bags were available through Amazon for wedding favor items.  I was not sure they would be enough to deter a truly dedicated predator, but I was hopeful they would encourage the casual predator to move along to something else.  It did work for at least those few low lying tomatoes that were hanging on through the worst of the summer heat.

Tomato ghosts (8/10/16)

Neighborhood rabbit.  Despite the success in battling these various pests, the biggest nuisance and greatest threat to the garden is a cute little bunny that spends a large amount of his time in the side yard.  He is around so much, even when I am in the yard, that he is almost tame. 

He often "hides" (although not especially well) behind some of the plants while I work in the garden.

Bunny hiding next to the house. 

He has gotten so tame that he will often roam around and come out to eat even if I am close by.

 

Bunny eating clover while I water the garden

He has even hopped up into the garden while I was standing there watering.

I knew he was eating the new growth off of the cantaloupe vines that were on the ground, but figured I could live with that since it is sometimes recommended to cut back on the vines to promote ripening of existing fruit rather than more vine growth.

However, he seems to have taken a liking to green bean leaves.  I thought I saw evidence of where he had been munching on them and even caught him in the act.  However I was not overly worried.  How much could one little rabbit eat?

Caught red-handed (red-pawed?) eating the pole bean leaves

Apparently he can eat a lot.  The final straw was when I came out one evening and discovered he had eaten the leaves off of all of the young wax beans, about eighteen plants. 

The two squares with the bare dirt had a full complement of young new wax bush beans growing.  This is a picture of what was left after the bunny's afternoon snack, i.e. only the stems.  The chicken wire around the outside was added later. 

Unfortunately there is not a good way with the current location of the trellises to completely fence off the entire garden.  However, I have now enclosed a good number of the bush beans.  I had originally intended for the covered cages to only be used for seedlings, but will leave them on as long as possible.  Before the next garden I will incorporate some type of fencing to exclude the bunny.  Of course, a perimeter fence alone will not be enough since the birds and squirrels can still get in if the top is open.  Sigh....

Despite the issues, planning for and working in the garden have been fun ways to spend my time.  I have learned a tremendous amount about all kinds of things.  The garden may not be a great success as a source of food, but it has been a rousing success as a hobby.

Soft Food Diet after Oral Surgery

It has been three weeks since the Frog's oral surgery for full arch dental replacement or sometimes called all on four dental implants.   The surgery went well and he seems to be healing properly. 

One of the selling points of this procedure is that it is a one day procedure.  That seems to be essentially correct (albeit a VERY long day), but that statement is a bit misleading out of context.  Although it is a one day surgery and he now has teeth, he can not eat anything requiring chewing for at least four months.  In his case, he will require another implant in December which will presumably add another four months. 

That is the long way of saying we are three weeks into at least 32 weeks of a soft food diet.  We got very little direction from his oral surgeon on appropriate things to eat, other than the general suggestions of scrambled eggs, soft fish, or things that are pureed or could be mashed with a fork.  Definitely no pieces of meat, no lettuce.  Needless to say, I have been digging into this further and have discovered he needs a pureed diet or something on the very soft end of a mechanical soft diet.  Yes, I am eating the same thing (or at least for dinner) since it makes no sense to cook two different meals for two people.

Here are some of the highlights of what I know to date while I can still find everything.

Resources on Soft Food Diets.  By far the best resource I have found to date is a book by Sandra Woodruff and Leah Gilbert-Henderson entitled Soft Foods for Easier Eating Cookbook.  This book contains not only specific recipes but also has a tips on pureeing or grinding different types of foods in general, information on recommended equipment for the kitchen (blender, food processor, meat grinder, masher, potato ricer, etc.), descriptions and sources for various commercially available pureed foods such as Thick-It (which we have not used and likely will not) and nutritional supplements such as Ensure (the Frog has used Original Ensure or Ensure high protein for between meal snacks).

My go-to resource for preparing soft foods.

Other sources I have found helpful include:

• Easy-to-Swallow Easy-to-Chew Cookbook by Donna L. Weihofen.  This book has more "easy-to-chew" recipes than pureed recipes, but it is still useful.
• Essential Puree the A to Z Guidebook by Diane Wolff.  This book is by a gourmet cook.  The recipes likely taste better but are sometimes more complex, which is a negative.  My bigger complaint is the greater difficulty in using the book due to its layout and lack of index.  However, one of the big pluses is an accompanying website and blog (http://essentialpuree.com/blog/), which has all kinds of hints and suggestions from recipes to tips for how to fly on a commercial airline if you require a soft diet.  I have yet to make my way through all of the blog posts.
• Eating Guide for Pureed and Mechanical Soft Diets, from the memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center site, https://www.mskcc.org/cancer-care/patient-education/eating-guide-pureed-and-mechanical-soft-diets   This site has lots of practical information about the differences between a pureed and a mechanical soft diet, appropriate foods for each type of diet, what to look for at the supermarket, and specific recipes.
• Healthy Nutrition for ALS,   http://www.neurology2.ucsf.edu/brain/als/pdfs/healthy_nutrition_for_als.pdf  This site also has general info and some specific recipes. 

Equipment we find useful. 

• I am so thankful that we already had both a Vitamix high speed blender and a Cuisinart food processor.  We used these only occasionally in the past, but now use one or both of them nearly every day.  I don't know what we would have done without at least one of these.  I am very glad that we have both since they do slightly different things.  

Vitamix 5200 Blender and 7-Cup Cuisinart Food Processor

•  I also bought a potato ricer for "mashing" sweet potatoes and other veggies and to help when reheating polenta (https://www.cooksillustrated.com/how_tos/9036-reheating-soft-polenta), a good soft food when originally made but a bit of a challenge to reconstitue to porridge consistency. 
• I am using our 10 oz Pyrex custard cups to make single serve timbales (no, I did not know what a timbale was before this either!), but need to get more. 
• The cookbooks suggest numerous other kitchen gadgets, but we have not needed anything else special so far.

What works and what doesn't.

• Breakfast has been pretty straightforward.  Scrambled eggs work if eaten slowly.  Instead of English muffins or toast, which would not work, I fix hot cereal.  The cereal of choice so far is oat bran, which is much smoother than oatmeal.  Cream of wheat would likely also work, but I think oat bran has a lower glycemic index.  I add almond butter for taste and some fat.  It is topped off with pureed sliced peaches for the Frog and seasonal berries or a banana for me.
• Most of the cookbooks feature smoothies or blenderized soups for lunches.  We have had both, but they have not been especially popular.  Most of the lunches are now leftovers from dinner.  
• Before surgery our dinners were typically fish and a vegetable, a meat and a vegetable, or a meat/veggie stir-fry, with the occasional taco dinner or fajitas.  Fish fillets of soft fish like swai or salmon work well and we continue to have them, but unfortunately beef, chicken, or pork require much too much chewing nor do they blenderize well. They normally must be combined with something else for a better consistency.  This is still a work in progress, but things that have worked so far include chicken tetrazzini (http://www.neurology2.ucsf.edu/brain/als/pdfs/healthy_nutrition_for_als.pdf), chicken or ham timbales ( Soft Foods for Easier Eating Cookbook), and very smooth meat loaf (Easy-to-Swallow Easy-to-Chew Cookbook).  
• Anything that is a bit chunkier (salmon loaf, shrimp and mushroom souffle) has not worked well...not smooth enough; not easily mashable.
• Vegetables also need to be ground, but most of them are a mess even after being ground unless a thickener of some type is added.  We have had success with recipes that incorporate either potato or potato flakes as the thickener: zucchini-parmesan puree and savory carrot puree (both from Soft Foods for Easier Eating Cookbook) and puree of broccoli with garlic (https://www.mskcc.org/cancer-care/patient-education/eating-guide-pureed-and-mechanical-soft-diets ).  These result in something with the consistency of thin mashed potatoes.  Stouffer's frozen spinach souffle also works as a veggie with no modification.
• Vegetable baby food is easy to heat in the microwave, but has been unpopular primarily due to lack of taste.
• Macaroni and cheese works reasonably well, but needs to be blenderized with lots of extra milk. 
• Another starchy side that works well and tastes good is polenta parmesan (Soft Foods for Easier Eating Cookbook). 
• Sweet potatoes are supposed to work well, but I did not get them smooth enough in my one attempt.  I plan to give them another shot.
• Applesauce is a frequent addition to lunch or dinner.
• Ice cream is the dessert of choice.
• Between meal snacks include single serve pudding or Ensure.

This is a start. We are not starving, but there are more starches and carbohydrates than I would like and we need more choices to build in more variety.