Michelle Conaway

Are you growing Tomatoes this year? Do some or all of your tomatoes look great until they ripen and then look like the above picture?

I have a few tomato plants that are producing tomatoes like the picture. They look great except for the top where the blossom used to be attached. There might  be a dark circular indentation around the top of the tomato or you might find a very dark rotten spot, with the rest of the tomato looking as healthy as can be.

If you are finding this in your tomato garden, chances are that it’s Blossom End Rot, which is most likely caused by a calcium deficiency.

I just learned that to fix this problem all you need is a bag of Epsom salts (Magnesium Sulfate) and a water hose.

Apply 1 teaspoon of Epsom Salts per foot of plant. Apply the Epsom Salts in a circular fashion around the drip line of the plant and water well. Be sure your tomatoes are getting at least 1 inch of water per week, but don’t soak them. Tomatoes don’t like wet “feet” but rather prefer to take in their drink of water and then be dry.

I just applied the Epsom Salts to my plants and will be checking frequently to see if this eradicates the problem. I will post an update on my results in a couple of weeks.

Well, May was a busy month around here harvesting things that have been in the ground for several months. This is the great payoff for all the hard work in the cold days of December and January.

In the past I never had much success with onions. I would put them in the ground and leave them alone and they would wither and die before they ever became anything bigger than a pencil eraser. I thought I was no good at growing onions. I thought maybe our soil wasn’t good enough or our climate just wasn’t right for them. But after taking the Fort Bend County Master Gardening Program, I learned to grow onions among many other things, successfully.

We planted 70 10/15 Onions on December 5th, 2012 in about 50 square feet of space. Three weeks later I began the process of fertilizing these beautiful pearls in my yard. I learned that onions are very big Nitrogen feeders and what they want is FOOD in the form of Ammonium Sulphate.

Ammonium Sulphate is all Nitrogen (21-0-0). I would go out there every three weeks on the dot, even if it was cold, even if it was sprinkling with rain, and give those onions their Teaspoon of Nitrogen each. 70 onions got 1 teaspoon of Nitrogen every three weeks! Now that’s someone that wants to have some success with her onions!

But the payoff was SO very worth it. Each week I would watch each onion grow just a little bit more. The 70 onions that I planted probably weighed about a pound altogether. We harvested on May 7. (Drumroll Please…..)

We harvested over 25 pounds of onions. 25 pounds! I, along with my family, were so excited! Of course, we made onion rings right away.

But what are you going to do with 25 pounds of onions, you might ask? There’s only so many onion rings you can eat!

 Beer Battered Onion Rings

Well, you dry them out before you store them. If you do this, they will store for many months in a closet, under the bed in boxes or in your pantry.

First you must pull all of the onions out of your garden of course. I’ve heard that a lot of people pull them up and leave them in the dirt to dry out. But we have two dogs who would most likely think they were fetching balls, so we didn’t choose this option.

What we did do though is to lay them out in a single layer on our outdoor table. You need to let them dry in the sun for at least a couple of days. We then moved them to the garage to dry out further, away from the direct sun. It’s important that the onions be laid out in single layers so that they won’t begin to mildew.

When the green stalks have dried completely and the outside of the onion has developed a papery skin, they are safe to store. We found several Coke boxes that cases of Coke come in, and laid them in single layers in the boxes and stored them in a cool, dark pantry. I’ve heard that some people put them in boxes and place them under their beds. The most important thing is that they be stored where it is dark, cool and dry.

We are so excited about our onions! Do any of you have some tips on how to grow onions? I would love to hear your tips or suggestions on growing onions. Or, if you have any questions about growing onions, feel free to ask away in the comments section!

Have you or your kids ever been on a Minecraft multiplayer server that sported very LARGE cities, monuments, sophisticated road systems and amazing architectural structures? Have you ever wondered how in the world they ever built all of that?

If your answer was yes, you may enjoy reading and implementing the suggestions in the book titled Minecraft Designs How To, by Mephisto Waltz. This 76 page book will walk you through a few basic steps that will have you building huge cities and structures in no time.

These are about the best onion rings I’ve ever had. I don’t fry things very often, but since we just harvested 25 lb. of onions from our garden, onion rings came to mind, so off I went to the kitchen with two of them to experiment.

The results were awesome! I hope you might enjoy them too.

Ingredients

2 large white onions

4 cups all purpose flour

2 tsp salt

4 tsp baking powder

2 tsp. garlic powder

2 tsp paprika

1 tsp onion powder

1/2 tsp cayenne pepper

2 cups beer

Oil for frying

Instructions

Slice onions and separate into rings. Mix flour and all other dry ingredients in a bowl.

Toss onions in one cup of the flour mixture to coat.

Mix the rest of the “dry” mixture with the beer to make a batter.

Heat oil to about 375 degrees in a large cast iron skillet.

Dip each ring into the batter and fry in hot oil. Watch carefully because they cook quickly. When you see the upper side of the batter bubbly, it’s time to turn them.

Transfer with tongs to a paper towel lined platter. Sprinkle with salt and pepper and serve.

I wrote my post, What My Kids Are Learning While Playing Minecraft back in July 2012. I have observed since, that there has been a lot of talk about the benefits of the game and it’s ability to teach our kids real world skills. I’ve heard that even some classrooms are using it as a teaching tool.

Since writing my previous post, I have observed even more opportunities for my kids on Minecraft, especially with the addition of mods.

For instance, there is a Minecraft Mod called the Galacticraft mod. My youngest son is very interested in space, so this mod appealed to him on a grand scale. We got the mod and his interests soared even more. In this mod, you are able to build a space rocket, fuel it up and take off to the Minecraft Moon. You can’t forget your oxygen though. (You can’t breath on your own on the moon). When you land on the moon, you can walk there, leaving permanent footprints,( just like on the real moon.) You can also build, interact with the space creatures and return to earth.

Or, you can build a space station, where you can observe the earth and the moon, do “experiments” or just hang out with your friends in space . The makers of this mod are planning on adding other planets soon. More to explore and learn about!

There really is no end to the subject matter that can be explored on Minecraft. There is a mod on every subject you can imagine. The galacticraft mod got my son off and running, learning about space history, gravity, oxygen, physics and more. He even got a Neil Armstrong “skin” to use when he’s playing on this mod.

There are mods on mythology, forestry, medieval times, farming – Mods that experiment with the atmosphere, atoms, engineering  and many, many more. Here’s a link to just a few of the mods available, all free, for Minecraft.

Often I hear parents asking, “How can I get my kids OFF of Minecraft?”

And I have to ask…

Why would you want to? 

I can only suspect that these parents have either not played or not really engaged with their children while they are playing. Most kids are very excited to share with you what they are doing on there. If we are open to listening without judging the game as a “frivolous” activity, we will see that they are learning far more than we might suspect. And not only that, they are happy and functioning in creative and critical thinking, stretching their minds and enjoying it! What more could we want for our kids?

In my mind, Minecraft is not even a game. It’s a tool for engaging in subject matter that might not otherwise be available. It most definitely holds their attention and gives them the means to experiment with anything and everything they might be interested in. It also leads to fascinations of subject matter that they might not have otherwise been exposed to.

I’ve seen my kids much more open to looking at books on geology and space than they would have been without the game. They’ve also been more interested in visiting museums and other venues that relate to things they are working on in Minecraft. When they are playing with space on Minecraft, for instance, they want to know more. How does the rocket get enough power to get to the moon? Who was the first person on the moon? Why does the moon have less gravity than earth? And so on and so on. It never ends. And I’m glad for it.

These are the kind of questions I want my kids to be asking. I want them to walk into adulthood with questions about our world, with the ability to answer them with their own innovative thinking. Minecraft fosters this type of thinking. It creates a space for passion in subjects that might be boring in school. It encourages them to ask those questions and get creative about answering them.