Hows everyone's Gardens doing?

[Shari]

Feel your pain Debby. After the hail storm, I kind let things go.... weeds are taking over.

 

[Marsha Cassada]

Dug my potatoes today. The tops weren't dead, but I was afraid to wait any longer. Started with 5 seed potatoes, and I think we got around 50#. Haven't weighed them yet.

A couple have some weird things on them, which we understand is the result of 2 4D, but all were very nice and no bugs or rotten spots. Our best crop so far this year.

This raised bed had calcium added last fall, and I've used a product called SprayNGro this year. It is a foliar micronutrient.

Last year I wrapped the good ones in newspaper to store and that worked really well.

 

[Reignmaker Miniatures]

Oh, I wish I had planted a few potatoes. I love new potatoes, especially in a meal that includes fresh peas and carrots. I guess there is always next year.

Well done Marsha, looks like you got a pretty nice crop.

 

[Shari]

That is a good haul Marsha! Am hoping to plant potatoes too next year.

 

[Riverrose28]

Hubby dug out one row of our taters too, and pulled all the onions they are now on a drying rack in the indoor. I'm finally canning tomatoes, have done 18 quarts already and have enough to do 6 to 10 more today. We had a reunion this weekend and I made everything from the garden to take. Potato salad, and zuccihini slaw. Hubby said yesterday he thinks there is a pumpkin just about ready. I froze two egg plants, and have two more in the fridge, thinking we'll have one tonight.

 

[lucky seven]

Sounds like your garden did well this year! All I got in were some strawberry plants and the weather did them in. Will try again next year.

 

[Riverrose28]

It was a bad year for us with the strawberries as well, and then the blackberries were too tiny to bother with. Guess I'll be buying jam this winter. Got 7 more quarts of tomatoes canned yesterday, then our helper came in with two more buckets full, so I should be able to put up several more quarts tomorrow after he picks today. The vet was out this morning and it is going to be too hot to can this afternoon, I'm staying in the air conditioning and working on my crochet blanket for my grand daughter.

 

[Reignmaker Miniatures]

I dug my strawberry bed up this year. I plan to rebuild and plant new plants next spring. Picked a bucket of peas yesterday, have shelled, blanched and frozen them in meal sized portions ready for winter meals. Now I will have to pick every few days to get the most production from the plants. All my cauliflower has been eaten or frozen for winter, broccoli has side shoots forming but the main heads are put up already. Carrots are nice for snacking but it will be maybe the end of the month before they reach full size. My lettuce has now bolted

and the hail storm back in July really did a job on my onions. The zucchini is producing ok but not the usual abundance. Really all that is still not ready is the brussels sprouts and they are best after a good frost. From the green house I'm starting to see some tomatoes ready now and I've been giving away cucumbers since early July.

 

[Marsha Cassada]

Since some discussesd strawberries, I thought I'd take a picture of mine this afternoon. The raised bed is a tractor tire, about 5' across. I have thinned these plants down to one every six inches twice this year. Tired of messing with them so I'm just going to let them do their thing until spring. They usually bloom again and I get a few fall berries.

Good drainage is essential for strawberries, in my experience.

My favorite crop is my yard long beans. They are so fun, so hardy! I let them get about 18" long before picking. In the background you can see the espalliered cherry and peach trees.

 

[Riverrose28]

Maybe someone can help me with my pumpkins. I thought they were ready to pick when the plants started to wither and the stems became brittle, but yesterday I touched one and it literly feel off the vine then another sounded hollow and broke off when hubby went to see if it was still nice underneath. Well I got out my ingredients for pie and the pulp was hard as a rock, not ready. How do you know when they are ready for picking?

 

[shorthorsemom]

My garden is doing great so far, weeds and all. I am getting about 15 or more pounds of tomatoes daily. wow. Even when the plants fell over and are laying all over the ground because they outgrew the stakes we tied them too, the tomatoes are loving the weather and growing great. I cheated and bought Mrs Wages package for making both pizza and regular sauce and have been making batches of sauce and freezing in ziplocks, very tasty and convenient. already used some in my stuffed shells I made yesterday. Making about 20 cups a day. I scald the tomatoes, core and take off the skin and whip up in blender til smooth. Then you put in big pot... add mrs wages mix and some sugar and bring to boil. Stir occasionally and boil for 25 minutes for better than jar delicious sauce.

Our sweet corn was doing terrific but we had a raccoon/corn massacre the other night and quite a bit got wiped out, so I pulled all the rest of the ears, small or not and last night blanched and froze about 26 ears of sweet corn.

Our pepper plants went crazy and we get more than we can eat so we are sharing a lot. Our cabbage did great however a groundhog or something ate my last one right before we could harvest it. Broccoli looks weird... a skip for next year... Our zucchini and summer squash gave us TONS of really decent eating. I have been shreeding zucchini in 2 cups measured in ziplocks so we can have zucchini bread all winter.
We dug potatoes last night and this morning and they are lovely. YUM. Potatoes coming out of our ears.
We have water melons not harvested yet.

I think that's about all. Decent first year of a big garden. Feeding several families all summer. Hope to do better next year to donate or sell the excess.

cheers folks.

PS.. I have been making pickles both dill and bread and butter. Mrs. Wages again... Delicious. very easy. Put vinegar and sugar and mrs wages and boil, slice in cucumbers, allow to cool and put in jars for the bread and butter. For dill the same but without the sugar. YUMMY

Took to picnic yesterday and they were a huge hit. Refrigerator pickles, very easy. I hate cukes but love pickles. weird.

 

[AngC]

I was at the store today and noticed that red cippollinis (sp?) were 3.89/lb. I planted mine too late in June (or so I thought) and they've all bulbed up quite nicely. This evening I whacked some up for the husbands salad and they had a nice sweet taste too.

 

[Reignmaker Miniatures]

AngC, what are cippollinis?

My garden continues to produce an abundance of broccoli (I've frozen about 14 meals worth and eaten a bunch raw/fresh from 10 plants), cucumbers that I can hardly keep up with(good thing family loves them too) tomatoes, Chocolate seems to be a big hit, very sweet and low acid, and peas (I've frozen half a dozen bags/meals and eaten them a couple of times as well as visitors raiding - all from one row about 16ft long- and more ready to be picked) My carrots are waiting to be harvested but they can keep growing for a bit yet and my brussels sprouts are going to give me a nice crop this year. Lettuce, radishes and onions have finished some time ago, they didn't like the hot dry summer much. Oh and mustn't forget the zucchini which got away from me and now I will grate a bunch of it and make zucchini bread while trying to watch that the new ones don't grow past what I like to eat.

 

[Marsha Cassada]

Sounds like I need to be gardening in BC instead of in SW Oklahoma!

I get really disappointed in my garden. So much time, labor, and money expended on it for limited returns. Sometimes I don't know why I keep trying--except that I can't seem to quit!

I've planted a new round of beans, squash, kale, and broccoli. I'm keeping an eye out for broccoli plants at the nursery. Our nurseries around here, even Lowes and Home Depot, have sort of given up on the plants because of our last few years of drought and water shortage. Many people are not bothering to plant trees and flowers any more. I cannot even buy replacement plants for done-for summer bloomers. I'm moving some flowers around to bare spots and planted some flower seeds, which will hopefully fill in.

Our chicken house is next to the garden and both are fenced. Something got into the chicken pen during the day when the gate was open and has been living under the chicken house and digging out of the chicken pen and into the garden at night. Finally caught one today. Don't know if there are more. Good dog!

 

[Reignmaker Miniatures]

eeyagh!! Is that a rat? We don't have rats here thank goodness, except the ones people keep as pets (not my kind of pet at all) Its hard to make anything grow with out enough water. I'm lucky that I have a private well and it has lots of water, its deep but must be into ,an underground river or something because it never runs low even in the hot dry summer we had here this year. I don't know if you could call it a drought yet but we've had the worst wild fire season in many many years (maybe ever) some farmers near me didn't even bother taking their hay crop off because it just didn't grow enough to be worth while and I heard on the news last night that we should all be extra vigilant about keeping bear attractants (fruit trees, bird feeders and household garbage mostly) cleaned up because we can expect more problem bears this year due to the wild berries drying up and falling off the bushes in the heat and dryness. My garden does do better than many around me for which I credit the abundant water and what I refer to as my 'magic soil' which is really just a compost made from horse, chicken, cow and sheep manures blended along with plant matter where its available and shavings form my stalls. I swear this stuff could make a rock grow, lol. In fact I think if you looked around my property at all the rocks (rocks in clay is not the usual land type for this area and is a pain in my backside) you'd say I must be right lol.

 

[Marsha Cassada]

I'm thinking the rat is what has been eating my black eyed peas. It wasn't a horrible, ugly wharf rat. Just didn't need to be where it was. We don't go looking, but if they come into our territory we have to deal with it. If we catch another, I might ask a neighbor if he'd like to try it for a pet.

We have plenty of water and good soil. It's just the heat here; doesn't cool down at night. And we are thinking the drought has caused there not to be many pollinators. This year is more normal, so hopefully things will improve next year. Don't farmers/gardeners always say that??!!

Did not know you were having wild fires in BC. Fire is horribly scary.

 

[Riverrose28]

Marsha good dog indeed, told my hubby when my jr passes, he is 15, I must have another, can't live on a farm without one. Last year mine killed a black snake that got in my bathroom. Long story short, hubby and farm help had gone to Mt. Airy N.C for the sale, I was home alone with the dogs. A piece of tile fell off the shower wall like two years ago, one of those things hubby keeps saying will get fixed in the winter, and 2 winters later it is still missing. Small hole in the concrete behind. That is how snake got in. I'm sitting on the throne, here comes snake out of shower, I scream of course all dogs come running. Snake strikes out at jr that is looking to get a hold, eng. bulldogs take one look, turn tail and leave. jr grabs snake and starts shaking, I run, shut door, come back a few minutes later, blood is splattered all over the room, and shower curtain, gross, dog has dead snake and trots proudly toward the door down the hall and askes to go out. I let him he carries the snake with him, his trophy. Bye, bye snake.

Our garden has done pretty well, with the exception of berries this year and the grapes were so bitter I let the birds have them, no apples or peaches, not sure what is up with the orchard this year. Anyhow I canned 40 quarts and pints of peas, plus froze some in the pods for soup. Canned 42 quarts of tomatoes, I like romas, and about 20 quarts of tomatoes sauce, forgot to count and it's already put away for winter. I canned 8 quarts of yellow squash, put 24 loaves of zucchinni bread in the freezer, plus sold some, and put 10 pint bags of shreeded in the3 freezer along with 10 bags of frozen egg plant. We only got enough broccali this year to eat as we went, I've got green beans in the canner now, 10 quarts so far, looking to can up at least 40 quarts, also made 12 jars of salsa, and froze green peppers and jalepenio. we got about four bushels of potatoes and one of onions only the onions are not holding up so well. We have around 20 pumpkins out there almost ready to pick. I've already made two pies and a cake. Green beans, corn, not finished, but corn stalks look spindly. Oh I almost forgot I canned bread and butter pickles and relish, cucumbers are done. New zucchini plants are looking good as is colliflower, we didn't plant any kale but I did freeze a few heads of cabbage, freezer is almost full. I may end up needing to freeze the remaining onions to save them, and I will make some pumpkin puree to freeze plus give the grandkids pumpkins for carving. Not to bad of a year.

 

[Riverrose28]

Went in the kitchen to check my pc and beans, almost forgot till I saw them, I also canned 6 quarts of mixed veggies in tomatoe for soup and my first time ever canned 4 quarts of baked beans in tomatoe. Can you guess, we had lots of tomatoes, now we are giving them away.

 

[bevann]

Terri you must have lots of energy and very long days. I'm already tired just reading all that you have done.You certainly don't have much spare time and I'm sure you sleep well at night

 

[Riverrose28]

Seriously I've got six quarts in the canner now and more waiting to go in, green beans that is. Yes I die when I go to bed, went last night at 8 PM, problem is I woke up at 1 and just laid there forever. There was a hunter that came by this morning to set up for his blind and he put out deer corn. Deal is he can hunt here but gives us half the meat. If nothing else we'll have venison.