The Garden Thread

[Jamie Jackson]

Looking Great peejman!

 

Canning is every bit as addictive as guns, shooting, and handloading. But I think it's too late to warn you at this point.

[Mark A]

Good start peejman. Let me know how your pickles turn out. I've only tried once and they ended up pretty mushy.

We've had to curtail our canning this year. Spending too much time trying to get the property ready to start construction next spring. 2 years have gone by in the blink of an eye...

[Mark A]

So... I'm determined to start some romaine lettuce seeds for a fall crop. If I did the math correctly I should start my seeds next week. It just seems early. We eat a lot of romaine for salads. Thinking of starting 6, then waiting 7-10 days and starting the next 6 and so on. Initial seed start will be indoors in a sunny window.

 

Thoughts?

[monkeylizard]

Yeah, do it soon. Staggering them over a few weeks is a good idea. I usually wait until late August to get my fall crop going because July feels too early.....then the frost always comes in right when things are looking good.  I tell myself every year that I'm going to start them earlier, but I never do.

[LI0NSFAN]

We planted 3 beefsteak tomatoes plants, and 3 cherry tomatoes. We have been getting 5 beefsteak and around 12 cherry tomatoes every day for 2 weeks now. A lot of fresh salsa and tomatoes sandwiches. Lol

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[Mark A]

Love this time of year for making salsa.

 

Tomorrow I shall rule the salsa world. Pics as it happens...

 

Mark

[Dennis1209]

The spring didn't start off too well for me. My tomato plants were in the ground two week when the neighbor started preparing his ground to plant his corn crop and was spraying something. Two days later all twenty-four tomato plants were wilted and dead. Replanted them and I'm still nowhere near my first ripe tomato yet. 

It's been a bumper crop for squash and Blue Lake bush green beans this year. Planted about 50 linear yards of beans and have picked maybe 8-10 bushels so far and they keep producing. I'm so tired of picking, canning and freezing green beans and I can't get anyone over to pick 'free' green beans, they will take them if they're already picked though? The difference in production this year is I spent many hours weeding the garden. It's amazing just how fast weeds will take over and how they can disguise themselves to look like a green bean leaf. Had a BIG problem with those beetles last two years eating my plants and fruit trees but surprisingly I haven't seen one beetle this year. Exception being an infestation of those yellow beetles everywhere getting into the house during the spring.

Looks like I'm going to have watermelon out the wazoo just from planting 'two' little packets for a buck each. Once the vines start to spread out there's no way in the world to keep them weeded. It's going to be a big camouflaged egg hunt for them through all the high weeds when they get ready to be picked.  

I loves me pickled beets and this was the 'third' year I planted them from seed and failed. At best they will start to grow and then either die off or not produce any beet? Wish I knew what I was doing wrong? The packages and internet says it's a spring / fall vegetable and doesn't do well in hot weather. But my co-op and others claim you can grow them in the hot summers around here? At any rate I learned my lesson and not waste my time with beets anymore. 

I canned 'a lot' of salsa last year. So much so I though I'd not have to make anymore for a few years to come. Wrong! We've been completely out for quite some time now. In addition to potato chips it's great in soups, chili, crock pots and lots of dishes. I'm waiting for the wife to try it with her corn flakes, not mine!

This is my third year using my American pressure canner that does 14 quart jars at one time. I really like that thing and it was worth the investment. Now I need to get me a top of the line food processor and vacuum bag sealer (any suggestions)?

Wish the deer around here would allow me to grow sweet potato's, cantaloupe and grapes. I'd need an electric fence or something to keep them from eating them. 

 

 

[Mark A]

Dennis1209 is my hero of the day...

I bought an all American canner a couple of years back but I did't get the one where you could double stack quarts. I wish I had but I didn't know... So I just run extra batches... One thing we added was an electric canner. My wife doesn't like using the big canner. I had a friend buy the electric one and it worked great so we got one as well. Now my wife cans small batches with it. smaller canner

A friend found this on Amazon and got it. I like it a LOT better. Enough so that I will probably give ours to a friend of my wife's and get this one instead. The major differences are it can be used at different altitudes and it can do quarts. electric quart canner

For some reason I am a visual learner. I need to meet up with someone who is growing green beans and various other types of pole beans and see how they do it. Youtube helps but I just need to see it for it to really click.

Maybe I just need to see about growing some beets and then trade for some beans...

Off to go do a doggie adoption then back to start the salsa extravaganza...

 

Mark

 

[peejman]

Mark, go ahead with the fall seeds. Seems weird to start them in the heat of summer, but that's what needs to happen. 

In addition to the salsa we canned, we also made 3-4 cool whip dishes full that we'll freeze. I prepped another 4 qts of maters for freezing because I'm out of jars at the moment. 

I do the canning on the side burner of my gas grill. Keeps the heat out of the house and the mess should something go wrong. 

[Mark A]

Well... It was a good cooking weekend but I'm kind of glad it is over. Smoked a turkey, 2 chickens, a bunch of lamb chops and some ground lamb & bacon treats.

Just finished canning the last of the salsa. We ended up with 30 pints. I will probably make one more batch when the tomatoes start slowing down. That should get us through until next summer.

Also got a couple pints of blackberries. It looks like there will be a big batch ready in about 2 weeks. Hoping I can get them before the critters do...

 

Mark

[peejman]

I forgot to mention that this last round of storms blew most of my tomatoes over. The plants seem ok so far, but picking fruit is a lot more difficult now.  

[monkeylizard]

I use the metal tomato cages. Keeps them upright. You can go a cheaper route if you have a bunch and stick a tall stake (6' or so) in the ground beside the plant, then loosely tie the plant to the stake with twine. Just be sure it's in deep enough to stay when the wind blows.

[peejman]

I was using metal cages.  They'd have fallen over weeks ago without them. 

[MacGyver]

My tomatoes have some serious height to them this year. Even in 54" cages I've lost some due to the wind in the last week.  

[peejman]

Yep, most of mine are (were) at least 5' tall and so thick I had to dig through them to get ripe fruit that's buried in the middle.  They've done really well. 

[Guest]

This year we tried the "back to Eden" (heavy mulch) method.  It's been wonderful.  I highly recommend it.  It does require finding a source for wood chips or other covering (google the videos to see Paul Gautsi's approach).

Although I must admit we've had a fairly wet summer, we haven't watered the garden at all in six or more weeks.  And very, very little weeding compared to previous years.  I'm curious to see if the bermuda becomes a bit more of a pain over time as it "swims" in through the mulch, but so far we've been able to pull it periodically as it appears around the edges, and pulling anything out of the mulch is 10x easier than from clay soil.  

We're sold on the thick mulch method.  It's worked great on flower beds for years, can't believe it took us this long to try it on the garden! 

[Guest]

I also meant to mention - because I hope this helps others - that the covering/mulch approach is very enjoyable because you can walk in the garden after rain without slogging through mud, and not working the soil with mechanized equipment is incredibly peaceful, more so than I'd have realized before we tried this approach.  

On a more typical (drier) summer, we realize we'd likely have wanted or needed to water now and then to keep things productive, but got away without it so far this summer, and are experimenting as much as anything.  

[Mark A]

We tried the deep mulch process on one bed last year with fantastic results. This year all of the beds have it. I would estimate we cut weeding time by 95% and the little weeding we do is a lot easier. When we (hopefullly) build our house at the farm next year we are going to expand our garden and it will be thoroughly mulched.

 

In order to facilitate that I just ordered a 3-point chipper for the tractor. Can't wait to get it up and running.

 

Mark

[peejman]

We've mulched with pine straw for several years. I may try bark mulch next year. 

[Dirtshooter]

Thought I would revive this old thread. I planted our fall garden for 2nd year in a row. Have been picking 2nd planting of green beans for about 3 weeks now. Have kale, iceberg lettuce which is first for me, turnips plus our favorite brocolli. It has been super dry here and without watering it would all be gone. Believe it or not we still have 3 cherry tomatoe plants blooming and loaded with green maters, have these planted in a container also btw. If you have never planted a fall garden give it a try. I have raised beds and finished our cold frame or small green house on the bed that has the lettuce and kale, took some old wooden windows that were in the barn and all I am waiting for is cold weather where they need to be covered up. Last year took pvc pipe and made hoops that were covered with heavy plastic sheeting and it served it's purpose.

[Mark A]

We've harvested our first round of leaf lettuce from our fall garden. I didn't plant nearly enough. I also have cabbage and spinach growing. Just started some Swiss chard, kale, more lettuce and spinach. Also bought some greenhouse tomato seeds just to see what happens. We bought a little pop up greenhouse for one of our raised beds. Going go see what it and a light bulb can do if it ever gets really cold.

We will also have power at our greenhouse on our property in a couple of weeks. I have some meyer lemon trees that will over winter in it and we hope to start a very small aquaponics system in there as a learning tool.

I'm really hoping we will be able to build our little retirement cottage up there next year and start living there full time.

 

Mark

[Guest]

1 hour ago, Mark A said:

We've harvested our first round of leaf lettuce from our fall garden. I didn't plant nearly enough. I also have cabbage and spinach growing. Just started some Swiss chard, kale, more lettuce and spinach. Also bought some greenhouse tomato seeds just to see what happens. We bought a little pop up greenhouse for one of our raised beds. Going go see what it and a light bulb can do if it ever gets really cold.

We will also have power at our greenhouse on our property in a couple of weeks. I have some meyer lemon trees that will over winter in it and we hope to start a very small aquaponics system in there as a learning tool.

I'm really hoping we will be able to build our little retirement cottage up there next year and start living there full time.

 

Mark

Sounds great.  Looking forward to hearing more about how the lemons do over the winter.

[Mark A]

They were doing great last year until I stuck them in the greenhouse. We don't live up there yet and I didn't have permanent power so I couldn't regulate the temperature well. With a propane heater I was able to keep it from getting too cold but I had no way to automatically ventilated if it got too hot. I think we basically fried them.

I nursed them back to health but so far they've shown no indications of setting fruit. If something doesn't start happening by next summer I will take it as a lesson learned and buy some new ones.

 

Mark

[peejman]

I'm pretty much done with the exception of one Roma tomato that simply won't die. Everything else has been pulled up and burned, but this one plant just keeps on going. 

I've a couple volunteer tomatoes coming up in the flower bed. I doubt they'll bear fruit before frost gets them, but time will tell. 

In general we did pretty good this year. Canned a modest amount of stuff for the first time with our heirloom canner. 

[monkeylizard]

My okra is still going, but the stuff it's putting out seems hard for its size. Little 2" ones feel like they would at 4". I doubt this late okra will be any good. I also have a bell pepper plant that has finally decided to start producing. That's about it. No fall plantings for me this year. Just didn't want to fool with it.