Your Garden(s) Revisited...

[Dennis1209]

Well, with all this flooding and rain, I have zucchini and cucumbers coming out of my ears. I've made more bread & butter and dill pickles than I could possibly use in two life times. I hear they make wonderful Christmas stocking presents :yum:

 

Finally as of four days ago, starting to get some vine ripened tomato's, yum yum! What a difference between them and the hot house tomato's. Tomato's not as big or plentiful as last year but, last year it was 101- 108 degrees everyday and I hear tell tomato's like the hot weather.

 

Lima bean rows were taken over by the grass and weeds, they're being squeezed out of existence with no beans?

 

Green beans are forming and should be ready for the first picking in about a week or two. Planted my rows two weeks apart so I wouldn't be flooded with them all at once.

 

Bell pepper plants are very big and dark green and harvested just a few so far. Yellow sweet pepper plants are not growing much, stagnant and a puzzle? Love those sweet pepper rings on hamburgers, sandwiches and pizza but not looking good?

 

Watermelon and cantaloupe slightly larger than softballs but, the deer will smash them just as they're getting ripe.

 

Blackberries: Man oh man, we be haven a bumper crop quarter size ripe, juicy delicious blackberries this year. Blackberry cobbler time this week :yum:

 

The bugs have had a field day with my cabbage, I suppose I should use some insecticide but I try to stay as organic as I can.

 

Should be another bumper crop of peaches this year.

 

How's your gardens fairing?

[gunwhatgun]

We have squash coming out our ears, cucumbers are right behind them. Starting to pick a couple of handfuls of okra every time out to check them. We just found some beans on the poles today so they will be ready in a few days, we have decided to harvest these a couple of times then resow for another crop a little later. There are bunch of blooms on the melons but no fruit yet. our pepper plants are small but producing. We are trying sweet ivory peppers this year and are excited about that. We canned some squash a couple of weeks ago as well at our first attempt at dill pickles. We used a commercial brine mix and did not like them so today we put up 6 more jars of pickles with a homemade brine this time that smelled awesome. There are a ton of big tomatoes but none red yet.

[Dennis1209]

I got an awesome receipt for bread & butter pickles from a neighbor I recently made. If any interest I'll post it. I ate the neighbor lady's pickles last year and they were fantastic but, haven't tried mine yet because it calls for two weeks in the jar before they are seasoned? Going broke on vinegar and canning salt, not to mention all the expensive mustard, celery, turmeric stuff...

 

The Internet is loaded with receipts for pickles and about everything else.

 

With all the rain we had this year, my okra didn't come up at all, or if it did it was a couple miles away...

[JAB]

In the past, where i used to live, I would get more peppers off of just a couple of plants than I could use, even preserving them for the following year.  This year and in my current location, my pepper plants have barely grown.  None of the ghost peppers or scorpion peppers have anything on them.  I think one habanero has one, tiny pepper.  The peppers will get blossoms on them but the rain just comes along and beats the blossoms off of the plants.  A couple of my pepper plants just plain died.  I have a couple of small fruit on my Ichiban eggplant, one or two small clusters of green tomatoes on one of my cherry tomato plants, one green tomato on one of my Cherokee Purple tomato plants and one green tomato on one of my Rutgers plants.  The majority of my tomato plants don't even have blossoms on them.

 

The mint I planted seems to be doing okay.  My sage looks healthy but really hasn't grown to speak of and the same is true of the oregano I transplanted from where I used to live (it was going gangbusters there.)  My rosemary looks pretty much the same as the day I planted it.  My cilantro and dill have both died.

 

I think my bad results are partly due to all the rain and partly due to crappy soil where I live.  This year, I even went so far as to fill the holes I planted in with topsoil rather than the barren soil that came out of the holes and I'm still not getting much out of it.  As much as I like the idea of growing things to add to self-sufficiency, I also have to accept reality.  After two planting seasons living where I am now, both with miserable results, I may have to face the fact that I could go to the Amish market in Delano and buy as much great produce as I could need to use and preserve for later for less money than I spent on plants, soil, etc. with no return on my investment.  I may spend a few years composting and trying to establish a couple of more fertile raised beds and then try, again, but if things don't turn around soon for this growing season I won't be planting much next year.

Edited July 9, 2013 by JAB

[JWC]

Been eating green beans for a month. Corns about ready. Dug another 5 gallon bucket of potatoes this evening. Vine borers killed 2 squash plants while we were gone to FL over the weekend, bastards. Still got several more but my brother raided them while I was gone too, bastard, lol.
Zuchinni was mislabeled. I ain't sure wth kind it is but it ain't black beauty and it grows funky shaped striped crap. Thinking bout snatching at least some of it out and replanting something else tomorrow when I replant some more yellow squash. Sweet potato foliage is going crazy. Peppers look like a fail, cept for cayenne's. the few cucumbers i planted are coming in. Not really a cucumber fan. Cut about and already ate half the broccoli. Got a bucket full of onions. Okra is about 3" tall (it replaced the onions.) Winter squash is coming up as is our halloween punkins.
What else... Oh yeah... Tomatoes are just green. Waitin', waitin'...And I have about 20 more rooted off of suckers. Gonna try grafting a couple of heirlooms onto some hybrids as an experiment and plant a few for some later ones.
Blueberries need picking tomorrow. And I gotta get the rest of the potatoes out to plant peas.

I think the rains been just right this year. Every week but one we got a good rain. My water tank hasn't been used cept for washing my hands. Last year we emptied it the week after the 4th. 550gal and it didnt ever fill all the way back up