I have some beautiful tomatoes that are green, but will be big slicers Lord willing and the critters don't munch. Getting ready to pull out almost everything else, and add some compost and soil nutrients etc to prepare for winter planting.
It seems that the growing season has really flown by this year. It's hard to believe it is almost fall. The persimmons are almost ripe. Hubby had a minimal grape harvest, but he did get a gallon of juice.
Hope you all are doing well. Have a great weekend, and God Bless.
Pinging the List.
I wish my maters had done better this growing season. We had soooo much rain the soil never dried out. The hot peppers didn’t like it either. But I have gotten a few peppers here recently. My tomato plants are dead now so no hope for those. With all the rain I wonder what winter will bring!!
from CT: My turnip greens seeded themselves and gave me another crop! Even in the walkways of the garden! Lots of Tomatoes - mostly green, hope they turn red before the frost. Butternut popping up everywhere. okra just starting. thought I had no flat beans but got a lot the other day. my cup runneth over.
The Fuji’s looks good this year, Asian pears have been bountiful, the dwarf fruuit trees have delivered,, juicy crispy yummy, squirrels not pleased , the netting made a big difference.
I may have to grow some veggies next year, and knock back a lemon tree, it,s getting too tall to pick from easily.
Enjoy your harvests.
Our new Excaliber 3500 should be delivered Monday; got it at Amazon, and for some reason known only to them, white was $20 less than black. I’ll break it in with sunflower seeds, to get the moisture content down enough to store without destroying viability; ditto corn I want to save for seed. Plan to also put some cilatro in it, as well as catnip. Might have to do apples somewhere in between. Between the Amazon discounts; free shipping, and a $50 gift card from redeeming CC ‘reward points’, it only cost $130 out of pocket: The Frugal Freeper strikes again!
We’ve be “squashing” everyone in sight, including a powerline crew doing maintenance on the right-of-way. We’ve also gotten our first winter squash. early this week.
Jacob’s Cattle beans are finished; Great Northerns & White Greasy cutshorts are about half way or so done. Still getting green Espada bush beans; I’ll plant them again, even though they’re a hybid. The brown cowpea-type limas are loaded with immature pods; those seeds are savable, too..
I learned for next year: plant JCB as bush beans, since they don’t climb; and GN as pole beans, as they DO climb. I was certain JCB were clibmers, so planted nearly 40 left overs that didn’t fit their area next to a row of the Russin sunflowers, so they could climb the stalks: MISTAKE; as bush beans, they got too much shade and didn’t produce at all. I should have put them away for next year.
Still getting cukes; and I can’t believe the potatoes still aren’t anywhere near ready to dig. Okra was a bust, as it was too cool & wet for it early & mid summer.
Sometime this coming week I need to get the tilling done for the winter rye & wheat planting due the following week.
Carrots have had a banner year, and our first ever attempt at leeks has been a success, after a rocky start.
A question or two about figs: this is the first year our tree is really bearing. If I leave them on the tree to ripen, the ants and the hornets get to them (and I’ve brushed off the insects and bit the other side of the fig - superb.) If I bring them inside before the bugs get them, they don’t ripen nearly as well, and some of them ferment and the fruit flies get them.
So what do you fig growers do?
In previous years we always had lots of hard green figs about now and I thought NJ summers just weren’t warm enough or long enough to ripen them. But this has been the wettest summer in fifteen years or so; the grass in the field is six feet high. So in future summers I will water the fig tree well if we don’t have as much rain, and see how that works out.
This season really has gone quickly, hasn’t it?
/johnny
I want information on peppers - all kinds of peppers. Which sweet and which kinda hot and which hot do you guys plant? I don’t know where to start with peppers. Johnny grows two hot ones and that’s it. I would bet his hot ones will curl your toes. I don’t want one so hot you can’t breathe after you get a taste of it.
I am serious about this since I have absolutely no pepper seed of any kind.
I may get the tiller out this evening and work up a spot to plant the fall greens. Should have a bunch of peppers ready to pick. And maybe some okra. I could do with a nice mess of fried okra with my supper tonight...
Greetings from Massachusetts-we have had a wonderful crop of little peppers, summer squash, basil, sage and cucumbers. We have some tomatoes that are finally beginning to ripen, and some eggplants that are doing fairly well. I hope that next year will be much better.
Last year was a corn bust due to extreme heat preventing pollination, but this year’s Serendipity corn is very good. I picked 2 ears this afternoon to have with dinner, and it was very good. Be glad when the rest matures; these two were the most advanced. Thanks for that seed, if you’re reading this, justadumbblonde!
Also this afternoon I harvested nearly all the rest of the black oilseed, as it was getting attacked. Only the ones that still had petals attached & no seed showing were left to mature more.
I thought it was birds, but in two of the flower heads I found a total of 3 large beetles chowing down on the seeds. About 3/4 inch long by 1/2 or more inch wide; a blocky rectangle, almost, but not quite, square body & heads. A flat dark brownish greenish, with a bit of darker irregular striping, like a camo pattern.
I also found one in a Russian sunflower head that was an early ripener.
Tomorrow is our local Rural Volunteer FD’s annual picnic, and our alphabet-group is assigned salads, so they’ll be getting cucumbers in raspberry vinaigrette from us. I’ve been wondering what we were going to do with all of them that are still out there. :-)
Not much to report here. The ears of corn I harvested are drying in a basket, they’re very pretty! I’m picking beans here and there and letting those dry too. My first tomato cross is ripe, looking forward to seeing what grows out of the seeds from that.
I won’t get much done this week due to family stuff, but at least I can admire my corn, wild grape juice, and 10 pints of pickle relish
I am almost to the end of salsa making, that is if my hands hold up. I am at 80 pints and counting. Fall beans starting to bloom and cucumber plants are starting to show their demise. They produced very well and I wish them a pleasant end.
The snow peas up about 10 inches, are struggling to survive this 90 + September heat wave, and of course I am having to water them. I am using a soaker hose... because it does not take much to dry out that particular raised bed.
I could not do all this canning if I did not have a dishwasher. My Kenmore passed on a few years back and I ended up with a cheap replacement. No power to speak of and it has this screen mesh in the bottom, about 18” in diameter that prevents any food particles from getting flush out.
So IF I do not clean all particles larger than a period off the dishes, that food gets impounded and dried onto the dishes. (Note: I did not select this dishwasher ... it was the only ‘white’ dishwasher available for pick up that day for the amount of money willing to be spent.)
Guess what I am trying to say, when/if you decide to replace yours, make sure the machine will do what some claim it is suppose to do. They just do not make them like they use to, and cheap is just that cheap.
It seems that the growing season has really flown by this year.Seems the older I get, the faster time flies in general, but I sure do know what you mean... :)
please add me to the list
Felt like fall this Monday morning at 35 degrees...close but no cigar, Mr. Frost...all plants are fine. Summer returns on Wednesday, with temps in the low 90's. From 35 to 92 in a 54-hour period...Red Hampshire weather is whacked this year.
San Antonio: This year’s garden was a dismal disappointment. Too hot. No rain. Except for peppers and cucumbers I’ll grow in 15 gallon containers and Earth Box Containers, I’ve decided to till up the garden with commercial purchased compost/manure plus peat moss. Then seed with a cover crop which will be tilled next Spring.
This is a large backyard garden plot. Which cover crop might you guys recommend?