That means I am carrying buckets of water to plants. Groan! Well I have an additional 3 lbs of tomatoes red ripe and lucious looking - almost all Roma, so spaghetti sauce will be made this weekend.
I have harvested some lovely red sweet bell and pimento peppers. We have loads of green bells. Stir fry is on the menu. Some will be frozen, pickled, or dehydrated.
Squash and cukes still going strong. Produce cart is finished, and nearly full. Leaves the cabinets free for processing. Much better arrangement.
Still no luck with lettuce. For some reason I am having trouble with it this year. Usually have it growing right and left. The only seeds that have had any luck were from 2011, and I didn't plant many of those, thinking they wouldn't even germinate.
Well they did germinate, but weren't real productive either. I am thinking it's time to check out the catalog sales, and try something new. Meanwhile I guess I'll try a few indoors to see if that works.
Have a great weekend. God Bless.
Pinging the list.
I could use more tomatoes, I done OK I reckun.
Not enough to make a big batch of viking chili tho.
Early Asian pears are great, juicy, the fujis look really good too.
Squirrels have taken light share so far. Nets are up.
I wish I had some fresh squash.. Next year.
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I have had unusually good luck with the mini-roses. There have been a steady supply of them all summer. Basil has done really well. Time to make the Pesto! lol
After 16 or 17 years of “lurking” I decided to join FR to post on these garden thread.
Wow! What a year here in Atlanta.
I have already canned 75 quarts of tomatoes. Pretty confident I’ve pulled close to 100 flats (you know, those cardboard flats Costco sells peaches etc in) all from 30 Krims (they’ve succumbed from the wilt now) and the remaining 30 Better Boys (that are still producing fruit I pull twice per day).
Canned some 20 pints of sauce and about the same of iced, sweet, green tomatoes. Planted about 15 additional hybrids and 7 more Krims several weeks ago. They’re doing fine - producing fruit, flowering!
Green beans were non-stoppable. My single, 30 foot row of Roma green beans must have produced a dozen plastic grocery bags of beans. The regular green beans would get tough before I could give them away.
The Korean white (I planted 8 plants) cucumbers, well, let’s just say the neighbors were saying “no more”. First time I’ve planted this variety.. They are an excellent quality and excellent producer that produce fruit about every 4 inches of vine knot.
Okra is going to town, too. I’m pulling pods twice a day. I have one plant that’s 8 feet tall. Really!
My peppers (banana, bell, California Wonder) don’t start *really* producing until this time of the year. They’re right on schedule.
The squashes and zucchinis I pulled up before they were finished. I got tired of them. Just too much and wanted the real estate.
Fordhooks are going about the same - kinda slow as usual.
Several weeks ago I planted something for the first time - Alabama Blackeye Butter (a pole bean) Beans. They’re already
6 feet tall (but no fruit yet). Bloggers in this area say they’ll prolifically produce fruit through Thanksgiving.
I’m excited about the fall crops that I’ve already started.
Can you tell?
BTW - Have yet to find the first horn worm on my maters. The stink bugs are a different matter..!
Hi everybody!
((((HUGS))))
Hi, Girlfriend! :)
Let’s see...Mr. Wonderful brought me 2 feed sacks of sweet corn this week, so I processed 20 quarts of that on Thursday. We planted four 50’ rows of sweet corn and also about 30’ of Hopi Blue corn (for grinding - an experiment!) and all is doing well. Gotta appreciate his ingenuity: he took a dog house down the hill to the Corn Patch and staked out one of the Coon Hounds to guard the crop. So far, Geronimo has not let one single raccoon into the perimeter. Good Dog! :)
Last night I picked NINETY FOUR Viva Italia (Roma) tomatoes (from 6 plants, with more to ripen!) that are going to become pasta & pizza sauce sometime this weekend.
I’ve been drying ‘Juliet’ tomatoes as fast as I can pick them - they are the BEST tomato for oven/sun drying. Simply awesome. Very flavorful. A little olive oil, a little garlic salt, Italian seasonings and a few days in a slow oven? HEAVEN!
More beans than ever - the freezer is full of both those that made the cut for meals, and then the ‘bigger’ beans are bagged and frozen for soups and stews this winter.
More zucchini than EVER from 2 plants - that are STILL producing. Chopped, shredded, hollowed out for later stuffing, etc. A bounty, as usual from that goofy plant!
A friend gave me a grocery bag of small ‘Wealthy’ apples. I made a crock pot full of Apple Butter. Made 8 pints, I think. Yum! My Wolf River and Bonnie Best apples are producing for the first time and the trees are loaded. They’re not pretty, because I didn’t spray this season, but they’ll make great pies and applesauce.
I’ve already put up 12 quarts of Salsa, and the Cukes have LOVED this cool growing season, so I have made (and ate!) more Bread & Butter and Dill pickles than I care to admit!
Cut a HUGE bouquet of flowers for the dining room table this evening. ‘Soroya’ Sunflowers and ‘Oklahoma’ Zinnia of all colors. Food for the Soul. :)
Best gardening season of the past three years, for sure. We’ve had two stormy, wet, too-cool springs, and a drought 3 years back, so it’s about time!
I now have 9 raised beds, thanks to Mr. Wonderful and I’ll be adding at least 3 more this fall and filling them with all sorts of yummy soil and worms and compost and stuff.
Late plantings of lettuce, spinach, radishes, etc. are going in soon and my pole beans refused to CLIMB this season (my fault - mixed up the packages) so those are composted and ‘Wando’ peas are going in this Sunday.
The only ‘bad’ crop this season has been sweet peppers. We did not have enough dry weather and hot sunny days to make them happy, though I have TWO peppers on the vine - and the Jalapenos performed well, as always. Those hot peppers always produce no matter what, it seems.
Life Is Good. :)
No suffering in the Misery heat for me this week.
I’m off in the land of fruits and nuts for a tech conference that runs through Thursday. Going to do a bit of touristing here in SF on Friday, then head north to Calistoga for two nights of USAC/CRA sprint cars and midgets at Calistoga Speedway before I fly home on labor day.
I did manage to make some progress on the home front over the past few days. Too much fun and not enough nose to the grindstone during July gave the crabgrass free reign over my victory garden. I took the weed whacker to it yesterday evening so Mrs. Augie could get out there and pick without her lovely legs getting tickled so bad. I looked like the Jolly Green Giant by the time I was finished. Had to take a hose bath in the driveway before she’d let me back in the house. lol
Got in the pond with Nanner Tuesday and Wednesday evenings and removed all of the loose dirt that I’d dug out of the basin previously. I’m going to get serious about finishing that up when I get back home. I really want to build the dock and get the dam closed up before winter sets in.
The rain and wind Saturday night knocked some of the Paw Paws off our tree. Going to make some Paw Paw ice cream later this week.
I have a question about peppers (Gypsy). I have a plant that is located near my driveway, because I have a scarcity of sunlight. It is about ten feet from a light over my driveway, that I usually have on at night. This plant is still blooming and putting on peppers, but it seems like SOME of the peppers near the top of the plant take forever to ripen. I am wondering if this is because of my driveway light? Do peppers need darkness to ripen?
By the way, I highly recommend Gypsy peppers for central TX. They are sweet, large, and thick walled, with a hint of heat.