Posted on 07/15/2016 3:20:00 PM PDT by greeneyes
Our same series of storms knocked power out for about 3 hours, [thank gooddness for my preps] I have lots of blooms, nothing to harvest as of yet. The pond is back up to it’s normal level. [durn it, makes it harder to drain & dredge later this fall]
Sorry to hear about your loss. I miss my little doggie a lot too. We don’t plan to get another, but we do seem to have a very friendly stray cat that has taken to sleeping on one of the patio chairs on the front patio.
Glad it’s all working out so well for you. Sounds wonderful.
Last year we had a HUGE crop on our tree. The birds and squirrels got lots and I pinched about 50% (the tree was covered like crazy) yet I was still able to manage to harvest about a dozen! One dozen peaches out of hundreds of baby peaches. :). I was OK with that - I made jam with them, which is what I want them for. I thought the jam was too thick, but it actually spreads nicely and is bright in flavor. Five little jars of the most hard fought for jam in the history of peach jam!
Maybe our tree will be OK next year - I think our temps didn’t get low enough, often enough this winter. As our tree is very near the house it is in a micro climate - and that bit us in the butt this year.
This is the first year for our ‘swimming pool’ garden. It took about 25 dump truck loads of top soil to fill it.
The cement patio around the garden keeps the weeds and bugs out and the deer haven’t ventured into it either.
The vegetables have really taken off. It looks like a jungle. We’ve harvested kale, broccoli, lettuce, peppers, and green beans so far. It looks like we’ll have a lot of squash, melon and cucumbers this year too!
We’re going to take a canning course from the extension service this summer. Are electric canners safe? I asked the company, which assured me low acid canning is safe, but have read otherwise on the Ball site.
I figured it might have hit your area.
I’m thinking that we need to do something to protect the crop next year, but the trees are now too tall to cover with bird netting, still the low hanging stuff should be able to come up with something.
I am thinking that hanging some aluminum foil, old computer disks, and/or pie pans might scare them off.
We have so many nut trees, that is what keeps them coming in I think.
Sweet Corn! Man do I love sweet corn. My garden is really too little for corn. It’s fun to grow because it gets BIG and grows so fast - though it does take time to properly ripen. Like pumpkins.
Your garden sounds lovely.
That is so awesome! I’ve heard of people doing that. I would love to not have weeds. I fight like mad for my garden! Each year gets a bit better. I have ideas that might work even better next year. :0)
I just did a quick Pinterest search. I see lots of recipes that I’m going to try. Hope they like it or I’ll be making a lot of PBJ the next few weeks. LOL!
Pressure Canning is the only way to go for non-acid veggies and meats. Pickled stuff, and acidic tomatoes are ok using the water bath method.
I think that they make electric pressure canners, but I am not sure about it. I picked mine up on sale at Walmart, and use it all the time. During the winter, I stock up on sales of meat, and poultry, can about 20 lbs. of chicken in quart jars, and beef roast or pork roast in pints. Sometimes can some hamburger, but usually I just freeze that and use as needed.
It makes for quick meals in the summer without heating up the kitchen, and it’s so much healthier that all the stuff with chemicals added.
I have tried all manner of tricks to protect my peaches - none have worked at all. I would suggest you find out how best to prune your peach trees, and then once they are producing - net them as much as possible. Though you may end up with more insects that thrive due to the netting, in which case you need to spray with neem oil several times before netting, and then follow up treatments. Peaches are a huge draw to every single pest. Even if you can only net half of your tree it should be worth it. I have tried to keep mine well pruned, but it is well over 15 feet tall now. It DOES have a pretty shape though - for all that is worth.
But there is nothing better than a warm peach fresh picked off of your own tree.
It has been a prolific garden year. I have canned about 50 pints of salsa from my garden tomatoes, onions, and peppers. I have frozen so many quarts of tomatoes I’ve lost count, and I’ve also frozen onions, zucchini, squash, and peppers. I’ve canned pasta sauce, canned dill pickles, bread and butter pickles, cowboy candy, and bread and butter jalapenos. I’ve added 15 more cucumber plants to extend my pickle harvest, and I’ve got 45 new tomato plants on the porch to put in for fall, to replace the spring tomato plants which are pretty much worn out. The 40+ pepper plants are crazy big and loaded, so lots of canning to do there. It’s just so hot outside that it wears me out. I’m ready for fall!!
I agree. We lived in a trailer park that had a peach tree. One year, it had loads, and I made peach jam, as well as frozen peaches. They sure tasted good fresh off the tree.
LOL. I know what you mean. Hubby rarely consults before he gets a notion to pick. So he often presents me with a big batch of stuff for which I have no time, or am too tired to deal with. LOL
What is cowboy candy?
We just had one heck of a storm blow through. High winds have knocked over a lot of planters. I’ll check them out in the morning.
For the most part, all the pansies and lettuce have died because of the high temps and high humidity. There are one or two hold-overs. Basil is getting larger and I can hardly wait for the tomatoes to ripen.
I’ve got to harvest some basil, it’s growing like crazy.
“Lots of tomatoes on, but with hot and humid we get early blight. Boo! So, lower leaves OFF and organic copper spray ON”
What kind of blight gets your tomatoes? I had the unfortunate task of pulling right at about 25% of my tomato plants yesterday due to a virus that first makes the leaves curl and then the whole plant yellows and dies. I know of no remedies to stop it, but really wish I did! I foliar feed them to try and boost their immunity and also add pyrethrum to kill any little pests that may spread the disease from one plant to the others. I absolutely loathe pulling the plants, especially when they’re at the 2-3’ heights they are.
It’s been a particularly difficult growing season here since we’ve only had less than 3” of rain so far this year. The summer ‘monsoons’, which normally start on the 4th of July still haven’t come and there’s still no rain in the forecast. I’ve had a few gophers that managed to dig under the buried hardware cloth around the perimeter, and every on of them made straight lines for the tomato rows. The past few nights one has repeatedly chewed into the same drip line to get a drink. I can only imagine it’s reaction to having the resulting blast of water hitting him in the face! One thing I learned this morning was just how fast acting the strychnine laced gopher bait works. Last night, around midnight (yep, I’m out there at midnight working so as to avoid the 104 degree daytime temps and the intense sun) I placed a spoonful of the bait in a new tunnel. So, this morning, after the foliar feeding, I went to inspect that gopher run. I saw a newly dug opening, so I went and retrieved my .22 with a bird/snake shot load, and sat there with the barrel aimed at the new opening waiting for him to come and back fill his tunnel. After waiting for a while, and it was clear he wasn’t going to surface, I resorted to plan B which was to dig up the new tunnel and put more bait in there. Well low and behold, as I was digging I came across the SOB’s dead carcass! That poison he ate last night had killed him in just a matter of hours! I pass this info on for all to read because what I learned was that if I put out gopher bait and then there is new gopher activity, it means there are either more gophers or they didn’t eat the bait. I had no idea the poisoned bait worked so fast! I just wish there was as good solution to combat the tomato virus too.
Cowboy Candy is just candied jalapenos, and is somewhat similar to bread and butter jalapenos, but without onions and with a thicker syrup. It’s very popular here in Oklahoma.
Okay. I had not heard of it before. Thanks.
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