Things are humming along here now. Even with my relatively late start, I’ve got baby tomatoes and peppers setting, and bloom buds on melons, squash, and eggplant. My bell peppers are setting fruit like mad, they have already set 4-6 per plant and have lots more buds forming. Do you have to thin the fruit on bell peppers? I’ve never had them set fruit this well before!
In my eagerness to get a bunch of homemade pickles, I think I planted too many cucumbers. They are making flower buds now, and since I am growing parthenocarpic cukes, every flower bud is a potential cuke. If even a quarter of those make, I am going to be drowning in them! If they all do...I hope the neighbors don’t mind me leaving bags of cucumbers on their porches. The fun won’t last long, though. The mildew will almost certainly kill them by June or July, but I’ll be tired of making pickles by then.
The bunching onions and herbs are also looking good - nice healthy seedlings.
The bad news is that some of my plants were set back a couple of weeks by a nutrient deficiency. After basically everything in my new raised beds turned yellow I finally figured it out and started foliar feeding. The plants have now greened up and resumed growth. The okra was slowed the most; it’s still really small, but at least it’s not yellow any more.
I had to reseed my calaloo; something ate the first planting. If these fail...I can always stick another tomato plant in that bed. You can never have too many tomatoes, right? :-)
I ran out of my canned tomatoes in December. I've been eating hothouse or commercial canned since then. When I put up jalapenos last year, my neighbor said they wouldn't get eaten for years.... I just opened the last jar at the 1st of the month.
Never have enough tomatoes or peppers around here. Ever.
Store what you can. You just never know. And last year in Texas was harsh.
/johnny
I’m catching up reading the entire thread but saw your comment about probably having extra cucumbers. A really neat trick for “homemade” pickles is to use your store bought pickle juice - when you have finished your store bought pickles, just cut up your cucumbers and drop into the juice - put back in the fridge for a day or two and you have incredible fresh tasting “pickles”. That might be an easy project for neighbors who might otherwise waste the cucumbers you donate to them.