[greeneyes]

We are still having pretty decent weather. A little hotter and drier than last week, but still nice. I gave everything a good drink of water and 15 30 15 Miracle gro type water soluble plant food yesterday.

I have a little sugar baby watermelon about the size of a big black olive on the vine that is growing up the cattle panel type netting. My cukes are growing up the lines and flowering well should be getting some little cukes starting.

Corn is starting to silk. Last year's indoor peppers that I transplanted a few weeks ago are full of tiny pea sized peppers. Tomatoes are flowering. Hubby has green tomatoes still, but finally got 1 nice red one about 2 inches in diameter.

I can't believe it, but I still have little gem romaine and black simpson leaf lettuce doing well. Sunflowers, I am thinking that I could have climbing cut worms. One of the survivors that put on new leaves has had some damage, and another stem that is cut in half.

I wasn't aware that there was a cut worm that operated higher up on the plant. I think I need to investigate late at night when it's dark to see.

I put up a lot of pickles and green beans this week. I now have almost 2 cases of green beans, and 3 cases of pickled cukes, zukes, and summer squash. All of these are 100% pesticide free-such a good feeling to eat your own home grown healthy food.

Hope you are all doing well. Have a great weekend, and God Bless.

[Black Agnes]

Deer love my sunflowers. Any largish footieprints nearby?

[greeneyes]

Pinging the List.

[fwdude]

Texas is getting RAIN in the middle of July!!!! I'm not sure if this will totally change the dynamics of summer/fall gardening in the state, but being such an unusual event (over 3-5 inches in many locations) this is likely to be a real game changer. I got over 3" in N. Central DFW area. Soil moisture is normally pretty depleted by now, and city water is a poor substitute.

Any ideas from other Texas garden FReepers?

[goodwithagun]

My first Cherokee Purple is blushing! I have fresh mozzarella waiting for it. I’m about to start the Great Garlic Harvest of 2013, which will be around 175 bulbs. I’m quite relieved because a few months ago I thought I might have the Great Amish Roofing Fiasco instead of a garlic harvest. The hot peppers are producing like gangbusters too. I’ll be canning next week. Now I just need to decide if it’s worth a potential run in with the health inspector to sell my goods at the local farmer’s market. The State of Ohio has decided for its citizens that certain canned goods are illegal to sell.

[trisham]

Everything we have is behind, which is our fault. One amazing thing: I had 6 or 7 packets of basil seeds, all at least 5 or 6 years old, with some older. I threw them all into a container in May and hoped for the best. We now have a beautiful container full of green and purple basil!

Something is biting off the flowers of our squash plants and just leaving them there. These squash are in containers hooked on the railing of a deck that is 8 feet off the ground, which puts them at about 12 feet or so, I think? It's bizarre.

[US Navy Vet]

My Bee Hive is doing quite well this week for having been tipped over last week!

[Eric in the Ozarks]

I harvested a dozen red paprika peppers, cut them into slices and dried them in a convection oven. Drying was on a pizza pan, half hour at a time for three hours. The pepper slices were just crispy.
Outside on my porch, I ground the slices and seeds into dust with an electric coffee grinder.
Product so far should last a couple years and I have more peppers to pick...

[dainbramaged]

After a cool spring, things have taken off nicely here on the southern reaches of Puget Sound. Our first try with corn (bodacious) looks great with 6 foot plus stalks and showing plenty of silk on the ears. Bush and pole beans, tomatoes, green peppers, cucumbers, carrots and everbearing strawberries all doing great. Compost, Miracle Gro and fish fertilizer as needed.

[JRandomFreeper]

Everything is nominal. Onions are being harvested and dried. Sunflowers are gone and bagged. There has been so much rain this week that I haven't done much outside.

I did go with daughter and the grandkids to a movie this morning, and in the process wound up with an oven that I am 'storing' for her, since her apartment doesn't have room for it. She's also been buying food like she still lives in a big house with 2 fridges and a big freezer. She's slowly adjusting her shopping to living in an apartment, but I wind up with the overflow food.

/johnny

[rightly_dividing]

I hate to hear about the bugs, but happy to hear about your watermelon and 5 cases of pickled veggies.

We had 2+ inches of rain in 2 days and mild temps; it’s only 83 here presently instead of 95-100.

We are still getting tomatos, but they are ripening sooner, golf ball size to tennis ball size, no more large one, but we are happy to have any maters in July. We have 2 hot peppers that are producing well. Melons and cantaloupes are not happy at all Will probably not get anything from them.

[mlizzy]

We've got (first up on left) rows of beets with mesclun lettuce in between. Both are wonderful. Next were radishes; they've all been eaten. Then a row of potted herbs and matoes, then a beautiful row of marigolds, but cannot be seen on picture. Then we have peppers, and next two massive Brandywine tomato plants (they're almost 6-foot tall; lots of fruit, but no color yet), then we have squash plants that used to number three, but I pulled one today completely out and searched once again for the vine borer. The stem actually looked great; I found nothing wrong. I'm befuddled what my squash have [again] this year. The bottom-ish leaves yellow at the pace of one or two a day. I've used essential oils, DE, planted borage, radishes, etc. I wonder where the stores get those stacks and stacks of organic butternut squash. :(

[Twinkie]

I recently read what looks like a good idea in a magazine. Before your strawberries ripen and turn red, paint some strawberry-sized ROCKS “strawberry red”. Birds are supposed to peck on the hard-rock “strawberries” and go away mad and not come back any time soon. Saw this in “Living the Country Life” magazine. Gonna try it. - We put some beer in the red plastic lids that KFC puts out in their chicken meals. Just the right size and height to put around the strawberries. Slugs had a beer party.

[MomwithHope]

Hi all, we were hit in west Michigan with a big heat wave 90 degrees plus all week. Today was the last day, at 3pm it was 95 with a heat index of 105. It was all I could do to keep the garden watered I’d go out at 8 or 9pm. Hubby doing better, in home nurse 3X a week and the same with PT. Doing well on meds for the infection and blood clot. SO glad I got him in to the ER when I did. Picking some cukes, lots of banana peppers, jalapenos, zucchini, and broccoli secondary growth. Lots of green tomatoes. My 6 varieties of russian tomatoes are all doing great. Hubby can’t get down to the garden to pee for the deer but hey - in the hospital they gave him a portable urinal so guess what I take out to the garden in the evening. Life all works out eventually. Lots of green tomatoes. My 6 varieties of russian tomatoes are all doing great. Still haven’t taken the pictures out of my garden, maybe this weekend.

[Clintons Are White Trash]

My garden is small this year - just bought my house last July and I’ve been busy. I have grape and cherry tomatoes I’ve been picking for a week or so now and cucumbers doing great. My larger tomatoes are starting to ripen up so I’m thinking next week I’ll be picking quite a bit. Green beans, broccoli and cauliflower are doing well. Cauliflower are being blanched right now so they will be ready soon. I’ve been picking broccoli for a while now. I have canteloupe and watermelon but haven’t seen any fruit yet - I did get them started late after my lettuce bolted.

Hot here - we should be getting rain soon but have been watering this last week.

Have a great week of gardening!!

Terri- St. Louis

[ApplegateRanch]

After several days in the 90s & low 100s, the peas are done; long live the peas! They paid for all of our seed & fertilizer this year, as well as put a dent in the cost of new perennials & trees. Also learned a few lessons to apply next year.

Started picking green beans this week, and the dry beans are coming along nicely as well. Carrots are finally getting some size to them, and the second planting has now emerged for fall picking. Squash & cukes are flowering well, and setting some fruit; even got our first zuke this week. Corn is growing, with the Painted Hill tasseling already; the others got in late & was just to get rid of old seed, so we’ll just have to wait & see if that does anything.

Should be harvesting wheat & barley next week. Also, the sweet cherries should be ready in the net few days, too.

I’m almost afraid the German Butterball potato plants have a nitrogen overdose, because they are so huge; and now, NEW shoots are emerging from the bottom to middle sides of the hilling, even though they are in full flower. They got some compost & a light scattering of 10-10-10 tilled in deeply; then the furrow was dug, and triple-superphosphate (0-45-0) placed in the bottom of the trench, covered with an inch or so of soil before planting. OTOH, the Goldrush, planted in the adjacent row, got the same pre-planting treatment, and look a lot more like I’m used to seeing, so it may just be a varietal difference. From seed piece level to the tops of the plants is about 4 feet.

Also this week, I “harvested” 3 meals worth of smallmouth bass & bluegill.

Later, I’ll post a picture of the peppers.

[fanfan]

Thanks for the ping greeneyes.

What do you mean by cases? (of vegetables)

[Just mythoughts]

Thanks for the ping.

The heat is on here in my neck of Missouri. 94 degrees at 7:35 p.m. No measurable rainfall going on three weeks, after getting inches at a time up to first of July. I am having reminders of last summer's heat and drought as I have had to start watering.

The cucumbers are a plenty and I got my first picking of green beans earlier this week. No ripe tomatoes yet but many loaded plants. I have planted some more beans for fall picking. I got my sweet potato slips out and they are loving this hot weather. The snow peas are done producing and I am allowing the last pods to develop seed which I will pick hull and plant for a fall harvest.

I have a few peppers near ready to pick and many more blossoms. My potatoes were planted late this year and even in spite of the heat and dryness most of the plants are still green, mainly because I mulched them with thick layers of straw. For now I am just digging up what I need, that is until I see the dirt monsters begin to feast on them. Last digging was not particularly easy as the dirt is beginning to congeal into a solid mass, and not even the potato fork goes into the soil easily.

The chiggers are so plentiful this year I have to soak myself in bug repellent before I can step into the grass. I hate that sticky feeling and the smell after I spray myself down, but IF I don't I am in agony for days after getting a chigger bite. I have noticed far more destructive bugs this year than during the heat and drought last year.

[murrie]

Hi all. Greetings from toasty, humid Tennessee. Garden is really coming on, along with all the mosquitoes. Cucumbers are producing well-have been able to put up some pickles Yay! Cantaloupes , sweet potatoes and white potatoes seem to be doing ok. After many years of just growing heirloom tomatoes ( mortgage lifters) I tried the hybrid, determinate variety called Celebrity. I have been amazed at how well they are doing-thick sturdy vines and NO BLIGHT. Praise God. I feel guilty not growing heirlooms ( and saving seed) but I could never get a decent crop but for blight. The bleach solution suggestion is something I will keep in mind. Planted red sunflowers his year. They are doing well. Planted peppers a bit too close to them. The plants are ok but I'm afraid they are getting shaded out and consequently not producing as much. Zuchinni's are doing ok for now. I know they will be dead soon. I can see tell-tale signs of borer damage. Heavy sigh. Really enjoy and appreciate everyone's posts, suggestions and knowledge

[tubebender]

We're still picking strawberries and blueberries and the corn has tassels and silk showing so I have been walking the rows and shaking each plant to increase pollination of the ears.

Some of the heirloom tomatoes at one of the farmers markets at the twice weekly street markets in Benderville. We live too close to the cool Pacific ocean to grow decent maters. These are grown a few miles east where temps can reach 100++…

A view of the nearby farmers market where about 20 stalls were set up…

[winodog]

I heard you can take a bag of steer manure, a 50 gallon barrel, fill it with water, put a lid on it and let it sit for a week or two and use it for my veggie garden.

I googled it and theres lots of answers. Anyone try it?