Hello all fellow plant lovers from beautiful Mandeville Louisiana! All is green and the typical maintenance (vine cutting / tree and branch removal) is the norm here....rose bushes are doing VERY well even through the hot summer months and I look forward to a huge flowering this next season . Our farmers within the state are having very good yields with their crops ....starting to cool down a tad at night ....a beautiful time of year . I hope all here are having a good 2019 in the dirt !
Summer squash. I’m overrun with it and my neighbors are sick of receiving them as “gifts.” I make a nice casserole with it but it is too hot to make soup with it. Grrrrr!
Several years ago we experimented with growing early potatoes. We live along the Canadian border in central ND where the earliest we can plant is usually May.
What we did was take gallon plastic ice cream pails and line them with burlap. Then filled the pail with garden soil. In each pale was planted a seed potato. This was done about a month before planting time.
What we did come planting time was to carefully pull the potted potato plant from the pail by pulling on the overhanging burlap. The burlap, dirt and plant were then placed in a hole about the same size and shape as the pail.
The burlap stayed in the ground. The potato root runners went right through the burlap. We had new potatoes long before anyone else did. The burlap rotted into non-existence.
We love new potato soup made from fresh dug baby potatoes the size of a golf ball or smaller.
The tomatoes are finally ripening! I will be freezing a bunch of them this afternoon. Peppers are finished. Bush beans are still producing. We seem to have killed our zucchini plant. And we will pick another 5 gallon bucket of apples today so I can freeze apple slices for pies.
Her husband fixed up an irrigation system on a timer. That saved a lot of work and worry since they go on long summer trips.
They're pretty depressed that the tomatoes are done. Too funny...
Did anyone here have trouble getting their tomatoes to blossom and bear fruit this season? My few plants were healthy but unproductive, and I’ve heard others have had a similar problem. I’ve even heard it could be something to do with the sun’s current state — few sunspots, low light in the UV portion of the spectrum, etc.
Tomatoes have just about given up for 2019.
We made a dozen jars of tomato bisque, 10 jars of pasta sauce and froze some chopped pieces for chili this winter. The vines realy performed !
We’re still harvesting various peppers. Paprika powder is sufficient to last into 2025. Ditto Reza powder. I don’t know what we’ll do with it all.
Warm and dry here in Central Missouri over the past week.
Mrs. Augie and I made a quick run to Pensacola Beach to attend a wedding over the weekend. More driving than beach, but it was good to see some of the far-flung relations.
My tomato plants are still producing like crazy. I can’t give em away fast enough. It’s almost time to harvest my pear trees. I need to get them picked before the deer do it for me.
Making a run to kansass this weekend to see new baby grand daughter, and pick up the yellow perch fingerlings for my pond.
Seasonal changes taking place. Caladiums dying back and some coleus as well. Making plans for next year’s plantings. Hope all is well with the group.
Okay I give up. I ordered 288 Tattler lids and I have tried them four times now and have a 50-75% seal rate. The rest need to be reprocessed with Ball or Kerr lids or refigerated and used soon. What are others canners results with these lids. I am planning on putting them away until I run out of regular lids and it’s a SHTF situation lol...
I ordered another 600+ normal lids yesterday with an additional 966 jars of various sizes (4oz. 8oz. 12oz. 16oz. 24oz. 32oz, and 64oz.) on Amazon. I about threw up at the $1,600 price tag, but it was the cheapest I could find and I needed them now or this week. Everywhere locally was sold out. Nothing available, but the battered case here or there. No more canned goods to family or friends who will not return jars, period!