Posted on 08/26/2011 10:14:53 AM PDT by Red_Devil 232
Good afternoon gardeners. I hope all of you in the path of Irene heed the warnings and please stay safe! Not much gong on garden wise here in East Central Mississippi. I am just waiting to see how a few paste tomatoes do. And while I am waiting I decided to use some of my pears to make preserves. I am using the recipe I posted on last weeks thread, which calls for a little activity and a lot of waiting. I will be doing the final canning step this morning. This recipe may be way to sweet for my taste. So with all this waiting time I had, I needed to fill the time some how so I ordered a Beer making kit, which I understand includes a lot of waiting also. Now I am just waiting for FR to come back up so I can post this week’s thread. I have been doing a lot of waiting and it is tiring.
If you are a gardener or you are just starting out and are in need of advice or just encouragement please feel free to join in and enjoy the friendly discussion. Our Freeper community is full of gardeners, each with varying interests and skill levels from Master Gardener to novice.
I hope all your gardens are flourishing.
Those jars look so delicious. I could almost taste them thru the monitor and the jar glass ~ YUM!
Al Capone had a home right off Bluemound Road (very rural in those days)...The street, now known as Capone Court, was his driveway and "nobody arrived unexpectedly at Al Capone's house." A watchtower was built for a lookoutpost, And Capone kept a flock of well-fed flock of Canada Geese on the property. If federal agents tried to surprise Capone, the geese would make enough noise to warn him. A tunnel led from the house to the garage so the gangster could make a quick getaway without being seen.
Question: should I just remove all of the plants now? Should I treat with Sevin and remove all of the plants in a week, or so? I read that adults that have not mated will over winter. I'd like to kill them all dead right now. (And, please don't tell me to squish them between my fingers. I just had a manicure today!)
I hope you haven’t mixed up the Tea Tank with the Potable tank or I will have to report you to I’m here to Help You.gov and has cuddly-animals.ag signed off on your destruction of the endangered pinecone fuzzy wuzzy bettles?
And why ARE you planting pine cones in your wheat field?
Do you know if Al Capone had one gardener or two?
As we drove into town last week, my husband exclaimed at a neighbor’s house, “Well, look at that! I wonder who dumped all those cucumbers in the gutter?”
I believed him because my cucumbers are dreadful this year (bitter). But, on our return trip, we looked a little closer and saw that the pine tree on the curb had dropped a whole load of cones as the result of some gusty winds.
So, we don’t have a neighborhood vandal after all.
My other problem is my bumper crop of tomatoes. I have so many ripe tomatoes! I brought in 50 this afternoon, and I have just as many still hanging on the vines outdoors. Despite neglect and unfavorable weather, my tomato crop has not disappointed. I nearly had a heart attack hauling them in in a big trug tonight. I would have picked more, but the mosquitos were eating me alive.
I have a Ball canning book which I used to try to determine how long to cook them. The book that came with the canner I misplaced. I found a soup recipe which had tomatoes, onions, and other vegetables which said 55 min. Some of the other recipes included some kind of bean and had longer cooking times. I figured the longer time was because of the beans. So I added 5 min. to the soup recipe, which had the closest matching vegetables. I’ll have to try one of the jars, but just looking at them, they look well done. I was afraid to go less. Part of the problem is that most recipes that have squash have it pickled. I didn’t think that was the same as just canning. Maybe I’m wrong.
My out of control Raspberry patch
This a ornamental Flowering Cabbage but I think you could eat it
Cinderella Pumpkin which will not ripen before frost or black aphids claim it
Sweetpea flower for comparison on pumpkin leaf
Thanks for both of your replies. As I mentioned in the other post, I didn’t see much for canning squash, just pickling. I probably shouldn’t have started the project at 8 last night, but thought I’d better just try it to get it done or it might take me more days to research it and then the tomatoes would be yucky. They aren’t doing as well as the squash.
You can use any stretchy fabric, not just nylons. I used a cotton knit fabric for my watermelons, I had scraps left from a sewing project that were just the right shape. Tie the ends to something sturdy, and nestle the squash (or melon) in the fabric like a sling. Because the fabric I used was white they ended up looking like melon bras, but it works.
(The watermelon I’m growing only gets up to around 3 pounds, I wouldn’t suggest using this technique for the really big melons)
Capone probably had 20 gardners because he had a lot of houses around here. I imagine that anybody he told to go mow the grass promptly went to mow the grass — otherwise he’d be pushing the grass up with his nose!
Apparently Bluemound Road was rather uncivilized in the 1920s and wasn’t patrolled by any municipal police force. Speakeasies and brothels abounded in the (then) rural area. Capone, Dillinger, and other “pillars of society” had houses and hideouts here.
Update to the garden harvest... Lady Bender shucked anothe ear of corn and proclaimed it ready to eat!!! the bad news is she said it looks like all 148 ears will ripen within 24 hours. My late potatoes have contacted Late Blight so I can’t use the Red La Soda or Yukon Gold for seed but they are available at the feed store in the spring. I picked the last bush of Blueberries and we continue to get about a gallon of Strawberries per week. We got 9 Diva salad cukes and new ones are forming, we are using the Basil as needed. I will start a new compost pile next week if we can get over to the stables for a pickup load of bedding,
Your plants look great. I’ve been fighting the Texas drought to keep mine producing this long. It looks like my tomato’s are finally ready to give up the ghost. Just in time for the next crop :)
The other half of the garden has a 2 or 3 year head start, and looks & acts like soil now.
I had a good weekly source of chemical free grass clippings from a motel, but that dried up early last year...but we make do with our 300 acres of pine cones, not even counting the 1,000+ acres of government cones adjoining.
The occasional revenooer, Mormon missionary, and Jehovah's Witness helps out the compost situation, too. (Shhh!)
Here is a recipe recommended by my daughter in Richmond, VA:
Tomato Pie
(adapted from Richmond Times-Dispatch 8/13/08)
1 9-inch pie crust, thawed if frozen
3-4 large ripe tomatoes (or more, if needed)
salt, pepper and fresh basil to taste
2 cups grated cheese (Cheddar or any combination)
½ cup mayonnaise (light is OK)
Preheat oven to 450 degrees.
Bake pie crust for 5-7 minutes, then remove from oven. Reduce heat to 400 degrees.
Slice tomatoes, and if they are juicy, press them to drain in a colander or blot on paper towels (about an hour). Place the tomatoes in the pie shell in layers. Sprinkle with salt, pepper, and basil.
Mix mayonnaise and grated cheese in a medium bowl. Spread over tomatoes.
Bake pie for 30-35 minutes.
NOTE: You can use any cheese – choose your favorite!
I REALLY like white sharp cheddar for this pie, which is a little harder to find, but worth the effort. Try sprinkling ¼ to ½ cup parmesan or grated cheese in between the layers of tomatoes in the pie. Dried basil isn’t as fragrant as fresh, but is still OK, and I also use fresh minced oregano and rosemary. Experiment with adding minced garlic or garlic powder to the tomatoes or the crust. If you want a little more flavor, adding bacon bits or diced ham is also good in the pie. It is a very flexible recipe! Enjoy!
6-8 servings
I’m going to try this tomorrow with my bumper crop of tomatoes.
Going to save & try that one; thanks!
Sounds a lot like the ca 1956 “pizza” my mother got in Rome! Not what she was expecting at all, but said it was surprisingly good, though a bit bland.
I think they may have hired an Englishman to do the seasoning. ;-)
Photos please...
How do you harvest the pine cones and I have read that meat byproducts other than revenooers are a no-no in a compost pile?
Are you a gardener Vox?
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