I have been canning pickles and green beans every day since then. I have a bunch of squash and zuchinni waiting for me right now along with a few cucumbers, and I haven't decided exactly what I'll do. Thinking about pickled zukes or else drying them.
The main thing that we like is zuke bread, so I would think that drying would work just fine. I could even just package all the stuff together for the bread and then just add the egg and liquids for a quick treat.
I like the summer squash in a stir fry, and that's it - so I was reading on alternatives to canning. The old timey methods book said to take an oily rag and wipe them down with it and set on a newspaper - so that's something I could try I guess.
We have had really great weather so far, after a too rainy and cold spring. Mostly sunny and in the high 70's with occasional rain so that we haven't had to use water from the rain barrels much. Today is a pleasant 76 degrees.
The one surviving sunflower is still growing, and has been joined by another stem that is putting out new leaves, as well as some sprouts from the new seeds that I planted to replace the ones that died.
Tomatoes are beginning to put on flowers. Corn has tassels, and potatoes are still blooming and growing like crazy.
Hope all your gardens are doing well. Have a great weekend. God Bless.
Pinging the list.
Rain, sunshine, repeat! I’ll probably be harvesting garlic next week. I planted 160 bulbs. This will be enough for us, our folks, and the Spanish nuns down the road. Hey, I have to keep those ladies happy! I’ll keep plent to plant this fall as well.
What does that process do? Wipe with oil, put on newspaper, then what?
any thoughts as to why the leaves of one of my rose bushes are turning yellow?
thanks,
Jane Reinheimer
We got a nice 3/4” rain shower in Central Missouri earlier this week. Everything in my garden is doing well. Ate the first ripe tomato yesterday. Cucumbers are now making faster than we can eat them which means pickle-making time is just around the corner. First planting sweet corn is pollinating so it won’t be long for that either. I still have three row of taters to dig. Might get one of those done this weekend.
Mrs. Augie runs the zukes through her food processor and puts the moosh into ziplock bags and freezes it. Works great for making bread. Can also be seasoned and fried, used in soups etc.
Hi everyone, I know I have promised pictures, it’s been crazy busy this summer and I have managed to keep up with the garden just barely. Brought hubby home from the hospital Wednesday evening after a total knee replacement Monday. Could someone please send me some duct tape?? I need to tape him to a chair. He is driving me crazy already. He sometimes listens to what the doctors and nurses are saying and sometimes doesn’t. My first crop of romaone is all gone, waiting on the second crop. Just started picking zucchini, banana peppers, jalapenos, green onions, radishes done. I never get too many radishes, they bolt on me. Sad because I love fresh radishes. Tomatoes are going great and I have 6 varieties of russian/ukraine tomatoes I am pretty excited about. Had a question for you all on tomatillos. My first time growing and I only have one plant, it’s huge already and has had loads of flowers but no fruit develops?? Any ideas?? Thanks and hope to haev some pictures soon. I am in dinosaur mode here, camera, computer, photobucket,FR.
Visited my friends little 5 acre farm out in the north Texas
rural country. She’s a widow and I’m so impressed of her skills raising hens and plants. Anyway she sent me away with some goodies including some dried sprigs from a cinnamon basil plant. Holy smokes what flavor it adds to food like fried eggs and others when sauteed. I’m crumbling the seed pods so i can plant some myself here on my plot in Fall or next year. She’s got all kinds of basil varieties growing out there—interesting and educational too.
Finally a break in the rain for a few days i need to till and weed my Veggies gotta wait for the swamp to receed
I’ve been whining about no zucchini, yellow squash, and cucumbers for the last couple of threads. Well, I have since harvested two nice cukes with a couple more small ones on the vine. The squash is a different story. Two days ago, I pulled up the yellow(ing) plants - they were pathetic. I did not get a single yellow squash although the plant bloomed. I had 3 baby zucchini, two rotted very small and the 3rd got maybe 4 inches long and started turning yellow. The squash bugs were horrible and despite daily attention, they continued to ‘appear’. My SIL next door was having the same issues. Over the last two days, I’ve done a little asking around - my aunt got no (as in “zero”) squash this year and my brother’s business partner, who usually has a nice garden, has gotten no squash, few cukes and his tomatoes aren’t doing well. It looks like in our area, it’s a poor garden year.
While looking up squash issues, I came across something that is supposed to be squash bug resistant and grows like a son-of-a-gun & will take over your garden, if you let it. It is sort of like zucchini but with a nuttier taste, more like a winter squash (which I love). This interesting plant is a zuchetta tromboncino rampicante. Does anyone have any experience with this? I found a gardening blog post with pictures and info: http://www.gardenbetty.com/2011/10/zucchino-rampicante/ I’ve never seen this stuff before, but if I can find it, I’m planting it next year. My SIL said she’s not planting squash anymore, but I want to at least give this a try before I give up.
Triple digit heat and no relief for the next few days. Lake is dropping fast and will be 60’ low by mid summer.
Glad your garden is doing well. What variety of corn do you have?
Still no rain here. We had several slow showers in recent weeks, but not even enough to measure in the rain gauge. They only made a crust on the sand in the yard.
We are still harvesting tomatos, normally they are done before now. Our tomato stakes are 6 1/2 feet tall and we have plants 2 feet above them and flowering. Cantaloupes are finally growing and some flowers. We got a big total of 5 peppers from 4 plants, not worth the garden space for us. Next year it will be an all tomato garden. We can’t get enough tomatos.
I visited with a fellow gardener yesterday and she's getting a few squash and tomatoes. She got three buggy ears of corn before they burned up and said no one's garden here is producing this year. I might get a couple ears this week. I've been setting the alarm so I can get out at the crack of dawn before it's too terribly hot. Mostly weeding and weeding. It looks like I'll be getting some yellow pear tomatoes if they can just hang on a bit. Don't know how they're managing in the heat but I'm not complaining. The other tomato varieties aren't doing squat.
Our one little grocery store here is the pits so while I was in the city the other day, I stopped in at a real grocery store. Wow! It was almost scary with all the neat foods!!! I'm sure everyone knows this but they have dried veggie snacks. In the future, if I can get a harvest, I might try dehydrating green beans and okra. I forgot to check the spices that were on them but it shouldn't be rocket science to figure it out. I did buy a dried bean soup mix so separated out a few of each bean variety to try in the garden one day. At Walmart, I picked up a few 20 cent seed packages for next year because sometimes I can't find the basics out here in podunkville.
19 straight days of rain in central Ohio. I will not have tomatoes this year for the first time in my life. Really bummed out about that.
Dear greeneyes and gardening FRiends,
First of all, congrats on your harvest, greeneyes! And thanks for the thread! I have some fun things (at least to me!) to report and several QUESTIONS!
Greeneyes, I have also had a harvest, of sorts! LOL! I am happy to report we have harvested so far 3 TOMATOES with a few more reddening up. Today I harvested my one yellow straight neck SQUASH and a handful of BLACKBERRIES that the Garden Fairies saved for me. At someone’s suggestion here, I’ve been letting my few BEAN/PEA pods dry on the vine for seeds. Over the past few days we’ve gotten about 3 OKRA pods. Darlin is teasing me about the gold plated high dollar harvest, much like one of our FRiends who recently told me about obtaining an egg from a new flock, which is now priced at $180!
I guess, at least in my case our investment is not a bad tuition price for the lessons I’ve been learning. Certainly the harvest we have been obtaining is NOT cheaper than the grocery store!
The BELL PEPPER plants (one green, one red) are showing a few peppers.
The CUCUMBER plants from Lowes are blooming like crazy and the bees are actually buzzing around it. I have located one possible cucumber forming. The cucumber plant I grew from seed is beautiful! It started putting out vine curlies, so I provided it with a tomato cage to climb on. It also showed its first bloom today.
The 5 ASPARAGUS sprouts are surviving, which I was happy to see. The roses, echinacia, tame purslane, marigolds, geraniums, and day lilies are gorgeous.
The SWEET POTATO is probably the happiest plant we have at this moment. It is just gorgeous.
The SCALLOP SQUASH looks happy, but no more blooms, and the blooms it did have never developed. QUESTIONS: Is it compost now, or do I need to just let it grow and see if it decides to do more later? Am I too late to try to start another one?
I’ve never seen OKRA plants up close before and mine are just bowling me over. I can’t believe how beautiful the okra flowers are! The developing pods are so cute. And the flavor is amazing!
The SUNFLOWERS are still happy, although there have been a few bug attacks on them, and one decapitation, which I’ve reported earlier! We have several at different stages of development. I was despairing of having some this year at one point. I’m sorry yours have had such a hard time this year, greeneyes.
Marcella, I was at the health food store the other day. They have a seed packet display, and I found and bought a packet of the short huge sunflowers (SUNSPOT?- that’s what these are-)you were telling us about recently. QUESTION: Do you happen to know if I still have time to grow some this season, or should I save them for next?
Darlin and I have a huge stack of rocks in the back yard left over years ago from another project and have just been sitting there. Recently I started outlining my little garden plot which contains the okra, roses, and sunflowers. There are a few bulb flowers in that plot as well. Today I hauled some more rock from the stack and continued my circle around the bed.
I have a couple of QUESTIONS about ZUCCHINI. I did not try to raise any this year. However, I have a friend who has been providing us with it for several years. This past week, she gave us one that is fully two feet long and about 4-6 inches around. The peel is a thick rind. I had some trouble getting at it! Finally was able to separate the meat from the rind and stirred it together with onions and garlic. Only cooked up about 1/2, with the other 1/2 remaining in the fridge. (1)In the future, if/when I grow zucchini myself, would picking it earlier give me a thinner more edible peel, or is this a different variety? (2)Wondering what to do with it! Just one zuke is taking up about 16 square inches of refrigerator space! I like greeneyes’ suggestion to dry. I need to learn that process. We have a food drier, and should probably learn how to operate it.
QUESTION: The health food store also had a packet of STEVIA SEEDS which I also obtained. QUESTION: Does anyone out there have any pointers on raising it? Am I too late to start it this year? I would like to put it in a 10-12 inch pot. I was told by someone at a seed company (Fedco) that growing Stevia from seed is a challenge. Well, I like those, but would be most grateful for any pointers anyone might have!
SQUASH BUGS - I am busy cooking up a homemade recipe for warding off the squash bugs I saw this morning. This is the first sighting I’ve had of them since I treated with neem a few weeks ago. Not many in evidence, but did see one stink bug kind and a couple of the ones I call fake lady bugs. They are yellow with the black dots, not nearly as cute, but about the same size. Because I’ve been seeing bees, I do not want to spray until the evening. So far I’ve boiled up some eucalyptus leaves and plan to strain it and mix the tea into my squirt bottle with a little dish soap and neem. This is a total experiment, so I’ll report back on it later.
Finally, the EXPERIMENTS with ROOT HORMONE are continuing. The romaine which I planted and placed outside is gorgeous! The new romaine stump has started growing leaves from the center, but there are no rootlets showing yet, just as in the previous experiment. The celery stump remains green, and the rootlets are growing, but no center growth activity is in evidence yet. We have a geranium which Darlin rescued several years ago which is now fading, so I picked one of its last leaves several days ago and put it into the root hormone. Today I noticed some teeny tiny rootlets forming from it. QUESTION: Does anyone here know how they obtain this hormone from scratch?
QUESTION(S): In addition to the SUNSPOT and STEVIA seeds, I also bought a packet of ACORN SQUASH seeds. It is “Sweet Reba” variety. It emerges in 5-10 days per the packet, but does not say how long to harvest. Would I be ok to plant some now, or do I need to wait for next season? Isn’t planting now appropriate because it’s considered a winter crop?
I wish all of you and your gardens well this week! And thanks for any and all answers to the questions buzzing around between my ears!
This is a close up of one of the leaves with a spot on it.
Here is shot showing spots on only two of my 6 beefsteak plants. The rest are spot free so far and so are all 6 of my yellow tomato plants.
The two on the left (in the cart) in this shot have the spots. None of the others have any so far.