Posted on 08/18/2017 11:47:23 PM PDT by greeneyes
The Weekly Gardening Thread is a weekly gathering of folks that love soil, seeds and plants of all kinds.
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Have been a bit under the weather. Also had some sleepless nights this week. Laid down on the couch to rest this afternoon and didn't wake up in time to post the thread. Apologies for that.
Thought I'd go ahead and post this tonight for everyone to post on tomorrow. I have chores to get done too before going back to bed, but I may just go back to sleep if I can so that I can hit it tomorrow.
Have a great weekend. Prayers for all. God Bless.
Pinging the list.
My Bush Early Girl just makes tomatoes like crazy.
Picked 17 last 3 days. Have picked about 50 so far.
And I count 23 more growing. She’s already produced or is producing 73 tomatoes from one plant. If the weather holds, we can grow to mid-November usually.
Cherry tomatoes looking OK too - she had 33 going on there the other day with a bunch of spots looking ready to pop.
Most of my peppers are small but getting some off now plus a few good-sized ones. Few colors - almost all green.
First Serrano or Jalapeno - could be a Hatch - right in there size-wise. I’ve got some frozen and couldn’t resist buying cheap hatch (3 for 25 cents). We only get them for 1 or 2 weeks sometimes in the grocery stores here.
We have been getting a few peppers, cukes, squash, and tomatoes. The tomatoes though all have some mushy spots.
I only planted one tomato plant this year, and a horn worm got it, so hubby’s tomatoes are the ones we are getting.
Last year he plant about a hundred and got nada. I planted 2 from Walmart, and had cherry tomatoes all summer long. Luck of the draw. LOL
I had one tomato splitting - good size too.
Brought it in - hope it ripens indoors - should anyways
I hope
Somebody gave a squash that looks like a club - it is huge - about 8 or 10 times the size of store stuff.
Depends on the split. Sometimes they do and sometimes they don’t.
i’ve got dozens of tomatoes, how do you preserve them?
Canning? Drying?
Thanks,
Ed
The tomato crop here in NYS was terrible.
Too wet and cool and blight go to most of them.
It’s finally dried out some and warmed up a bit and a COUPLE of my plants finally decided to put out some flowers. Probably too late for a crop this fall. I doubt they’ll be ready before the first frost.
I can mine.
I make sauce out of the sauce tomatoes and stewed tomatoes out of the beef steaks.
here in Eastern Washington we're having one of our typical very dry summers, no substantial rain since early June...thank God we've got a good aquifer....
but, we're had garlic, lettuce, beans, tomatoes, a few cukes, and we have a few onions, pink banana squash, trombone squash, and egg plant coming along nicely....hope they finish developing before we get too cool.. Peppers too....
also we'll dig up the potatoes in a few weeks...corn, not so good, but we'll have a few ears...
and hops....boy do we have hops...
One tomato variety (five plants in one raised bed) is a goner. Disease, 100 degree weather, cool nights...I don’t know what killed them.
But the Romas are still kicking out four or five a day. A month ago, it was a dozen every day...
I planted my tomatoes with eggshells to discourage the “blossom-end rot” or whatever it’s called, and that seems to be working.
However, I’ve got some yellow summer squash that seems to have a similar problem; I’m adding a calcium supplement that seems to be helping somewhat.
For future reference, would I be doing any harm if I just planted everything with extra eggshells or other calcium?
This is the method I use for canning tomatoes. It does NOT use a water bath, which greatly UN-complicates the process and you can do as few as one or many jars (pints or quarts). Linda has been doing this for 30 years with no problems - she does add lemon juice to the tomatoes to make sure she’s got enough of an acidic content. There’s another video where she actually tests the acid content with test strips.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7kmTH_q1usI
By the way, I boil my tomatoes for 20 - 30 minutes & keep them at a boil while filling the jars. I also wash my jars & then sterilize in the oven. I use a roasting pan (something with sides) to put my jars in when they go in the oven. I use jar ‘tongs’/jar lifters to take the jars out (they are HOT!). You pretty much need a wide-mouth funnel for filling the jars. Other than the lifters, funnel, jars & lids & a large enough pot to boil your tomatoes, that’s pretty much it for equipment.
ALSO - The Ball jars are marked on the boxes as to whether they can be used in the freezer or not. You can freeze your tomatoes in the jars, too. You can use the two-piece lid you would use for canning or you can buy plastic screw on lids for either regular mouth or wide-mouth jars. The screw on lids are not expensive and I love them. I do soup in pint jars and freeze it. I peel the tomatoes for canning and you can freeze them whole, halves, quarters or cut into pieces. BTW, I just dunk my tomatoes in boiling water for a minute or two, take them out (slotted spoon) and put them in a large bowl & let them cool to where I can handle them, then peel. I don’t use an ice bath and they peel just fine.
Here’s another blog post on freezing tomatoes in zip-loc type bags if you don’t want to mess with jars & only have a “few” tomatoes you’re dealing with:
http://www.southernmadesimple.com/how-to-freeze-fresh-tomatoes/
I’m glad you got a nice nap. Our bodies know what we need, no matter what we plan ;)
I feel guilty saying it here, but I’m glad fall is coming....anyone else feel like their garden controls their lives? LOL, in a good way most of the time, but me being an obsessive personality type doesn’t help!
My cherry tomatoes and herbs are the ONLY things that grew this year.
But they both are great in a salad or omelet, so I am content.
I hope you will be feeling better soon!
(((HUGS)))
Had a huge problem with stink bugs and the giant green caterpillars this year. How do you fight them?
No harm done, and if some of those shells are not pulverized and left in larger pieces
consider it a 'time-release capsule' of calcium supplement.
Consider a side dressing of balanced fertilizer to revitalize a lazy fruit production.
A balanced fertilizer such as 10-10-10 probably will perk up production.
Both are excellent tips !!
I have always been reluctant to freeze in glass canning jars
since liquids expand when they freeze, but will give it a go .
Thanks
I know on the wide-mouth pint jars there is a line marked for use if you are freezing - should not put anything in above that line. I looked at my quart jars (also wide-mouth) & don’t see a ‘fill line’ but if you stay below where the “neck” of the jar starts (it’s more obvious on the quart jars than pints - probably why pints only are marked), you’ll have an inch of expansion space and should be fine.
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