Posted on 08/22/2020 5:25:42 AM PDT by Diana in Wisconsin
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Good Morning! :-)
‘Scattered Showers?’ My Aunt Fanny! Looks like rain this morning in SW Wisconsin to me!
https://radar.weather.gov/Conus/full_loop.php
We DO need some rain, though - pretty dusty out there when I mowed earlier this week.
Scurrying to gather veggies for canning and drying today. I also got a great deal on Granny Smith and Gala Apples, so am thinking of making up Apple Pie Filling to can for fall and winter pies, and I have tomatoes chopped and ready to go for more Tomato Jam. (I’m obsessed!)
Later!
I got 8 quarts of sauce out of my first canning of my bruised and battered, and somewhat neglected tomato crop. I’m looking at another 8 this weekend and then not quite so much in about another week.
Garlic should be ready to dig up. I need to check that.
We’re overwhelmed with everything. I planted Minnesota mini Cantaloupes. The only bad thing is they ripen pretty much all at once. But what a wonderful experiment. They’re the size of grapefruit...perfect for one.
Our tomatoes are definately slowing down. But we made good use of the 100 or more beauties picked in June-July-early August.
There’s frozen bisque soup, canned putanesca sauce etc.
BLTs up the wazoo...
Thanks for the ping. We have finally had a few days with out rain-so I have had to water a few things this week. Coon got most of the corn.
Hubby set a trap, but didn’t notice he caught one until almost dark, so He let him loose. sigh.
I just made my new favorite-Lacto-Fermented Salsa. Such an easy way to use the tomatoes and will last in the frig for 3-4 months. Only problem is, I can’t stop eating it. LOL
Been up all night, but finally getting sleepy so I’ll catch ya’ll later.
I love those Minnesota Midgets. I am hoping to get a few this summer—we have a huge problem with any of the cucumber or melon vines-but I thought these might have a shot at maturing before the vines die.
I grew some several years ago and they were pretty tasty.
Many plants are still showing good new green growth, and I pruned plenty of infected leaves, I took to spraying them with copper fungicide and pray they will recover.
But the garden so far has gone from this (7-10):
And this (8-1):
To this (8-21):
Because of this (Early Blight disease? Fusarium wilt?):
It’s just so fun to grab one for breakfast or a snack. It has like 25 calories.
I had good luck planting them in mounds via slits in a heavy duty landscape fabric. Not one rotted. Lesson learned from a previous adventure.
We’ve had a goodly amount of rain lately so the weeds are going crazy. I’m pulling weeds weeds weeds today. We don’t use herbicide because we have livestock so I get to pull weeds weeds weeds.
Just venting!
We planted using X’s cut in landscape fabric too, but we overwatered and our tomatoes seem to have root rot. We are hoping to harvest soon, but the plants are very damaged. Next year we will leave more room for air at the base of the plants and water much less!
I would stick my finger in the cuts. While other parts of the garden were dry an inch down...the soil under the fabric was nice and moist. I watered the melons very little.
Here in Pennsyltucky I love to cut a lope in half, apply salt and pepper to it and then fill it up with a mound of vanilla ice cream. But alas, for decades now, nearly every time I go for that I find the lope to be flavorless, semi-pithy and a disappointment. Why don’t lopes have their deep musky flavor and melt in your mouthany more? (Facepalm).
“Why don’t lopes have their deep musky flavor and melt in your mouth any more? (Facepalm).”
You can probably get that flavor with Heirloom melons. As usual, hybridizing makes things more sturdy, disease resistant and ship-able, but you lose flavor in the process.
Ellendra will have some melon recommendations for you, I’ll bet!
Beau is in charge of melons around here - he can usually produce a few good ones. Sometimes. Maybe. LOL!
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