Posted on 09/25/2021 5:16:56 AM PDT by Diana in Wisconsin
Hi there! Enjoying our lovely weather. Harvesting lots of seeds for next year.
😄
I usually have 3-4 figs a day but the day I picked these I had a small plate full! (Done with the low end camera that I keep for taking UFO pictures! :)
My favorite varieties are Portuguese Preto, French/Spanish Bordissot Griese, Maltese Beauty, and Italian Nero 600, all dark figs! (All potted and all come inside in the winter.) (I suspect you will be making some changes to your trip to the Carnary islands next year! Sad!)
I’ll critique because, well, it was my JOB for nearly 20 years, LOL!
Tomatoes - Mortgage Lifter is an awesome tomato. :)
Honeydews - Melons are NOT easy to grow in some spots; good for you!
Cabbage - Golden Acre is a great variety.
Beans - You pole bean problem might have been too much Nitrogen in either the soil, or whatever you used as a fertilizer. In my experience, pole beans need to be treated shabbily and they’ll produce like nobody’s business. ;) (I never fertilize mine, but make sure they have adequate water.) My favorite variety is ‘Saychelles.’
Brussels Sprouts - They might need more sun, if shade is an issue.
Peppers - I agree on the spacing, but they also perform best in hot, dry seasons and if you didn’t have that, there’s not much more you can do. :(
Sweet Corn - Good job on the pollenizing help! Could it have crossed with some near-by field corn? That was my problem this year - I thought it was a ‘Soybean Year’ and the guy that rents from us planted field corn about 20 feet away from my little corn patch. Grrr! My Sweet Corn (Kandy Korn and Ambrosia) was tougher than it should have been and not as sweet, but still edible.
Hurray for Fresh Eggs!
I HATE that it gets so dark, early - but it DOES settle down all the critters, which is appreciated after LONG Summer Days!
That stretch from Daylight Savings Time (WHY DO WE DO THIS?) until December 21st is always hard on me. I’m a Leo - we NEED Sunlight! ;)
I see that the Anaconda is missing a few rib-bones. Must’ve been where Granny whacked it with a shovel when it was going after her chickens - or her beef steer, or Grandpa, LOL!
I LOVE anything, ‘Alien’ related. One of the BEST movies ever made. Loved it then, love it to this day! Ripley is MY kind of Heroine; better than all of the comic book female ‘Superheroes’ combined! :)
‘Boneless Chicken’ reminds me of, ‘I Gave My Love A Cherry’ (The Riddle Song) by various artists. “A chicken when it’s pippin’ it has no bone...”
Interesting mix of veggies, there!
I agree on ‘Black Krim.’ There are so many other dark tomatoes that are better producers in the Heirloom genre.
I’ve always liked, ‘Black from Tula’ and ‘Cherokee Purple’ and any hybrid with either of these in the genetic mix is more than welcome in my garden. ;)
Tomatoes on Strings or Paracord: I put a Fence post at the corners of the tomato "patch" and pounded it in. I used 3/4" electrical conduit for the posts/upright and cross pieces. I secured the upright to the Fence post with some paracord. I used a plastic plumbing Tees for the top of the post and drilled a hole through the Tee and the top of the post and secured it with a screw and nut. In this instance I created a triangle to give it resistance to the wind and keep it from being blown over. (This has happened in the past.
You tie the paracord to the cross piece down to a stake next to your tomato plant. You wrap the tomato around the paracord and secure it with a clip.
Yes Sideways, but you can see the clip!
Bamboo degrades pretty quickly and gets moldy, which is not a problem with metal. Anyway. Something to consider. (Yes, its the end of the season and I am letting the Tomato vine climb all over the top! Lots of green Stupice and Trifle hanging on to those vines as of September 25!)
Thanks for the advice on the figs. As far as the Canaries go everything is still on schedule. Lava flows on La Palma shouldn’t have much effect on Gran Canaria.
Glazed Lemon Bread
Ingredients 1x 2x 3x For the bread: 1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour 1/2 teaspoon salt 1 teaspoon baking powder 1 cup granulated sugar 2 tablespoons lemon zest 3/4 cup unsweetened almond milk (or buttermilk or regular milk) 1/2 cup canola or vegetable oil 2 large eggs, slightly beaten 1 teaspoon fresh lemon juice 1 teaspoon vanilla extract 1 teaspoon almond extract For the lemon glaze: 1 cup powdered sugar 1 1/2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice 1 teaspoon almond extract 3 tablespoons sliced almonds, for garnishing the loaf
Instructions Preheat oven to 350° F. Spray a 8 ½ x 4 ½ loaf pan with cooking spray and set aside. In a large bowl, whisk together the flour, salt, and baking powder. In a small bowl, combine sugar and lemon zest. Rub together with your fingers until fragrant. Whisk into the flour mixture. Set aside. In a separate medium bowl, combine the almond milk, oil, eggs, lemon juice, vanilla, and almond extract. Slowly add the wet ingredients to the dry ingredients. Stir until combined. Pour batter into prepared loaf pan.
Bake for 55-60 minutes, or until toothpick comes out clean. Place the loaf on a cooling rack and cool for 15 minutes. Loosen the sides of the bread with a knife. Carefully remove loaf from pan. Let cool completely on wire rack.
While the bread is cooling, make the lemon glaze. In a small bowl, combine powdered sugar, lemon juice, and almond extract. Whisk until smooth. Drizzle the glaze of the lemon almond bread. Sprinkle sliced almonds over the bread. Cut and serve.
Thanks for the great advice!
The pole beans were grown where I added extra nitrogen last year. Maybe too much carried over to this year.
The nearest field is maybe half a mile away but maybe someone around here is growing corn in their backyard.
Oshk; I hope the problems remain on LaPalma, although I suspect that there will be an influx of people who have moved there from La Palma.
Sigh....Covered with blueberries and perhaps some cream or yoghurt! (Temptress!)
Glad you liked it.......snx.
We have a few summer squash that have small one's left, struggling to survive; the rest were clean-picked Tuesday morning, along with the cukes. Except for a big stuffer cocozelle, that all went to the food bank.
That got cut in half, then the halves split and stuffed with jambalaya, for 2 night's dinners.
Also clean-picked the Kurzer's traveling lima beans. The pole & scarlet runners are looking like they're losing the struggle to recover. We'll probably pick them tomorrow.
Also this week, I planted the winter wheat cover/green manure crop. Today, I dug the last 3 hills of potatoes...russets...and again averaged 2+ pounds per plant.
Also today, I fired up the new chipper-shredder, and ran the corn stalks, the wife's iris trimmings, some squash & bean vines, and a bunch of pine cone through it, onto the wheat plot to mulch it. Pine cones are recommended for our soil.
Leeks and rutabagas are just plain happy; the Fall peas have immature pods coming, as well as actively blooming.
It took me quite a while to finally figure out what's been nagging me about this year's garden: other than early in the season, despite all my digging, I haven't seen any of our worms! Normally, we have lots of them.
Gran Canaria already has that kind of problem with boatloads of African refugees arriving and being put up in local hotels that have been underutilized because of the lockdown and subsequent dropoff in tourism because of all the hoops normal people have to jump through to enter, rules that don’t apply to illegal invaders. That isn’t in the part of Gran Canaria where we will be staying or we wouldn’t be going there.
Harvested my first squash of the fall. Technically it was a zucchini, but at the winter-squash stage because I wanted the seeds. And there are a few butternut squash that are *almost* ready to pick.
The rest of my garden looks kind of pathetic. Too many plants are still in the early stages, when they need to be ripe already. My fault for planting late, but still. There are some vines that look like they did in May when they were still in the starter pots!
I need to deal with last year’s squash so I can make some room. The “Bigger Better Butternut” and the “Great Lakes Shark Fin” both lived up to their hype. They’ve been sitting in the basement for almost a year now, and are still solid.
Busy as always! Everything sounds great!
One suggestion, though - I’d HIDE my ‘Ball Jar Stash’ a little bit better, LOL! :)
I know how you love your Shark Fin Squash! :)
I grew Honeynut this season and some Spaghetti Squash and got ONE large Jahrrandale (sp?) the big blue one? And some Lakota, lots of pie pumpkins and a few decorative pumpkins (’One Too Many’ from Jung’s.)
I’m still on ‘Winter Squash Strike’ until Beau cleans out his ‘Boy Junk’ from that room in the basement that SHOULD be our Root Cellar.
It will be mine! Oh, Yes! It WILL be mine! Bwaa-Haaa-Haaa!
https://www.edenproject.com/mission
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