I had my first BLT made from tomatoes from my garden today. They’ve just started getting ripe - it has been slow in the Bay Area this year.
So far I’ve gotten about 15 pounds of snow peas, ten of beans, and Og knows how much squash. When we went to our daughter’s wedding we had friends water with instructions to take as much squash as they wanted. We still harvested ten pounds of it, and 8 more a few days later. I just got a four pound squash that had been hiding.
I only planted two plants, but have had lots of volunteers. So, we’re giving tons away and trying out new recipes.
We had good spinach and lettuce earlier in the year, and peppers and eggplant are coming, but I’m going to get overwhelmed by tomatoes very soon.
It’s doing so well I should supply Africa. We went on vacation just as the strawberries came in, we told the neighbours to help themselves which they did for a half week. Still,on return we have ten gallons frozen and ate plenty fresh, made ice cream etc.
Everything else has been like that. We give away a lot.
What I really enjoy this year is an apparent balance; I stopped using insecticides of any sort, have been using compost and green manures for almost a decade. The inevitable insect attacks are countered by predators or if none ( like Japanese beetle ) the plants are healthy enough to sustain some damage.
I also found a way to grow plants that typically bolt in warm weather to flourish all season, like cilantro, spinach, roquette. So this year when the tomatillos come in salsa will be made fresh on site.
I have a few pumpkin vines two feet long. The squash vines are ready to start growing after a month. Never mind last year I picked a couple pumpkins by the end of July. I’ve replanted peas for the 6th time this year, and have yet to get any peas to eat. I have green tomatoes that I hope ripen before the year ends. Half the stuff I do have in the ground is losing to the fungus and disease in the soil and rotting off. It looks like I have one live Peony and a single hardy rose left. I think the Hollyhocks will flower, but like most surviving plants they are going to be smaller than then would have been.
Here in florida it’s been a decent year, but the rain is messing with the garden which was used to dry conditions with a light afternoon sprinkle from the hose. We’ve been soggy for a while and it’s showing. They’ll adapt
We started late. The herbs are doing more or less well, though the rosemary isn’t growing much lately. Something’s chewing at the basil, too.
The rabbits are trying to kill my bell pepper plant. They’re eating the bottom leaves off, and one even stripped a little bit off the outer stem by pulling a leaf off. At least the plant has one little pepper on it, and the tomatoes have a few tiny green tomatoes on them as well.
Total disaster. Lack of gardening skills, enhanced by bad weather and pests. I only got a little over half the garden tilled. The constant rain this spring had the soil so wet that it was clinging to the hoe blade constantly. I feel a little less incompetent, since I’ve noticed on my walks that the local farmers were never able to get their corn planted. I did have some broccoli, cabbage, brussel sprouts and spinach going, but the rabbits got all of it. Do they eat tomato and pepper plants too? Something did. No sign of the carrots or herbs I planted ever sprouting at all. There’s still some garlic (maybe 20?) and lots of sunflowers, and one sage plant. That’s ok. I enjoy the digging and just goofing around out there. When the heat breaks, I’ll get back at it and finish tilling and maybe try some fall planting and get things ready for next year. And maybe I should get a hotwire, a .22, and some rabbit recipes.
I got a free tomato plant and a free pepper plant when I purchased my flowers. The tomato has two bright orange tomatoes and four green ones. This is my first attempt at growing food. I’m in the Chicago area…does it sound like the tomatoes are on track??
Mostly successful, lots and lots of tomatoes,lots and lots of basil, and have made lots of roasted tomato sauce and pesto.
Am growing parsley, sage, rosemary and thyme–and tarragon, dill and arugula.
However, I’ve had a tough time fighting garden pests this year (trying to do it without harmful chemicals.)
I grew moonflowers (basically humungous white evening-blooming morning glories) for the first time and they have covered their growing space, which is a pleasure.
Also have a couple of Meyer lemon shrubs (too small to call them trees) that are covered with plump green lemons so am looking forward to those.
We should really upload some photos of our monster tomato plants. We planted Roma tomato seeds a few months back when we started the garden, and the seed packet said they’d reach 2-4 ft. We have a 7 ft. tall trellis that we built for shade (and to grow morning glories/moonflowers) and some of the plants have already reached the height of the trellis, with most of them not far behind. :eek:
Everything is currently a little flooded because of summer rain, but we’re still getting decent but small production on the eggplants, tomatoes, and peppers. Once things dry up a little bit, production will probably explode again.
The tomatoes are setting, but nothing ripe yet. We had a cold, wet spring all the way into June. Many peas, a great year for blueberries and raspberries, beans and squash coming on, chard and dill doing well, basil okay, oregano flourishing, watermelons died in the damp cold, arugula hanging in there, artichokes prolific. We’ll get no peaches this year. We’re thinking of an espaliered pear and some columnar apples, but since we’re gardening organically the spray is a problem.
Unfortunately, I’ve been losing plants left and right for the last two weeks. As expected, we started the late-spring/early-summer very dry. Then, we had about two weeks of soaking rains every afternoon. The root veggies (radishes, beets, onions) all bolted and had to be thrown out. I had three squash plants that were just beginning to set and I lost all three when the stems rotted right at ground level. I’m not sure what got the snap peas, but they just wilted away.
Now, I’m left with cucumbers, which have been quite productive, all things considered. I’ve also got three Bradywine tomato vines. So far, there are only two green tomatoes, but the plants look healthy, so I’m hopeful. I’ve also got two eggplants that are coming along fairly well.
I’m planning to reseed the radishes, carrots and beets. Hopefully, I’ll have better luck this time. It’s very strange to be hoping for the expected drought conditions. :dubious:
Anything surviving in my garden is surviving on sheer neglect. I have zero energy and zero interest to try to keep up with the horrible weeds.
I have two blossoms on a squash plant and most of the annuals have succommed to my neglect. A few cherry tomatoes but no ripe ones on the big tomato plants.
My jalepenos are hot as hell, and my basil and cilantro are growing wild. The green bean plant yielded one harvest, but seems to be done now. The zucchini is trying to take over the world, and grows pretty big, but only one at a time. Something ate the spinach and the collards, and the onions, eggplant, and strawberries all failed to ever materialize. I pulled up what I thought were tomatoes at first, then weeds, and it turns out they were tiny potatoes. D’oh.
Because my raised beds seem to have developed a disease which renders my tomatoes puny and sickly, I’ve tried planting other summer veg this year. I’ve planted two chiles: poblano and habanero, and I also have a Japanese eggplant and an okra plant in the ground. All of these are looking vigorous and healthy, particularly the eggplant, which I might add is handsome enough for an ornamental. We just had some of the eggplant grilled last night for dinner and it was mighty good.
I still grieve for my record tomato harvests of the past, though. I guess I’ll have to settle for farmers’ markets tomatoes from now on. (Sob.)
I put out my tomatoes a week or two early, and lost about half. Still, I have ~20 plants, with toatoes up to 2" diameter on them. We’ve been harvesting peas for a few weeks now, but we don’t have enough to freeze, as my 2yo daughter loves them, and picks them for a snack whenever she’s outside. At least it’s a healthy snack, even if she does wipe out future harvests by picking the unripe ones. The Kentucky wonder beans are flowering. I planted those a little too early, and the slugs took most of them, so I had to re-plant. The second batch got off to a good enough start that the slug damage was minimal.
I started a raised bed for beets, carrots, lettuce, onions, and radishes. I think I used too much compost, as my radishes had excellent tops, but hardly any roots. Slugs took off the lettuce before it reached 1", and wiped out all but a few carrots. The beets are growing slowly.
The slugs took off the first round of cucumbers, but I got some transplants from my parents, and those are doing well. We have 5 or 6 cukes ~1/2" long. The other vines are doing well, as I bought some cheap copper scouring pads and cut collars to keep the slugs off until they got established. The pumpkin vines are ~4’, and we have 2" summer squash. The winter squashes are flowering.
It’s been a learning experience this year. Being in the woods in zone 4, my biggest obsticles are the slugs and the short growing season. I’ve found that Slug Magic (Iron phosphate bait pellets) works pretty well, but takes a few weeks. I need to resist the urge to move plants outside until it’s around 50F at night, and I need to start my vines inside instead of direct seeding them. I plan to move the root crop bed to a sunnier spot next year, as the forest is trying to take back that spot, and shading everything out. I’ll also put a strip of flashing around it to stop the slugs.
How hot are your chiles? When I lived in Louisiana I grew awesome jalapenos, but here they grow, but they don’t have much taste. I gave up on them this year - you can get them for next to nothing in the farmers’ market, and they’re plenty cheap even in the grocery.
Had a decent spinach and radish crop earlier. A couple radishes managed to hide and have now bolted. I am letting them bolt in hopes of getting free seeds.
The turnips have been coming in regularly. Just froze about 2 pounds of greens yesterday, in addition to the pound we ate for dinner the night before. The turnip bottoms will be going into stew shortly
The “string” beans (none of which have strings) are starting to produce. I’ve gotten maybe a pound total so far, and the second planting are still blooming so I expect much more in a week or two.
I think my cucumbers ate my pepper plants. Or the peppers never came up. I may have to kill off a few of the cukes before they start eating passersbys.
The parsley seems to be growing, but I need to do some weeding.
The roses haven’t flowered much - first it was too wet, now I think it’s too hot.
