This year, so far we’ve had onions, garlic, peas, carrots, spinach and beetroot.
We are still waiting for our sweetcorn, pumpkins and beans to grow and we’ve just harvested the first courgettes of the year.
The sweetcorn are wind damaged and may not produce, which is a real shame as we did very well with our corn production last year.
Maintenance this year has been a real pain as we had some farm manure delivered in the Autumn and dug it in before the winter set in. There must have been lots of seeds in the manure because the weeds and grass are appearing faster than ever.
I’ll post back after harvesting time to give you a heat index review. It’s my first time growing chiles and I don’t know what to expect. I hope the habaneros are good and hot, because they’re my favorites for making salsas. The ripe orange ones have a fruity, tropical taste behind the tremendous heat, as opposed to the harsh bitter heat of a green serrano or jalapeno.
Well, the grass and Balsam Apple vines (weeds) are doing well.
Okay, I do want the grass to be healthy but does it have to grow so damn fast during the rainy season? I can’t cut it fast enough!
Oh, I did manage to get an avocado pit to sprout recently and it’s growing well but it’s still inside for now. That’s about it for my green thumb.
I also went to a rain barrel workshop and got a couple rain barrels. I hope to be able to save some of this plentiful rain for later.
The corn is coming in, the squash are filling up, the grapes are nearly there, the tomatoes are tasty, the blackberries are burstin’, the strawberries are erratic, the watermelons are changing their thump, the chard are charging, the okra is reluctant, the sweet potatoes are flying, the peppers are crisp, the Russian garlic is in a hurry, the beans are crunchy, the plums wer gnarly but the peaches are promising and the pears are out of reach.
Start a crop rotation and fall clean up this year. The key is no plant debris in the garden in winter. No crops that support the same diseases or pests go in that bed the next year.
My disease problem is due to the flood. the water contaminated all the soil.
I noticed that I have a 3 inch green bean. My holly hocks are recovering and I need to install a short support trellis now. Three posts and a rail to tie them to.
Green onions, spinach, radishes and lettuce are done. The zucchini or possibly pumpkin or cucumber died young. The herb bed (cilantro, basil, parsley, borage and a ?turnip?) is starting to recover, the apple tree branches are drooping from the weight of all the golf ball sized apples, and the mint may take over the lawn any moment now.
The peonies were pitiful (one bloom each), the clematis looks like it will survive despite it’s unfortunate severe pruning, the lily of the valley patch is turning yellow, the lilies are going gangbusters, and the volunteer marigolds are HUGE.
Not bad for a garden that has been completly ignored for at least 5 years. Next year will be fun.
Hmmmph. Some of us green folk grow flowers and stuff. My hosta, fern, hollyhocks, coneflowers, day lillies and rudbeckia are doing great. Strangely, my pots on the deck are not.
I have one tomato plant and one pepper plant. They’re doing ok.
There’s so much zucchini. I have made several loaves of bread. I have given them away to family and neighbors. I have sliced the little bastards up, soaked them in Italian dressing and grilled them up every night for the past several. And then I’ll go out to the garden and find zucchini that I somehow didn’t spot that is now so far past the point at which I should have picked it, it’s now a Monster Zucchini. I’m serious. You could shellac one of these things, put a Louisville Slugger brand on it and send it off to A-Rod for use in his next game.
There is a tomato forest lurking in my back yard. Every day after work, I’m yanking off the non-fruit-bearing offshoots (I forget what they’re called), dusting, watering and weeding. The tomatoes are just starting to turn red. In a week, I’m not going to know what to do with them all.
Meanwhile, I’ve produced approximately four edible strawberries and maybe a dozen edible snap peas. Should have planted more.
Corn’s just about ready. The stalks look extra-spindly as compared to last year, but the ears seem large. I’m waiting for cornsilk to shrivel and then I’ll pick. Should be enough for a few BBQ’s worth…
Got a round of jalapeno peppers, and there’s another round ripening now. Didn’t get anything out of the habaneros. The plants look healthy - just no peppers.
Oh, and I have one monster pumpkin to show for all my effort cultivating my pumpkin vine and keeping it from traveling into my pool. Seems I should have more than one for all my troubles. Oh, well.
Fabulous. My flower bed is full of foxglove, yarrow, shasta daisies, delphiniums, gladiolus, Canterbury bells, and pinks. My new rose plants are doing well.
The eggplant died its first night out and the cucumbers never came up; I’ve been pulling zucchini for about a week now, though, and just picked my first ripe tomato today (mmmmmm). I also spotted the first set-on sweet pepper today.
The cilantro bolted early. The mint, parsley, basil, sage, lavender, and chamomile are beautiful.
It’s a Ground Dove, but it took me until last winter to figure that out. There were two hatchlings in that nest later. It’s one of the few good nests they made. The nests are loose twigs, and they tend to fall out of the trees they make them in, before they even use them two days. It’s a wonder they’re so numerous.
When we suddenly find a monster, here is what we do. We halve it, dig out any seeds, and scrape out the squash part (kind of like what you do for a spaghetti squash. We then mix the squash insides with ground meat of some sort and spaghetti sauce and some seasonings, and cook. (Browning the meat first, as usual.) When it is well mixed, we put the mixture into the squash shell and bake. You can then eat both the insides as well as all the bowl except the skin, which gets nice and soft and flavorful. This works especially well for eight ball and French zucchini which is a bit wider than standard. We haven’t lost any of our standard zucchini, and so haven’t had a problem - yet.
The owners of a Zucchini bush shouldn’t feel bad about tossing some of it. Now if you actually planted more than one plant I have to ask what were you thinking? Just kidding.
This year i was going to try a new cover plant to protect the squash from squash bores. they drill in at the base of the vine near the root. I usually plant nasturtiums to cover the base of the plants. This year I planted some hills with a zucchini in the middle to cover the squash vine stems near the root. The flood came a few days later so I have no idea if it works well or not. I’ll try it next year maybe. i do have a few basil that look nice. My dill all died, but I have new seedling of it I hope are ready when the cucumbers are.
This sounds like a cool idea. Maybe I’ll try some ground turkey, since my wife doesn’t eat red meat. How long do you bake it for? In watering this morning, I noticed another one I missed, and since it’s well past the point at which I should have picked it, I might just let it go to see how big it can get.
Meanwhile, thunderstorms last night dumped a lot of rain on my tomato plants, and I spent some time this morning running around tying plants back to their cages and stakes with ripped strips of old t-shirt.
For the first time in my life, I’m growing veggies and herbs (all in pots)! They are all going nuts–one of my bell pepper plants has two peppers on it which are nearly ready. The others have several tiny peppers on them. All four of my tomato plants have green tomatoes, and several have nearly red tomatoes. I’ve had to snip back my basil several times and the oregano as well, as both were starting to flower. (And this is WITH cutting regularly to get herbs that I use for cooking.) My lavender (also in a pot) has finally started to really take off–I suspect the roots finally hit a good point of growth and now it’s time for the plant itself to grow.
This weekend, Hallgirl1 and I went to Stauffers of Kissel Hill, and they had their tomato and pepper plants reduced half price. Many were already bearing fruit/veggies and I was so tempted to get more (but am running out of pots!). I did pick up peppermint and spearmint plants which round out my list of herbs I wanted. (Both planted in pots.)
I do have a question though–I also planted Fairy Tale eggplant and have several small eggplants which are a beautiful deep purple. But, when in the heck do I pick them? I have one which is about three inches long and it seems to be loosing it’s purple (fading). Is that too late to pick? I thought that it would come off the vine easily (like picking a tomato), but it doesn’t and I don’t want to pick it if it’s not ready. The others though are still about 1 inch long.
