Summer harvest -- garden talk

Cafe Society
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I’m a newbie, so I probably have more questions than tales to tell, but I’d love to hear your tales. Or even see your questions answered by others. This is our first attempt at a serious garden. It’s small. Six raised beds, 5x8. But it’s automatically irrigated (every other day at 8:00 AM for 15 mintues). And it has started yielding.

I just picked our first ear of corn. God, I never knew corn could taste so good! I’d already gotten lots of squash, and plenty more is still coming in. We have several varieties of tomatoes, and the cherry ones are starting to ripen. I’ve had a couple dozen of them. Hundreds are coming in behind.

Japanese beetles have eaten our cabbage. They’re destroying our broccoli too. Edlyn doesn’t believe in pesticides, so she’s trying herbs of some kind. I don’t think they’re working. Any advice on those particular pests?

Watermelons (regular plus Moon and Stars) are starting to get pretty big now, as are cantelopes. I think I understand when to harvest these. It sounds pretty complicated, but I’m told the best bet is to wait until the bottoms turn yellow, the vine stems dry up, but the melons are still waxy (for watermelons). And advice or opinions on that?

There’s a baby rabbit that can get through the pickets, and he’s made a home in the melon patch. He doesn’t really seem to eat anything. He just sits around, best I can tell. We sprayed fox pee all around the perimeter. I guess it’s working for the most part. Haven’t seen a single squirrel in the garden, even though the yard is full of them.

The only other things (that I know what they are) are beets and green beans. The beets I don’t really care about. The J-beetles have eaten the green bean leaves, but apparently it hasn’t affected the sprouts themselves. But I can see that you need a lot more than we planted to get a good yield. If I’m going to bother with green beans, I want a lot of them. In the South, we cook them for three or four hours, and I’m not going to bother with a couple dozen pods.

Anyone else harvesting anything now? Any tips?

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Liberal, I’ve been meaning to start the same thread- I need some ideas, too. Would you mind posting pics of your raised beds? That is my next project- for now, I’ve got a great big garden that is tiring to work in. I would rather garden on a much smaller scale, but more intensively.

I use an organic pesticide called Bacillus thuringiensison my cauliflower, cabbage, and broccoli, but I am careful to use it sparingly and keep it on the plants that I am protecting before they bolt and bloom because I don’t want to attract any butterflies to the bt. This stuff is sold under the trade name Dipel, and will work in 2 or 3 days on your broccoli and cabbage. (Check your state’s extension website for all the technical info about use of biological controls.)

I’ve been harvesting yellow wax beans and peanut beans (some call them “pink tips”) for a couple weeks- I don’t like the taste of canned beans so I have been blanching them and freezing them in quart freezer bags. After washing, I drop the beans in boiling water for 3-5 minutes, then dunk them in a bowl of ice water to stop the cooking process. So far I have put up 20 quarts of wax, and 10 quarts of peanut beans. The bean beetles and Japanese beetles are horrid this year, and are busily defoliating my beans as I type this, but I haven’t lost many beans yet. I’m still waiting on my Kentucky Wonder pole beans.

I’ve brought in 5 bushels of cucumbers so far, and my sweet and hot peppers are just starting to produce. I’ve canned kosher pickles, relish, and am about to make a huge batch of spicy Hellish Relish tonight. My tomatoes are all loaded, but nothing is coloring yet except for a handful of cherry tomatoes. I’ll be begging for salsa and spaghetti sauce recipes in a couple weeks.

Nothing better than fresh corn- try splitting an ear with Edlyn before cooking- you will be shocked at how sweet it is. Garrison Keillor waxes poetic about sweet corn every summer- I am sure that frozen and canned corn people think that he is exaggerating, but once you have walked from the garden to a boiling pot with a few ears, you do know the difference.

I’ve a day off tomorrow, so I will go out and snap some pics of my herbs and vegetables, as well as some of the produce I have been putting up. Harmonius Discord, would you mind getting some pictures of your garden? I am especially interested in your corn circles-

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Edlyn is in Sweden right now, Beaucarnea, but when she comes back (and gets rested up) I’ll ask her to take some pics and post them somewhere. I think she has the camera with her, and she’s the only one who really knows how to use it. (I gave it to her on our anniversary.) I forgot to mention the bell peppers, but I’ve had three of them so far. And you’re right about the corn. I cut off the kernels into a saucer, salted and peppered them lightly, added a pat of butter, covered them with plastic wrap, and nuked them for four minutes. Holy cow, that was so frigging delicious. So sweet and flavorful. The difference between it and store-bought corn was downright stunning.

We’re not going to can anything. We’re afraid of it. But we may freeze some things. (We have one whole bed that’s just strawberries.) I’m most worried about the tomatoes and melons. We won’t be able to eat them all. We’ll be giving quite a bit away, I’m sure.

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You know, excess is the best part of the home vegetable garden. We set up a rickety table at the end of the driveway with a sign that says “Take one” and watch smiley, happy people snatch some free goodies each summer. On Sunday I set a bushel of pickling cucumbers on the stoop of the little church that is beside my house, and they will have another bushel for this Wednesday’s service, too. And a bowl of cherry tomatoes on my desk at work goes faster than M & M’s.

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Terrific ideas! Thanks! :slight_smile:

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Bad idea. Water more deeply but less often (an inch a week should do it – so water once a week for an hour if it doesn’t rain). If you water often and shallowly, the roots reach up towards the surface for the water – you want them to go deeply, so you need to soak thoroughly when you do water.

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Are you sure about that, Twickster? We use this schedule on the advice of our landscaper and, as I say, our yields have been good. In case it matters, it gets *very * hot around these parts and can be very dry for weeks on end. Also, the ground dirt underneath the beds is red clay. (We call it “hard pan”.) The system does sense whether it has rained, though, and won’t water if it has.

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Your landscaper will know your immediate situation better than I will, obviously, so do as he or she suggests. For others, though, it’s generally good advice.

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I’m going to mention it to him anyway. I’d like to find out why he reasons the way he does. He’s usually right, but not always.

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I can’t help you with pictures of corn, because I haven’t any. I have squash and pumpkins this year, which I haven’t grown for years. By the time I figured out where I could try planting corn, it was too late. I’m expanding as I can handle more, but I have limits on what I can do. The corn circles work great for small amounts at a time. A dozen to a hill. I do grow them with pumpkin vines around them usually. Give them a try next year, don’t wait for pictures. The garden is really stressed by thye heat and lack of rain, so pictures will be less than flattering. I’ve been trying to just keep stuff alive.

I don’t think BT kills Japanese Beatles. It saves saves cole crops from cabbage worms really well. You can try some trap bottles by the plants. look them up on the internet. I had more of them than I ever had in the past. I’ve been picking and squashing them. I don’t use pesticides unless I have to either.

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You live in such a dramatically different environment, but there is, was and always will be one rule for watering: humans have a built-in wetness gauge. Put your finger in the soil. If you know the root zone for the particular plant, you’re in fat city.

Without proper study of your discrete region’s evapotranspiration I do take issue with the 8 am watering schedule, as guttation is a dangerous variable for plants, especially for turf. However if you’ve done the calcs, there’s nothing wrong with a timer on raised beds. Always default to Mr Fingerman, though.

Japanese Beetles are hard to manage without Integrated Pest Management. Unless you’re willing to train a flock of sparrows to watch over your crops, or barring that, hourly “grab and squish” tactics, without chemicals you’re generally out of luck.

Have fun, but most importantly do what you think is right. Keep a diary. After a while you will be surprised by just how right you can be.

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We are 11" below normal for rainfall in my area, and the drought has stunted a lot of my plants. My corn tasseled at 4’, my basil looks like I grew it in gravel, and I have some tommytoe plants with ripening fruit that is smaller than a pea.

But I am unashamed, even though the boyfriend sings the oompa loompa song when I bring in harvest. I will put some pictures up tomorrow- I need some help with suckering tomato plants, and some easier composting ideas.

I would also like some spicy pickle recipes if anyone has any to share.

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Lib, Twicks is right; Better to water less often but longer and deeper. We, I think, are in the same area; Eastern NC., around Raleigh. It’s friggin hot right now, and I assume your plants were set in the ground in April/May, so have decent root structure. Better to water deeply, and encourage the roots to stretch out, rather than train them to seek out the one inch of water offered daily.

Soil composition matters here immensely in NC. Piedmont clay is really different from
the Coastal Plain sandy soil east of Raleigh. It’s amazing how different the soil can be here in a simple half hour’s drive. Example: I am helping someone do a garden 40 minutes South of where I am in Chapel Hill. I have clay, she has sand. It’s a totally different way of gardening there.

El Cid{ has an excellent, and , simple point; Stick you finger into the soil; If it’s powdery dry at half an inch, it’s too dry, especially with spring planted plants. Drought -tolerant does not mean “Plant it and Forget It” You still need to tend to the plants for the first year, then, developing roots can be able take care of themselves.

This is, honestly, the biggest problem I see in sending out so many plants I love and grow on yond. Perennials, not annuals. But, it’s applicable to vegetables as well. The gardening books you read may not account for Hot Southern Summer cultivation, a very real difference in vegetable gardening.

For my SD compatriot Lib, just start earlier than most mags say, and , also, consider the Fall gardem, a luxury of Southern Gardening most mags don’t say at all. Lemme know if you want to know.

And, Beau, no season goes without Picled Okry…comin’ soon…

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I filled up the camera memory. I’ll try to post some of the pictures tomorrow. We had 10 minutes of rain so everything was a bit better looking tonight. I plant some stuff in the ground and let the natural stuff grow around it. Cut off the area just before you plant. It competes well, and I have much less pest problems. I used a post hole digger to take out a plug of soil and dropped the tomato plants in. The 4 inch potted root balls were just the right size for the holes.

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Okay, I just spoke to our landscaper, and I’m an idiot. He said that the reason he set us up on the timer the way he did was that the plants were at a stage where they couldn’t really take a drenching. (They were just sprouting.) The idea, apparently, was that we would adjust things over time until, as you advise, we would now be watering longer and less frequently. Turns out also that he plowed up the hard pan and mixed it with planting soil, and then topped that with an 8" bed of loam. I haven’t talked to Edlyn yet, but in all probability she has done it right and I was just out of the loop.

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Hey, Liberal. HD started a garden pic thread- come over and join us.

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Oops! Okay. Mod can close this one then. :slight_smile:

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The organic garden folks go to Milky Spore for Japanese Beetles. It’s a fungus that kills the larval stage in the ground. Non-toxic to humans and pets, the stuff lives in the soil for a decade or more.

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But what happens if your neighbor hasn’t treated his yard? Won’t those adult beetles just hop right on over?

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Our neighbor has given us quite a bit of stuff - so far I’ve made squash bread, zucchini bread, squash brownies, zucchini brownies (the brownies are vegan, BTW, for anyone who might want to try vegan dessert), squash casserole, squash fritters and Greek salad. When more tomatoes show up I’m sure I’ll be making salsa (especially if he grows more of those hot peppers this year!), tomato sauce, ragu and bruschetta.

I’m glad he’s around because I’ve already proven if anyone relied on me to grow food they’d starve. I can sure make stuff out of it once it’s there though. :stuck_out_tongue: