August Gardens: come inside and sit a spell.

[Faith-manor]

On 8/13/2023 at 6:43 AM, SHP said:

The rabbits are bold. I am waiting for one to come up and nuzzle me to pet it. When I was planted my irises one came over and started sniffing each of them. I told it those were my irises and it needed to leave them alone. It stared at me.

One evening I was explaining to the 3 rabbits that were in our that I was a preditors and it was prey and needed to stay out of the yard. It ignored me. 

 

I have a dog. She doesn't care. Our neighbors all have dogs. None care about the squirrels. 

The bunnies are epic! I have a hard time with it. I love bunnies. Really love those balls of fluff. My mil has one in her yard, a young one, and it is getting REALLY tame. It is also eating her landscape plants and creating all kinds of carnage. Some of the plants do not look like they will come back from this. So she is starting to get pretty amd, and probably wants Mark to shoot it. But he doesn't want to do it, and I will bawl. Stupid rabbits!

We have a fluffy foo foo in our yard, but my raised beds are up high. When Mark made them out of the pallets, he made them 30" tall x 36-42-48" wide depending on the dimensions of the pallet, and then string them together to form 12'-16' long beds.  So the foos eat on the lawn and the wilding areas which are for pollinators, but do not get into the gardens. I am very grateful for this. The Golden seems to have a serious vendetta with the squirrels, yay for us, but is not perturbed by the bunny. I do not get it. What goes on in dog brains?

Those dogs need a talking to!

 

Edited August 30, 2023 by Faith-manor

[Halftime Hope]

19 hours ago, Faith-manor said:

I get that. But we will not use glyphosphate. There are ethical issues here because everyone is on well water, and some of our neighbors have shallow wells that can't filter it. We also have numerous organic dairy farmers in the area, and over spray is a serious issue, with wind carrying it over. Two miles from here a farmer sprayed it on a day when it was windy because apparently he didn't give a crap. It destroyed the crops of a family growing a two acre organic garden for their family, and the mom was already fighting cancer which had been caused by chemical agents she was exposed to at work. The court threw out their lawsuit against that farmer. The spraying farmer offered them $500 for the loss of their organic vegetables and fruits. This was three years ago. Their well water still registers 97 times the EPA maximum ppm.

So I will continue to do battle with the invasive in other ways. And I am not committed to entirely erradicating it since it is all over the county and nearby state land. It will keep coming back. I just want to keep it under control and away from my raised beds, fruit trees, and berry bushes. So burning it and whatever is good enough.

Does 20 or 30% vinegar knock it back?  A friend has bindweed in the back yard of the leased home she is in (it belongs to a friend of hers, so she's putting more effort into caring for the property than one normally would for a rental), and she finally trenched and installed deep metal edging in the yard. The bindweed doesn't send runners below the edging and she's able to spray it with vinegar right at the border of the edging, and that keeps it from spreading further into the yard.

 

[SHP]

3 hours ago, Halftime Hope said:

Does 20 or 30% vinegar knock it back?  A friend has bindweed in the back yard of the leased home she is in (it belongs to a friend of hers, so she's putting more effort into caring for the property than one normally would for a rental), and she finally trenched and installed deep metal edging in the yard. The bindweed doesn't send runners below the edging and she's able to spray it with vinegar right at the border of the edging, and that keeps it from spreading further into the yard.

 

Here are research based links about bindweed control. 

https://neinvasives.com/species/plants/field-bindweed

https://www.johnson.k-state.edu/lawn-garden/agent-articles/weeds/bindweed.html

https://www.nwcb.wa.gov/weeds/field-bindweed

https://today.oregonstate.edu/news/controlling-perennial-bindweed-takes-persistence

The roots go deep

Edited August 13, 2023 by SHP

[SHP]

I planted a small tree yesterday. 

Walked out today to see a rabbit enjoying the leaves. Off to wrap chicken wire around it. 

[cjzimmer1]

My girl dog was going absolutely bonkers at the door but I had no idea why.  Sent her out but didn't really think about it (because she goes bonkers for lots of things outdoors).  Well she managed to communicate the urgency to my male dog and pretty soon he was beside himself to get out too.  And then the rukus began.  We discovered a squirrel had breached my backyard cage.  Only one solution to that, let the dogs in and quickly close the door.  I'm sure we lost a few future items and probably a few tomatoes as they tore around the cage and through the beds.  My poor girl was jumping 6 feet up but she was just shy of that bugger when he clung to the roof.  I started banging the outside to encourage him to move down.  My girl only needed him about 2 inches lower and finally she got him.  Another one bites the dust!

I promise I'm really not normally this heartless when it comes to the wildlife and I've got tons of produce planted around the yard that is unprotected (and thus fair game for the critters) so I'm not really depriving them but there are just a few items I just don't want to share with the wildlife and they are determined those are the only items they want to eat.  

So in my spare time, I have to add a bit more fencing to the cage to prevent future breaching.  The list of projects is never ending!

 

 

[Faith-manor]

1 hour ago, cjzimmer1 said:

My girl dog was going absolutely bonkers at the door but I had no idea why.  Sent her out but didn't really think about it (because she goes bonkers for lots of things outdoors).  Well she managed to communicate the urgency to my male dog and pretty soon he was beside himself to get out too.  And then the rukus began.  We discovered a squirrel had breached my backyard cage.  Only one solution to that, let the dogs in and quickly close the door.  I'm sure we lost a few future items and probably a few tomatoes as they tore around the cage and through the beds.  My poor girl was jumping 6 feet up but she was just shy of that bugger when he clung to the roof.  I started banging the outside to encourage him to move down.  My girl only needed him about 2 inches lower and finally she got him.  Another one bites the dust!

I promise I'm really not normally this heartless when it comes to the wildlife and I've got tons of produce planted around the yard that is unprotected (and thus fair game for the critters) so I'm not really depriving them but there are just a few items I just don't want to share with the wildlife and they are determined those are the only items they want to eat.  

So in my spare time, I have to add a bit more fencing to the cage to prevent future breaching.  The list of projects is never ending!

 

 

I totally understand. Gardening is tough enough without wrestling human food from critters. Mostly I adore wildlife, just not in the garden.

It is slowly turning into a serious feed my pursuit, so squirrels, bunnies, and ground hogs simply need to go back to the woods!

[SHP]

People (non urban) you are looking at this all wrong. Rabbits are food. 

*Check your local hunting laws to ensure compliance. 

[SHP]

And no, I cannot hunt rabbits here. 

[Faith-manor]

1 minute ago, SHP said:

People (non urban) you are looking at this all wrong. Rabbits are food. 

*Check your local hunting laws to ensure compliance. 

We can hunt them. I just do not enjoy rabbit meat. I generally do not have to worry about it. We have bunny foo foos every spring, but because there are a couple feral cats in this tiny town of mine, they usually feast on them. Ground hogs are a much bigger problem. Those things.....I wish death and destruction on them despite their awesome cuteness because they are wickedly destructive.

[SHP]

5 minutes ago, Faith-manor said:

We can hunt them. I just do not enjoy rabbit meat. I generally do not have to worry about it. We have bunny foo foos every spring, but because there are a couple feral cats in this tiny town of mine, they usually feast on them. Ground hogs are a much bigger problem. Those things.....I wish death and destruction on them despite their awesome cuteness because they are wickedly destructive.

Ahh ground hogs. We haven't had one in our yard yet. But they are massive and have been known to cause more than one, usually not local, driver to slam on their brakes in utter shock at the size and location. Major intersection that sees thousands of buses, cars, bikes, and pedestrians a day? The groundhog happily waddles across not giving a flip. 

 

[cjzimmer1]

3 hours ago, SHP said:

People (non urban) you are looking at this all wrong. Rabbits are food. 

*Check your local hunting laws to ensure compliance. 

No hunting in the city limits (sadly), or I would have been out shooting years ago.

Also growing up we didn't have a lot of money so almost all the protein we ate was stuff we raised or bartered for.  Pigeons, rabbits, and raccoons are all on my list of things I will never eat again!  As it was it took me years to be able to eat chicken and turkey again (and I'm still not very fond of duck or goose).  I could happily eat beef every day (probably because it was rare to have in my childhood)

[Faith-manor]

Saw this and thought of everyone here. I saw four bumblebees and one honeybee in the garden today.

I also canned six pints of taco sauce/salsa today. It has been cool and raining, so now it is going to be a while before I have more ripe tomatoes, but I still have a whole bunch of jalapenos and red chillies, so I am going to freeze them so they do not become over ripe.

[popmom]

That meme was how I felt today when I saw a huge butterfly on my zinnias! 

Dh and I have been gone nearly a week--just back home yesterday. The backyard/garden is such a jungle. (It has stormed here nearly every day for weeks.) I did a lot of weeding today, and I have barely made a dent. I am really worried about my strawberry beds. They are just overrun with chamberbitter. Normally I can torch it, but I can't risk killing the strawberries--if they are still alive under there. I'll work on those beds tomorrow. We are in the 80's this week with slightly lower humidity, so this is the week to get it done. I used my weed torch on the "lawn" around my veggie and flower beds. Chamberbitter seeds form on the underside of the leaves, so I am hoping that burning them destroys the seeds. 

I have a good many blooms on my tomato plants, so I'm hoping they'll set fruit during this dip in temps. 

My eggplants are producing nicely, and I am really enjoying eating them. That's not something I would normally buy at the store. 

I am loving this weather! It's not going to rain this week either--bonus! We need a break. It's just been to wet and rainy to plant or get any work done.

Edited August 17, 2023 by popmom

[Faith-manor]

On 8/16/2023 at 9:27 PM, popmom said:

That meme was how I felt today when I saw a huge butterfly on my zinnias! 

Dh and I have been gone nearly a week--just back home yesterday. The backyard/garden is such a jungle. (It has stormed here nearly every day for weeks.) I did a lot of weeding today, and I have barely made a dent. I am really worried about my strawberry beds. They are just overrun with chamberbitter. Normally I can torch it, but I can't risk killing the strawberries--if they are still alive under there. I'll work on those beds tomorrow. We are in the 80's this week with slightly lower humidity, so this is the week to get it done. I used my weed torch on the "lawn" around my veggie and flower beds. Chamberbitter seeds form on the underside of the leaves, so I am hoping that burning them destroys the seeds. 

I have a good many blooms on my tomato plants, so I'm hoping they'll set fruit during this dip in temps. 

My eggplants are producing nicely, and I am really enjoying eating them. That's not something I would normally buy at the store. 

I am loving this weather! It's not going to rain this week either--bonus! We need a break. It's just been to wet and rainy to plant or get any work done.

Popmom, were you able to save your strawberries?

My tomatoes are really coming on together now, and I picked enough today to can probably 7 pints. I will be doing that tonight. I have more jalapenos than I know what to do with, so I think I am going to try to find someone who wants a bunch as well as pickle some to use on nachos this winter. I have so many red chillies that I am getting ready to string them up to hang to dry for the winter. Grape tomatoes and an orange bell pepper diced are in the dehydrator. My second planting of carrots is still maturing, and the scallions and celery still have a couple weeks to go before I can harvest them. More eggplant than I know what to do with them. Cucumbers are done, but the last harvest of them netted eight nice cukes. I have a basil plant I am about to harvest all the leaves off and then pull.

I went to my favorite farmer's market today and picked up 3 huge broccoli heads. I cut and blanched enough for 12 servings. Those are now in the freezer in single serving babies inside a gallon bag. This is for my youngest son who is a broccoli eating fiend. I already had 12 servings for him from my broccoli. So it sounds like a lot. But in the grand scheme of things only broccoli once a week for not quite half a year. The more I try to grow and put up the harvest, the more I realize the sheer tonnage of food it takes to feed a family. It get great satisfaction from it, and am trying not to feel like it makes no difference because I produce such small amounts. But, I will expand next year and do more. All my kids are getting several pints of taco/enchilada sauce which was made, except for onions, entirely from my raised beds, and they will get several quarts of dehydrated apples from our trees, some plain tomatoes for making chilli or pasta sauce, dehydrated grape tomatoes for their salads, a jar of peach salsa, and some pickles jalapenos and dried red chillies. I am determined to do a LOT more next year including a large patch of sweet corn and sunflowers for harvesting the seeds to eat.

I am a little worried. Check the photo and see what I found. It is too early for me to find this in my yard from my maple trees. It means that our zero rain from May 7 - June 13 caused enough stress that the trees didn't fully recover. Ugh. I am not ready for this. I need more summer in order to get everything done, and accomplish all the things in the gardens. 😡

[cjzimmer1]

14 minutes ago, Faith-manor said:

 

My tomatoes are really coming on together now, and I picked enough today to can probably 7 pints. I will be doing that tonight. I have more jalapenos than I know what to do with, so I think I am going to try to find someone who wants a bunch as well as pickle some to use on nachos this winter. 

 

Have you ever made candied jalapenos (aka Cowboy candy)?  They are an amazing snack with cream cheese, I also like to pour some on roasts when cooking for a bit of sweet heat.  The extra brine can be used to make an excellent BBQ sauce. 

[popmom]

@Faith-manor my strawberries look pretty rough. I am concerned. I did get all of the weeds. I had to reset several plants because I had to pull the strawberry plant with the weed to disentangle the roots. 😞 I am worried because I have a several that look really healthy still. I am debating just pulling up the sickly ones and putting something else in those beds. 

[Faith-manor]

1 hour ago, cjzimmer1 said:

Have you ever made candied jalapenos (aka Cowboy candy)?  They are an amazing snack with cream cheese, I also like to pour some on roasts when cooking for a bit of sweet heat.  The extra brine can be used to make an excellent BBQ sauce. 

I have never done that. Now I am intrigued!

[cjzimmer1]

54 minutes ago, Faith-manor said:

I have never done that. Now I am intrigued!

You definitely need to.  You can make it as hot or mild as you like.  The sugar counters the spice but you can leave seeds in or take out as well as adjust the cayenne pepper to moderate heat.  The first time I made it, I just cooked it extra long on the stove (to simulate the cooking time for canning) to see how we liked it and then modified the heat from there for canning.

These are the recipes I use.

Cowboy Candy - Check this out! - SBCanning.com - homemade canning recipes

Spicy BBQ Sauce Canning Recipe Using Leftover Cowboy Candy Syrup (ourlittlehomestead.org)

 

There is another version called cowboy delight that is a bit milder and includes pineapple.  I don't like it nearly as much but one of my kids prefers it.

Pineapple and Jalapeno's - Hawaiian Cowboy Delight! - SBCanning.com - homemade canning recipes

 

[Faith-manor]

1 minute ago, cjzimmer1 said:

You definitely need to.  You can make it as hot or mild as you like.  The sugar counters the spice but you can leave seeds in or take out as well as adjust the cayenne pepper to moderate heat.  The first time I made it, I just cooked it extra long on the stove (to simulate the cooking time for canning) to see how we liked it and then modified the heat from there for canning.

These are the recipes I use.

Cowboy Candy - Check this out! - SBCanning.com - homemade canning recipes

Spicy BBQ Sauce Canning Recipe Using Leftover Cowboy Candy Syrup (ourlittlehomestead.org)

 

There is another version called cowboy delight that is a bit milder and includes pineapple.  I don't like it nearly as much but one of my kids prefers it.

Pineapple and Jalapeno's - Hawaiian Cowboy Delight! - SBCanning.com - homemade canning recipes

 

Thanks!

[popmom]

I planted zinnias for the first time this summer. I have been pretty underwhelmed with them overall. They are looking really sad and pathetic right now, so I finally cut some to bring inside. They are pretty wild and disheveled but so much better than the mess outside flopped over in the dirt! Why did I wait so long to do this? 

Edited August 27, 2023 by popmom

[Miss Tick]

23 minutes ago, popmom said:

I planted zinnias for the first time this summer. I have been pretty underwhelmed with them overall. They are looking really sad and pathetic right now, so I finally cut some to bring inside. They are pretty wild and disheveled but so much better than the mess outside flopped over in the dirt! Why did I wait so long to do this? 

I jumped to the end just to tell you how pretty your arrangement (and kitchen!) is.

[popmom]

3 minutes ago, Miss Tick said:

I jumped to the end just to tell you how pretty your arrangement (and kitchen!) is.

My kitchen is my favorite room in my house. I’m really spoiled by it! 💕

[wisdomandtreasures]

I canned 7 pints of sauce a few days ago, made with homegrown tomatoes. This morning I filled both of my 8 qt bowls to overflowing with more tomatoes and packed as many as I could in my crock pots and made more sauce. 10 quarts today!

I also picked a 5-gallon bucket full of zucchinis which I then turned into "mock pineapple" this afternoon. I got 10 quarts of that, too. Would have been more but one jar burst in the canner. Anywho... This is a new-to-me recipe. I have two good zucchini bread recipes and add it to my spaghetti sauce and veggie/egg scrambles, but it's nice to have other uses for it. I also recently discovered zucchini cobbler. Tastes just like apple cobbler! I couldn't believe it was actually zucchini! 🙂

Yesterday my husband went out and picked a mountain of green beans. Well, enough to fill a big gallon-sized food storage container. More are coming, as are endless ears of corn. We've already had corn on the cob with dinner a dozen times over the last few weeks. There's no end in sight! 😄

[popmom]

@wisdomandtreasures WOW. I need to sit at your feet and learn your ways! 

It's been so hot and dry...my tomatoes are really slowing down. I do spy a few yellow flowers here and there, and I believe they'll perk back up after the temps drop in the next week or so. I also did a second planting. Only five plants. Not sure how they will do yet. Not setting any fruit in this heat.

[cjzimmer1]

I am picking probably 2/3-3/4 bushel of tomatoes a week now.  We eat a few meals with tomatoes during the week and each weekend, I load up the dehydrator with sliced tomatoes (minus the first slice off the top and bottom) sprinkled with salt and dry oregano.  Takes about a half of bushel to fill and when dry they all fit in a gallon jar.  I'd love to get 8-10 jars (because DS eats so many during the winter) but we will just have to see how long the tomatoes hold out.  Then I take the rest of the week's picking and make spaghetti sauce.  Got 4 quarts last weekend and 4 this weekend.  I have oodles of peppers I need to get picked but I was just too tired to muster the energy to tackle that.  Hopefully I'll get to it in the next few days.  I also need to pick cherry tomatoes.  I'm picking about a gallon every 2-3 days.  Youngest DS has mostly been keeping up eating them all which is fine by me.  I haven't had a lot of time to work on preserving so as long as they aren't going to waste, I don't care if he eats them all fresh.

I harvested my first homegrown cantaloupes and they were delicious.  The watermelon are almost ready too.

The okra is a completed dud this year.  The plants struggled in the greenhouse and just never took off.  They are the spindliest looking plants I've ever had and are lucky to produce one pod a week on each plant (and only 4 plants survived).  Not much I can do with only a few pods a week so I've just been tossing them into other things just so they don't go to waste but I can't really taste them that way.

A few of the fall raspberries are starting to turn pink so I would expect in another week or so, it will be time to start picking those.  

Even though I hate to think of winter coming, I realized I need to get things started if I want to maintain a continuous supply of fresh veggies so I did start cucumbers and tomatoes for my winter garden this week.  Cucumbers should start producing the end of October and the tomatoes by the middle of November.  My tomatoes from last winter are still producing too but we only get a few each week.  I tossed some radish seeds in the other end of the pot since it's just empty space right now I figured I should put it to use.  I also had some ginger starting to sprout on the counter so for fun I stuck it in a pot of dirt that was sitting around.  We will see what happens.  I've got some potatoes on the counter starting to chit so when the cucumbers are ready to go in the big bot downstairs (and thus warrant turning on the grow light), I'll stick them in some buckets to make use of the overflow light.  

 

[wisdomandtreasures]

23 minutes ago, popmom said:

@wisdomandtreasures WOW. I need to sit at your feet and learn your ways! 

The sauce is super easy. No peeling, no straining. Just cut the tomatoes into quarters, pack them in the biggest crockpot you have, then cook on high for 4 hours. Blend with an immersion blender and then let cook another hour or so to thicken. Add to jars with lemon juice: 1 tbsp for pints, 2 tbsp for quarts. Then process in a water bag canner. Quarts 45 minutes. You will need to adjust for altitude. I'm at about 2700 ft above sea level. Anyway, not having to blanche, peel, and then run the tomatoes through a hand-crank strainer makes this a very simple task. Hands-on time is minimal.

The zucchinis were also very easy. Peel, dice, add to jars with lemon juice, a couple tbsp of sugar, then top off the jars with pineapple juice. Then into the canner they go. 🙂

As far as how to get this much to grow ... Well, our property was a barren wasteland. Well, not barren. Plenty of giant tumbleweeds and goatheads that we're still battling 2 years later. 😉 but we just covered the garden patch with cardboard to reduce weeds and topped that with several cubic yards of a mix of topsoil, compost, and aged manure with Steve Solomon's fertilizer mineral blend mixed in, and then topped it all off with wood chips. Parts of the yard are still hard and dry so we dug long trenches and dump all the fruit/veg scraps and eggshells in there every day and bury it so it can break down and build the soil back up.

🙂

[popmom]

@wisdomandtreasures @cjzimmer1 how many tomato plants do you plant? Do you prune or let grow wild? What zone? I'm full of questions! Anyone else want to chime in with tomato tips?

eta: my okra is actually doing really well! It loves the heat! I've got a lot of okra to cook. Not enough to freeze or can, but that's okay because I agree that this was a bad year for okra. My grandmother's is doing terrible, too. I had to do 2 plantings, and she had to do 3! I have about 20 clemson spineless and several of a dwarf variety that I'm trying out. The dwarf is just starting to flower. I've only harvested a few pods from those.

Edited August 27, 2023 by popmom

[wisdomandtreasures]

We planted TONS. Like over 60 tomatoes. Not all of them made it. No pruning. Things were a bit neglected for a while (a sweet baby boy arrived in April and I had a C-section so I had to get a lot of rest) so they didn't even get staked this year! I'm in zone 6b in Southwest Idaho. 

[popmom]

4 minutes ago, wisdomandtreasures said:

We planted TONS. Like over 60 tomatoes. Not all of them made it. No pruning. Things were a bit neglected for a while (a sweet baby boy arrived in April and I had a C-section so I had to get a lot of rest) so they didn't even get staked this year! I'm in zone 6b in Southwest Idaho. 

Congrats on the baby! 

I like your approach! Mine are a jungle. I just let them go wild. I try to stake but they sprawl out over the ground outside the beds and put down more roots, so I just let 'em. If I see a tomato growing on the ground, I'll prop it up with something. 😉 It's definitely not a pretty garden.

Edited August 27, 2023 by popmom

[cjzimmer1]

26 minutes ago, popmom said:

@wisdomandtreasures @cjzimmer1 how many tomato plants do you plant? Do you prune or let grow wild? What zone? I'm full of questions! Anyone else want to chime in with tomato tips?

eta: my okra is actually doing really well! It loves the heat! I've got a lot of okra to cook. Not enough to freeze or can, but that's okay because I agree that this was a bad year for okra. My grandmother's is doing terrible, too. I had to do 2 plantings, and she had to do 3! I have about 20 clemson spineless and several of a dwarf variety that I'm trying out. The dwarf is just starting to flower. I've only harvested a few pods from those.

This year I planted 29, down from my usual 40 or so but I'm still using tomatoes that I canned in 2020 (I had 89 that year because I hated to see the greenhouse leftovers end up in the compost), so I've been trying to plant a few less so I don't get so overloaded on tomato products.  

I'm in zone 5a.

I never ever ever prune a tomato plant!  What you are pruning is your next crop of tomatoes.  Pruning MIGHT make them slightly bigger but I care far more about quantity that size since 98% of them are getting chopped up in some fashion or another (well technically 100% are chopped, the 2% I use for BLT's that I want big are sliced too).  I always but a large cage and then using 3-4 stakes (6-10 feet tall depending on the variety) but I fractured my ankle this spring and still haven't fully recovered so they each only got the cage and one stake.  So they are definitely flopping more than I'm used to but it's what I could do this year.  However the Amish paste don't care, have grown straight up through the roof of my cage and I have a couple of feet of plants and lots of tomatoes growing above the roof.  A couple have ripened but I haven't had a chance to open the roof to harvest them.  Just wasn't something I had considered when I built the cage.  

I do plant my tomatoes with a large quantity of egg shells (and this year used some bone meal because I hadn't had enough shells since we didn't use many eggs when the price was so high) and some time released fertilizer.  They do get regular daily watering since I have a drip line installed so I never have to worry about uneven watering.  But my only other tip is to make sure you have some decent soil (or mix in a large amount of peat moss and compost to improve the quality) as tomatoes are heavy feeders so really need good access to "food".

[popmom]

@cjzimmer1 I fractured my ankle—3 separate breaks— in 2018. I got a plate and 3 screws. That’s a hard recovery!! I’m impressed that you have a garden at all! Maybe you are younger than me! lol 

thank you all for sharing your gardening experience with me! It gets a little bit better every year… still so much to learn. 

Edited August 27, 2023 by popmom

[cjzimmer1]

7 hours ago, popmom said:

@cjzimmer1 I fractured my ankle—3 separate breaks— in 2018. I got a plate and 3 screws. That’s a hard recovery!! I’m impressed that you have a garden at all! Maybe you are younger than me! lol 

thank you all for sharing your gardening experience with me! It gets a little bit better every year… still so much to learn. 

Mine wasn't that bad.  Just one small fracture that they weren't even sure was a fracture until it started healing.  The bigger issue was the severe sprain (with the majority of my foot turning purple at various stages of healing).  If it wasn't for the boot, I would have had no garden!  As it was I did have to rely on the kids to help me move a lot of things so most of what I did was sit and plant.  

Yes there is so MUCH to learn about gardening.  I grew up working in the greenhouse so have tons of knowledge from a lifetime of working with vegetable plants and I STILL learn new things every year.

[Halftime Hope]

It's starting to cool off in the evenings, so I've been out the last two weekends and have begun transplanting fall seedlings. I planted a new type of squash, a bit like a pattypan, and it is really loving the garden. I planted them on Aug. 5, and they are already forming flower buds. OMG, I'm excited about these, because I can never grow summer squash--the borers always, always decimate them. I direct sowed some more of them after the corn was well up, and we'll see how those do. I don't think I'll be able to grow pole beans on these, since it's a fall planting, and will take too long. 

I'm going to see if the nursery center near me has any fall tomato transplants, mine have not fared well this year. I used to have tomatoes in self-watering tubs, and they'd always come back in the fall for a second crop. Now that I don't have the tubs any longer, they have not done as well in the raised beds, even though the soil is great (better than in the tubs) and there is plenty of moisture. Come spring, I'll put them in the same area of the garden as the tubs, since that bed is in an early, warmer location.

I'm excited about the fall garden; this spring/summer was awful, largely due to bad weather and being focused somewhere else.

Edited August 27, 2023 by Halftime Hope

[Faith-manor]

20 hours ago, popmom said:

I planted zinnias for the first time this summer. I have been pretty underwhelmed with them overall. They are looking really sad and pathetic right now, so I finally cut some to bring inside. They are pretty wild and disheveled but so much better than the mess outside flopped over in the dirt! Why did I wait so long to do this? 

Oh my goodness, I was out of town for a couple of days and look what pops up!! Gorgeous! Oh, and I love the contrast of the milk glass vase. Very pretty.

[Faith-manor]

I was gone Friday, Saturday, and most of today. So the first thing I did on arriving home was run to their gardens. I harvested 13 red chillies, an entire basil plant (it was hanging over on its side so it was time, tons of good basil leaves all over it), 9 lbs of Amish Paste tomatoes, some grape tomatoes, and several of the oversized cherry tomatoes, plus one green pepper. 

I just got all of the basil cut and frozen. I still have some tomatoes in the freezer to use, so tomorrow I will be making two kinds of salsa. One of my honorary sons begged me for HOT taco sauce/salsa. I made medium heat peach salsa, very mild taco sauce, and medium heat taco sauce, and made two kinds of tacos while visiting our sons and had them invite their close circle of friends for dinner. Everyone loved the food - fajita vegetables were also put under the broiler with my mild sauce - but T desperately wants heat. This guy ate some of my jalapenos like he was eating a piece of celery, seeds and all. He apparently has lips, tongue, and stomach of steel but his wife, our very special honorary daughter, wants mild mild mild sauce. So I am going to source a very ancho chilli as well as a habanero from somewhere, and add use just a few seeds from them along with the chopped chillies plus my red chillies and jalapenos. Thankfully, I still have green peppers in the garden. I am making the no heat for A with just bell peppers, one jalapeno but no seeds, garlic, onion, cumin, and lime juice. I need to remember to have my labels handy because if the jars got mixed, dear girl will NOT be happy it's with me.

That peach salsa was a hit with everyone! So even though I felt unsure and wasn't certain I had created a good flavor profile, apparently it was a home run. We took two green tomatoes, and fried them. Our boys were the only ones who had experienced fried green tomatoes before. They were well received. I also had tomatoes, jalapenos, green peppers, cucumbers, and carrots for each couple or single person to take home. I also took local farmer's market locally grown sweet corn for them all, and grabbed some Michigan red haven peaches for them to take as well. They loved all the fresh produce.

I have another basil plant to pull, and a cucumber plant that I hadn't taken the time to yank. There are some baby eggplants but the plants themselves look really done. So I think I need to harvest them, and pull the plants. The peppers are still healthy and going crazy. The tomato plants actually look they are waning. There was deluge last week followed by cool nights and not enough sun so they stayed wet too long. My hope is that since the sun is going to shine for a few days here, the fruit will vine ripen. I though we would go a lot longer after Labor Day, covering at night if necessary, but I really do not think that is going to happen. I need the fruit that is out there so I can put up quarts of plain tomatoes for me to make into chili and marinara sauce this winter. What is out there still will not be enough so I will have to go to the farm market and get a half bushel of romas. I can't buy Amish Paste locally. Romas. It is going to feel like settling!

More carrots yet to harvest.

I have grapes about two weeks from.being ready to be jelly. Apples are two weeks to being fully ripe.

I have decided that after pulling all the plants, weeding where needed, I am going to plant radishes. If they mature before the big freeze, great, we will eat them, but if not, the plants can just do their thing, die off, and get turned under the spring. I needed a cover crop that would aerate and loosen the soil, and this was a recommendation in one of my gardening books.

[wisdomandtreasures]

Picked just now! All but the rectangular strainer--those are from Saturday.

[popmom]

Those are beautiful! Wow!

[Faith-manor]

35 minutes ago, wisdomandtreasures said:

Picked just now! All but the rectangular strainer--those are from Saturday.

Lovely!!!!!! 

[Rosie_0801]

I just went out to do some weeding ...

 

And dug up a frog.

 

Whoops. 

[popmom]

1 hour ago, Rosie_0801 said:

I just went out to do some weeding ...

 

And dug up a frog.

 

Whoops. 

Oh. lol. I did that weeding yesterday. Frog? Toad? Probably a toad. No damage done I suppose. I’m really surprised I haven’t encountered more snakes. I found that baby early summer. I think I posted the pic. None since. I know they are around… I usually spot a few. 

[Faith-manor]

Frogs are great. If I encountered a snake, I might never garden again! A mile outside of town, there is a field full of Michigan rattlers (Mississauga sp?), and they are not to be messed with. I am terrified of the things. Not exaggerating. If found in our yard, I would scream, run into the house, curl up in the fetal position, and never leave the house again. So it is best I not see a snake.

My Monday harvest was big. Unfortunately, last night the garden was drowned again, just epically deluged. We do.not.need.more.rain. SIGH. The tomato plants look so bad. We are supposed to get about five straight days of sunshine and decent temperatures so I am leaving the remaining fruit out there in the hopes it will ripen, but again having to keep watch for split skins. The green bean plants gave me a few more, but now there are no blooms so I really need to pull them. I still have my third planting of carrots, my celery (which still doesn't have wide stalks but seem like it might be okay to harvest but I am not sure since the bases are not peeking above the soil), and scallions to harvest, and the scallions and carrots seem so small.

I canned 8 pints of tomatoes, plain, yesterday. I need to do about 18 quarts minimum for the bachelors, and another 12 or so to Mark and I. There is no way I will get that out of the remaining fruit, so I am headed to the farm market next week for whatever sauce tomatoes I can get, probably romas. I have enough tomatoes ripe today to make a few jars of very spicy salsa for honorary son, T. I am freezing green chilies for making verde sauce later - don't have time now, and need to source tomatillos - and stringing up more red chilies to dry. I will get the dehydrator going today with grape tomatoes.

I am just not ready for fall. We have had a glorious, comfy Michigan summer, and the garden has been a joy. It is hard to see this time coming to an end. Mark and I really need to put up 15 face cord of wood for the winter, and contemplating that makes me unhappy.

[wisdomandtreasures]

My kids have been picking peaches over the last few days. Today we turned them into peach butter. 🙂

Has anyone ever burned large patches of their property? I am so freaking sick of these goatheads!!!

[Rosie_0801]

13 minutes ago, wisdomandtreasures said:

 

Has anyone ever burned large patches of their property? I am so freaking sick of these goatheads!!!

 

Tens of thousands of years of Indigenous people.

Seen this? https://www.fireinthepines.org

[wisdomandtreasures]

Ok, does anyone that posts here on this forum have experience burning/tips to share so I don't accidentally burn my whole house down? 😛

[Faith-manor]

On 8/30/2023 at 7:22 PM, wisdomandtreasures said:

Ok, does anyone that posts here on this forum have experience burning/tips to share so I don't accidentally burn my whole house down? 😛

None. No, I take that back. One. Exactly one piece of advice:

If you buy your dh a flame thrower for his birthday, you would be wise to follow him around with a hose when in use or keep it in a vault with a complicated password door lock along the lines of Mission Impossible so you don't find him the yard fiddling with the boat while ignoring the fire he started.

Do not ask me how I know this. 😜

I have no idea if this is the protocol, but when I am actually burning a section of invasives, I create a perimeter around them by soaking the ground and wetting down the foliage of plants nearby that I do not want to burn. Then I babysit it like a hawk with a 5 gallon bucket of water, plus the garden hose filled up so I can either spray it out or give a specific spot a good deluge with the bucket. But, I have no formal training in such things. I just had a father who lit a big ole pile of brush on fire in our backyard when I was a kid, then went inside to watch football. I remember freaking out when I looked out the bedroom window and saw flames 30 ft high. My brother and I ended up putting it out because he fell asleep watching football and got very cranky when we tried to awaken him. It is an experience that has stuck with me. My brother is also very careful with fire because of it, and as a result, neither of us have ever lost our eyebrows, meanwhile Dh's eyebrows fled years ago and never came back.

[popmom]

On 8/30/2023 at 5:46 PM, Rosie_0801 said:

Tens of thousands of years of Indigenous people.

Seen this? https://www.fireinthepines.org

So many benefits to prescribed, controlled burns. I follow a young man named Kyle Lybarger on social media. His account is Native Habitat Project. He is a big proponent of using fire to bring back grasslands and prairies with native plants. He is a forester but has a special interest in grasslands. 🙂 I have learned so much about what I want to plant in my yard to help local wildlife. (And none of it will be found at a big box store lol) 

I have a weed torch, too, but it's not really good for a large area. I don't know how they manage those larger controlled burns. I'd love to burn my entire back yard at once. I'm just doing it by sections with my weed torch. 

[Halftime Hope]

On 8/30/2023 at 1:37 AM, Rosie_0801 said:

I just went out to do some weeding ...

 

And dug up a frog.

 

Whoops. 

Every time I turn my compost pile -- it's more of a worm pile at this point -- I dig up a little garter snake. I need to pull out my compost and get the bin ready for the fall leaves, as that was my starting point last year.  After a couple of pile that were wood-chip and chicken manure based, I may never do another one that doesn't start with leaves. It has made the most beautiful compost!

[Halftime Hope]

I was home after a lay-off this spring, and it was an obnoxiously cool, wet spring, difficult to grow anything. 

Come June 1, our July weather arrived, so it was a terrible time for young plants, because we lost that month of optimal weather for the plants to get established. I've gotten exactly 1 tomato and 1 pepper off the plants. We're still getting at or around 100 degree days, but at least it's cooling down into the high 70s at night, so the fall garden should stand a chance. It's been so bad that I finally, finally picked a few okra pods this week. (They normally thrive in heat, produce reliably for 5 months, and are nearly impervious to pests.) 

Come to find out that, since we've had back-to-back El Nino years, it was both the third hottest average temp for the summer on record (but by 10ths of a degree, so I wouldn't call it significant) and the 6th driest, with -- so far -- 47 days of highs over 100.  Looking at the temps over thirty years, it looks a bit like we have a decadal pattern going for high temps, but that may be coincidental, or it may tie to orbital patterns. ?? 

I think those who did the best in my area had shadecloth or high tunnels. I got some in mid-July when the 107+ weather hit -- we often have 3-4 weeks of it -- and it helped nurse my tomato plants through the worst so they're making a comeback now. But I was reactive, not proactive. I won't make that mistake again.

This will be my 10th year of feeling like a first year gardener. Sigh. 

One thing I did right: at the end of last winter gardening season -- effectively before our spring plantings -- I prepped the beds with a lot of added compost and washed, shredded coco-coir. It has really helped, along with deep leaf and dried grass mulching, to retain moisture. Without it, I'm not sure any plants would have survived the summer heat.  

 

Edited September 2, 2023 by Halftime Hope

[popmom]

1 hour ago, Halftime Hope said:

 

This will be my 10th year of feeling like a first year gardener. Sigh. 

 

 

This makes me feel better. 🙂

I can’t blame anything on weather. We’ve had plenty of rain but not too much. Seasonable temps—nothing extreme. I’ve only had one bell pepper, but there’s one more ripening right now. That’s from 4 plants. 😕

I pulled up all the dead strawberries. Lesson learned. They aren’t worth the space they take up. What few survived—maybe I can get more plants from the runners next year.
 

None of my beans did anything this year. I tried 3 types. All did terrible. 
 

My successes:

I officially have more okra than I can use, so I may can a little.

I have harvested one watermelon! Woohoo!! And one more is ripening. I picked the first just a tad too soon, but it still tasted good. The funny thing was that it was supposed to be Orangeglo, but it was red when I cut into it. I posted a pic on a local fb gardening page, and apparently others have had similar issues this summer with seed mix ups. Consensus is I’ve grown a “strawberry” variety watermelon. I’ll take it! I’ve never been successful with watermelon before. 
 

Today I cleaned up my tomatoes which included disposing of 6 hornworms. YUCK. I pulled one plant. I untangled the others as best I could. Pulled off all the dead leaves, so they have better airflow. Fixed the stakes and cages. Worked in some bone meal and fertilizer. I picked 2 nice sized oxhearts. Very excited about that. Our low temperatures will be below 70 for the near future. So I’m hoping for more blooms. 
 

Eggplants are producing well. 

So I’m in my 4th year of feeling like a first year gardener. 😉

Eta: this is THE day for me to work in the garden. It’s overcast and 80 degrees with a nice breeze! So refreshing!!

 

 

Edited September 2, 2023 by popmom

[Faith-manor]

I canned 15 pints of tomatoes today, half from the garden and half purchased romas. We are having too much overcast rainy weather and the tomato plants have a peck of green fruit out there, but they aren't ripening, and the plants are dying. I am happy though that I have managed 13 pints plain tomatoes, 8 pints mild taco sauce, 7 pints hot taco sauce, and five jelly jars of peach salsa which had a few Amish Paste all from my garden. I am still getting grape tomatoes, and have dehydrated 2 quart jars worth which is a lot of grape tomatoes given that they shrink to 75-80% of their original size.

I pickled 5 jelly jars of jalapenos and have more to do. There are two strings of chili peppers making up to dry.

I still have some romas left and peaches. Mark wants me to make more of the peach salsa. It has turned out to be very popular with our sons as well as him. But, while canning today, I burned two fingers on my left hand. Steam burns. Bad steam burns. I can't even bend those fingers, and the pain is bizarrely intense. This is really going to slow me down, and at the moment, I am feeling a strong aversion to heat.