Garden Update

Early Saturday morning, I had just enough time to pick some early corn, sit on the back deck and husk and clean it. And then it started to pour. And it rained all day Saturday. I blanched and cut the corn (38 ears worth) and got it in the freezer. Then started in on making tomato sauce from some of our Roma tomatoes for the freezer. Chopped some green peppers, some red peppers, and some banana peppers for the freezer. And some zucchini slices. Didn't get any pickles made b/c we're out of cucumbers. Lots of flowers on the vines, though, so we should be getting more soon.

I think it's time to pull the red beets now and will probably do that Tuesday night. I want to get them into the freezer, too.

The broccoli looks like it's about finished and so do the beans. Still getting peppers, though. And I took two nice zucchini last night after that last storm went through. And about 12 nice tomatoes...I'm so glad the tomatoes are starting to ripen. Some of the Roma's fell as soon as we touched the vines, even though they still had some green to them. We put those in the basement in a paper bag on top of the freezer. (I'd like to just put them on the kitchen counter, but the cats would probably try to taste them.)

Some of the later corn has tassles that are drying nicely, so maybe they'll be ready by the end of the week. We figure there's probably a little over 100 ears of later corn, so even if we're not able to use all of the ears, we should still get a nice harvest. And we still have some early corn that's not quite ready yet.

So all in all, the garden seems to be doing well. We've been seriously considering doubling the size again for next year because we ran out of space with all those tomato plants. And we'd like to try cabbage, onions, carrots, maybe some potatoes along with everything we planted this year. I haven't given up on planting garlic this fall for next year, too. And Rick wants to try butternut squash. (I think that with all the squash plants, we should have a separate area for nothing but squash.) Oh, and strawberries. We'd like to get about 25 strawberry plants, just to see if they'll grow.

How are your gardens now? Still doing well? Those of you who have the topsy-turvey plants, how are they doing??

Sounds as if your veggies are doing great, Pam! My vegetable garden consists of 1 tomato plant in a pot. I had 2 ripe tomatoes last week; when I went to pick 1, there was only 1 there. Hmmmm. I'm wondering if squirrels like tomatoes. I suppose a raccoon could have gotten it, but it was during the day so who knows?

My flower garden took a bit hit because of the windstorm/ mini-tornado we had in June. Parts of my shade garden are no longer in shade (after a huge limb fell from the neighbor's tree); my hostas, heuchera, and hydrangeas are absolutely baking in the sun. A bleeding heart and a butterfly bush were smashed flat, as were coneflowers and other assorted goodies. I don't know if they'll make it or not. I'm going to shuffle some shade plants around if the weather ever cools off. I did go out yesterday and dig up a hydrangea that was turning crispy. I've got it in a pot on a shady corner of the patio for now.

Stupid wind, stupid tree.

I did some serious weeding this weekend. I took out over 1 1/2 yards of weeds!

The potatoes are good though I see more potato beetles. Green beans just starting as I had to replant. Lots of green tomatoes and many plants are 5 ft tall! (I have 24).
Some green sweet italian peppers. Been picking cucumbers, zucchini and basil for a couple of weeks. Corn is still a good 2-3 weeks out but looks promising. Carrots and beets coming along.

Way to early for any canning/freezing yet a good month on that but I should be busy!

Phew, I got tired just reading that Pam! All sounds very yummy though, and you must feel very gratified to reap the fruits of your hard labour.

OMG I want to eat at your house. All the time.

Our garden is pretty "wild" this year - didn't get much planted in the cold and rain of our non-spring. Finally got the lettuce going, and raspberries and strawberries are incredible this year. We've got lots of cukes and yellow squash and zucchini coming, and both white and orange pumpkins are doing okay (so far), garlic is looking good. We need more warm weather here!!!

Well....I don't know if you remember, but I posted pictures of all my tomatoes in early April, but by mid June it was so hot that I cut them down. That was the extent of my garden this year, but I was very happy to have had as many tomatoes as I had. This year I used a Grow Box. Come late fall, that's when I'll plant some collard greens in that same Grow Box and see how they do.

However, in my indoor Aerogarden, right now I'm growing Lemon Basil (it's absolutely WONDERFUL in iced tea), dill, and tarragon, and in November I think I'll plant salad greens in it. (it needs to get at least as cool as 72 degrees in the house for them to grow, so they may not do very well...that all depends on mother nature. Yes, I said mother nature even though we're talking about indoors! There is no way I'm setting my a/c that low, so if the outdoor temps don't fall low enough to make the indoor temp low enough, then my salad greens just won't do well. But it's worth a shot. Last November it actually froze here, so you just never know.

Sounds good!

I'm still getting tons of cherry tomatoes, and my new pea plants are growing ok, no peas yet though. I saw the other day I have a new squash growing, I think it's a butternut. I hope so! I'm making my spaghetti squash for dinner tonight I think. Green beans just aren't happening. I still think I got maybe 10 beans in the past few months. Broccoli seems to be fading, so I may rip them out soon. BF's watermelons are doing well, we have 1 about the size of a softball and a bunch of others about golfball sized. Exciting! My cucumber plants are still ridiculously small, but I have a few cucumbers starting finally! I hope they keep growing. They're pickling cucumbers, and I want pickles!

Some of my summer squash plants and zucchini are dying off. Not sure if they are just spent or something else is the problem. We are getting a good number of cucumbers and tomatoes. I'm not too pleased with the cukes though. Even the small ones have tough seeds. The tomatoes are tasty but a lot have splits in the top. Any advice on that? It happens with big and small ones. My cherry tomatoes are coming out too. The weird thing is some look like cherry and some look like grape tomatoes! I'm not getting a ton off there yet; but I have more flowers. I got a few peas finally; but forgot they were there after our trip and they had died off.

Next year I will be doing some things different. I'm hoping to double the garden size too. I want an herb section and somewhere separate for the summer squash and zucchini.

Radish plants seem to repell most garden beetles, not sure if they'd work with potato beetles, but I used to plant them with my cukes and all varieties of squash with great results.

Originally Posted by Arlyn

Radish plants seem to repell most garden beetles, not sure if they'd work with potato beetles, but I used to plant them with my cukes and all varieties of squash with great results.

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I'll have to remember that for next year. We didn't have a lot of problems this year with beetles, but it's nice to know for future reference. Thanks! I think marigolds help, too, with some kinds of beetles or insects?

Mooch, our zucchini and squash plants are starting to brown and dry off, too. And we've had rain, so it's not that it's too dry. However, we're seeing lots of new squash flowers on all six plants, so I think we'll be seeing some new zucchini. There are new flowers on the cucumber plants, too.

Erica, we were just talking about trying butternut squash next year. We tried acorn squash last summer, but as fast as we would see the little baby acorns, something would get them...we never figured out what happened and didn't try it again this year. Both DH and I are big butternut squash fans. Nothing is as good as oven-roasted butternut squash chunks with a bit of olive oil and kosher salt. Yum!

mrsgreenjeens, I do remember your pictures and that's a shame about the heat in your area. Lemon Basil sounds wonderful in tea; we have some in the back flowerbed and I'm going to try that.

Swamp Witch, c'mon over! Any time! So your strawberries are OK? I want to try strawberries again so badly. Next year! And I'm still trying to talk DH into 3 or 4 blueberry plants.

Gail, you have 25 tomato plants??? Where? How big is your garden? Wow! We ended up planting ours way too close together and we think that hindered them ripening for so long. They are huge and sprawled out all over that part of the garden.

Libby, we have a corn poacher in the garden; we're not sure, but we think it's a raccoon. There was an ear on the ground right outside the fence; it was husked part way down and there was definitely something chewing on the ear. I think raccoons like corn, not sure about tomatoes.

One of the problems right now is that Rick didn't want me to weed around the perimeter of the garden at the fence area. He was afraid that if it was clean, it would help the bunnies get underneath. So now it's just a wild mass. And that makes it hard to find cucumbers and zucchini, which means that we eventually find those "clubs" like Mooch showed in her pictures. Next year, I'm going to be a lot neater than I was this year.

I'm keeping a bit of a journal, so that we know where we stand at the end of the summer. It would be nice to know that we covered the cost of the plants anyway....which I'm sure we did (in zucchini alone! )

Keep it up, guys!

My veg garden is 44 ft x 39 ft approx. This includes the raspberry patch, the asparagus and my one yr old strawberry patch. I have all the tomatoes caged but they don't have much room between plants but rows are ok. Did I mention I have 30 pepper plants!

I will be selling some of these.

If one has problems with zucchini and squash plants suddenly dying most likely squash vine borer-look at the main stem of the plant for holes. One can spray the plants early but its hard to catch those critters.
My colorado potato beetles-actually the larva are the problem but a few drops of dish soap in a pail of water and kind of strip them into this-no problem!
I should try to take pictures.

Originally Posted by SwampWitch

OMG I want to eat at your house. All the time.

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Me too! All that good sweet corn...