2015 journal of the gardens

[majorcatfish]

@majorcatfish, your tomatoes at the "done" stage have three times the tomatoes mine had in full production. I can't complain about the San Marzanos, but the Big Beef, my main crop, were very disappointing. I did get some from them, but not nearly what I had hoped. I see they are all blooming again, and there are a lot of marble size tomatoes, which probably won't have time to ripen, but I guess I'll leave them and see what happens.
Next year I will remember to cage the San Marzanos, as they sprawled badly, and even though I have thick straw mulch, it has been so wet here, the fruit had a damp pile of straw to start rotting on.

do like the san marzano tomato nice big fruit, but even when caged they can get totally out of hand they are a very good candidate for pruning early as well to do the weave.this was the first year doing a determinate tomato it seems to be a good choice for my area plus they grow nicely inside a cage just need a good roll of surveyors flagging tape to hold up the vines once they start to escape and produce... dw showed me the 10 cases of tomatoes she put away, so no need to go over board next year on the mariana tomatoes, so will look around this winters catalogs for another determinate type of tomato to tryout....

just think of all that extra room i will have to play with.....

oh the peppers and eggplant lasted 2 hours...poof gone.

 

[journey11]

That's about what happens to me every year if I get a bumper crop of something. I end up with enough pickles, tomatoes, canned corn or frozen squash to pretty much skip it the next year. The first year I learned to WB can, I did 21 quarts of dill pickles. We ate on them for four years! Live and learn, I guess.

 

[digitS']

I've discovered in this not so normal year how some of my regular tomato varieties have done well setting fruit during that early record heat. They seem to have taken advantage of the hot weather.

Other varieties, did not. Instead, they are performing at about normal pace and production.

June is usually a no-account month. Plants set out in May make no progress in the cloudy, cool days and wind of June. They had a different chance this time around and some, rose to the occasion!

I suppose that it would have been wonderful to be enjoying some of those long-season varieties that have failed me or that I have avoided in the past. But, C'est la vie. I feel good that some of my favorites are doing so well. Proof that they deserve to be around, through thick and thin.

Steve

 

[Jared77]

We've been trying to intentionally plan for canning extras so we can back off & rotate a bit more.

2 yrs ago it was a tomato bed with just enough extras of everything else for fresh. Canned a gazillion maters that year, so we're ok on them luckily.

This year was a bust because I was scrambling of it was plans with the baby.

I'm always so impressed with your production Major.....hats off to you!

 

[majorcatfish]

We've been trying to intentionally plan for canning extras so we can back off & rotate a bit more.

2 yrs ago it was a tomato bed with just enough extras of everything else for fresh. Canned a gazillion maters that year, so we're ok on them luckily.

This year was a bust because I was scrambling of it was plans with the baby.

I'm always so impressed with your production Major.....hats off to you!

thank you very much....

 

[majorcatfish]

update 8/30/15......
picked down all the ripe peppers, eggplant, greens beans for dinner, our first charentais melon and the last of the tomatoes

pulled the tomatoes , sweet cayenne and a couple sweet bananas...dang the main garden is getting bare....

next will be trimming back the asparagus...

 

[majorcatfish]

dw reminded me that we need potatoes for dinner as well, dug a bucket, not bad for the first attempt for bubanks....

 

[digitS']

You must have had a lot of nice words said about those good looking eggplants, Major'.

Let me just add a few of my own:

Nice words nice words nice words Nnnice wordzz! Major'!

Steve

 

[thistlebloom]

Beautiful everything Major!
Look at those nice potatoes too!

I'm trying really hard not to be whiny...

 

[Jared77]

Beautiful everything Major!
Look at those nice potatoes too!

I'm trying really hard not to be whiny...

Me too