What are You Eating from the Garden?

[ninnymary]

@ninnymary i just finished the very last melon. it was sitting on top of the pile of old vines for the past few weeks. i wasn't even sure it was going to be edible but i saw it this afternoon, that it had changed colors and brought it in to investigate. of the past five melons this one was the best, but in comparison to the rest at peak flavor it was about half as good as it could have been. still i am not one to complain as it was good eating.

Do you know roughly how many melons you got/ate? haha. You are going to be sick of them and not want to plant them next year.

@digitS', how did yours do?

Mary

 

[flowerbug]

Do you know roughly how many melons you got/ate? haha. You are going to be sick of them and not want to plant them next year.

@digitS', how did yours do?

Mary

we got about 40 from 6 plants and ate about 25, and no, we didn't get sick of them at all. it was really nice to have fresh melon from our own gardens. i will be planting them again next year, just not as many vines (maybe three total).

 

[digitS']

@ninnymary , this has not been a very good melon year even if it wasn't as bad as 2019. And, that is true for all the melon varieties. I brought the third Gris home and enjoyed eating it. There is one more that wasn't ripe on 3 plants in that hill (and it's the last day of September).

It reflects on what I said in @so lucky 's thread about what I learned this year and my comment in how I'm an easy gardener. Maybe I can make a short list:

• 2019 good - sweet corn & potatoes
• 2019 bad - melons, peppers & eggplant
• 2020 good - tomatoes & winter squash
• 2020 bad - melons

Oh and hey! When I looked through the healthy-looking cucamelon vines the last time that I was out, I couldn't find a single one. I found a single fruit this year. The cucumbers did okay on either side of them. Conditions just weren't right for cucamelon, at all!

Steve
wondering if cucamelon vines are edible like squash vines & blossoms

 

[ducks4you]

We have had 3 meals with sweet corn--yes, still harvesting--and 2 meals of stuffed peppers and the red ones actually WERE red and very sweet.
They are teasing frost Saturday morning, so I am thinking about running 2 box fans on the east and west side of my pepper patch. I think the tomatoes should be ok, since they are either adjacent to the west side of the garage, or to the cement cistern, where there should be some residual heat.

 

[flowerbug]

We have had 3 meals with sweet corn--yes, still harvesting--and 2 meals of stuffed peppers and the red ones actually WERE red and very sweet.
They are teasing frost Saturday morning, so I am thinking about running 2 box fans on the east and west side of my pepper patch. I think the tomatoes should be ok, since they are either adjacent to the west side of the garage, or to the cement cistern, where there should be some residual heat.

good luck! our first frost was not any kind of tease. it took out everything. we were able to harvest some peppers, tomatoes and beans all the rest of things that were damaged will get turned under for worm food.

 

[Carol Dee]

It got down to 38. Everything looks good. We should be warmer for the next week before another frost threat. So time to glean the garden and bring in house plants.

 

[so lucky]

My pole beans hardly have a leaf left on them but are still producing beans. They still have blossoms on them. Pretty sure they won't come to fruition, though. I picked some for tonight's supper. The nights are down around 38 to 40, so no frost yet. But pretty dry.
My tomato crop is kaput. While I wasn't looking, a few hornworms got in there and stripped them. I picked three little red tomatoes this evening, but the vines are bare stems now. My peppers are producing well now, giant Marconi and one jalapeno. The dinosaur kale was doing good till I let the chickens in. They love kale.
Mostly I have zinnias. One pack I planted, and the rest are volunteer from the last couple of years. I have one zinnia that became a large shrub. I bet it has 200 blooms on it. And half was broken off during a wind storm.
Some Zinnias are nearly 6 feet tall. It's a zinnia jungle, interspersed with cosmos and volunteer celosia.

 

[ducks4you]

We had our last sweet corn on Friday night. I told everybody to eat what was tender, and the horses would get the rest, which they did. They were 4/9 ears that were tender and very tasty.
I am harvesting sweet red peppers today for stuffed peppers.

 

[Zeedman]

Oh and hey! When I looked through the healthy-looking cucamelon vines the last time that I was out, I couldn't find a single one. I found a single fruit this year. The cucumbers did okay on either side of them. Conditions just weren't right for cucamelon, at all!

Melothria scabra (a.k.a. cucamelon, mouse melon, Mexican sour gherkin) needs more heat than cucumbers... roughly the same amount of heat as watermelons, but with a shorter DTM. I grew them for a couple years, but when they proved unsuitable for pickles, I gave up on them. They are one of the few unusual vegetables that I don't enjoy.

 

[ducks4you]

These are probably the last red sweet peppers I will get this year. I can wait until next week to harvest everything green, and I think we will eat some and I will dehydrate the rest.
Dehyderated sweet peppers are marvelous snacks. Ask my eldest DD.