What Did You Do In The Garden?

[flowerbug]

picked two buckets beans this afternoon and then shelled about half of them, with half of the half (meaning one-quarter) going towards dinner as lima bean shellies. as something unusual i sat outside in the late day and early evening (the sun was faint and reddish due to smoke from afar) to do that shelling and had just finished up when Mom came home, so i helped her with unloading her stuff while cooking the shellies. they were delicious and filling and i was tired. i stretched out on my perch here on the futon and promptly fell asleep until 2am. didn't hear anything at all and wished i could have just slept through the night but i guess i was excited to be awake enough. it was actually an interesting dream about tornadoes... ha...

the other half of the beans i have spread out to dry as they were a lot of beans from undestory so they were damp and smelled a bit too funky to bring inside to shell out. they can dry later today after the sun gets out and burns off the dewfall.

we really need to harvest the squash that are ready. we gave my brother some of them to take with him from his visit.

today's plan will be to continue the bean picking, there's a few more rows of lima beans to get through and then some along the fences that should be checked. forecast did include a chance of rain for this evening for the past few days, but i just pulled that up and see that there is no chance now so perhaps we won't get rain afterall this evening. it wasn't above 30% so i wasn't counting on it anyways (we don't need it so *whew*&*Yay!* as far as i'm concerned).

after picking today i can then sort out the more dried beans that are ready for the next shelling stage and that will give me drying down space for what i pick today. at least that is the plan. in the past i've stacked box tops of beans in the garage to let them dry out more before shelling them, but after some years of having mice get into the drying beans and not wanting to encourage mice to even try to get into the garage i've been doing a lot more drying here in my room. which gets kinda hectic for space. looks like a wreck in here at the moment. i did a bit of dusting around where i was shelling as there was getting to be a bit too much. spot cleaning... it's what i do...

the other bit of spot cleaning i did was pulling the last box tops from under the other futon (yes, i have two futons in this tiny room, no, i don't know why i need another one but it currently acts as extra storage space where i can pile boxes of beans on)... when pulling those box tops out from under there i also brought some dust bunnies so i know it's bad under there, bad enough i don't want to look at least until i get everything picked... some things i don't tell Mom... (i did dust half of it a few weeks ago and it was bad then, i sure know there were no magic cleaning fairies in here in between now and then so it's likely not much better than it was ... heehee)...

 

[Zeedman]

All of the sweet corn has been eaten, shared, or frozen. The whole family came over for a cookout last Sunday (our first gathering since COVID) so we gave away about half. Freezer space is at a premium right now with still more things left to freeze, so only put up 36 ears of corn on the cob. The remainder was all cut & frozen as 13 pints of kernel corn. Helpful hint: when cutting corn off the cob, use a butter knife - it removes all of the corn (you can scrape off all of the germ) but won't cut into the cob. I get a lot less waste with a knife than I did using one of those corn cutters. It does take some time though, and a bit of muscle.

We picked most of the remaining German Butterbean limas. DW just finished shelling them (she loves that part of the process) so I will be freezing them today. The Emerite snap beans are pretty much done, except for some new growth near the base of the vines, which still produces a little.

The pods of Canon City (pole shell bean) have finally begun to dry. Because germination was low, all of the pods will be saved for seed. The bush shelly Giant Red Tarka had the same issue, all of those will be saved for seed as well. Those are two of my favorite shell beans, and I was really looking forward to them... but there won't be enough of either to eat this year. (Well, I may sneak a bowl full.) The good news is that my gamble with Giant Red Tarka paid off; nearly all pods have begun to dry, and there appears to be no damage from the recent rains.

In the rural garden, the pole beans Garafal Oro & Schwarze Witwe have finally begun to dry. Three of the four soybeans there have begun to dry as well (and the two potted soybeans at home). The Filipino cowpea is nearly done; but Green Dixie, and Bush Sitao BS-3 still have a lot of pods that are close to maturity. The first pods on the yardlong Taiwan Black have just begun drying, so there will soon be a lot of dry seed there. Buff adzuki, Black Gram, and the India Bush hyacinth bean are all severely stunted (they were the last plants to be weeded) but have begun producing dry seed.

Pretty much everything in the rural garden is either stunted or behind schedule due to the time it took to get everything weeded. All of the tomatoes - 31 plants - are now healthy, but have just begun ripening. The plants have a lot of green tomatoes, so I hope the frost comes late enough for them to get ripe. The same can be said of the 6 pepper varieties there, only one of which - Italian Cheese - has begun to ripen. All of those are from seed in need of renewal, so I hope at least a few of each ripen before frost.

In response to being weeded & mulched, Diamond eggplant has recovered & is growing vigorously. We picked the first few fruits from each plant yesterday, and a lot of young eggplants are set. The remaining patch of Tromboncino also recovered after weeding, and has begun putting out squash... but only enough for fresh eating, not enough to freeze this year.

 

[ducks4you]

Mowed, weeded, planted...there were still about 40 onion sets/100 that were still viable, some growing stems, so don't throw yours away until you check. Onions can survive a frost.
I planted other things, but until they sprout, there is no sense talking about them.
Friend harvested banana peppers and jalepanos while I was out. He needs to come over and harvest them aGAIN. Spoke to his wife, a canner, about canning them. Planted 15...too many, and 1/2 of the jalepanos have gone red.
Also, sawed off pine limbs in the way of the tractor to save me time on trim mowing. There were quite a few that need smaller cutting and stacking next to the fire pit.

 

[flowerbug]

picked through the beans getting any dried pods in. the forecast no longer called for rain, but it ended up sprinkling in the evening anyways so i'm glad we got it done.

before that we got the squash mostly picked and set up in the garage where they can cure. four baby blue hubbards and about twenty others of varying size. some had the red/orange/yellow color in them so we hope the seeds in those are viable. will find out when we start eating them up.

we gave a few to my brother when he stopped over and just talked to him and he said that the biggest one we gave him was good, had plenty to eat from it and froze some.

have to note that the baby blue hubbards, well if they were baby sized you'd be walking bowlegged for life after trying to get one of those out... i think the largest one is about 20-30lbs.

the borers did their best to kill off a lot of the squash plants in the back but they still managed to do something. out back is where there is mostly clay subsoil and those fared the worst. some vines were chewed back to almost nothing at all at the initial stem, but the vines had managed to reroot along the vines and they were still going, but we pulled them out anyways. i would have left them in for the flowers alone but we have the melon plants still blooming so there is no lack of that type of bee forage available. the squash plants out front which are growing in much better soil are still growing strong and blooming so we'll leave those alone for the moment. there's a few small squash and greener ones on the plants to finish if they can.

the forecast for the next week has some evenings in the mid-30s so that will put an end to a lot of the warmer weather crops.

today i'm going to scout for any remaining melons, there's at least one tiny one out there that is ripe so that will be the morning breakfast fruit and i saw one yesterday that was growing outside the fence so eventually that will either be ripe or eaten as is if it gets too cold or the worms will eat it. they love melon of any form...

as a funny side note, we took many of the large cucumbers we'd not eat and i toss them under the lilac tree so they can rot there and be fertilizer. they've been sitting back there for six weeks or longer and nothing has eaten them or disturbed them so they're just sitting there in the shade under the lilac tree. the raccoons and all the other evening creatures have ignored them, the deer haven't found them or cared, etc. kind of amusing... and perhaps next year we'll put the cucumber plants outside the fenced gardens so that space can be used for peas or beans or ...

 

[ducks4you]

When I grow cucumbers, not this year, and they go yellow, the horses have treats. I, too, fertilize trees with deadish vegetables.

 

[Marie2020]

When I grow cucumbers, not this year, and they go yellow, the horses have treats. I, too, fertilize trees with deadish vegetables.

If you want to know more about cucumbers ask @ducks4you

 

[Zeedman]

Kind of a lull in the gardens now. Since conditions are forecast to be dry for about a week, we are letting all of the beans & soybeans dry on the plants for now. Except for the two bush beans, which since many are on the ground, we pick as soon as they start to dry.

I gleaned the corn patches today. Found a few good ears I missed or let go as immature, but picked a lot of the 2nd ears too. Though stunted, many of those secondary ears have several inches of good kernels at the bottom. I call that "cutting corn"... DW calls that "snacking corn". I'm sure the grandson will get get a kick out of those mini ears too.

The hottest pepper I grow is Scarlet Lantern, originally from the USDA, accession PI 315008. I first saw it growing on SSE's Heritage Farm, and was impressed by its short DTM & heavy yield. The seed sent to me was so genetically diverse that no two plants were the same... some orange-fruited, some red; some early, some late; some tall & sturdy, others sprawling; wide variation in pepper size & shape; etc. While USDA accessions often contain a lot of diversity, it appeared that additional crossing had occurred somewhere between the USDA & my source. I've been trying to select back to the original description; this was the 3rd generation, and all peppers are red, and about 1/2 of the plants now have the desired traits. I'm not really a "pepper head", but have friends who are, and they really love these.

Scarlet Lantern, PI 315008

 

[Zeedman]

Since losing my entire garlic collection, I had not intended to grow garlic again; but a golden opportunity has presented itself. DD was landscaping her entire yard, and needed a lot of topsoil. My neighbor, who drives a dump truck, kindly agreed to bring her some when he could find good soil. He just delivered on that promise - an entire truck load!

DD has already taken all she needed (less than half of the pile) and asked if I wanted the rest. It's mostly good friable topsoil, so I said "yes". This will be enough to fill large raised beds for the garlic, and to fill the low spot in my rural garden! It still remains to be seen whether I can find lumber to build the boxes, but I'll find a way even if I need to use bricks. I REALLY miss home-grown garlic. I sent out emails to the two suppliers who carry the varieties I want to grow, one has already replied that theirs are still available.

 

[flowerbug]

Kind of a lull in the gardens now. Since conditions are forecast to be dry for about a week, we are letting all of the beans & soybeans dry on the plants for now. Except for the two bush beans, which since many are on the ground, we pick as soon as they start to dry.

I gleaned the corn patches today. Found a few good ears I missed or let go as immature, but picked a lot of the 2nd ears too. Though stunted, many of those secondary ears have several inches of good kernels at the bottom. I call that "cutting corn"... DW calls that "snacking corn". I'm sure the grandson will get get a kick out of those mini ears too.

The hottest pepper I grow is Scarlet Lantern, originally from the USDA, accession PI 315008. I first saw it growing on SSE's Heritage Farm, and was impressed by its short DTM & heavy yield. The seed sent to me was so genetically diverse that no two plants were the same... some orange-fruited, some red; some early, some late; some tall & sturdy, others sprawling; wide variation in pepper size & shape; etc. While USDA accessions often contain a lot of diversity, it appeared that additional crossing had occurred somewhere between the USDA & my source. I've been trying to select back to the original description; this was the 3rd generation, and all peppers are red, and about 1/2 of the plants now have the desired traits. I'm not really a "pepper head", but have friends who are, and they really love these.
View attachment 37038
View attachment 37039
Scarlet Lantern, PI 315008

love the look of those, but are probably too hot for me.

cut in half drying in the sun or in the dehydrator?

 

[ducks4you]

The hottest pepper I grow is Scarlet Lantern, originally from the USDA, accession PI 315008. I first saw it growing on SSE's Heritage Farm, and was impressed by its short DTM & heavy yield. The seed sent to me was so genetically diverse that no two plants were the same... some orange-fruited, some red; some early, some late; some tall & sturdy, others sprawling; wide variation in pepper size & shape; etc. While USDA accessions often contain a lot of diversity, it appeared that additional crossing had occurred somewhere between the USDA & my source. I've been trying to select back to the original description; this was the 3rd generation, and all peppers are red, and about 1/2 of the plants now have the desired traits. I'm not really a "pepper head", but have friends who are, and they really love these.
View attachment 37038
View attachment 37039
Scarlet Lantern, PI 315008

SO, do you remove the seeds after they are dried out?