What Did You Do In The Garden?

[Rammy]

Picked 12 banana peppers, 6 green peppers, 4 cucumbers, 4 squash. Tomatoes are starting to ripen.

 

[flowerbug]

garlic drying thyme - i was glad the sun was not out so i left them out to air dry for a while and then later i like how well this worked out when i had to scramble to get the garlic put into buckets so i could move it into the garage when rain threatened - i could just walk along that brick edge in the gravel and reach the stems so i could grab them. i was also happy that i didn't end up having to rinse these off and instead just peeled off the outer tunics. after a few weeks of drying the roots and dirt will get taken off.

the smaller bulbs and rejects that i didn't want kept with the other larger main crop bulbs. the smaller ones are from the green garlic patch that i didn't get used up in time. all of these will get used or given away first. i did rinse these off before letting them dry.

sometimes the old ways of doing things can work, not quite a foot...

and then modern technology has to get a toe in. not quite modern enough as there's no centimeter scale... my pinky fingernail is pretty close to a cm if i ever need to be more precise.

 

[flowerbug]

I'm trellising my Petit de Gris this year. So far doing well but I think I should have planted more of them.

i said i wasn't going to plant as many vines this year as i did last year because keeping up with eating them all or giving them away was a bit of a challenge, but i think i ended up with more vines. we'll see how they turn out, they're doing well so far with the warm weather, but as the season gets on we're not getting that much sunshine so i hope that changes so we can get more tomatoes and melons.

as for picking @Ridgerunner these melons are very fragrant as they are getting ripe and you will have them start splitting near the stem connection or at the other end of the melon. these are not at all like the store cantaloups in how they keep. if my memory is right from last year i think there's about four days where they are in the zone for flavor and fragrance. pick them before and they're good but not in the same realm, picked too late and they're not as good either. in the zone they're fabulous.

i just let them sprawl all over the rocks. the only thing i'd change is trying to keep a better eye on the developing melons so that they don't get stuck down between rocks. i had some really wild shaped melons last year. haha!

as the season got later for me last year with cooler temperatures and not as much sunshine the melons were still edible but often they didn't have much sweetness to them so i would put a bit of honey on them. however, after eating about 30-40 of these between the two of us we were always looking forwards to more of them even hoping for a return to the better tasting ones but that didn't happen. they kept going right up until the real cold nights settled in.

i kept a ton of seeds and have been sharing them around for people who might want to grow them. the seeds are also edible (but not the husks from the seeds) - i guess i consider them emergency rations...

 

[digitS']

If we continue to have melon-favorable growing seasons, Gris de Rennes may continue to be a hoped-for in my garden. We are so dependent on good weather. Or, I should say, weather that is favorable to growing a species or variety. For the farmers, the acres of peas commonly grown near here must be a near disaster. The gardener may have a varied selection in the garden. Thank Heavens!

I was just searching for a little history on my tomato harvest since jealousy is setting in from reading the posts on TEG . 29 July, 2 August. I think it will be later this year. High temperatures during bloom season may never have been much of a problem, before. A bountiful 2020 tomato season! Up and Down temperatures aren't good for my usual garden crops. They have destroyed the melons, eggplants and peppers in a few past years. Imagine if I had a neighbor with a first-time garden and only those plants. Mercy! Would they have the courage to begin another garden the following year?

Melons. I have an abundance of rocks in my garden. About the time that they are just beginning to ripen, I like to slip a rock under them.

Garlic. It was under the temporary hoop house this spring. Ha! Not a major crop for us and the location was just a matter of convenience (& avoiding the tractor guy ). Already harvested, dried and ready to go down to a basement shelf.

Some garlic and onions and potatoes and plenty of Portuguese kale in the lunchtime bean soup. Unfortunately, those are the only garden-fresh and it's a beef bone instead of the Italian sausage that I like to have in there.

Steve
might i be required to call it a Latin bean soup if i did have the Italian sausage?

 

[Marie2020]

Little steps.


Cucumbers are finally starting too flower

My melon seeds have started sprouting. So placed the little box inside my raised bed.

 

[ninnymary]

Steve, did the Petit de Gris melons do well for you last year? I don't remember your comment about them.

Our mornings have all been cold and overcast! My tomatoes that usually are 7-10 ft by now are only around 6' and I don't think they are producing as much as they should. But that could be me that expects them to be loaded, haha.

Heirlooms have started to ripen a couple weeks ago and the Early Girl had it's first puny tomatoe to ripen. Not very early if you ask me. I've planted St. Pierre, the leading french tomatoe in France but I think after 2 seasons I'm giving up on this one. Too few of them. My Black Krim produces more.

 

[Ridgerunner]

the Early Girl had it's first puny tomatoe to ripen. Not very early if you ask me.

Mary, I think it depends on the season. Often my "early" tomatoes aren't any earlier than the others. Some years they are but not all that often.

I love the taste of Black Krim, that flavor is hard to beat. But mine usually don't produce all that well.

 

[digitS']

Steve, did the Petit de Gris melons do well for you last year?

Mary, they weren't ready until the last 2 weeks of September. I've had frost in the garden by the end of August that killed the vining crops. That was unusual but that is certain the time when the weather begins to cool.

2020 wasn't the best season for melons but I didn't lose out on the cantaloupe entirely as was true in another recent year. There were just a few of the Gris de Rennes, I think that it may have been 1/vine. I certainly enjoyed them at the table and they are likely doing quite a bit better this time. That pleases me .

Steve
who found 1 ripe yellow grape tomato and 1 ripe golden cherry in the backyard this morning

 

[flowerbug]

today was a mild disaster.

i went out to pick peas to eat along with some beans and when i looked at the pea plants the pods were a bit shredded. as i kept looking closer i saw that pretty much almost all of the pods with seeds in them that i had out there drying down were gone. the chipmunks had raided. so i went through all the peas and picked everything that was even close to being a pod of any kind. i had about 5lbs of empty husks (that would have been somewhat edible had the chipmunks left them alone, but i was really leaving them to dry so i would get more seeds to plant and give away in the future...)

*sigh*

last year not a single pod of the peas was targetted like these were. which is why i had no idea it would happen again or i'd have picked a few hundred seeds a week ago as they were ready enough then i just wanted them to dry down a bit more before bringing them in.

so today i have about fifty seeds from this season and those may not all be viable. i do still have seeds from last year and the seeds that were sent to me, but i'm not going to be giving away that many of these now. next year i'll be keeping them in a different place and also keeping a closer eye on them and also possibly thinking of getting a solar charged hot wire and some hardware mesh to put around them. zap the little boogers... it's just impossible to hunt all of them.

we did cook up the pods that weren't fully developed so that at least it wasn't a complete loss there either but it sure wasn't according to plan. which is ok. it's just how it goes. i'll get over it too. i know...

 

[baymule]

I don’t have much garden this year. The screwy weather put me so far behind, I just never caught up. I’ve had a few ripe tomatoes. 2 weeks ago the squash was starting to bloom. Got our 3 granddaughters and their 3 dogs for a week and a half. Went to the garden and brought in 2 arm loads of zucchini logs. Lol. Got a few yellow squash and fried them. Yum! Going to pick green beans today.