What Did You Do In The Garden?

[digitS']

What to do with the tomato over-abundance?

As a kid, I didn't really like tomatoes. My tolerance for them was fairly well used up with the sauce in Mom's spaghetti and Dad's version of enchiladas. As a teenager, I was hired by a neighbor to dig a drain tile system in her large backyard. The day I could devote myself for more than an after school effort, she invited me in for lunch. Tomato soup.

As I sat quietly waiting for it to cool, she must have thought that my enthusiasm was missing. She reached over and sprinkled Tabasco sauce in the bowl. Now, it was hot/HOT. I liked it!

We had Tabasco sauce on the enchiladas, I shouldn't have been surprised. I became a fan of spicy V8 juice. Well, I ain't opening any more cans or bottles. Instead, I make and even freeze soup from surplus garden tomatoes. I even make it when I have no more than an hour for lunch. Quick and easy – I like to saute' some onions or shallots. Tomatoes and all go in the blender. Bringing it to a boil in a pan, it requires shredded cheese or cream cheese. A sprinkle of black pepper and some dried hot pepper flakes or Tabasco. My nose knows when it is ready for the bowl. All there is to it but, of course, crackers or toast and I can eat it almost every day.

Steve, with no ideas on the compatibility of roses and kiwis.

 

[Shades-of-Oregon]

Today still fighting the ground squirrels digging around the entire perimeter of the hous foundation. It is so aggravating. I have no words.

 

[SPedigrees]

As a kid, I didn't really like tomatoes. My tolerance for them was fairly well used up with the sauce in Mom's spaghetti and Dad's version of enchiladas. As a teenager, I was hired by a neighbor to dig a drain tile system in her large backyard. The day I could devote myself for more than an after school effort, she invited me in for lunch. Tomato soup.

As I sat quietly waiting for it to cool, she must have thought that my enthusiasm was missing. She reached over and sprinkled Tabasco sauce in the bowl. Now, it was hot/HOT. I liked it!

We had Tabasco sauce on the enchiladas, I shouldn't have been surprised. I became a fan of spicy V8 juice. Well, I ain't opening any more cans or bottles. Instead, I make and even freeze soup from surplus garden tomatoes. I even make it when I have no more than an hour for lunch. Quick and easy – I like to saute' some onions or shallots. Tomatoes and all go in the blender. Bringing it to a boil in a pan, it requires shredded cheese or cream cheese. A sprinkle of black pepper and some dried hot pepper flakes or Tabasco. My nose knows when it is ready for the bowl. All there is to it but, of course, crackers or toast and I can eat it almost every day.

Steve, with no ideas on the compatibility of roses and kiwis.

Your soup sounds delish! My mom's sauce was bland too (while I make it spicier myself), but she added a lot of ingredients so it was good anyways. In fact, if I had to choose a single food to eat the rest of my life, it would be spaghetti.

The roses and kiwis seem harmonious. (They've been growing together their whole lives!) It's just that the kiwi is outgrowing its environment. Planting it was like a person in a tiny one room apartment buying a great Dane puppy.

 

[digitS']

I put 4 bricks down on the lawn ... oh, after moving some compost around, elsewhere.

Okay, the bricks mark the corners of a potential backyard garden bed for 2025. It is in nearly the sunniest location but we don't make any use of that space. In fact, before the tree was removed near there, it was the sweet spot for hardening-off the flats of plant starts went there during the daytime over several weeks because of the tree shade. A deciduous tree so during those Spring weeks there was sunshine between and under bare branches. They were also protected by the house wall. Well, it's a all-day sunny location now. A = 42 inches by 90 inches, so a bed all of 28 square feet.

I can hardly believe that I am showing so much interest in 28 square feet . Dang, it was just last year that we only had a distant 30' by 200' big veggie garden after downsizing by allowing a 25' by 40' extension to lie fallow beginning in 2020. There is no longer a distant big veggie garden of any size. Now, I'm interested in extending the backyard garden by an additional 28 square feet. Well, it's only about 700 square feet as it is now.

Steve, once a market gardener

 

[Shades-of-Oregon]

Down size then comes the up size . It seems to be the common denominator for a lot of us. I have same issue. Been down sizing for 10 years.

 

[ducks4you]

I set up sticks for the smaller cucumbers to attach to and to meet up with the chicken wire, put down a soaker hose for them and the 13 beefsteak tomatoes, and gave them an hour to soak yesterday.
I also pruned them up. I found two 2nd year purple asparagus up and looking good for 2025.

 

[flowerbug]

very little today. i hauled a sheet full of stuff back to the weed pile and dumped those and stomped them good to fill in the hole that the groundhog was using to go under the fence. eventually it will eat its way through and return to raiding the bean gardens but not before i pick some beans tomorrow morning. i hope. tomorrow is supposed to be even warmer out there than today so i'm not sure what else i'll get done tomorrow either until i do it. AC has turned me into a fairweather gardener...

 

[akroberts]

Today I picked some cherry tomatoes green beans and squash today. I deep fried the squash and green beans. So good. I have been letting the girls out to free range and today I decided that I didn't want to deal with trying to get the younger girls back in so I left them locked up.

 

[ducks4you]

Picked two ripe beefsteaks yesterday for lunch, and a few cherries for snacking.
I tied up and pruned up 12 more tomato plants, beefsteaks. I have had computer work and business this morning, just about to spend an hour on the last tomato row. Several tomato plants There are now taller than me!
Every beefsteak on the fencing (3 rows), south side of big garden, has at least 12 tomatoes, and one has 30.
ALL are getting big, so I don't have to regret buying hybrid plants this year.
I harvested more cucumbers. Turns out that only 1/3 that are producing is the Martini hybrid. SUCH a big producer.
Rained last night, and will rain again in a few hours.
I have to harvest grapes and apples today!
The old apple tree, the one that I thought was dying, dropped 2 full buckets of apples on the ground and probably has 3 bucketfuls left on the tree. Many are nice, many are misshapened, but will work for apple juice.
The two Johnagold trees still have about 30 apples, nice looking fruit. Before my mare died I let her eat whatever apples she wanted, so the two trees had produced many more. NO REGRETS!!! ("Warrens Cindy", 1998-2024, RIP)
The worst heat yesterday was in the evening. During the afternoon I was wet sweating but there was a breeze which stopped before it was dark, so when I took the garbage out, After we had gone to dinner, which was After a shower, I got wet with sweat all over again!

 

[Shades-of-Oregon]

Picked all the hydrangea flowers in the garden. Brought them inside for drying. Put some on a table others in vases/arrangements and some still outside are the H.pannacle waiting for cooler weather til they turn redish colors.

PeeGee H. Pinnacle


Hydrangeas drying for making wreaths and swags for gifts for the holidays .



Some in vases to dry.