Garden thread.

[Daddymem]

Figured since we started harvesting, perhaps some photos were in order.  Pretty good success with the lasagna garden again.  Have some different veggies we are trying this year.
Welcome to the jungle

Acorn squash

Striped Cushaw squash

Tomato trees

Yellow pattypan squash

Eightball zukes

Cape gooseberry

Tromboncino Squash

Picked so far:
green beans, broccoli, lettuce, mesclun,  eightball zukes, acorn squash, lemon cucumbers, kale seed pods to plant for fall crop

[glenn kangiser]

Great garden, Daddymem.

[Homegrown Tomatoes]

Re the squash and tons of zucchini:


I found out that they make pretty good chips.  I would slice them and then blanch them quickly in boiling water, and then sprinkle them with a little lemon juice or vinegar and salt (dill is also nice) and then stick the slices in the dehydrator and dry them until crispy.   The kids love them, and they taste good, and I'm sure they're better for you than potato chips.

[Redoverfarm]

HT we usually "deep fry" the crook-necks and zucchini.  Sometimes we will bread and fry in a pan.  When we do that is a complete meal in itself.

[Homegrown Tomatoes]

HT we usually "deep fry" the crook-necks and zucchini.  Sometimes we will bread and fry in a pan.  When we do that is a complete meal in itself.

We don't do that too often, but I sure do love them that way.  Fried food may not be all that good for you, but it sure tastes good!

[muldoon]

Update from our container project, it's nowhere as great as some on here but has been fun (and productive) for us this summer.  I have bigger plans for next year and cant wait.



A few peppers, cukes and tomatoes,




peppers, bell peppers and others


massively unwieldly tomato


cooking basil

cucumbers

flowers from the driveway




one of several crape myrtles on the driveway


on the left is fresh rosemary- great on oven roasted potatoes and chicken

[glenn kangiser]

Looks like it's doing well, muldoon.

[fishing_guy]

We got our first full sized tomatoes after being gone up-north for 4 days.  I guess a watched tomato never ripens. 

As an added bonus, we were up-north looking for some of the 1200 + trees we have planted over the past 2 years.  My wife noticed we had wild blueberries on our land.  Picked 2 pints before we left to come home.  Sweetest ones I've ever tasted.  Went well with the wild strawberries which are all over our land.

[Homegrown Tomatoes]

The base of our tomato plant that is in the knock off earthbox is almost 2" in diameter.  It sprawls out and across the deck, probably more than 8' across.  The cuke is just as bad...er, good!  It's a monster.

[Homegrown Tomatoes]

What happened?  Did everyone's gardens die off or what?

At the farmer's market a few weeks ago, one of the farmers with a warped sense of humor had a sign hanging off the table next to his squash that said, "Have you ever considered owning a squash as a pet?  Think about it... they're already housebroken, they don't shed, and if you get tired of them, you can just slice them up and toss 'em on the grill.  But don't wait too long.  It's really easy to get attached to those little guys."

[Redoverfarm]

HT had them the last two evenings.  Deep fried.  Also fresh COTC.  I have taken sliced them as well as onions, wrapped in foil and grilled them as well.  Well I guess it is more like steamed. Still good.

[Homegrown Tomatoes]

Red, we always do that on the grill too... usually squash, peppers, potatoes, corn, onions, garlic, sometimes tomatoes, and a little butter and wrap it in foil and toss it on the grill.  Don't even need any meat to go with a meal like that.

[muldoon]

What happened?  Did everyone's gardens die off or what?

I spent the better part of the afternoon working in my garden.  The cukes did finish and eventually dried up last month.  The tomatoes put up another set of blooms and fruited but started wilting after that.  I made three new earthbox clones today out of 20 gallon buckets and got them ready for fall (buckets on sale at lowes for 4.50 each).  I also cleaned up the 2 rubbermaid tote containers I did last spring (the maters and cucumbers) and filled them with good composted humus.  They are ready as well.  Aside from that I have a bushload of serranos still coming in, and whoo-hoo some bell peppers.  They finally made a show after I moved them to where they would get more shade - I was afraid I had gay bell peppers for a while!  I also got a lime from the lime tree I started in May.  I was surprised to see it trying to fruit this year, even if only just one.  The hops are still hanging in there, but they really need a trellis to be happy...  it's on the list....   

Here are some pictures from todays work. 

bells:

and


happy peppers:


little lime


and ready for fall:

[glenn kangiser]

Glad you straightened those bell peppers out muldoon.

[PEG688]

We are just in that weird time of year here sort of to warm , some days , for the cool weather stuff to grow , lettuce , spinach etc all just rush to seed, and the warm weather stuff tomatoes , bush beans ,  grapes ,etc just don't get warm enough this year despite all the global warming talk has been a cool one here in the PNW. Potatoes are ready to harvest , I pulled all the onions this weekend , I have  some Kohlrabies , bush beans ( I picked one picking and doubt I'll get another) , one type of lettuce.

It's been a very odd summer , and fall seems here to stay.

  Over view ,




Grapes , although we have more than last year they look small , and I think as cool as it's been this may be about it for them.

 

Kohlrabi's , lettuce , bush beans,




Spuds ,



I'm going to till in some compost and do a plastic green house this year maybe we can keep ourselves in lettuce and a few other things this fall , maybe into winter. Sort of a trial run year for this.

So that's my garden up date.       

[Homegrown Tomatoes]

Muldoon,  have you done anything special to get the lime to bear fruit?  I've had a little orange tree for two years now, and we almost killed it when we moved from WI (it was -6 degrees the day we left, with driving wind and a blizzard.... by the time we got here, it looked like a little shrivelled stick in a pot.)  I've babied it since then, even though it lost all it's leaves and looked pretty pitiful.  I kept watering it, and in a few weeks later I woke up one morning and it had about fifteen little leaves coming out on it.  It's grown like crazy all summer, but never has bloomed or anything.  I'd love for it to bloom and bear fruit.

[glenn kangiser]

The garden looks great, PEG.  Ours was a bit wimpy this year but still producing - I think the birds kept eating the plants as they poked their little heads out.  tons of volunteer vegetables and this week I'm getting my dump trailer back so am going to get a load of alpaca poo.

The corn had a hard life this year - smashed by dogs - chewed by gophers but we still got a bit.



The volunteer Basil was transplanted by me and did well. 



I think I will do the hydroponics this year - good year for extra production above normal I think.

[muldoon]

Muldoon,  have you done anything special to get the lime to bear fruit?  I've had a little orange tree for two years now, and we almost killed it when we moved from WI (it was -6 degrees the day we left, with driving wind and a blizzard.... by the time we got here, it looked like a little shrivelled stick in a pot.)  I've babied it since then, even though it lost all it's leaves and looked pretty pitiful.  I kept watering it, and in a few weeks later I woke up one morning and it had about fifteen little leaves coming out on it.  It's grown like crazy all summer, but never has bloomed or anything.  I'd love for it to bloom and bear fruit.

Sounds like you stressed it quite a bit in the move, so for it not to bloom this year is understandable.  Having said that you can try to goose it with some fertilizer to get it to bloom if you think you have time before your first freeze. 

All fertilizers have the 3 numbers on them N-P-K, a high N is good for vegetive growth, putting in leaves, lanky growth.  The middle number P is used for flowering blooming fruiting or nutting.  It helps the plant force energy into production instead of growth.  I only use two fertilizers,   Something called "save a tree" which is high N, and something called superbloom which is high P.  I did the first one at the beginning of the summer and they grew like weeds.  Once plants started blooming by themselves I switched and saw a noticable increase in blossoms.  I did the same with the lime tree because I use the same 5 gallon bucket of rainwater/fert to water everything when I am working. 

Couldn't hurt to try it if you think theres time. 

[Sassy]

Our ground is pretty hard with all the clay, even though it was mixed with horse manure compost - needs more.  I've planted a lot of things only to either get eaten by birds or bugs or get dried out - Glenn's set up the sprinkler system but it gets clogged periodically or it doesn't hit certain areas so they dry out when I'm not around to water them by hand.  We have a lot of garden & limited water so it is really a balancing act.  It's bad enough when our dogs run through the stuff & crush it but when neighbor dogs decide to lie in the middle of the half grown corn & break it all off - really upset me...  I've planted lots of different types of beans but have hardly gotten any to grow.  The basil was from seeds from last years crop that I threw around - Glenn transplanted some of it to other places.  We have lots of parsnips & onions; the potatoes this year were actually planted last year & grew lots of plants but no potatoes - this year we have quite a few.  Lots of beets, some cabbages.  Had lots & lots of lettuce earlier that had reseeded itself from last year which has now all gone to seed.  Swiss chard is doing good again - also reseeded itself from last year.  Lots of new broccoli plants coming up - again reseeded.  If I pull out the dead stalks from the garden the dogs think it is a luxurious, cool, green oasis & they lay on the plants - so that's another reason I leave the stalks up until the reseeded plants get big enough the dogs aren't going to run through the garden or lie down on the baby plants 

Our orange trees sat in pots for several years, didn't get watered regularly when I was gone so have been stunted & stressed a lot.  Glenn planted them last year but some were in areas that didn't get regularly watered so almost died - he re-did the sprinklers so they're doing better now, also the bugs seems to eat the blooms off all the time - he has so much to do & doesn't have the time to hand water & weed the stuff - by the time I get done weeding & watering I don't feel like doing a whole lot more with the garden - it takes me several hours every week to keep it weeded & watered & picking the produce.  We've gotten a lot of cherry tomatoes - I've made soup with them & frozen them - the big tomatoes got hit by the tomato worms - when I got back to the cabin from the valley, they were eaten pretty clean & I couldn't find the worms - but they are coming back really good.  Hopefully there is still time to ripen the new tomatoes... 

We've had a lot of beetles this year - the ones that like broccoli & cabbage - they're beige with black & red markings on their backs - I've killed a lot of them by hand - haven't had much problem this summer with the aphids like we did last year - maybe those beetles are eating the aphids, too?  But aphids sure like artichokes    The ants & aphids were terrible!  Lots of carrots.  Did have a couple handfuls of blueberries - I planted the bushes last year - very tasty.  My 4 way plum tree only had 2 pluots on it - Glenn was looking at it & saw them last week, I'd missed them - they were like candy.  Last year I literally had 100's of plums on the tree even after I'd thinned it several times - but most of the limbs broke so this year it was just recovering.  I bought a couple peach & apricot trees this year - the dogs got ahold of one of the peach trees before it was planted & tore the roots all up but the other 3 trees are doing good - hopefully next year we'll get some fruit on them.  We only have one peach tree left in our original orchard of 12 varieties of fruit trees    but it had probably about 20 or 30 peaches on it - the birds really like them     very tasty.  Our strawberries did really well this year - the dogs got up on that roof & tore them up pretty good about a month ago - the dirt isn't real deep where they are growing so have to be watered by hand every day or they look pretty wilted.

Our grapes in the valley are loaded this year - I've been picking a bunch of Red Flame & Thompson seedless grapes & bringing them up to the cabin.  They're really sweet. 

Anyway, that's the saga of our garden...  we really need to mulch a lot more to keep the soil soft & hold the water better.  So Glenn left a bit ago to check on a couple job sites, get his dump trailer & pick up a trailer full of alpaca poo.  It's supposed to be really hot again this week - we had a breather for several days of 80 to low 90's weather which was nice - doesn't stress out the garden so much... 

[Homegrown Tomatoes]

Our stuff in containers is still recovering from that one or two weeks we had when the weather actually got hot.  Then we got torrential rain, so I think that stressed them out even more.  The cucumbers look a little sad, but they're still blossoming and actually starting to set fruit again.  The tomatoes are blooming like crazy after all the rain and cool weather.  The basil looks about like Glenn and Sassy's.  As you come in the front door there is a pot with basil, tomatoes, and carrots growing in it.  A few of the carrots are finally almost a decent size.  You can smell the lemon basil as you arrive at the front door, along with the Thai spicy basil.  In the back, the pot with the spicy bush basil is doing great, too. 

[Sassy]

Our squash keeps getting pretty stressed, no matter how much I water it - by afternoon the leaves are all droopy - we got 1 zucchini squash so far    about 3 Armenian cucumbers, lots of winter type squashes (Hubbard & others) no melons ready yet, lots of blooms, though - I've noticed that on the squash, we have mostly male blooms - I know you can fry those & they're supposed to be good, but haven't done so yet.

We do have lots of peppers - bell, & hot & mild hot ones... I've frozen a few bags of them.   I fixed some steak with cut up cherry tomatoes, bell & a hot pepper & onion for burritos yesterday - Glenn thought it was sooooo hot      I like the spiciness...  I've tried to grow cilantro but haven't had much luck with that, don't know why...

Yeah, the hot weather just stresses out everything...   

[Homegrown Tomatoes]

the trick with cilantro is soaking it before planting.  And then pick it when it's pretty before it goes to seed.

[glenn kangiser]

We have Alpaca poo.  It will make some great tasting vegetables.

They say this stuff is so good you can eat it right out of the box. 



The tractor was very small so I shoveled about 4 yards of it up high by myself after he brought it to me.  Got about 2 yards yesterday and about 6 today.  Yum   At least the dogs think so.

[muldoon]

I planted in seeds for the fall garden yesterday.  Did 3 types of carrots and 3 types of onions, winter squash, radishes, and artichokes.  I didn't have any garlic seeds which is the only thing I wanted to get in but didn't.  Anyway, I'm hoping to have somthing germinated and popping up in the next few weeks. 

The serranos are going absolutely nuts, there are close to 20 peppers hanging right now on the bush.  The bell peppers are still coming in and I got a new batch of flowers on the lower branches so maybe some more coming up.  The basil looks good, but nowhere near as good as the ones on the previous page.  I only have two main stalks in that container, but they smell great. 

In the backyard I have been having trouble with the grass not filling in.  I'm fairly sure it has to do with the two huge oak trees and the leaves they put down.  I haven't been as good about raking the past 5 years as I should have been and I think the soil is very acidic from it.  I dropped some granulated lime and watered it in, hoping for the grass to come back a bit from that.

[glenn kangiser]

I need to get after mine too.