What's Going On With Your Veggie Garden: Part 4

kevcarr59, No matter how times I have heard or will hear that I love it... Even if they aren't practical ,or economic.!!

juhur, ???

We call then curlers. One by the melon & one each way need to be dry.
Old melon grower here could tell by the gloss on the outside. It does work, but takes much practice.

We have a melon at about 15 lbs as of Thursday.

Sold a huge truckload of veggies today. Roughly 375 slicer cukes. Well over 100 lbs of pickling cukes.

CountryGardens; Hi ya if you have a few minutes later, what kind of melons are you growing,I actually think you mentioned that earlier this year on another thread,.only I seemed to have forgotten(big suprise there) lol

Your farther north and way ahead of mine, one little ole cuke and a melon maybe,is all my little garden has. I remember the pic of your market garden spaces,how wonderful that must be at times.My grandfather was the last farmer in our family,and the one thing I seem to remember most was what a bunch of hardworking man he always was.

Our main one is Sangria.
Cucumbers were set out May 12, watermelon, May 16.
All under plastic row covers. Green plastic mulch.

Cocoa, this is the first time I've grown pole beans as well, so I'm no help with your questions. Those are the same questions I have myself.

Coco.
some one on another thread mentioned they were going to start another crop of pole beans August 1st. In zone 9a.

We've talked about starting a new crop, but we've got tons of flowers. This round seems to have stunted growth, tho.

kevcarr59.?? Me too? HUH????

Picked a dozen ripe muskmelons today. They smell very good!

Oh, no ripe melons here. I think I planted my melon seeds too late.

I planted some of my brocoli seedlings in ground today from their cellpacks that I had used to start them in. They had their first set of true leaves so I figgure it is time. Still have half of them yet to plant.

pulled up the last of the zukes and cukes (before it hit 106*). Still picking string beans, peppers, and tomatoes!

-Vaughn

Thought for a while my drought was over,it wasn't, still going on.Some of my melon vines look like I just planted them,not good there.Starting to harvest tomatoes, not much else.
Rain was 9/100 dreths for June and about 3/100 for July where I am.Rained all around where I am though,the corn fields only a few miles away look really nice! good thing!

I'm finally picking more tomatoes that don't have BER than those that do! Even though more than half the crop has landed in the compost, I feel confident that we'll have enough tomato sauce to last us until next summer.

The tomatoes I transplanted (as an experiment) in a pile of leaves are showing some color.

This dry heat has produced the most amazing sweet melons!

Some of the sweet pepper plants have given up. They just dried up and died (sigh) - another row is still hanging in there. They are loaded with peppers. This row gets more shade, so perhaps that's what is helping them along.

The Jimmy Nardello sweet frying peppers are laughing at the heat. I'm freezing some for later.

It's supposed to rain tonight and be cooler this coming week. (fingers crossed)

I posted this elsewhere - does anyone know what these are?

It looks like some sort of squash plant...did you check your seed packets for a picture?

Gymgirl - this is a volunteer.

I've decided that it's a "Triffid"

We use to call those butter gourd squash in the Thanksgiving Harvest baskets that we sat on the table. Never did know what they were for sure though.
Good weather for gourds,unfortunately I am not growing any,guess I need to turn my psychic receptors back on and start guessing what to grow when.
Guess I'm not a natural at gardening,"too much work"...did I just call myself lazy?(lol)

woohoo! getting my first okra and scotch bonnets!

-Vaughn

Finally got the zucchini & squash plants pulled out of the garden, and now it looks so naked. Just have to wait for the cuke vines to die a little bit more and pull them out of the trellis.

The big zucchini stem was about 4' or 5' long, is this normal or are they smaller??

Before & after or garden...

With this rain, and hopefully non-triple-digit temperatures, the remaining tomatoes will finally ripen and finish them for the season. The plants are now growing through the bird netting, and I bet will go ahead & start some new blooms... This is going to be fun getting that net back...

Kev, my zukes are always that big if not bigger. I planted a supposedly "compact bush" zuke this year and it was anything but compact!

Pictures today.
1. watermelons
2. onions
3. cabbage
4. muskmelons
5. pickling cucumbers

And, who is that mooning us in the cabbage patch? LOL!!!

One of my fantastic employees.
I have three girls that are great. One guy that has been with us for many years.
How can I be so lucky to find four good workers ?

Good grief, I forgot the girl that helps at market. She is a former convenience store manager & is really good.

This guy should be ready to harvest tomorrow! Can we say BLT??

The okra is going like crazy!

Yesterday's harvest.

Man oh Man!!! Am I ever glad it is LUCHTIME!!!!

rjogden wow I like the variety of eggplant you have picture there, out of those varieties which do you like the best and why? 3 years ago I had several plants and really fell in love with eggplant so now I'm on a quest to grow as many different kinds to find which ones I like the best.

thanks.

Jan

Jan,
Google "Pot Black" eggplant...they're cuties!

It's finally raining. I can hear this little slurping sound coming from all the plants outside.

Of course, we're at 3 3/4" now so it'd be nice if we had a break for a day and then another couple inches to start catching up... but I'll take what we can get.

My rainwater tanks are probably full again. I want to say it took about 5 or 6" to fill them up (550 gallons) originally and they weren't completely dry just yet.

Thanks Gymgirl

NicoleC glad to hear you are getting some rain.

Jan

I wish we'd get some rain. However it's been cool enough to keep the A/C off, almost unheard of for July in these parts.

Actually, it would be a great time to work in the garden, but I can't get out of the kitchen.lol
Really hoping to get seeds sown this week.

Cocoalulu that is some wonderful looking produce there... I can't wait till I have that problem, just getting ready to gear up for planting seeds.

Jan

wow....

LOL, Linda, if all the tomatoes you sowed came back, that's what it would look like :0)

Lynea, how many mater plants did you plant??

Thanks for remembering Cocoa_lulu. I guess you're right, huh?

I've had about 3 inches of rain in the past few days! I haven't been able to pick the okra, so I know there will be some monsters. Hopefully this will give the sweet-potatoes a boost, too. What was left of my tomatoes blew down in a storm this week. We had winds of 60-70 mph-- my cages weren't secured nearly well enough for that much wind. The rain should make it possible to till up some of the areas where I had my onions, beans, peas, squash, and cucumbers. I'm thinking of planting more squash and cukes. I will also be starting beds for fall crops soon.

David

David, I'm so jealous!

Mee too, except for the wind, hopefully the gusts are gone for awhile. I've ignored the okra for the last few days, I'm almost frightened at what I might find :0)

Stephanie, I sowed 4, 72 count trays of tomatoes. It sounds like a lot, but I'm the queen of tomatoes disasters and had miserable luck with them over the last few years. My thought process was, even with drought, poor conditions, poor planning, surely 280 would be enough to see some results. I lost 30 plants in the early spring and another 30-40 have never produced because of some kind of weirdness. They are all growing on new ground, so next year I can go back to about 180 plants, since I now know where they do well.

My jars are heating as we speak :0)

Lynea, those okra will be big enough to attack you!!

We are growing a new variety of okra for us this year, Hill Country Red. The pods get fat, like the size of a quarter!! However, when you cook them, they are soooooo tender!