Spring/Summer Gardens 2015 Part 3

I love your garden!

WOW - I have enjoyed reading about and seeing your gardens bountys. You are WAY ahead of me. I have one zuck that could be harvested and I'm harvesting black raspberries almost daily (a pint today). The closest to a tomato is cherry tomatoes in a hanging basket. My onions can be harvested as green onions, but they are a long way from being bulb onions - persay. My dill is putting on heads, so just maybe by the time the cuxs are producing - I will for sure have dill. We could use rain - send it our way.

I enjoyed seeing and hearing about the purple tomatilla. I have grown the green ones for several years and this year my garden was overwhelmed with volunteers where I didn't want them. How will you prepare your tomatillas? If you don't mind me asking....

Happy gardening!

We'll make salsa verde, though I guess it will be purple sauce. LOL

O.K. Great - thanks. I had read where the tomatillas were good frozen then used in chili, which I thought I might give a try sometime.

We've used Neem Oil exactly ONE time in our garden and that was many years ago. I really don't like that stuff as it does kill the beneficials as well as the bad guys.

Here's today's harvest! More tomatillos, cherry tomatoes, and my first green beans.

The problem is ALL insectides will kill good bugs as well as bad bugs. That's just the way it is. I have found Spider Mites to be extremely hard to get rid of and they can destroy a crop very fast. I would prefer to not have to use anything but some seasons that would mean no veggies, which isn't an option for me.

I did mention, in my first post, that it kills bugs as well as mites, I assumed that it would be understood that, that meant good bugs as well as bad bugs. To an insecticide a bug is a bug.....so if you use any type of insecticide (organic, natural or synthetic) you are going to kill the good bugs as well as the bad...

If somebody knows of a product that only kills pests I'd love to know what it is.

i believe they were talking in terms of potency in this case, i could always be wrong of course.

Our insect control. The cicadas are about gone, now it's time for the Japanese Beetles.

# 3 photo - Elderberries are coming along and this one insists on growing in the flower bed. Not a problem - we certainly enjoy our elderberries. Onions are growing, but slooowww.

Picture # 4 - More elderberries and popcorn.

#5 - part of the menagerie.

Keep gardening every chance you get, I do.

I have not noticed near as many bugs since we got peafowl and guinea birds but even they eat the good as well as the bad. They don't do a dang thing for mites tho. mites are my most distructive pest. The wasps take care of the horned worms, for the most part.

Saw a firefly last night. Brenda everything looks great.

now if only those duck were all facing the camera it would make for a nifty calendar photo

I feel like we are going in circles...forget I mentioned neem I thought it would be a product of choice bc it's organic. To me it seems no different then Sil-Matrix which is also a miticide, insecticide and fungicide.

Im only considering products that are avaliable to home gardeners and can be applied by home gardeners, in their own state, as state regulations are all different.

This will be my last comment on the subject...but please note I did say neem would kill bugs I assumed that would be taken to mean the good and the bad.

Also growing some golden amaranth for seed/grain here in 2015. The first year I had one really good plant and lots of seed. The second year, I had lots of plants and lots of seed heads, but needless to say I harvested them when they still had too much moisture, so I almost lost them all. This year is my third year - and so far, even though they have a little bit of an insect issue (as always), they are doing great - picture #1. The insect issue with the amaranth does not create a problem for the plant to produce grain - so I don't try to control them.

Picture #2 is some of last years seed heads, located in the middle of the photo between the broomcorn and the orange cosmos..

Found better picture - Picture #3 is a better picture of last years golden amaranth seed heads.

Third year should be charm - I should have the kinks worked out. Will see!

brendak654
I love your garden.
I did try to plant Amaranth too. It couldn't stand our Dallas heat !

My last 2 harvests ! ... and I love how colorful my kitchen counter looks at this time of the year ...

Brenda your garden is absolutely lovely! One of the reasons I'm not extremely anti-bird in the garden is because they do help control the pest population.

drthor - Thanks! Your tomatoes are beautiful - yes very colorful - such a variety. Now tell me what you plan to do with all of them? I liked your snake plan. If I did that, I'd probably be the one that got scared away by the snake...... Glad to hear you gave the amaranth a try.

Stephanie - Thanks! I have a chipping sparrow with a nest in the clematis - he was upset with me the other day and that was when I discovered the nest while deadheading some blooms from clematis - close to some grape tomatoes and the asparagus on the arb in the clematis. He/she didn't build in the gourd-shucks.

Gee - Looks like I'm the only zone 6 in this whole thread. No wonder you're way ahead of me on harvest.

We are getting a wonderful rain - was getting pretty dry here. That will make things GROW. Means I'll have more pictures.....

Brenda, one of the great things about this site is that we have gardeners from all over the US and even from other countries. While you're freezing, we're planting. While we're frying, your garden is just coming in. :)

I thought Amaranth liked hot weather I've grown it here. There are different types.

Thanks so much ... tomatoes time is my favorite of the all year.
brendak654
I have learn to use all my harvest. Nothing go to waste.
I try to eat as many as fresh tomatoes as I can during this season. I don't buy any tomatoes during the rest of the year.
Last year I tried to freeze roasted tomatoes and onions and they were wonderful to eat during the rest of the year. We did finish them very fast and my goal this year is to double the amount I froze last year.
I have just learn how to canned tomato sauce, so I will do this with my larger tomatoes, until I run out of storage space and then i am planning to freeze the rest of the sauce.
... and mostly I love to cook ...

Happy gardening

It's a bit cooler today and we've got some cloud cover this morning. I'm ready for a bit more rain myself, but that can be dicey because so many lakes, streams, and ponds are still above conservation level.

Took a tour through the garden this morning and harvested a few things. More tomatillos and tomatoes! :)

There's a whole lotta this going on in the garden as well. We've picked some of the more ripe tomatoes to keep the birds away, but I really prefer leaving them on the vine as long as possible.

It's a girl! There are several other more mature cucumbers out there. I'm amazed by all the flowers on the plants this morning.

Patience is a virtue. It's much needed when waiting for fruit to ripen. This guy is going to taste soooo good.

Jalapenos anyone?? I grow these, but don't really do anything with them. This year, though, I'm going to pickle them. :)

Forgot to add that I applied alfalfa tea to my garden soil this morning. Now my yard smells like horse manure. LOL

wow, your garden looks amazing.
This year I decided that I didn't care much to grow peppers. I still have many in the freezer from last year ... and off course when I don't care/like to grow something ... it grows really well !
I am thinking to do "PEPPER JELLY" and this sound good:
http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/paula-deen/pepper-jelly-recipe.html
you could do with sweet and hot peppers too ... just a thought ...

First eggplant of the year is in. Funny that it developed in a heart shape, it was because it was sitting on a branch while it grew, i think.

Also picked a couple of the smaller Jimmy Nardello peppers that had started ripening, and will let them finish ripening inside.

jmc1987 - Nice harvest. You, too stephanietx. I am envying those tomatoes. Just went to pick my black raspberries and I think the raccoons beat me to them during the night.. NOT A GOOD!

after doing some more online researching, it turns out that my beans may very well have blight (they have gotten their leaves wet on several occasions from when i gave them fertilizer water, so i guess i am at fault for that!)

SO i will be measuring the total length of all of the growing rows in my bed combined and finally get myself a soaker hose. There is one that i want that sweats the water out (like when you are squeezing a sponge) instead of coming out of visible holes, so i know there wont be any wayward jets that come shooting up and hitting any leaves.

If you have a lot of bed to do, I'd go with drip emitter tubing. It works better, IMO, and lasts a lot longer than soaker hoses. (Plus it's usually cheaper.) You get even watering for the whole length of the line.

I harvested garlic yesterday -- my basement will be pretty stinky for a few weeks while it cures. Squash and cukes are starting to come in in earnest and I have a few hot peppers I could pick and eat now, but I'll wait on them.

'Maters are still green. I must be patient.

Beans make their own fertilizer, so no added fertilizer is needed.

boy have i been waiting for what feels like forever for this! :)

jmc1987 - That may be more than a foot long when it's all said and done. NICE.

Well, the summer garden is winding down with all the heat burning up almost everything. About the only things that'll grow in the middle of all this heat are field peas, okra & eggplant. My tomatoes are burning up. The peppers are struggling, but still producing. The squash & cucumbers were all overtaken by squash bugs. I had a really good stand of green beans & will plant more in the fall.

So I guess for now, I'm just picking peppers & trying to keep them alive. Getting ready to grow some tomatoes from clipping. Keeping the weeds down. Planning the fall garden.

The never ending cycle of gardening!
Jo-Ann

Potato field is looking good.

amazing !

That potato field is simply BEAUTIFUL!!!

Jo-Ann,
Keep me in the loop on your fall/winter garden planning.

I found a bunch of field peas (bean seeds) last night. Ripping the tomato, green beans, and pepper beds this weekend. Might sprinkle a few cow peas in the beds to see what happens between now and September when I start transplanting the cole crop seedlings in.

Will be starting more green beans in August.

bummer to hear that the tomatoes and pepper plants are fizzling out for you guys, mine are totally going gangbusters with me on production right now

The purple shoulders on the Blue Beauty tomatoes arent coloring up as much as advertised, maybe something that happens when the fruits get closer to being ripe

No pictures this time. The harvest was lunch, so no time for pictures. I worked cleaning out a row of newly planted strawberries (probably 50 or so foot row this morn). I pulled the weeds and put them in a 5 gallon bucket. Gee - the weeds sprout and can grow like gangbusters when we get plenty of rain. I was a mudball when I got finished weeding that one row. Could hardly keep my shoes on because of the mud. Two more rows to go. After weeding, I headed to the compost pile to dump my 5 gallon bucket of weed trash. I decided we would have Yukon Gold new potatoes for lunch, so I stole a few young spuds from under the potato plants that are growing around the compost heap, then headed back to the main garden for a couple large green onions to go with. We had new potatoes with the jackets on for lunch. Made for a yummy treat, them and the onions.