2016 Spring/Summer Gardens Pt 2

Brenda, your veggies are beautiful. What type of pepper is that?

Thanks - The pepper is BIG BERTHA - she is sweet and I picked her small. She gets huge.

Thanks, I would have never have guessed that!

I went back to look at your pepper, Brenda, and, if that's a small Big Bertha, then I'm sure gonna grow them next season!

Great job!

first cuke and eggplant of the year, and the ground cherries are starting to roll in.

The garden is producing a little bit.

Jalapenos
Earliana tomatoes
Bell Pepper, not sure what variety yet
Muncher cukes

I harvested 4 cucumbers last night and one the night before as well as 2 pickling cukes.

I picked the cucumbers on 6/22, then again this morn. The quantitiy doubled. I had right at 9 pounds this morn. So I've been pickling. Presently I'm caught up - though they will need to be picked again in 2 days. I had Limechip pickles soaking in lime and finished those up this morn, then I tied in and worked up Bread n Butter pickles with what cuxs I had harvested this morn. Somewhere in the rounds I used some of my breadseed poppy seed and made some lemon-poppy seed bread and I also made a loaf of Zucchini bread. Wish I could share - I basically doubled the lemon so the lemon poppy seed bread it is nice and tart.

That lemon poppyseed bread sounds heavenly!

My Kentucky Beefsteak is clearly not a happy camper, now not only do i have blossom drop, but now the entire plant seems to be yellowing up, at first it was just a couple of sporadic leaflets near the bottom, now suddenly the whole thing is tinged yellow. Im wondering if its protesting the extremely wet and humid summer we have had so far, as the only problem i have really had out of the others so far is a little B.E.R. on the first fruits.

We've had a lot of humidity here, too. It's crazy!

Tadaaaa! For the first time ever, we've gotten a few delicious sweet figs. Before the birds! The tree is still small but hopefully will keep on growing. It's a Celeste. Both my grandmothers had fig trees when I was growing up. Loved visiting for 4th of July.
Getting lots of tomatoes & cucs now. We had our first cantaloupe drop. We'll probably eat it tomorrow or Monday. Eggplant & okra are far from ready. We planted those late.
I love seeing all the gardening success here too!

Aren't those figs wonderful - I can just taste yours bariolio. My little fig tree is loaded (for the first time) and I'm scared the critters will jump in ahead of me for the harvest. What should I do to keep the critters at bay - same way with the pears???? Could use a little help here. . . .

The ripe tomato waiting game can certainly be a test of patience, lol.

Right?? I belong to a gardening group on Facebook and many of the newbies ask, "How long until my tomato ripens?" My reply is always, "Forever!"

I never had so many red peppers !! These are from last year pepper plants: RED MARCONI.
I used this recipe: http://honest-food.net/2014/09/05/how-to-preserve-peppers/
No water bath needed ! The jars will keep one year in the fridge (I hope)
Okra is starting to produce more and more.
My eggplants are just really sad and full of flee beetles marks.
Rattlesnake beans did stop all of a sudden ! They just don't like the heat !
Chinese Long Beans did germinate really fast. These beans love the heat !
I still have tomatoes, but their taste is not as good as the earlier ones.

Next week I will start indoor seeds of: fennel, broccoli, cabbages, kale

Hey Brenda! I decided to google for some ideas about protecting figs. Here's a few tips.
Hang rubber snakes in the tree;
Wrap each fig or cluster of figs with a piece of foil or a thin plastic container punched with holes;
Hang strips of shiny Christmas garland in the tree;
Buy an inflatable scarecrow!
Since my tree is less than 6 feet, I'll try the foil. Another person suggested not letting your tree get too tall by pruning it in late winter. If you try any of these, let us know if anything works.

bariolio - Thanks for the fig protection tips. I'm adding a rubber snake(s) to my list of needs - I'll probably scare the pee out of myself with it, but sounds logical. I have some apples with small ziplock bags on them with holes - so yep that would probably work. THANKS for help.

drthor - Beautiful harvest.

It had been 3 instead of 2 and I harvested my cucumbers this morn. They seriously needed harvesting. A couple were really large, but I think I can still use them. Mrs. Wage (brand) has a wonderful "Bread & Butter" mix for pickle making. I tried it the other day. It was awesome. I went back to the store and bought 3 more packets ($2.24 each). So that's what I'm heading to do now.

starting to see some cantaloupe growing in., and i have a watermelon that is really starting to swell up. Sweet corn still seems to be doing ok, i really hope i hand pollinated them well enough as the tassels seem to be running dry of pollen now. Pole beans are starting to produce well and you can see some beans fattening up in there. And the casper eggplant is doing well, although i have had some blossom drop, probably for the same reasons my tomatoes have been having blossom drop, all this swampy weather, lol

This message was edited Jun 30, 2016 1:39 PM

on the bright side to all of this wet weather: my flowers have been going nuts

This message was edited Jun 30, 2016 1:49 PM

Jmc, your veggies look great! I haven't grown watermelon but it would be nice. Our first cantaloupe was small but oh so sweet.
My hubby ordered 12 rubber snakes for $10 from Amazon! Here they are doing their job.
And one pic of my bottlebrush having another bloom frenzy.

My Tomato on the vine in doing fine so far.And my squash plant has one on it,and I leaving it to get a little bigger.

boy do i wish this excessive rain pattern would just STOP! Just found a rotted sweet potato vine today.

That must be so frustrating. I know when I lose fruit or veggies to nature--animals, weather--I feel cheated! That's why I set out the rubber snakes!
We're visiting family until Tuesday. I hate leaving my garden but we picked everything we could today. I'm sure it'll be fine. Hope we have a few more ripe figs when we return.

Janet,
Please post the link to those snakes!

Of course, you'll read about the gardener found dead of a heart attack because she forgot the rubber snakes were there, LOL!!!

The garden is slowing down.
The tomatoes are at the end ... they don't taste as good !
I cannot complain about the quantity of tomatoes I harvested this year ... I started much earlier.
I think the tomato plants really like the cooler weather - which we didn't have this year.
During the cold weather they spend time to develop their roots and I think they make a hardy plant ...and it keeps producing until the end of July/beginning of August !
This year , I just transplanted out the tomatoes and they started to produce, happy with all the rain !

Okra is starting to increase production. Peppers are really wilting in the afternoon ... they look really sad !
Eggplants are full of flee beetles !

I am enjoying the LONGEVITY SPINACH I bought from Baker Creek !

My tomatoes are going like gangbusters. Now it's just a waiting game. Planted watermelons for the fall garden (fall!!!) and they've all sprouted. I'm still harvesting several cucumbers a day and my pumpkins are still growing well. I'm harvesting jalapenos, but no tomatillos yet. My yard long beans are just now starting to flower.

When my tomato plants start flowering, shortly after planting, I've always heard to pinch the flowers off so the plants will develop roots before they produce fruit. Thus a harder plant.

Stephanie, t sounds like your garden is doing great!

We have a steady flow of tomatoes and am now able to share. The zucchini - well I have about had my fill of zucchini salad, sauteed zucchini and zucchini bread and if I keep eating that bread I'm going to turn into a blimp. It sure is good and I like it with cream cheese of all thing. Jokes aside the zuck has produced well as always. I have been giving it away to neighbors and family. I pulled up two plants (one had little squash bugs) and the other was yellowing. I still have about 7 plants producing at a very steady rate. The sweet peppers & banana sweet are plentiful. The jalapeno have been a little slow though I have harvested a few. I picked cucumbers again today for more pickle making and some dill for the pickling. I harvested garlic today and more Apache (wonderful) blackberries. Some of those Apache blackberries are almost 2 inches long. We have been dry, but woke to wet and it has rained mid day and more in the forecast. The garden is HAPPY. I also have harvested 3 tromboncia (I have that spelled wrong) - anyhow at the summer squash stage. I recently planted pumpkins, gourds & cantaloupe then I backtracked myself and planted marigold seed on top of each hill as an insect deterent.

Keep gardening and enjoying the bounty!

Tromboncino (I looked it up)

That is the above tromboncino plant/vine to the far back left of my zinnia.

love that huge row of zinnia!

Tomorrow (FLOWER DAY) I will start indoor seeds of : Broccoli
Then during the week (when it will be LEAF day) I will start seeds of: Kale, Cabbages and Fennel.
WOW ... Fall garden preparation already !

StephanieTX I harvested 2 zucchini this year ...

finally i am starting to get harvests in that are too large to fit into one hand, lol.

Boy what a storm that came through last night, just checked in my garden a few minutes ago to find that one of my tomato plants had been toppled over--cage and all, which in turn crushed my cosmos flowers. its a miracle that the tomato stem didnt get broken, so thankfully i was able to set it back upright. It seems that i made a wise decision in tying my corn plants to the fence as they seem to be unaffected thank goodness..

Last weekend, I planted watermelon seeds for my fall garden. Can't believe it's time for fall planting yet! We picked up 1.25" of rain overnight. This morning, I put out more sheep manure. If I'd have known it was going to rain last night, I'd have put it out yesterday. LOL

The cantaloupe is finally taking off. I found my first little cantaloupe baby today.
Today's harvest--Muncher cucumbers, a pickling cucumber, some lg cherry tomatoes, and some pepperoncini peppers.
My lone luffa plant has reached the top of the trellis. I hope it figures out where to go now.
Watermelon seedlings
Yard long beans

Very nice StephanieTX
I also loved the "surprise" rain of last night.
My eggplants are just full of flee beetles and the fruits just looks horrible.
Today I am testing a home made spray in just a few plants: vegetable oil + dish soap + water ... let's see if this will make a difference !

My tomatoes are just beginning to take shape, fruits are forming on.my eggplants,bush beans are bearing and the pole beans are coming along slowly.

i do love that i am getting ground cherries by the handful each day, also got my first ripe fresno chili's today along with another eggplant.

Still waiting for the melons.

what do you do with ground cherries?
how do they taste like?