2023 gardens

I’m not sure on the varieties of tomatoes, but they started c ripening the 2nd week of August and are coming in faster than we can eat and can them. The best crop of tomatoes we’ve ever had.

I’m leaving to NC for the long weekend and might have to put a “free tomato” sign on the blvd, it’s a bumper for me this year. I eat 4 or 5 each day.
Slice em up, throw a dollop of mayo on em with a little S&P then down the hatch.

and I’m with ya DT, the cherry tomatoes have got to go.

Carrots and beans are cranking but I have to fight off the Mastiff as she is eating the beans off the vines and digging the carrots out of he ground.
But hey, that’s why I plant them.

Have a couple acorn squash looking like they want to be on the grill with some butter and brown sugar also.

It’s obvious from the comments this is a banner garden year!

This is how I like to freeze my maters for future use!

glenn57 wrote:

This is how I like to freeze my maters for future use!

Do you take the skins off?

Nope can see them stuck in the food processor

Nope but can barely tell there in it when it’s cooked up in other goodies.

Things have escalated quickly, but the arborvitae makes a solid trellis for the cukes!

glenn57 wrote:

This is how I like to freeze my maters for future use!

You must have a lot of freezer space. My one full freezer and two other are packed of meat veggies and other things. I have to can my tomatoes to have space. Nice thing about canning is you can always use them for a couple of years not sure if I would want to use frozen tomatoes 2 years later. I have frozen them in the past thinking I would use them later only to have too many already. Neighbors chickens get the left overs now.

I usually have most used up.

14 qts pickled green tomatoes to boot!

WOW. Nicely organized, too.

Why didn’t I think of putting bins in my freezer? Oh, it’s probably because I’m not all that bright.

Amazing with the heat and lack of rain. From 3 dwarf peach trees, I have given away between 100 and 125 dozen peaches. We froze some last year, they just weren’t that great. So, we decided to let people enjoy them fresh instead. Most everyone said they were the best peaches they have ever had. Compared to the small box we paid $30 for in June from Georgia. That we threw over half away. This pic is from the last picking, they are done. The 3 trees are different varieties. They ripened about 2 weeks apart, lasting most of 2 months overall. Good as they were, I’m ready for something different.

Oops, don’t shop without your glasses. Went to grab a mid-summer bush cucumber to plant to come in after the other plants peter out. Accidentally grabbed a “lemon cucumber” plant. Different, can’t say I’ll rush out to buy one next year.

Anyone plan on growing cannabis next year? sense its legal as Aug 1st if it locked and out of site from the road.

suzuki wrote:

It’s obvious from the comments this is a banner garden year!

Without help from the hose our garden would have been a dud months ago. The cukes were crazy for a month but I’ve pulled all the vines now. I pulled the green pepper plants this morning along with the Roma variety of tomatoes and the four tomato plants that I wanted to try this year as slicers. Then I tilled that portion of the garden.

My squash I continue to water since we have several eaters on the vine. The carrots are still growing nicely so I’ll water until frost. I started some ever-bearing strawberries this spring and they’ve been putting out a half dozen nice berries a day now and they’re putting out runners like crazy> I’ve been training the runners to where I want the berries to grow and next year should be a decent year for berries.

All in all, its been a very good garden this year but would have been even better had we gotten sufficient rain on a regular basis.

On a side note, I planted an Amish Paste tomato to replace a Roma variety that didn’t do well at transplanting. On Thursday I picked almost 4 gallons of tomatoes off that one plant and yesterday made spaghetti sauce from just those tomatoes. We had Lobster -stuff ravioli with fresh sauce for dinner last night, then I bagged and froze three quart sized freezer bags with the remaining sauce. These Amish tomatoes were easily three times the size of the Romas, had very small seed chambers and little juice. They made just a super sauce, so that will be next year’s four Roma style tomato plants.

Got up early to beat the heat. I see salsa on my future.
DT

A few more pics.
DT

My mater juicer!

Morning project. 12 3/4 pints of juice.

It’s been a crazy good year for the 4 raised beds I have. Canned 41 quarts of beans, 11 quarts beets, 14 quarts potatoes & 5 ice cream pails of refrigerator pickles. Will do some dill pickles with what are still coming. Onions did well and have a good amount of those put up. Around a five gallon pail of red potatoes left after canning. Lots of beets and carrots still in the ground and the pole beans reflowered and are kicking out 5-6 quarts a week and are still loaded with fresh blossoms. I even managed to get a dozen nice tomatoes off the one plant I have. I have always had nice looking plants but they always developed blossom end rot until this year. Some of what I gathered on Saturday. It’s taken a lot of water from the hose to keep things going. But it sure feels good when you carry the boxes of jars down to put away for this winter.

Our gardens have been a disaster this year. Been in an extreme drought area so basically spending 2 hours every three days or so watering. Veggies don’t really like the well water. Spent all the time watering and no time for weeding. Sandburs have basically taken over. Have to put on my hip waders in order to walk through the gardens now..

Triple batch of salsa.
DT

Ive given up on watering. If we dont get rain tonight I think whats left of my garden will be toast. Do have late sweetcorn due in about 10 days or so some rain would work wonders for it.

Anyone make tomato powder before? I’m trying it for the first time. I have about #6 of tomatoes wedges in the dehydrator since 2PM yesterday. I think it’s going to be in for at least 24hrs before it’s crisp enough to grind into a powder. I’m sure it varies, but I heard #5 yields about 1/2pt of powder. I saw a lot of videos that just use the tomato skins, which seems like a great idea since they’re probably going to be thrown out or composted.

My jungle errr garden is in high gear right now, picking almost daily.

picklerick wrote:

Anyone make tomato powder before? I’m trying it for the first time. I have about #6 of tomatoes wedges in the dehydrator since 2PM yesterday. I think it’s going to be in for at least 24hrs before it’s crisp enough to grind into a powder. I’m sure it varies, but I heard #5 yields about 1/2pt of powder. I saw a lot of videos that just use the tomato skins, which seems like a great idea since they’re probably going to be thrown out or composted.

Haven’t made tomato powder but I did cucumber powder about 5 years ago. Did it the way you are doing it. Only problem is I didn’t find alot of uses for it and still have some to this day.

stout93 wrote:

Our gardens have been a disaster this year. Been in an extreme drought area so basically spending 2 hours every three days or so watering. Veggies don’t really like the well water. Spent all the time watering and no time for weeding. Sandburs have basically taken over. Have to put on my hip waders in order to walk through the gardens now..

My garden is watered with my well water every morning and my garden does very well but yes you can not let the weeds take over. We have found to keep up espically when the plants are young as the get bigger we tend to not weed as much and usually harvest the produce before the weeds get to bad.

supercat- Do you drink bloody marys? Maybe try infusing some vodka with that powder. Could probably tie up a coffee filter and make a teabag. Salad dressing or cucumber sauce is about the only other things I can think of.

I tilled my rows a month and a half or so ago and used Preen for the first time. Havent had to weed since. Pulled a few stragglers that must have survived tilling bit definitely no new germination.

JEREMY wrote:

I tilled my rows a month and a half or so ago and used Preen for the first time. Havent had to weed since. Pulled a few stragglers that must have survived tilling bit definitely no new germination.

When I first started gardening I used preen but then I thought to myself isnt the whole idea of a garden is to get away from chemicals. But whatever works is better then not having one.