Garden Is In!

Sharon wrote:

It’s called the Garden Colander and it’s just the right size.

I like the looks of that. I usually just grab whatever bucket or big bowl is handy.

I have to take the plastic bagging off my mushroom logs pretty quick and pull the green bush-type bean plants. My tomatoes this year are crazy for the most part and will be all wrapped up by mid-August. Tons of ripe tomatoes every other day….like a five gallon bucket full every other day.

I have 4 yellow tomato plants and two heirloom red plants and all of those are going to be late yielders. One red heirloom called Mortgage Lifter has two nearly ready to pick tomatoes on it and I just picked a couple ripe tomatoes off an heirloom yellow that some critter with gnawing teeth decided it liked. These six plants will produce well into October if I keep them covered during frost nights. Last year the yellow tomatoes produced clear into November before the cold got to them.

My squash is a jungle that has cucumbers mixed in. I have to pick the cukes every day or they get huge….but the biggies make really nice chuck sweet pickles. I’ve given up on trying to keep count of the squash. All buttercup this year.

Planted my first garden this year and it’s turning out pretty well. This picture is from a while ago but with some nice rains it’s been growing fast!

Been harvesting a ton of beans, tomatoes, peas and lettuce. The onions, potatoes are close. The corn, watermelon, cantaloupe and pickles are looking good and shouldn’t be long.

The garden is just over 6,000 sq/ft but I’ve been keeping track, I only have 12hrs of work into it so far this year. That includes planting and tilling. If I worried about every lil weed than ya I could put 100’s of hours in into it but I was determined the garden wouldn’t hinder my fishing schedule. I’ve spent more time eating vegetables than working on it. I can’t imagine not having a garden now! Thanks for the inspiration everyone.

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Good for you Joe. Gardens are therapeutic and tend to grow on you.

Great looking garden!:waytogo

Thanks.

Does anyone use a seed planter? I used one and it was amazing how easy it was. I planted all of my “row” vegetables in less than an hour. (That’s 800 linear feet of planting.) No measuring rows, just throw in the seeds and go. The seeder plants the seeds to the set depth and marks the next row.

How have I never heard of these things before? As a kid it’d take all day to plant the garden… well it felt like it took all day.

How’s this for an oddball cucumber.

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Wow. That’s an odd one! Did you cut it open? How’d the inside look?

Billy and I picked some green beans tonight!

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My row beans are done and the pole variety are just getting started so we’ll have beans for quite a while. I got about 5 gallons froze of the row beans for winter vittles.

Sharon wrote:

Wow. That’s an odd one! Did you cut it open? How’d the inside look?

Billy and I picked some green beans tonight!

yes I did, kind of odd.the inside looked like it was starting to get moldy but was nice and firm yet. Tasted a bit odd to. Cleaned it out washed it and stuck it in brine.

Joe Scegura wrote:

Does anyone use a seed planter?

Joe – what planter did you use?

I’ve got a few different ones I’ve used. I use the three together for cover and manure crops in pathways. The smaller seeder works well for carrots, beats and greens. Johnny’s Selected Seeds has lots of good info and gadgets for effective garden cropping, maybe worth a look.

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I picked the garden down last Tuesday so Carole and I could go do some camping. We left Weds and came back yesterday. This morning I picked a 5 gallon pail of tomatoes…just the Roma type and only those that were red ripe. I’ll need to do the Roma varieties again on Thursday by the look of things. The yellow tomatoes are coming fast so we’ve given a few of them away to neighbors. My two heirloom red tomatoes are full of huge tomatoes and one is almost ready….the “pink” and that one looks to be a two to three pounder.

I planted a Marianna [?] type of Roma sauce tomato this year and lets just say next year the Roma Romas will be left out. These tomatoes are weighing in at about a half, three-quarters pound each…big puppies and darned little juice. I just finished bagging over 4 gallons for the freezer. And huge numbers on the vines. The next time I pick I’ll get one of each and get a picture to show the difference in size.

somehow i missed Toms post!!!!! Roma’s typically from what i know are a meaty style mater, not tended for juice.

i got maters coming from all directions, need to get them canned up this weekend but momma wants to go to the state fair.

yesterday after a weekend trip to northern minnesota, i pulled my cukes and green peppers, within the next 2 weeks some of my tomato plants will be yanked.

I let the daughter-in-law come grab tomatoes yesterday and I pulled the beets from the main garden for her as well as picked a bag full of green beans from the pole crop. My daughter came by and got beans as well. The row beans are gone as are the peppers except the hot ones. I’ll be taking out the red tomato plants next week but leaving the yellow ones and two heirloom red as they are all late tomatoes. The squash and cukes can have run of the garden now until frost. My basil plants are three feet tall and getting taller in spite of cutting and snipping flower heads. The carrots will stay in the dirt until the end of October unless we get an early freeze-up. The remain beets will come in with the carrots and the swiss chard will get bagged and froze too then.

Does anyone freeze green beans? What’s the process?

Ralph Wiggum wrote:

Does anyone freeze green beans? What’s the process?

i do! pick clean, cut them into whatever size you prefer. bring them to a good boil, drain, run cold water over them, then lay on cookie sheet and freeze. when there froze i put them in bread bags!!!!

dont boil to long, just so it starts to boil good.

Yep, we blanch and freeze green beans too. We chop them to size and then blanch them (dump them in batches in rapid boiling water for three minutes, them immediately dump into ice water) and then we vacuum seal them in bags in dinner-size portions. Nothing like tasty garden green beans (or carrots!) in the middle of winter right from the freezer.

Thanks!

I have six gallon sized freezer bags full right now and the pole beans are just getting a good start so there’ll be more.

I do them the same way as Glenn. They pack nicer and you can use what you want instead of having to open and twist tie a whole bag.

Another way to process green beans is to pickle them if you like a garlic dill type pickle. Stuff them in a qt jar, add dill, some onion and 4-5 garlic. The brine is 8 qts water, 2 cups vinegar and 1)2 cup pickling salt. Just let sit in frig.

I just had the first if mine. Nummy!! Set for about 2 months.

Yeah, I pickled a bunch a few years ago. They’re good, but I did way too many. A few pints is enough for me.

Isn’t it nice to come in from picking green beans to find you’ve got a nasty Japanese beetle crawling up your neck…

Sharon wrote:

Isn’t it nice to come in from picking green beans to find you’ve got a nasty Japanese beetle crawling up your neck…

Meat Group!

“Isn’t it nice to come in from picking green beans to find you’ve got a nasty Japanese beetle crawling up your neck”… Sharon

Better the neck than on the leg….and heading up.

Stupid bugs. And I like bugs – just not crawling on me unexpectedly. At least your can feel these guys, unlike ticks. Yuck.

The Japanese beetles have gone away here now. For bugs I am trying to get rid of wasps. I wanted to take some tall weeds down along a wood garden wall so I can stack my mushroom logs along the wall where there’s more shade. First I had to spray one of the steel pipe posts for wasps. I checked this morning and now another pipe has wasps too so it just got hosed down with wasp poison.

On a more garden note….my Oyster Mushroom logs are starting to show mushrooms. They need to grow some yet. And the totems I did this spring for Oyster mushrooms got uncovered yesterday and should be putting out some fruit soon.

Well we picked the last of the cucumbers last night and trimmed up the tomatoes in preparation to shut the garden down for the year. It always seems too early to do this, but if we don’t do it earlier then hunting seasons start taking over and we forget about the garden. We still have some tomatoes hopefully turning red soon that we’ll make in to salsa or spaghetti sauce. We picked one more large batch of green beans and plant to blanch/package them tonight. It’s been a great year for green beans!

only things left in my garden is 1 cherry mater plant, a few carrots and some kalarabi.

Ours is still going strong. Lots of tomatoes and peppers. I pulled the beans last week. I’ve picked most of the broccoli, but we’ll still get some. Picked some carrots last week, but we still have a lot in the ground.

Ralph Wiggum wrote:

Picked some carrots last week, but we still have a lot in the ground.

When do you usually pick the last of the carrots? They don’t get too big and woody?