Garden updates.....let's hear yours!

[cookinmom]

HI! Was just wondering, how are everyone's gardens doing now?

My cukes are done. We had enough to eat, share, and make 11.5 qts of pickles from one row. I can live with that! I yanked up the vines, threw down more mulch and replanted the space with bush beans and sunflowers this past Saturday. Tomatoes are coming along fine, if I can just keep the dog from picking them!

He thinks those are tennis ball bushes or something!
We're eating some yellow squash now. Watermelons are coming along. Have lost some due to rotting. Not sure what to do about that. Finally had a pumpkin stay on the vine long enough to get fertilized. Yeah! Hope it makes it to maturity! Eggplants and peppers are coming along. First planting of bush beans are blooming now.
Herbs are good. I need to start cutting and drying them. The flowers are flowers! The rosebush I bought from David Austin Roses has a bud on it! I hope it grows like I want it to.
Good news too! The giant overgrown muscadine grape vine we cut down to make room for the chicken coop has sprouted back from it's stump and is growing like mad. We put posts with wire now to train it on, so it will be more manageable.
I think that's it!

OK People, let's here some garden updates!

:

 

[PurpleChicken]

What's your trick for drying herbs? I always ruin mine. I've tried
hanging them, paper bagging them, and the good old "leave them
on the kitchen counter" trick.

Now I just keep them in a ziplock with a paper towel in the fridge until
they get nasty.

Don

 

[kcfuerst]

If you have no way to dry herbs, why not freeze them? They taste next-to-fresh, and that way and you can use them any time you want to.

If you really prefer to dry, try laying them out on a towel in the bottom shelf of your gas oven. Turn the overn on for 5 minutes and then turn off and leave the door closed. They'll dry with time, preferably overnight.

Or, if you like, you can invest a modest amount in a nice dryer, like an Excaliber, which has tons of room for all kinds of foods. Nice to make beef jerky or fruit leather, too.

 

[hisbride]

I hope to add something to this soon. My husband just built me a raised bed since I don't have decent soil to have a garden. Usually you put a garden aways from the house but the deer eat it so right slap behind the house is my new garden! I can see from my kitchen window. And if the deer think bon apitite I'll be right there to holler and raise cane!! We still have to fill it with filler and soil and of course plants. I am terribly excited!!!

 

[Whirlwind]

Picking squash and green beans here. Tomatoes and egg plant and peppers coming on good. Cukes not even 1 ft. tall yet, okra coming up. Asparagus, oninons, potatos and snow peas are done.If the rain will let up and let it dry out things would really go crazy. We have had rain for the last 14 days here, and tied the record for June{from june 1937}. 5 inches in the last 24 hours. More tomorrow so will probably break record. Loosing lots of squash to rot and the entire peach tree. Last year we had drought. This year flood. But just glad to get what we can from garden.

 

[silkiechicken]

Well... guess you guys are in warm places and have stuff to eat! Let's see, only thing ready here is... well... I guess 40 day cold weather letticue if you planted any (they don't taste good).

hmm.. lets see... 68 day tomato plants started 6 weeks prior to transplant in mid may still have no flowers on them.... We get about a month of tomato harvest if we're lucky before frost kills them all.

Potato plants are beginning to form flowers, maybe they will actually have tubers this year that don't get eaten by moles!

Pole beans have about 6 leaves and are just starting to send up their trailing center shoot.

OH there has been two harvests of ruhbarb!

Should be the start of snow peas in a week or so, they just started flowering this week.

The corn plants are about 4 inches tall... that was the first planting here...

The zucchini's are just starting to show signs of where buds will emerge....

Yeah, there's a short growing season here and everything is slow.

I'm so jealous!!!!

 

[okiechick57]

Last year my garden fried in the drought....this year it is basically drowning with no sign of rain letting up......I am grateful for the rain, but sad I have lost my onions.......greenbeans and maybe my cantaloupe..........and watermelons.......my taters.well between the rain and the beetles......they are hurting......My cucumbers are thriving right now......have millions.and for the first time , my carrots are growing..... the rain also got my peppers and peas...

hard to handle after so much work in the garden to prepare........but ,hey I HAVE CUKES ..........LOL the thing is..........I do not eat them...make pickles to sell / give away and I wont even touch a pickle..........just LOVE to garden........ oh ,and tomatoes were doing okay until this week... 5 inches of rain......way to much.....will need a rowboat to reach my garden pretty soon........... glad to hear others work is paying off............

 

[CoyoteMagic]

Picking squash & zuchinni (sp?) Peppers and tomatoes are coming. Was hoping to have some "real" tomatoes for the 4th. Gourds are slow but growing.

Cookinmom----set them up on some empty tuna or soup can with the bottoms cut out. They love water but don't really like the wet ground, go figure.

 

[magikchick]

Had tomato and bell peppers, chickens took them all out. Ate all the tomatos and the flowers. I got one bell pepper before they ate them too.

Oh well I put the garden in for them, just didn't know they would eat the whole thing.

Marsha

 

[edbama2]

My garden is doing pretty good this year. I have already finished up the Strawberries. The blueberries are still going strong as are the tomatoes. The new red potatoes are pulled out of the ground as we want to cook them. The corn should be ready soon. Some pole beans should be ready soon. My onions didn't make it this year. About 300 feet of scuppernongs are doing great and just waiting for them to turn color. The figs are almost baseball size, they usually get up to softball size. No sign of pecans yet, last year was a bumper crop, not expecting too much this year. All in all, very good year for the drought conditions!