What did you do in the garden today?

[Compost King]

tore out my Cucumbers and cut back my tomatoes to just branches that have Tomatoes. The Fall Garden is starting to shape up. Hemp Plants (1 male 2 females) look like they will produce a lot of seeds I will be using to feed chickens. a few of the late tomatoes are about to turn red. I have a lot of Thai peppers but I hate the flavor, the heat is nice but they have a bitter flavor. The Peppers I do like are starting to slow down. I took some pictures to share.

 

[pennyJo1960]

Layed the 50 foot going after 100 more to finish thank god for zip ties

 

[WthrLady]

I crawled over the containment fence for the area we are composting in place to build soil in a low spot, and we have it fenced in to keep the chickens from dust bathing in there and reinfecting themselves with mites. So DS started counting the volunteer tomato plants in there when he got to 57. And there are more than that now that they've grown to a height of 4 feet. This space is 10x20 feet-ish and is PACKED wall to wall with tomatoes that have come up from seeds that were discarded from the hens eating tomato leavings all winter from the freezer!

I went in and stood in one spot and picked 6 qts of cherry tomatoes, 8 large celebration/slicing size tomatoes, and a 2ish pound mortgage lifter tomato without moving my feet. I cannot believe how many are out there. No worms, no bugs, no blight, no fungus, just crazy wild plants. If you pull back what you CAN see there's even more down below in the dark caverns!

It's insane! OH and a GIANT, and I mean GIANT wolf spider ran right in front of my hand as I reached for a cherry tomato, with a giant egg sack on her butt. OMG. I was Outta there!

We aren't eating them, as they are growing in hot chicken manure, which is obviously horrible for plant life, and alpaca manure. The alpaca is no problem, but pathogens can pass from bird manure to food systemically. So the patch is providing treats for the hens. They're so proud of themselves when they stick their heads through the fence and snitch an orb. They think they're getting away with stealing. LOL

 

[NewBoots]

Here's a few pictures of our garden...this was earlier in the year...I'll get some current pictures & share them after the sun comes up...I woke up way to early today!
Beans, tomatoes, Zucchini, spaghetti squash, cucumber, peppers, potatoes & garden box section!

Your garden is beautiful and so well laid out. And a drip system?

Love the Speckled Sussex and Flower hens. Your last two birds look identical to two of mine (easter egger and welsummer?)

They're both easter eggers, I love their cheek muffs! The black headed one is laying and I expect her sister to start soon too.

You guys have inspired me to get a note book and take some notes on what I want to do with my garden. I always plant way too much of a few veg,

This is my biggest garden ever so I have learned so much, and my memory isn't likely to get any better so I make a lot of notes.

Here's the product...5/8", 15 mil, 8 inch, 0.67 GPM/100', 1000', Toro Aqua-Traxx® we bought it at Irrigation King, best price we could find, you also have to buy the fittings for it.

Drip system is my project for this fall/winter. It's surprisingly dry here for a good 4 months of the year.

I have an overhead trellis & it is a bit easier, for sure. & your ladies are absolutely lovely.

I am going overhead trellis next year and I'm going to try those purple dragon green beans that @WthrLady is talking about. And thanks, we love our girls, they are such characters!

Dilly beans it is I guess.

Seconded, recipe please!

@NewBoots that's why I plant those purple dragon green beans! I can't FIND the damn beans on the vine! Now if they'd only come out with construction cone/cheeto orange beans...

Well let me know if you do see them! I made a note in my garden book for the purple ones in the mean time.

one night after I came inside from clearing the grates, I looked down and saw a huge spider on my shirt...needless to say I had a total meltdown! I was exhausted, it was 2:30 am, I didn't care, I called him in tears and told him I hated this job and I hated spiders.

The seasons here are Winter, Spring, Summer, Spider, Fall. We had a lot of spiders in Portland but they are just nuts here. Big nasty fast ones too.

thank god for zip ties

You can never have too many packages of zip ties. I grab another bag on just about every trip to a hardware store.

I went in and stood in one spot and picked 6 qts of cherry tomatoes, 8 large celebration/slicing size tomatoes, and a 2ish pound mortgage lifter tomato without moving my feet.

And you can't eat them????That is a crime against nature. Will you plow them under eventually?

Watering and critter care done and lunch is over, got more weed whacking done. By the time I have it completed, I'll have half the lawn "mowed". We got another egg from the "Stealth" hen this morning. This time it was ambient temperature when I went to do the morning chicken chores, so it was laid well before 8 am. I still think it was Natasha, one of the Sussex. The coop and run are right outside my bedroom window so if there was any singing, I'd have heard it.

DP and I must be strange, when I dry zucchini slices plain, no salt no oil, just the zucchini, we like them that way for a snack. I'd started drying them to add to soups and sauces but we are eating a lot before they make it to the storage jars. We like the dried onions too! The celery, not so much.

OH! Those damaged tomatoes that were too green to use that I sliced off the rotten spot (with a super sharp knife, I think that helps) and placed plastic wrap on the cut? It worked! They are nearly ripe enough to bag and freeze for canning later! I'm so happy! Now I don't have to give the critters quite as much lost tomato!

 

[drstratton]

Your garden is beautiful and so well laid out. And a drip system?

Thank you...my husband does the planning & then we put it in together!

Drip system is my project for this fall/winter. It's surprisingly dry here for a good 4 months of the year.

It & the landscape fabric has made all the difference in our garden this year!

The seasons here are Winter, Spring, Summer, Spider, Fall. We had a lot of spiders in Portland but they are just nuts here. Big nasty fast ones too.

Yeah, I don't like spiders, wasps, yellow jackets!

Watering and critter care done and lunch is over, got more weed whacking done. By the time I have it completed, I'll have half the lawn "mowed". We got another egg from the "Stealth" hen this morning. This time it was ambient temperature when I went to do the morning chicken chores, so it was laid well before 8 am. I still think it was Natasha, one of the Sussex. The coop and run are right outside my bedroom window so if there was any singing, I'd have heard it.

DP and I must be strange, when I dry zucchini slices plain, no salt no oil, just the zucchini, we like them that way for a snack. I'd started drying them to add to soups and sauces but we are eating a lot before they make it to the storage jars. We like the dried onions too! The celery, not so much.

OH! Those damaged tomatoes that were too green to use that I sliced off the rotten spot (with a super sharp knife, I think that helps) and placed plastic wrap on the cut? It worked! They are nearly ripe enough to bag and freeze for canning later! I'm so happy! Now I don't have to give the critters quite as much lost tomato!

 

[WthrLady]

@NewBoots correct. We will not be eating them, the hens will. Pathogens can pass to the tomatoes. We will harvest what we want for them, and then I will tackle the whole compost area with the tractor at the end of the season.

 

[igorsMistress]

Good afternoon gardeners. I haven't done a thing outside except tend chickens today. I did sketch a plan for the fall garden and planned to try planting a few things by October first and gradually get around to lettuce and some other greens a little bit later. I have the row cover material coming and I dug out the mini green houses to use if necessary. I also made a list of things I still need to finish up the walls around the garden and of course dirt. We'll have cooler temps later in the week but today has a real feel of 110. Yes it does. We're also under a flash flood watch so I'll worry about my kid until she walks through the door. Of course we won't even get a drop of rain because it's all in the high country but there you go.
We took the pups to the park this morning, Frank had to chill a little bit before we left

And my crazy mama with the chicks

 

[karenerwin]

Good morning gardeners. Welcome to the thread @drstratton and @sourland. What a haul indeed @karenerwin. I see the mountain of tomatillos and think of all the salsa verde I could make with that.

That is my plan too! But it sure is time consuming to chop all of those tomatillos!!
I have made 1 batch (it only made 2 or 3 jars and I ate 1 jar and gave 1 jar away) so far and have some others chopped (but not enough yet). The first batch was very tasty but didn't have any heat to it.

 

[pennyJo1960]

Tomatillos do not have heat it is only when you mix them with peppers that have heat I do thing was told by our friends with the restaurant here and it proved out

 

[drstratton]

We harvested less than 1/2 of the first set of corn this afternoon! We blanched it, cut it off the cob & stuck it in the freezer. We will finish it up tomorrow. We picked 52 ears, 60 cups cut off the cob for a total of 16 meals for our family. Hopefully we will get close to the same amount tomorrow! Then, maybe by next weekend we will be able to pick & freeze the secondary ears!

I told my husband that I wanted to put the cobs into the freezer so that I can pull them out as a treat for the chickens. His comment to me " I thought you were going to say that you wanted to keep them for toilet paper"...he cracks me up...

This is the tallest our corn has ever grown!

Blanched

I portion them into ziplocs, then place them into food saver bags. Each has two meals worth, I can reseal the bags after I take the first portion out.