What did you do in the garden today?

[WthrLady]

Brought in a cereal bowl full of blackberries,(I swear they ripen overnight) and 4 smaller tomatoes. The growth on the hoop tomatoes is insane. Next year I'll lower their nitrogen intake. I'm out of room to tie them up. At this point they're more of a pain in the butt than a food source. But I'll keep them going for the seed for next year. I have 12 varieties out there, so that's next year's seed.

There's a worm out there, but darned if I can find him. Maybe a swallow grabbed it. There were about 15 swallows on the garden fence when I went out there, so maybe. That would be a gut buster for a barn swallow. She'd have to spend the rest of the day walking!

 

[Gammas Bearded Babies]

Hey what's this on my lil squash!?
Leaves all look better than ever...2 more lil squash growing but this is nasty!

 

[Iluveggers]

The growth on the hoop tomatoes is insane. Next year I'll lower their nitrogen intake. I'm out of room to tie them up.

So funny you say that! I’ve always planted my tomatoes directly in my raised rows which have been amended and composted added, but are clay under the good stuff. Just regular ground. This year I had extra plants so I stuck 6 tomatoes in one of the raised beds (which not only have compost and amendments but regular garden soil not clay). Although all the plants seem to have the same amount of tomatoes growing, the ones in the raised bed are out of control! I have them Florida weaved, double & triple staked, and string trained and they are huge and leaning all over. Next year if I plant any in the beds I’m going to put a cattle panel on the side to tie them to…this is insane…lol

 

[Sueby]

So yesterday I asked DH to bring home a small bale of hay so I could put it in the chicken nest boxes. I've given up on finding straw (at least until Sep-Nov) and will have to live with weeds coming up in my garden, nothing for it, so I was going to use a good chunk of the bale for mulch. Especially since I'm going to attempt a second round of potatoes.

DH got to TSC after work, and they had just run out of hay in their shipment trailer. So he talks to the guy, and the guy tells him he can have the loose stuff... for free! My husband came home with a truck bed full of loose hay However, he needs that truck bed empty for work. Yesterday we had also received a new narrow twin mattress (we each need different surfaces to sleep on and this one is mine now) and it came in a heavy duty plastic bag. We stuffed as much hay in the bag as we could fit and tied it shut nice and tight, shoved hay in the nesting boxes, and I still had enough at that point to cover one of the two big beds and one of the smaller boxes.

After that we were both hot, miserable, sweaty, and itchy from all the hay bits. So we headed in and cleaned up and then ended up going to bed shortly after both the kids were asleep.

Today I'm a little sore...

My feed store does this too - they'll give away all the loose hay & straw.

I think I'm going to make some pickle chips, I have a ton of suyo long cukes & we can't eat them all so I may try 'pickle' flavored chips in the dehydrator.

@TJAnonymous I hope the new wraps help the horse. Leg injuries are never easy to treat. & ftr, I wasn't a fan of the yellow zucchini! Unfortunate because it was so pretty & my biggest producer.

 

[Acre4Me]

Hey what's this on my lil squash!?
Leaves all look better than ever...2 more lil squash growing but this is nasty!

Looks like a mold with fruiting spores. Maybe it was not fertilized, so going to decompose. Or maybe just too moist in that area where the little squash was at.

 

[Iluveggers]

My feed store does this too - they'll give away all the loose hay & straw.

I think I'm going to make some pickle chips, I have a ton of suyo long cukes & we can't eat them all so I may try 'pickle' flavored chips in the dehydrator.

@TJAnonymous I hope the new wraps help the horse. Leg injuries are never easy to treat. & ftr, I wasn't a fan of the yellow zucchini! Unfortunate because it was so pretty & my biggest producer.

If you want a good producing green type, try the Latino from Territorial Seed. It is the best against bugs, grows faster & bigger than the rest, and is usually the earliest. It defended itself against SVB last year after multiple attacks and although branches kept wilting it kept going until late fall. https://territorialseed.com/products/squash-summer-latino

I like to plant 5-6 different types each year for variety, and prefer heirlooms, but I will keep this one in the rotation because it doesn’t die on me. Lol

 

[WthrLady]

So funny you say that! I’ve always planted my tomatoes directly in my raised rows which have been amended and composted added, but are clay under the good stuff. Just regular ground. This year I had extra plants so I stuck 6 tomatoes in one of the raised beds (which not only have compost and amendments but regular garden soil not clay). Although all the plants seem to have the same amount of tomatoes growing, the ones in the raised bed are out of control! I have them Florida weaved, double & triple staked, and string trained and they are huge and leaning all over. Next year if I plant any in the beds I’m going to put a cattle panel on the side to tie them to…this is insane…lol

My are 9 feet tall and still going.

 

[chickengr]

I'm going to water the garden this evening since the "rain" last night didn't do any favors...

I should probably pull out the rest of the potatoes so the ants don't get them. Or the heat may make them rot... I did leave a couple walnut sized ones in the last bed I harvested, just to see if I get any volunteers next year.

I also transplanted 2 tomato starts from my 5 gallon bucket into a smaller container. I had at least 7 sprouts in the bucket. Pared it down to the best 3. They have all 3 been doing really well so I carefully dug up 2 and transplanted them. Now I have just 1 in the 5 gallon bucket. If the other 2 recover from their transplant shock and get a little bigger, I might move them out to the garden.

Yet ANOTHER snake was trying to raid mama duck's nest. I just gave her 4 eggs a few days ago! When I chased off the snake (tried to kill it but it went under my Silkie coop! ), I saw she only had 1 egg left! That's the last straw. I took her remaining egg inside and put it in the incubator. Then I destroyed her nest and disassembled the little playhouse where she had built her nest to begin with. Hoping that breaks her broodiness. She's been at this for 2 months now! The snakes have been so bad this summer. We usually have 1 or 2 show up each year but I've dealt with at least 6 myself in the past 30 days... Not sure how many DH has seen. I need an effective deterrent...

people here use sulfur for snakes. put it (yellow powder) all around your coops.

 

[CaroleW]

I repotted some crazy monster alligator aloes (not sure what the true name is but they have TEETH), so overgrown they had babies growing out the bottom drain holes. I have 2 BIG ones (one has no roots, had to split it off the mother - so we'll see if it survives) and still have 8 or more medium with roots and a bunch of runner starts to pot up later when it gets "cooler".

 

[TJAnonymous]

Watered the garden this morning. I put down some Epsom salt and chelated iron on the Concords since they are beginning to show problems with chlorosis. Hopefully that helps! I watered them really well.

Most of my tomatoes and zucchinis are dying from disease. Hoping I can get a few more tomatoes to have enough to make sauce. Im giving up on the San Marzanos. I've started at least a dozen seedlings. None have made it. Next spring I will try some in partial shade and see if that helps.

As for the zucchinis, they look pretty sad this morning. I did a major prune on them but it hasn't helped. Not terribly broken up about them dwindling down because I've gotten quite a bit of frozen zucchini now and still given some away.

I also harvested 3 tire planters of red potatoes. Filled a 5 gallon bucket. Pretty sure I probably missed some so I'm hoping to get volunteers later in the year. I still have 3 planters of Yukons to harvest but I'm giving them a little more time to cure.

I finally got up the courage to snap off one of the pineapple suckers and replant it. Only 4 more to go!

The two tomato transplants are looking pretty good this morning. In a few weeks, I'll split them up and move them into 5 gallon buckets like the other one. These are my backup plan. For those of you who grow tomatoes in buckets, how often do you feed them? And what do you feed them?