What did you do in the garden today?

[Ascholten]

awesome garden. The Asparagus, did you plant it inbetween the strawberries or what? I didn't see it in there. I got a big tub of it growing and it seems to be doing well.

Hint on the asparagus: Pull the fronts off towards the tips. You can see there are male and female plants, some prefer the taste of one over the other but anyways., Go ahead and pinch off the tips or the fluffies. They taste wonderful in salad or other dishes, plus since you are not taking the thing down at the base of the stalk like when you harvest it normally, it's not killing / stunting the plant so it'll still grow big and strong for next years real harvest !

Aaron

 

[igorsMistress]

PSA: This post will have lots of pictures taken on Friday.

Strawberries and asparagus:
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Rainbow Heirloom Mix tomatoes, goats horn pepper:
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Yellow straight neck squash, bell peppers, pickling and lemon cucumbers:
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Ananas insertlongnamehere melon:
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Potatoes:
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Blue podded and Cascadia peas, 3 different kinds of radish, 2 different kinds of beets, and 2 or 3 different kinds of carrots:
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Atlantic Giant Pumpkins:
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More potatoes:
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Sugar baby watermelon, and yellow fleshed watermelon, and one more potato plant:
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Kale, spinach, flowering cilantro, basil, oregano, 2 Cippolini onions, parsley, thyme, chives, sage:
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3 different colors of corn, butternut squash, and beans (before and after I pulled them):
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Double corn cob?:View attachment 3222529
Ready to harvest? Maybe?:
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Beefsteak tomatoes, yellow cherry tomatoes, and large red cherry tomatoes:
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Amazing!

 

[WthrLady]

Another 21 pounds of orange/red tomatoes this morning.
Plus the 3 from earlier this week
Bringing seasonal total up to 56 pounds,
I'll puree what ripe and cover and ripen what isn't.

So my take on some of the new, to me, varieties. I'm not a fan of the Opalka or Federele tomatoes. They are very large, like amish paste, which I am also not a fan of. They are on the vines forever, which opens them up to hopper and THWorm attacks. Their shoulders never really ripen. The plants aren't as robust as SanMarz, meaning they are super sensitive to light, heat and drought. Their size requires them to be handled more at processing. I won't be having them back next year.

The cosmonaut early russian tomatoes also won't be back. They are an odd, off putting, pink color, and while they should be sweet and tart, DH says they just taste weird and can't figure out what he's pair them with.

The Ambers will be back next year as a mild, but hearty, well flavoured and balanced yellow slicing tomato.

The tiny tims that I have no idea got here, will not be back next year. They are smaller than peas, but shaped like a birdhouse gourd. They are a pia to harvest.

The oxheart slicers product HUGE fruit, but it is cat faced and ragged, meaning you have to hunt out and cut out the good and bad bits, and fruit is very limited per vine. The plant also doesn't care too much for heat or high humidity/drought conditions.

The woods slicers are just dandy for slicing.

The cloudy day variety is 3 years as a fail here, low production, and poor plant quality/disease and environmental resistance.

The moskovich tomatoes, out of 4 plants, have produced 2 tomatoes. I have no idea what their problem is, but they won't be back either.

 

[Wolfie2]

Cigarette's can be used to make a nicotine spray that takes out bugs, but you can't use it on tomato's. There's a virus or something the tobacco has, and it's the same family as tomato's and you can give it to them or something of that nature. I remember way back when I used to chew, Id dump the spittoon on the plants. It'd keep the bugs away and would eventually compost.

It's called Tobacco mosaic. Can't say exactly what it does but only affects the tobacco family of plants. Which includes tomato, Peppers and eggplant and there may be others in that family I don't know about. It's been advised to NOT use any tobacco products in their vicinity.

And me in my garden? Well friday I planted Alfalfa in the 30'X6' spot where the onions grew, or should I say, tried to grow. Got everything broadcast, covered up and watered in. Then Mother nature decided to help out. I had1/4" in the rain gauge when I woke up Sat. morning. Went fishin yesterday and had "scattered showers " all day. When we got home from fishin there was almost 1/2" in the gauge. Woke up this morning to almost 3/4" in it. More scattered showers predicted for today. Bad thing about the thick mulch I have. It soaks up a lot of the rain. Ground under the mulch on the rest of the garden is barely moist. I guess the scattered showers is the culprit. It would rain for a few minutes then the sun would come out for ah hour or so, dryin some of it up. Then another shower. then repeat the process all day. Looked good in the rain gauge but didn't help a lot in the garden.

We did bring home some fish though, so the day was not a total loss, 3 flounder and the biggest Mangrove snapper I've ever caught. Had to go @ least 2 lbs! Tasted good last night!
Y'all have a good and productive day!

 

[TJAnonymous]

Need to cut the weeds down around the beehives.
Note to self: Bees get VERY pissy on rainy days, you KNOW THIS AARON !!!

Do not work around bees without a veil, especially if it's a rainy day out !!

Was doing some weeding yesterday between rain showers. Weeds come out a lot easier when it's wet. Didn't want to go thru the hassles of suiting up. (My lazy ass COULD have just put a veil on w/o the suit, but that's another topic)

Naah, im not bothering them, it'll be fine.
Did I mention that bees get pissy in the rain?

Bam, got me in the eye. right on the eyelid. I got inside and put alcohol on it right away, and did not see a stinger in there so was ok. It only hurt for about 20 minutes afterwards, then was just a bit tender.

Fast forward to this morning. Wake up, my vision is blurry and my eyelids feel heavy, like I got sleep gluing it shut or something. That happens sometimes, you know how it goes. Umm no, although it does not hurt, my eye has swollen shut from the sting.
If you have bees, there is no such thing as a safe 'quick peek', or safe 'ill just hop in and hop out'... Veil up, ALWAYS, or risk this happening or even permanent blinding if they get you IN the eyeball

I must warn ya'all right now, I got an ugly mug. My picture should be on the back of poison bottles to help induce yacking incase of accidental drinking. If you ate within the last week and want to keep yer meal, don't look at this mug shot

and remember no matter how bad your day is going, someone can be doing worse.
Bee happy with what ya got ! and safety first ALWAYS !! even while simple gardening !

Aaron

Is it as bad as having a hornet get stuck in your ear? Cause that really sucks....

 

[CluckNDoodle]

OK, I've got a bunch of tomatoes that have thick, tough skins... What would you do with them? Looking for ideas. They are small...not beefsteak or even medium but bigger than cherry tomatoes.

Blanch them, peel the skin off, and use them in any recipe that calls for diced tomatoes.

 

[CluckNDoodle]

What I did in the garden today? Walked up to it, shrugged, and walked away.

You sound like me! lol! We're about to go into overdrive to get things ready for fall but it sure doesn't feel like Fall outside yet, lol!

 

[CluckNDoodle]

Need to cut the weeds down around the beehives.
Note to self: Bees get VERY pissy on rainy days, you KNOW THIS AARON !!!

Do not work around bees without a veil, especially if it's a rainy day out !!

Was doing some weeding yesterday between rain showers. Weeds come out a lot easier when it's wet. Didn't want to go thru the hassles of suiting up. (My lazy ass COULD have just put a veil on w/o the suit, but that's another topic)

Naah, im not bothering them, it'll be fine.
Did I mention that bees get pissy in the rain?

Bam, got me in the eye. right on the eyelid. I got inside and put alcohol on it right away, and did not see a stinger in there so was ok. It only hurt for about 20 minutes afterwards, then was just a bit tender.

Fast forward to this morning. Wake up, my vision is blurry and my eyelids feel heavy, like I got sleep gluing it shut or something. That happens sometimes, you know how it goes. Umm no, although it does not hurt, my eye has swollen shut from the sting.
If you have bees, there is no such thing as a safe 'quick peek', or safe 'ill just hop in and hop out'... Veil up, ALWAYS, or risk this happening or even permanent blinding if they get you IN the eyeball

I must warn ya'all right now, I got an ugly mug. My picture should be on the back of poison bottles to help induce yacking incase of accidental drinking. If you ate within the last week and want to keep yer meal, don't look at this mug shot

and remember no matter how bad your day is going, someone can be doing worse.
Bee happy with what ya got ! and safety first ALWAYS !! even while simple gardening !

Aaron

Oh my gosh! I'm glad it doesn't hurt but YIKES! That sure looks uncomfortable! I'm glad it only got your eyelid and not your eye!

 

[TJAnonymous]

65 this morning AND NOW I HAVE TOMATOES I was happy/ grumpy when I saw them but tomato beggars can't be tomato choosers.
My loofa squash is definitely the happiest thing in my garden. It's just continually winding itself around the hoop and dropping more oblong gourds.

@Ascholten oh my! I hope that shrinks down for you at a good quick pace. My husband got stung on the ear last month and he looked like an mma fighter for a week(he's sensitive to stings) Can you even get baking soda paste on it? Rough spot for a sting. Maybe your cockatoo is sympathizing.

My loofah is definitely recovering from the heat & drought but still hasn't set any fruit. Don't think I'm going to get any usable loofah this year.

 

[TJAnonymous]

I’ve had a similar issue, dogs can be so weird like that. We have bull terrier/ pit bull mixes. When they were puppies I had an older dog, a silkie terrier, that would eat her food and then chase the bigger dogs off theirs so she could eat their share too. Me wee girl @ 15 lbs was respected as pack leader by the big boy @ 80 lbs, otherwise there would have been trouble. She had that attitude her whole life after spending her first year with big dogs, then coming to me as nothing more than skin and bones.

Yeah, my little dog is about 30 lbs... Less than half the weight of the bigger dog (70 lbs), but he has a Napoleon complex. He refuses to back down which is what is so concerning. He just gives her a look that sets her off.