What did you do in the garden today?

[karenerwin]

We’ve been having a lot of rain and are supposed to be getting even more the next few days.

Yesterday I cooked up the few multi colored carrots that I grew this year. The one purple carrot was white inside but had a purple bullseye! And it turned the water purple
The carrots pretty much tasted like normal carrots but I had a hard time getting used to the colors.
I picked a bunch of tomatoes at the church garden but had to cook them down into sauce because they were all split from so much rain. They were nice big slicing maters too.

One of the pumpkins at the Farm garden is starting to turn color!
Yesterday while watching my grandson, he was playing with the kid next door, I cut up a trailer load of branches and limbs from the tree work that my daughter had done. Today I put them through the chipper. Worked on it for 6 hours and got almost all of it done but ran out of daylight.
She still has probably another 4 trailer loads of limbs and branches at her house still.
We are going to take the bags of wood chips to the church garden and put them on top of cardboard on the paths between the raised beds to help with weed control. I got 5 big contractors black trash bags full from what I chipped today.
Lol. The rain just started again. I’m heading to bed.
Anybody have any good yellow squash recipes?
Oh, and whoever was looking for cherry tomato recipes, I love the cherry tomato & corn salsa. I think the recipe is in the Ball canning book.

 

[saysfaa]

...
Anybody have any good yellow squash recipes?
...

We like them the same way we eat most of our zucchini - small ones sliced in half lengthwise once or once plus slicing the fat end off if they are the variety that gets thicker on one end even when small, laid in the cast iron frying pan on top of a few drops of avocado oil (or touch of butter), sprinkled with black pepper. Cover the pan and eat when as soft as you like them.

We used to put Mrs Dash Table Blend on them but after two years of eating them this way, we discovered we now like them anyway. Sometimes we put the Mrs Dash on anyway.

"Small" means less than five or six inches long... or about as big as they get with the blossom still attached. Size is less important than being before the seeds start to develop.

 

[saysfaa]

Yesterday, I had opportunity to weed the tomato patch. I planned to get the grass out. Plans changed because the garden was still soaked from rain. That made the grass break above the roots instead of most of the roots pulling out. It also made the hoary allium much, much, much easier to pull than it is when dry.

So I pulled the hoary allium for a couple of hours until the garden dried enough to make the grass easier to pull than the allium. I got about a quarter of it, maybe, but in a nice strip along one side, the far end, and part way up the other side. Then I pulled grass for a couple of hours.

I finished the grass from under the plants, both ends of the patch, and all the lengths except one. Out far enough to walk easily beyond the width of the plants.

I'm considering trading with my sister - a few hours of my hoeing her garden for a couple of passes with her rototiller around the outside of my patch. I'll see how far I get in the next session - next Sunday or Monday (probably).

Picture is from after the previous session.

The first two ripe tomatoes can be seen. The first two eggplant fruits can't be seen.

My tomato patch has four eggplants and four potato plants, and the marigolds of course, because there was room for them here and was not room for them in the home garden.

 

[Sueby]

Over the seasons we have grown many types of tomatoes, Red, green, pink, purple.
Most were Open pollenated some Hybrids. We always have room for the Old Heirloom Brandywine. It is dark pink & sooo delicious for everything. This is what you are dreaming about in the winter when the store has red bags of tasteless water.


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Brandywine are the only tomatoes I grow - the only ones I will eat. I just don't like any others. I do grow sungolds for DH.

This is my third time trying Brandywine. I have yet to get a decent tomato. Small and corky is all I've gotten. I'm giving them one last chance to impress me.

Ditto with Cherokee Purple.

They can be persnickety for sure! Some years they just don't do as well because of the humidity & some years they get really bad catfacing if it's cold. I use Dr. Earth tomato fertilizer on them & usually get a very good harvest. I try & pick them just as they blush because they are so finicky & have a bit of catface most of the time - I've had little fruit flies get them if they stay on the vine too long.

I use 9% vinegar.

I don't think I've ever seen it here!

Anybody have any good yellow squash recipes?
Oh, and whoever was looking for cherry tomato recipes, I love the cherry tomato & corn salsa. I think the recipe is in the Ball canning book.

Ohh, good call on the tomato corn salsa! That stuff is really good! & for squash I love it as zoodles - we had them for dinner last night with Mahi Mahi as a matter of fact. I zoodled them, then threw them in a cast iron pan on the grill with olive oil & garlic & just tossed them for a couple mins as we like them with a little crunch. I also make a lot of zucchini boats with my yellow squash, stuffed with ricotta, meat sauce & topped with cheese & baked. In the dehydrator to make chips is a good one too. I will also use in place of lasagna noodles, but you need to salt & let them sit before using or you have lasagna soup, lol.

Morning all. The really bad weather we were supposed to have missed us so I have to go water. My broody finally broke - 6 days it took! I feel bad for her & wish I could have given her some eggs or chicks.

I'm starting to think about making some blubarb jam. I still have a lot of rhubarb left. Checked with my local farm on the status of jalapenos for cowboy candy, he said a couple more weeks.

 

[Farmer13]

Brandywine are the only tomatoes I grow - the only ones I will eat. I just don't like any others.

US 2 LOL.

 

[Sally PB]

My tomato patch has four eggplants and four potato plants, and the marigolds of course, because there was room for them here and was not room for them in the home garden.

Before I had marigolds in my tomato patch, I had trouble with soldier beetles. Once I put a few marigold plants in, no soldier beetles.

Last year, the Japanese Beetles loved my marigolds. I got a lot in my JB hunts that way. This year, only a few.

 

[WthrLady]

The cucumber plant FINALLY cooperated and gave me enough cucumbers the same size at the same time to make pickles for the State Fair. So at 730 this morning, that's what I was doing, stinking the house up with fresh dill, basil, pepper, vinegar, mustard and garlic. LOL
The June bugs, Japanese Beetles, and hornworms are almost non-existent this year. One good thing about the extraordinary drought, shriveled their useless larval butts up in the ground.
Two days until fair entry deadline and I'm going to see what else I can crank out.
No catawba jelly this year. Very few grapes and they are just now ripening.

 

[Smokerbill]

I just finished putting up a small trellis for my second try at growing cucumbers this year. The deer ate my first attempt.

It's nothing special. Just a section of old 6x6 re-mesh, used for reinforcing concrete pads when pouring. I stuck the cut off ends of wire into the dirt next to the cuke plants and tied the top to the frame of my raised bed enclosure. It'll be easy to take down when the cucumbers are done for the season.

I would have taken a picture but it was raining when I put it up. Didn't want to get my camera wet.

I see more little butternut squash forming on some more of the butterbush plants. They're small and haven't bloomed yet.

 

[karenerwin]

I picked almost 13 pounds of these little apples on Thursday. They were growing on a tree by the college extension site and there were probably this many on the ground so I stopped and helped myself. There wasn’t anyone around to ask about them. Today’s project is to make apple pie jam and to can up some apples for my niece’s family and to hopefully get some cherry tomato & corn salsa made.
We are supposed to get more rain again today ( after having rained all night).

 

[Smokerbill]

Cuke trellis and baby butternuts...



And this is how I'm training my indeterminate tomatoes up ropes this year. As the vines grow and set fruit, I prune off the leaves and suckers. Doing this supposedly encourages the top to continue growing and setting on more clusters of fruit. Seems to be working, and it will be super easy to harvest the ripe tomatoes when it's time.



And just for the heck of it, this morning's eggs so far. Each box has one large ceramic egg in it.