What did you do in the garden today?

[Minanora]

I make salsa Verde with my tomatillos. Is that what you mean by hot sauce? Mine isn't very hot though.... But we love it! First year making it.

I've made plenty of salsa Verde. This hot sauce is blended, and I fire roasted jalapenos, ancho chilis, onions and garlic to add to it. This particular project is...hot. My DH won't eat it. Lol.

This time around I used an immersion blender that I borrowed from my best friends. They have a Bamix. I don't like it. So I've decided to get the vitamix version. Despite the rubber coated bell. I tried the Oster, and the Cuisinart. I am sorry but they just don't have enough umph for me. I'm trying to get the same quality of blend as my traditional Vitamix blender without burning myself so much and making such a mess.


Garlic is sprouting! Seems like all of my peas we planted rotted so I planted more. DS and i planted carrots today as well.

We mowed, and I overseeded the lawn today. I also broke down my compost pile and chewed it up with the lawn mower. Then I rebuilt the pile with the chippings. I can tell that this will help it compost much faster. I knew that already though. I never watered the original pile either... this time I watered it. I had known to water it, I just hadn't.

Discovered that one of my pH meters was dead. Tested the soil... looked at the reading and knew outright that it was wrong. Tested with a second probe, then did a water activated test and verified. 8.2... yeah no... 6.8ish. Yay!

Tomorrow I'll seed new cabbage, cilantro, lettuce, broccoli and onions.

 

[Acre4Me]

Planted 2 of 3 garlic varieties. Hopefully variety 3 goes in tomorrow.

Before the freeze I picked about 200+ end of season, fully ripe peppers. Finally washed and then broiled them to blister the skin on the Anaheim peppers. Peeled and seeded over 150 peppers I guess. Tonight I pressure canned them. 13 half pint jars. One canning book indicated adding some salt and a little vinegar to the jar when canning peppers, the other two books did not (just add boiling water). Spouse thought the salt and vinegar add would be good, so that’s what I did.

 

[akroberts1085]

Today I dug out all of the sweet potatoes. I took them to the daughter in law when I took the youngest granddaughter home.

 

[Sally PB]

Last year I cured my sweet potatoes by wrapping them up in my electric blanket, spread out on the table. This year, I ignored the plants (which I planted waaaay too late) because I was sure there would be nothing there. Eventually, frost killed them.

Imagine my surprise when I pulled the vines and there were several (9) BIG sweet potatoes! Well, the electric blanket is on the bed and I'm not curing the potatoes with it.

I'm not sure I can get any place the requisite 85-90 degrees with high humidity. So, my question is, does anyone have a use for UNCURED sweet potatoes? Can they be used like regular potatoes, to which they are not related?

 

[jerryse]

Soaked some dry beans overnight for ham and beans and cornbread. Watched a video on how to make them less gassy. Soak rinse and pressure cook in the instapot. Someone in the comments said put a radish in them. We will see if it helps.

 

[cj2024]

I came across this on yt. Has anyone used baking soda / bicarbonate soda in the garden? I'm keen to do a test patch this summer.

I tried it, but I prefer to use milk.

 

[Acre4Me]

Last year I cured my sweet potatoes by wrapping them up in my electric blanket, spread out on the table. This year, I ignored the plants (which I planted waaaay too late) because I was sure there would be nothing there. Eventually, frost killed them.

Imagine my surprise when I pulled the vines and there were several (9) BIG sweet potatoes! Well, the electric blanket is on the bed and I'm not curing the potatoes with it.

I'm not sure I can get any place the requisite 85-90 degrees with high humidity. So, my question is, does anyone have a use for UNCURED sweet potatoes? Can they be used like regular potatoes, to which they are not related?

Yes. I think they are just not as sweet. You can cure lower temp (75-80 for example) just a little longer. Do you have a heat pad? Lightbulbs give off heat, turn a tote over with light inside or some such contraption.

 

[cj2024]

Discovered that one of my pH meters was dead. Tested the soil... looked at the reading and knew outright that it was wrong. Tested with a second probe, then did a water activated test and verified. 8.2... yeah no... 6.8ish. Yay!

Are you using the garden ones that stick in the ground with PH, Light, Moisture, and Fertilizer? When I got mine, I did not read the instructions and used it to test my hydroponic ph and the ph reading did not work after that. The instruction says not to stick or wash the probe in water and not to leave it in the soil.

 

[Smokerbill]

Such a great plant to have! I love the flat leaf parsley. It grows so well alongside everything .. mine has self-seeded between the raised beds. I love adding the mature leaf to my cups of tea.

I'll need to start using it more. It came up volunteer for me this spring too, in the path between beds. It made it impassible eventually.

Here are the raised beds, all prepped for the winter. I gave them a fresh dusting of chicken poop to feed the fungus, microbes and bugs in the soil. The big parsley is looking good in the corner.

I'll clear the leaf mulch from one end of one of the beds soon and plant onion and shallot seeds in hopes they'll sprout and grow a little over the winter. I grew one bag full of 90 onion sets this spring, and with all the salsa, relish and pickles I made that wasn't nearly enough. I'm thinking I'll need closer to 150 or 200 yellow onions for next year.

The narrow bed with the potato planter still has carrots, kale and collards trying to grow. I still haven't decided their fate. I might just pull them out and prep that bed for next year too.

I'm leaving the big bed as-is over the winter, next year's tomato bed. It'll be good to get all those stinkin' herbs moved out next spring and into a new location. Garlic is on the west side of the tomato bed.

 

[chickengr]

This video recipe took a little effort, but I really liked it.

thank you!