What did you do in the garden today?

[CapricornFarm]

I am going to call this my starvation garden because i only get little tastes of this and that.Today i picked 2 cherry tomatoes and 2 pea pods.
And it is raining again. Poor tomato plants.

 

[igorsMistress]

I'm gardening vicariously today. Son is weed whacking, grandsons are putting rocks in the wheel barrow. I'm sitting at my desk @ work

 

[CapricornFarm]

I am really worried about Jen. Even sent her a message, but no reply. I hope she is not in hospital too.

 

[pennyJo1960]

that is my issue doing the garden in the tires there is three of us not enough being harvested for one person let alone three

 

[CapricornFarm]

that is my issue doing the garden in the tires there is three of us not enough being harvested for one person let alone three

I am just trying to get a balance between not enough garden and too much garden. In TN i had such a big garden and so much livestock i could not get the whole garden planted, let alone keep it weeded. I will have more beds next year. Maybe you need some raised beds too.

 

[ChocolateMouse]

Hopefully Jen just needed a day or two of sleep to recuperate.

It's lunch-time for me.
I just spent 2 hours pruning, staking and tying tomatoes. I'm now about 2/3rds done with the tomato patch. I have somewhere around 50 indeterminate tomato plants growing far too close together. Each one has a square foot to itself. They really need 2sqft each. They grew up so fast and thick that they became overgrown before I got around to pruning them. So much of the summer has been dedicated to weed control that I didn't put enough effort towards controlling the plants that I want there. As a result I have been pruning some REALLY big sucker branches, we're talking multiple feet tall some with blossoms or even tomatoes on them. It pains me every time I have to cut one of these beautiful branches. They might as well be a plant in and of themselves. But if I don't cut them off, tomatoes and all, I will probably end up getting NO tomatoes because the garden will become so overgrown that I can't harvest anything. That's what happened last year. I grew 30 tomato plants and got 3 jars of sauce. Pretty disheartening. So this year I will keep them pruned. Aggressively. At least the close proximity of all the plants is keeping the ground shaded enough that there are almost NO weeds in the tomatoes. I wanna say there's been about 10 weed plants in the whole patch. If I had some extra mulch to put down there would probably be none.

Later today I will be going out and working in my beehive. The bees built a whole other frame of comb in the last two weeks and I didn't even notice it happening. The asters haven't even bloomed yet, but something must be blooming somewhere because they are building FAST. I have to cut burr comb and straighten out some of the bars in the hive so they're a bit tighter. I also have to remove some clips from the original installation because we used clips to affix the comb from the langstroth nucleus into the warre top bars in my hive. Those clips have to come out now because they're taking up too much space in the hive.
Last time I did this much handling of the bees I got stung 3 times. Fingers crossed I don't get stung this time! Those suckers HURT!

 

[dunnmom]

So far, I picked okra, grape tomatoes, and picked more squash borer eggs off of my delicata plants which are in bloom, so I hope I win the battle. The ants are taking care of the aphids and other caterpillar eggs, but leave the cursed borer eggs alone. My bush green beans are starting to bloom, and I helped some of my pole beans get onto the twine trellis. My tomato plants aren't doing so well, I think the nitrogen in the garden bed is too high/hot this year. Explosive greenery at first, poor fruit set, and they are now yellowing, browning, and blighty-looking with some deformed fruit. I think I'll hold off on adding any more chicken poop to the soil until the end of next year. My mistake for not composting it before I put it in. Won't be doing that again. I'm still learning.

 

[dunnmom]

Hopefully Jen just needed a day or two of sleep to recuperate.

It's lunch-time for me.
I just spent 2 hours pruning, staking and tying tomatoes. I'm now about 2/3rds done with the tomato patch. I have somewhere around 50 indeterminate tomato plants growing far too close together. Each one has a square foot to itself. They really need 2sqft each. They grew up so fast and thick that they became overgrown before I got around to pruning them. So much of the summer has been dedicated to weed control that I didn't put enough effort towards controlling the plants that I want there. As a result I have been pruning some REALLY big sucker branches, we're talking multiple feet tall some with blossoms or even tomatoes on them. It pains me every time I have to cut one of these beautiful branches. They might as well be a plant in and of themselves. But if I don't cut them off, tomatoes and all, I will probably end up getting NO tomatoes because the garden will become so overgrown that I can't harvest anything. That's what happened last year. I grew 30 tomato plants and got 3 jars of sauce. Pretty disheartening. So this year I will keep them pruned. Aggressively. At least the close proximity of all the plants is keeping the ground shaded enough that there are almost NO weeds in the tomatoes. I wanna say there's been about 10 weed plants in the whole patch. If I had some extra mulch to put down there would probably be none.

Later today I will be going out and working in my beehive. The bees built a whole other frame of comb in the last two weeks and I didn't even notice it happening. The asters haven't even bloomed yet, but something must be blooming somewhere because they are building FAST. I have to cut burr comb and straighten out some of the bars in the hive so they're a bit tighter. I also have to remove some clips from the original installation because we used clips to affix the comb from the langstroth nucleus into the warre top bars in my hive. Those clips have to come out now because they're taking up too much space in the hive.
Last time I did this much handling of the bees I got stung 3 times. Fingers crossed I don't get stung this time! Those suckers HURT!

I may need to do the same with my tomatoes. They are way too crowded and compromising the plants around them. It will be sad to see all those flowers go.

 

[NorthTexasWink]

Too bad y'all can't root those sucker trims and plant them.

Almost got a henhouse now! Getting close. Harvested my first cantaloupe, few green beans, lots of okra and tomatoes. Cucumbers gave it a day off, but will be some ready tomorrow. Pullets loved the cantaloupe trimmings. And they got a cicada and made HE LOL as he watched them chase around with it, making that urgent chirp they make. Yup. He's gonna be a good chicken daddy.

 

[ChocolateMouse]

I could root them and plant them... But where would they go!? I spent the whole year digging tomatoes out from around my corn, squash, onions, peppers and melons. I gave away 30 tomato plants this year at LEAST. I still have another couple DOZEN in with my legumes and brassicas. I have nowhere to put the rest of these! I could have a tomato EMPIRE.... If only I had good soil and the space to put them in!