What did you do in the garden today?

[Wee Farmer Sarah]

Good morning gardeners. Another cool morning. It's sooo nice! Got a small harvest this morning of cherry tomatoes and one nearly ripe Longkeeper. And surprise, I got a nice heaping vegetable side dish of bush beans. The Roma tomatoes are not looking all that great. I may have to buy tomatoes to can this year. The good news is that the cukes are starting to bloom again so I just may get more to make pickles. Your tomatillo looks amazing @karenerwin and yes I do see the praying mantis. Do the row covers protect from the evil cabbage flies @littledog? What type of fabric do you use? And it was likely @Acre4Me that mentioned cover crops. She is very wise about soil health and a very good gardener. I'm sorry about your scorpion plague @AllenK RGV . My "fondest" memories of Texas at Air Force tech school at Sheppard AFB are playing with the tarantulas in the quad (they are very social) and the skunks in the morning as we marched from the dorms to the chow hall. Honestly, to this day I don't mind skunks as long as they keep their tails down, LOL! Your photos are stunning as always @TropicalBabies. Thank you. Not too much on the agenda today, just enjoying some relaxation time. Have a great day everyone.

 

[WthrLady]

View attachment 2292039View attachment 2292043Saw both of these spiders on one of the chicken coops last night when I went out to lock up. Anybody know what kind they are? I left them alone to do their spider thing. I’m wondering if they are wolf spiders but I remember wolf spiders being hairier.
I plan to catch up on this thread tomorrow after work!!

Fishing Spider...harmless

 

[Acre4Me]

My "fondest" memories of Texas at Air Force tech school at Sheppard AFB are playing with the tarantulas in the quad (they are very social)

...

Social tarantulas....

there are no good mental images there.

My oldest remembers during BEAST week during BMT (in TX) scorpions fighting it out under the light while on guard duty at night. Couldn't leave post, so just had to watch. Never mentioned tarantulas, but I guess fighting scorpions was more spectacular!

 

[Wee Farmer Sarah]

Scorpions bite! Tarantulas only bite if they are frightened or threatened. Just like any animal. Tarantulas have teeth I believe, but if they do bite, only those who may be allergic to their saliva will have a reaction. Not very common.

 

[Acre4Me]

Scorpions bite! Tarantulas only bite if they are frightened or threatened. Just like any animal. Tarantulas have teeth I believe, but if they do bite, only those who may be allergic to their saliva will have a reaction. Not very common.

Yeah - neither scorpions or tarantulas sound appealing.

 

[Acre4Me]

We grew 4 kinds of musk melons.

1. "Athena" - one plant produced 3 melons, all typical orange type, tasty, decent size. Here are the 3 melons. This was an all-at-once melon plant. No more melons started and once the third one was ripe, the plant essentially died.

2. "Sugar Salmon" - Still a favorite!!! YUM and its fragrant! A bit smaller than the Athena, but really good. Two plants have produced 3 melons that are picked and a fourth is now developing.

3. "Greely Wonder" - Pretty large, but not yet ripe. Two plants have produced 2 melons.
This pic shows the "Greely Wonder" in the middle. The other two are the "Sugar Salmon". The "Greely Wonder" is even bigger today!

4. "Green Nutmeg" - smaller size, half is a perfect one person serving. It is a green fleshed melon. We had the first one this morning - it was really tasty. Somewhat fragrant, but not highly fragrant. One plant has produced 2 ripe melons and approx 6 more in various stages of development! Here is the "Green Nutmeg". As you can tell from the spoon, this is just a regular sized Corelle bowl.

So, the melons have been pleasing! So nice to eat freshly picked melon! Of course, I've had my fair share of very delicious farm stand melons also picked very ripe. If you don't have the space, go for good farmstead purchase. If you do have the space, try growing a melon! All the above were started by direct seed in the ground in hills, with the exception of the "Athena" melon - I purchased one plant at a garden center and planted it in a hill.

 

[pennyJo1960]

Morning might look at tomatillas today but headed to clean coops it is 78 outside just now

 

[Sueby]

Happy Sunday all, just checking in quick, will catch up in a bit. You guys were chatty!

We went to Vermont yesterday to wheel, it was a great day. Nice & cool. Got a lot done in the garden today & it's actually raining a bit! Not a good soaking like we need, but a good add to the watering I did this am. I tied up tomatoes, pinched the tops back as they are almost 9 feet tall & I can barely reach them. I added a 2nd soaker hose so I don't have to water by hand anymore. I planted lettuce & covered it with a shade cloth, gosh I hope it grows.

OMG, I got so grossed out by the squash bugs the other day, I went to pick a couple canning tomatoes & like 20 of them scattered off the tomatoes! Ugh, I've treated with neem & insecticide 4 or 5 times now & they are still everywhere! I picked a squash and saw a million & lost my mind & busted out the Sevin. I have never used it in my garden before, I am very much not a fan, but I was so disgusted I caved, nothing 'organic' is helping, I've lost all control. LMAO.

I just made 2 more squash lasagnas & I'm debating a nap or baking some bread. Hmmm....

Have a great day all!

 

[pennyJo1960]

Just took a 3 gallon of crushed ice to my 2 big girl coops poured it to let them have at it

 

[NewBoots]

Im getting a bit concerned about my leeks. They don't seemed to be growing wider anymore. They look more like overgrown scallions.

Mine look more like short corn stalks. I think I'm doing it wrong . For some of these vegetables I need some pictures so I know what it should look like growing and when it's ready to harvest.

I harvested and ate many peaches.

The year before my dad's peach tree gave up the ghost, it produced an insane amount of fruit, nearly more than I could deal with but not quite. That year we had all the fresh peaches and peach pies we wanted. So good!

Had to share- a gnat munching cutie in the horses bag of starfruit.

What a cutie! And thank you so much for the beautiful pictures as always.

While picking Cayenne peppers I noticed 2 of them were really fat, one was partially rotted one was nice and ripe... when I went too pick them I noticed they were on the Jalapeño plant. I finally got red Jalapeños!

I so envy your success with your peppers. I am terrible at growing peppers but I'm going to keep at it. I want some home made pickled peppers if nothing else.

Can you see the praying mantis on the underside of the tomatillo?!!

Love them! We should start seeing them in the yard soon, they appeared last year around the end of August.

Bucket of cherry tomatoes. There are over 60 of them in this bucket! And there is another cucumber buried at the bottom.

We got our dehydrator the other day so now I'm set for drying the cherry tomatoes and I can't wait!

We had our hot day yesterday in the high 80's but it cooled off nicely in the evening. I know that's nothing for a lot of you folks, but we're mostly in the high 60's to low 70's so it counted as hot for us.

Yesterday was zucchini day, we had fritters for lunch and boats for dinner with plenty leftovers and no need to cook today. The zucchini chips are still in the dehydrator, tasty, but it takes a long time to get them to the crispy stage so fritters and boats will be our go to ways to use them up.

Watering is done and critters are seen to and I'm ready for tea, moving sprinklers, as needed and doing laundry.