What did you do in the garden today?

[BReeder!]

toss some 10-10-10 on it if you have it and get those roots going. Can use it every 3 weeks with regular watering

I have 20-20-20. I use it half strength and assume it equates to 10-10-10. Hope that's how it works.

I also dumped a 5 gallon bucket full of compost in the hole below the tree. Hoping it provide some drainage, moisture retention and nutrients.

 

[MrLeeHo]

Still away from the garden, but we did take a bunch of our goodies with us. Fried up a batch of zucchini, okra, and jalapeño poppers while at the beach today. All was delish!

 

[WthrLady]

Brought in 20 pound of tomatoes this morning, one ear of glass corn the grasshoppers were starting on, and a quart of green beans.

I'll let the tomatoes mellow a day or two before processing into simmered sauce.

Maybe will make grape jelly for DS this weekend.

 

[pennyJo1960]

I did manage to get close to 8 tomatillos

 

[chickengr]

Good morning gardeners. Not much going on in the garden right now. I did pick a few more green beans, one cherry tomato and a jalapeno this morning. My radishes are already putting out their secondary leaves and the carrots are most definitely coming up. I made some progress on the rooster pen yesterday. I found some shorter screws that I needed to properly hang the clean out door. I hung a shade cloth sandwiched between lattice and the 1/2 HC between the side of his coop and the door. That is facing west and get's way too much afternoon sun. I'm debating whether or not to mow the grass today. The weather is still comfortable and rain is moving in tonight, however, we are heading back into more summerlike temperatures on Friday and Saturday. I will be going to the hardware store in a little while. Apparently one of my garden gnomes hid my cultivator. I've looked everywhere for it and it seems to have disappeared. I guess it's also time to break down and buy a garden hoe as well. The cultivator came with the house as did several rakes, some of those apparently toddled off on their tines. I don't have a lot of time to spend online @BReeder! but I'm sure your thread will be popular. I have enough trouble trying to squeeze in time for this thread. I would like to make one comment about canning pickles for the first time. A common mistake when pickling your first batch or two is using the wrong salt. I believe this makes a difference in refrigerator pickles as well. It's easy enough to grab the old box of table salt when reading through the ingredient list. Regular table salt, especially the iodized type will mess with the flavor of your pickles. Always use pickling salt. Although the salting step is not usually mentioned in making refrigerator pickles, I learned through trial and error that salting the vegetables you are going to pickle to remove excess water will result in a better quality pickle. You can always go to the Ball website - Healthy canning. https://www.healthycanning.com Have a great day everyone!

it is very true that salt can mess up pickling. unfortunatelly I have never seen pickling salt here. I simply check if salt is "salty" or not.

 

[NewBoots]

I ate all the blueberries.

Me too, I only saved enough for one batch of blueberry pancakes!

I built a gated area around DP's pergola to keep the ladies from perching, pooping, and digging under it. They have lots of places to lounge in the yard, they don't need this one. It was good practice, now I have a better idea about how I'll build the meat chicken enclosure.

I cut back most of the yarrow in the raised beds, all the snapdragons (gone to rust), and the spent borage. I still need to cut back the comfrey and some of the monarda. The internet tells me that cutting off the highest growing tips of my indeterminant tomatoes is the right thing to do so I topped as many as I could find. We've eaten a few of the early girls but this one was so pretty I had to take it's picture:

It's misting a bit outside now, not enough to really water anything but the moisture is still very welcome.

The experiment with potted summer squash, cucumbers, and delicata squash was pretty much a fail. Of all the potted tomatoes, the ones doing the best are the ones in the cloth bags. That's true for both the determinants and the indeterminants. Maybe the squash would do better in the cloth bags as well. The cloth bags might be self cooling by exhaling water but the solid black plastic pots are getting too hot. I will try cloth bags for squash next year and see. There's also a low raised bed that was fallow this year and I'll put the squash in them too.

 

[chickengr]

Today, I pruned back all the tomato plants so they are not hanging down three feet from the raised garden all around. I finally cleaned out the corn stalks- was gonna do that earlier and got sidetracked. Turned the soil- will plant bush beans on the 8th- new moon.

I gave up moon calendar for planting. companion planting as well except a few things like beans and onion/garlic. I followed moon calendar and companion planting and had a poor garden. my mother planted whatever and whenever she felt like and has always had better results than me.

 

[BReeder!]

it is very true that salt can mess up pickling. unfortunatelly I have never seen pickling salt here. I simply check if salt is "salty" or not.

Have you checked Walmart? Also, stores that sell canning supplies sometimes having canning/pickling salt near the canning supplies. TSC should carry it. Even Menards should have it near canning supplies. At Meijer near me they sell it in the same aisle as table salt.

 

[chickengr]

I took DS to the dentist this afternoon and we stopped at Lowes on the way home to see if they still had any apple or pear trees. The had one apple tree. It was a Granny Smith, which I like. It was in poor shape though. I took the risk anyway figuring I could return it within a year if it dies. At the register, the cashier gave me half off because it looked like it was dying. Ended up paying $20 for it. I'm hopeful because there's some new growth that looks healthy. We planted it right away when we got home. I had to stake it because it is a bit wobbly right now.

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prune it heavily and it will survive. I saved many trees by pruning. if you leave it like this it has low chances to survive.

 

[oldhen2345]

I gave up moon calendar for planting. companion planting as well except a few things like beans and onion/garlic. I followed moon calendar and companion planting and had a poor garden. my mother planted whatever and whenever she felt like and has always had better results than me.

I am just trying it out- usually just do whatever whenever. Thought I would do something different- will see how it goes