What did you do in the garden today?

[Smokerbill]

Bitterness is a good thing for your health.

Dietary phytonutrients found in vegetables and fruit appear to lower the risk of cancer and cardiovascular disease. Studies on the mechanisms of chemoprotection have focused on the biological activity of plant-based phenols and polyphenols, flavonoids, isoflavones, terpenes, and glucosinolates. Enhancing the phytonutrient content of plant foods through selective breeding or genetic improvement is a potent dietary option for disease prevention. However, most, if not all, of these bioactive compounds are bitter, acrid, or astringent and therefore aversive to the consumer.

https://academic.oup.com/ajcn/article/72/6/1424/4729430

 

[jerryse]

My posts today show that I think outside the box and for myself. I do my own research. I have a few volunteer squash I left alone for a control group. I found one wilted today and pulled it to dissect it. Found 2 SVB in it. No SVB in my other squash but I monitor them and inject BT. SVB are active now.

 

[Smokerbill]

It's nice and cool and cloudy here, so a good day to work in the garden. First I picked a nice turnip and cooked up some greens, picked a big leaf lettuce which is cleaned and in the fridge, and my first little handful of green beans! I'm eating well today! But my chickens gave me only 2 eggs so far, so I'll have to add a couple store bought eggs to my omelet I guess.

I pruned and tied all my tomato plants and trimmed a few big butternut squash leaves that were shading the new bean plants next to it. Then I thinned out my new leaf lettuce patch and transplanted those to a new location, near some summer squash I recently planted. I'm going to be eating a lot of lettuce if it all grows.

Did a little watering, then figured that was enough work for the day. There's a ton more I could do, but there's always tomorrow...

 

[Wee Farmer Sarah]

Picked another half pound of green beans, the last of the lettuce, some kale and some mustard greens this morning. The cherry tomatoes are growing and making little tomatoes really well. The Sweet 100’s in the nightshade garden have a branch turning that yellowish color before they turn red. The Lima bean plants are loaded with blossoms and it looks like one or two butternut squash were actually pollinated. One definitely. I set up a camera to catch any visitors to the corn patch. I need to get as much mowing and trimming done as I can before I put the bird netting around the corn. I mowed the front yard this afternoon and will work on the weed whacking there tomorrow morning. The backyard is still too soggy to mow so I will use the weed whacker to at least trim it up where possible. It’s warm today but the humidity is mot in the tropical range. Actually a pretty nice day.

 

[WthrLady]

Just what I grew up learning. I also learned to remove the skins, but also due to them curling and not blending with sauces, getting stuck in teeth, harder to digest.
Never made much sense to me as you eat raw skin in salads and on burgers etc.
But we all do it our own way, and it all works.

 

[Sally PB]

I peel tomatoes for canning. DH hates rolled up bits of skin in sauce. For salsa, they go into the food processor with the skin on. The food processor takes care of the skin to his satisfaction.

 

[Sally PB]

I pulled (7) 5-gallon buckets worth of weeds today. Lots of crabgrass and purslane. I really needed to get that stuff out of there! Funny, just last week, there didn't seem to be hardly any weeds in that spot...

Now that the drought is over, I have to contend with weeds. I will gladly make that trade!

 

[Sequel]

It's nice and cool and cloudy here, so a good day to work in the garden. First I picked a nice turnip and cooked up some greens, picked a big leaf lettuce which is cleaned and in the fridge, and my first little handful of green beans! I'm eating well today! But my chickens gave me only 2 eggs so far, so I'll have to add a couple store bought eggs to my omelet I guess.

I pruned and tied all my tomato plants and trimmed a few big butternut squash leaves that were shading the new bean plants next to it. Then I thinned out my new leaf lettuce patch and transplanted those to a new location, near some summer squash I recently planted. I'm going to be eating a lot of lettuce if it all grows.

Did a little watering, then figured that was enough work for the day. There's a ton more I could do, but there's always tomorrow...

Did you eat your turnip raw or did you cook it?

 

[fuzzi]

When I got home from work I decided to do a little trimming with my cordless hedge trimmers. I was cutting back the coreopsis near the bird feeders when I noticed that there were ripe figs on the ground under the fig tree...I'd not noticed they were ready! Most years the raccoons get them all. I picked both ripe and overripe figs.

I got a few good ones:

The overripe figs had beetles all over them. I fed the beetles and a few figs to the flock.

Hannah's checking out a beetle:

The German Johnson tomatoes are all ripening at the same time. Here's my harvest from this afternoon:

There were 15-20 really ripe tomatoes sitting on the table, all from the past weekend, so I put them in a bag and went door-to-door on our street. Everyone was appreciative of the produce, and I didn't have to bring any back with me.

 

[TJAnonymous]

That's why I love my raw mill. It skins, cores, and seeds the beasts without steaming and cutting and bleh......
Shove them through, and can the juice or simmer it down and thicken it to can. Done.

What brand do you have?