What did you do in the garden today?

[chickengr]

I need some dishes/recipes for cherry tomatoes! I have and will have lots. Gobs. A veritable plethora. They seem too sweet to use for sauce; so far they're just for snacking and salads.

I remember a tasty pasta dish when I lived in italy. sautéd whole tiny cherry tomatoes (in virgin olive oil) over pasta with parmesan cheese.

 

[pennyJo1960]

When I am at Costco I have a list, we get in house specials on meats.
Boneless pork or beef ribs 3.99 for 30 minutes. I bought 3 packs each.

 

[littledog]

Frankly, my concern is that something happens at the self-checkout that I am unaware of, and that I might be stopped as I leave the store and accused of wrongdoing. At least when they had checkout clerks at the counter, you could not be accused of not swiping the product(s). That would have been their mistake.

Same here, I've heard of this happening and there's no way to prove it's not your fault once you've left the checkout area. So for that reason I will never use the self-checkouts for regular shopping, only if I just have a couple things.

A while ago I bought a digital kitchen scale and got on a kick of weighing items to see if they actually weighed what the package claimed. Not surprisingly, a lot of things were underweight, some pretty severely - mostly snack foods, not so much butter or unprocessed things like that. The store got sick of me bringing things back, and after a while it got so they would just give me a credit no questions asked instead of weighing all the items. The store people were very sympathetic - after all, they are all working folks too, and do their shopping there with their employee discount.

So here's yet another way to get ripped off, besides scanned prices not mentioning shelf prices, and the all-too-common shrinking of the package while keeping the price the same, or even increasing it.

 

[WthrLady]

x 2

X3 still do. Habit of living in open country far from a market.

 

[Acre4Me]

So behind!! It’s been really busy lately, so not much time to read or post.

We are *shocker* still getting summer squash. The plants are on the way out-some are already dead and gone. But, looks like I’ll be able to do another double batch of zucchini cake for the freezer. For two cakes I shred 20 Cups of squash -macerate with sugar, drain out a few cups of liquid before adding to batter. It’s really good, and full of zucchini.

I’ve gotten a few melons. The Burpee Mango hybrid melon is a real producer of a tasty orange melon of decent size. It’s shaped like a football, is white/light while growing, but turns yellow when ripe with a smooth skin. First melon to ripen. So, I’d recommend purchasing the seeds.

The watermelons are lackluster. Not sure why there is limited production, and growth stalled, but I’ll try changing a few things next year.

Winter Squash looks great! Planted two butternut types. One cheese type. And one that is supposed to taste like a butternut, but it’s green, small, oval. That green one is “fairy” squash and is supposed to be early, prolific and sweet. Well, it started producing so late I thought it was a random wrong seed that had grown. There are only 4-5 growing, compared to 15-20 of one of the butternut types, so I wouldn’t call it early or prolific. Hopefully it tastes good.

The cheese type squash is Mrs.Amerson’s. It’s apparently an old variety without much info. But, it has been productive and the squash are bell shaped and of a reasonable size. Apparently smooth flesh and stores really well.

Sold 17 chickens plus 5 chicks. We put the rooster in with the main flock. We are expecting chicks sometime this month, hopefully they arrive in good shape.

 

[ibeheather89]

My son combed through my cucumbers and tomatoes last night. I had 5 huge cucumbers and his grandma came over to nab my oldest for school shopping, so she ended up some of them She had gotten a whole 4 qt box of cherry tomatoes and beef steak tomatoes and a ton of my homemade soap

Today I was cleaning up my front yard a bit figuring what died during the heatwaves these last few weeks. Got some weird looks from my neighbors that were headed to work because I was doing this during twilight/ 6:30am because its gonna be hot again.

Then i headed over to my sister's farm to house sit for the next few days and im beyond thrilled. Shes got goats and more silkies.

 

[Smokerbill]

I got a lot done in the garden before the sun came up. I picked all the green beans that were ready. Not many, but enough for mess. And there will be yellow wax beans ready to pick in a couple of days.

Picked a couple leaf lettuces and a big turnip. Plus my first almost-ripe tomatoes of the year!!!

After I washed and refrigerated everything I picked (except the tomatoes) I watered the garden really well. Supposed to hit 99 degrees today. I need to pick a couple of squash I noticed ready after the garden dries out.

 

[TJAnonymous]

We got more rain overnight. Looks like this is going to be an incredibly wet August on top of a wet July. Not that I'm complaining.... I LOVE that the grass isn't dead & crunchy... But it does make me worry about whether the weather patterns simply shifted and if the fall will be wet too (like normal) or dry (July/Aug weather delayed).

Either way I won't look a gift horse in the mouth. Thank you Lord for the wet blessings!

 

[jerryse]

My view from the deck. Pic 1 parents old cabin, pic 2 cucumber bucket garden, pic 3 tomato getting lighter green and another view of the lake.

 

[Birdsonghill]

I have harvested about 20 lbs. of shitake mushrooms in the past two months, several pounds yesterday! Have been cooking them into everything and dehydrating them. I smoked about 20 lbs. of Jalapenos this past week, turning them into chipotles. I will be making adobo sauce and canning some this week. I am canning candied jalapenos this week and smoking Tennessee cheese peppers turning them into smoked paprika of my favorite paprika/pimento pepper. They are sweet, tasting mildly of pimento cheese and smell the same. The distinct but mild cheese aroma and complex sweetness and tangy taste combine to make a great paprika and frying pepper as well. My bell peppers and indeed all my peppers are having a great season! The watermelons, Ananas melons, Seminole pumpkins and corn have been invaded by the deer who tore down my aging deer netting and destroyed most of the remaining crop. They got most of the corn the first night and I have only managed to save enough for seed supply and a bit more. I am still eating last years corn as corn bread and have a good supply left of that crop.