What did you do in the garden today?

[Sally PB]

And we are finally going to be done with our drought that has lasted for years! What's a good thing you are focusing on in your garden?

There are grapes on my vines for the first time! It's their 3rd season.

Don't waste good honey on cooked jam cuz honey will lose its health benefits when heated. Just bite the bullet & use cane or beet white sugar to sweeten jam. My Mom used to make her apricot jam w/a lot less sugar than the recipe so we could taste the fruit more than overly sweet sugar taste. JMHO.

Yes, thank you. The reason to use the honey in the jam is so that I can use my berries and my sweetener. I did know that it'll lose the health benefits.

As for the sugar in jam? The rhubarb jam recipe I started with had an INSANE amount of sugar. The batch I made a couple months ago was 12 cups of rhubarb and 2 1/2 cups of sugar. Not the 5 or 6 (!) I think the original recipe had.

 

[Sally PB]

Re: canning lids. I bought some from here, and have had good luck with them. A few FTS canning tomatoes, but 3-4 out of 200+ is not out of line, to me. A tomato seed can get under the rim, there could be flaw in my (old) jar, or unevenness in the sealing compound.

I will not buy Anchor brand again from the hardware store again. Those have been about 25% FTS.

 

[Molpet]

No, this one was still alive when I found it, and it peed itself so now the garden box smells. Luckily we have lots of rain in the forecast, and the netting survived well enough to continue doing its job without me having to handle it, but it would be nice if the little menaces just stayed out of my garden. I’m not even putting out bird food ATM! They just seem to like digging in the dirt.

I use live chipmunks in a repeating rat trap to catch mink and weasels.

 

[5.3acredream]

Had to make pickles last night. I pulled something like 15 cucumbers off of my SINGLE cucumber plant. I am shocked by this varieties non-bitterness. Considering the environmental stresses, I thought for sure I'd be tossing bitter cucumbers left and right. Filled a gallon jar with them and set them up for some kosher dills.

I have a crazy amount of green bell peppers growing. First year I have felt like it was worth it to grow them since I'm getting 5-9 per plant right now.

Tomatillos are slowly getting harvested. My tomatoes are slow to ripen but plentiful. We had a chilly spring and an explosion into hot summer so I guess I need patience. Only time will tell how my grafted varieties do but I'll be watching the disease resistance.

Second crop of raspberries is coming in heavy. I have an extremely dedicated batch of bees working the flowers. It's like having an airport in my garden. I love it.

Found a bunch of saw fly larvae on my one rose. Plucked those off and the chickens had a field day. Such joy. This is the only one I planted this year that hasn't officially flowered yet. She has a bud that looks gorgeous so far though. I'm happy as long as she's been busy putting roots down. My other roses needed casual pruning but besides some powdery mildew on my Moonlight in Paris (good thing she's a show-stopper with a peach fragrance of joy), everyone is getting through the heat and humidity relatively easily.

Still struggling to get the garden pathways cleared. My son was tasked by his dad with clearing weeds instead of laying in bed all day during his summer break but he still feels like 20 minutes of work is excruciating labor and discomfort so I don't have much hope there. Jokes on him since he doesn't get his electronics until chores are completed. Muhahaha!

I have poison ivy re-growing amid my flower garden, which is awkward since I'm terribly allergic now. I have to ask hubby to pull it for me otherwise I'm in a whole body ooze experience.

Late planted green beans are coming in nicely. It strikes me how I've clearly been planting them too early since they pretty much leapt out of the ground from the heat.

And finally, we said goodbye to our silkie rooster and strongly suspected frizzle rooster (they sparred frequently). We gave them to my husband's co-worker's grandkids who really get a kick out of them. Unfortunately, we are not allowed roosters in our area. I have a hen who is making a racket like a strangled rooster but she is clearly a hen with her polish plume. I'm thinking of making the run into a semi-compost. I'll let the girls turn everything over and scoop it out in the late fall to overwinter. Not sure how it will work but most things are a grand experiment over here.

 

[Rick589]

I literally set off a rat trap on accident in flip flops half an hour ago.... looking for tomato hornworms. Bahahaha! I scared the sobriety into myself when I heard that trap go off.

I assume the trap missed you.

 

[Rick589]

Muhahaha!

 

[chicken opey]

I tied up my beefsteak tomatoes. These have stood up to the daily rain nicely.
I tied up Lima beans and picked more cucumbers.
No hornworms. No scat. No nothing. The chickens really put a dent in their population.
Almost thru w the back trellis.

 

[Knobby]

Well, we have a pond on our property, so every now I then, I try and dredge it and set aside the contents somewhere else on our property. Over the past few days, have been purposely setting the dredge in a pile close to my garden area with the intent to see if it will be fertile enough to sustain a garden...will update next year..hehe

 

[Rick589]

As expected my tomatoes have unleashed their fury and have broken through their supports to do what they want and have begun, in earnest I might add, their sprawl. I just don’t think I have it in me to not let them just do what they want to do.

 

[Rick589]

You got that right!

I think I only tried rabbit once. It was in the military mess hall, wasn’t very good, and that was the end of that. Grandmother made squirrel once and I tried it…..and, that was the end of that. Never developed a liking for the ‘game’ taste. My family hunted and I tried but not being one to want to eat any wild game I just stopped hunting. Never wanted to kill anything anyway.