What did you do in the garden today?

[OnlySympathy]

Looks like it might be a double, twin eggplant in the making, like this one/pair.

View attachment 4185163

Oh cool! I hope it develops fully

 

[OnlySympathy]

It looks like my stupid idea is slightly less stupid than I thought. Now to see if the other 3 beans pop up and get to the point where they are producing beans

 

[Justagalwithchicks]

This year I planted ‘Boston Pickling’ that we bought from Baker Creek. I usually over plant cucumbers, well I actually tend to over plant everything, because I want to stock a large supply of kosher dills for the year. These cukes have been making some good pickles when matched with the recipe I settled on after several years of experiments

Those are the same ones I plant! I do plant some others also, but like Boston..

 

[Justagalwithchicks]

I know a lot of people use them for kitchen sponges and you can also eat them when they are young before the sponginess starts developing

I have seen people make nest pads from them. I guess you can wash and reuse?

 

[Sally PB]

of our cucumber/limeade

Oh, wow, this sounds good! Will you share the recipe?

 

[Smokerbill]

Did you plant a particular variety you like? I'm always looking for good recommendations!

I'm growing a pickling cuke variety called SMR-58. It's supposed to grow well here in the Northwest and so far it's growing nicely with lots of blooms and baby cukes showing. I'll be picking my first cucumber soon, the largest one is about 3 inches long. Looking forward to trying my hand at making garlic dill pickles.

I just bought 20 packs of seeds

Thanks for mentioning that. I looked but didn't see any tomatoes that I wanted to try, specifically some kind of paste tomato for sauce and salsa.

 

[Smokerbill]

I found a place to plant my late season cucumbers... in the empty potato bed. It's about 3x3.5 feet in size, and I planted the seeds so the row goes east to west to catch the sun. The soil in the bed was dusty and dry so I soaked it really well, layer by layer, then planted the seeds and watered them in.

I tied a couple indeterminate tomato plants to their fence posts, then created shallow basins around each to retain water. I gave them a good soaking then gave them a good shot of weed tea fertilizer. Gave a row of beans some rotten weed juice too.

Seems like my onions and shallots have been really expanding in size over the last couple of weeks. None have started to fall over yet.

I watered all the chive clumps well because I plan to give them all ground-level haircuts again tomorrow and I want them to plump up overnight. I'll end up with probably a two 1 gallon freezer bags full. This year I've been eating lots of chives while waiting on the shallots and yellow onions to mature.

My kale and collard seeds germinated. I thinned them out today and have them sitting outside in direct sunlight. They'll remain outside until I decide to plant them in the garden. It's nice not having grow lights going indoors.

I also dumped a gallon of water into the storage bin holding my self watering tomato plant bucket. It seems to be doing pretty well, and if it grows enough I'll be tying the vines to the front porch railing.

 

[cj2024]

My two Armenian cucumber plants that I have growing in one of my DYI tote earth boxes is like the Jack and bean stalk fairy tale. It's a beast, it keeps kicking out side shoots. It is kind of overwhelming.

I threw my hands up in the air and moved my 5-gallon Okra plants away from one of my Armenian cucumber plants growing in a 5-gallon wicking bucket.

I conclude that the Armenian cucumber variety is the best cucumber to grow during the scorching summer months in my location. However, I will probably be growing only two or three plants at a time.

 

[Sueby]

Popped in to make a post about a broody that I CANNOT break no matter what I do - hoping for some new ideas. If anyone has any thoughts: https://www.backyardchickens.com/threads/cant-break-a-broody-please-give-me-ideas.1672528/

Also wanted to share that I made some freezer pickles, made a post in the preserving thread:
I made some freezer pickles. Who even knew that was a thing? But I have SO many cucumbers I thought I'd give it a try. I will thaw a jar in a week or so & see.

This is sort of the recipe I used, I don't like sweet pickles so I left out the sugar & added tons of dill, but I followed the directions on letting them drain & all that.

https://www.thechunkychef.com/homemade-freezer-pickles/comment-page-2/#comments

And lastly, an update. Garden is producing well now. DH is digging the pickled eggs, I almost gagged when I even tried one. They are disgusting, the texture makes me want to hurl. Hot out there today, smells like wildfire, but I got everything watered.

 

[TJAnonymous]

What exactly can you do with loofah besides bathing with them?

I use them for scrubbing out animal water troughs... Likewise, I keep one in the kitchen too.

I also make my own soap so I'll cut up smaller loofah to put in the soap mold and pour the soap around it.