What did you do in the garden today?

[Minanora]

Wow, I have been to Blythe. Is it ever under 100 there? You would understand what my husband is doing then, they are nearing the end of an HDVC converter station. He is at the western end this week near Casa Grande. The eastern end is close to Clines Corner, NM. His company's construction side is building and he is on operations. He is over the whole shitterie as he calls it when done but integral in the building part. In between the stations there is over 500 miles of transmission lines, substations, boosters etc.

I grew up on a dry land cotton farm in Texas. I am an early bird, literally wide awake every single morning of my life at 5 AM. I get up early and work until noon or I can stand it, then shade up all afternoon, and work late evenings. He is a night owl. I still haven't convinced him when he is here to do the same. He says is conditioning for AZ.

It is great you are not letting it get you down!

Nice. We work with commercial scale solar. We do the system monitoring design, hardware and programming work.

I'm usually out of bed by 530. But I exercise in the morning, feed the kid, do dishes, shower, pack his lunch, make coffee, get him to school then go to work for 8 hours. Pick up the kid, make dinner, eat, put away dishes, get ready for bed. While in bed I try to catch up here.

I try to get a few garden chores done when I collect chicken eggs in the evening. But this year, I'm struggling. I've missed a ton of beans and a whole peach tree is almost done dropping it fruit to the ground.

 

[WthrLady]

I'll take your disgusting and raise you to revolting. August is always SO gross here. Between the crop transpiration and the humidity coming up from the Gulf AND the heat over 95.....starting with fog at 75 degrees every morning. GROSS GROSS GROSS

It's disgusting hot here with the humidity sky high. Picked tomatoes and checked on the garden. We had all that rain which was wonderful to help with our drought but this last week of high temps has dried everything to a crisp. Came inside with a handful of jalapenos to start some fire cider. By the time it's done fermenting, it will be cold and flu season.

I need to pick the garden too. Maybe this evening.
The rabbit is getting creative with reaching tomatoes.
I am SO disappointed in the number of tomatoes this year.

The grapes are pretty solid, but the tomatoes. LATE and sparse.
This is exactly why I plant indeterminate here. That way they keep going until October frost kills them. It gives me a fighting chance when we have a late season.

 

[5.3acredream]

I started rage quitting the summer garden. Tossing diseased tomatoes on the vine, removing blossom end rot peppers, cutting overgrown branches out of my way, pulling out the cucumber vine. I am now allergic to the cucumbers. So many hives from touching it yesterday. Love when allergies just show up. Ah, to get old....

picked green beans, tomatoes, peppers hot and sweet. But it all got cut short by my first reaction to cucumbers.

I still haven't started my fall crops, so I'll need to do that. Hopefully tonight.

 

[Smokerbill]

You pick them when they’re green and they’re still viable seeds?

…I’ve been leaving them on until the pods are crispy paper.

Some of the pods were crunchy dry, but most of them were at varying degrees of limp and green. Since the vines were all dead and the pods weren't growing anymore I figured they wouldn't care where they finished drying. But this is the first time I saved pea seeds, so maybe I messed up. LOL

All the pods I picked had full size peas inside. After they dry I'll sort out any seeds that look immature and do a germination test on the remaining seeds.

Plus I wanted to free up the real estate where the peas were growing so I could plant something else there.

 

[jerryse]

I think I got scammed on some seeds. Supposed to be Dunja zucchini a parthenocarpic variety capable of producing without pollination. I planted one plant. It has been blooming since early July. Never any male flowers open when female flowers are open. The small fruit rot and fall off. I have a second planting of 4 blooming male flowers now. I guess pollination required. So, I wait.

 

[jerryse]

Okra question. I planted Burmese variety late and they will bloom soon. A long pod variety that is tender to about 6 inches or so. I recently found out about Louisiana 16-inch longhorn and ordered seed for next year. Anyone have experience with long tender pod verities?

 

[StarOnFire59]

One thing I have found to be quite fulfilling & interesting is to take the root end of green onion plants that you cut off & stick them back in the vegetable bed. Up comes another green onion plant. I just love that! New from the throw-away!

 

[TJAnonymous]

We got a surprise pop up storm yesterday. Winds in excess of 20 mph which is a lot for here. It downpoured for about 10 minutes and then light sprinkles for another 10-15 minutes. Dropped the temperature from 107 to 90 degrees (air temp, not heat index) which was nice. Temperatures overall are going to be in the low 80s next week. I CAN'T WAIT!

I have a couple of cushaw seeds sprouted. I'm going to get them in ground next week. We'll see how many I get before a freeze...

I also discovered today that my watermelon plant has risen from the dead. I thought the squash bugs had killed it off. But it has resprouted... And has 4 baby Melons on it!

 

[BirdsBeesTrees]

This has been the worse year for me with squash bugs since I've ever had a garden. Bugs in general are a thousand times worse this year.

 

[cj2024]

Okra question. I planted Burmese variety late and they will bloom soon. A long pod variety that is tender to about 6 inches or so. I recently found out about Louisiana 16-inch longhorn and ordered seed for next year. Anyone have experience with long tender pod verities?

The Louisiana 16-inch-long variety label say to pick tender at 10 inches. Mine start to get hard after that length. It tastes like okra, but not as fleshy and gooey as Clemson okra and more on the dry hollow side. In addition, the color is light green in comparison to the Clemson green colored okra. I have been eating the Louisiana variety raw as a snack during my morning walk about.