Your 2024 Garden

[Justagalwithchicks]

Does anyone know if the smaller (4> lbs) melons would be possible to trellis? Most of my melonsni have coming are small because I'm the only one who will consistently eat them, and trellising would save a bit of space.

You can trellis that size and if they need support I reuse the mesh bags you get mandarins in etc as a hammock for the larger melons.

 

[fuzzi]

I used old t-shirts as watermelon slings.

 

[Justagalwithchicks]

I used old t-shirts as watermelon slings.

Good idea!

 

[Nomadicus]

I'd like to plan on a garden like this one once more. Rich black dirt where the topsoil was 2 feet deep. I could grow anything on it but watermelons. Watermelons preferred the sandy silt down on the river bottoms. This was way up in NW MO not far south of the Iowa state line. I had had a lot of help that sat at my dinner table in exchange for pulling weeds. We used about 150 wire tie bales of wheat straw every summer to conserve water and for weed control. Freezer was filled and all the canning jars we had. Times where hard and good at the same time. Rows were 200' long and we had 70 of them.

 

[Nomadicus]

This was an utter failure. The technique was correct. The raiding deer kept them mowed off at almost ground level every week. They had noting to collect the sunshine to make the sweet potatoes. If they come here and try that we eat them. I have black plastic bio biodegrade mulch for weed control and moisture retention. This year it is our intention to grow both golden and white sweets.

 

[Justagalwithchicks]

I'd like to plan on a garden like this one once more. Rich black dirt where the topsoil was 2 feet deep. I could grow anything on it but watermelons. Watermelons preferred the sandy silt down on the river bottoms. This was way up in NW MO not far south of the Iowa state line. I had had a lot of help that sat at my dinner table in exchange for pulling weeds. We used about 150 wire tie bales of wheat straw every summer to conserve water and for weed control. Freezer was filled and all the canning jars we had. Times where hard and good at the same time. Rows were 200' long and we had 70 of them.
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I love reading this. What an amazing garden!

 

[Nomadicus]

One year when our oldest daughter was about 4 we asked each of our kids what they wanted to plant in the garden that year. When we got to her she screamed "Pickled Beets". Almost 50 years later no jar is safe around her. It would be nice if someone could develop a self pickling strain.

 

[rosemarythyme]

One year when our oldest daughter was about 4 we asked each of our kids what they wanted to plant in the garden that year. When we got to her she screamed "Pickled Beets". Almost 50 years later no jar is safe around her. It would be nice if someone could develop a self pickling strain.

I wouldn't eat beets at all if it wasn't for hubby. It's one of his favorite veggies (to the point that I had to learn to cook them, as I never ate them before he came along), and for a man who doesn't like pickled anything, amazingly enough, he enjoys pickled beets too.

 

[Sally PB]

I've had pickled beets and they were.... ok. Beets taste like dirt to me. I'd like to try beet greens, and I'd try beets again too... is there a way to lessen the dirt taste?

 

[Nomadicus]

I've had pickled beets and they were.... ok. Beets taste like dirt to me. I'd like to try beet greens, and I'd try beets again too... is there a way to lessen the dirt taste?

There is one brand of pickled beets in glass jars that don't have the strong earthy taste to them. Aunt Nelly's I think is the brand name. Also the recipes for pickling them at home can be altered to lessen that earthy (dirt) flavoring. We eat them here as Harvard beets too and don't have a problem with the earthy flavor. The root crop that I can't eat is rutabagas. Not fresh and not canned. I will eat a lot of things that are not really good to me at all but there are a handful of things that nauseate me and those rutabagas are one of them. I taught myself long ago to at least try and eat the broadest spectrum of fruit and vegetables as possible because I think there just might be something in those things removing minerals from the earth that my body needs.