2020 gardening thread

Almost 7 gallons of blue berries in the freezer now, can't keep up. Probably 3 or 4 gallons on there now. Gets too dang hot to pick after 10:00.

Canned 24 pints of squash pickles, packaged over 30 bags of shredded zucs and in the freezer, starting grape leaf pickles tomorrow, pole beans are getting rust but I guess we've already picked over a bushel, 3 gallons of spring/summer raspberries pureed and ready for jam, pulled 70# of taters, 109 garlic heads, 93 onions. Cutting rhubarb in the morning.

We've been pulling so much this year I've been giving it away. And the dang tomatoes will not get ripe. When and if they do there's got to be 500# or more out there.

Glad I retired, don't know how I did this when I was working. But I do seem to remember flood lights on the garden late into the night.:eek:
 
Looking good @Mirac. I’m still interested in seeing how that teepee comes along. Looks like it’s getting started.


I didn’t like beets as a kid and have recently ( past year or two) started eating them. They’ve been store bought in a can but we picked some last night and the wife fixed them, good lord the ones from food lion don’t even have a taste compared to the ones from the garden.

Like you I didn't eat them as a kid or even much before a couple yrs ago. Can't wait to try them from our dirt.
How did she make them up?
 
Like @REELDOC we are feeling almost "overwhelmed", maybe in a good way. We can't can, freeze, or give away stuff fast enough to utilize it all, so some goes to the critters, and that is never a bad thing. Might need to harvest them eventually too.

I've pretty much stopped taking pics of most things.

Picking blackberries is an almost daily thing now, driven only by need/want and not availability. There are tons here.

And to make matters better(/worse?LOL) some of the fruit trees are putting out. Getting a ton of plums. Can't wait until the apples and pears ripen and fall. The trees are so heavily laden this year that it is like playing whack-a-mole trying to prop limbs and/or pull fruit early to keep branches from breaking. We are gonna be slam covered up this year.

And, puffball mushrooms and oyster mushrooms are showing up in the woods/fields.

Gonna be a heck of a harvest this year.

It is a LOT of work but I can't say it's not comforting nowadays.

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Like you I didn't eat them as a kid or even much before a couple yrs ago. Can't wait to try them from our dirt.
How did she make them up?

I’m not sure what all she put on them but they were sliced up in a skillet with oil when I put them on my plate from the stove. I’m not even sure how to describe the taste but I’ll tell you the ones in the can just won’t do anymore.

On a side note, my wife said she read that beets are good for “male blood flow”.
 
After our screwy spring and some failed seeds things are coming along. Just slower than normal. But we planted less this year because I don't have time to do as much. Getting tomatoes and cucumbers now. Peppers are going nuts. Still working through the carrot bed for dinners. Finally got some beans coming up since we switched seeds. Planted that box 4 times and only got 4 seeds to grow. Time to get rid of those.

I'm a little jealous of some of those pics, I just don't have any time to deal with any of it these days.
 
Getting some blossom end rot on my tomatoes even though I tilled in enough garden lime to decompose a blue whale. I'm about tired of the 3 inches of rain every week, glad we're entering a dry hot spell.

Got a monster Cali Wonder pepper off yesterday, darn near 5 inches in diameter
 
My dang peppers and okra are on a growing protest. Never seen them act like this before. Okra should be 4 or 5 feet tall now but are stretching to reach 2 feet. Maybe they'll get happy soon, if not I'm gonna mow them down to te4ach them a lesson.:rolleyes:
 
I'm about to mow thru my beans and cukes and replant. I've grown grass taller than my beans so far.

Really?
The few string bush beans ( 2 year old seeds, so I tried them ) I put in have produced about a gallons worth already.
The Kentucky beans are just about ready to go now, any day.

And the cukes took a bit to fire up, but they are producing pretty good now and with lots of flowers showing too.
 
I hate zucchini! Every year I plant them and every year it gets huge, produces lots of flowers and starts producing zucchini and then it gets that dang bug that totally kills the whole plant within 4-5 days. I sprayed them with Sevin and seems like most are dead but think it’s too late. I guess I should coat the yellow squash with sevin powder cause that will be next. Frustrating and they always win.
 
Getting some blossom end rot on my tomatoes even though I tilled in enough garden lime to decompose a blue whale. I'm about tired of the 3 inches of rain every week, glad we're entering a dry hot spell.

Got a monster Cali Wonder pepper off yesterday, darn near 5 inches in diameter

Calcium nitrate right now! Blossom end rot is a lack of calcium issue. If you get the large granules just put 8-10 of them around the base of each tomato. Unless it's really back that maybe a few more. Don't let it touch the plant. Water or rain it into the ground. Had to do mine last week. They look much better this week.

I hate zucchini! Every year I plant them and every year it gets huge, produces lots of flowers and starts producing zucchini and then it gets that dang bug that totally kills the whole plant within 4-5 days. I sprayed them with Sevin and seems like most are dead but think it’s too late. I guess I should coat the yellow squash with sevin powder cause that will be next. Frustrating and they always win.

We planted companion plants, calendula, and staked ours up this year. They seem to be doing better and less bugs on them.
 
I hate zucchini! Every year I plant them and every year it gets huge, produces lots of flowers and starts producing zucchini and then it gets that dang bug that totally kills the whole plant within 4-5 days. I sprayed them with Sevin and seems like most are dead but think it’s too late. I guess I should coat the yellow squash with sevin powder cause that will be next. Frustrating and they always win.
Try wrapping JUST THE GREEN PART OF THE ROOT with a wrap of 2 inches thick tin foil. The borer lays its eggs all over the plant, but the stem is the only thing that can give it nutrition. Lays its eggs there and they fall off and die. We learned that just this year from a guy in Alabama. Vine borers will destroy a squash plant in no time.
 
We’re getting lots of cucumbers and got the first zucchini this past weekend. Lots more cucumbers, zucchini l, and yellow squash will be ready this week. Beans are blooming, tomatoes are blooming. Can’t keep the animals off my okra. It’s gonna be a loss I’m afraid. I’ll have it fenced in this time next year with electric wire. Spaghetti squash is going well, got about a dozen of them so far that are getting bigger everyday.
 
Getting some blossom end rot on my tomatoes even though I tilled in enough garden lime to decompose a blue whale. I'm about tired of the 3 inches of rain every week, glad we're entering a dry hot spell.

Got a monster Cali Wonder pepper off yesterday, darn near 5 inches in diameter
I went to Wal Mart yesterday and bought their big bag of powdered milk. Put a quarter cup on each plant, with about 1/8 cup of Epsom salts. The ES has magnesium which supposedly assists the plant in uptake of calcium. Blossom end rot on only one plant this year, and that was the one I did NOT have monthly applications of calcium. I used calcium nitrate before, but have been told powdered milk is better. We will see. I try to put it on once about the beginning of each month.
 
My wife read somewhere to put a Tums tablet under each tomato plant when you plant it.
We tried it, no blossom end rot to date.
 
garden lime is hella cheaper than tums per volume :D

I found out what's rotting my tomatoes and it's not BER. It's those frigging black banded stinkbugs aka leaf footed bugs.
I sprayed the crap out of them with 40/40/20 insecticidal soap, horticultural oil, and a surfactant. But I think I'm gonna have to physically remove them into a bucket of soapy water.
They're tough and have a tough carapace shell. Too darn early for this crap. Where did these things come from??

Tomatoes are starting to come off by the pound. Time to dust off the canner!



And its sandwich time



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We’ve got a ton of grape and cherry tomatoes so far with one or two German Johnson’s. One cuke and a handful of banana peppers also ready Saturday. We are hoping to can some salsa this year with everything coming from our garden. We also have some volunteer tomatillos, there haven’t been any planted or consumed at my house in over ten years. I was extremely surprised when they popped up.
 
Dang vine borers almost killed our zucchini this week. Wife went out and pruned all the yellow leaves to get those out. I found one tonight and cut the stem and dug out the borer larva. Wrapped the stems in aluminum foil and sprayed some insecticide on them as a last ditch effort to fend them off. Tomatoes are coming on strong. Cukes are doing well and need to freeze some peppers here soon. They are booming.
 
Dang vine borers almost killed our zucchini this week. Wife went out and pruned all the yellow leaves to get those out. I found one tonight and cut the stem and dug out the borer larva. Wrapped the stems in aluminum foil and sprayed some insecticide on them as a last ditch effort to fend them off. Tomatoes are coming on strong. Cukes are doing well and need to freeze some peppers here soon. They are booming.
We have given up on zucchini and yellow squash. Gonna take whatever they give us more (it has been a good run!) and then rip them out and go for some fall crops in about two weeks. There comes a time in the cycle of these things that the effort in fighting them off is just not worth it. I would be out there manually picking out the little b**tards. We have already pulled out several squash plants and burned them in the firebowl.

Our pepper are also doing well. I have been especially pleased to find that I LIKE Jalapenos when they don't set my mouth on fire, pretending to be habaneros or something. Just enough burn to make it interesting. We have been most pleased with the green beans. Oodles and oodles and oodles of them. Carole is learning to pickle them, and watermelon rinds. I don't know how I missed this growing up, but spaghetti squash has become my going away favorite. Carole makes any pasta dish with that stuff and it is VERY tasty! Butternut squash has done very well too (it seems immune to the borers and bugs, or at least relatively so).

We have been so delighted and enamored with the garden, the fruits, the learning of new stuff, and the GREAT benefits (I have lost probably 15 pounds just from changes in diet), that we are starting to think about trying to find a place with a little more land. Definitely early stages there, and it would be better if we could just buy another acre or two from neighbors, but there is a joy that folks in here know and I am just discovering in all this. If I sound like a kid all excited, I think it is because raising some of my own food and being more independent has actually re-created some of that wonder and thrill you had as a child and which life just beats out of you.

Or maybe it is just the coffee at 4.30 a.m. :)
 
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We have given up on zucchini and yellow squash. Gonna take whatever they give us more (it has been a good run!) and then rip them out and go for some fall crops in about two weeks. There comes a time in the cycle of these things that the effort in fighting them off is just not worth it. I would be out there manually picking out the little b**tards. We have already pulled out several squash plants and burned them in the firebowl.

Our pepper are also doing well. I have been especially pleased to find that I LIKE Jalapenos when they don't set my mouth on fire, pretending to be habaneros or something. Just enough burn to make it interesting. We have been most pleased with the green beans. Oodles and oodles and oodles of them. Carole is learning to pickle them, and watermelon rinds. I don't know how I missed this growing up, but spaghetti squash has become my going away favorite. Carole makes any pasta dish with that stuff and it is VERY tasty! Butternut squash has done very well too (it seems immune to the borers and bugs, or at least relatively so).

We have been so delighted and enamored with the garden, the fruits, the learning of new stuff, and the GREAT benefits (I have lost probably 15 pounds just from changes in diet), that we are starting to think about trying to find a place with a little more land. Definitely early stages there, and it would be better if we could just buy another acre or two from neighbors, but there is a joy that folks in here know and I am just discovering in all this. If I sound like a kid all excited, I think it is because raising some of my own food and being more independent has actually re-created some of that wonder and thrill you had as a child and which life just beats out of you.

Or maybe it is just the coffee at 4.30 a.m. :)

Ours started so late they have barely put anything off. We have had zucchini about 3 times. They usually do much better so not sure what's going on. Oddly, they seem to do better when we planted them closer together and didn't stake them. They are wilted again this morning. Probably try to hold on to them until the couple zuchs get big enough to use. WE did some companion planting with flowers in the bed. It's kept the squash bugs away. Just not the borers.
 
HOLY COW!!! How nice!

thanks. Worst possible timing this week for a bumper crop though, we are listing the house today for sale/sell/sail and canning and pickling operations are messy. I peeled about a gallon or 2 of Romas before I took this pic and put them in the fridge for later.
 
I just took our first Cherokee purples yesterday. HOW DELIGHTFUL! The texture is different. The inner flesh is more.... "slimey" is not the word, but it is a smoother, less coarse texture. It is also sweeter. I sliced one sample, put a taste of salt on it, and gave it to Carole while she was on the phone. Her eyes went wide and she covered the phone and said "WHAT IS THAT??" I told her and she said "those are MY tomatoes from now on! How many plants do you have of them?" I told her 3 or 4 and she said "well, good.... that means you can have some too, then!" :)
I have never grown them before. What a wondrous and creative and fabulous God, who didn't just do "tomato" but cherokee purple and black krim and better boy and beefmaster etc etc..., for all those genetic possibilities were there, just waiting for us to discover. I get the feeling it is like when we let our children discover something "for themselves" and we beam with delight over their delight, just happy they have discovered and celebrate the goodness.

Good luck to @Ikarus1 in the sale of the house, btw.
 
I just took our first Cherokee purples yesterday. HOW DELIGHTFUL! The texture is different. The inner flesh is more.... "slimey" is not the word, but it is a smoother, less coarse texture. It is also sweeter. I sliced one sample, put a taste of salt on it, and gave it to Carole while she was on the phone. Her eyes went wide and she covered the phone and said "WHAT IS THAT??" I told her and she said "those are MY tomatoes from now on! How many plants do you have of them?" I told her 3 or 4 and she said "well, good.... that means you can have some too, then!" :)
I have never grown them before. What a wondrous and creative and fabulous God, who didn't just do "tomato" but cherokee purple and black krim and better boy and beefmaster etc etc..., for all those genetic possibilities were there, just waiting for us to discover. I get the feeling it is like when we let our children discover something "for themselves" and we beam with delight over their delight, just happy they have discovered and celebrate the goodness.

Good luck to @Ikarus1 in the sale of the house, btw.

Cherokee Purples are the most delicate, best tasting sandwich tomato in the world. But....they are prone to water cracking, so this year my German Johnsons have actually been better to grow. Both are excellent table fare heirlooms.
 
Four hoofed lawnmower hit our little garden Wednesday. Every leaf on peppers, cabbage, potatoes and peas eaten. All peppers and tomatoes gone. And this is right beside my house with 4 dogs that have run of yard. I had 4 ft fence to keep chickens’ rabbits and dogs out but deer us hopped over it, lol

No worries, they are just storing the calories till hunting season


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Four hoofed lawnmower hit our little garden Wednesday. Every leaf on peppers, cabbage, potatoes and peas eaten. All peppers and tomatoes gone. And this is right beside my house with 4 dogs that have run of yard. I had 4 ft fence to keep chickens’ rabbits and dogs out but deer us hopped over it,
Sorry to hear that!
How are people preventing this?
My in-laws garden got wiped out a few weeks ago (not fenced, dog doesn’t chase deer, and they put out duck food all the time which has the deer coming every evening to eat)
Our garden has been fine so far - 4 foot fence on 2 sides and 6-foot fence on the other 2, plus our dogs would go nuts and try to get thru the fence to get the deer. But I know a deer *could* get in if they really wanted to.
What are the preventative measures, other than a @Mirac -style full cage? :cool:
 
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Sorry to hear that!
How are people preventing this?
My in-laws garden got wiped out a few weeks ago (not fenced, dog doesn’t chase deer, and they put out duck food all the time which has the deer coming every evening to eat)
Our garden has been fine so far - 4 foot fence on 2 sides and 6-foot fence on the other 2, plus our dogs would go nuts and try to get thru the fence to get the deer. But I know a deer *could* get in if they really wanted to.
What are the preventative measures, other than a @Mirac -style full cage? :cool:

my solution is to let my boys shoot everything that moves for years, and my 10lb black tigress of a cat. Anything 5lbs and under is toast, and many times she just wants to stay out all night and kill things. Over 5 lbs it gets the 20ga #4 turkey load or #4 buck depending on what I want done with the carcass :D

the urban sprawl happening in my neighborhood doesn't hurt either, although we saw a fawn in the backyard last week along with his mama. She knew better than to enter the death zone though
 
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I've never grown these before but they are very sweet and man do they produce.

Tumbling Tom variety. Does well in hanging baskets like this. Each plant will produce 200+ tomatos over a growing season.
 

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Had to rip out half my zucchini plant a few weeks ago cause of those stupid bugs. I have been going out daily now and looking over both zucchini and yellow squash plants for bugs and their eggs under the leaves and spraying em with seven. Seems to be working. Zucchini coming back and yellow squash still going strong. Basil going strong and have made multiple batches of pesto which I freeze. Tomatoes producing at least a few a day (gardens not big). Hot peppers, banana peppers going nuts but green peppers kinda slow.
 
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I've never grown these before but they are very sweet and man do they produce.

Tumbling Tom variety. Does well in hanging baskets like this. Each plant will produce 200+ tomatos over a growing season.

THANK YOU! There is so much to learn, so much to be happy about, and so many good people willing to freely share.
Tumbling Tom. That one should be easy to remember! lol
 
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Had to rip out half my zucchini plant a few weeks ago cause of those stupid bugs. I have been going out daily now and looking over both zucchini and yellow squash plants for bugs and their eggs under the leaves and spraying em with seven. Seems to be working. Zucchini coming back and yellow squash still going strong. Basil going strong and have made multiple batches of pesto which I freeze. Tomatoes producing at least a few a day (gardens not big). Hot peppers, banana peppers going nuts but green peppers kinda slow.
Carole has ripped out all but one zucchini and about 3/4 of our yellow squash, and our sphaghetti squash (BOOOOO!!!!!). The only squash we have left are the butternut, which seem relatively immune from the plague of bugs and borers. We are about to put out some fall squash in another week or so. We aren't too bent out of shape about it, as they certainly were prolific while they were vibrant.
 
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