Vegetable Gardening

A GOOD garden day- for dinner we had the very FIRST modest harvest from our big new veggie garden...three different kinds of lettuce for our salad: green and purple romaine, loose leaf, and butterhead. Oh, and also a few lovely young beet leaves. Then from the 'old little garden' (which is losing steam fast now) I got some tomatoes and my very first bunch of scallions I have ever grown. Then I had plenty of fresh alfalfa sprouts on hand that I grew in a jar in my kitchen.

So for dinner we had beautiful big salad platters with lettuces, tomato slices, sprouts, scallions, and some garlic-herb creamy goat cheese (the one thing i bought). It was fabulous and so exciting. :p :p

Not having a garden, I went out and did a little urban foraging the other day. The blackberries here are superb and plentiful this year (I've heard it was a good year for berries in general in the Pacific Northwest). I picked probably 25 or so cups of big, beautiful tasty berries. There are so many that I didn't even have to get all scratched up to get them - I just worked my way around the edge of the bushes and picked only the ones easy to reach - and I could still be choosy about only getting the best berries. I've made a "slump" and some freezer jam so far. I need to use them up though, they'll only last a few days in the fridge.

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Originally Posted by OakLeaf

The Mildew Cure I posted the link to earlier, works really really well on powdery mildew on squash. It's what I bought it for originally. There's baking soda in it, also garlic and some other things. Squash grow so vigorously that I've never lost a plant that I've treated.

Hoping my plants can hang in there until I get back into town - they needed sprayed before we left on Thursday, but it was pouring down rain -

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I was referring to that link, and for whatever reason I can't find it (and yeah, a bit too lazy...). Could I bother you to post it again?

thanks muchly!

Right here.

http://www.johnnyseeds.com/catalog/p...ubcategory=319

We've been harvesting zucchini, tomatoes, cukes, plums and apples, like crazy. I've also got some gorgeous watermelons developing and we are picking about a half-quart of strawberries every week still.

Oh, and get this! I just harvested a beautiful acorn squash from our compost heap! We decided to let the plant that grew out of the side of the compost pile keep going. It's now spreading across the lawn and I harvested the first squash off it last night. We will cook it up tonight and see if it's worth waiting for the remaining squash that is developing. Totally free food!

So far, our only disappointment this year has been the beans. The asparagus beans are icky, the two kinds of Kentucky beans didn't do well at all (one bush, one pole). Only the cross breed bean that a guy at work gave me is doing anything at all... Eh...maybe next year.

Lastly, our corn is unbelievable! Some of the varieties are about 8 ft tall! All of the stalks have ears developing nicely, too. Unfortunately, I didn't think about cross-pollination, so I planted 4 types too close together. I may have a ton of dent corn in the making! :eek:

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Originally Posted by OakLeaf

Right here.

http://www.johnnyseeds.com/catalog/p...ubcategory=319

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"cannot be shipped to Canada"...

I'll book mark it for next year. My female zucchini buds are turning yellow after about a week (it's green zucchini), and two of the smaller plants are basically dead now, so I'll just have to keep this in mind for next year. Live and learn!

Aw, bummer. Hope you get it under control.

We had our first sweet corn tonight. Mmmmmmmm. I've read that you have a window of about 90 minutes between picking sweet corn and when you have to cook it, before the sugars start turning into starch. All I know is, it sure was sweet.

Last night I went out to cut some parsley for my dinner. I had 4 big healthy plants the other day. It was gone! I was blaming the neighbors but that didn't make sense.

I looked a little closer and found the culprit. There were 4 of these guys chomping away, fat and happy....

After a lot of research online I found out they were parsley worms - and they turn into beautiful swallowtail butterflies.

No more parsley. Sigh.

On Sunday, I went peach picking. I have 30lbs sitting in my fridge, awaiting their jammie fate:D I still have a few zucchini that I'm figuring out what to do with. Went to a friend's last night for dinner and we exchanged goods. I got a bunch of Roma and grape tomatoes from their garden, they got some peaches and eggs from my aunt's chickens. I wish we could go back to the bartering system:rolleyes:

I canned 13 pints of spiced peaches, 6 pints of brandied peaches, and 4 of pears with white wine. I'm about out of pint jars, but have lots of 1/2 pints still. If I could still get some cherries, I'd love to do some cherry preserves.

I just picked a lot of cherry tomatoes, broccoli and green beans from the garden this morning. When picking the green beans, I found bugs everywhere! They're sort of rust colored with black spots, looking somewhat like ladybugs but I caught one eating one of the beans. I also saw some prickly-looking yellow larvae on the leaves--ick! So, I went online to try and find out what these bugs were and found out they are Mexican bean beetles. I sprayed the plants with this hot-pepper concoction that we use to repel bugs from some of the other plants and we'll see if that helps. Maybe I'll go out later with some gloves and a container of soapy water and pick off as many of the bugs as I can find. Here's a link to info about the bugs in case anyone else is dealing with these guys: http://www.uri.edu/ce/factsheets/she...eanbeetle.html

This is what we canned the other night. 6 half pints and one pint of peach jam, 6 pints of spiced peaches (my goodness that syrup was delicious!), and 4 pints of sliced peaches. There are a few more of each coming. I plan on going pear and raspberry picking, and then it's tomato and apple time!:cool:

Canned 20 pints of cut-up tomatoes, and working on sauce.

Need a chest freezer.

Went back to my aunt's last night, as I was told there were blueberries to pick. Took a walk around the garden to see what else I could pick, and was shocked to see the stringbeans were still growing! I'd harvested quite a few about a month back and I thought they were done, but I was happilly mistaken. Also, the zucchini had totally rebounded from whatever was affecting it a few weeks ago, and the leaves looked healthy, flowers were blooming, and we picked four more. Grabbed a few cucumbers, some eggplant, a few peppers, and lots of cherry tomatoes:
http://photos-b.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos..._3774494_n.jpg

Then I took a trip to the blueberry bush. I cannot believe how many blueberries we've picked off this single bush so far, and last night was no exception!
http://photos-e.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos...6_156101_n.jpg

Those bowls quickly became these:
http://photos-d.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos..._3841159_n.jpg

This weekend I'm going raspberry and pear picking, and we'll be doing some more canning on Sunday:D

Everyone's harvest is looking great! I went to Utah - Kanab, Bryce Canyon, Escalante, Torrey and then back home through Mexican Hat on the motorcycle this long weekend. It was great fun and absolutely beautiful.

I saw some wonderful gardens up in Utah as well! I was drooling over their corn, squash, dinner plate dahlias, etc., etc.

Well, we drove down from Byrce Canyon to Escalante and I know Escalante to be in a "banana belt" good growing area and thought I would be able to find a peach at a roadside stand. I could not find a roadside stand, but Hubby and I stopped at a little park in town off the main road to rest and have a snack; across the road was another wonderful garden. The owners had a bunch of llamas also. It was a wonderful sight! The owners were out and about in their garden and pretty soon the lady walked across the street with a box she took out of her car. She had just been at the farmers market trying to sell veges and fruits and the box was full of ripe peaches! She gave us some for free and that was my lucky day! What a sweet woman.