Vegetable Gardening

[OakLeaf]

Do you know whether beans will cross-pollinate? I've got green beans and cannellini this year - is it worth saving any seed if I don't isolate the flowers?

[BleeckerSt_Girl]

I took a few first pictures of our completed new big garden fence, here:
http://strumelia.blogspot.com/2009/0...nce-is-in.html
The edges and paths are not all mulched in yet, it should look a bit more finished when that's all done next week.
But I love it so! For me, it's a dream garden. No grand landscaped grounds with curved beds and stone walls... but rather a wonderful ultra simple and sturdy 'utilitarian' food garden. It's SO good to not have to worry at all anymore about the varmints devastating everything!
Best garden I ever had...I'm so happy!

[smilingcat]

Do you know whether beans will cross-pollinate? I've got green beans and cannellini this year - is it worth saving any seed if I don't isolate the flowers?

They can, I believe... but did they flower at the same time? and I'm not sure about between cannelloni and green. Only way to find is save the seeds and plant next year. If the seed doesn't look quite right then it might be better to start fresh.

while at it, unabashed self promo. from my yard. First is a zucchini called 8 ball. second is a Japanese cucumber that turned into a club. They are supposed to be only 8 inches long. not the 3 pound club. The last picture is our haul for yesterday and today. For tomatoes we have Isabella's golden globe, Azyocha (yellow), Cherokee purple, green zebra, ?? red variety, zucchini name escapes me, and two Acorn squash. zucchini had turned into a monster... all of the tomatoes are heirloom with exception of the mystery red tomato, zucchini is a heirloom variety, Acorn is not an heirloom variety.

It's been really exciting this year as we finally managed to get our act together. So we are growing most of the veggies we need. We made salsa the other day. And it was so gratifying that almost all the ingredients came from our yard.

Lemon: Meyer lemon and yes from our yard,
tomato: yes
cucumber: yes
cilantro: yes
garlic: yes
serrano chilli: yes

only two items were bought at farmers market: yellow onion and avocado. Hopefully, we'll have our own avocado in about two years. We are going to remove a magnolia tree and replaced with Haas avocado.

[BleeckerSt_Girl]

SmilingCat, those are wonderful! All that variety in shapes and colors.
I like your artfully arranged photos and backdrops.

With all the rain we are getting dumped with this 'summer', it's a wonder we have as much vegetables as we do. Yesterday alone we had 4.4 inches of rain in one day! Yikes.
Yet the lettuce and stringbeans and chard etc are still bravely producing.

I'm having a weird gardening summer even aside from the rain, since I'm slowly transitioning to my new garden. Next Spring things will be a bit more normal when I start Spring plantings right from the logical beginning of the year. But of course I am so thrilled with having my new space to plant in.

[spokewench]

Bleeker and Smiling Cat:

Bleeker: I absolutely love your new garden and fence! Oh, how I wish I had that much space to plant; I could actually can some! Oh what wishful thinking!

Smiling Cat: The produce looks absolutely wonderful. I'm just smacking my lips for the flavor of those wonderful tomatoes

I've been getting nice chard and zucchinis, but not much of anything else yet. We are too high 7,000 feet and too cold late to get an early crop. Most people and magazines that I hear about or read about are all getting their big bumper crops in June and July and I barely have anything to show for my garden yet. I do have several bell peppers that are pretty good size, some eggplant too; but they are by no means ready to harvest yet. I've had a few small tomatoes, but we never have great big ones or heirlooms. The larger tomatoes with the great acidic flavor just won't turn red here in our short season climate. I'm pretty happy so far with the garden this year. The plants out front in the pots are really doing well. I'll send another picture soon.

[OakLeaf]

Darn it, I've got my first ball bat of the season... a zucchini that was hiding under a big leaf when I looked yesterday.

Spent the morning trying to stay ahead of the squash bugs and vine borers.

[smilingcat]

Darn it, I've got my first ball bat of the season... a zucchini that was hiding under a big leaf when I looked yesterday.

Spent the morning trying to stay ahead of the squash bugs and vine borers.

ROFLOL... maybe trying your hand at making zucchini pickle.

[GLC1968]

Yeah - we've had quite a few zucchini bats this year already! They shred nicely and still make tasty zucchini bread.

I've made three different types of zucchini bread and one kind of zucchini cookie, tons of zucchini chips in the dehydrator, I've shredded and diced and dehydrated piles and piles of zucchini and we are grilling and roasting it to eat with every meal. It gets sauteed and put in eggs, and shredded and tossed in salads. We also feed it as treats to the dogs and the goats. I swear that if I start to sprout a striped green skin, I'll post a picture.

I harvested our first cuke yesterday...and our first tomato. And one of our heirloom varieties (tomatoes) has an issue. All of the fruits are getting blossom end rot. I can't figure it out as all the other varieties are doing fine.

And seriously, what is up with the snow peas? Will they EVER stop producing? The plants basically look dead and yet every day we harvest more. You'd think that 107F weather would put an end to it, but apparently not!