Vegetable Gardening

[BleeckerSt_Girl]

Great harvest pix, GLC!

I just got home from a firend's house where I picked a big batch of her pickling cucumbers and left her a big bag of fresh lettuce and scallions in exchange.
Going to make my first bread and butter pickles this week!

Deeaimond- tomato looks good- loosen those ties around the stalk so the stem can keep growing without getting choked. Looks like it could benifit from a bit more sun if you have it. Worm castings are good for it!

[jillm]

I found this recipe for Bloody Mary mix and thought some of you might have surplus tomatoes. I added extra tabasco and horseradish to give it some bite. Haven't had any as a bloody mary, but as just veggie juice it's really tasty!

http://www.recipezaar.com/Aunt-Iones...Canning-187969

Enjoy!

[spokewench]

Great harvest GLC - If I did not water for 3 weeks; no way would we have anything of any value! that is the life when you live at 7,000 feet in Arizona!

I'm lucky if things do okay if I don't water for 3 days!

[tulip]

Wow, GLC! Just Wow!

[GLC1968]

Spoke - water was the one thing we did do! We can't go without watering here in the summer or everything would die in about 3 days, too. Winter it rains, summer...not so much!

[smilingcat]

Wow GLC! Great harvest!!

Those concord grape looks yummy. Our acorn squash was a bonus too... from a compost pile. Ours are much smaller than yours. Still good eats.

Oh and the pumpkins... Are they sugar variety? looks yummy.

[GLC1968]

Wow GLC! Great harvest!!

Those concord grape looks yummy. Our acorn squash was a bonus too... from a compost pile. Ours are much smaller than yours. Still good eats.

Oh and the pumpkins... Are they sugar variety? looks yummy.

Yep, New England sugar pie pumpkins - they did wonderfully! We've already harvested 8 from three vines and there are still another 5 or so out there growing/ripening! I haven't eaten one yet, but hopefully soon.

Our grapes are small this year, but super tasty. We also have another huge wave of tomatoes on the way and since it's supposed to be in the 90's this week, we hope they'll ripen on the vine.

[BleeckerSt_Girl]

A generous friend let me pick a whole slew of pickling cucumbers from her garden. I gave her some of my lettuce and scallions. I also had a bag of beautiful striped pink Chioggia beets we had gotten from the local organic farmer's market as a thank-you for us playing music there. So I decided to pickle them all today.

I made 16 pints of sweet bread and butter pickle slices. I had enough beets for four pints of pickled beets. The Chioggia beets are pink and white striped on the inside, not the usual dark inky red. They look so pretty in the jars, with a soft golden pink glow.

After canning and processing the 20 pints of pickles and pickled beets, I had about 3 cups of pickling brine leftover. I hard boiled 12 small fresh eggs and packed them six to a jar into two clean pint jars, then filled with pickling brine. Those I won't bother to process, I'll just put them in the fridge to mellow and eat pickled eggs over the next few weeks. A good way to use up the leftover brine!

[deeaimond]

Ladies,

if i cage the tomato, does that mean I get some mesh and put it around the plant? Do I still need to continue to give it a stake? or can I just leave it with this current stake?

I'm thinking caging will be better becoz the plant is out on the corridor and I'll never see fruit if leave it open to those 2 legged predators.

Thanks for the advice!!

Cheers,
D

[tulip]

I finally planted my winter garden today! I planted one whole bed of mustard greens, two types of collards (Vates and Georgia) to see which does better, one whole bed of kale, and finally planted an herb garden with flat and curly parsley, cilantro, two types of thyme, garlic chives, and Greek oregano. Oh, and a few Swiss chards, too. This is in addition to the leeks that I planted a few months ago and that are doing quite well. I still need to plant some lettuce in the bed that will also be under a cold frame come the cold weather.

In preparing the herb garden, I had to dig up the last of my potato plants and in doing so, unearthed a few more delicious red potatoes. Now my herb garden shares space with my strawberries, so it's all perennial, more or less (not the cilantro, but everything else).

My summer garden suffered from my absence because of alot of traveling, but I'm not planning so many trips over the winter, so it's quite likely that my winter garden will be much more productive than my summer garden. In addition, it will benefit from the wonderful compost that from last falls leaves. I did not have that last fall since I have only been in this house for one year.

Pics tomorrow. It got dark on me today.

[papaver]

What Tulip, no brussels sprouts???

Hey I planted Butternut Squash this summer (they are very rare overhere). When are they ready to 'harvest'?

[OakLeaf]

Ladies,

if i cage the tomato, does that mean I get some mesh and put it around the plant? Do I still need to continue to give it a stake? or can I just leave it with this current stake?

I'm thinking caging will be better becoz the plant is out on the corridor and I'll never see fruit if leave it open to those 2 legged predators.

Thanks for the advice!!

Cheers,
D

A "tomato cage" is like a three-dimensional trellis. In the USA you can buy them pre-made from wood or wire at hardware stores and garden centers, or make your own from welded wire fence or stakes plus wire. It won't keep anyone/anything out of your tomatoes, it'll just support individual branches better than a stake - especially if your plant is an indeterminate variety (one that will keep growing taller throughout its life rather than stopping at a certain size).

For the pests, two-legged or otherwise, maybe you could put the whole thing inside a big locked dog crate or playpen???

[OakLeaf]

Hey I planted Butternut Squash this summer (they are very rare overhere). When are they ready to 'harvest'?

When the stem looks dry.

Any that you plan to keep over the winter (longer than a couple of weeks after harvest), after you pick them, wash them and let them cure in the sun for a couple of days.

You may want to use a lopper or even a little saw to harvest any squash you won't be using right away, so as not to risk damaging the shell of the fruit. Those stems are very hard when the squash is ripe!

I have a couple that are probably ready right now... eat some next week probably. Yummmmmm.

[papaver]

Thanks Oakleaf!

[tulip]

Next year I'll build a new bed for Brussels sprouts, that's a great idea! They are so funny-looking in the garden. But now I don't have enough room, sadly.