Garden out of control

Since the rains started, I have more food than I can eat. My tomatoes are giving about 8-12 a day. My lettuce, kale and chard are in super production mode. My New Zealand Olive Cucumbers have grown out of the garden and are covered with the 3 inch veggie delights. Malabar Spinach is about 10 feet long in 5 directions and attacking the tomatoes. New Zealand spinach just happy as a clam. I even have Passion Fruit on the vines.

Outside my garden my Orange, Lemon and Calamondin citrus are all ripening at the same time. I can believe how large they got as soon as it started raining. Wife in making Calamondin marmalade. It is off the charts delicious.

I know it is going to freeze soon and put a stop to some of this but I am loving life right now.

Is anyone else having a BOUNTY right now?

Enjoyed reading about your bountiful garden...sounds yummy. A question, What is a calamondin citrus? and can your marmalade recipe be used with similar fruits? Interesting!!!!!!!

Calamondin is a cross between a Kumquat and a Mandarin, I think. They are about the size of a ping pong ball and taste similar to lemon/lime but the peel is edible. The grow really fast. My 10 inch plant from last year is about 3.5 x 3.5 feet now. They produce tons of fruit even when small. Hardy to 18 degrees.

It really isnt a recipe. You just put water, cane sugar and citrus (of any kind) and boil until thick. It is like a very thick jelly. Very very tasty. I bet you could add cinnamon too.

Do New Zealand Olive Cucumbers look like regular salad cucumbers?

They look like teardrops. They taste like cucumbers when 2-3 inches and then they become more like bell peppers. Weird. I love em though.

http://davesgarden.com/guides/pf/go/97203/

Our tomatoes are out of control, too! Since we got all that rain last month, they've taken off and now it looks like a jungle out there. LOL Still producing tomatoes like there's no tomorrow, too. We've got at least a dozen Homestead and Ponderosas on the vine getting ripe, many (6-12) Green Zebras almost ready, several yellow tomatoes, and TONS of cherry tomatoes. The jalapeno plant has started slowing down with the cooler temps, but the lettuces are taking off.

I'm really still working on getting beds ready and useable. Spinach is doing well right now.

I've been dying to try Malabar Spinach! Does it grow in the summer heat as well? Interesting to note that it will spread to such lengths. Oh well, if DH and I can't eat it all I'm sure my chickens will! An I have a Corgi who loves salads. I bet he'd help =)!

Malabar Spinach is heat loving.

Cool! (irony intended =))

It got down to a least 31* last night but the my tomato and pepper plants are still alive and producing. I think the extra moisture helps. I now have the garden I have been waiting all summer for!

Part of my haul

2 more to go

OK last one this doesn't show the peppers and other things I'm getting

Sorry 1 more Thai large pumpkin

Are those Green Zebra tomatoes?

No the only GWR tomatoes I have are Aunt Ruby's German Cherry and Stokes Green. Most of those are Mortgage Lifter with some Big Rainbow and a few others. I was in a hurry and picked 3 grocery bags full of tomatoes before the freeze a week or so ago. They are starting to get ripe and they are all different colors. I should have labeled them but I didn't have time, and my "system" in my garden wasn't as reliable as I had thought. Another words some plants were definitely not what I had labeled.
But they sure taste good next year I'm going to be more careful, this is one of my best crops ever but I had to wait until Oct-Nov. to get it. These tomatoes are from plants I put out last April. The few I planted out in July only got a few tomatoes on them and I really had to baby them. My Brandywine actually has 2 tomatoes on it so it is well covered tonight I have never got a Brandywine tomato in TX and I want these badly.
HAPPY THANKSGIVING ALL

Pictures always rock.

Here's our first Green Zebra of the season (spring, summer, or fall!). This is the first time I've ever had a green tomato. DH said, "Well, it tastes a little.......green." LOL

My goodness how I envy your crop. Those are some beautiful and tasty looking veggies. I have a lot to learn about growing tomatoes and other edibles in TX. I never have very good results.
C

Here's my haul from a couple of days ago.

The tomatoes that you thought were green zebras are actually tigerella. They are red with orange stripes when they are ripe I'll take a picture of them if any ripen. I'm sure some were picked too early and won't turn but it was going to freeze so I picked what I could. THE problem with GWR is now I don't no which those are. So some in the bag could be ripe.

Do you plant 2 crops of tomatoes or do you manage to keep the ones from spring going until fall?
C

Mine are still growing from Spring but it was hard going with no tomatoes for about 3.5 months.

Mine are still from spring also except for a couple that haven't produced as much as the spring planted ones. When I moved here 17 years ago from So. Cal. I didn't know about the 2 plantings idea and to be honest I have never understood it, at least for my area. Texas is a big state. It gets as hot in CA as it does here and CA main industry is agriculture at 1 time 80% of the country's processing tomatoes were/are grown in the central valley and the last time I was there it was 108*. On a train trip through Illinois this past summer I got a taste of really humidity thought I was going to die and I swore I would never B..... about the humidity in TX again, but their tomatoes were producing like crazy (yes I talked to the locals in Galesburg about gardening embarrassed the poop out of my sons). I find it easier to keep my tomato plants going through the hot days of summer then putting out young plants and babying them, shade cloth, extra watering etc... My plants never completely stop producing but they do slow down. This summer was not a good example it was abnormally hot and dry.
I think the 2 planting seasons may be more around the 2 rainy seasons which were important before irrigation. IMHO
I have many clients who thought their plants were dying because of the heat but it was spider mites. Those that sprayed for SM also have a bumper crop this fall.
That's my story and I'm sticking to it!
Lisa

Thanks for the info. I will try some new techniques next year...
C

Mine are also from the spring. I did take some cuttings from my established plants and plant in late summer, but they've done squat! It's the overgrown mass of plants from the spring that are producing. We only had to buy tomatoes once this summer and that was when it was the hottest and the plants quit producing. Otherwise, we've had maters for about 4 or 5 months now.

So what am I doing wrong? I did have spider mite issues but thought that I took care of that.
Cheryl

It could be that you're buying the wrong varieties of tomatoes. Some just don't do well in our area at all. It could be that your growing medium isn't providing enough nutrients to the plant. It could be the wonky weather we had this year. There just really is no telling.

I got a plant for a cherry tomato from a lady at the spring ru in Arlington. It has produced a ton of tomatoes and is still going crazy. When I saw her at the ru in the fall, she told me hers didn't do anything. Go figure!

Well I don't have a green house and the 2 plants that I did get tomatoes from were planted this fall in pots. I have been trying for 3 years and had very little produce to speak of. The only plants that did much this year were eggplant and those had serious pest issues.
C

My tomatoes and jalapenos are producing twice as much as earlier this year. I have jalapenos coming out my ears and flowing out the windows:) My tomatoes are going great, even have roots coming down of the top branches!

LOL I am here in Arlington and my tomatoes are done. The vines are dying back with just a few tomatoes left, why are mine so different.
C

Me, too. I have plenty of blooms and fruit, but they're not getting ripe at all. Same with the eggplant. My theory right now is that it's the amount of direct sunlight - with the sun shifted so far to the south, mine don't get direct sun until almost noon, and then are in the shade again by 4.

Oh well, crazy year. Long range forecast says next year's weather will be practically normal... Wonder what that looks like...

Normal? The snow on Easter normal or the triple digits for 2 months normal? LOL :)

I will keep trying, maybe one day I too will have some summer crop to brag on :(
C

I foolishly didn't save any tomatoes from the spring, when they started doing poorly in the heat of the summer I pulled them up for other stuff. Now I know better. I've got one cucumber with leaves that look awful but is still putting out fruit,. My eggplant has all of a sudden revived and is making more fruit, and I've several beans plants still going strong. Not a bumper crop, but at least it's something!

My lettuce just won't go, or my brassicas, even though I've done multiple sowings since September. What is growing is too leggy, I think like realbirdlady said the angle of the sun right now is just too low for them to take off, especially under my trees. I had the same thing happen last year, I couldn't get the greens to really take off until after Christmas time when the days started getting longer again. Granted, I am trying to start everything from direct sowings and not transplants.

jujubetexas are your citrus in the ground or in pots? This is my first year with them and I'm pleased with how they've done in my conditions (varying degrees of shade) but I've been hesitant to put them in the ground...

newtonsthirdlaw,
From Stephanietx:

If you prepared your planting area well and the weathers wasn't all that unusual, Stephanie may have hit upon your problem. Our local AgriLife agents recommend certain varieties based on our growing conditions. Since most tomatoes stop setting fruit after the temperatures hit 95ºF, you have to get your plants to grow, flower and set fruit before that happens. It is easier to accomplish that with short season varieties and the smaller sized tomatoes and generally rules out the beefsteak varieties. It's not impossible to grow the beefsteak tomatoes, but you might have to accept that you may not get any or many in the spring. You'd have to baby the plants over the summer to get them to set fruit in the fall. Larger varieties usually take longer to ripen, once set, so plan covering them or bringing in fruit clusters to ripen indoors when freezing weather threatens. Contact you AgriLife agent for a list of recommended varieties of veggies for your area. They should also be able to recomend optimum starting and planting times. Those are also crucial. These sites may be of help:
http://aggie-horticulture.tamu.edu/travis/lg_e_vegetables.htm
http://aggie-horticulture.tamu.edu/plantanswers/fallgarden/zones.html
http://aggie-horticulture.tamu.edu/Plantanswers/earthkind/ekgarden14.html
http://aggie-horticulture.tamu.edu/plantanswers/earthkind/ekgarden14.html
http://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&q=cache:oJaDELh7UFEJ:plantanswers.tamu.edu/earthkind/ekgarden.pdf+fall+and+spring+planting+vegetable+planting+guides+for+texas&hl=en&gl=us&pid=bl&srcid=ADGEESho9CxQ8S96zMLqQWdgm6UPiGO_abgVyPQGTmP9-dl9ldM_fgqgtAzLbsMTMOnVZyI-h09O67YFf6p-YEbH-JIb12_O8PCXMSaW99qV4oCJFoMw9FtF0hwVq2ONgjmGtVLV_nrA&sig=AHIEtbS4XNc16MxW1Ggk9fx2SifW_Z7lAA

Thanks for the advice and links.
C

Tomatoes, at this time of year, take forever to get ripe. They are getting ripe quicker now that they are in the house. Just picked a few more we are supposed to freeze again in a couple of days. My plants have already been nipped so I think I will pick the few that are left and let the plants go. I'm thankful that I have tomatoes at the end of Nov. that's unbelievable.