MOVING INTO OUR SUMMER VEGGIE GARDENS, PART 1

Thanks GG,
I had no idea Cucumbers could be frozen.

I know, I didn't either until an email friend in Oregon mentioned it. I've done it for several years now and it's a great use for your excess cukes. I use a mandoline to slice them and that makes it quick and easy.

Do you freeze them straight from the sugar-vinegar mix, or do you rinse them again before drying and freezing them?

Mark harvested the first of our Royal Burgundy beans today! (They look black in the pic, but they're really purple.) We've got several tomatoes that will be ready to harvest tomorrow.

Cukes and zukes are starting to come in in earnest now, and banana pepper are strating to come on, but the bells aren't setting fruit at all. The corn is still teasing me. The toms are setting fruit now that I have been out there shaking the cages daily in lieu of the bumble bees shaking things up.

The two butternuts are setting fruit now, but the Upper Ground Sweet potato isn't blooming yet. It's huge... just no blooms. The sunflowers are getting ready to bloom.

Blackberries and blueberries are starting to ripen, too.

Harvested almost 3 more pounds of tomatoes yesterday. All of my tomato plants are loaded with maters, too. Now I'm thinking of fall planting since temps are now in the triple digits. :/

Steph, LOL, I've cut my seven tomato plants down to 3 already, and yours are just coming in! Amazing! I love it!

I believe you had asked me how my Virginia Sweets tasted, and I couldn't answer because the jumble of fruits I was picking made it difficult for me to identify all but the Mule Teams. Since I trimmed the vines back and isolated the remaining plants, I can SEE what I'm picking and where it's from, LOL!

I'm fairly certain the two HUGE fruits I've been waiting on are Virginia Sweets, but I'm including a pic so you can tell me. Each weighed in at just over 1 lb., my largest ones of the season.

My problem is that Mark picks the maters and he doesn't remember which came from which plant! I do have to say that the Pantano Romanesco is a pretty tomato and it tastes soooooo good!

Well, all my cucumbers were beginning to get Pickle Worms, so I pulled them all off. Went to Lowe's looking for some Spinosad, but could not find any. I brought back a bottle of BT, not what I wanted but it will have to do. I am going to be gone for a week shortly and I want to spray all the plants so when I get back all the worms will be gone.
I figure that by pulling all the cukes, then spraying I should be able to get rid of the Pickle Worms before they bore into the Cucumbers again. I did manage to get quite a few before the worm infestation, I could not believe how fast those things grow. If I missed one, it would be huge when I found it after just a few days. Now the little pickling type cucumbers on coming on, they only get a few inches long compared to the others which grow over a foot long, and when they hung from the fencing would be almost perfectly straight.
My neighbor gave me a Purple Cherokee tomato, the first one I had ever eaten. It was delicious and meaty, not the prettiest tomato. The top was green and had cracks, the coloration other than that was almost identical to my Black Cherry little tomatoes.

Harvested more tomatoes today and the plants are still loaded! If we can keep them watered evenly and bug-free, we might have tomatoes into mid July! The mostly dead cherry tomato plants and purple tomatillos I planted about 10 days ago are doing GREAT! I'm so happy for them. I also discovered 2 small okra volunteers in the same bed where we pulled onions and now have the cherry tomatoes and tomatillos. I need to try moving them, but will have to do that in the evening so they have all night to get acclimated.

Today, I also planted 24 peppers (inside). Since none of my seeds germinated this spring, I decided I would try them for the fall. We'll see if I have better luck!

One of today's loving, happy tomatoes harvested
Cherry tomato plant
Purple Tomatillos
A loaded tomato plant. I stopped counting at 18 green tomatoes.

Ok, Steph!
Here are the two one pounders I think might be the Virginia Sweets. Can you verify they are?

Also, my last harvest of Black Beauty Eggplant.

Those look like VSs. I was the one who ask, the VS have a distinct shape and color and a long DTM. So even in the tomato jungle you should be able to tell them apart.

I'm out of town but I'll be back late Mon. nite and in the gardens early Tues. Morning. Im going to try and keep my tomatoes going over the summer. I checked, just before I left town, and they were still setting. Little tiny baby tomato buttons, I think I finally figured out why my plants never stop setting bc we cool down more at night then most of Tx. By the time some of these tomatoes buttons are big enough to pick there won't be much time before the temps start to go down. I have some huge tomatoes that I thought would ripen while I was gone, but it looks like they are going to wait. I don't mind sharing, but I want the first ones. Lol

I had no idea that cucumbers could be frozen and maintain their consistency I'm amazed.

GG- why is that your last EP? I've read that EP and peppers shouldn't be yanked bc they love the heat. Tomato plants are more of an individual choice.

So far I have harvested 4 types of beans, cukes, 3types of squash, Rosella leaves. Tomatoes and a few different peppers are close (some of these plants are older bc I overwintered them), various eggplant, tomatillos, ground cherries and golden berries. I still need to plant or sow 4 types of long beans, okra, more
pepper plants, and dwarf tomato plants. I was afraid to sow or plant anything right before I left. Now I'm really glad I waited, as I had a water pipe leak in the house (the night before I left) and they couldn't get the water in the house turned off without turning off the water to the garden. Turned out my ex's rememory of how he did the plumbing was wrong. But between 3 fantastic friends, including the plumber, who fixed it so the house water could be turned off and leave the water to the garden on and turned on the soaker hoses too. My gardens are getting watered. Just getting around to working on the house.

I'm so glad to see everyone's garden doing well. I hope I have pictures to post next week....and not of the 4 ' long hole in my hallway. Lol
on the house....

I'm looking forward to the 3 days of "cool" weather we have coming up!! Supposed to only be in the low 90s late next week with lows in the upper 60s. Woot for us!

Funny... we are coming up on three-four days of miserable hot (100+). I am shocked that I still have PEAS in my garden, but I am confident this will be the last of 'em.

I harvested my first cucumber this morning, and think my very first tomatoes will come off this weekend... It has just occurred to me that I also have peppers, onions, basil, and an outdoor grill. Throw some bread and olive oil on that and we've got bruschetta! My favorite...

My storage beans (cannellini, black, hidatsa, borlotti and jacob's cattle), are starting to dry on the vine... I love harvesting them and thinking about all the yummy chili and bean dishes we will have this winter.

I am very proud to say -- we will be 90% "food independent" by the end of this season. The only food we will have to buy at the farmer's market is animal products (cheese, cheese, and eggs). How about that?!?!?!!!

I'm glad to hear that it's going to be cooler in TX. I'm in SoCal right now and a record setting heat wave has hit ( my friends blame me, for bringing Tx weather) it is so hot here it is unbelievable.

Happy-congradulations on your gardening success, it a great feeling.

Lisa,
You are a TROOPER!!!

LOL, that should've read, my LATEST harvest of Black Beauty eggplants!

There are many more to come, especially when I water them consistently!

My egg plant is still producing a little, the banana peppers are over producing, and the bells are very slow, The tomatoes are outdoing themselves. The squash is just really starting since I sprayed it with BT, and now the cucumbers aren't full of pickle worms.

yay guys!

Looks great, seed!! It's been a great year for tomatoes here as well.

Woohoo!! Got my first pounder tomato today! The rest of the tomato harvest from today, over 3 pounds of tomatoes. We also harvested some more burgundy beans.

Beauties! Congrats, all.

Wow, what kind is that? Not that it really matters...lol congradulations they look fantastic.

Hi!

These bells have been in the ground almost 3 months, and haven't produced a single pepper. When the were inside under lights, they had megablooms and even started making fruits. I pulled off at least 50 blooms cause it was still too cold out...

They get fed regularly and watered, but the leaves stay droopy and look like in this picture toward the bottom leaves. the top leaves are nice and green. There are a few blooms lately, and the plants look like they're trying, by do I need to give it up?

Bell pepper leaf...

Lisa, the one pounder is a Homestead 24. I didn't realize they could get so big!! The others are mainly Pantano Romanesco, but there are a couple of Rutgers and more Homesteads in the mix.

Here is a Belle Starr paste tomato . lots of green tomatoes . no red ones only a few yellow cherry so far

A few green beans being eaten .. good "stuffins"

Wonderful stuff Juhur!

Feedback on my ailing bells would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks in advance!

I have seen that on mine a few times in the past , lower leaves doing that like tomato leaves that turn yellow .
I have no idea though .. I wish I could help . Have seen other peppers do that from too much water and not enough sun .
Only that was not why with my Bells

Wish I could help with your bells, Gymgirl, but I haven't a clue.

I can, however, offer some guesses:

1) soil too wet and roots are not prospering.
2) transplant shock.
3) weather in your area is very hot/wet and plants have not established a strong enough root system to support top-growth.
4) they need more nitrogen - try fish emulsion.

Wikipedia pulls up a long list of 'Bell Pepper Diseases' ck esp on fusarium wilt, anthracnose, an mosiac wilt i think it was

Ok. Thanks!

I'm with bee in thinking it's some kind of chemical imbalance. I was also going to suggest fish emulsion.

Whew! 2" of rain and still coming down. During a break in the rain, I just picked the mother of all cucumbers... and it's a pickling variety. I must have missed it yesterday but the rain probably helped it along.

I have a ton of cukes and zukes backed up. At the BBQ this weekend that means grilled zucchini with goat cheese and balsamic vinegar, sliced cucumbers and other veggies with cucumber-tarragon dip, and banana peppers stuffed with black beans, wild rice and pepper jack cheese. Plus the pick-your-own corn.

And probably to go baggies for extra cukes and zukes!

Hey look, it's pouring again.

My mother used to say that rain was the angels crying. They must be very upset about something, because it has rained on and off everyday for days on end. ^^_^^

My father use to say it was the creator weeing on us all .. ^_^ Apologies for any offense ,, I could not resist .. yeah well .. the feeling ...

Bee; That is a nice sentiment , My grandparents and in bible school . I use to hear that .

This message was edited Jul 4, 2013 3:51 PM

Could be tears of joy... not everything is bad news, it only seems like it. :p. We've had a wet year, but it beats the heck out of drought.

Nicole,

Please share that rain with us who are dry, dry, dry!

One day to go and it has rained here everyday for three weeks ,, really ,, Last year we had 7/10 tenths for June here , July was not much better , That drought was B...A...D... !!!

Lots of Beans and Herbs . They really like this cloudy wet weather ..

I think our tomato plants are finally slowing down, even though I picked 6lbs, 5oz of tomatoes today. The plants are still loaded and we're harvesting every other day, but I don't see many new fruits on the plants. Hopefully we'll be able to nurse them through the hot part of the summer and they'll rev up again when it cools down. The bush beans are definitely done. My first orange bell pepper sprouted yesterday. Here comes the fall garden season!