Summer Veggie Gardens Pt 2 & Beginning Fall Gardening (Pt 1)

There's bug problems every year!

The pickleworm is a tough one, though. There's nothing really available for home use except Sevin, and with the reduced populations of bees this year I'm not going to do anything that might hurt them. So, I just keep throwing stuff out; not much else to do.

I've asked other gardeners around, and it seems to just be me with the problem this year. At least they don't overwinter here, so I don't have to worry about building a heavy population for next year. Unless the moths have some sort of geographic memory. :)

The cabbage and carrots are all in now, and some peas although I want to find room for more. There's always a space crunch about now in the year, and even expanding my garden hasn't helped, since I also seem to have expanded my ambitions.

My ambitions keep growing also and my veggie garden keeps expanding.

Birds are saving me from the bugs, DH saw a small greenish bird flying out of veggie patch with a bug in its mouth, makes me happy. Also the red tail hawks are back and chipmunk damage is down.
I've got a few tomato plants started from seed in late June that I may put where green beans were. The mature tomatoes are pumping out fruit but vines dying, probably from all the crazy rain. So I'm going to try a second tomato crop, considering we usually have warm weather thru Sept. nothing is usual about this year but garden is very productive if I can grab an hour between rainstorms to tend it. With all the stress in my life I seem to be enjoying the garden more than ever.

O MY. Am home and think I am growing veggies as a cover crop for weeds. Golden Eggplant fruits. Pretty, probably pretty worthless, but will be out tomoro morn for pix...I feel like I am missing the gardening middles...

Here is a picture of my side yard showing three of my tomato beds. And one from the pot getto looking back.

Honestly I swear these zucchini were not there yesterday! Well, I guess they were but very small. Yesterday I figgured I would not have Zucchini for at least three days then this morning, pow. There they are.


Second picture. First yard long beans to harvest of the season. Honestly these are SOOOOO good, Sweet and tender. But don't left them get big, pick at this size. I ate these raw, they were so good. That is why I like yard longs so much stir fried. They don't need much cooking.

Third picture. OKRA!!! First pod off my okra plants. I had never eaten okra in my life. I read that some people munch on young okra pods raw so I ate this raw. I really don't know what to expect but it tasted wonderful! It did have a flavor unlike any other veggie I have ever eaten but I really loved it.

Rita, I'm glad you like okra. I can't stand it, but I have a low tolerance for mucilaginous foods. (Can't stand Malabar spinach either.) I do like okra pickled, and although I'm not a huge fan of pickles usually, to me the okra really improved in the process and made a fantastic pickle. If you end up with more than you can eat, you may want to try making a batch.

I love pickles. But I only planted three okra plants becasue I have never tried them before. So it was an experiment. I very much doubt I will have too much okra to eat fresh.

Does anyone grill okra the way one could grill zucchini or eggplant?

Any way you can imagine is good for okra- breaded, fried, added to soups, raw, grilled, boiled. Favorite summertime dish, a skillet of zucchini, yellow summer squash, okra, tomatoes (and everything else you might have a hankering to add-onion, garlic, peppers) and sausage over rice/noodles. We call it sausage creole, chuckle. DON'T let okra get past that size because that is when they pick up a woodiness and slime. Taste like raw green bean to me when young. You do know you can trim the lower leaves of okra and not hurt the plant?

Where to start on the garden? It rained so weeding is goin to get easy if I can find the skeeter spray

Oh my, what are the golden striped eggplant? That looks wonderful.

Are you supposed to trim the bottom leaves on Okra plants? My okra plants are not very tall as I bought a variety of Baby Okra seeds from Burpee.

I think the gold is an overripe condition, chuckle, havent cut it, but my tags say it is Calliope. The trimming is up to you- our okra plants get 12' hi and the leaves can get tremendous, even Clemson gets 6' tall before frosts... the okra develops like a tomato- higher on the stem each time, so lower leaves, or over abundance of lower leaves can be removed to kick the production up. I am abt to do the same thing with those eggplants, sigh

My okra plants are small because I bought a variety that stays small.

I tasted those gold eggplants, seedy when small, skin is paper tough when a bit too large. I have never grown mini okra, but I can imagine since it is an okra ( I have grown vine okra too) same ability applies. Again it is a choice, not a necessity

Kitt, you brought back memories of my grandmother! She used to grow vining okra on her chain link fence when I was a young girl. I remember "helping" her pick it.

Yup, where I grew mine - off the front of the house and the side of my pecan trees. was good to eat, huge leaves, got a LOT of comments along with the Jacobs Bean vine farther down the fence, (hyacinth vine, only NO ONE knew the name of it in the late 70's...chuckle.

I can't believe how many tomatoes I picked today. Just piles and piles and piles all next to the plants as I went around the tomato beds. Eventually I picked up the tomatoes in low sweater box type tubs and eventually transferred them to those plastic grocery bags. Had to double bag the grocery bags as they were heavy with lots of tomatoes.

You would think with all this that I had absolutely stripped the tomato plants but not the case. Give me a few days and I will be picking again!

I have another pile of tomatoes on the counter for me and I gave tomatoes away already today to friends. Guess what I am having for dinner? Tomato salad and tomato sandwiches!

Mine are not that many only a few when I want(and everybody here) . Could of produced a few more , only hey , is at is ..
A couple in the fridge , a Romanesco on the counter . it's all good ..

A few years back I thought I would cut back on the tomato plants and grow only enough for myself. Well, That did not work out as neighbors and friends that were used to getting tomatoes kept asking and I had nothing to give. Nope, all the tomato plants were soon back and I now I have more than ever before.

I will have to believe it is because I have 13 plants in the main garden , is why they are producing slowly for the most part ..
I grew one of the plants for a neighbor , who has all shade and no place to grow one ..
I could of arranged it all better , as always , always something different to try this way though .. AS said though , it is doing better than last year and next year will be better still as I have a few more that grow well here , and produce pretty good ...
Seems things like sour currant that I didn't like much and everyone else here not at all . produce until I am inundated , swamped over and no room to put them anywhere .. I have possibilities with what everybody likes here as to that after this season ,,

Well, I am tired. Been working most of the day on my project of turn that back yard Tall Bearded Iris Bed back into a veggie bed. I dug up all the healthy iris and relocated them and dug and tossed the rotters. More work than I first thought when I last night decided to to this today.

Once the iris and any weeds were out, I leveled up the soil and then mulched with a layer of straw. Then I did my measuring and layout of what I intend to have there next year. This year it is a catch all of whatever I have planted. Been calling it the root veggie bed. But I spaced out my layout and two more cucumber trellis will go there, posts set for measure (although I will change them from these short posts to taller ones). Then bamboo steaks put out to show the layout of pepper rows I intend to have there next spring. I will be having 6 rows of peppers because that is what fits.

I have been needing a better plan for my peppers and I have been wanting more space for cucumbers so this will work out really well. I am extra pleased with the way it all is now.

Root crops next spring can just be planted were I had been thinking to put the peppers before this new plan. So I still have room for the things I want to grow, only with a better layout.

Watch out Rita, you'll fill that space in no time!

My pea seedlings are up already. Wow!

My peas will be up soon. I only planted them a few days ago.

This year that space I worked on is just a veggie garden catch all bed. But next year it will be set up as I intended it.

Large tomatoes, cherry and grape tomatoes. zucchini, mixed harvest.

Very nice harvest, Rita!

The garden is really putting out the veggies lately.

This is one of the wonderful things about this site. Our harvests have dwindled due to the heat and yours is just beginning, so we get to continue enjoying your success.

I am growing more than ever before this year. And really enjoying the veggie garden and enjoying eating things from my veggie garden.

A tub of tomatoes and then added some squash.

Rita,
I noticed that my "LOCATION" line in my preferences (under my Avatar) was crossing the line into the text box, so I shortened the line (took out "Hobby"), and now it's not running over...

I notice that your line also "runneth over..." LOL!

Yea, I noticed its running over also but I don't really much care. :-))

Ok.

Bye...

I'm sure the techs are aware of it and are planning to fix it. There are threads discussing problems with the new look.

Todays Harvest. Tomatoes, Golden Egg yellow summer squash, Fairy Tale Eggplant. Gretal Eggplant.

I made my own version of ratatouille from my veggies pictured above. I used my convection oven instead of doing it on the stovetop. First pic ready to go in the oven, secind pic done. It tastes wonderful!

My gardens are producing so much that I haven't had time for DG, there have been some other interruptions too. It's never produced like this. Strange, because of a long cold spring my plants went in way late, so it seems like I'm still planting my summer garden when it's really the Fall garden. Lol I picked my my first tomato a month ago, which is much later then normal, but it hasn't stopped.

One thing that I have noticed is that even tho it gets in the 100s it cools down to the low 70s at night.

Yay Lisa! So happy you're having a good year!

bounteous harvest this year...giving stuff away to the neigbors...tomatoes, peaches and nectarines

It's hot, hot, HOT here and the garden is frying. I pulled out my bush beans this morning to make way for the cucumbers and other fall crops. I found 2 of the hugest grasshoppers I've even seen on my biggest okra plant. My hubby quickly dispatched them to grasshopper heaven. They didn't do too much damage, but I didn't like to see them eating up my plant! I now have the soaker hose going on the area where the beans were to deep water in preparation of the cukes. I still have lots of green tomatoes on the vine, but it'll be a few days before any are ready. Just have to keep the birds off them.

MY GARDEN UPDATE:

►To date, I have only one 4x8' RB actively growing (RB #1).
It's filled with 12 eggplants that are just about loaded with fruits/blooms, 8 Swiss Chard plants that are fighting off the heat very nicely, one New Big Dwarf tomato plant that I'm nursing into fall, and a flat of dwarf marigolds that are so pretty! Everything in this bed is growing very well, and, it's easy to maintain in this heat...

►About to pull the bell peppers from RB #2. They are just not producing, and I'm wasting resources on them...next year....

►I have two more eggplants growing in an Earthbox, loaded with fruit. Having trouble keeping up with the watering, though, cause that box is drinking like there's no tomorrow...

►Finally, the ONE lone zucchini growing in another Earthbox is just gorgeous! I spied my very first zucchini, ever, last night! Won't be long, and have not seen evidence of any frass...

►I'm about to pull the seven dead tomato plants out of RB #3. Once I do, I'm purging my garage of every remaining supply of amendments & garden soil and dumping it all into the bed. I'm also dumping in all the bagged leaves that I've been collecting.

I had a weekend "To Do" list as long as my arm, and managed to get through edging and mowing the lawn....sheesh....it was sooooooooooooo hot out, I don't start lawn care until 7 pm. After I cut, I hand watered the lawn until 10:30 p.m. My neighbor across the street was watering his in the dark, too, LOL!

►Next up is sterilizing seed trays and pots for sowing seeds this weekend.

I've decided NOT to wait the additional two weeks to sow, hoping it'll be cool enough by plant out time. Instead, I'd like to stagger the seed sowing every three weeks and have a steady supply of seedlings to put out between mid-September and December 20th. Right after the Winter Solstice, I'll start the tomato seeds for planting out mid-February...

It's next year already....

Hugs!

Gymgirl, which varieties of Eggplants are you growing?

Today I planted turnips. Well, I planted 4 rows of Purple Tops. I have other varieties also but considering it is late and I am disorganized, I will just save those seeds for next year.

And I planted 2 rows of bush beans. French fillet green bush beans. I do very much like the french fillets I have on poles so decided to plant these. Besides I had the seeds. Watered everything nicely and I hope they grow fast.

This spring I had Tenderette Bush beans but I was not overly impressed. I have to find something better for next spring.