Summer Gardens 2014, Part 3

Brenda, what did you plant for fall harvesting??

Love Mortgage Lifter. That is a must have in my garden. Ive had a great crop so far I hope I get a lot more before it freezes.

My absolute best tomato this year, especially for taste, was Gem State. I've had lots of good tomatoes - no slicers ready yet - but this one is a next yeAr choice for sure. The flavor actually makes me swoon each time I bite into one, lol.

the best tomato for me this year (in terms of performance), have been cherry tomatoes that came up as volunteer seedlings, from when mom through in an expired store bought cherry tomato into my compost bin, lol. Every other type of tomato i have tried this year failed miserably, all of them going puny and just fizzling out just as they hit the tomato producing stage.

This message was edited Aug 27, 2014 11:49 PM

First time planting for fall in IL for me lol so im sure something wasnt planted at the right time. At the begiining of this month I put in more pickles, snow peas, sugar snap peas, carrots, raddishes, and bush beans, brocc too i think or cauliflower.

Ground Cherries, Iv always wondered about those! Was it sweet?

The ground cherry was a newbee for me. Just a day or so ago I found a ripe one and just had to sample it. It tasted like a piece of pineapple candy of sorts. Only thing, it was tinier than I thought it would be. I was expecting maybe nickle size and it was probably smaller than a dime. But was very tastie.

My Mortgage Lifter took 1st place at the local fair. I was excited. Only thing it was a waste of 4 good tomatoes. Cannot complain too much. The entry fee was $2 and the prize was $12. So do the math, $10 of 4 nice big tomatoes. Amazing how we can entertain ourselves with the gardens.

I planted some this spring but unless it was the vine that I thought was weed? lol I pulled it. Do they look like vines?

Lol Grats on your win at the fair!!! I can understand not liking the waste...BUT you have seed money!!! Getting ready to send a couple rabbits to TN today for a show lol hope they dont share the same fate as the maters! =( Garden is loving all the fertilizer and the rabbits are loving everything out of the garden. Cant complain :)

Good luck on the rabbits. No - I don't they will have the same fate as the maters.

badcat - I think you asked about the ground cherries. Surprisingly they did not vine. I wasn't sure what to expect. Kind of a stocky little plant.

Great News!!! Lol then I pulled a weed! :) Rabbits will be fine, Im sending them with good friends. Hope Buck makes it back with a leg, Hes going to be a dad any day now :).

Did you get a pic of your maters for the DG County Fair??

Baddy, how about Buck makes it back with 4 legs? One leg is hard enough for a bipedal being, but only one for a quadruped? Tsk, tsk. That's no kind of luck.

Turtle Lol he's got 4 legs, just hoping he comes back with a leg for grand champion ;) just gave him a bath..first ever for me Lol. Went well ;)

Ohh, woops, didn't understand. I'm pink now.
So yes, Grand Champion it is.
:~)

No worries! Lol I'm a little pink after washing a rabbits nether regions my self!

No pix of the maters.

Lol. Not at you Brenda!

I am still harvesting tons of okra and long beans.
I have reach 30 jars of pickles okra. I think I am going to stop now.
I am having the worst year for eggplants. They are just not producing. The plants look really bad and the fruits even worst.
I am enjoying my melons!

Okra plants are really tall.

Long beans are just producing everyday. The bumble bees really love their blossoms.

Broccoli are growing really well indoor. I will start to harden them off next week.
Then, each kale seedlings on the second pictures will go on a 4" pot.

JoParrot sent me Fish Pepper seeds last fall and oh my do they taste awesome. The other day I made a big bowl of 100% backyard Asian pear salsa with Recession Gold tomatoes, Lorz Italian garlic and Fish Peppers for an art event. None came home.

I also have a ton of them and they are just starting to really come in, so I today I chopped a couple of pounds of up froze them in ice cube trays. Works for basil, right?

JoParrot had also sent me fish pepper seeds last fall and mine are also beginning to produce. Here, they are still light green with white stripes. Was very KIND of JoParrot. I must save some seed as I really like the looks of them.

Nicole - your salsa sounded yummy!

It was grilled fresh okra here today:

Wait until they are all the way red, Brenda. They are worth the wait -- fully ripe they have a rich complexity to the flavor. Partially ripe they are mostly just hot.

Thanks for the info Nicole - I'll do that.

NicoleC
you need to blanch your basil before freezing it, or it will turn dark green and loose its special taste.
Are those hot or sweet peppers?

I freeze basil every year. It does turn dark green (it mostly starts out dark green anyway), but tastes fine.

Fish Peppers are hot. Scoville is about 50,000 but if you leave the seeds out the heat comes way down.

Nichole- I've frozen Basil and peppers but I just stick them in a bag then in the freezer. What's with the ice cube trays?

I harvested 12 eggplant, and made baba ghanoush. It made three servings, lol. They are the long purple ones, which meant skinny

Used my own garlic,too. My sesame plants, however, have no seeds with which to make tahini .

I'm. Going to try full size eggplant next year, cuz that was a lot of skin to char and peel, for a cup and a half of eggplant meat.

This message was edited Sep 1, 2014 11:52 PM

okra ... and long beans .... a few peppers and on cucumber !
And my home made tortellini ... the basil was used for the sauce underneath ... so yummy !

Thanks, Nicole. That is the perfect size. So you just chop it up and put it in the ice cube trays and freeze them?

I recorded 103 F degrees in the shade yesterday ! The hottest day of this year.
Is anybody growing Cow Peas?
I am really thinking to remove them and give room to my broccoli.
I keep harvesting 3-4 pods a day, which gives me 19 little beans a day, I am collecting them and eventually I will cook something ... but they are just a few.

Here are some Cowpeas ready to harvest (pic #1)
In pic #2 you can see how I am harvesting 4 little pods a day.
It will take forever to make a meal.
What am I doing wrong?

Thanks Nicole, I'm going to have to try that. Usually I just stick the whole thing in a freezer bag but this will be much easier.

They sure look like healthy plants, drthor; did they produce any better earlier in the summer?

Drthor,
The hotter it is, the better they like it. Your weather may be starting to cool off some, maybe?

13Turtles
the plants look great .. they just produce very little.
I recorded 103F degrees yesterday ... no cooling off here yet !

drthor, Here in New Orleans when it was really hot last month, it seemed like my purple hull peas took a short vacation, and stopped producing. I had 2 beds of them. I pulled one bed up & replanted it with more peas and just left the other bed alone. For the past week or so, the temps haven't been quite so hot, mostly staying around 90, as opposed to 98 - 100. The bed I left alone has started producing again, plus I have another new bed coming along. The 2 beds are each 3x12 and I got enough from the first go round to can 18 pints of peas.

How many plants do you have?

Jo-Ann

I've had some days that have been 104 or so in the shade. In the past few weeks I've had more of those days and more humidity then I ever remember. The remote thermometer read 124, in the sun. I think that even heat loving plants have their limits. I've also noticed that its not cooling off as much at night as it has been. My plants are doing fine but production is down, I do believe it will pick up when the temps go down. I guess it could be worse, this is the hottest we have been all summer. Usually it's been hot, like this for a lot longer.