The race is on for the watermelons, it seems as well, im trying a yellow fleshed variety this year.
Spring/Summer Gardens 2015 Part 3
We are on day 2 of no rain, just lots of sunshine and nice temps. Hooray!
This morning, I picked the last of the peas and pulled out all the plants. I'm going to sow some Pink Eye Purple Hulls in their place, I think. Not that we eat a lot of BE peas, but they are really good when we do eat them. I trimmed off a lot of leaves on my beans that had rust. :( I then sprinkled some dry garlic down to help control the fungus because I don't have any cornmeal at the moment. I'm going to have to find my hose-end sprayer so I can spray everything this evening. I know the ground is still wet, but I need to get some nutrients into my plants and soil since we've had so much rain over the past 6 weeks. I'm hoping with the dryer, warmer temps my cukes, watermelons, and cantaloupes will take off.
Today's harvest: The last of the Alaska Peas and more Kiowa Blackberries
I checked yesterday evening, and there's another picking of Contender green beans ready, in a week (first canning was last Tuesday...). Will pick and process for another canning session tomorrow.
I didn't check the Strike green beans, but, with all the rain, they should be ready too. I did get all the rainwater I needed Saturday evening, to wash in the fertilizer I threw around...
Wasn't feeling like much of anything yesterday. Queasy stomach, so just moped around trying to watch some Tennis...
Working on trapping yet two more black, Halloween cats -- a mama and a baby...
Quote from 1lisac :
That is strange that it's not flowering.....even if it's the wrong seeds it seems like they should still flower, they have to have fruit to get seeds. Nice that it worked as a trap crop, tho.
My guess would be that it's a hybrid, either somebody was hand pollinating and oopsed or one of those times it happens naturally. Not all hybrids are successes.
Quoting:
Have you notified BC that the seeds are wrong? I have only had trouble one time, I pointed it out and they have never offered the seeds again. Like they told me, they would never know if somebody didn't tell them.
I bought the seeds a few years ago. I probably should have dropped them a note then.
i tell you what, they are definitely right when they say gardening takes patience.....COME ON tomatoes, hurry up! LOL! :D
Jmc1987,
Those are beauties!
"Open, Open, Open!!!"
LOL!!!
I am having the best tomato harvests ever.
I will need to make TOMATO SAUCE this year and can it.
Does anybody have a special recipe?
The one I found on the Italian books is to boil the tomatoes down (no salt added), then fill the jars add a few basil leaves and water bath for 35 minutes.
Is this correct?
Many recipes drthor... garlic basil tomato sauces, to many other sauces flavors...
Check out Pinterest for canning recipes, or the Ball Canning Book.
Modern tomatoes are less acid than those used in older recipes, and it can be unsafe. So up to date recipes add vinegar for acid.
Lots of tested, safe canning recipes for free here: http://nchfp.uga.edu/
You can also pressure can tomatoes... no worries about the acid levels then.
Picked a few more green beans for canning tomorrow.
2.5 lbs. of "Contender" and
1.2 lbs. of "Strike".
The "Strike" is a pretty bean, too. Long and slender.
These are the "Contenders" (long & beefy) and "Kentucky Blue Lakes" combined.
This message was edited Jun 3, 2015 8:35 AM
This is the reason I need to make tomato sauce this year: these are harvests from yesterday and today !! so much !
Picture #3: this is MARMANDE tomato, right?
It is so beautiful. I did harvest a few more ... but lost them around. In fact not all the marmande tomatoes have ribs ...
wow!
your harvest photos always make me feel so unworthy to be digging around in my little garden spot ;) LOL!
Pizza sauce would definitely be on my to do list with some of those if it were me :D
sure I'd love some personal recipes ... not the ones from Dr. Google ... wink wink
I also will learn how to make JAM this year !! I am harvesting half gallon bag of blackberries every day now ... we are eating them and I am making cobblers ... still so many this year !
My garden for sure loved the water !
jmc1987
I am sure your harvests will soon make me feel envious ... you know I am earlier than you ... no worries!
Happy gardening!
That looks like Marmande tomatoes. Good job with them.
Drthor you might want to check out the canning and recipe forums. They might give you some ideas.
well here is my first tomato picked for the year, but only because i had to pick it early, because our recent rains made it crack, and didnt want to chance ants and other such critters taking advantage of that.
zucchini plants are coming along great.
And the cucumbers have finally started to pick up speed.
And a big sigh of relief concerning the purple coneflower, signs of new growth! Good thing too because i was getting a little concerned that the dahlia beside of it was going to overtake it, lol. Im thinking next year that i get a dwarf variety of dahlia to put there.
and some shots of the entire gardening bed overall.
Wow, everything looks great. What kind of tomato is it?
to be honest, i have never been too sure other than it is some kind of cherry tomato. bought them from the market 2 years ago, and saved the seed from it. This plant this year is from seed from that first plant i grew last year, and they come out looking the same as the ones we bought every time, so it must be a stable non hybrid of some sort. Its usually your average bright red tomato color, but seeing as the rains cracked it, i picked it early and will let it continue to ripen indoors, because ants and / or stinkbugs have a tendency to make a beeline for any cracked tomatoes that are still on the vine, around here.
found these beauties on my walk with the dog today on the roadside, so my green thumb started itching, lol. So i went ahead and pulled a couple of these plants out of the ground with a reasonable amount of root intact and put the plants in a container of moist potting soil. So they would focus on acclimating to their new home, i snipped off the flower heads and put those in a vase of water. (remembering that when a plant has blooms on it, thats all it spends its time on),
Yes i know they are just wild asters, but you rarely see any around here with a blue / purple tone on them. also i intend to replace the baby's breath in my wildflower patch with these things eventually. They used babys breath as a cheap filler flower seed apparently, but it sure is some messy floppy stuff, at least these stand up straight even when they are tall.
And besides, the more native flowers i can get into my garden, the better, i say.
This message was edited Jun 6, 2015 1:23 PM
I love asters! I have a couple of different varieties in my flower beds.
the berries are really starting to roll in. Also had a purple bell pepper on one of my plants to ripen at a really puny size for some reason.
Cant quite boast about a bushel harvest yet though, lol.
Purple peppers are always purple. So the next one let it grow. They will be red when ripe.
Some varieties go green, purple, red.
the site i bought them from suggested that the dark purple / black color is what i am supposed to be looking for:
http://www.rareseeds.com/midnight-dreams-bell-pepper/
Oh, that's a black, not a purple.
i guess i said "purple" because i was thinking about that old plant rule that theres no such thing as a true "black" in a plant, lol.
I picked a pint of blackberries this morning and took them to our potluck after church. When people found out they were from our garden, they were astonished! It's often a response we get when we tell people that food came from our garden.
Best year for blackberries!! I have been picking a half-gallon bag every day !
I am freezing them and I will learn how to make jam !!
Yesterday I made tomato sauce for the first time:
http://ricette.giallozafferano.it/Passata-di-pomodoro.html
I follow this recipe and it was very easy. It didn't work for me to do the water bath with the jars upside down. In fact you can see how the yellow tomato sauce is missing in some of the jars ...
The red tomato sauce jars were perfect. This time they were NOT upside down.
Happy gardening !
I wonder why your berries came on so much later then Stephanie's? Are your plants new or established? Maybe just different growing conditions...
I've looked at probably 50-75 different canning videos on YouTube and other canning websites. Not one of them ever instructed to can with jars upside down.
Yours is a first for me.
I've been canning for 25 yrs and never seen it either, but if it works...
I use large fruited varieties (that's basically all I grow) I just don't have the patience to process or even blanch small fruit.
I have seen it done, can't remember why we did it, but I think it was because not wanting the air bubble on the setting seal. Too long ago...
Drthor, how many larger fruited varieties of tomatoes do you grown? Or do you grow mainly romas and cherry tomatoes?
Harvested my volunteer garlic today. Not too bad for volunteers. LOL Also picked a couple of tomatoes.
Green beans are finally starting to produce and I think I have some baby okra on my burgundy okra! Lots of jalapenos and bell peppers, too.
Can someone tell me if this tomatillo is ready?
i had always heard that tomatillos can be used once the outer shell splits open to reveal the fruit itself
I have read conflicting information. Some say when the husk splits and starts to dry. Others say just when it splits. Can't do much with one tomatillo anyway. LOL
stephanietx
I really don't grow many large tomatoes. It takes a lot of time for most of them and the heat comes really soon in DFW.
The largest tomato by luck was the green Malakite box and it tastes so good. Then I tried also for the first time Tycoon, but I am not impressed.
The one that is producing most of my larger red tomatoes in the picture is Nineveh.
You will like it because has similar ribs as Marmande, but the taste is incredible.
It is a very small plant and it produce those huge tomatoes really early. I did pack many plants near each other ... very short and loaded with fruit.
http://www.rareseeds.com/nineveh-tomato/
Then most of my tomatoes are mid-size and cherry.
I do have some "San Marzano" looking tomatoes and these are: Orange Icicle and Black Icicle
http://www.rareseeds.com/orange-icicle-tomato/
http://www.rareseeds.com/black-icicle-tomato/
I tried to pull one garlic bulb, but it is still too small ...
I will wait a little longer.
Quote from stephanietx :
I have read conflicting information. Some say when the husk splits and starts to dry. Others say just when it splits.
hmm...perhaps that means that it can be used either way, lol
Went ahead and decided to take the washtub with the watermelon plants in it off of the stand and set it on the ground instead, it just hit me that if it started to produce before the vines could make contact with the ground, the melons could get so heavy on the vines that i could risk the weight of it uprooting the plants from the growing medium.
Here is the variety i am trying this year.
http://www.rareseeds.com/missouri-heirloom-yellow-flesh-watermelon/
This message was edited Jun 8, 2015 8:00 PM
Tomatillas are ripe when husks have filled out and green/purple, yellow or fading is waiting too long. You have several ripe.